Musings of a Boredom-Stricken Student

Last night, Dr. Huang (Department Chair of Mechanical Engineering at Wright State) took us all out to an American restaurant (which I was NOT happy about...no sarcasm intended). We were supposed to go to a four-course, tradition Taiwanese dinner. Je n'étais pas content!

Good news: he payed for everything!!! After dinner, he took us all to Party _____ Karoake. It was fun doing karaoke with just the WSU folks. Again, we were allowed to bring in alcohol (which we would never do...especially not two cases of Taiwanese beer that Dr. Huang paid for...or the bottle of whiskey that I paid for...)! Dr. Huang also paid for the Karaoke.

Today, we went to Fulong Beach. We road bikes through this 1.5 mile tunnel and then back. Jeremy, Becky, and I rode further so we could see this gold-tipped temple. Then, we all went to lunch. After lunch was the beach. It was cloudy, and started to rain. We still swam though.



I swam in mesh shorts because I didn't bring swimtrunks. I didn't bring swim trunks becaues I wasn't going to pay to use the pool on campus! Well, my dumbass-self forgot that Taiwan is an island, and you can get to a beach in any direction. Way to go@!

That was pretty much it. The other day in class, I was really bored (more so than normal). I kept falling asleep...so, I decided to write myself a letter to stay awake. The parts in brackets ("[ ]") weren't part of my letter...I'm just making observational comments. I thought you might enjoy it:

"Notes While Sleeping"
Dear Self,
Why am I falling asleep? I'm not really that tired. My left ring finger is in a lot of pain [I almost broke it playing volleyball the other day]. I probably shouldn't play volleyball today, but I like the exercise and entertainment [I played]. This is not going to keep me up for long; I'll be asleep before the break. Definitely not working [looks like "wooking"]...just fell asleep. :( It is sooo hard to stay awake. Whose idea was it to invite this guy to speak? I was not expecting this to be so boring. Writing helps me stay awake [sort of]. Oh my god! This is driving me crazy! Angie had said the engineering classes would be too boring to sit through, but I don't see how they could be any worse than this! When is this fricken slide going to change? It's been here for 30 mins. It's so hot in here. My finger is killing me! Maybe that will help me stay awake. :) It would be an ok presentation if someone like Dr. Anderson were presenting. This guy just rambles on and on about nothing. I've been wondering if the Taiwanese have to learn cursive or not [my letter was written in cursive...they don't have to]. Uh oh. I can feel the exhaustion creeping back in. So, the subject matter is actually really interesting, just complex. Dr. Yea isn't a great explainer. :( I just offered my notes to the Taiwanese students. Again, I don't know if they read cursive. Furthermore, I haven't really been paying attention. The presentations this afternoon better be easier to sit through [they were]. I think we'll be in the computer lab again, which means I can be on the internet. Oops...I'm almost out of space on this page. I really wish I had more space to write. How am I going to stay awake after"

Only one more week until I'm home!

Life in the Fast Lane

Sorry that I haven't updated in the last few days, but we've been really busy here. We've visited two more companies in Taipei, and two in Chung-li. None of these companies were really interesting, but going on the field trips meant being in airconditioned offices (except at the SoCo Paper Ltd company). We've also had some boring guest lectures this week.

We've been busy because our CYCU students have been taking us out a lot. On top of that, Ryan, Jeremy, and I discovered a really awesome pool hall here that lets you rent a table for 80 NTD an hour (like $2.75 USD). We've gone two out of the last three nights. You can take in alcohol as well (which we would never, ever consider doing). ;)

I'm starting to get sad that our program is about to end. I'll miss all of my new friends from CYCU and MTSU. I told all of the MTSU students (especially Becky, Paulina, and Jeremy) that I would come visit them in Tennessee sometime soon. We asked Danny (Unser Führer, or our leader) if he would feel relieved once we leave since he has to work so hard while we're here, and he said "NO! I'll probably cry."

Can't wait to see you all!

So, I Was Climbing a Mountain in Jioufen...

Today, David and I went to Jioufen with the rest of the Wright State group (engineers). Jioufen is a mountain town with an interesting little market. I got a lot of souvenirs today for people back home, and had a great time visiting with our engineers (whom I haven't seen since Monday). We all had a great time (except when we ate sweet soup for lunch...it was nasty).

After going to the market, we went to the Gold Ecological Park (still in Jioufen). Here, eight of us decided it would be a good idea to climb to the top of one of the peaks of Mount Jade. This was a terrible fucking decision. Phil and I are in worse shape than the other six, and it took a lot out of us to get up that mountain. I climbed about 1450 meters straight up, while Phil did 1600 meters and the rest of the group did 2000. I'm not disappointed in my decision to stop, because the six that went 2000 meters said they couldn't see anything from up there because the weeds/trees had grown so high. I made a good decision.

By the time I reached my limit, my body was shaking really badly, so I knew it was time to stop. We thought it was going to be an easier climb based on the steps at the bottom of the mountain, so none of us really brought any water (horrible decision). The steps at the bottom were cement, and even. From about 250-900 meters, the steps were a mixture of crumbling stone, dirt, grass, and plants. The last 500 meters I did were comprised of the steepest stone steps I've ever seen (there were about 4 spots where the steps shifted to a meter-long incline).



After our 35 minute-power climb, we had to walk back down. This journey was extremely hard on everyone's joints. Even the guys who were in great shape and Angie felt the pain of the climb on the way down. We were all glad we went up there, but the climb sucked. It was crazy difficult. When I climbed the Great Wall of China back in 2008, said it was the hardest thing I'd ever done; that title now belongs to Mount Jade. I would climb the Great Wall 3 times before climbing Mount Jade again.

One of the WSU engineers is named Jade. So, as you can imagine, we made many jokes about mounting Jade (Mount Jade). Even our advisor, Angie, got in on the action. I may or may not have made the best comment (according to Zach) by saying "That was hard work! I spent 35 minutes mounting Jade, and didn't even finish!"

After our descent, we panned for gold (completely pointless waste of time, but it was air-conditioned) and saw the world's largest bar of gold (worth about 274 million NTD or $8.7 million). I actually got to touch it! Then, we headed to the night-market in Keelung! I thought it was pretty boring, but we only had 45 minutes there. Angie, Cassie, and I got some delicious fresh fruit though!

One of our engineers just arrived today due to a family emergency, and we decided to take him out to dinner tonight and show him around Chung-li. His name is Adam. He had to fly from Dayton to Houston, Houston to Honolulu, Honolulu to Guam (with a 13 hour layover in Guam), Guam to Tokyo, and Tokyo to Taipei. Needless to say, he was really tired. After dinner, I headed back to the dorm early with Phil and David so I could get my laundry done! Now, I'll have clean clothes for tomorrow!