Day 5: Monday June 15th

Today was a day of many firsts. Other than playing basketball, everything else we did today was completely new to me. It was my first time making dumplings, beading a flower mouse, making balloon animals, getting my profile cut out of paper, and eating out of a toilet. Believe it or not it was I also used the hole-in-the-ground toilet for the first time today. I had somehow been able to avoid it up until today. Other than that one experience, it was a good day at Cheng-Te High School.

Walking through the hallways of the school I felt like a celebrity. When I would come to a stopping point the Taiwanese students would crowd around, but all be too nervous to talk to me. I kept on trying to remind them that I was still a human and that I wouldn't judge their English or anything they said to me. To me I am just a foreigner trying to fit in and learn the culture, but to them, I am a rock star. Who am I to complain? It might get redundant to stop and pose for millions of pictures, but I would pick this life over a boring one any day.

We stopped by two different classes today and met some of the students. Two of my favorite students were Mr. Magic and Jumbo who both did magic tricks for us all. I could tell they had fun picking out their "English" names. When they told us we would be makind dumplings I was excited, but then we found out that the dumplings we made would be our lunch. I was confident that the dumplings were good, but i wasn't confident in my dumpling making skills. I soon realized that there isn't much to it and ended up making at least fifty dumplings. We went on to make cell phone charms out of beads. I either don't follow direction well or I am incompetent when it comes to beading, because I had to start over four times and eventually get one of the Taiwanese students to do it for me. After that long process it was on to balloons! It was definitely fun to feel like a clown for an hour.

I thought the day was over after the balloons but I soon found out that the best was yet to come. They had us write our names down on white sheets of paper. I thought they just wanted to know how to spell our names, but I was surprised at what we were told next. A famous man from Taiwan was coming to cut out our profiles. I had no idea what our teacher meant when she said that, but it sounded cool. When Malcolm went up to be the first one to get his done I was shocked. This man has the talent to look at a person's profile and then cut it out of paper! I was blown away when he said that he picked it up in only five minutes. It was a great way to end our time at the school.

For dinner we went to the Modern Toilet. I won't go into much detail about the restaurant because I am sure some of the other Plano students have already blogged about it. Long story short, I thought that Vicky and Jesse were joking when they said we would be eating out of toilets, but they were serious.

Favorite food/drink of the day: fish in a toilet

New thing learned about Taiwan: the school bells sound like door bells