Relaxing Weekend~

This is the first "long break" we have since the semester started: the end of the first-half semester. I had lots of fun this weekend. Very relaxing, and got to know more of my classmates and became friends. They are all nice and cool people!!!

Thursday afternoon, I had my first German lesson with my tutor, Christian. He's a nice German guy and he explains grammar and pronunciations very clearly. I'm also glad that he doesn't live far away from my apartment, which means I don't have to travel for a long time and spend extra money on Bart to have 1 hour lesson. In the evening, I attend the Text Skill Workshop at school. Honestly speaking, I was a little disappointed for the content. But there were still some useful things taught in class. Fortunately, it's only an 8-hours workshop. I'll go again this week for the last 4 hours and then it's done.

Friday afternoon, I went swimming at school gym with one of my classmates, Ting. She's lovely girl from China and just as young as my brother. We swam for one hour or so (included chatting for half hour...), and after swimming I went to the supermarket to get some fruits and food for breakfast. But when I finished shopping and wanted to go home, it started to rain!!! I didn't have an umbrella and the 2 bags on my hands were so heavy that I could not use an umbrella anyway. So, I walked fast home, and felt my biceps hurt when I finally arrived in kitchen...The night I did lots of domestic things: laundry, cooking. Also watched a movie,"Shortbus" at night. Didn't really get it. A weird movie....I was tired but relaxing!!(because I don't have to think...ha~~)

Saturday, I woke up pretty late and then I tried to call my dear boyfriend,Richard. But he didn't pick up the phone for the first 2 times. Then I reached him when I called the 3rd time, he said he was having dinner at the moment and would call me back later. I then started to do other things, waiting for his call. I even fell asleep on the couch when I was reading a novel. Then the phone rang!! Because my phone was running out of money and I asked Richard to call at my home phone number. It was almost 4pm(1am his time) and we talked for maybe more than 30 minutes. He was still at friend's place, partying. He went to the kitchen and called me. His friend came in, he also put him on the phone with me for a small talk. My mood turned out to be very nice after I talked to him for such a long time. Then later that evening, I watched the baseball game. Red Sox led the game from the very beginning and they just kicked the ass of the Indians. My roommate, Paul, who stands for the Indians, he just couldn't look the game since the middle and then we started to watch the "West Wing", a TV show about politics and laws(U.S. democrats.) It was a really good series of shows. We started to watch the DVDs which were owned by Paul about 1 months ago and I watched it with Paul and another roommate, Noel, once or twice a week. It's interesting because there's no such kind of TV series in Taiwan, and this series talks about a lot of political culture and law things in the U.S., especially on the Democrats side. Of course I can't understand all of it, I think I can only get 70-80% of the content. Not only because the characters sometimes speak too fast but also there are lots of legal processes and law jargons. But since Paul and Noel are all law graduate students, I can always pause the show and ask them to clarify for me. Good for me to practice my English listening skills and learn more about this country. After watching one episode, we decided to do a movie. We chose a comedy,"Hitch",by Will Smith, rather than "The Godfather." It was so funny and I laughed a lot during the movie although I've already seen it once in Taipei. And we chatted a little bit after the movie, talking about relationships.(Both Paul and Noel have been divorced several years ago.) Anyway, it was a fun night.

Sunday, I got up very late(10:30am), made some smoothies for brunch, and then started to chat online with one of my best friends in university, Athena. She's now in New York, living with her boyfriend, searching for a job. (she has graduated from her master program this year) We chatted for a long time and then she decided to go out for a walk and I decided to go jogging in the panhandle park. I ran for a while and then came back to take a shower. I had 2 places to go that night!!! One was in downtown, I had a dinner appointment with Sean and his friend Diana(she's a Korean). We ate at a Japanese restaurant, the food was really good and not too expensive. I think I'll take my dad to that restaurant when he visits me.

Diana and Me


Then I went to my classmate's(Lin) place for a party. There are 10 more people there, all are my classmates. Well, 2 of them are not because they're girlfriends of my classmates. We had fun drinking(I didn't drink) dancing, and chatting. You can hear all kinds of languages in the room: English, Mandarin, Cantonese, even a little bit Japanese. It was so funny!!

Lin's Place Party(food prepared by Cathy and Shi Shuai)
From left:Gabriel, Jessica(Salim's girlfriend), Salim, Shi Shuai, Luke, Cathy, Ben, Lin

Ben, me, and Juan

Lin, me, Juan, and Ben

All:front:Luke, Shi Shuai, Lin, Juan, Gabriel
back: Cathy, Jessie, me, Kelly, Ben

All again:front:Luke, Shi Shuai, Lin's girlfriend, Lin,
back: Cathy, Kelly, Jessie, me, Juan, Ben


Oh, I also watched the final game of the Red Sox and the Indians at Lin's place.(just the last parts) 11 to 2, Red Sox goes to the World series!! I got home at 11pm and wrote an email to Richard then went to bed.

It was a great weekend!! Having fun with friends, doing sports, talking with my beloved one, watching games and movies. The new round of stress began today. Just like Richard said to me: Take a deep breath and get ready for the new round!!!