Obie meetup?
AUGUST 11TH, 2026
FEELING: AWAKE!!!! IM NOT LYING TO MYSELF!!!
Helloooooo, in order to curb my jet lag I’m forcing myself to stay up until 10 and then taking melatonin (Taiwan doesn’t have melatonin unless you buy it at Costco so I’m taking whatever the equivalent is). I need to fix my circadian rhythm ‘cause in class today I was almost falling asleep haha. Speaking of— I had my first day of real class today!
During the introduction I learned we are going over 10 units in only 3 weeks, eep! Each class is like 3-4 full hours long though so I think I can do it. Apparently the class setup is quite different depending on the teacher you have, my teacher is clearly more lax since she opened the class by talking about her favorite anime. Funny story: when we were discussing our hobbies, I said I played video games and she was like “Oh! My boyfriend plays video games, do you know League of Legend ˶ˆᗜˆ˵ ? “ And that was sort of a litmus test as to who in the class had tried/heard of LOL because half of us let out a groan at that haha. And before you ask, yes I have played it, no I did not like it. But I guess every hot Taiwanese girl needs a hot boyfriend who plays LOL (shoutout Gus).
I think the homework took me way longer than it should have because I lowkey forgot how to read Chinese but my class is moreso focused on practical speaking and listening which is good. It kinda sucks for the Japanese students since they all mog me in writing but not in speaking there but I think they’ll be fine.
After class I had lunch with 2 Oberlin students! One was my friend Yuji who is visiting Taiwan during a break he has teaching English in mainland China. The other one was Lindsey, the girl I talked about from before who was the year below me. It was super fun and we got beef noodles that were so good that I forgot to take a picture of them until after we had all already eaten, whoops. Yuji and I walked around a bit more after that and I think we’re going to Tamsui together on Thursday! Most importantly, we stopped at a pet supplies shop and saw the 2 smallest fluffiest cats in the world (picture included because I am not a monster)
After I went home and did my homework I got dumplings with the fam and then some mango and milk tea shaved ice. They do a thing called “snow ice” here where the shaved ice is more like ice cream and has milk in it, its not just frozen water. It is soooooo good that I remembered to take a picture teehee.
Now I’m forcing myself to stay awake so I’ll list some cultural differences people don’t tell you to kill time and then I will give in and go to sleep.
Taiwan has so many mopeds. I mean SO many, you see them parked at every street
The walking signs aren’t a still image, they’re animated little green guys who walk faster the closer the walking countdown gets to zero
There are at least 2 Seven Elevens per 4 blocks pretty much, and they’re actually really good
People don’t really use toilet paper, they just have tissue boxes by every bathroom
In order to exit shops, they have automatic doors that activate when you push a button, not with a sensor or anything
This isn’t really culture shock but I was surprised how much everyone used Google maps and apple pay
The high speed rail is dead silent in the morning
People wait IN LINE to get on the subway, and they actually follow the suggested etiquette PA announcement rules
Ok! That’s enough stalling, it’s 9:38 now and I really want to sleep so I am giving up my mission. If at first you don’t succeed, half-ass the second try!
