So it's come to my attention that I am a horrible blogger. Life hasn't been too crazy in the past few months. I spent my first Christmas away from home on a beach outside of Taipei. It was also my first Christmas without presents (Although, Tessa sent me an awesome Threadless shirt). What's Christmas without presents!? Or a tree!? Well, it was honestly one of the best I've had. That's a lie about the presents. My roommate bought me a USC shirt. Normally I wouldn't wear something like that, but the emblem reads "THE PEOPLE PARFORMANCE EMPTY WAS CARRIEO.THE STAILE THAT NEW MODEL". Clearly the irony was not lost on me. The night was mostly spent drinking, playing Horse Race, and bashing everything aboot Canada and hockey. We found a sweet Mexican restaurant in Danshui that serves Dead Guy Ale.

New Years was even more of an adventure. Since we had to leave immediately after work, some of us suited up before work. Taipei was insane. The MRT reminded me of basically every day in Beijing. We were packed like sardines. We had tickets to a party at the Taipei Country Club, and so that's where we told the cab driver to take us. That was not where the cab drivers took us. Fortunately, we got a great view of the fireworks show. Since my version is horrible quality, I'll give you this one. As you can see, the show didn't go exactly as planned. Rather than looking like a dragon scaling up the building, it looked more like the building was on fire. ROC 100!

After we watched the show, we headed to the party. After taking a wrong turn, we ended up hiking a mountain for an hour and a half. Let me be the first to say: Hiking in dress shoes? Not the most pleasant experience. 2 am was the final arrival date.

January hasn't been too eventful. Between Chinese classes and work, I don't really have a lot of time to myself. So we're basically up to speed.

BUT WAIT!

Let me tell you about today.

I woke up at around 8am, got ready for class, hopped on my scooter and headed to school. I'm minding my own business in the scooter lane. All of the sudden, the guy not 15 feet in front of me takes a sharp right turn. Down I go. After slamming on my brakes on the wet pavement, I slid. I busted up my scooter, took a piece of the cars body off, and dislocated my right big toe. Rather than spending my morning in class, I spent it in the hospital. I ended up with 5 stitches, and a ton of gauze wrap where a band-aid would've sufficed. Seriously, my arms are covered in it. I only got a few scrapes though. Thank you, Taiwan, for your universal health care. I walked out of the hospital with a bunch of painkillers, ointment, 2 x-rays, a relocated toe, an ambulance ride, and crutches for about 25 USD. Simply stunning.

So I'm done with the scooter for awhile, 2 accidents in a month and a half is a death trap as far as I'm concerned. I'll take longer journeys over constant fear any day.

-迪龍 out