Stupid Metric System

Too bad I'm not a hard-core trackie, or else the metric system would present no problems. I finally got to the gym today (hooray!) and started running, and felt good despite my lack of activity since the end of finals. I looked down and saw a 6:30 pace and I was barely breaking a sweat, and I was like, yes, I rock! Well, that was a 6:30 km pace, which made my mile pace pretty crappy, actually. I realized this very quickly and ramped up the speed, but it kind of burst my bubble when I discovered it. The exercise really made me feel sane again, and in addition I think I'm finally beginning to get in the rhythm here, going to bed and getting up at normal times. I'm trying to wean myself from the 7 pm bedtimes and 5 am rises, as they aren't too conducive to productive days or exciting nights.

A bunch of the lab folk were gone today, and even more will be gone the rest of the week as they are all traveling to Toronto for a conference on ethics in stem cell research. Dr. Yu said he would have invited me if I had been around longer, but he said I should get settled first, and then maybe in the future I can go on some trips. I had no idea he would even offer such a thing, but if another opportunity happens in the next ten weeks, I'm there! I showed up at the lab and continued researching (or more accurately, studying my butt off) the paper that Dr. Yu gave to me and that I have to present (although I have no idea when). I started making my powerpoint presentation, more to help organize my thoughts at this point than present to others, so I feel I have actually started to make some progress, and am not just this space-case Westerner confused with the world and with nothing to do.

Before I forget, this is the view from my desk. Academia Sinica is in the southeastern part of Taipei in what is known as Nankang. My dorm is in the upper-right part of the picture, specifically the bright orangey-yellow building that looks modern and freshly painted.

For lunch today, the lab went out to one of the many restaurants around campus. The great thing about this area (as I'm sure a lot of Taiwan and China, and maybe even Asia to that extent) is that there are small, family-run food establishments at every other storefront. You can't walk a block without hitting two or three. I was actually able to read a few things from the menu today (beef soup: niu2 rou4 tang1, jiao3 zi0) and got very excited. I still didn't order for myself, but I told one of my people what I wanted in Chinese, and then they ordered. Baby steps, I suppose. I trekked out a while ago tonight all pumped up to try things for myself, but walked by a few store fronts looking for something I recognized. I tried to just walk past and read in a nonchalant manner, but in doing it that way, I only recognized jiao zi, which I had for lunch. And there were no other customers present, so I would just be standing there forever in front of the employees trying to recognize anything and failing dismally. I kept walking and eventually reached a Nikko Mart on the corner, where I resorted to my safety of buying a prepackaged frozen meal. I thought I was getting one of those Chinese lunchboxes with the meat, rice, tofu, and egg, but when I got home and microwaved it, I noticed there was no rice. There was a little bit of meat on top, and this unidentifiable substance underneath possessing a gelatinous-like consistency. Would any of my Asian peeps like to help me out on this one? I'm assuming it had to be a carb of some type. (My first instinct was potato, but potatoes aren't exactly prominent in Chinese cooking.) I don't know what it was, but I ate it anyway. (Take note, I think this will be my motto for this trip.)

Since most of the lab will be away tomorrow, the remaining girls in the lab are showing me how to use the metro system, and they are taking me to the National Palace Museum! I mentioned I wanted to go there in my first days here, so either they remembered or randomly decided to take me, but I don't think this is an accident. It's funny, I can tell they all mean well and are really nice even though we can't communicate half the time. Body language and facial expressions speak volumes.

After lunch I did a little more work, but this stuff is so intense my brain was kind of fried, so I started looking up more Chinese words (mostly science ones, gah!) and desperately trying to teach myself traditional characters (mostly food for now). I feel like now I HAVE to go to mainland China sometime just so I can put my three years of learning to read to use. Grrrr.

The plan tomorrow is to arise semi-early, perhaps run around campus if it's not too grossly scorching at 7 am, then meet my fellow labbies for a day out. Hopefully this will be the first day of real photo-taking!