My friend Rikke in California recommended that I study Mandarin at Shida, otherwise known as National Taiwan Normal University. Here are some photos I took at the end of my first quarter there.
One of the things I like best about living in Taipei is meeting people from all over the world. My friends in class are from Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the States. I remember during the first week of class, my two Korean classmates organized a lunch for us to "get to know each other." It went great, except we had no way to communicate. It was amazing to see how rapidly we progessed, and by the end of the quarter we could ask each other basic, important questions, like "You have a boyfriend?" and "No, how about you, do you have a girlfriend?"
Here is our teacher. Boy, was she tough. She would always humiliate the two Americans girls who always came late. One of the girls did not take kindly to this treatment, and would exhibit James Dean-like rebellion in class. While we were all supposed to speak Chinese in class, she would raise her hand and say something in English in her tired, grouchy voice. "Um, did we learn that?" 
Despite the cultural quirks of my American friends, I actually really liked everyone and had a great experience learning Chinese. Here we are on the last day of school going out for a beer. If you want to see more photos, you can check them out here:
