So there have been a few strange occurrences over the past few days in my dorm. Just let me first say that I stopped getting mosquito bites!!! I don’t look like I have chicken pox anymore! Turns out that bug repellent really works; I pretty much started bathing myself in that stuff. Always remember to bring repellent around with you when you’re traveling.

The other night, I was sitting at my desk studying for a quiz and all of a sudden, I hear this high pitched shriek coming from next door. I just assumed it was laughter so I stayed in my room. I then hear spraying, whacking and lots of people talking really loud. I run next door and find out that there’s a lizard in the girl’s room next door. It had crawled into her bed and some guys from our floor were trying to help get it out. After about 20 minutes, they finally caught it and the girls were saying, “Throw it away!” while the guys were saying, “Let’s keep it as a pet!” It was hilarious. Then today, a heard another girl scream, even louder this time. My roommate came in telling me that a 3 inch cockroach had just crawled past her foot outside the bathroom. It then ran under the shoe rack of a girl on my floor, who was the one who screamed. Another guy on my floor started chasing the cockroach down the hall with a rolled up stack of paper and eventually killed it. The cockroaches here are huge! I also heard they could fly! They’re like super cockroaches and I think they’ve evolved to become so strong that they’re even resistant to bug spray.

There is also something tragic that has happened. The only normal or “western” toilet on my floor is clogged. I knew this day would come, since it’s the only toilet that all the girls on this floor use, I just wish it didn’t happen so early in the program. Living in the dorms here make me appreciate how the dorms were back at Davis. During my freshman year, I stayed in the dorms that people referred to as a “four star hotel”. Custodians came to clean our floor every single day but here, they come once a week and their idea of cleaning the bathroom is dumping a bucket of water across the bathroom floor and leaving it there to evaporate. I really miss being able to go to the bathroom without worrying that I’ll catch a disease.

On the bright side, the weather here is starting to cool down! I also got into a tennis class at NTU that I’m really excited about. The first day of tennis class was in a classroom and I sat in the front row hoping to add the class since I didn’t register for it. After the teacher passed out the forms (which was all in Chinese) to add the class, he asked me, “Why aren’t you filling it out?” I responded with, “I can’t read it.” I felt like a little kid! A girl next to me helped me with it and the whole situation was hilarious but it made me realize how much I really want to be able to read and write in Chinese. I can’t wait until the day I can fill out a form in Chinese!

But in the mean time, I’ll keep all of you updated on which new creatures move into my dorm. Take care!

Posted by Natalie at 05:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

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Posted by: Chris W. | September 22, 2006 06:54 AM

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