Friday

Someone ran into me as I was riding my bike to school. I was passing another biker on their right, and I was mostly past them, then they turned and ran into my rear wheel. It didn't shake my balance, so I kept riding, and looked back to see if they were ok. They had put their foot down, but they seemed to be alright. I wondered whose fault it was, and naturally I decided it was theirs.



It was raining, and a little cold so they were wearing a jacket. They had the hood on, and the drawcord pulled tight all the way around so they had no peripheral vision, which I think was what caused the accident. There are no real 'rules of the road' on campus, and a whole lot of people ride bikes, so it is a little crazy at class changes, especially at intersections, where there is a constant flow of bikes in one direction, and the people who want to cross just have to get up the gumption and go.



After school I went climbing. Earlier in the week, I met another girl in my same program who wanted to go climbing too, so we met at one of the metro stations. She had forgotten to bring gym shorts, so she went to buy some, and I tagged along. At first we found a lot of those pants girls wear with things written across the ass. Things like 'slut' or 'hot' or 'pink' or 'cheerleader', or meaningless enticements like that. Well, the Taiwanese took it to the next level. Lauren found a pair that said 'Surrealism'. All I really know about surrealism, is that it sounds intense, so I looked it up. Goodgle found this on Princeton's website: "a 20th century movement of artists and writers (developing out of dadaism) who used fantastic images and incongruous juxtapositions in order to represent unconscious thoughts and dreams". I'd say writing surrealism across the ass of girls pants represents an 'incongruous juxtaposition' if I've ever seen one.



Climging was good. We climbed for a long time, and there were some fun routes up. Afterward, we went to a night market in the area. We walked around for a long time, and I finally found some honey peach smoothie (my favorite drink in Taiwan), which I was stoked about because I haven't been able to find very many places in Taipei (none near my home) that sell it, so the more I know about the better. There were a bunch of places that sold Stinky Tofu, but it is really hard to eat, so we held out, and finally found a good vegetarian place.