So, you had a bad day...

I really blame this whole day on having to get up an hour earlier than usual. To an anti-morning person it's a guaranteed cause of getting up "on the wrong side of the bed".
Today was just a stupid day.
Actually the day didn't start off too bad, apart from some unfortunate hair choices (note to self-- when your hair is getting long and shaggy and it's super humid outside always pick the barrettes over the headband!)I managed to get through the morning without any major incidents. But then after church it just all started going haywire.
Why? Because someone just had to ask me how my chinese is going. If there was ever a question to make me second guess myself it's that one. Well, not all the time. Sometimes my Chinese skills aren't too bad but it seems to come in waves. I guess right now I feel like I spent the beginning of the Summer surfing the waves of the Chinese language--translating for visitors, spending lots of time with Chinese people getting into the Chinese groove. But the last couple weeks I've been feeling like I'm about to wipe out. I've been trying to broaden my vocabulary and get my tones perfect and the more I do that the more frustrated I become because there's just so much to learn! So I guess when I was asked "How's your Chinese" it was like I got smashed by a killer wave. I just kind of laughed and said "oh, you know, it comes and goes." while inside I was thinking "Bleh, whatever, you...how do i get out of this conversation??"
So, on the way home I decided to take the bus. I was pretty excited because the bus wasn't too crowded and I actually got a good seat. That should have been my first clue that something was going to go wrong. About halfway home we pull up to a bus stop at one of the busiest parts of town and the bus driver jumps up and says "The bus broke down everybody needs to get off!"
So we all get off the bus and now I have a choice to wait for the next bus, which will probably be crowded or to walk over to the Subway station that's close by and ride the Subway home. I chose the Subway hoping it would be the least crowded of the two options. Oh yeah, and this whole time I'm lugging around two big bags of heavy music books and a Bible since I lead worship at church. Plus it's super hot and humid out so I'm just sweating like a mad man every time I go outside. So I get on the train home and actually get a seat. Again, this is not normal and should have been a clue that all is not as it should be. I'm sitting next to this woman who is sleeping all sprawled out and these kids who are whispering amongst themselves and looking at me the whole time. This is a really annoying thing that happens occasionally in Taiwan, I assume because I'm a foreigner and tend to stick out. So as we got close to my station I stood up before the train stopped. I guess the extra 20 pounds of books I was carrying threw me off balance because as the train stopped I sort of fell over--not completely, thank goodness, because I was wearing a skirt!--and wacked one of the kids with my bag. Thankfully he was kind of hunched over so I got him in the back and not the head. His friends were all laughing as I apologized in Chinese and walked out the door as quickly as I could. I just felt like a complete idiot, so much so that instead of riding up the escalators I walked up them and out of the station as fast as possible. I never do that because I'm lazy, but today I just wanted to get out of there. So, I made it home and was thankful to stay there for a while without doing anything stupid.
I was meeting my friend Dana at 5:30 for dinner before going to a concert. I got ready, made better hair choices, changed my clothes and shoes and walked out the door feeling better. In my mind I actually thought "ok, this is a restart to the day, new clothes, new start." Not 5 seconds later the strap on my shoe broke. Well, actually it turned out that the entire back of the shoe was coming off the heel but at the time I thought it was just the strap. I was halfway between my house and the meeting point so I had to decide whether to go back and change shoes and be late or to keep going and try to fix my shoe. I decided to keep going. I got to the station and Dana wasn't there so I ran over to the store to try and find some things to Macgyver my shoe back together. I walked into the store and you'll never guess what song was playing...
" You had a bad day, You're taking one down. You sing a sad song just to turn it around..."
At that point I just had to stop and laugh and think "are you kidding??" I'm not sure who I was talking to at that point but just that this song would play at the exact moment I walked in the store to buy super glue and tweezers to fix my shoe was just too much.
So I finally met up with Dana and we decided that I should probably go home and change into different shoes instead of trying to fix the old ones. Then we went to eat supper and went to the concert without any other major incidents. And one of Dana's chinese friends was impressed with my Chinese so that made me feel a little better. I want to blog about the concert because it was a total crazy cultural experience in itself but this post is already pretty long so I think I'll save that story for another post.
Now, I'm just going to enjoy the fact that this day is over...