1:35 pm greencastle, july 18; 2:35 am taipei, july 19

i realized last night that the times of my posts seemed really, really off, by some hours or something, but that'd mean that my computer's clock is off. well, remembering this and checking it out today, yeah, it was two hours slow, some-magically-how. uhh...but i set it forward and it so it should be fine now.

anyways...practically nothing at all happened today because of the typhoon. well...it was really great walking outside, though; my mom called me at 12:30, waking me up, to tell me that we were going out to meet my uncle and one of his old friends, who is, apparently, now the general manager of china air or something like that. like, all of it. and his family, as it turned out; well, his wife and daughter, at least. we ate lunch this spicy hot pot place. but first, the weather. extremely windy and a light drizzle most of the time--but when i say "extremely windy," i mean that it's blowing down signs, blowing over cemented and weighted trees, and blowing away umbrellas. so, of course, it was incredibly cool to walk in it to the mrt station and whatnot. until i arrived there and saw the main doors closed...and began to worry. but there were signs posted, and i skimmed them, gathered the meaning, and headed to the side door, the handicapped one. worked.

...at lunch, it was pretty much the same as a normal spicy hot pot place, but they had a bunch of fruit and ice cream/popsicles from which to select afterwards. xiangwen, though, the guy's daughter...seems surprisingly cool. i didn't get to talk to her much or anything, but she had as many facial expressions (mostly made with her lips) as...say...reggie and tyler, but made them (appropriately) when doing random kinds of stuff that, say, betsy would do--straightening a row of chopsticks, stacking them up together, picking at things, all disregarding the other people around--but more off in her own world, like tracy, sometimes, not quite noticing when she's doing something really weird. that's my impression of her, anyways, so she seemed cool enough. meh.

and then...ah, yes. went shopping. i'm surprised at how...*gasp* fun clothes shopping can be. bought...a cool shirt that apparently comes in this weird little bag thing, a nice pair of pants, and two belts, all at the small cost of some $10 or so to me; my mom decided to be very generous and pay for everything but the shirt. what's more, between my uncle's, my mom's, and my purchases, we payed enough (like $80 or so) to get two of these free bag things. uhh...yay, i guess. free stuff is good!

then i spent this evening and much of the night upstairs again, hanging out with barney (who is, unfortunately, ill) and carl, gaming and messing with music--got two of my cd's that wouldn't before to rip, among other stuff. woohoo! i've been wanting to listen to tracks off of both of them for a good while now, so now i can. sweet.

leave at 7ish tomorrow, my time, which means i'll be back in greencastle...around early evening, maybe? roughly? very roughly, yes. uhh...end of short (-est, probably) post.