I'm like the sky, baby, I'm never comin' down!

I started my internship at Ming Chuan today, and it looks to be a pretty action packed 5 weeks! I spent two hours at the Taoyuan campus getting to know my office and then four hours at the Taipei campus doing the same. Annndd we're off:

1) I woke up at 7:30 am. My old friend Mr. Brown woke up with me though (dear non-Taiwan affiliated readers--That's a coffee brand. Not an illicit substance. Unless you consider caffeine an illicit substance in which case, I quote Banks, Hampton and Jackson: If lovin' you (coffee) is wrong, I don't wanna be right.) This moment brought to you by Wikipedia. What? You thought I knew the songwriters off the top of my head? Sha'mon now.

2) In Taipei I hung out with Eileen and Mya, two Education majors at Ming Chuan. They're bangin'. They asked tons of questions about my life, and again I was ill-at-ease with it. Mostly because I have no idea how to answer their questions about my relationship, friendships, family or religion. But these two are so dear, and were just amazing to get to know. And they couldn't have taken more care with me, even to the point of giving me the "dad arm" in the street. That's right, the "dad arm" givers of the Taipei trip have been usurped!

3) The internship duties. Basically, they consist of various meetings with faculty and staff to have one-on-ones for them to ask me about American higher ed and me to ask them about Taiwanese higher ed. When do these meetings start? Tomorrow at 11:00 am! I've set up roughly six already, the time in Taipei's offices was spent with people coming in and out. Every few minutes someone would walk in, say "Daniel! You're here" and I'd meet someone new. Overwhelming, but I just reminded myself to relax and process it later. Also, that's not a typo. Danielle must be pretty difficult to pronounce here. That's alright, it occurred to me that everyone I've met has given me their English name. That is, a name they chose for English speakers. Something about that strikes me, I don't know what yet.

4) The other part of my duties is a series of presentations for various audiences. The rundown is truly ridiculous, and if you've ever sat through a Safe Zone presentation (or any other presentation I've done) you should be laughing right about.....now. 

Some of the presentations will be for the Teacher Education majors:

Teacher Education in America (know ZERO about it, Ryan and Ashley you will be my saviors)

Educational Systems in America

Some will be for Education majors in general:

Higher Education in America

History of the University of South Carolina (HESA kids, look alive, look alive!)

Some will just be open to students in general:

American Culture

American Music

The American South

American Sports

Religion in America 

The religion and the music ones may only be open to students in courses on those topics, but I'm not entirely sure.

Alright, it's pleading time. Listen, if you know something neat or interesting or ANYTHING about one of these topics, email me or leave a comment. I'm excited about doing them, but could use a little help from my friends, to get by with a little help from my friends (do you need anybody?). 

Also, let's keep it on the real, I know all of you. I know what you know things about. I'll e-find you. And when I do, I'm going to email you until you finally break down and help me. So, I look forward to hearing from all of you! Email me: KDanielleC@gmail.com or just comment here.

6) I'm going to love doing this internship. Every day is going to be so different from the one before it. It's a little odd to be the one answering lots of questions about American Higher Education (and American culture in general), but I'm just going to be as honest as ever about what I know and don't know. Maybe I can teach someone a little something, but mostly I feel like I'm going to learn a whole lot about the topics I present on and Taiwan education in general.

This is the longest blog post ever. If you read the whole thing, you should probably let me buy you a beer when I get back to the States. Or you should get back to work. Hard to say.