A Day in the life of an Ogre

I skipped school today. A club near my school decided that Wednesdays would be a good night for no cover and 4 free drinks, and David, Nathaniel and I decided we would look pretty foolish to turn down free beer. Sorry Professor Tao, if you're reading this you can blame Roxy 99 for me missing class today.

So David, Nate and I used our unexpected free day to try a breakfast place that serves waffles called Grandma Nitty's, which had tiny glasses of orange juice, runny eggs, and surprisingly good waffles.

David still had to work in the afternoon, but Nate and I decided to go hiking, although it has turned out to be really difficult to find trails despite Taipei being completely encircled by jungled mountains worthy of Livingstone. We found a pretty good mountain anyway, but it was practically dark by the time we got there. Fortunately the trail was marked by an evenly dispersed collection of eerily lit Buddhist temples. The temples primarily served to scared me out of my mind however, because they all appeared to be completely abandoned, despite chanting emanating from unseen sources. There might have been a CD player, I suppose.

On the way back I managed to get a seat on the subway, because my feet were really sore. As we approached Taipei Main Station the train became increasingly crowded. Two women got on and stood right next the the bench I was sitting on. They both hesitated for a minute, then seemed to decide it was better to stand than sit next to me. For some reason I decided it would be best if I just got up and relinquished my seat to them. After that one of them sat down, but the other declined. At this point Nathan started pointing out that I had just been sent to the back of the bus, and that I lacked the spinal fortitude of a 50 year-old black woman, although I have known this for some time.

But seriously, what could have possibly motivated this woman to decline an open seat just because a male foreigner was occupying the seat next to it? Sometimes Taiwanese people make me feel like an ogre. And sometimes I want to crush their skulls and eat their babies.