Productive Sunday

Wait, productive Sunday? What is this crazyness you speak of?

It's true, though--I got SO much done today that now, as it nears midnight, I can hardly believe it. Typical Sundays here have consisted of lounging about and watching TV, as you may have picked up from my immensely boring typical Sunday posts.

TODAY, however...

• I joined the gym. Rachel and I drove our scooters over to Sanduo, proudly presented our receipts from yesterday's excursion, signed our names a few places, shelled out some more money, and we were in! It was an interesting experience in which I was almost totally silent, since no one working knew English (in stark contrast to last time we went, when at least three of the six people working were essentially fluent), but the woman who signed us up was one of the same people from last time and remembered us, so that was nice. And another major bonus was that, for some reason, the people at the gym took both of our receipts but gave us Rachel's discount--the full discount--even though I spent $500NT under what I was supposed to. Sweet! And now I have full reign of machines, weights, a game room, and weekly Zumba, yoga, and step aerobic classes, amongst others. And, in my ever-growing consciousness about the layout of Kaohsiung, I found out that this branch is RIGHT off my normal route to/from school. Must remember to start packing gym clothes and a shower towel when I go to school...

• I finished drafting my application. (As a side note, I find it ironic that you can tell I'm a writer because I refuse to use the word "write" for this sort of thing--everything is a draft until it's turned in/published, and even then it's not always beyond revisions!) This involved sitting in the Brunch Cafe across the street for several hours and pounding away on my Internet-intentionally-disconnected computer. And, on a related note...

• I ordered at Brunch Cafe--a whole conversation, not just "I want this," but with options and new vocabulary--and the lady understood me, and I understood her! And Brunch Cafe gives numbers for food, which they then call over a 20-year-old-McDonald's reminiscent microphone--in Chinese--and I knew when to go pick up my food! (I think--it wasn't cold when I got there, anyway.) Win!

• I went to church, along with Analicia, her friend Wendy, Karina, and Fonda. Turns out the church is in Zuoying, really close to where Karina lives, actually. Also turns out this will likely NOT be my home church. Analicia warned me that it would be traditional--single hymns interspersed on a printed service order in the bulletin--but in addition to that, I found portions of the sermon iffy, at best. The pastor hit some good points, but for the most part, I think our core theologies differ too much for me to feel like I can learn from him. Here's a (very rough) graphic representation. In this case, deviation from the blue line means I disagree with what's being said:

To clarify my unclear graph, the Scripture part at the beginning refers to the yellow along the blue line.

 So yeah, some things were pretty far off from my own theology, some things were just minor differences or argument holes; and while some parts were right on, I think I'm going to keep looking. I miss the City Church; I was definitely spoiled in Seattle with such a wonderful church and the inspiring and challenging messages of Judah Smith.

• Back at home (and back to my list), I filled out my weekly report, did my Chinese homework, and worked a bit more on my application. It's due this Friday, which is so crazy! It'll be nice to have it in,though.

Now, though, it's past midnight and I have classes at 9:30. So goodnight, world! More productivity to be had tomorrow.