Two Weeks After the Test: Movie Time and the Horrible Weather (with a side of Environmental Concerns)

Hello, Tim!
As I said last week, I am still struggling to get my history and geography reports- both of which are immensely time-taxing. The weather was still changing as ever, and there was a thick layer of smog that covered Taiwan for an incessant two days. I was planning to write something about that in the letter of last week, but eventually, I found that I had no time. Maybe the article will be here.
Still, I would have to hasten my pace or there will be no time left for the undone reports.

The Smog that Alarmed

There was a smog that alarmed the whole Taiwan when it was first visible on the evening of last Wednesday. That day, according to my previous letter, I was at the school library after school. Before entering the library, I noticed there was something in the air, something fog-like-transparent when looking at the sunset, but the air was too dry for it to be fog.
After the work in the library, I walked out of school. Without the setting sun, the streets dulled, only with the artificial lights of the street lamps. Still, I could see the wall of "fog" as the lights were dilated and spread.
Here is a picture:

There was rain on the following morning and the smog finally dispersed.
On the news, we saw a report that the smog- the polluted dust and other chemical substances- probably came from China when the direction of the wind changed around here. On that day, we happened to have very dry air, so there was no rain to wash down the chemicals.
It was very disconcerting, for there are a lot of people who are allergic or sensitive to unclean air, in which each breath they take in can be painful sometimes. In times like this, the best solution would be to bring a medical mask with you at all times, and whenever you feel unwell breathing, the mask can at least somewhat filter the air you are taking in.

Questions Answering: Part One

1. It was not long after Thanksgiving, and the turkey showed up at a desirable time because people had just had their turkey feast, which makes a wild one less desirable. If it showed up before Thanksgiving, it would have to expect getting caught by a bullet and to end up on someone's dining table. :D

2. The Liturgical calendar, with the literal meaning of "Liturgical" as "of worship", is a Catholic's calendar, with all the same counting years, and month, only with additional details that are related to a Catholic's annual routine of worships or important days of events.

3. The Advent starts four weeks before Christmas. The point for this season is hoping that we can welcome the arrival of Christmas "slowly and gradually".

4. One thing Mr. Maher doesn't remember from his religion class was the origin of why priests wear different colored vestments (more specifically, violet and rose) on particular days around the Advent season.

5. With the Advent season and its aim "getting people into Christmas season slowly and gradually", Mr. Maher get to put on the Christmas decorations at his own pace.

Friendly Hangout with Middle School Friend; Movie Day

It was Sunday when I went out with Daniel, a friend of mine in my junior high school times. By the end of the third year, I managed to have nice relationships with a lot of my friends over there, but there were only a few of them with whom I have been keeping in touch; Daniel is one of them.

Daniel adores Japanese animation, so this time he asked me if I wanted to go with him for the latest Pokemon movie: I Choose You.

Now people would laugh at me; "It's a waste of money, going to the theater for THAT!" They would say.

Movie poster

To me, I have no concern of what others think; I get to spend time with my dear friend and hang out for movie and lunch. Additionally, it is a movie we both enjoyed! What else can we hope for?

Our movie was at 10 o'clock in the morning. We first went to a convenience store nearby for some drinks and donuts (movie snacks).

The movie started, and it was, it really was enjoyable. As usual, it had the usual mystifying plot of "protagonist sacrifices and magically revives" which has already become a recurring trait of the movie series. Overall, it was still an upbeat, childlike, relaxing movie, just like how it was from the first episode. Just how I like it.

After the movie, we went to a Japanese ramen restaurant in search of lunch. It was one that I have never tried out before, but to my surprise, it was impressively remarkable! I ordered the "Black soup" while Daniel had the original one. A large proportion of what we ordered could be customized; we could choose how spicy, how salty, how much garlic we wanted to have in our soup; we could choose which kind of meat we wanted as sides; we could choose whether we wanted the wider or the thinner kind of noodles and hong long do you want them to be cooked (which influences the texture of the noodles). This kind of attentive service is admirable and so was the layback atmosphere it had. I told my mom about this Japanese restaurant when I got home and we made a plan to visit once again soon.

I had a great day with Daniel, for we got to catch up a bit about our latest updates, and also was I glad that our friendship had not deteriorated even with this unfrequency of meetups.

Questions Answering- Part Two

6. Three weeks before the Christmas, Mr. Maher will have started bringing out all the indoors decorations, including nutcracker figurines and snowglobes.

In the following weeks, they would go for some real pine trees instead of the plastic, fake ones.

7. The natural pine trees come from either Oregon or Washington, and because of the lack of pine trees grown ten years ago, the supply of pine trees this year would be slightly lower.

8. There are two ways of decorating Christmas trees: overflowing them with tons of decorations to make them extravagant, or like what Mr. Maher does, decorating them with minimum decorations to show the more natural side of Christmas trees.

9. Fiona the dog has grown to 20 pounds, with a mere one foot standing height. However, she has her boundless amount of energy as a compensation.

10. We don't know yet for sure, of how Fiona would manage to bring down the tree, but I could envision her bouncing up onto the tree with her bursting energy, her chewing on the Christmas bulbs or literally tripping the tree itself like what Me. Maher said.

End.

So this is the end of this week, and I hope that you enjoy reading them. This often takes me quite a long time, but this is one of the few assignments I am happy and willing to do. You might as well call it an obligatory task of the week.

Next week, I think that I will write an article about what we also did last year: The postcards for the Amnesty International. Stay tuned!

Sincerely, 

Hugo