Here there. Don't know how long I'll be able to make this post, but I figured it was high time for an update.

Today was a blast. Josh, Chase, Daniel and Joel, all fellow English teachers in Taiwan, came over for the weekend. This morning and early afternoon we went to Small Kinmen and went swimming. What a hoot! Some of Andrews students came by the beach and played with us...BJ and Lucas and I got in a mud throwing fight with them...I hope their parents weren't too upset about that. BJ was totally covered in mud by the end, because Lucas and I were a little more timid than her.

Ginger and Shawn's friend Angie came and visited us here in Kinmen for about three weeks. She left on Thursday. That was interesting. At first she really annoyed me. But by the time she left we were getting along pretty well (although I wasn't exactly sad to see her go either) It's not that we fought or anything, it's just that she was so extremely immature. At any rate we did have some fun together. Wednesday I skipped out on Chinese class (after taking my test and getting a 95%) and went with Ginger, Angie and Shawn to the beach. That was a total hoot. I'd never been swimming in the ocean before. It was a very interesting experiance. It's salty! That was a shock (don't know why...) Then Karen, who owns Cal. Pizza (and speaks very good English) came with her boyfriend and joined us. We ordered a pizza and spent about five hours just hanging out.

On the boat back to Big Kinmen this afternoon (after we went swimmming...not Wednesday, but today) I got to visit with two of ninth graders. It was really cool. Their names are Summer and Elly and Summer is the one that wants to marry my brother Ethan. They taught me some cool Chinese stuff. For example, the last character in my Chinese name means "hears". But actually it is two character combined: the character for "door" and "ear". So "hear" is "door" and "ear" together...cool, no? They also taught me how to say "sunburned"...bet you can't guess how that came up...

BJ is really feeling the crunch of leaving in only two months. I've still got over a year here and I'm even starting to feel like I've hardly got any time left. I know that must really sound odd to those of you stateside, but that really is the way I feel. I'm already trying to figure out how I can come back after I get my degree. And trying to figure out how I'm going to keep up my Chinese while I'm gone.

Speaking of my Chinese, I feel like I've broken through a barrier in the past week and a half. I'm able to communicate a lot more and understand a lot more of what I hear. I'm starting to feel like there actually is some hope of me ever being able to really speak Chinese. I'm also starting to really want to learn how to read Chinese. They say if you learn 3000 characters you will be able to read the newspaper. Some days that number seems impossible. Other times it seems that I should be able to do it. I figure it will be at least six or seven years before I can fluently speak Chinese, but i'm hoping to be able to haltingly communicate within a year.

Ok, I have to get off now. I still have to send some stuff to Sandy and plan for Sunday school tomorrow morning.