Good heaven's. I feal horrible. I had gotten over being sick a few weeks ago and was doing fine, but then Sunday night/Monday morning our heater got turned off somehow. The room got real cold. I didn't feel so great during class yesterday, and then afterwards I went downhill pretty fast. BJ and I went out the get supper and walking back I was carrying our food and my arms got so tired I finally had to give it to her to carry (we're talking about maybe two pounds here!) I went to bed at about 7:30. And I've had to miss school today. I'm really bummed about that: Tuesday is one of my fav. days, in spite of the fact that it's my longest. The school on Small Kinmen (the smaller of the two islands here) is smaller in size and the two teachers I work with are totally awesome. In fact I got a get well e-card from one of them this morning! How sweet!

I'm starting to really love Monday. I've got some awesome classes. Yesterday one of my girls brought her mouse to class and showed it to me: it was the cutest thing ever!

Man, I really wish my camera would get here. Mom sent it several weeks ago, but there's still no box for me yet! Mail from Taiwan to the states goes pretty fast, but coming here for some reason it's really slow.

Gingers parents are here right now. They both seem to be really cool. Her Dad got one of the Kinmen knives custom made by the Mr. Wu himself. Wow! And it's a really cool knife.

I bought Ethan his birthday present yesterday. It's really cool: I hope he likes it.

GOOD HEAVENS!!!!!!! I just realized it's been almost a month since I updated! How horrible!

Anna, tell Jason that I will be trying to send him a kata video soon. Hopefully once I start feeling better.

Tuesday nights we have a class for potential Jr. High Drop-outs. It's interesting. Some of the kids are really cool, others are...um....difficult. One of them, Kelly, has really captured my heart. She's really cool.

Monday nights the same kids have a karate class. I went a few weeks ago and worked out with them. The instructor seems to be a pretty cool guy: he didn't speak much English. He actually reminded me of Mr. Burnett somewhat: he was always says "Relax-a, relax-a, um...quick-a-ly, quick-a-ly." One of the kids was a big problem in class and the instructor wasn't really sure what to do with him. At first he would just glare at him. Then he would put him in a joint lock whenever he wouldn't pay attention. Then he tried having him next to him the whole time. Nothing worked. Finally he just kinda let the kid go around the dojo and ignored him. It was kinda funny to see the teacher working so seriously with the rest of us, while this other kid stared at himself in the mirror, playing with the inside of his mouth.

Last Wednesday Drew gave the girl permissoin to wear pants and Shawn, Ginger, BJ and I went over to the gym and sparred. WOW! What fun! I was really happy with what I saw Bonnie doing. She still needs to work on her extension, but generally her fighting is looking really good.

Does anybody know how I can post a link to my Yahoo! photo albums? I've uploaded a lot of pictures and I'd really like to share them with y'all.

Saturday a couple of the schools took us on a tour. We saw some of the old salt farms, went to a clam digging place (but it was too cold to actually did for clams, so we just stood in the little hut and drank hot tea!) and the "cultural village". It was a really cool tour, in spite of the rain and cold. Lucas told the schools that Saturday was BJ's birthday, so they got a huge cake and threw a party for her at the cultural village. Very cool. And it was a REALLY good cake too!

Dad is going to be getting here in about 15 days! Wow-who!

I'm going to go to Lucy's tonight and get my hair cut and have a massage (is it one or two "s"'s?) All for only about 4 bucks...I love prices over here! I also love going to Lucy's to study my Chinese or lesson plan. I'll be posting some pictures from her place soon.

Ok, and now the big announcement: I'm very seriously considering staying here for next school year. I simply can't see myself leaving here after only six months. I know it sounded like such a long time when I was back home, but now that I'm here I realize what a short time it is. I've been praying a lot about it and I think that's what I'll end up doing.

And here's the big prayer request. We have been told that there will only be six team members here on Kinmen next year and that there will not be anybody working in Jr. High. Now I love Jr. High. I really, really want to stay there. And the elem. textbooks are very, very, extremely stupid. Like, dumb. So pray that they change their mind and I don't have to teach elem school if I stay.