Well, I just switched out keyboards. I had been using the keybaord that came with the computer, but then BJ gave me her erginomic keybaord when she left and I've had it sitting in the room here gathering dust for a long time. So today I started to write a blogger update, but got so annoyed with that straight keybaord that I switched out the keybaord instead. Most of the time that doesn't take very much time, but it took a little longer because I had to put all the bu pu mu phu stickers on this keyboard. I'm really glad they sell those stickers, 'cause I looked all over and couldn't find an erginomic keybaord made here in Taiwan with the bu pu mu phu already on it.

I just went and ate lunch with class 901. I was feeling kinda bored this morning, so I decided to wear the school uniform today, just to make things more interesting. I love walking around the school grounds wearing it: you get some really great reactions. Most of the 2 and 3 year students just laughed, but a lot of the 1st year students (who weren't here last school year when I wore it) where very, very shocked. Plus you get some really funny looks from the teachers.

I love Lucy. Last night Ginger and I spent a couple hours at her place, just hanging out. At first Lucy had a lot of customers, so Ginger and I just sat in the back and talked, which was fun. Then after closing time the three of us just sat and talked and listened to music for a long time. That was so fun. Esp. after a long week of teaching.

Guys, I have no idea what to do about teaching with Kiwi. Half of the classes I teach are with Kiwi. And he is a horrible teacher. Like really, really bad. His classes are totally and completely out of control. Their nuts. As in: kids running around the room, wrestling on the floor, yelling at each other across the room, throwing stuff at each other, not even looking up when he pounds on a desk and yells. They know he doesn't really care about them or if they learn and they don't have any respect for him. This past week I showed the kids some Amarican money that I brought here. Yesterday one class was so out of control that I stopped right in the middle, told them they were behaving too poorly and that they weren't going to get to see the rest of it. I then went and sat down in my chair. Another class was out of control, but there where five girls who were paying attention. So I told the class that I wasn't going to show them the rest of the money because they wouldn't pay attention. I then took the five girls to the back of the room and showed them. I'm not sure if that made any difference for the rest of the class, but I do know that there was a little change in mood for the class.

Ok, moon festival. That was fun and interesting. It was offically on Sunday, but things kinda got started for us on Friday morning (not this Friday, but a couple weeks ago). The minister of education (for Kinmen) came by the dorm and gave each of us a box of moon cakes. Now moon cakes are all good and fine, but six boxes is a LOT of moon cakes! We still have some left now. And that's after giving a ton of them to our friends. At any rate, it was a nice gesture, just perhaps a little too large of a gesture.

Saturday we had a b-b-q at the church. But a few hours before that Ginger and I dicided to go to the beach instead (we'd heard the waves were supposed to be big). Turns out the waves wheren't that big, but we still had fun. After it got dark we came on back to the dorm. The kids where having a b-b-q outside, so I hung out with them for several hours. That was a real hoot.

Sunday night (which was the actual date of the moon festival) we were taken to one of the schools for another b-b-q. There were quite a few people there and lots of gal-eeion liquior. One old guy who spoke a tiny bit of English wouldn't leave Rebekah and Ginger alone. Andrew did a very good job of trying to keep him distracted, but that didn't stop his drunken proffesions of love. "I love you...more than I can say." Then he would turn to somebody else and say "Is right?" That person would then nop his head and say that yes, his English was correct, prompting the drunk guy to say it again. He also told Meagan this his son loves her. Meagan replied (without the slightest bit if irony) "I don't think so, because your son has never met me."

At any rate, after maybe an hour and a half we managed to tell them we wanted to be taken home. But then as we're getting into the van one of the English teachers turns to the driver and asks him "Ni hu jo ma?" (have you been drinking?) He said "Yo!" (yes!) "Hun dwo ma?" (a lot?) "Way!" (yea!) And at the same time Lucas is saying "Oh my, he's driving us? I saw him drinking quite a bit!" So I stepped out of the van and said I wasn't going with them. That caused quite a stir. I told Terry he could just call a taxi for me, but they would have none of that. Ginger and Rebekah were kinda upset with me, but I figured I'd rather have them angry than be dead. Finally they found somebody else to drive the car. Rebekah kept on saying "bo how ea-si!" (the meaning is somewhere in between "I'm sorry" and "I'm embarressed") That kinda annoyed me. It was their "bo how ea-si!" The driver knew he was supposed to drive us back: what was he doing drinking?

While in the states I went to a karate tournament. It was only five days after testing for my brown belt, so I was really nervous about being in the advanced division. For kata I did wansi-sho. This is actually an upper black belt kata, but I was taught it by the head of our system several years ago. For almost a year I worked on that kata just about everyday. Last year I used it to win both Octoberfist and Missions Tournament. So I did that for this tournament. Christa Bailey (very good black belt with beautiful kata) gave me a 9 (a really, really good score). Mr. Witticker, a 6th degree black belt who is very, very old school, gave me a 9. But his son, Witticker Jr., gave me a 7.5 (a very bad score). He didn't like the fact that I had done a kata above me. That really annoyed me. Had it not been for that I would have taken first. And I had every right to perform that kata: Mr. Houlzbaur taught it to me and Mr. Murry helped me prepare it for tournament. Oh well. I got 3rd at any rate. Which isn't that bad actually...even with one judge giving me a really bad score, I still out-did all but two of them. Cool.

Alright, talk to you guys later!

Hey! I'm going to try and make this a short update, because I figure if I write several short updates, then updates will actually happen. But if I try to write one long update it will never actually happen, and if it does, then nobod will actually read it.

I slept through my alarm this morning. The school van picks me up at 8:00. At 8:04 Bekah knocked on the door...ahhh! But by 8:07 I was dressed, had all my teaching stuff together and was getting in the van. Wow! Thank you Life Focus!

There are a million new kids here at the dorm. We've got two Taipie kids who speak English almost as good as we do...it's really strange to talk to easily to them. It's also strange, because now we can't say anything we want around the dorm kids. Last semester, if you used big words and said it fast, then you didn't have to worry about any of the kids understanding you. But Jimmy and Jerry can understand an amazing amount.

There's a new 7th grader named Riddick. He's taken a real liking to me and we like hanging out together. Saturday we went and got lunch together: that was really fun. One really cool thing was that we walked all the way to the lunch place and back talking Chinese! I also saw one of my old Small Kinmen students and carried on quite a catching-up conversaton with her, all in Chinese!

There's a little girl by the name of Peggy in 7th grade who's new here at the dorm. She looks like a 4th grader. She's very short and still has that round, baby-fat look. And she's a hoot. The other night she was with us in the living room and started to examine (sp?) the strange features of the Amarican's. First she stared at the back of Lucas's neck, noting the difference in hair color between his head and his neck. Then she measured the noses of everybody in the room: eye to bridge, bridge to tip, tip to face, all with her right index finger. Then she measured her own nose and compared. Then she just stared. She would stare directly at your face, then at your profile. Then she would compare what she just saw to somebody else in the room. All the while she hardly said a word: she simply made simple exlamitory (sp?) noises. Talk about a hoot! We were all just cracking up watching her.

The twins are gone! They said they would be back this semester, but apparently something changed over the summer and they now are living in Taiwan. Dude, I miss those kids!

Man, speaking of missing, I seriously miss Jr. high. Everytime I come back from school and see the Jr. high kids (many of them my old students) I feel like screaming crying at the same time. It's not that elem. is all that bad. But I just can't get into it. I've got lots of cool students, but it's just not like Jr. high. Jr. high you can actually get to know the students and be friends. But what can you do with 3rd graders that you see only once a week? On top of that I feel like I never understand what's going on in the classroom. I've only got two out of six teachers that can actually speak decent English. 10 out of the 20 classes I hardly do any teaching at all (very strange after teaching 45 minutes almost every class last semester).

Sure, I know it's better for my Chinese. None of the kids can even begin to talk to me in English. But I just really, really miss Jr. high.

Ok, in spite of that, things are generally going very good. Awesome, in fact. My monday night class for Sr. high students is going very good. Tonight I told them a story and had them translate it and we also did charades. Then we went to easy way and got stuff to drink. I've got a new class on Wednesday nights that's all students who used to be mine in Jr. high. Most of them are from Small Kinmen. That class is such a hoot! They're english level is a lot higher than my monday night class, so there's a lot more stuff I can do with them.

I'm working on characters a lot. I've got almost 100 characters that I can both read and write now. I like going to La Caffe and sitting in there for an hour or so and working on characters. Garry, the owner, speaks a little English and is always willing to help me if I have a question. He and his wife are both really cool.

There's a couple new forigners on the island. One is taking Tim Nall's place at the college and another lady and her husband are teaching at one of the Jr. highs. I figured it up and I think we still have about 14 forigners on the island total. Not that many. Which is very cool.

Ok, I'm going to get off now. Plan on hearing about our moon festival sometime soon. Drunken proffesions of love, moon cakes coming out of the ears, b-b-q with the dorm kids...all sorts of cool stories.

Love you guys! Bye!