Howdy folks. This is going to be a real update for once...not just a couple sentances pounded out on a campus computer in between running around like a chicken with my head cut off. :)

Life, as I find myself saying real often of late, is crazy. I've been keeping very busy but still managing to stay alive. I've also discovered that mid-afternoon naps are one of the greatest things ever.

Ok, let's start off talking about some interesting events at college in relation to the Honors Program and my scholarship. You see, I'm part of the Honors Program at RSU. But the degree I'm working on is Elem. education, which is actually a program done in cooperation with Cameron U. Just a few months ago, the word came down from RSU administration that all RSU scholarship do not cover the elem. ed degree because it's not techincally a degree from RSU. Because of that, I was told that my 4 year honors scholarship will go bye-bye after two years, when I start taking classes from Cameron. Yikes.

This was a really big shock to me, to say the least. But after telling myself to calm down several times, praying a lot and talking to Mom, I began to see that perhaps this is in fact a good thing. Elem. ed isn't really what I'm interested in (I didn't really like teaching in Elem. school) and I was only doing that degree because my scholarship was at RSU and it was the closest I could get to an English Education degree. Now that I'm looking at the fact that I don't have a scholarship, I've decided I might as well finish up my gen. ed requirements at RSU and then transfer over to NSU (another college about 30 minutes from our house) and do their English education degree. I'm also looking into the possiblility of transfering into the NSU honors program...hopefully I can still have a good scholarship too!

In other (school related) news: I have a 4.0 for the fall semester! This is very wonderful news, because I wasn't sure if I would get an A in Honors Seminar. It was extremely difficult to figure out what the teacher wanted in that class, among many other issue that I had with the class. But I did get an A! Yea! Right now I'm taking an intersession class (Intro to Psychology). Interestingly enough, Chera, I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit. The teacher is really good. THe first day of class she told us that Freud was a cocaine addict who's theories contradicted each other. Cool, huh? We had a test on Friday that was pretty difficult, but I'm still (just barely!) holding an A in the class.

Thursday I took the biology CLEP test and passed it. Next I'll be taking the chemistry CLEP and then the Social Sciences CLEP. If I am able to pass those two CLEP tests...I will have cut an entire year off of my college education. Cool, no? (BTW, Chera, that is why I am working so hard to mass up credits. I'd like to go over to NSU as a junior.)

Ok, enough about school. In other news, I am now vice president of the BCM (Baptist College Ministries) leadership council. The world really is run by those who show up. I'll be in charge of orginizing some type of original, creative devotional for our Wednesday lunch ministry. I'm really excited about it...and if any of you have ideas on creative ways to present Biblical truths to college students, let me know!

In addition to that, Ethan and I are working on putting together some promotional material for our juggling show, hoping to get more gigs lined up. My hope is to use that to help pay for my trip to the Philipines with WanKan.

Have I posted about that on here? I can't remember. I'm going with WanKan (which is the demo team from our karate dojo) and some folks from a sister dojo down in Texas to the Philipines over spring break. We'll be in one of the larger cities (I can't remember the name) doing demos and preaching. I'm very excited about it!

Last Monday was belt promotions for all the under brown belts who had tested in the last month or so. BJ got her blue belt (you should have seen her board breaking, it was awesome!), Isaac got his green belt (he's been waiting a long time for this and is really excited to have gotten it!) and Naomi got her brown belt (her fighting was really tough, but she stuck with it and came out in one peice)! Beside those in our own family, we have got some really impressive looking lower belt at our dojo. There's several (newly) orange and green belts who I'm really excited about. Next month Ethan, Joshua, Anna and I will all be testing. Ethan wants to be testing for his black belt this next fall: I hope he gets to, because that way I can watch him test instead of testing at the same time as him. As fun as it is to say "We'll test together!" it can actually be kinda frustrating at times, because you don't get to see the other fellow do much of their test!

BJ, Anna and I are getting really excited about going to Taiwan next summer. We'll get to spend about a week in Taiwan visiting friends (in Taipie and Nantoe) and then we'll fly out to Kinmen and spend the rest of our time there. I can barely wait!

We watched The Terminal the other day. I really like that movie, which is rather supprising, because I totally hate any other Steven Speilburg (sp?) movie. Mom and Dad don't really like it because of the stewardess character, but I think she's exactly what the movie needs. Her job is to stand as a contrast to Victor as somebody who values commitment. So while she isn't a good character, she is necessary to the plot.

Ok, I've got to get off now. Mom just came home with pizza!

Merry Christmas everybody! God bless y'all!

4.0

And I'm too busy to write anything else. I've got to do a project for psychology class tonight (taking an intersession course) and study for the CLEP test I'm taking tomorrow afternoon...life is fast paced!

Literally moments ago I just finished my first semester of college. I now have 22 credits to my name.

Honors Seminar: at least a B, hopefully an A.
Cell Biology: A
Chinese: A
Music: A
Speech: A (top student in class)
Government: A
Comp 1: CLEPed, no grade.

Cool beans, huh?

I'M DONE WITH THE FREAKING HONORS SEMINAR!!!!!!!! THANK GOD!!!!!!!

Short little thought here about the use of language which is considered to be not so polite. It would seem to me that there are times when such language is appropriate.

This is sparked by just seeing a friends title on Google talk...it said "Frankly my dear I don't care." Now please. While "I don't give a damn" is not the polite way to say it, it never was meant to be a polite sentance! Words have meaning, even the rude ones. To replace "I don't give a damn" with "I don't care" is to totally remove the entire meaning of the sentance.

I'M GOING TO KINMEN NEXT SUMMER!!!!!!!!!! MAY 11th TO AUG. 2nd!!!!!

我剛才把我們的機票買好了!

BJ *AND* Anna are going to be going as well!

This will probably be something of a ramble today. Things are both going well and not going so well...no, I shouldn't go so far as to say that...things are going well and I'm wondering what God is trying to show me in a couple situations.

Saturday was the annual Missions Tournament and it was (as usual) a hoot. Last Monday Mr. Murry had us brown belts each perform a kata for the white belt class, and since I knew that Ethan was going to do Wan Si Sho, I decided to do Teno, just so things didn't get boring. Well, I did Teno and Mr. Murry comes up to me afterwards and says "Hey, you should do that kata for the tournament." AHH!! Never mind the fact that I hadn't practiced Teno seriously for over a year and that Wan Si Sho has been my compitition kata for three years now! And I'd been practicing it for the tournament! So with 5 days to go I started work on Teno instead, hoping that I didn't fall flat on my face while doing it.

So at any rate, Saturday comes and it turns out that Anna and I will be in the same division...over 18 brown belts (not "more than 18 brown belts" but "brown belts over 18 years of age"). So Anna does her kata (did a pretty good job of it too! Got a 9 from Mr. Logston!) And then I go out to do mine...at that point the black belts were doing their weapons forms but Mr. Holzbaugher sits right next to the judges and stares directly at me during the entire kata! But I got really good scores...8, 9 and 9! And when they called up the winners, Anna took third place and I had first! WEEE!!! Mr. Holzbaugher even told me I did a good kata afterwards!

For fighting they put adult brown belts with adult black belts...and I made the really silly mistake of standing next to Jeff Logston when they were writing down our names for the fighting. Duh. He's a third degree black belt who is REALLY fast.

Just as we stepped into the ring to fight Anna grabbed my arm and whispered "Mr Miller is standing behind you." Oh, music to my ears! I ran over to him. "Don't get set. He's fast...you have to move. Don't be there when he tries to hit you." I bowed in, touched gloves and dropped into my fighting stance...an annoyed voice behind me calls out "Your already set!" So from that point on I was, as BJ described it, the Spastic Fighter. Say whatever you may about my fighting, I was on my toes for that fight! And it actually worked! I was supprised to discover that fighting him was a lot like fighting Brittany...He was very fast and if I let him get into me then it was all over...but he didn't have a particularly good defense and if I came in quick with my hands I had him. In the end he beat me 4 to 3...which is not bad at all, if you ask me. Mr. Miller was pretty pleased with it as well. (oh, and Jeff Logston went on to win first in fighting, as well as the overall excellent competitor award.)

In other news...Naomi took 3rd in kata and 1st in sparring. Ethan took 2nd in kata and did not place in sparring...whole nother story there! Isaac placed in kata, but he didn't remember what place he got! LOL! Joshua took first in kata and wasn't able to fight because there wasn't any other male brown belts his age to fight against! Poor fellow was pretty bumed about that. BJ placed 5th in kata (in a very large division) and got good scores as well. She lost her first fight...she would jump in with one strike and then didn't know what to do after that...have to work with her on some combos.

Ok, enough about the tournament...I'm sure I've bored all of you to death. If you are still reading...then you probably have no life. lol

Got some very bad news today. I'm in the honors program here at RSU, which covers tuition, books and fees...very sweet deal. RSU does a program with Cameron U. which allows students to do their first two years at RSU, and then take classes from Cameron at the RSU campus to get a degree in elem. ed. So I'm doing that. Well, I just found out that once I finish my second year and start taking classes from Cameron, my scholarship will go bye bye! AHHHH!!!!!!!! This is very scary news for me. I'm trying to think of what i might be able to do to pay for my last 2 years and I'm trying to think how God might be leading me through this. Please pray for me...pray I can figure out what God wants me to do without too much beating my head against a wall.

Ok, I've got to go now...this keyboard is not ergonomic (sp?) and my hands feel like they are about to fall off. I hate flat keyboards. talk to y'all later.

Howdy again folks...I'm going to be posting more of those "big moments" hopefully soon...but for now a little bit of a rant. For those of you who don't understand it...just know that I'm frustrated with what I'm doing right now and really, majorly miss Kinmen.

我不想上大學. 我只想回家! 我的家人和一些超好的朋友在這裡, 但是我的心還在金門.

跟我上課的同學大部分都很無聊, 而且很幼稚喔! 我的老師六分之五教的不太好. 大部分得時候我們在學的東西沒什麼好用. 問題不是我不喜歡學東西. 問題是我現在不要學這些東西, 反我很想繼續學國語! 我在金門的時候我的腦筋一直在忙, 一直學好許多東西. 對我來說, 我正在學的東西不多. grr....

And even that doesn't really fully express what I'm feeling or why I'm frustrated. And part of it is that I'm just feeling pretty depressed right now. Please pray that I do manage to get back to Kinmen over the summer...having that to look forward to would give me a big boost right now.

Howdy folks. This is a post I've thought about making for some time (several years actually) but never really did. I think it will probably turn into several installments, because as soon as I push the "publish" button then I'll think of something else that I want to add.

At any rate, I've been thinking some about those moments in your life that stand out really, really clear to you. Perhaps they were big turning points for you or maybe you don't even know why you remember them so vividly. But here is an incomplete list of some of those moments in my life, in no real order.

Stacy Lewis' baby. I was probably about 10 or 11 years old when I went with my Mom to visis our friend Stacy Lewis, who had just delivered her 4th (5th?) child. At that time they were living in a small trailer house a little ways outside of Amarillo. I spent most of the time there playing with Jake (Stacy's oldest boy) but not long before we left I got a chance to hold the new baby.

Now of course this was not my first time to hold a new born (far from it!) but for some reason when I held that particular baby I was suddenly struck with just how amazingly precious human life is. I would imagine that holding your own baby for the first time must be something like what I felt then.

Mr. Burnett's kata. About three years ago Mr. Burnett (one of Mr. Murry's first black belts and an amazing martial artist) tested for his third degree black belt. Because of some health problems he did not have to do the fighting portion of his test (he is actually blind in one eye now because he lost vision in one eye in one of his brown belt tests...somehow the stress of the test caused his eye to just give out totally) so he had spent an amazing amount of time preparing his kata. The day of the test he was sick as a dog. As all the testing candidates went through their lower forms it was to the sound of his coughing.

When he got up to do his promotion kata you could tell he was feeling really bad. He threw his first strike and then started coughing again and had to start the kata over.

But after that fit of coughing he did what was truly the most amazing, powerful and real kata I have ever seen (and I've seen some pretty good ones). As long as I live I don't know if I'll ever be able to forget that kata.

Two days into Kinmen. Or perhaps I should say the first two days in Kinmen. From the moment I landed God gave me a love for the island and it's people. On my second day there I told BonnieJean that I was considering staying on for more than the six months I had signed up for.

Easter Sunday Funeral. Two easters ago I was in Kinmen. We had a sunrise easter service in Shun Why and then came back to Jing Chun for normal service. As I walked home from church that day I felt awesome. Christ was alive and I was rejoicing in the wonderful hope we have of salvation. As I came out of an ally way I was stopped by a large group of people walking down the street. Loud drums were playing and fire crackers were going off to keep evil spirits away. A large casket was being moved down the road and the mourners follewed it, their faces covered. The utter hopelesness of the whole scene cut right to my heart. They don't have that hope that I do.

Hmm...Kinda a sad note to leave y'all on....but I need to get back to studying. I'll try and write some more at a later time. In the meantime....somebody comment! please?

Here's an essay I wrote for Honors Seminar. I thought it turned out pretty well. (Wouldn't it be great if Dr. Ford found this online and then said that I must have stolen the essay from this JJF fellow?)

------------------------------------------------

Compare and contrast two books: one that Adler would regard as “light reading” and one that he would regard as worthy of marking up. Indicate the primary differences between these books in terms of their diction, level of discourse, insight, purpose and scholarship.

In this essay I will be looking at two of my favorite books. For light reading I will examine All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot and for heavy I will examine Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. I will contend that although they are somewhat similar and both of great value, they differ primarily in the areas of presentation and attention to objections.

The first and most striking thing about these two authors is their similarity. Both are British men of some education. Both men lived through and were dramatically affected by the Second World War. Both present a way life, or a way of looking at life: Lewis the Christian view of life and Herriot the rural farmer of 1930’s-40’s England. And both of them present their view with great enthusiasm, being themselves convinced that it is indeed a good way to live life.

Where, then, do they differ? The primary difference can be seen in the way that the author goes about presenting his view of the world. Lewis rushes his topic head-on: his purpose is clear from the beginning, his points are easily outlined and discussed, and he very much takes the format of a theology teacher in a college classroom: he has important, heavy material to cover and he needs to do it by ten o’clock. There is a logical progression to his arguments that could very easily be put into a power point presentation. In contrast, Herriot is in no hurry at all. He lights a pipe and begins to weave stories which are not even in chronological order and would be a nightmare to power point. No purpose is ever stated and at first it seems there never was one to begin with: you are simply listening to an old man talk about what he has seen over the years. Yet Herriot is saying something, and as you read further you begin to pick it out piece by piece, like piecing a shredded bit of newspaper back together. Slow down he tells us. Life is not about one-upping the Jones’, it’s about hot Yorkshire pudding and satisfying work

So while Lewis pounds his desk and presses forward, using only a short illustration here and there, Herriot is nothing but illustration: a huge painting which you are watching him draw. This is why Herriot takes a lot more pages to say not nearly as much as Lewis does (which is not necessarily a bad thing).

Perhaps we can think of Lewis as a mathematician: he is describing something in as hard a way as he can. He measures angles and writes his proofs on the chalkboard, and when a student has a question or disagreement, he stops all and addresses that issue. All the while Herriot is standing before an easel drawing his vision of the world and we are merely watching him, with little or no influence on what he does, for ultimately he is not doing it for us and does not particularly care if we agree with him.

This can be seen in Lewis’ almost continual attention to objections. In fact chapter 2 of his work is titled “Some Objections”. He regularly stops and tells us what his opponents have to say about his points and shows us where or how their reasoning is wrong. His main purpose in writing is to convince us. From his perspective these objections are very much worth noting, for they have the potential to render his efforts fruitless.

Herriot, meanwhile, is not in the business of convincing anyone. Objections to his view of life are almost never mentioned and very rarely addressed. When he does answer them it is not in the format of How this objection is based on a misunderstanding of the following principles but the same format he uses throughout: story. He takes us with him to a small part of the painting that shows people living according to a different vision, walks us down a street or two and then returns us to his vision without so much as a comment on what we just saw.

So who has written the better book? Both are vitally important. The painting gives us a vision of what the math has proven. Neither is much use without the other. The math gives us faith in what we are doing, but who can pursue a mathematical formula as a way of life? What does it really look like? A painting is needed to show us. Yet a painting without the math is against our nature to pursue, for how can we know that this vision can be made into reality? We must have both.

This, then, is the critical difference: that of the mathematician and the painter. Heavy reading is written to prove something, while lighter has been written because it is something the painter has thought beautiful or useful and he simply hopes that we find it so as well.

All quotes of Fred Allen (no idea who he is, but they're funny!)

---I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

---I learned law so well, the day I graduated I sued the college, won the
case, and got my tuition back.

---I have just returned from Boston. It is the only thing to do if you
find yourself up there.

---I can't understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when
he can easily buy one for a few dollars.

---Some movie stars wear their sunglasses even in church. They're afraid
God might recognize them and ask for autographs.

---Television is a medium because anything well done is rare.

---The last time I saw him he was walking down lover's lane holding his own hand.

---What's on your mind, if you will allow the overstatement?

So the Croc Hunter is dead. At the risk of sounding totally cold hearted and callous, I must say that I do not really feel sorry for the man. It's kinda like the guys who walk high wires without nets...when they fall (and they all eventually do) you just shake your head at their stupidity and move on. I do feel very sorry for his children, but as for his wife and friends who all supported his stupid behaviour...well, that's simply what happens when you have habits like that.

School is still going well. I have my first real exam tomorrow...chapters 1-4 in General Cell Biology. I'm going to be doing some more study once I get off the computer, but I'm feeling pretty prepared for it. I've actually come to like the proffessor a little more once he started talking about more concrete things. His thinking is rather circular when it comes to the big things, but he is good at explaining the technical stuff.

Music Appriciation is somewhat odd. Still, I guess it's good to have an easy class. Honors Seminar is fun at times and odd at times. I'll be giving my first speech for speech class on the 25th...I'm looking forward to that. It will be a 5-6 minute informative speech...I think I'll probably talk about some of the different types of Chinese characters. If I can fit that topic into 5-6 minutes, of course...I might have to try something a little smaller.

Being back at karate is really awesome. I wish I had time to go out to visit some of the other dojos more often, but I don't. :(

Thursday we started classes again at Gym City. It was totally insane for a few minutes but still fun. I taught a little kids class (6 years old and up...haven't worked with kids that small for some time!), then a boys class (I wasn't actually supposed to be teaching that class but the real teacher couldn't make it that night: we had fun anyway) and then the final half of a girls 12 and up class.

我正在很想家!!! Man oh man do I miss Kinmen! And it doesn't help that my team mates just arrived back in Taiwan only a few days ago. :( We watched "Around the world in 80 days" the other day (funny but stupid movie) and I felt like crying just to hear people speaking Chinese again.

Yesturday Ethan and I went into Tulsa with a group called "Mission Tulsa" to a government housing complex and did a "back door Bible club" thing. It was really fun. We juggled and got a really good response from that. It was nice to have the chance to warm up my Christian juggling routines in a very relaxed situation after not doing them for so long.

Ok, I've got to write a couple emails and then do some more studying. Talk to y'all later!

Ok, no time for a real update, so instead I will post what I wrote in response to the question "What is Wisdom?" for honors class. If it seems disjointed I'm sorry.

What is Wisdom?

Wisdom is the ability to discern what is right and proper. It is related to but very different from knowledge. Knowledge is merely a collection of lifeless facts and findings: something that even a computer can have. Wisdom, on the other hand, is the ability to take knowledge and make judgments which do not themselves come from that knowledge.

So, while knowledge is needed for wisdom (or at least for wisdom to be shown), wisdom is something that does not itself reside in knowledge. Even with all the knowledge in the world about stem cell research available to a person, he could not from that information alone, discover whether it is right or not to use embryos for the research.

Wisdom comes in two forms, although one is in fact a derivative or shadow of the other. The first is what Socrates refers to as “some wisdom greater than human” (Apology 20b), or which I will call Divine wisdom. This is the highest of all wisdom, as it is that of the Creator and is the perspective of the One who created and understands every detail of the universe.

The second form of wisdom is human wisdom. This wisdom is the inferior of the two, yet finds its ultimate source in Divine wisdom. Contrary to the beliefs of the Calvinists, who hold that humans are completely fallen and without any good at all separate from God, I believe that by looking at the world we can see that everybody has what has been called “The spark of the Divine”: an innate ability to understand and do good. Contained in this Spark of the Divine is our capacity for human wisdom. So, while incomplete, human wisdom can, in fact, divine right from wrong. Differences between Divine wisdom and human wisdom come from either the fallen nature of human beings or the incomplete perspective that we have on the world.

If wisdom is something that we all naturally have, foolishness is not the lack of wisdom, but rather it is the despising of that wisdom which we already have and the Divine wisdom from which it comes.

Our computer got a virus, so there is no computer (and therefore no internet) at home. So I'm writing this from college. Which is why it will be a very short update.

College is going well so far. Honors Seminar is strange in that it's such an undefined topic. Honors Government is frustrating because of my raving liberal nut proffessor, but at the same time I don't mind too much because he's got a well organized class, and has laid out the pathway to an "A" pretty clearly. Honors Music Apprication is fun (the professor is cool) and doesn't seem like it will take much work. General Cell Bio. is fun to read (the textbook) but the professor isn't all that great. "Read the first couple or three chapters" he tells us for the weekend. Or "Science is what scientist do." Huh? Is it two or three chapters? And you can't use the word your defining in the definition (duh!)

Still, I'm having a good time and understanding stuff...course it's only the first week, so we'll see what I have to say about 8 weeks down the line.

For now that's all. Love y'all, bye.

Baseball is REALLY boring.

Mind numbingly boring.

Like, I mean, BORING.

Howdy there again folks. I've been home for three two weeks now! It's amazing really...feels like I've been home longer than that...and Taiwan really seems another life away. I am enjoying being with my family more than can be said. Being at the dojo is wonderful...my kata and fighting need a lot of work, but it's just great to be there. Drinking Swan's milk is of course awesome. And I've started working at Gym City again, which is really fun...I'd kinda forgotten how much I missed working there.

At the same time, I REALLY, SUPER miss Taiwan! I miss Chinese (a LOT!) And I miss how I had everything back in Taiwan figured out! I'm having to go through setting everything back up for life in the states...bank, phone, college, car insurance...even where I hang my clothes! Not to mention the team...esp hanging out with Drew. And of course all my friends in 金門.

Chera has been visiting us for the past week. We've been having a hoot with her. A few days ago we went to see Over the Hedge...I liked it. Nothing really original in the plot or anything, but it had fun and interesting characters, so it was still an enjoyable watch.

I took a CLEP test on Friday so I can get out of taking Freshmen Comp. Since it's with an essay I won't be getting my score back for a few weeks. If I did good on the multiple choice answer part of the test then I'll get 3 credit hours for Comp I. If I also get a good score on my essey then I'll get 6 credit hours for Comp I and Comp II. Tuesday I went to TCC and took the Chinese test, which I passed with 100 points. So I'll be going into the intermediate class during the second half of the semester.

Ok, I've got to go to bed now. It's almost 11 o'clock. To Samuel living in 金門 that would mean almost nothing, but to the Samuel at home with Dad wanting everybody in bed at a decent hour, that means it's night-night time.

I’m back home! YEA! It’s really awesome being back home…and really strange. Everything is in English! Everybody is fat! (really fat) All the kids speak perfect English…and none of them stare at me as I walk past.

I’m having a hoot being with the family again. Yesterday I went with BJ and Anna to Eggberts and had lunch and then we went to the theater, met up with Ethan and watched Pirates 2: Dead Man’s Chest. Wow…that was really cool. I can’t wait for the next one. Then we went to karate class, which was really cool. It was awesome to see all the folks I haven’t seen in so long. And man, I’ve got a lot of work to do in karate to get my kata and fighting back up to the level is used to be at. Today and tomorrow we don’t have many big plans…then Thursday I’m hoping to go into Tulsa and take my Chinese test….(pray for that!)

Getting home was interesting. I got in on a flight from Taiwan to LAX on stand by. I asked them about my flights on to Tulsa and they said “no time! Just go to the Delta desk at LAX and they will get it worked out for you!” So I ran (literally) to catch the plane and when I landed in LAX there was no flight for me. Delta didn’t want to mess with my ticket because it was from China Airlines. China Airlines didn’t want to mess with it because it was for a Delta flight. I had to run back and forth between their counters about eighty million times. But finally I got a flight for the next morning. They wouldn’t pay for my hotel that night (drat) but really, paying a total of $85 in order to get home two weeks early isn’t a bad trade off.

Ok, I’ve got to go now. Bye y’all!

About this time last week I was getting really frustrated with the ABC's and King Car...I went running and was listening to my "running" mix on my ipod...this song started playing. It discribed my situation so well that I listened to it like three more times.

So here it is. Parts that apply to me are in bold.

By Myself---Linkin Park


What do I do to ignore them behind me?
Do I follow my instincts blindly?
Do I hide my pride / from these bad dreams
And give in to sad thoughts that are maddening?
Do I / sit here and try to stand it?
Or do I / try to catch them red - handed?
Do I trust some and get fooled by phoniness,
Or do I trust nobody and live in loneliness?
Because I can’t hold on / when I’m stretched so thin
I make the right moves but I’m lost within
I put on my daily façade but then
I just end up getting hurt again

by myself [myself]
I ask why, but in my mind
I find I can’t rely on myself

[myself]
I ask why, but in my mind
I find I can’t rely on myself

I can’t hold on
To what I want when I’m stretched so thin
It’s all too much to take in
I can’t hold on
To anything watching everything spin
With thoughts of failure sinking in

If I
Turn my back I’m defenseless
And to go blindly seems senseless
If I hide my pride and let it all go on / then they’ll
Take from me ‘till everything is gone
If I let them go I’ll be outdone
But if I try to catch them I’ll be outrun
If I’m killed by the questions like a cancer
Then I’ll be buried in the silence of the answer

[by myself]
[myself]
I ask why, but in my mind
I find I can’t rely on myself
[myself]
I ask why, but in my mind
I find I can’t rely on myself

I can’t hold on
To what I want when I’m stretched so thin
It’s all too much to take in
I can’t hold on
To anything watching everything spin
With thoughts of failure sinking in

How do you think / I’ve lost so much
I’m so afraid / I’m out of touch
How do you expect / I will know what to do
When all I know / Is what you tell me to
Don’t you (know)
I can’t tell you how to make it (go)
No matter what I do, how hard I (try)
I can’t seem to convince myself (why)
I’m stuck on the outside

How do you think / I’ve lost so much
I’m so afraid / I’m out of touch
How do you expect / I will know what to do
When all I know / Is what you tell me to
Don’t you (know)
I can’t tell you how to make it (go)
No matter what I do, how hard I (try)
I can’t seem to convince myself (why)
I’m stuck on the outside

I can’t hold on
To what I want when I’m stretched so thin
It’s all too much to take in
I can’t hold on
To anything watching everything spin
With thoughts of failure sinking in

I can’t hold on
To what I want when I’m stretched so thin
It’s all too much to take in
I can’t hold on
To anything watching everything spin
With thoughts of failure sinking...




*grins* But that's all ok now...'cause God pulled me out of that situation. :) Now I should probably go talk to Fuga and see what he's done about my ticket...

Wow. God is truly amazing. Sometimes I get a little bit annoyed with the statement "God did something I could never have even imagined." 'cause I'm like "oh come on, surely you could have at least imagined it!"

But God has done something that I truly never could have imagined. Perhaps those of you who have not worked with King Car will not totally understand this next part, but those of you who have most certainly will.

God has worked things out so that left the ABC camps before the scheduled time and if things work out as far as re-scheduling my ticket, I will even be going home early. And yet I still have a good relationship with King Car. I am leaving with their consent and even support.

This is truly impossible. This simply doesn't happen. Perhpas sometime I'll write out the story of what happened in ABC camps and why it was that Ginger and I needed to leave and how God worked everything out for us...but not now. Now I'm going to go have lunch.

And tonight I can sleep without worrying which ABC is out getting drunk...

I'm leaving.

This place I love, these people I love...tomorrow I'm leaving it all. Today has been rather strange...I'll be walking down the street and suddenly it will hit me...this is probably the last time I'll walk down this street for a long time. A friend will wave at me and I'll wave back, wondering if I'll ever see that person again. I went to the candy store today to get some prizes for camp and there was Banana, one of my students from Sunday school. I bought him some candy too...who knows when I'll have the chance to do that again?

I went to church after camp today and said goodbye to Joy and Samuel and Lin and Kuyu. That was tough...really tough. Then I just went into the church and sat there for a while. I know it's just a building, but that place means a lot to me. Then I had to go say good bye to Lucy. I stayed at her place for about and hour and then had to leave. As I walked away she yelled after me "Samuel! The fog is big!" (long story...BJ will probably get it though)

I stopped by my favorite fruit stand and bought an apple on the way home and said good bye to the owner. There's so many small friendship like that that I have here that make it so hard to leave. I got to thinking about it the other day...I literally know several thousand people here on this island.

The closer I get to leaving, the greater my longing for my home back in the States becomes. I can't wait to get to the Tulsa airport and see my family. I can't wait to drink Swan's Dairy milk. I can't wait to bow into the dojo at BattleCreek.

Tired.

Hating King Car.

Missing Andrew, Lucas, Megan and Rebekah.

Wishing Andrew was leading this camp and I was just a follower, like we usually do.

Not wanting to leave Kinmen this Saturday.

Wanting to go home as soon as I do leave Kinmen.

Pray for me please. Pray that I keep my focus on serving the people I'm leading.

Random thoughts of a guy who should be in bed:

--One of the coolest compliments you can get is when somebody who has good English chooses to speak Chinese to you. Recently Kiwi (who lived in the States for many years and has almost perfect English) had several conversations with me in Chinese. *grins* Then tonight Annie, a math teacher who lived in England for many years, held a very long conversation with me in Chenglish. *big grin again*

--Aboriganals really got all the good looks. Seriously.

--There's some kids who lived near the Jr. high that love to say "hello!" to any of us that walk by. It can make your day to have 4 or 5 three year olds running in your direction yelling "hello!" and giving you a high five.

--A little further down the same road is a group of kids who love to arrest me. One time they asked me where I was going and I told them I was going to steal a pizza. Ever since then they all come running when they see me and shoot me and yell at me and yell for the police. Last week they tied me up with a rope they had near hand and tried to drag me into their house (I didn't really want to go into their house, so I slipped out of the rope...it wasn't exactly tied tightly).

--BJ, did I tell you that they've torn down the termite building at church? And started construction on the new one? :)

--Gossip may not be right, but it certainly is interesting at times.

--I had super with Claudia and Normal on Friday night. It's really fun to hang out with people who are obviously in love but they can be in the same room without being totally wrapped up in each other to the point that nobody else can talk to them. Norman and Claudia are a really cool couple and I'm going to miss hanging out with them.

--Some jokes only make sense in Chinese. Picture this: smelly fish vender falls on top of flower expert. She says "Wow, you smell so beatiful!" He replies "You are so...so...hello." In Chinese that's halarious. In English it doesn't make any sense.

--I want to fight. I haven't been fighting enough lately. I can't wait to get home and get back into karate!

--Mr. 張, the coolest teacher I've ever worked with, says he's going to retire in a year or two. Drat. I was hoping he might still be teaching when I got back from college. 'Course he's been teaching for something like 40 years, so I guess if he wants to retire he can.

--I just had a good talk to Joh E about plans for large group during camps. He had some really good ideas and it was good to just talk my plans over with somebody as well. I feel like I've got a better grasp on what it is I'm going to be doing now.

--I'm experiancing more fear over going back to the States than I ever had about coming to Taiwan. I think culture shock is going to be really big this time...after only six months I had a lot of culture shock last year. Oh boy.

--Reviewed our summer sceduale with Ginger last night. Looks like we'll have at least one day a week (or most of a day) for resting. Thank you God!

--Last Wednesday I had to say good-bye to my Wednesday night high school class. That was really, really hard. Lots of crying.

--It looks like I might actually be able to fit all my stuff into my suitcases. Wow.

--Nothing feels better than going to Lucy's and getting a mesage. Nothing.

--For the week I'm doing camps in Kinmen I really, really hope we can get our boxed lunches from Monkey's. I'm going to miss that place a lot when I leave.

--Susan is going to be at the High School dorm next year. It's really strange to think of the dorm without her.

--I'm excited about Chera being in Oklahoma when I get home. But I hope I'm actually alive enough at that point to get to visit with her.

--Tomorrow is my last day at 金湖...is that a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not sure. I'm certainly not going to miss teaching there, but there's some really, really cool kids at that school. I'm going to miss classes 501 and 504. I'm not going to miss 502.

--I'm going to bed now. Good night!

Deep Conversations with a 5th grader

5th grade girl: "Oh my, Samuel has chest hair!" (for your information, I was wearing a polo shirt and the top two buttons were undone...I was not walking around school without a shirt on) "Chest hair is disgusting."

Me: "No, it's really handsome!"

5th grade girl: "I think it's disgusting. But lots of girls think it's really manly."

Another 5th grade girl: "Why do foreigners have so much chest hair anyway?"

5th grade girl: "It's 'cause they're more closely related to monkeys."

Me: "We didn't come from monkeys!"

5th grade girl: "Yes we do!"

Me: "You really think we came from monkeys?"

5th grade girl: "If not, then where did we come from? What, did God create it all?"

Me: "Of course!"

5th grade girl: "Well, if God created it all, then what about hobbits?"

EasyWay girls are STUPID. Apparently God spent so much time giving them good looks that he forgot to insert their brains.

Last week during Chinese class Joy decided to buy drinks for us. So she used Rebekah's phone to call and order. About HALF AN HOUR later they call and ask "where are you guys again?" Now this is rather strange, considering that their drink stands is with TEN FEET of the Jr. High.

"You don't know where the Jr. high is?" Rebekah asked in amazment.

"Oh, I know that. But how do I get in?"

" You don't know where the entrance is?"

"No."

Now this is also supprising, considering that she could follow the big sign that says "Jing Chun Jr. High school, this way" with an arrow pointing in the right direction. Apparently this was too hard for her to understand.

So Rebekah gives her very detailed instructions, THREE TIMES, on how to get to the entrance. She then has to give detailed instructions several times on how to find the dorm (it would seem that "next to the gym" was stretching her mental abilities and it took awhile to sink in).

HALF AN HOUR later, she finally shows up. And of cousre, she has no change. The total was NT$215, and we were having a little trouble coming up with exact change, so I offered her $220. And the idoit had the nerve to refuse!

Or perhaps she couldn't do that math to figure out I was giving her five NT. Yea, that's probably it.

Ok Mom, remember that song "Fairy Tale" that you like? Here's what happens if you plug it into an online translator...lol.

Fairy tale - Wang Kuangliang
How long forgot to have has not heard to you to me to say again you most loved the story I had thought very was long I to start to fluster is I is mistakenly any
---------------------------
you to cry to me to say perhaps in the fairy tale all was I which deceived people is impossible is your prince you can understand from you said will like me later my sky star all shining
---------------------------
me to be willing that angel which turned in the fairy tale you to love to open both hands to turn the wing to protect your you to have believed we could like in the fairy tale story happiness and are joyful are result
--------------------------
I must turn that angel which in the fairy tale you loved to open both hands Turns the wing to protect your you to have believed we can like in the fairy tale story happiness and joyful are result
--------------------------
I can turn that angel which in the fairy tale you loves to open both hands to turn the wing to protect your you to have believed we can like in the fairy tale story happiness and are joyful are the result write our result together

ROFLOL! That's just too funny for words. Below I've written my own translation, which makes a little more sense. :)

I've forgotten how long it's been since you told your favorite story to me.
I thought about this for a long time, and began to panic. Is it that I've done something wrong again?
You were crying when you told me that the fairly tale was all a lie, and that I couldn't possibly be your prince.
Perhaps you don't understand that from the day you told me you loved me, the stars in my sky have been shining brightly.

Chorus: I wish* I could change into the angel from the story that you love, and open my arms as wings to be your gaurdian.
You should believe that we can be like the fairy tale, and have a "happy ever after" ending.

*second time "want" third time "can".

And finally, here it is in Chinese.

忘了有多久 再沒聽到你 對我說你最愛的故事
我想了很久 我開始慌了 是不是我又做錯了甚麼
# 你哭著對我說 童話裡都是騙人的 我不可能是你的王子
也許你不會懂 從你說愛我以後 我的天空星星都亮了

我願變成童話裡 你愛的那個天使 張開雙手 變成翅膀守護你
你要相信 相信我們會像童話故事裡 幸福和快樂是結局

Repeat #我要變成童話裡 你愛的那個天使 張開雙手 變成翅膀守護你
你要相信 相信我們會像童話故事裡 幸福和快樂是結局

我會變成童話裡 你愛的那個天使 張開雙手 變成翅膀守護你
你要相信 相信我們會像童話故事裡 幸福和快樂是結局 一起寫我們的結局

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSICA!

Girl, I really miss you. Often when we're all together as a family it seems like somebody is missing...there will always be an empty spot in our home. But I'm sure you're doing a lot better up there. I love you and happy birthday!

PS Had you lived I suspect that my birthday card to you would have been late. So I thought it fitting that this message also be late. ;-)

from http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06/09/molester.execution.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Oklahoma is 5th state to OK death for repeat molesters
Legal scholars doubt law is constitutional

Friday, June 9, 2006; Posted: 11:36 p.m. EDT (03:36 GMT)

OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma (AP) -- Oklahoma on Friday became the fifth state to allow the death penalty for certain sex crimes, although legal scholars questioned the constitutionality of the new state law.

Under the measure signed by Gov. Brad Henry, anyone convicted twice for rape, sodomy or lewd molestation involving children under 14 can face the death penalty.

South Carolina's governor signed a similar law on Thursday allowing the death penalty for offenders convicted twice of raping children younger than 11. Louisiana, Florida and Montana also have laws allowing the death penalty for certain sex crimes.

Defense attorneys and death penalty experts said the laws defy recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have scaled back the death penalty's application.

Barbara Bergman, president of the Washington-based National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said Supreme Court decisions have made it clear that the death penalty is reserved for someone who has taken another life.

"I'm not saying that raping a child is not a horrible crime, but no one has died," said Bergman, who was part of the defense team that avoided the death penalty for Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols following his 2004 conviction on 161 murder counts.

David Brook, a law professor at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, said the measure might actually put a child rape victim's life at risk.

"The last message you want to give an offender who has the life of a child in his hands is you might as well kill the child because he's already got the death penalty," said Brook, who runs the Virginia Capital Case Clearing House, which assists lawyers in death penalty cases. "This is a very stupid message."

No one convicted of a sex offense has been executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment 30 years ago, though one inmate is on death row in Louisiana following his 2003 conviction for raping an 8-year-old girl.

South Carolina's new law is named for 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, a Florida girl who was kidnapped, raped and suffocated last year by a registered sex offender.

"Jessie's Law is about sending a very clear message that there are some lines you do not cross, and that if those lines are crossed the penalties will be severe," said South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

---------------------------------

This brings up several issues about which I feel rather strong.

1 The phrase "repeat child molester" should be something of a joke. After the first time they ought to throw out the key. Same goes for rape.

2 Rape or molestation is a horrible, aweful crime, yes. But I'm afraid I have taken a different side on this issue. I am opposed to death penalty for anything other than murder. While rape is horrible, no life was taken. Some might argue that emotionally it can be compared to murder, but I would hold otherwise. A rape person can still laugh, can still feel the wind, and still enjoy life. It's certainly difficult, but it is possible to move on. There isn't any "moving on" after you die. There's no counciling that's going to bring you back to your loved ones once you are dead. So I hold that rape is not on a level with murder.

In addition to that, I don't see that we have the right to use capital punishment for rapist. As my understanding of the covenent with Noah goes, God said that "whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."

3 "I'm not saying that raping a child is not a horrible crime, but no one has died," said Bergman, who was part of the defense team that avoided the death penalty for Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols following his 2004 conviction on 161 murder counts."

Remember how important it is to maintain a good reputation. This lady just made a totally true statement that I in fact agree with. But her assosiation with a murderer renders even her TRUE statement to actually give support to the opposite side.

Ok, I'm going to bed now. Night.

Pastor Samuel and his kids (this picture about a year old).




Places, people and situations I miss summed up very well in this picture. I hate teaching elemterary. I miss Jr. high.

No time to post (I'm leaving for school in 15 minutes) but I thought I'd share this picture really quick with y'all. If you ever get the chance to go to Kenting, go! It's awesome.

I AM: A forigner. I know I should do the spiritual thing and write "a Christian" first, but seriously, that's how I'm viewed over here most of the time and it kinda gets to you after a while.
I WANT: To see my family! To speak Chinese like a native. To speak English like a native (I don't anymore)! To go see the students at 秀才. To buy a super archer coat. To see Jay, Larry, Josiah, Mr. Murry, Jason, Mrs. Murry, Alica, Mr. Garza, Brittany, Mr. Burrnett, Mark and many other karate friends. My phone to stop having problems. Half of the students (or more) in 601 to die.
I WISH: I could stay in Kinmen next year.
I HATE: That call-in talk show host that my bus driver likes to listen to. Faith Hill. John McCain.
I LOVE: My family! Chinese. Swimming. Strawberry 冰沙's. Classes 602, 604 and 504. Watching Ginger's mom teach (she's darned good at it).
I MISS: MY FAMILY!!!!!! Karate. Sparring with siblings.
I FEAR: Dead bugs.
I HEAR: Rain. It's been raining for way too long.
I WONDER: Why I don't hear anything else. Tomorrow is a holiday: are all the kids in bed already?
I REGRET: Not paying attention to God and coming to Taiwan 6 months before I did.
I AM NOT: Wearing tie-dye. For once.
I DANCE: Every once in a while. One of my classes at 金湖 has a couple girls that are always trying to get me to dance, but they will never dance with me.
I SING: At random times during class. The kids think I'm weird.
I CRY: Seldom. But I am touched easily by a touching song. (that sentance sounds strange.)
I AM NOT ALWAYS: Awake. I keep a weird sceduale.
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: Leather tooled gifts. Juggling. Chinese characters (at about 600 of them right now!)
I WRITE: Chinese. I haven't written anything serious in English for a long, long time.
I CONFUSE: Tuesday for Wednesday. This morning I woke up and thought I was going to my Wednesday school.
I NEED: To take a shower.
I SHOULD: Unpack. Start laundry.
I START: Camps on July 1st.
I FINISH: My time with IBLP on Aug. 10th. The date cannot arrive soon enough.
I TAG: Mom.

I wish I could say that I took this picture myself. But I'm afraid I don't even know who took it. I handed my camera to some 4th graders and after it had changed hands about 20 times I got it back with this picture on it. Isn't it good?



So we went to 嘉義 and taught at a school for three days. It was a school with only kindergarten, 1, 2 and 3rd grade. Me and Kristin and Bethany taught 2nd grade. The first thing we saw on coming into the classroom was this.



These are the kids we taught (some of them). They were a hoot. But at the same time I'm glad I don't teach any younger than 3rd grade. I think I do better with older kids (I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY MISS MY JR HIGH STUDENTS!!!!!!!!!)



During lunch break the kids enjoyed using my water-erase markers. I had everything from "Handsome guy" and "elephant" to "beautiful woman" and "old pervert" written on me by the time they finished.



I had a very good time. I got to torment innocent children



And hang out with Daniel.



And of course Megan took it all in stride.



Super cool 1st grader.



Sunrise at 阿里山.







Did I mention that it was beautiful?



Only down side was that we had to get up at 3 am.





Ok, this post has been five days in the making because of various problems with getting the pictures up. But finally here it is!

"白目啊! Some people are very 白目!"
---Joy in Chinese class today.

Back from 嘉義...had a great time, hope to post more later.

I just got a bit of instant noodles in my eye. Spicy instant noodles. ouch.

Ok, I'm headed out to Taiwan in about half an hour. See you guys later! I'll be back on Saturday.

Howdy folks. I hope to make an actual update this time.

I've given hope of even trying to give you guys a "highlights" of Mom's trip here. We simply did too much. But a few things that where REALLY fun:

---Translating between Mom and Lucy as Lucy taught mom some about mesaging (sp?). We talked for over an hour, with me translating between the two. After we left I found that I was thinking in Chinese and had to translate everything I was thinking into English in order to talk to Mom!

---The Saturday before we left we spent the whole day with James, speaking English the whole time. Not long after I went to bed I got a call from the guy who was driving Mom to the airport. He was asking me (in Chinese) if I could speak Chinese. I understood everything he was saying, but after all day with Mom and James, I was in English mood and kept answer him in English! It went something like "你會說中文嗎?"

"Yes, a little bit."

"什麼? 你會說中文嗎?"

I felt pretty dumb when I finally woke up enough to realize I was talking to him in English. I rather sheepishly told him that I could speak Chinese, but only a little bit. :-X

---The Monday before Mom left she and I were sitting in my room. I was on the computer and I think she was sitting at the desk writing something. At any rate, I got an email from the guy in charge of the honors program at RSU that simply asked me to call his office. Dude, that was an email to put tension in the air. Did he want to tell me that I was in the program? Or was he simply telling those people who hadn't made it in that they hadn't made it? The day for telling us if we had gotten in was way past and I had figured that I hadn't gotten the scholarship. But after Mom and I jumped up and down a few times (to release tension) I called him. And I was in! Dude, that was a really cool moment!

Then he emailed me the offical paper work on it and everything and ...ouch. Problem. They wanted us to live on campus for the first year. Now it's only like 15 minutes from our house, but still, after being on the other side of the world from my family for so long and knowing that I will probably be coming back after I finish college, I was NOT wanting to live outside of the house! I called Dr. Ford right back and asked him if it would be at all possible for an exception to be made for me. He said he would talk to some people about it. Mom and I prayed about it and decided that it would still be worth it to take the scholarship even if I did have to live at the college for the first year. But a few days later Dr. Ford emailed me back saying that since I had already been out of the home for some time and since my home was so close to the college anyway, they would make an exception for me. Yes! Praise God!

---There is a fruit stand a few minutes walk down the road where I normally buy my fruit. The guy who owns the stand and his wife are very sweet people. So one day when we stopped to buy some fruit I introduced my Mom to them. The lady was very interrested in asking my Mom which of the fruits that they sold were availible in the States and which weren't. Most of them are fruits that we have at Wal-Mart, but Mom pointed out one fruit that she had never seen before. The owner very kindly gave one to Mom!

But we didn't eat it that night...and within a few days it had gotten mouldy! We didn't know it had such a short shelf life! So then whenever we walked around town we would look at the other fruit shops trying to find a fruit like that (because we wanted to tell the lady what we thought of it, but we didn't dare tell her that we had let it rot!) But it turns out it is a seasonal fruit and nobody was selling it anymore! Drat.

---Visiting 秀才 was awesome. I wish I could move that school here to Kinmen. The kids and the staff are all so cool. Found out that Jamie is pregnant! Cool beans!

---Got to see Jack again. Vivian was having some sort of eye problem and couldn't come to meet us, but we had a really good time in spite if her absence.

---Hanging out at the night market with Laura was SOO much fun!

---We went to the underground mall at Taipie Main Station. There was a store that sold rocks and minerals. While we were in there, some Japanese ladies came in and were looking at stuff. The owner was speaking to them in English. They understood him and could respond in English, but it obviously wasn't very easy for them. At any rate, when they asked how much an item cost, the store keeper turned to his friend and asked him (in Chinese) "Hey, how much do we add for a forigner?" I laughed out loud and translated what he had said for Mom. They both became very nervous: they didn't know if the Japanese ladies had understood my translation. I listened pretty carefully to everything they said after that and they didn't try to rip the ladies off anymore. lol

Ok, I'm getting off now. I'll try to update my prayer blog later today. Now I've got to go get my toenail worked on...stupid thing is infected again! Really annoying.

Bye!

Mom and Rita. This girl has totally stolen my heart.




Me and Jamie, our contact person at the school. She's awesome.



Class 801...probably the coolest class at the school (even though I really love my 9th graders).

Ok, the big news that everybody is wanting to hear...


I BOUGHT NEW SHOES!






































Ok, so that's not it. The big news is that I have gotten a full scholarship for going to RSU. It totally covers tuition, books, and fees. It's four years and only requires that I maintain a 3.25 GPA.

Sweet, no?

With some students out near the basketball courts.


She's really, actually here!



We just finished teaching class 901...man, I miss those kids!

Howdy there! I am posting in order to get some information that is being held ransom. Apparently something happened to the family on Sunday, but they won't tell us about it until I post. So here it goes.

MOM IS HERE! It's awesome! She's handling the cultural changes and stuff very well. The students all like her, although some of them can't seem to get that she doesn't speak Chinese and keep asking her questions and expecting her to answer them. lol

The first weeek of teaching (last week) Mom taught all the kids how to draw a face. It was very fun and they loved it. This week I've done most of the teaching and Mom has watched. Tuesday was Children's Day. Since we don't have that in the States we talked to the kids about what an Amarican birthday party is like...then we played pin the tail on the donkey.

Yesterday was Tomb Sweeping day and so we didn't have any classes. I took Mom to Small Kinmen and we went around the island with Linda and Becky (two former students of mine) and their mom (who is a taxi driver). It was a hoot (I keep saying that).

Next week we're going to Taipie. I'm getting excited about that. And of course we'll be going to 秀才 Jr. high...I can't wait to go back there!

Saturday we had family treatment with a kid from 金湖. Sunday Selena and two of her siblings took us touring...we had a great time together.

Love you guys! Bye!

Quote of the day: "Ginger, I am going to eat my pen!"---Joy, in Chinese class.

Wearing: My falling apart dress shoes (really need to buy a new pair, but it's so much easier to just not do it...), the pants I bought at hang 10 on Christmas, a polo shirt that I first bought when I went to work at Microtel, my hunter orange jacket (the one I left in Nantou after winter camps and Daniel brought it to Thailand to give to me...) the watch I bought at the night market in Taipie and the green braclet that a student gave me at the end of last school year (and which I haven't taken off since then).

Currently reading: A 1st elem. chinese textbook for Chinese class. I tried reading an English book the other day but found I simply don't have time to do it.

Listening to: DC talk. I felt like some Christian music instead of Chinese tonight.

Last movie watched: part of Uptown Girls that the kids were watching downstairs. Or maybe it was part of Treasure Planet in Chinese. I can't remember. Also saw part of a Korean horrow movie the other day...that was really strange. But I've found that watching Japanese or Korean movies is really good for my character reading: if I want to even guess at what they are saying then I have to read the characters, 'cause I can't understand what they are saying.

Number of windows open on computer: 7. 2 Conquers windows (an online RPG game...I'm letting my character sit in the training grounds and slowly level up during the night). 2 MSN chats with directions for what I'm supposed to teach tomorrow morning. Anna's blog. This window and Windows Media player (music).

Feeling: buttery. I just ate a bag of popcorn, but a lot of the kernals didn't pop (our microwave has issues) so I had about twice the amount of butter on teach peice of popcorn. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm going to run to the fridge and get a drink to help wash all that butter down.

Random thoughts: Bible study went really good today. I wonder what is going on with Susan: she's been in a really upsetible mood lately. I love my Monday 3rd grade. Lin looks kinda strange with his new hair do. For all my show of being blunt, I actually find myself not saying things that I should be saying at times because I'm too afraid of looking rude. I need to visit Lucy tomorrow. I wish Coral would reply to my text message. I'm going to juggle for two of Megan's classes tomorrow: that should be fun. I think my Monday school is iligally teaching English to their 2nd grade. Few things are more fun and more relaxing than going to Sandy's house and watching a movie with Jean, Jennifer, Ginger and assorted kids. I wonder if King car would buy this program for me. It's really useful. Why does the Chinese word for secretary (幹事) look like it means "f-ing situation"? I love visiting the technical high school. I absolutly love the kids in my Wednesday night class. I wish my archer was a level 70 (only 6 levels to go!) Daniel is a cool guy. And Kristen is a cool girl. I wonder what JC is up to right now. I'm going to be getting together with a fellow next Saturday to spar: my old sparring partner is now in Taiwan. I really miss Mr. Murry, Larry and Josian. Ginger came up with a really perverted sentance the other day: "I have a friend named Josiah who shot a cow with his gun" (you get that one BJ? lol) 金湖's 604 is the coolest sixth grade ever. I need some new English games. I promised myself that I would get to bed at a decent hour tonight...wonder if that will happen. I wonder anybody is still reading this paragraph. I want to call home but their probabbly at church. A friend of mine is going to Cambodia for 10 days for about US$600...once I finish working for KingCar and come back to Taiwan I should travel around Asia some. My team is the best: Andrew and Ginger are esp. cool. I'm so glad I know English and am learning Chinese and not the other way around. I think the computer screen in the living room is going on the fritz.

Ok, I'm going to bed. I shall leave conquers running all night and if I don't get punted, I should be level 65 by morning. *crosses fingers* Please don't punt me: please!

Good night people.

Sometimes people write things that are just so much better written than you could write yourself that you just have to post links instead of trying to say it yourself. That's what I'm doing today.

Look at this post on my friend Daniel's Xanga. He describes EXACTLY how I feel.

And look at this post on my friend James' Xanga. I love the part about the sentances in the textbook.

Doctors here in Taiwan have totally bought into this idea of "if a little does well, a lot does better." One thing I had to learn when I first came here was that if a student has a huge bandage on his body somewhere, that doesn't neccacarily mean that he's been really bad hurt. Things that we would normally put a bandaid on get the full treatment over here.

So in keeping with my "try not to take medicine unless your about to die" way of doing things, I have tried my best to avoid going to the doctor. Today, however, I reached that level of "about to die" and so called Terry to take me to the doctor. He gave me about 80 million different types of medicine and wow, it is strong stuff. I've only had two doses (one of them just a few minutes ago) but I can already feel a difference.

Yea, I'm sick, btw. I've actually been trying to get sick for about a week now. Then Friday and Saturday I spent most of the day at 寧中 hanging out with my students at a sports meet. Sunday I stayed home from church and slept most of the day. Monday I went to school but only taught half of each class. And then Monday night I had to decide to call in sick for Tuesday. I hated doing that. Maybe it's just an ego thing, but I kinda take pride in the fact that I had taken only one sick day before today.

Jean gave me a pretty big home work assignment on Friday...and I haven't done anything about it yet. I really should get that done...but I'm too sick to think about it. And I really should get my home work for tomorrow's class finished as well...

Ugg. Enough about being sick. Let's talk about something else. Perhaps the fact that I forgot BJ's birthday COMPLETELY! I'm so sorry BJ! And HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Mom is coming in less than two weeks. I'm about to explode.

Cool story from Thailand...We were at the night market. While sitting with Megan and Mia at the food court we saw some the guys who were cleaning up trash. They were wearing these REALLY, REALLY BRIGHT yellowish-green t-shirts. I turned to Megan and Mai and said "wow, I really should get one of those shirts!" So I walked up to one of them and asked if he could speak English...he couldn't.

Drat. So I figured that was that. A little later most of our group met there at the food court and Daniel told me that he had been talking to some college students who spoke pretty good English, so why didn't I get them to translate for me? I didn't want to at first, but Daniel talked me into it. So I talked to the college students....they agreed to translate...I went and got the trash guys to follow me to the translators table (that was funny) and asked where I could buy the shirt.

They told me I couldn't buy it. It was their work uniform and wasn't actually for sale at the night market. But by this time I had decided I really wanted one of those shirts. In a moment of feeling very bold, I offered my t-shirt in exchange for one of theirs. Believe it or not, one of them agreed, and right there in the middle of the night market we took off our shirts and switched! Probably the funnist part of the whole thing was seeing my teammates reaction.

Another cool thing that happened was going street preaching with Isaac. Isaac is a guy who worked with KingCar last year in Nantou: he is now working in Bangkok. One night we went with him and some of his friends to Goaw Sang (sp?) road to preach. Now Goaw Sang road is a really interesting place...reminds you a lot of Vanity Fair in Pilgrims Progress. Both sides of the street are lined with bars and prostitution fronts. Everybody is drunk and high or on their way there. Cross dressers and sex changers stand on the street for you to get your picture taken with them. Preaching there was really interesting. It was really funny when one guy ran up and grabbed Isaac (who was preaching) and started to carry him off down the street. Isaac never batted an eyelash and just kept right on preaching like nothing was happening. After about twenty feet the guy put him down and walked away. It was really funny.

I am not a shopping person. The idea of going out just to spend money has never appealed to me. Or at least it never did in the States. But now I realize that it's because everything in the States is way too expensive. Shopping in Asia is fun! I've actually come to enjoy going to the night market very much. The funnist part is bargaining. While in Thailand I added a new weapon to my bargaining arsenal
: the ammused laugh. When somebody is obviously trying to rip you off, instead of saying anything about it, you just look at them and laugh. Then walk away. Almost every time they come after you and drop the price by half.

Ok, I'm going to stop now. I'm actually starting to feel good enough to maybe do some home work...night guys.

Dude, I really want to post some pictures from winter camps and from Thailand, but Hello is having issues and I can't get any pictures uploaded! So just hang on until I figure something out.

In the mean time, take a look at www.cowabduction.com

In half on hour I'm getting in a van to take me to the airport, where I will get on a plane to take me to Taipie, were I will go the airport and get on a plane to Thailand! Yea!

I'm really excited about this!

1 o'clock in the morning...tired (but not too tired) and needing to do a couple more things before going to bed.

Have to call Mom and talk to her about my interview (see below)
Have to plan for Sunday School tomorrow (what am I going to teach?)
Have to look at some books to I'm going to be showing a teacher tomorrow (and unlock the living room door to do it...)
Brush my teeth and take a shower (putting something in parenthesis just to keep the tradition...)

Last night I talked to Dr. Ford at RSU about being in the RSU Honors program. It covers all tuition, books and fees as well as giving you $500 a year. Not bad at all. It seemed to go well...he didn't actually say I was in, but he did talk about needing to have some papers signed and maybe needing to fax me some stuff...which he probably wouldn't need if I wasn't going to be accepted...right? I sure hope so at any rate.

Yesterday I had my first lesson with Jean. Jean is Ebony and Tony's mom. Ebony and Tony are my students and they go to church pretty often. Plus Ginger and I teach them (and Jennifer's two girls) on Friday (which is a hoot). At any rate, a few weeks ago Jean suggested that she and I do a Chinese/English exchange. She had a lot of stuff prepared for me on Friday and it looks like she'll be keeping me busy with a fair amount of home work. But that's not a bad thing.

Ok, now it's 3 in the morning...but I have called home and lesson planned for Sunday school in the mean time (actually brainstormed with the family for Sunday school).

This week I had my first conversation in Chinese on MSN. That's really cool. I'm at about 400 characters right now. I'd kinda like to hit 1000 by the end of the semester, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that.

I've been trying to set up a Chinese/English exchange for Monday afternoons for almost a month now. There's a girl who supposedly wanted to do it, but in spite of my repeated attempts to meet up with her, nothing has worked out. I'm starting to think she doesn't actually want to do it that bad. So tomorrow I'm going to be calling one of my friends at the college and see if she wants to do something. If I can work that out then I'll be having three Chinese classes a week.

Did I mention that I've been getting together with a guy who's done boxing and we've been sparring together? I think it's kept me from going insane: I was really starting to go crazy from 6 months away from karate. He's a pretty good fighter...but we're actually pretty evenly matched. As I expected, it's pretty tough to punch his head, but I was supprised at how easy it is to kick his head. Usually a one, two, roundhouse combination works.

It's funny how you sometimes start acting like the guy you're fighting. After a few weeks of sparring, I noticed that he was standing lower and more side ways than before, while his hands were out further. And then I realized that I had actually come up a little higher in my stance and was holding my hands closer to my head.

Ok, I'm going to take a shower. Good night.

Camp is over.

Samuel is tired.

Samuel is happy.

Samuel is hungry.

Samuel has a week off before school starts.

Samuel is really, really happy about that.

Samuel just applied for a scholarship that will get him a totally free ride at RSU. He really wants to get it.

Samuel saw the plan for summer camps and thinks they could be really good.

Samuel just saw an interesting survey thing on his sisters blog and decided to post it on his as well.

1. From where you are sitting right now, list an object that is one of each of the following colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white and black.

Red: DRIED CRANBERRIES!!! Found some of them at a store in 南投. Very happy. I also just learned that I can have my friend in Taipie buy big bags of cranberries and send them to me...I'm very happy. There aren't very many really STRONG flavors over here. Orange: My bright, bright hunter orange jacket. I am known around Kinmen as "the orange guy" for always wearing this jacket. Yellow: The cover of the 城中 year book. I miss my kids from there. Green: My green towel. Randy bought it for me when I first came to Taiwan and realised I hadn't brought a towel with me. Blue: My camera case. But it's kinda dirty blue right now...that camera has been a lot of places. Purple: La Caffe cup! I love going to La Caffe and practicing Chinese. White: My ergonomic keyboard! I hate those straight keyboards! Black: My computer. I've got a guy coming on Monday to work on it...it's got this problem of randomly restarting...very annoying.

2. What color do you wear most often? Why?

Tie-dye! Why? Because it's fun!

3. What color are your eyes? What color do you wish they were?

Brown. I'm happy with them. I wouldn't want bright blue...that scares a lot of the kids over here.

4. What color is your desktop image?

Mostly red. It's a picture of a rock and the water that I took last week down at the beach.

5. What colors are you walls and floor?

The floor is white with black speckles...and lots of laundry. We just got back from Taiwan yesterday and I haven't done laundry yet. Walls are white and the paint is falling off and the concrete has some cracks in it...they're going to have to repaint these dorm rooms soon.

Samuel will post about winter camps later. Bye!

Hey there. Camp is going pretty well. I've got two kids on my team that need to have their read ends beaten on about a every half hour basis. And Daniel told me this afternoon that the boys on my team have the combined IQ of soybeans (I told him that he shouldn't talk like that about soybeans).

Other than that, yea, things are going good. I actually am having a good time. I have several good kids on my team. I'm enjoying hanging out with Daniel. Laura is a great TA.

The highlight of the week has been seeing Cindy again. Cindy was the first friend I made in Taiwan. She's a 4th grader who's grandmother lives near the school. Last year I woul hang out with her and her cousins in the evening and play cards or juggle. I was really, really hoping that she would be here again this year and she is! And she remembered me too! That was really cool! The other cool thing is that I can talk to her now. Last time I couldn't say a word in Chinese.

Our boss, Sandy, is really, really weird. Afraid that the children might not be going to the restroom often enough, she told all the kids that not only were they required to go poop every day, but that said poop must be 13 cm long.

Ok, I really should be writing my "one year in Taiwan" post. The 25th marked one year living here in Taiwan. But I'm not going to. It will have to wait until later. Right now I'm going to just fill out a mindless internet survey (you can blame Chera for this one...)

Three Names You Go By
Bucket
帥哥 (handsome guy)
橘色的那個 (the orange thing)

Three Things That Scare You
Dead bugs
I got REALLY scared when I heard that Anna, Ethan, Naomi and Joshua had been in a wreck.
I honestly can't think of a third thing. I'm just too oblivious to be scared.

Three of Your Everyday Essentials
Internet
金城國中 school bag (carry all my stuff in it).
Chinese home work.

Three Things You Are Wearing Right Now
Bright hunter orange jacket (from whence I get name #3...honestly, people around here call me "the orange thing")
Cool watch I bought at the night market in Taipie.
Green braclet given me by a Jr. high student of mine...I wear it all the time to remind me of Jr. high.

Three People You Admire
John the Baptist
Andrew (our team leader)
Mr. Murry (karate teacher)

Three Things You Want in a Relationship
Truth
Laughs
Seriousness

Two Truths and a Lie
I just had hot pot with Megan and Ginger for super.
I didn't go to bed last night until 5:15
I just spent $10000000000000 on a new computer

Three Things about the Opposite Sex that Appeal to You
A girl who can take a solid hit and keep coming (Anna, Brittany, Alica and those two girls over at Burnett's dojo)
Deep thinker
A slightly crazy side

Three of Your Favorite Hobbies
Chinese
Juggling
Karate

Three Things You Want to do Really Badly Right Now
See my family!
Teach Jr. High
Get the scholarship I'm trying to get at RSU

Three Places You Want to go on Vacation
I want to fly to 台中, rent a moped and just drive for a week. Take whatever road seems fun, stop were it seems good and just see some of Taiwan.
Tokoyo Japan to visit my friends there
Thialand (might be going there next month...we'll see how it works out).

Three Things You Want to Do Before You Die
Master Chinese and Taiwanese
Become a karate master...not a higher belt (although that would be cool) but to trully be a master in the sense that Mr. Murry is.
See a revival in Kinmen.

Three Ways That You Are Stereotypically a Male or Female
I love to spar
I never look in a mirror
I hate to shave

From looking at my spam folder, it would seem that I'm a person in desperate need of getting my life saving perscription drugs so I can have a fuller sex life (at lower than Viagra cost!) after which I will then use about 50 name brand computer programs for which INSTANT DOWNLOAD is availible.

New Kinmen Report! Click here!

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What you see above is my end of semester project for Chinese class. Rather than take a test, Joy let us write a one page, hand written essay in Chinese. At first I was very scared by the idea, but when I sat down to actually write it, I was very happy to find out that I knew how to write all the characters I needed except for about 12. That was really cool. So I took it up to church and had Sarah and Kuyu and Lin help me get it translated. Then I took it to Jennifer (a cram school teacher friend of ours) and had her correct it. Several things got changed, but actually I was really happy with how close to correct I had been when I first wrote it.

Below I have coppied the essay from the copy I have in my computer. BTW, those of you without asain laungage support installed on your computer, can you see these characters?

我的姊姊是全世界最好的姊姊! 每一個人都很嫉妒 我有 這麼棒的姊姊.

我的姊姊很會教書. 她的學生都很愛她 . 我記得她最後一次教9 年3 班的時後 每一個女生都跟她擁抱之後才肯離開.

我的姊姊很會空手道. 有一天一個壞 學生抓住她的手然後試著折斷她的手. 她只不過打那個學生的手一下, 他十分鐘之內都不能寫字!

現在我真的很想她. 姊姊, 妳可以再來這裡嗎?