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.