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.