Ok, so we are back from Taiwan. It was an awesome week and I am extremely, very happy to be back home in Kinmen. (For those of you wondering, we actually say "Going to Taiwan" whenever we leave Kinmen and go to the large island...the people here consider themselves to be Kinmenese, not Taiwanese.)

This past week was our Thanksgiving "break". I say "break" because it wasn't really anything of the sort...but it was still a very good week. Friday we left Kinmen and went to Taow Ywen county. They hosted us at a Jr high school for troubled kids. Friday and Saturday we did touring and Sunday went back into Taipie for church. Monday we had a press conference and then from Monday to Thursday taught in the schools in the area...some really awesome schools. Then Thursday we went back to Taipie for Thanksgiving with the Chen family (an IBLP family that does ministry over here) and then Friday and Saturday mornings we had meetings and then afternoons free...Saturday afternoon we went come to Kinmen (yea!).


After an hour flight, we go off the plane and where greeted by Ben. He took us to the bus we that we drove around in for the next several days. Once on the bus I sat down near Joh-Eric, who I worked with in Memphis doing CharacterFirst! It was really good to see him again.
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After taking us to the dorm to drop our stuff off, we were taken to this bridge. Walk across it and up the hill a little ways and you come to a really cool old street filled with tourist traps. I think they should send the Taow Ywen goverment people all over Taiwan to teach them how to give tours: they just told us what time to be back and let us roam. That was really nice. And very fun.
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Ben and Joh-Eric quickly found the play ground.
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Then Friday they took us to ??? (literally "Small People World"), which kinda like a theme park. The first half was a bunch of really cool minitures (some of which weren't all that miniture) and then the second half of the park had some rides (but only one really good one).
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great wall of china
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They even had a model of Kinmen...although, if you asked me, it doesn't look much like it. At any rate, this is a picture of Jing Chun, the town we live in.
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While I was looking at the Kinmen model, a college age girl came running up yelling "Kinmen! My home!" in Chinese. So I turned to her and asked if she was from Kinmen. She said yes and I told her I was also. So in very Taiwanese college age girl fashion, they all had to have their picture taken with me....which was kinda funny. I then snapped this picture of them...the girl in the bottom left is the Kinmen girl.
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Megan and Sandy by the Great Wall.
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Wouldn't you love to have one of those in your living room? This was at a tourist trap at the theme park. Pretty cool, huh?
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just being different
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then lucas punched her lights out...
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I didn't want a typical picture either...
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I've actually been to this place...really cool
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Sunday we went back into Taipie for church and then had lunch at the King Car office. This is me with Jack and Vivian, two wonderful Christians. I worked with Vivian during winter camps and Jack was my TA and roommate during summer camps. Both really cool people.
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Ginger...who is very cute-uu (probably only BJ will get thise one...)
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Ok, a little King Car/English teacher history. Last year Ben was the overall leader for our teams. And because of that, whenever we had a press conference, Sandy and Morgan Sun (our boss and the president of King Car, respectively) would make a very big deal of Ben's Chinese. However, the fact of the matter is, Ben's Chinese is very poor. So it always looked kinda silly when he would try to talk in Chinese after they finished saying his Chinese was so great. But this year Lucas is our overall team leader...so he gets up to talk and he's like (in Chinese) "Should I speak Chinese?" Everybody says he should. So he says (again in Chinese) "Ok. First I want to ask my brother to come up here and help me translate." And we're all like "Huh? Why does he need Andrew to translate? But then Andrew comes up and Lucas gives an amazing speech...very natural and relaxed. And after each sentance Andrew translates it into Taiwanese!

Dude, our teams Chinese skills so totally rock. My Chinese is the worst on our team, and yet my Chinese is better than anybody on any of the other teams! Our team just totaly rocks!
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Nantou team...some really cool people. Top left is Daniel, who I hung out a lot with this past week...he's a really cool guy with a great heart for the kids he works with. Middle is Naomi, who is totally crazy and really cool. This last week was my first time to meet her. Then there's Joel, their very silent team leader. He is cool. Bottom left is Kristen, who I worked with for a few days before going home this summer. I hung out with her some this week and really enjoyed getting to see her again. Then there's Mia (said "My"), who is also really cool. Nantou also has one other team member, but her granpa died and so she flew home to go to the funeral.
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a strange team...
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one of the big reasons they are strange...
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Daniel...another reason they are so strange.
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So the Taow Ywen goverment gave each of us a gift at the press conference...ties for the guys and skarves for the girls. For the picture they decided to each wear it in a different way...and this is how Meagan chose to wear her's. Girl you so rock.
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I also love the way Ginger wore her's (second from right).
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Then Monday afternoon we went to our first school...they did a big performance for us before our large group...it was awesome. They did a really, really cool drum performance. It was loud, but it was awesome. They were really good.
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Then they did a dragon dance. I've seen better dragon dances (it's really, really cool when done well) but this one wasn't bad either.
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And then some of the 5th grader girls did a little dance they had come up with by themselves for our arrival.
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That night did a "party" for the kids at the Jr. high we were staying at. For the skit Daniel and I were twins, so we dressed the same and did some very crazy stuff together..it was a hoot.
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twins
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Then the kids did a smal performance as well...here's some of them doing their aboriginal dancing
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Then the rock band played. To be totally honest, they sounded horrible. They couldn't sing and their drummer had no sense of rythem. But it was a hoot anyway. It's really hard to describe if you don't know the culture, but just the fact that they would try something like that even if they weren't that great at it is reall cool. Problem students are so cool over here...the good kids tend to be boring. (BJ, you know what I'm talking about, right?)
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I left my heart back in Taow Ywen with these Jr. high kids.
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Really cute 7th grader
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Wednesday morning the Kinmen team got to actually teach at the Jr. High we were staying at (the one for troubled kids). I taught the 9th grade. It was so totally awesome and it really made me miss teaching Jr. high. The principle later told us that he esp. wanted to thank me, because he'd never seen the 9th graders so serious in class before.

Since leaving Taow Ywen these kids have been calling us really often, asking when we will come back. Sunday one of them actually called me at 1 in the morning. We are making plans right now to go back over there for a weekend right after Christmas.
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You can see so many things in these kids eyes. Both pain and an amazing openess to love and be loved. None of them have both a mother and father at home. Most have been abused, either physically or sexually. Many cut themselves. But show them just a little love and they flock to you like moths to a light. Half the school was crying when we left the school. I am amazed to see all these kids have come through and still have the ablility to love and to trust. They are truly amazing kids.
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with 9th graders (and one 7th grader in front)
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IYan...really cool Christian dude with amazing English
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Wednesday afternoon we taught a teachers conference. That was really fun. The teacher on the bottom left in the blue shirt was awesome. I really wish I could visit her class and just watch her teach and learn.
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Thanksgiving with the Chens! Awesome food!
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Charades.
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Jon-Eric dancing
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Ginger blowing a wistle
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Mia blowing a wistle
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Super with Janice and Julie, two TA's from winter camp. Oh, and Mia.
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English over here can be really funny sometimes...
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So, that was last week. Very fun, but dude, I am so glad to be home in slower moving, less crowded and less stinky Kinmen.

Here you go BJ...a picture of Susan! I don't know what I would have done without her help making supper on Sunday...dude, that girl rocks! Went to the store together, she told me what to buy and then helped me get it all put together. And it tasted really good too.
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Very cool thing...VeggieTales songs in Chinese! With bu pu mu phu! Yea!
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Michelle and Sophie from Monday night class.
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More cooking. Rebekah made grilled cheese sandwiches for us as well...thank you Bekah!
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And that's all for right now. Sorry, no time for a real update...I've got to plan for tomorrow's classes and get to bed at a respectable hour (ha! like that's going to happen...)

You are Romans.


Which book of the Bible are you?
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So...I am Romans. Interesting.

Ok, I totally don't get Kiwi. Would somebody please tell me what a Japanese horror movie with Chinese subtittles has to do with English class? Yes, I know it's the week after mid-terms and it's ok to maybe do something a little funner (is that a word?) and less serious...but a Japanese horror movie for English class? Please! I try to bring some control to the class room at times (in spite of his total lack of effort in that direction) but sometimes when the kids are going wild I have a hard time telling them they should pay attention to the teacher...why should they? He's not teaching them anything anyway!

I am now at over 170 character that I can both read and write. Also, today I found a person who might possible be able to help me with the writing side of things...she went though some of my writing and corrected some mistakes I'd made. Hopefully she'll be willing to do that every once in a while and make sure I'm doing it right. I used to ask James to help me, but he's gone now and Terry has horrible handwriting. And Joy doesn't really correct our home work...she just glances over it and makes sure it's generally acceptible. But I'm needing somebody to really make sure I'm doing it right.

Dude, pray for Claudia, a teacher I work with. She's been asking me questions about Christianity for a while now and last Sunday she came to Bible study. Now she's reading the Bible on her own and has been asking me some questions about that...and of course really cool things can happen when people start reading the Bible. So pray for her!

Tomorrow is Ning Jung Shiow...oh boy. I'm always on pins and needles when teaching the sixth grade there. I think I've got the boys on my side and for right now the girls as well...but I get the feeling that the girls still haven't made up their minds about me yet. And I'd actually rather have the boys in a class (esp a 6th grade!) turn against me than the girls. If the boys are against you then you can still do alright. But if the girls turn on you...you might as well pack up your stuff and head a back to the teachers office...don't even try teaching them. Hopefully in the next few weeks they will decide they like me for sure...tomorrow I'm playing a game involving candy, so hopefully that will help.

The good thing is that I've got the 5th grade totally on my side. There's a couple pretty perverted kids in that class, but also some really cool kids.

But I feel real sorry for the kids...their English teacher isn't all that good. Her English is rather low level and she doesn't teach that well either. One time I was watching a girl write out her home work...she was writing a sentance over and over...then she turns to me and says "Low si...gu si shu ma ee si?" ("Teacher, what does this mean?") The teacher had given them sentances to write without even telling them what the words meant...how annoying.

Hey, Thursday I've only got to teach two classes! All my 4th graders are going on a field trip...so I finish class at about 10 o'clock! Wee!

I have devoloped an interesting hobby in the past months. That of buying pens. I don't know why it is, but I've become addicted and actually end up buying one or two every week. The above picture is the pens that I carry around with me on a regular basis. I have three times that many in my room. Ginger tends to buy pens when she's angry: but I just buy pens and I'm walking past a stationary store and don't know what to with the change in my pocket.

Yesterday all my kids had mid-terms. For the first class I actually did teah a little bit: I read off the list of spelling words as part of the test and then even worked with them on translating a short reading portion. It's really cool that my Chinese has gotten to the point that I can read something in English, have the kids translate it, and catch mistakes they made.

But then the other five classes of the day I did nothing at all. Kiwi had tried to ask if I could just go home since I wouldn't be teaching any, but the school insisted that since I was getting paid I had to be in the class room the whole time! So in the back of the class room I sat, writing Chinese character for most of the morning and afternoon. I learned how to write ?, ?, ?, ?, and ?. I now know enough characters to write a few basic coversations completely in Chinese! Cool! But I have actually decided not to focus quite so much on characters as I have been: I think I really need to work on improving my spoken vocab. I know a lot of sentance patterns, but I often find myself in the middle of using them and I come to a dead end, because I don't know the needed vocab. to use that sentance pattern.

But dude, let me tell you, if you ever feel bad about your Chinese, you should just go to Sanwhy! You see, of the foriegners here in GingChun, most of us speak some Chinese. Everybody on the team can speak some and is working very hard on learning. Andrew and Ginger can both read menu's completely in Chinese and Meagan and Lucas are close behind them. Rebekah has awesome conversation skills. And, if I may say so myself, I can do fairly decent in getting my point across as well. Gabe (a cram school teacher) has really awesome Chinese as well and speaks some Taiwanese as well. So the only forgieners in GingChun who don't speak Chinese are the two college teachers. So the GingChun Chinese level is pretty good.

Sanwhy, on the other hand, is an entirely different mattter altogether! The Chinese level in Sanwhy is somewhere between pathetic and non-existant. The Canadian lady who teaches at the Jr. high there and her family don't speak Chinese. The South African mine-sweeping dude doesn't speak Chinese.

So yesterday on my lunch break I decide to go shopping. I walk into a tourist type shop and I'm just looking around. The owner is hovering behind me, acting kinda nervous, obviously trying to figure out how to communicate with me. Then I turn to her and ask "what type of thing is this?" A very simple, basic sentance. She about goes nuts. "WOW! Your Chinese is so good! Your accent is so good! You don't speak in a flat tone of voice! Wow! Amazing! Super!" I actually carried on a pretty long coversation with her: probably because it was just so good for my ego!

Then I go into another shop and (you guessed it!) buy a pen. I pick up a pen and say another very simple, easy sentance: "How much is this?" The lady in this store about flips out too. It was really a big ego boost: I walked back to the school totally ready to sit through to more clsses doing nothing but study my Chinese! Wee!

Guys, I feel like I'm living a dream. It's not perfect (dude, I wish I was back in Jr. high!) but it's amazingly awesome. I'm always busy, I'm learning, I'm teaching (something I've enjoyed) I have lots of time to hang out with my friends, I'm seeing lots of them starting to ask questions about Christ...guys, this is so the life.

Ok, I've got to go now. The family is going to be calling soon. Oh, btw, I'm judging an English singing compitition up at the high school later today: let's hope that goes well. Bye, love you guys!


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Quote for the day:
"Wow, today we learn so many things!"--Joy in Chinese class.

Summer, Gloomy and Elly in Small Kinmen
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Super with AFL students at Three Dogs
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Lucy tries her hand at leather tooling
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4th graders
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more 4th graders
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this is one of those "capture a moment" pictures...
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This is why you should always look behind you before making a left turn....there might be a moped coming up behind you...
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getting ready for a party? That's a lot of 58! (local very, very strong liquor)

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6th graders
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me and Lucy's girl
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Me and Lucy's boy
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Lucy, Meagan and Lucy's girl
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Jack, Me, Barbarian (yes, that's her name) and Sophie. Really cool 9th graders who I taught last semester and are now coming to English Bible study
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If I may say so...this is a really good picture. 5th grade
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Ken
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9th graders, Small Kinmen
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Cooking class
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very smoky
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???!
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902
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very much Meagan
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Pictures from here are on are from Sept...


We got home and Lucas decided to totally tear apart the living room. We threw so much stuff away it isn't even funny.
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Moody...THE dude
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Sea food party at Cal. pizza
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Octopus...
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Riddick, one of the new dorm kids.
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Peggy...this girl is something else
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Anne, George and Monkey
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Dorm people
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The coolest team!
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Don't ask...
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crafts
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Jen
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Peggy
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Riddeck and John
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Lisa and Anne
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Dorm people
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Peggy, the dorm mother and George.
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Ok, I've only got about 20 minutes before I need to head out to Small Kinmen, but I will try to recap my bike crash really quickly...

Basically what happened was we were going to the beach at ?? to swim. I was on the far right side of the road, going down a steep hill. I needed to make make a left turn to go down another road...but I didn't look behind me before turning. At the last moment I saw a moped coming up behind me...I jammed on the brakes, which was actually the wrong thing to do...if I hadn't slowed down everything would have been fine. As it was she hit my back tire, bending it up really good and knocking me over. I actually jumped off the bike before it hit the ground rolled, so I wasn't hurt. The moped driver went flying and slid, hurting her knee. She quickly got up, hobbled over to her moped and drove off though...I'm not even sure who she was: she was wearing a face mask (lots of people over here do when they are driving their mopeds). At any rate, I was fine, but I had to walk my bike about 2 miles back home. And of course everybody stared and laughed...it was interesting.

Today I went up to the high school to watch their sports meet. That was really fun. They also had events yesterday, but I was teaching and wasn't able to go. I hung out mostly with my Small Kinmen kids, but got to visit a bunch of my other students as well. Lin (our friend from church) and his class did a dance routine to Audio Adrenaline's "Mighty Good Leader", which was cool. I asked Lin afterwards if understood the song...he said no. But he was really thrilled to find out it is a Christian song!

Oh my! There's a new Amarican here on the island! And get this: she's living at the dorm and will be teaching at the Jr. high here and in Small Kinmen...MY STUDENTS!!!!!! Dude am I jealous! She seems to be a nice person. But after meeting her, Lucy said she probably won't stay in Kinmen very long...and Lucy is very good at reading people, so I wonder how long she'll be here.

I think it's a good thing that I won't be seeing Sandy (our King Car boss) for a few weeks...if I saw her right now I think I'd slap her in the face. Maybe I'll have time to explain why later.

Oh good heavens! I had something really embarrasing happen to me the other day. I asked one of the dorm kids how to write a phrase in Chinese (??) so I could learn how to write it. So I was at school and since I wasn't teaching, I was writing Chinese. I wrote several lines and then decided that I had the last character down pretty good, but the first character still was hard...so I wrote several lines of just the first character by itself.

Then the bell rings and all my students came to see what I was doing...they started talking very excitedly and pointing to what I had written...I was totally lost until the teacher told me that the first character by itself is the Chinese version of the F word...isn't learning a new laungage fun?

There is a spider web going from my bottle of vitiam C to the wall.

And the spider in the web is dead.

Does that mean I should be taking more vitaim C?

I have nothing against spiders. In fact, I kinda like spiders. I'd much rather catch a spider and put it outside than kill it. Actually, right now I have several spiders staying in my room as guest because they help keep down the ants (dude, our ant problem is a whole diffirent post!) But when they get that big *points up* I'd rather they not live under my bed.

About an hour ago I was talking to my friend Jimmy on MSN when I looked over and saw this huge fellow running across the floor. I tried to catch him for some time, but he disappeared. I looked for a long time, but finally had to give up. Still, I wasn't happy about the thought of him being in the room. What if I stepped on him in the dark? What if he was on the bed and I rolled on top of him and he bit me? Not nice thoughts.

So I went running. When I came back I saw him again, under the bed. I tried catching him again, but it he simply didn't want to be caught. So finally I herded him out the open door. Whew! That is much better!
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lol...if you look close you can see that he's covered in lint from under the bed. Poor guy.

Ok, I promise the next time I update I'll tell you guys all about my bike/moped accident. For now I'll just tell you that nothing got hurt, except my ego.

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!