Good heavens. It's been forever since I updated. I've actually been wanting to update for quite some time, but our internet has been totally down for almost a week now. Even our network is down (which means me and Shawn can't play CS together! How horrible!)

At any rate, Thursday was my last day of teaching this semester. Now it's on to camps and then home. I'm really, majorly bumbed about the semester being over, because we have now been told that we will not have Jr. high next semester. I am going to miss my kids so much. Each class has become so special to me. Two of the classes gave me a huge bunch of beautiful flowers. Another class gave me gifts as well. Next Thursday I'm going to be taking sticky pictures with my "daughter" and some of her classmates.

Oh yea, my "daughter". She's an 8th grader who started calling me "Ba ba!" a few months ago. So I started yelling back "New er, gamma?" (Daughter, what do you want?) in a very annoyed voice. She and a few of her classmates have become my good buddies.

In fact, maybe I'll try and post something about each class.

Monday:
707. Really interesting class. This was Big Angel's class, until she moved to Taiwan. There's an interesing boy who sits in the back left (or right, depending on the day) that's a friend of Lucas. He comes to chuch sometimes.

806. AHHHH!!!!!!!! This is the only class that I do not like to teach. I actually like a lot of the kids in the class, but teaching it can be really tough. You try teaching with four kids yelling obscene things in Taiwanese at you while the teacher literally roves the aisles hitting students with a broom stick. The general English level is pretty low in this class, but Micheal and Peter have REALLY good english.

902. Really cool class. I teach this one with Susanann, who is really cool. There's one boy in this class who had an attitude problem. He was not going to enjoy the class, no matter what we were doing, or how fun it was. Sometimes I would make a joke and he would start to laugh, but then remember that he couldn't have any fun in class, so he would go back to frowning. So I talked to him (through the teacher) after class. I told him that I could tell he was trying really hard to be miserible. I told him he was being really silly to work so hard at not having fun while the rest of the class was enjoying themselves. The interesting thing was that after that he didn't have such a bad attitude after that.

801. Wow. Super awesome class. They have the best english scores in the school. Their teacher, Mr. Choung, is super awesome. Jason, Una and Lucy and three of my favorites in the class. Una and Lucy always steal my stuff after class. One day I came into class and found them playing cards: with my cards that they had stolen the week before! I love this class.

706. Probably the class with the lowest English level that I teach in big Kinmen. But they are super awesome. There's a special needs kid in the class and I just found out a few days ago that he won't ever speak English when I'm not there...but he always does a lot when I'm there. Nicole is in this class: she always tries to teach me how to say stuff really fast in Chinese after class. Actually she's a pretty good teacher.

Tuesday

My favorite day! Small Kinmen! ???!

802. Rather difficult class. Two or three boys who have very bad attitudes and fight with me almost every week. Abbey is in this class. She has the best English of any of the Small Kinmen 8th graders. She's really sweet. I'm going to miss her alot.

702. My hat girl is in this class. She always wears a hat. Turns out she actually has some sort of scar or something on her head, but I can always tell who she is when I see her in a crowd, because of her hat. Very cool class, but they are really quite. They like it when I just pick people at random: they don't like volunteering. It's a very Asian thing.

902. Wow. The coolest class ever, with the coolest teacher ever. Linda, Summer, Vicky, John, Ivy and my Sleeping Boy are all in this class. The English level is really good. Linda is the girl who Dad and I went with on family treatment. Really cool girl, really good English. John is the class leader and a hoot. Ivy is totally nuts. Summer is really sweet and one of my favorites. Sleeping Boy is never awake in class. I fight with him every class. He doesn't have a bad attitude or try to give trouble: he simply won't stay awake. And of course I teach with Selena, who is awesome.

901. Cool class, although too quite. Vincent is in this class. At first I don't think he liked me, but in the past couple weeks he's warmed up to me. Really good English. Also Eddy. Not so good English, but he's cool.

801. Super awesome. Very low English, but really good attitude. My head butting girl is in this class. Every time she sees me she motions for me to lean over. Then she head butts me in the forehead. Then she rubs her head and says "how tong!" (ouch!)

701. I love this class. Peggy, Lilly and Victor are in the class. All really good English. This class will talk more than 702.

Wednesday.

805. Amazing class. Dorm John, June, Luke, my daughter, Jason, my buddy...an huge number of amazing kids. There's one new boy who just joined the class a few months ago. Every time I see him I yell "Whoa bee ne swi!" (I'm more handsome than you!) He always yells back something about how I shouldn't pretend ("My gay!").

809. Dorm Bill's class. Bill is really quite in class, but he's my special bud. Also Shoiw Cu-eye's class (small cute...so called because she's my smallest student..i think I posted a picture of her before).

905. Wow. We all about died when we found out who was in this class. Jerry (the try to break BJ's hand Jerry) Allen, Pink Pig, Joe...some of the worst behaved kids in the school. But actually I really enjoyed this class, after the first month or two. The teacher has very poor English, which made it tough. This class gave me a really cool card at the end...I just about cried reading it. Their home room teacher has very good English (better than the English teacher's...) and I really enjoyed visiting with her.

Thursday.

807. Really high English level. I can always be sure to get an update on everybody's love life in this class..."He loves her! And she loves him!" This class is very competative and their always telling me that 801 is not good and that Michael is not good. Monkey is in this class. He's a hoot. Very good English. His parents own a be-in dong (boxed meal) place that we go to real often...great food for an amazingly low price.

710. One of my very cooles classes. While not all of them are good students, I don't have a single trouble maker in the class. Jimmy and Lucky have really good English in this class. Mandy (my dancing girl) and dorm Gilly are in this class.

910. My most crazy class. Totally insane. The teacher has very poor English: lots of the student can translate better than her. Some really sweet kids are in the class. There's also a boy who renamed himself "Juggle" after I started teaching his class!

907. Also very crazy, but in a cooler, more quiet way. Dorm Jason is in this class. Pretty good English. One time when I brought a monster mask to class, one of the girls put it on and went into the teachers office...that was really fun.

Ok, I have to stop now. I'm too tired to write any more. And my spelling is really bad tonight. And I want to play CS with Shawn and Terry (we're at an internet cafe). Expect an explanation of the previous post soon.

When is it ok to hit a stranger? This is a question that has been nagging me since supper time, when a total stranger came up while we were standing at a drink stand and places his hand on Christine's butt. He seemed to be a little bit tanked and was chewing beatle nut. First he came up to me and yells "Hello!" in my face. I said "hello" back and then purposely ignored him. He got his drink, then walks over to Christine (who had her back to him) and touches her. I nudged him in the shoulder, gave him a really big glare and said "Bo ku-ee!" (Not permissible!) He just grinned and stood there staring. Christine went ahead upstairs (where we were waiting for our food) and I hung around downstairs until all the girls had gone up.

I think I should have at least hit his arm really hard. I know where some nerve bundles are and a well placed knife hand can pretty much disable your entire arm for a good three minutes. I really don't know what would have happened if I'd hit him (if it'd come to an actual fight, I think I could have beaten him pretty easily...he was a half drunk, older, fat dude).

Mom has always taught me that a gentleman will not stand for that type of thing. He'll either teach the guy a lesson or get beat up trying. The end result isn't important: it's simply what a gentleman has to do. I feel like I let Christine down. My reaction should have been instant: instead I hesitated. I shouldn't be wondering these things: I am a karate ka. I'm not trying to brag, but I have the ability to seriously hurt and even kill a person. Simply having that power is dangerous. I must know when to use that power and when to refrain. I cannot make those decisions in the heat of the moment.

Ok, I probably should go to bed instead of rambling on like this...good night.

Click here for more pictures!

It's interesting to watch the girls over here try and wear revealing clothes. (yea, I know that sounds really bad, but give me a moment, I will explain)

Over here, tan is BAD. As in really, really, very BAD. So while you may want to wear something revealing, that will expose your skin to the sun, which is BAD. So the apparent solution is to go ahead and wear your revealing clothes, but then to wear non-revealing clothes over them. It's not at all uncommon to see a girl walking down the street, sweating all over and wearing a jacket backwards. I find this to be halarious, because you know that underneath that jacket is a revealing shirt of some sort that she probably paid an arm and a leg for and that she is extremely proud of, but of course nobody ever sees it. Is that actually funny or am I just strange?

Another funny thing over here is some of the things that they think work, but don't. Like their brooms. Now the concept behind a broom is very simple, and you would think that a civilization that has been around for thousands and thousands of years would have figured out (what did they sweep that gun powder up with, anyway?) But no! They are totally clueless when it comes to brooms. And they are confused whenever you talk to them about it. "What do you mean? Of course our brooms work! What are the brooms like in the USA?" And I can't describe the difference, or what exactly is wrong, but let me tell you, these brooms over here do NOT work!

Another thing is their spoons. Dude, it's no wonder they use chopsticks! These stupid things they call spoons are totally useless! And once again, they don't even realize it!

But at the same time, they've got stuff over here that I wonder why on earth we don't have in the states. When you go to get a drink, you can turn is upside down and shake it, put it in a bag, drop the bag in your bicyle basket and ride two miles without ever worrying that your drink will spill. Why? Because they seal the top of the cup with a sheet of plastic. Once you want to drink it, you simply poke the straw through the plastic and enjoy your drink. Drop it after you've poked it? No problem if you pick it up fast enough, because it's only one small hole. You only spilled a little bit. I very serioulsy wonder when these things are going to hit the states and everybody will love it and everybody in Asia will be like "What? You didn't have those before?"

I'm in Small Kinmen right now, enjoying my lunch break. I've got two classes after lunch and then I take the four o'clock boat back to Big Kinmen. Classes have gone really good so far. I love my ninth graders over here! They are totally awesome.

Yesterday was my birthday. Over here it is traditional to give away candy on your birthday, so I've been giving each of my students a sucker during class. It's going to total something like 530 suckers by the end of the week...

The team did a supprise birthday party for me last night. I was kinda expecting them to do something (because we've always done something for other people's birthdays) but I didn't have any inkling of when it would be until about three seconds before they said "happy birthday". BJ and I had been planning to go out to eat at a certain place for over a week and for one reason and another it kept on getting put off. So Monday Bonnie asked if I wanted to go eat there and I said yes. Since it had actually been my idea in the first place, I didn't suppect that she was using it to get me out of the way for an hour or so. Shawn and Ginger came with us and we had a blast. Then once we got home everybody was in the living room waiting for me. It was really cool. A few of our high school friends also came over, which was a hoot.

Yesterday I also learned how to write my Chinese name. I'd actually known how to do part of it for a while, but now I can write the entire name. I'm also learning how to write a couple other characters. Tomorrow I have a Chinese test and I actually haven't studied for it very much, because I've been working on the character stuff. But oh well. I've still got a full day to practice and I already know most of it (don't panic Anna...this is the exact same study pattern I followed last week and made a 95%).

Ok, I need to get off now. I'm about to fall asleep setting in this hot, quiet room, so I think I'll go walk around outside. God bless each of you!

Here there. Don't know how long I'll be able to make this post, but I figured it was high time for an update.

Today was a blast. Josh, Chase, Daniel and Joel, all fellow English teachers in Taiwan, came over for the weekend. This morning and early afternoon we went to Small Kinmen and went swimming. What a hoot! Some of Andrews students came by the beach and played with us...BJ and Lucas and I got in a mud throwing fight with them...I hope their parents weren't too upset about that. BJ was totally covered in mud by the end, because Lucas and I were a little more timid than her.

Ginger and Shawn's friend Angie came and visited us here in Kinmen for about three weeks. She left on Thursday. That was interesting. At first she really annoyed me. But by the time she left we were getting along pretty well (although I wasn't exactly sad to see her go either) It's not that we fought or anything, it's just that she was so extremely immature. At any rate we did have some fun together. Wednesday I skipped out on Chinese class (after taking my test and getting a 95%) and went with Ginger, Angie and Shawn to the beach. That was a total hoot. I'd never been swimming in the ocean before. It was a very interesting experiance. It's salty! That was a shock (don't know why...) Then Karen, who owns Cal. Pizza (and speaks very good English) came with her boyfriend and joined us. We ordered a pizza and spent about five hours just hanging out.

On the boat back to Big Kinmen this afternoon (after we went swimmming...not Wednesday, but today) I got to visit with two of ninth graders. It was really cool. Their names are Summer and Elly and Summer is the one that wants to marry my brother Ethan. They taught me some cool Chinese stuff. For example, the last character in my Chinese name means "hears". But actually it is two character combined: the character for "door" and "ear". So "hear" is "door" and "ear" together...cool, no? They also taught me how to say "sunburned"...bet you can't guess how that came up...

BJ is really feeling the crunch of leaving in only two months. I've still got over a year here and I'm even starting to feel like I've hardly got any time left. I know that must really sound odd to those of you stateside, but that really is the way I feel. I'm already trying to figure out how I can come back after I get my degree. And trying to figure out how I'm going to keep up my Chinese while I'm gone.

Speaking of my Chinese, I feel like I've broken through a barrier in the past week and a half. I'm able to communicate a lot more and understand a lot more of what I hear. I'm starting to feel like there actually is some hope of me ever being able to really speak Chinese. I'm also starting to really want to learn how to read Chinese. They say if you learn 3000 characters you will be able to read the newspaper. Some days that number seems impossible. Other times it seems that I should be able to do it. I figure it will be at least six or seven years before I can fluently speak Chinese, but i'm hoping to be able to haltingly communicate within a year.

Ok, I have to get off now. I still have to send some stuff to Sandy and plan for Sunday school tomorrow morning.

DANIEL SAUTER BEAT JAMES PRICE---7 TO 2!!!!

And I'm a little bit excited about that.

Hey there! It's been a long time since I updated...a long time! I'll see if I can make this one interesting in order to make up for it.

Today I had no class. Today and tomorrow all my students are having their monthly test, so they didn't need me. So instead I went with Rebekah to her schools. That was fun. In the morning we went to a small school with only six classes (four of which have English class). The 4th and 5th grades where cool, but I really loved the 6th and 3rd grades. Now, I have nothing against third grade. I just don't think I would want to to teach it. But this is the first third grade class I've met that I think I would actually enjoy teaching. They were awesome! 6th grade was really cool: if I do teach elem. next year, I think I'm going to ask to have as many 5th and 6th grades as possible. I also got some really cool pictures...maybe I can post some of them.

The goverment gave us a computer for our room. Shawn of course has his laptop, so I get this computer all to myself! The only problem is that it's in Chinese! So we've got Windows XP ordered and we'll be installing that soon. The graphics card was only 32 MB, so I bought a new one for it...and if you're going to buy one, why not go all the way? So I am now the proud owner of a 256 MB card! Wee!

Hey, I know it's possible to parition a drive and run Windows on one and Linix on the other...is it possible to have two versions of Windows on a computer? I'd kinda like to keep the Chinese on here and I don't want the hassle of formating the drive. Anybody know about that?

Tomorrow some of us are taking a friends car and driving around the island a for the afternoon. I'm not sure yet if I'm going or not...depends on if BJ decideds to go. If she stays, I'll go (no, not becaus I don't want to be with her! There's only one more seat open in the car and since BJ is going home in a few months and I'm staying another year, I figure she should get to go if she wants).

King Car has told us that we will not be allowed to go home over the winter holliday. I'm pretty upset over that. It's by no means set in stone yet (nothing with King Car ever is) but I tried talking to Sandy about it and it was like running into a brick wall. Pray about that please.

Last Friday I just about got my nose broke. We were down stairs sparring and Ginger walked by...she has just been playing volleyball and so was wearing shoes and pants. I threw a couple punches at her...she turned around and came back at me full force, landing a beautiful backleg round house right on the bridge of my nose. We all heard a very loud *CRACK* and tears came to my eyes. BJ and Ginger (who was freaking out) both said my nose was crocked. Not just a little, but quiet a bit. So ran up to the bathroom and pushed it back straight (ouch!!!) Monday Pastor Samuel took me to the hospital and we had it X-rayed. Turns out the bone isn't broken, but the cartilidge was probably ripped loose. It was pretty swollen and tender for several days. Now it's just tender. I guess it's cool that it's not broken...but if I have to go through all the pain and bother, I'd kinda like to at least be able to brag that I've had my nose broke in a fight...

Speaking of fighting, I've got a couple 8th graders on Small Kinmen that have decided they want to sleep through my class. Last Tuesday one of them wouldn't pay attention...so I took his chair away. He wasn't so happy about that. Oh well. The class is still really cool.

I have to go to bed now...it's two o'clock. Here's some good bumer stickers and a quiz I took (thank you Christine! Good job!)

Do unto others before they do unto you.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
Do I look like a freakin' People Person?
Don't play stupid with me... I'm better at it!
Driver carries less than $20 IN AMMUNITION
F U Cn Rd Ths U Cnt Spl Wrth A Dm!
Forget about World Peace...Visualize Using Your Turn Signal!
Front bumper -Run, Hilary, Run!
Go On, I will See You At The Next Light.
Have you slapped an environmentalist today?
HONK IF YOU LOVE GORE (use the button on your steering wheel)

You scored as Samuel. Your very comfortable with who you are. You don't mind wearing pink tie-die. Your very straight forward with what you want to tell people, and you almost always mean what you say. Samuel 92% B.J. 92% Megan 92% Rebekah 83% Christine 83% Andrew 67% Shawn 67% Ginger 58% Lucas 25% which Taiwan English teacher are you? created with QuizFarm.com

A few more pictures have been added.

Ok, I had meant to write an update tonight, but I ended up posting a bunch of pictures instead. Sorry! I'll try to write one soon...how soon I'm not sure though. I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon for a weekend in Taipei. Pray that it goes well. Dad left about six hours ago. :(

Click here for pictures!

WOW! The other day I was down at the beach and I got to thinking "Can you believe that I'm walking down a beach, listening to Chinese music, wondering if that peice of metel is from a land mine, on a small island from which I can see mainland China?!?!"

God's ways are so much higher than our ways. Two years ago, if you had told me where I would be today, I would have laughed at you. But it's so perfect. I love this place. I love the people. I love my students. I love the dorm kids here at the Jr. high where we live. I love the old man who sells clam soup around town and always yells at the top of his lungs and smiles when he sees us. I love our church. I love the food. I love the small alleys I walk down on my way eat "hot pot" at the tenth floor (the tallest building in Kinmen). I love teaching my kids the only card trick I know and then watching them show it to their friends.

This place has taken a greater hold on me in a shorter time than anything else ever has. I am not capable of this love I have. It's totally a God thing.

This place breaks my heart. I've cried over it almost every day the past week. When you see people wailing and following a funeral parade on Easter Sunday morning, you have to cry. When you see a 7th grader you've come to love smoking and trying to hide from you, you have to cry. When you realize that you dear friend Douglas is headed for hell, you have to cry. When you see children left at a school dorm while their parents work on the mainland, you have to cry.

This place makes me laugh. When you're playing "Apples to apples" and your team leader gets the cards "Useless", "pathetic", "naive" and "dead", you have to laugh. When a kid tries to give you the finger and doesn't know which one to use, you have to laugh. When college students drive by on their mo-peds and yell "hello!", just to prove that they know some English, you have to laugh. When one of your students comes up to you with a huge grin on her face and says "I'm angry!" because you took her picture, you have to laugh. When Moody didn't undestand the the word "half" and you ended up with two pizzas instead of one, you have to laugh. When you say "I don't understand: sorry" in Chinese and Taiwanese and the old lady on the bus starts jabbering at you about how good it is that you said something in Taiwanese, you have to laugh. When James losses his voice and makes a marker board to talk to you with, you have to laugh.

This place makes me pray. When you can't get a student to even look at you, you have to pray. When your team mate can barely walk because of a hurt foot, you have to pray. When you have no idea what you're going to teach in class, you have to pray. When you feel like you're going to explode from the stress of everything that is expected of you from your 3 different bosses (and millions of friends!), you have to pray. When you can't understand the laungage, you have to pray.

This place makes me praise. When you pray that God will help us to talk to TIm and then he calls one of us within half an hour to arrange a meeting, you have to praise God. When you stay up till 1 o'clock with BJ and Ginger talking and praying about you classes and then every single prayer you lifted up is answered within twelve hours, you have to praise God. When you see Bekah walking down the street without even limping, you have to praise God. When you God gives you the chance to talk to James about spiritual matters for over an hour, you have to praise him. When you can understand something said in Chinese, you have to praise God.

The is no way to describe what this is like. There is no words to describe how I feel. The love, joy, sorrow and stress mixed together, all combined to force you to lean on God.

Hey, I've created a blogger for my pictures. No need to bookmark it or check it...any time I post pictures to it I'll post a link on here.

Whoa du pictures!

What do you do when somebody you love is hurting themselves and you can't even talk to them? How do you express that deep, horrible pain you feel? What do you do when they run away from you, and when you finally corner them, they just keep telling you it's no big deal and everything will be fine?

What do you do when people you love are changing for the worse and you don't even know how to yell "You're too good for those guys! Why do you have to hang out with them?" How do you reach out to people abandoned by their parents and help them grow up when all they can understand is "Are you ok?"

I love these kids so much. And I hate to see them doing stuff I know they will wish they hadn't.

Last nigth we caught Big Angel smoking. I felt liking just sitting down and crying. Kelly is starting to hang out with some of the wrong crowd. Allan has really gotten into some bad stuff: I'm not sure what. I'm just feeling really depressed about these kids. They are each so precious and special.

Sometimes I feel so powerless. I can't even talk to them, and even if I could, what would I say? I feel like screaming and crying at the same time.

"Jesus wept." I wonder if he ever felt like this...

Christine and Bekah
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Yummy finger situation! (Ginger)
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Drew, Gingers Dad and Mom and James
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The first Taiwanese bug I ever saw!
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My cool roommate!
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Good picture of BJ.

Posted by Hello

Hi there. I have BIG NEWS!

I'm staying for another year!

Goodness, I can't really believe it myself. But yes, I am staying. I will be coming home this summer for a few weeks (not sure how many) and then I'll be coming home during winter vacation (in Jan.) I'm really looking forward to being here longer: I've come to love this place so much in just the few weeks I've been here.

This past week has been awesome. I've been praying for my classes alot more and I can really see the difference. I've had two classes in which every student volunteered to say the tounge twister! Wow! That's just about unheard of. Tuesday Andrew gave me a really cool idea for a game to play in the class room and I've done that all week: it's very popular.

Tomorrow night I'm having a party for my Jr. High English teachers. We're going to play Apples to Apples. We're also going to talk a little bit about Easter, so pray for that.

Dad is going to be here in one week! I can't wait! WOW!

I've started running again. I hadn't been doing it the past several weeks: what with being sick and the cold weather I simply couldn't make myself do it. But it sure feels great to be running again. Last night after I ran I went over to the big gym and did all my katas. There were a bunch of people there dancing: it was interesting to watch.

Ok, it's time for team meeting. Bye bye!

Good heaven's. I feal horrible. I had gotten over being sick a few weeks ago and was doing fine, but then Sunday night/Monday morning our heater got turned off somehow. The room got real cold. I didn't feel so great during class yesterday, and then afterwards I went downhill pretty fast. BJ and I went out the get supper and walking back I was carrying our food and my arms got so tired I finally had to give it to her to carry (we're talking about maybe two pounds here!) I went to bed at about 7:30. And I've had to miss school today. I'm really bummed about that: Tuesday is one of my fav. days, in spite of the fact that it's my longest. The school on Small Kinmen (the smaller of the two islands here) is smaller in size and the two teachers I work with are totally awesome. In fact I got a get well e-card from one of them this morning! How sweet!

I'm starting to really love Monday. I've got some awesome classes. Yesterday one of my girls brought her mouse to class and showed it to me: it was the cutest thing ever!

Man, I really wish my camera would get here. Mom sent it several weeks ago, but there's still no box for me yet! Mail from Taiwan to the states goes pretty fast, but coming here for some reason it's really slow.

Gingers parents are here right now. They both seem to be really cool. Her Dad got one of the Kinmen knives custom made by the Mr. Wu himself. Wow! And it's a really cool knife.

I bought Ethan his birthday present yesterday. It's really cool: I hope he likes it.

GOOD HEAVENS!!!!!!! I just realized it's been almost a month since I updated! How horrible!

Anna, tell Jason that I will be trying to send him a kata video soon. Hopefully once I start feeling better.

Tuesday nights we have a class for potential Jr. High Drop-outs. It's interesting. Some of the kids are really cool, others are...um....difficult. One of them, Kelly, has really captured my heart. She's really cool.

Monday nights the same kids have a karate class. I went a few weeks ago and worked out with them. The instructor seems to be a pretty cool guy: he didn't speak much English. He actually reminded me of Mr. Burnett somewhat: he was always says "Relax-a, relax-a, um...quick-a-ly, quick-a-ly." One of the kids was a big problem in class and the instructor wasn't really sure what to do with him. At first he would just glare at him. Then he would put him in a joint lock whenever he wouldn't pay attention. Then he tried having him next to him the whole time. Nothing worked. Finally he just kinda let the kid go around the dojo and ignored him. It was kinda funny to see the teacher working so seriously with the rest of us, while this other kid stared at himself in the mirror, playing with the inside of his mouth.

Last Wednesday Drew gave the girl permissoin to wear pants and Shawn, Ginger, BJ and I went over to the gym and sparred. WOW! What fun! I was really happy with what I saw Bonnie doing. She still needs to work on her extension, but generally her fighting is looking really good.

Does anybody know how I can post a link to my Yahoo! photo albums? I've uploaded a lot of pictures and I'd really like to share them with y'all.

Saturday a couple of the schools took us on a tour. We saw some of the old salt farms, went to a clam digging place (but it was too cold to actually did for clams, so we just stood in the little hut and drank hot tea!) and the "cultural village". It was a really cool tour, in spite of the rain and cold. Lucas told the schools that Saturday was BJ's birthday, so they got a huge cake and threw a party for her at the cultural village. Very cool. And it was a REALLY good cake too!

Dad is going to be getting here in about 15 days! Wow-who!

I'm going to go to Lucy's tonight and get my hair cut and have a massage (is it one or two "s"'s?) All for only about 4 bucks...I love prices over here! I also love going to Lucy's to study my Chinese or lesson plan. I'll be posting some pictures from her place soon.

Ok, and now the big announcement: I'm very seriously considering staying here for next school year. I simply can't see myself leaving here after only six months. I know it sounded like such a long time when I was back home, but now that I'm here I realize what a short time it is. I've been praying a lot about it and I think that's what I'll end up doing.

And here's the big prayer request. We have been told that there will only be six team members here on Kinmen next year and that there will not be anybody working in Jr. High. Now I love Jr. High. I really, really want to stay there. And the elem. textbooks are very, very, extremely stupid. Like, dumb. So pray that they change their mind and I don't have to teach elem school if I stay.