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?

Hey there guys! Time for a new podcast! Click here! Remember that you can save it by right clicking on the link and clicking "Save Target As".

How come nobody has commented on all those pictures I posted?

Hey there guys! Please don't glare at me for not posting for so long! I honestly, really did try to update the other day. In fact I had written a very long, very in depth post and was in the middle of adding some pictures to it when Internet Explorer had some sort of error and closed the entire thing down on me. I was about ready to scream. But maybe it was a good thing: instead of finishing the post I called home and talked to the family for a few hours. That was really fun.

Ok, I guess I'll start by telling about our Christmas. The funnest thing was that James came and stayed with us for about three days. What a total hoot. That guy so totally rocks.

I got some cool gifts for Christmas. I gave all the guys on the team a leather wallet that I had made and the girls got a leather change purse. I was pretty happy with how they had turned out. And interestingly enough, nobody had guessed what I was going to be giving them. I had figured that what with all the noise involved in leather tooling it was kinda obvious, but apparently not.

Last Tuesday I went with some of my 6th graders on a field trip. It was really fun. But because Kinmen is pretty small, there really isn't very many places to go on a field trip. So one of the places we got to visit was the waste water treatment plant. Yea, what fun. Dude, it sure did stink! I'm just glad I don't have to work there!

Thursday we went to Taiwan. First we went to Taow Ywen and visited our friends at Sheow Zsteye Jr. high (the Jr. high for the kids from troubled back grounds). What a hoot. I can't wait to go back and visit them.

Friday night I went into Taipei and after a little shopping, met up with James and stayed the night at his place. Then in the morning he and I went shopping and sight seeing and then I got to help him with some of the vocab he's learning for the TOEFL. It was kinda cool to get to help him with his English: he's done so much to help with our Chinese.

Speaking of James, here's something really really cool he posted on his Xanga talking about his visit to Kinmen for Christmas:

"My roommate Samuel is always cool, I am really amazed how fantastic his Chinese is now. Half year ago, I was teaching them, the so-called "new comers", meaning new members in the team, the basic phonetic alphabets, and now I saw him communicating with MSN messenger in Chinese characters. In fact, not only he but also the whole team can both speak and understand Chinese. I used to translate everything, but I didn't have to do that anymore."

Ok, that's very much a shortened version of the post I wrote the other day. But it will have to do. Now here's some pictures from the past month.


I love this picture of Bekah. It was totally unplanned.
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A few weeks ago the dance school had a recital. A bunch of my girls from Jing Who were in it. All the girls in this picture are my students.
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This is a really cool 6th grader. She's not a bad dancer either.
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Here's a group picture of all my Jing Who students who dance.
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4 6th graders. The three on the right are a hoot to hang out with.
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These girls are also a hoot. Esp. the one on the bottom. She's one of the shortest 6th graders I have.
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Twin 5th graders. Both very fun, energetic girls. And they behave in class, which is pretty uncommon in Jing Who.
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Monday 4th gradres. There's only 9 kids in the class. Some of the most extreme character are in this class.
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I have started going to a class at the college on Monday night's taught by Dr. Henning (via satalite). During class I normally just practice Chinese and then during breaks and after class I visit with the students. It's been really fun. This is a one of the students doing a presentation on (you guessed it) "Bee Dancing".
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We had a Christmas party for the dorm kids about a week before Christmas. One of the activities was decorating cookies. It was a pretty big hit.
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Jimmy got kinda morbid in his cookie decorating...
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Peggy made a tie-dyed cookie. I've been training them well.
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Susan and cookie
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Lucas
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Jen and cookie
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Anny, Megan and Drew at the Christmas party. We brought our Christmas tree downstairs for the party.
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This is a good picture of Kiwi, the teacher who I teach 11 classes with.
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6th graders. The class these girls are in was a very tough class until I started coming down really hard on them a few weeks ago. Now they behave a lot better.
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The other day this girl was going through my bag after lunch and got out the Curious George book that I had with me. She said she wanted to read it to me, but of course she couldn't read the English. So she simply looked at the pictures and made up a story in Chinese. It was one of the funniest things I've heard in a very long time.
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Enjoying lunch break in a very Taiwanese fashion...drinking something and playing Chinese chess. BJ, remember that kid on the right? Yep, he's one of my students now.
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One of the sixth grade home room teachers. This lady is really cool. She can actually speak some English but would rather speak Chinese with me.
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My hunter orange hat is a big hit.
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I went up to the high school the other day for an event of some sort (it was kinda boring actually) but Kuyu and Stella were the MC's. Kuyu is making a name for himself at the high school and seems to be pretty well liked...still, he isn't anywere close to as loved at his brother. I think every single person on the island knows who "Boss" is.
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Somebody and Black Cat and Jason. BJ, whenever I see Black Cat she asks how you are. The first thing I think of whenever I see her is the time that you and her were standing behind the church talking. She was talking all in the Chinese and you were talking all in English.
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My crazy girl from 910...she's really enjoying the new freedom allowed by the abolision of the hair rules
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5th graders. This class totally rocks.
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Eagle and Windy, Sunday school kids.
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The Friday before Christmas some of the teachers that Lucas works with came overr to visit. They (plus James) had a fun time making Christmas cookies.
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Pastor Samuel telling the Christmas story at the Christmas Eve party at church. There was a really large crowd there.
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Me and Grace, one of my high school friends (at the Christmas Eve party).
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My Sunday school class sang. They were awesome. Chuck-u-lee (Chinese for "Chocolate") was great.
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Christmas morning with the Kinmen team.
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Making Christmas brunch.
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Final Advent service of the season.
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Andrew and his "shell". You have to know him to understand this joke...
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Enjoying opening presents.
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Megan did something...um...interesting to the Christmas tree
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BJ, there was a 904 reunion at the hot pot place the other night when I was there with Jean and Jennifer...so I took a picture and told them I would send it to you.
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Last Tuesday was a field trip with the 6th graders...what a hoot!
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Climbing the hill...
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And finally reaching the top!
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Enjoying the beach
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This is currently the wallpaper on my desktop.
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Class 604
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6th graders with two teachers. The teacher on the left is really cool.
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Kinmen power plant. Dad, I wanted to get some more (and better) pictures for you, but we were only there for a short time and part of the time I wasn't actually sure were my camera was (I like to let the kids use it...sometimes you get some really good pictures that way).
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It was kinda loud and stinky in the power plant.
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2 super awesome 6th graders.
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Showing God's love to the students...
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Hanging out near the port
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Awesome 6th grader.
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Ever wonder what it looks like to be a fish?
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My students really love me..
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Super duper handsome
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Me and Sky...a very cool and yet difficult student.
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The two students I hung out with most of Tuesday.
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Wednesday night Christmas party (the Wednesday after Christmas...oh well!)
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Stella and Elly fighting over a gift during the gift exchange.
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Wednesday night class picture
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Andrew's flashcards. He left them in the living room the other day so I took a picture of them. You can see two things from this picture. One is that Andrew is very serious about studying Chinese and knows a LOT of characters. Two, his hand writing is very poor. ;)
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Anny, one of the 9th graders at Seow Zsteye Jr. High. Unless I am very mistaken, what you are seeing is the result of a very very well done surgery to fix a cleft lip. She speaks with a strong lisp and has a small scare under her nose...but you would never notice just from looking at her.
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Ivy, one of the sweetest girls ever.
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8th graders. Friday morning the kids did a performance for us. They had apparently spent a lot of time preparing for it too: they did some really cool stuff!
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Principle of the school...super cool guy.
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"Nose rubbing" performance...
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Phantom of the Opera...these kids did an amazing job of it too! 9th grade (my class).
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More Phantom of the Opera.
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more 8th graders
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Alan...one of the most Amarican looking Taiwanese people I've ever seen.
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Naomi always brings a new perspective to things...it was a real hoot to get to hang out with the Nantou team while visiting the Seow Zsteye kids.
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Playing the "add E-S-T" game...I love this game.
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Measuring noses'...another fun part of "add E-S-T".
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Me and Thearsa...Thearsa is one of the most beautiful girls I've seen in Taiwan
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