I just got a bit of instant noodles in my eye. Spicy instant noodles. ouch.

Ok, I'm headed out to Taiwan in about half an hour. See you guys later! I'll be back on Saturday.

Howdy folks. I hope to make an actual update this time.

I've given hope of even trying to give you guys a "highlights" of Mom's trip here. We simply did too much. But a few things that where REALLY fun:

---Translating between Mom and Lucy as Lucy taught mom some about mesaging (sp?). We talked for over an hour, with me translating between the two. After we left I found that I was thinking in Chinese and had to translate everything I was thinking into English in order to talk to Mom!

---The Saturday before we left we spent the whole day with James, speaking English the whole time. Not long after I went to bed I got a call from the guy who was driving Mom to the airport. He was asking me (in Chinese) if I could speak Chinese. I understood everything he was saying, but after all day with Mom and James, I was in English mood and kept answer him in English! It went something like "你會說中文嗎?"

"Yes, a little bit."

"什麼? 你會說中文嗎?"

I felt pretty dumb when I finally woke up enough to realize I was talking to him in English. I rather sheepishly told him that I could speak Chinese, but only a little bit. :-X

---The Monday before Mom left she and I were sitting in my room. I was on the computer and I think she was sitting at the desk writing something. At any rate, I got an email from the guy in charge of the honors program at RSU that simply asked me to call his office. Dude, that was an email to put tension in the air. Did he want to tell me that I was in the program? Or was he simply telling those people who hadn't made it in that they hadn't made it? The day for telling us if we had gotten in was way past and I had figured that I hadn't gotten the scholarship. But after Mom and I jumped up and down a few times (to release tension) I called him. And I was in! Dude, that was a really cool moment!

Then he emailed me the offical paper work on it and everything and ...ouch. Problem. They wanted us to live on campus for the first year. Now it's only like 15 minutes from our house, but still, after being on the other side of the world from my family for so long and knowing that I will probably be coming back after I finish college, I was NOT wanting to live outside of the house! I called Dr. Ford right back and asked him if it would be at all possible for an exception to be made for me. He said he would talk to some people about it. Mom and I prayed about it and decided that it would still be worth it to take the scholarship even if I did have to live at the college for the first year. But a few days later Dr. Ford emailed me back saying that since I had already been out of the home for some time and since my home was so close to the college anyway, they would make an exception for me. Yes! Praise God!

---There is a fruit stand a few minutes walk down the road where I normally buy my fruit. The guy who owns the stand and his wife are very sweet people. So one day when we stopped to buy some fruit I introduced my Mom to them. The lady was very interrested in asking my Mom which of the fruits that they sold were availible in the States and which weren't. Most of them are fruits that we have at Wal-Mart, but Mom pointed out one fruit that she had never seen before. The owner very kindly gave one to Mom!

But we didn't eat it that night...and within a few days it had gotten mouldy! We didn't know it had such a short shelf life! So then whenever we walked around town we would look at the other fruit shops trying to find a fruit like that (because we wanted to tell the lady what we thought of it, but we didn't dare tell her that we had let it rot!) But it turns out it is a seasonal fruit and nobody was selling it anymore! Drat.

---Visiting 秀才 was awesome. I wish I could move that school here to Kinmen. The kids and the staff are all so cool. Found out that Jamie is pregnant! Cool beans!

---Got to see Jack again. Vivian was having some sort of eye problem and couldn't come to meet us, but we had a really good time in spite if her absence.

---Hanging out at the night market with Laura was SOO much fun!

---We went to the underground mall at Taipie Main Station. There was a store that sold rocks and minerals. While we were in there, some Japanese ladies came in and were looking at stuff. The owner was speaking to them in English. They understood him and could respond in English, but it obviously wasn't very easy for them. At any rate, when they asked how much an item cost, the store keeper turned to his friend and asked him (in Chinese) "Hey, how much do we add for a forigner?" I laughed out loud and translated what he had said for Mom. They both became very nervous: they didn't know if the Japanese ladies had understood my translation. I listened pretty carefully to everything they said after that and they didn't try to rip the ladies off anymore. lol

Ok, I'm getting off now. I'll try to update my prayer blog later today. Now I've got to go get my toenail worked on...stupid thing is infected again! Really annoying.

Bye!

Mom and Rita. This girl has totally stolen my heart.




Me and Jamie, our contact person at the school. She's awesome.



Class 801...probably the coolest class at the school (even though I really love my 9th graders).

Ok, the big news that everybody is wanting to hear...


I BOUGHT NEW SHOES!






































Ok, so that's not it. The big news is that I have gotten a full scholarship for going to RSU. It totally covers tuition, books, and fees. It's four years and only requires that I maintain a 3.25 GPA.

Sweet, no?

With some students out near the basketball courts.


She's really, actually here!



We just finished teaching class 901...man, I miss those kids!

Howdy there! I am posting in order to get some information that is being held ransom. Apparently something happened to the family on Sunday, but they won't tell us about it until I post. So here it goes.

MOM IS HERE! It's awesome! She's handling the cultural changes and stuff very well. The students all like her, although some of them can't seem to get that she doesn't speak Chinese and keep asking her questions and expecting her to answer them. lol

The first weeek of teaching (last week) Mom taught all the kids how to draw a face. It was very fun and they loved it. This week I've done most of the teaching and Mom has watched. Tuesday was Children's Day. Since we don't have that in the States we talked to the kids about what an Amarican birthday party is like...then we played pin the tail on the donkey.

Yesterday was Tomb Sweeping day and so we didn't have any classes. I took Mom to Small Kinmen and we went around the island with Linda and Becky (two former students of mine) and their mom (who is a taxi driver). It was a hoot (I keep saying that).

Next week we're going to Taipie. I'm getting excited about that. And of course we'll be going to 秀才 Jr. high...I can't wait to go back there!

Saturday we had family treatment with a kid from 金湖. Sunday Selena and two of her siblings took us touring...we had a great time together.

Love you guys! Bye!

Quote of the day: "Ginger, I am going to eat my pen!"---Joy, in Chinese class.

Wearing: My falling apart dress shoes (really need to buy a new pair, but it's so much easier to just not do it...), the pants I bought at hang 10 on Christmas, a polo shirt that I first bought when I went to work at Microtel, my hunter orange jacket (the one I left in Nantou after winter camps and Daniel brought it to Thailand to give to me...) the watch I bought at the night market in Taipie and the green braclet that a student gave me at the end of last school year (and which I haven't taken off since then).

Currently reading: A 1st elem. chinese textbook for Chinese class. I tried reading an English book the other day but found I simply don't have time to do it.

Listening to: DC talk. I felt like some Christian music instead of Chinese tonight.

Last movie watched: part of Uptown Girls that the kids were watching downstairs. Or maybe it was part of Treasure Planet in Chinese. I can't remember. Also saw part of a Korean horrow movie the other day...that was really strange. But I've found that watching Japanese or Korean movies is really good for my character reading: if I want to even guess at what they are saying then I have to read the characters, 'cause I can't understand what they are saying.

Number of windows open on computer: 7. 2 Conquers windows (an online RPG game...I'm letting my character sit in the training grounds and slowly level up during the night). 2 MSN chats with directions for what I'm supposed to teach tomorrow morning. Anna's blog. This window and Windows Media player (music).

Feeling: buttery. I just ate a bag of popcorn, but a lot of the kernals didn't pop (our microwave has issues) so I had about twice the amount of butter on teach peice of popcorn. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm going to run to the fridge and get a drink to help wash all that butter down.

Random thoughts: Bible study went really good today. I wonder what is going on with Susan: she's been in a really upsetible mood lately. I love my Monday 3rd grade. Lin looks kinda strange with his new hair do. For all my show of being blunt, I actually find myself not saying things that I should be saying at times because I'm too afraid of looking rude. I need to visit Lucy tomorrow. I wish Coral would reply to my text message. I'm going to juggle for two of Megan's classes tomorrow: that should be fun. I think my Monday school is iligally teaching English to their 2nd grade. Few things are more fun and more relaxing than going to Sandy's house and watching a movie with Jean, Jennifer, Ginger and assorted kids. I wonder if King car would buy this program for me. It's really useful. Why does the Chinese word for secretary (幹事) look like it means "f-ing situation"? I love visiting the technical high school. I absolutly love the kids in my Wednesday night class. I wish my archer was a level 70 (only 6 levels to go!) Daniel is a cool guy. And Kristen is a cool girl. I wonder what JC is up to right now. I'm going to be getting together with a fellow next Saturday to spar: my old sparring partner is now in Taiwan. I really miss Mr. Murry, Larry and Josian. Ginger came up with a really perverted sentance the other day: "I have a friend named Josiah who shot a cow with his gun" (you get that one BJ? lol) 金湖's 604 is the coolest sixth grade ever. I need some new English games. I promised myself that I would get to bed at a decent hour tonight...wonder if that will happen. I wonder anybody is still reading this paragraph. I want to call home but their probabbly at church. A friend of mine is going to Cambodia for 10 days for about US$600...once I finish working for KingCar and come back to Taiwan I should travel around Asia some. My team is the best: Andrew and Ginger are esp. cool. I'm so glad I know English and am learning Chinese and not the other way around. I think the computer screen in the living room is going on the fritz.

Ok, I'm going to bed. I shall leave conquers running all night and if I don't get punted, I should be level 65 by morning. *crosses fingers* Please don't punt me: please!

Good night people.

Sometimes people write things that are just so much better written than you could write yourself that you just have to post links instead of trying to say it yourself. That's what I'm doing today.

Look at this post on my friend Daniel's Xanga. He describes EXACTLY how I feel.

And look at this post on my friend James' Xanga. I love the part about the sentances in the textbook.

Doctors here in Taiwan have totally bought into this idea of "if a little does well, a lot does better." One thing I had to learn when I first came here was that if a student has a huge bandage on his body somewhere, that doesn't neccacarily mean that he's been really bad hurt. Things that we would normally put a bandaid on get the full treatment over here.

So in keeping with my "try not to take medicine unless your about to die" way of doing things, I have tried my best to avoid going to the doctor. Today, however, I reached that level of "about to die" and so called Terry to take me to the doctor. He gave me about 80 million different types of medicine and wow, it is strong stuff. I've only had two doses (one of them just a few minutes ago) but I can already feel a difference.

Yea, I'm sick, btw. I've actually been trying to get sick for about a week now. Then Friday and Saturday I spent most of the day at 寧中 hanging out with my students at a sports meet. Sunday I stayed home from church and slept most of the day. Monday I went to school but only taught half of each class. And then Monday night I had to decide to call in sick for Tuesday. I hated doing that. Maybe it's just an ego thing, but I kinda take pride in the fact that I had taken only one sick day before today.

Jean gave me a pretty big home work assignment on Friday...and I haven't done anything about it yet. I really should get that done...but I'm too sick to think about it. And I really should get my home work for tomorrow's class finished as well...

Ugg. Enough about being sick. Let's talk about something else. Perhaps the fact that I forgot BJ's birthday COMPLETELY! I'm so sorry BJ! And HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Mom is coming in less than two weeks. I'm about to explode.

Cool story from Thailand...We were at the night market. While sitting with Megan and Mia at the food court we saw some the guys who were cleaning up trash. They were wearing these REALLY, REALLY BRIGHT yellowish-green t-shirts. I turned to Megan and Mai and said "wow, I really should get one of those shirts!" So I walked up to one of them and asked if he could speak English...he couldn't.

Drat. So I figured that was that. A little later most of our group met there at the food court and Daniel told me that he had been talking to some college students who spoke pretty good English, so why didn't I get them to translate for me? I didn't want to at first, but Daniel talked me into it. So I talked to the college students....they agreed to translate...I went and got the trash guys to follow me to the translators table (that was funny) and asked where I could buy the shirt.

They told me I couldn't buy it. It was their work uniform and wasn't actually for sale at the night market. But by this time I had decided I really wanted one of those shirts. In a moment of feeling very bold, I offered my t-shirt in exchange for one of theirs. Believe it or not, one of them agreed, and right there in the middle of the night market we took off our shirts and switched! Probably the funnist part of the whole thing was seeing my teammates reaction.

Another cool thing that happened was going street preaching with Isaac. Isaac is a guy who worked with KingCar last year in Nantou: he is now working in Bangkok. One night we went with him and some of his friends to Goaw Sang (sp?) road to preach. Now Goaw Sang road is a really interesting place...reminds you a lot of Vanity Fair in Pilgrims Progress. Both sides of the street are lined with bars and prostitution fronts. Everybody is drunk and high or on their way there. Cross dressers and sex changers stand on the street for you to get your picture taken with them. Preaching there was really interesting. It was really funny when one guy ran up and grabbed Isaac (who was preaching) and started to carry him off down the street. Isaac never batted an eyelash and just kept right on preaching like nothing was happening. After about twenty feet the guy put him down and walked away. It was really funny.

I am not a shopping person. The idea of going out just to spend money has never appealed to me. Or at least it never did in the States. But now I realize that it's because everything in the States is way too expensive. Shopping in Asia is fun! I've actually come to enjoy going to the night market very much. The funnist part is bargaining. While in Thailand I added a new weapon to my bargaining arsenal
: the ammused laugh. When somebody is obviously trying to rip you off, instead of saying anything about it, you just look at them and laugh. Then walk away. Almost every time they come after you and drop the price by half.

Ok, I'm going to stop now. I'm actually starting to feel good enough to maybe do some home work...night guys.

Dude, I really want to post some pictures from winter camps and from Thailand, but Hello is having issues and I can't get any pictures uploaded! So just hang on until I figure something out.

In the mean time, take a look at www.cowabduction.com

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?