Always an Adventure...

Tonight at supper Sabrina told us that she had purchased a fruit that smelled bad but tasted good. I vaguely remember hearing about this fruit before, and Hope knew about it. This fruit is called the Durian, and I would describe its smell as something similar to gasoline. The taste, while definitely better than the smell, could not be separated... I hope I never have opportunity to try it again! It's hard to describe, but the smell permeated the whole house as soon as we entered, and it was quite fascinating to see some of our friends eating large portions of this fruit with flourish! The following is an excerpt from an article I found on the internet about the durian. Individual fruits are divided into five compartments, each containing a large brown seed covered by a sac of thick, creamy, yellow pulp with an aroma that's legendary. You could publish a small book full of analogies that have been used to try to pin down this odor. Some of the more common comparisons in

Looks so inviting... 

What have I been up to since my last update? Tuesday was a beautiful day and I actually put on shorts and worked out on my balcony for awhile! Of course the Taiwanese are still in heavy jackets lol Yesterday I had a fun-filled day in Hualien. I went with Amy Jieh and her two children and we visited all kind of exciting places. Her son had a violin lesson and English class, and then the children were flying to Taipei to meet their grandparents. On the way there Annie (6 years old) put in this English cd with songs for kids, so we sang such classics as "I'm a little tea pot" "Hokey Pokey" (made considerably more difficult when you're in a car) and "The farmer in the Dell" (the cheese stands alone). We visited the really beautiful campus of this biggest college in Hualien, and walked around for awhile, and then went to this great Japanese restaurant for lunch and had many delicious things mmmmmmmmmmm. We visited the oceanfront and some other visitor

... as a karaoke singer..... Yesterday we went for lunch with our friend from Yuli Jr. High and who should happen to show up at the same restaurant but Shio Li and the rest of her coworkers for a staff lunch! That's definitely one of the benefits of small town life: everywhere you go, you'll run into someone you know, and before long you know everyone, the people at the coffee shops and restaurants we go to regularly know us. Anyways, I had heard that Karaoke was a really popular thing here, but had yet to experience the phenomenon. Our favourite restaurant (the Thai place) has karaoke and 4 microphones. When they started the machine up, we 'slyly' nominated Shio Li to sing! Her co-workers thought that was a great idea, though somehow when all was said and done, it was us who ended up singing, and not her at all! Of course the book only had a few English selections to choose from, and we'd never heard of most of them! We finally settled on "My Girl" but s

I forgot to tell the funny story of the week. It happened among other events on Sunday: I fell off my bike . Now this wasn't a bicycle accident, more of a "single vehicle mishap." I wasn't actually riding my bike at the time. We had stopped and were chatting with Dan about where to go for lunch, and I was standing up, balancing my bike when it started falling to one side. Since my legs were on either side of the bike I couldn't easily extract myself, and somehow I ended up on the ground with said bicycle on top of me. I must say the pain of embarrassment was greater than the pain of falling off my bike (or my bike falling on me, however you want to view the event). Those of you who remember the "precipice" incident my first year of college may not find this story too shocking.... Anyways, I AM ok though today when the chain fell off (as i was riding it) I took it to the bike shop and the Lao Ban (store owner or boss) said I had to get the gears on my bi

 

 

 

 

L-R Sherly, Linda, Phoebe, Anna, Joy: My great students!

 

This morning we had time between church and lunch, so we invited our friends over to play with the puppies. This is Ariel and her fiance Richard who lives in Hualien and comes to visit frequently on the weekends. Around 4:00 I had a little baking class, which was pretty fun! It's Sherly's birthday tomorrow and so she asked if I would show her how to make cookies so she can bring some to work. I agreed and suddenly there were all kinds of people signing up! It was kinda crazy, but we had fun. Eva's daughter, her name is Anna I believe, was a big help, and actually did a lot of the work, because the other ladies kind of got tired of it after the first few tray. Anyways, at some point they got the idea to start making shapes and then words out of the dough, which actually baked better than I thought. From there I had to run because we had made plans to go to a turkey dinner hosted by Chris, one of the Yuli Jr. High teachers. About 6:00 we left for what we thought was goin

 

The puppies!! They are so cute! Soon we'll only have the brown one left, who we have named Frosty (Jeff said we could name her). Her Chinese name is Bing Kafe lol she's a bilingual puppy ;) In case you're wondering, I got my digital camera today!! I bought it off the internet and had it sent home and i just received it in the mail. More random pictures to come... because I can... 

Looks good anywhere! 

snickerdoodle indeed, who came up with that name anyways? it is a fun one to try explaining to people! this all came about due to the fact that i baked snickerdoodles last night mmmmm anyways, on a completely unrelated topic, i had my last class today for the semester! my students weren't that good considering, lol but that's ok, i got a few cards and notes from my students, which makes it all worth it... just when you think they don't care they say "I love you teacher" and your heart melts. One of my girls gave me this adorable picture frame with a picture of her inside! at the end of my second class one of my students gave me a hug and then she started crying!! i almost cried then too.... awww I don't know what i'm going to do when i leave for real anyways, next semester we'll be teaching at the same three schools plus two elementary schools and all kinds of other places... this weekend the ORTV people are coming here and we get to do a big ki

Live in Holiness "Then the nations will know that I am the Lord...when I show myself holy through you before their eyes." Ezekiel 36:23b Live in Awareness "I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live." John 5:25 Live in Victory and Sincerity "But thanks be to God who always leads us in truimph in Christ and through us spreads the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. ... Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God." 2 Corinthians 2:14, 17

at present I am eating this odd jello-like substance that Sherly gave us. It comes in a little plastic container not unlike an ice cube tray, and tastes a little like coffee. We had our meeting with Dr. Su today and got to pitch our idea for giving a talk to the Young Holistic group about missions/world awareness. It will be fun I think! We probably won't be doing that until March though. We played with the puppies for awhile and even took one out for a bike ride in my basket!! It was cute, though she wasn't too excited about it... lol more confused at the change of scenery. This week hasn't been extremely exciting thus far, I teach tomorrow and Thursday. Yesterday I did this crazy craft thing i got for Christmas from one of the families here, and let me tell you, it was hard! It's these two little chinese people, and it comes in a kit with all the materials that you have to put together. Unfortunately, the instructions are only in Chinese, so I did the best I c

LOTR fans will catch my veiled reference... so i'm a nerd... i can live with that... i've been through less than half the special features so far including one commentary... The end of this week was kind of strange because it was both my last class at Yu Dong and our last English Club until next semester. It's so odd for things to be wrapping up in this way when it feels like they've just started. But this next month is kind of going to be like the deep breath before the plunge (ok, ok i'll stop now) since i have to try to get as much pre-planning done as i can for my fairly hectic upcoming schedule! It actually worked out really well for me earlier; i sat down and planned some sample lessons for the articles i wanted to use, and brainstormed activities and kind of put them in order so they could potentially be a lesson (though not fully developed) so when the week came, i already had an idea of what i wanted to do, and my lessons were as a result pretty easy to

So yesterday was a mixed up day all around.... our Chinese class got changed from Thursday to Wednesday, but our school classes didn't.... now you have to remember, before i relay this shameful event that not only was our day mixed up, but every other day we teach, we teach from 3-5pm. IN ADDITION, we have not taught at Yuli Jr. High for 3 weeks... thus making it easy to forget that we maybe had class from 2-4 on Wednesdays instead of 3-5.... at least it was easy for Hope and I. So here I was sitting in my room at 2:20, thinking I had lots of time to get my photocopying done for class when Hope came in after her teacher called her and we realized in shock and horror that we had missed our first class!!!! We got to the school in time for our second classes, but felt really bad for our poor students!! So anyways, Peggy also admitted that she had forgotten that detail, and laughed about the situation. The worst thing though is that our classes at that school might get cancelled ne

HAPPY NEW YEARS!! Xin Nian Kuai Le! It's hard to believe it's really 2005, I've been here 2.5 months, and in Yuli over 2 months now! 2004 was quite an interesting year, I set foot on the soil (or concrete as it is) of 4 different countries (counting Canada and the U.S. of course), but hey that's the most in one year for me ;) It was a year of accomplishments, changes, and huge steps of faith. So here I am, beginning the year in Taiwan. And what a beginning it was! On Saturday, I spent most of the afternoon cooking (it was fun!) for the party we had! I made eggnog, which to my shock and amazement actually tasted like eggnog. I made two different kinds, one of which was cooked. I also baked cookies (and though that was the worst that recipe has ever turned out for me, our friends managed to eat them ALL, i'm talking 4 dozen for 8 people lol!) and made spaghetti. They also brought over food, snacks and drinks. Ariel made this Thai shrimp soup and some chic