Always an Adventure...

I learned three very important things just now: 1. The little railway underpass that leads to the back of my apartment building gets flooded during heavy rain. 2. A scooter does not drive through knee-high water. 3. Scooters don't like to start after that important stuff underneath gets filled with water. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it home! I kept trying to start my scooter again, while wondering if I should just push it through the underpass to home. Otherwise I'd have to go back and drive around the long way over the train tracks, which is what I ended up doing. A lady came by on her scooter at that time and I told her it was impassable. She waited with me until I got my scooter started again, and drove part of the way home with me until she could tell my scooter was running ok. I was so thankful! I really didn't know what to do! When I got home I noticed that there was a car stuck in that same underpass (which cars are not actually supposed to drive throug

Yesterday was a very fun-filled day of meeting people by chance or by appointment. One of the great things about this little town is that you're bound to meet people you know no matter where you are! Since we left here 4 years ago, a lot of our friends have had children. On the left are our old landlords' three boys. They look like they're all different ages, but the two on the right are twins! The face little Daniel is making is because he's trying Coke for the first time! He would jump around a bit after having a sip making this hilarious face, then come back for more. On the right is Ai-Jia, Robert and Pheobe's one year old (they're owners of the cram school here). She's quite the charmer!

the numbers game: 55 students in my newcomers class tonight 4 years and 11 months since I came to Taiwan 12 more test questions to write before the end of this month 150 the cost of a taxi from Taipei to Yilan (about $4 Canadian) 9 hours until we're on our way to Yuli!

Social Networking is really the buzzword these days. A lot of my blog readers are also my friends on facebook, but not necessarily vice versa. I've been to Twitter twice, and both times, my impression was....lots of spam......so I doubt I'll be on there anytime soon. But I do often find myself not writing in this blog because I want to wait until I can give a more detailed description of things. So I'm going to experiment a little and try to update shorter things, more often, and see how it goes. Like when I have something on my mind that's too long for a Facebook status.... I find blogging to be a little more "permanent" too, though without the instant gratification of people "liking" my statuses right away.... I guess that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make :P So hello, my name is Charlotte. It makes me angry when I run downstairs with all my garbage only to miss the garbage truck, and then drop half of my fresh made avocado dip on the floo

Well today I was waiting for the bus back to Yilan when someone came up to me, and asked, "Are you Charlotte"? It was one of my students from a couple of years ago at the high school! I was glad that I could still remember her name, and we chatted while waiting for the bus. She was also on her way home to Yilan for the weekend. She's going to university in Taipei now, and studying Elementary English Education! Also, we carried on the whole conversation in English. Good job, Renee! Now that I've been in Taiwan for a few years, this kind of thing happens fairly frequently! It's really cool to meet my former students and hear about what their doing, but it kind of makes me feel old too! I know there are only a couple of years between when I have them and when they get to university, but just seeing them make the transition from shy high school to fashionable college lady is so neat. Once I even ran into a girl who I taught back in Hualian who was working part time at

Some surprises are good, like finding out a friend is pregnant, or that you got a raise, or, going into the local 7-11 and finding milk on for buy-1-get-one-half-off. Some surprises are bad. Like taking a drink of said milk AFTER you've poured half of it into your coffee and finding that it's artificially sweetened with a vaguely fruity flavor. Bad suprise. Note to self: you probably will not "love" the I heart milk brand.... This blog post was going to be short and sweet, but I realized it's my first update since I got back to Taiwan! What have I been doing? Well classes have started, I have a Mexican and a Brazilian exchange student this semester. I asked my students who spent the summer in Amanda's class in Canada to reenact their experiences, and discovered they all fell in love with the French boys. Speaking of French boys, met some Deaflympians from France last night. Taiwan is hosting the Deaflympics right now, and it's really neat to see people fro