Always an Adventure...

I don’t even remember what day it started raining. I do know that it came down steadily, impossibly. Every time I looked outside, it was still pounding the same rhythm. The news reports came in, Typhoon Megi was devastating the Philippines , but would probably miss us and head on to China . We’d just get more rain. And more rain. And more rain. I kept looking for a break in the downpour, but it never came. Usually I leave Yilan for the (sometimes) dryer streets of Taipei on Wednesday nights, but not this week. This week I was scheduled to teach in Hualian on Friday. That meant working from home on Thursday. I ran out for groceries in the morning, bypassing the underpass near my back entrance, as it was starting to fill with water. My friends had offered to pick me up in their car at 12:30, still pouring. I noticed a car stuck in the underpass, lights flashing. Too much water. We heard rumors of a typhoon holiday and school cancellations, but weren’t sure. At three when they were dri...

Ok, so it's officially been 2 months since my last post. I don't know if I still have any readers, but I know it's time for me to make a new post! I've been working hard on my schooling, which means a lot of hours in Starbucks (not so bad, right?), but also means I've been even busier than usual. I'm enjoying the coursework so far though. I'm already looking forward to going to Thailand in January. In fact, part of me wouldn't mind skipping the rest of this year and moving straight into 2011. Here are some exciting things happening: 2 visitors (possibly a classmate in January, and my grandma in March) A trip to Thailand (thank you APU for scheduling the classes right before Chinese New Year, so I can stay there for some vacation time too!) 2 new babies in my family! (My aunt Carol in February, and my sister in April!!) Here are a few things I've been doing besides schoolwork: Teaching a Saturday kids camp, fun but exhausting... but the kids were sooo...

I just started reading this book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan. It's a great book, I'd recommend it! Here's a quote: Worry implies that we don't quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what's happening in our lives. Stress says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace toward others, or our tight grip of control.

Well, it's time to resurrect a long-neglected blog! I'm here in Los Angeles right now and just finished my first week of Master's degree classes. I'll be doing another class next week, and will be back again each summer over the next two years. I'm back to my job in Taiwan on July 25 (and starting classes just 10 hours later on July 26....good thing i'm taking education courses, hopefully i can get some inspiration about what to teach my students while i'm all jet lagged...) Anyways, here are a few fun pictures from my first week: The dorm room, yes they are bunk beds, and yes, i felt old trying to climb on them: A trip to the visiting Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit here on campus, great timing! (My roommates: Morgan and Denise) Our cohort: we'll be doing classes together for the next 2 and a half years! There are people who will be teaching in China, Korea, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan We also had a potluck last night with our program director and depa...

May = Busy. It always has. I guess it's at that position in between holidays but close enough to summer that you start to realize how much you have to get done before the end of June. Anyways, May has been incredibly busy for me, especially with an extra, extremely time consuming project that came up at work involving proofreading/editing 80 stories and then working on the voice recording for some of them. It's been a challenge, but has been a good way to practice my Chinese, since the stories I'm editing have been translated from Chinese, and sometimes I need to go back and look at the original in order to figure out the intended meaning. Speaking of learning Chinese, it is Chinese speech contest time again, but this year, I am NOT a participant. When I got the email in mid-April about the upcoming contest, I was torn. It's always nice to get some money if I win, but I have so many other things going on right now, including an online MA course. So I thought I'd giv...

From time to time I post pictures or signs of things like this that just got lost in translation. In the case "Earthnut slush" should have been peanut slushie or smoothie. Knowing some Chinese, I can often see how the mistake came about. When Chinese-speaking countries host international events, a lot of time is usually put into cleaning up the English around the city. According to this article (which also has a great slideshow), Shanghai tried to do just that because of the 2010 World Expo. By the way, the Shanghai expo looks SO cool! I was teaching students about it this week. If you have a chance, check out the 3D interactive website . You can visit the different pavilions and even enter some of them. The Canada one, though, not the coolest one of the lot. Some of my favorites are Iceland, Nepal, and Brazil. Taiwan's is pretty neat too.

Here are my two favorite birthday cards! It's technically not even my birthday yet, but this week has been filled with birthday fun! On Saturday, some of my friends from Taipei came down to Yilan for an eventful day of Thai food, going to the beach, running for trains, hot springs, and the night market. On Sunday I had dinner with my awesome friends from church and a special guest - my former Yilan coworker Tony came back from Taipei with his family to join us for dinner! Tonight at Bible study we also celebrated birthdays from Jan-June with a cake and some no-bake peanut butter marshmallow squares I made. As for the real day... well I have class for most of it, but it's ok, I'll bring some cake for my students and try to do things a little more laid back. In the evening I'm going to celebrate with my Chinese teacher and her family, who last year made a Blue's Clues treasure hunt for me! I love how birthdays in Taiwan seem to last a whole week!