Always an Adventure...

I invited Ashley, a new coworker to join me for a weekend in Yilan. These pictures are from her camera. We had a good time, despite some rain. We ate LOTS of mooncakes, starting on Friday... more than I've eaten any other year, though I'm still not the biggest fan. On Sunday after church we went up to a village high in the mountains, about 3 hours from Yilan. The drive was a little harrowing, especially since it was raining and foggy. But the view was great! We stopped about halfway up.... .... to pick some vegetables for our dinner and kept going until we reached this little village. A wrong turn introduced us to some new friends, who were quite excited to see two foreigners in their village. The areas main economy is fruit, and we saw tons of fruit trees including this kiwi tree, and persimmons growing (below) you must try this fruit if you ever get a chance, it's lovely. We also saw Chinese pears and apples growing everywhere (and being sold everywhere for that matter) I...

On Monday I heard that there was a typhoon grazing Taiwan soon, but didn't think much of it, since it wasn't even raining. I asked my students if they thought they'd get the next day off and everyone agreed that it wasn't too likely. The teacher I talked to said, the wind has to be blowing a lot harder than this by now for us to get a typhoon day. I had my first English Bible class in the evening which went really well, and as class was coming to a close, there were murmurs of a day off the next day. I still doubted since I'd seen a lot more rain on a lot more occasions. But when I got home, tv, internet and a phone call confirmed it, no school on Tuesday! That evening had some really cool clouds, and around sunset time the sky was an eerie red/purple color. I woke up on Tuesday morning to sunshine coming in my window.... it seemed the typhoon wasn't going to do much damage in Yilan. When I went out for breakfast I noticed that all the stores along my street wer...

I just wrote a post on my Chinese blog , and out of curiosity, decided to use Altavista Babelfish to translate it into English.... i'm not sure if my Chinese grammar is really messed up or if the site just doesn't do that good of a job... but here's what came out: Felt relieved! I also in! Wrote for a year half only then to write 29 articles open, was few. . . This semester I each week must run Taibei to attend class, goes to work. Monday, two, three in Yilan, 45 in Taibei. Weekend as necessary goes back. Although has 1. to be tired but to think good I to the present. Rides the train to have 1. troubles, but I may use at that time to rest perhaps the preparation schoolwork. Teacher wants to say the schoolwork? I do not eliminate! Taibei's student English degree quite is high. Possible they to study English the opportunity quite to be many. Other advantage are may eat quite many western-style food, frequently uses my mother tongue to chat, weekend plays quite is all conv...

Please pray for Indonesia. They've had 3 large earthquakes in less than 24 hours, and over 40 aftershocks. The death toll isn't that high, but many have lost their homes, or are living in tents because they are afraid another earthquake will collapse their houses. It really must feel like the world is ending for some of them. I have some relatives who used to be missionaries there, but are home now, and I just found out about an acquaintance who is there now. The country has just really been on my heart since I heard the news. We had an earthquake here last week in the middle of the night. It was a 6.6 with the epicenter under the ocean, but we definitely felt it. The house was moving and doors and windows rattling. Kind of a scary way to wake up. We were all ok, don't worry. The biggest Indonesian quake was an 8.2 which I believe means it was almost 200 times stronger than the one that woke us up.

Ranting really does work sometimes. I actually felt a lot better after writing about what happened, and it lifted my spirits to have so many people care enough to leave a note too. Thanks, friends. I also emailed my supervisors and tried to take steps to ensure things would go more smoothly with this school in the future, particularly this Wednesday when I have to go back to teach there again. Other interesting moments this past week: In chapel on Friday I actually understood about 80% of an amazing testimony a woman gave about her husband who passed away last year. It was really touching, since they were both musicians and she sang some songs for us that had her husband in the background vocals on the cd track. I can't even imagine how it must feel to do that. On the other hand, I only understood about 60% of the sermon in church on Sunday, and tried not too look too distracted the rest of the time, though I couldn't hold a candle to the lady who was actually using a laptop in...

My day started with a phone call. Not the 'hey what's new' kind of phone call. The 'something is wrong' phone call. Or in my case, the 'you have class today that you didn't know about' kind of phone call. My co-worker called to tell me about some new classes that one of my schools has decided at the last minute to sign up for. Every second Monday (1 hour in the morning before my 4 hours at a different school in the afternoon) and every second Wednesday (in the afternoon for 3 hours at the same school I already taught from 8-12). A little complicated yes, oh and by the way TODAY is the first day! Well it was a little shocking to hear that I was going to have class in less than 2 hours, and I was a little upset when my poor co-worker (who had to bear the brunt of my reaction over the phone) revealed that he'd known since Friday but didn't know how explain all that in English so waited until Monday, instead of A. emailing me in Chinese, B. asking so...

This should be my mantra in Taiwan, though perhaps it is a typical part of any teacher's life. I went to the boys' high school today where I taught last year. No books had arrived, this is no longer a surprise to me, and I was already prepared to teach for 4 hours without them. If they still don't show up next week I might start to worry though. Anyways, last year I taught classes 201 and 101, and this year my assignment is the same. Last year's 101 class was my favorite of all my classes (I know, you're not supposed to have favorite) but they were great! I laughed a lot every class, and really had a lot of fun with them. So naturally, I was really looking forward to seeing them again after a two month break. My first class didn't get off to the best start, which made me even more excited about seeing familiar students that i've already established great rapport with... Can you see where this is going yet? Any guesses? . .. ... .... ..... ...... ..... .... ....

I've already begun my semester, though a little unexpectedly. I found out last Tuesday that I'd have class on Thursday afternoon in Taipei. So I ended up starting a week earlier than originally thought, but it's all good. I went back to the girls' high school in Yilan yesterday and today and it's been nice to be back in a familiar place, with the familiar, expected first day problems haha. This year they were minimal (MS office not being installed on a new computer that I was to show a powerpoint on...) I saw a couple of my students from last year during a break and they literally shrieked when they saw me and came running over. I'm really looking forward to teaching this class again this year. So I've got one more day of classes here then I'll be off to Taipei again Wednesday night. It will take a bit to get into the new routine, but I'm trying to be adaptable and to appreciate the positive things about going to Taipei. My English Bible study this ...