Always an Adventure...

Do you remember the rush of emotion you went through as you were beginning high school? I remember being afraid I'd get lost in the hallways, or walk into the wrong class. I worried I wouldn't have any friends in my classes. How hard would the classes be? How much homework would there be? Ah. Memories. This week I'm teaching fresh(wo)men, in literally their first week at their new high school. ( Speaking of freshmen, my "baby" brother -who was starting kindergarten when I graduated from high school- is entering grade 9 in the fall. Where DOES the time go? ) They're so cute, both shy and excited at the same time. It's fun to be able to say welcome to LY Girls' High School! I also have to remind myself that they're not the same students I left behind last semester who were just getting ready to embark on their final year of high school. I have to talk slowly. I have to explain how to do a "Find someone who..." activity in great detail. I ha...

Last week's camp was a lot of fun! After a week of "cool" teenagers who don't like to do actions to songs or show they're excited about anything, it was great to be with a group of fun, very easily amused kids! The junior high week was challenging for me, partly because I think I was expecting the students to be more mature than they were. I was expecting the kids last week to be restless though, and planned accordingly! The pictures from last week will be coming from a really cool team of people from a church in western Taiwan who came to Yilan for the week. They took care of the first half of the camp, and then I showed up to teach English. There were almost 40 kids, most from the local elementary school. Their English level was REALLY low, quite a difference from the "city" kids of the week before. I actually ended up teaching a lot in Chinese. Anyways, I had a lot of fun, the kids were cute and loved most of the activities we did! On the last day the...

Nothing too dire or serious, but sadly, I forgot my cell phone charger in Taipei, where it sits somewhere near my my back up cell phone charger (also in Taipei...). Why do I do this to myself?? After about 30 minutes of running (ok hobbling) around to various 7-11s and cell phone stores yesterday, I found that no one was able (or willing) to let me charge it in-store. Most places said "Only Taipei has this kind of service" well if I were in Taipei before THURSDAY I wouldn't NEED the service. So anyways, I had to dig out my old cell phone and charger and switch back for the week, not so bad, I suppose. I also discovered last night that my air conditioner doesn't get cold anymore............. It made for a grumpy and uncomfortable night.... I called around to see if I can get it fixed asap. Right now I'm just using a tiny doraemon fan that someone won out of one of those claw machines. Anyways, I'd better get ready for camp this afternoon! Me +40 kids.... will b...

We just had a crazy week of camp that ended yesterday! 4 days of early mornings, prayer, chasing 13 year old boys, making a video, singing praise songs, teaching English, getting to know new people, and a lot more.... I'll have to write more about it soon... as for today, I thought I'd have to work, but we ended up having a typhoon day! It's nice to catch up on my sleep, but I'm bummed that Friday Night Live was canceled, since we invited our students from camp to go! Anyways, my leg is doing amazingly well... i managed all week being fairly active (but abstaining from any running games) and I can walk and do stairs pretty well... besides pain and swelling at the end of the day, life is slowly getting back to normal... I'll go see the doctor next week when I get back to Yilan. Speaking of which, I have a kids camp next week in the afternoons! Let's hope it goes well! I actually don't teach kids very often at all anymore, and I do prefer teaching high school...

The bandages on my leg suddenly got a lot smaller as I got my stitches out today. As promised, I took a picture of the x-ray, but since I took it with my cell phone, you really can't see anything at all..... by the way the doctor seemed really excited to let me take a picture, he even got out of his chair so i could get up close! Actually that's his hand in the picture pointing to the screw holes. My doctor cracks me up. 2 things I learned today: first the screw holes look wierd and kinda gross, and second the chunk that broke the first time is actually still sticking way out, the gap has just filled in. If you look carefully at the x-ray on the right you can see a light piece of something sharp looking...pretty much parallel to the tip of the pen: that's the errant bone. Maybe you can't see it, but I can see it... then again i've been looking at x-rays of my leg regularly for almost 2 years now! I'm off to Taipei soon and back to work again. Wish me luck and no...

Ok, well there's not really a part four, especially since this is already day 10. The doctor stopped in on Sunday and added seafood and fish to my list of forbidden foods.... apparently fish is "too healthy" and will cause my tissue to grow back too rapidly making for an ugly scar.... wish he would have told me that before I bought a ton of healthy fish and put it in my freezer to cook after I got home!! About an hour later, someone from the church brought me dinner..... salmon fried rice! I decided to stop eating fish the next day instead..... So now the list of things I can't eat or drink: coffee, tea, or cola (caffeine) and probably other carbonated drinks which are bad for your bones mangoes and bananas for some unknown reason fish and seafood Well I'm not sure how long I'll follow all those rules, but i'm trying to be good for now, at least until i'm all healed up. I did have a wonderful friend bring me some decaf coffee though! So at least I can ...

Saturday Had a mini cold war with my roommate. Her great-grandchildren came to visit from 10-12, just as I was about to take a nap. They were really noisy, so I put in my headphones…. But then they decided it would be a fun game to peek around the curtain at the foreigner and run away screaming if I looked at them…. My dread grew when I head mom coaching them: “How are you?” “My name is __ what’s your name?” I wondered if I feigned a coma would they leave me alone, but it didn’t seem likely. To give the little girl credit, she really wanted to try speaking English with me. She finally jumped out from behind the curtain and said very quickly, “My name is Cindy, what’s your name?” I said “Hello” and she bolted for her mother. Back again “My name is Cindy, what’s your name” “ Charlotte ” (run away) Back again, “My name is Cindy” “How old are you?” “ My name is Cindy” sigh. I got my revenge when Christine came for lunch with her 3 youngest daughters, and I encouraged t...

Thursday afternoon Woke up shivering and teeth chattering, it was really intense. People were talking to me and I could answer, but really couldn’t make myself stop shaking. Learned a new Chinese word: fa dou (shivering or shaking) it sounds like “giving out beans” though probably not the same tones. 發抖....發豆 Finally I did stop and they took me down to x-ray (requiring your bed to be wheeled through where all the outpatients wait, isn’t that lovely?) and back up to my room. I slept off and on, and had more visitors. The cleaning lady bought me dinner. I’d chatted with her a bit earlier when she came to empty my garbage, and around 5 she started getting concerned that I might be hungry. I ate ritz crackers and an apple, but she insisted that she go down and buy me something. I tried to refuse again and told her that some people were brin ging me stuff later. She came back to my room a 3 rd time and said she was about to get off work and she really thought I should eat something, so ...