Always an Adventure...

There have been quite a few typhoons in Taiwan this year, including one just two days before I returned to Taiwan. This past week has kind of felt like a waiting game, since we had slow moving Typhoon Tembin moving past, and then looping around for another pass. We got almost no rain in Yilan, but people in the south as usual were hit pretty hard. People were really preparing for this one in a way I don't usually see though, literally battening down the hatches, taking down signs, taping up windows and so on. But fortunately, this one was a near miss. Still a couple of months left in typhoon season, especially if this ends up being like my first year in Taiwan, 2004, when we had a typhoon as late as December. Anyways, all that to say, I found this fascinating blog/site with visualizations of tropical storms on a world map. It's definitely worth checking out! IDV User Experience: Hurricanes Flip-Book Style : Here are 33 years of hurricane seasons lobbed into a bloated and c...

 ( I took this picture!!! ) I took this picture on a little photography trip, and my friend told me that in Chinese, these sunbeams are called "Jesus Light." I thought it was very appropriate! Last night at bible study, we were talking about who God is and different names for God. I asked my students why God has so many different names. Some websites  list over 700!  We teased out the idea that God is everything to everyone. He has different names because he comes through for us in different ways and in different circumstances. Sometimes we need him to be our refuge or healer, other times we need the master and shepherd, and still other times we need the lover of our souls. God has been doing a new work in my life in this past year, and it has been hard at times. But last night when I got home, a paper literally fell out of my bag and onto my lap. It was some verses our professor had given to us on the last day of class back in July. But they were exactly what I need...

As you saw in the previous post, I got to attend commencement when I was at home, and a lot of people have been asking me "What next?" The answer is a little complicated, but the simple answer is: hopefully the same thing I've been doing for awhile, just better. That being said, I'm actually not quite done with my coursework, nor do I hold that piece of paper that gives me a new set of qualifications. Since this past summer was the last time we would all meet together, we got to join the graduation ceremony, but we actually still have a semester's worth of coursework still left to do, so I'll be working on assignments until the end of the year. But, I'm already done the big one as we finished our grad research last semester. It was tough. It was long. I often felt like I didn't really know what I was doing. But now it's done! At the end of this entry, I will post my abstract for those of you who want to know more about what I researched. For ...