Always an Adventure...

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!

Last Tuesday was the second day of Passover, and Hope invited me to join in a celebration being held in Taipei. Since I've never experienced anything like it before, I thought it would be fun and interesting! I learned a lot. It has also really enriched my reflections during Passion week, especially reading about the Last Supper, where Jesus and his followers were actually eating a passover meal. It was not a messianic service, but Hope did explain some of the symbols and how they relate. It started with a prayer meeting in a different room, and the rabbi sharing story after story. Then we proceeded down to the banquet room where each table was outfitted with the necessary things, including wine, matzah (unleavened biscuits), bitter herbs, and little books containing the liturgy and readings. The books were 126 pages long in Hebrew and English, and it seemed like we read every single page. Most of it was the rabbi reading at a rapid pace in Hebrew with us following along in English...

well I had my test, and it was really tough! It was an hour of listening and an hour of reading. I didn't get the results yet, but the listening section was ok. The reading, on the other hand, was horrible! I actually guessed at about half the questions, and even ran out of time... I think I can identify with my students a little better now who are taking various English proficiency tests. But anyways, the test was free, and who knows, I may have done better than I thought ;) My Chinese was dealt another blow when I arrived back in Yilan last weekend. Something was different. The bus was turning down a strange street. It was a huge, newly-built bus terminal that I didn't know existed. Yes, the bus I take twice a week changed routes, and I had absolutely NO idea! You think there would have been signs... well there probably were, but I have no recollection of seeing anything to that effect. At that point it was actually faster to walk home than to walk to where I had parked my sc...

I'm taking a Chinese proficiency test on Saturday, partly for fun and curiosity, partly to eventually fulfill the language requirement in my master's degree studies. I'm taking level 3 of 4 because I know I could pass level 2. The problem is that the gap between 2-3 is quite large, and I estimate that I'm right in the middle. For level 2 they suggest you know 1800 characters, and it jumps up to 5000 for level 3 (officially known as "Superior"). Thinking about this reminded me of how proud I was (documented above) to know 30 characters! Ah this language, it has been quite the journey. Now if they test words about education, the bible, or broken legs, I'll pass with flying colors...economics, on the other hand, not so much.

We have a long weekend on Easter this year, as it fittingly coincides with Tomb Sweeping Day. When I tell the Easter story, I usually say that when Jesus friends went to 掃墓 (sweep the tomb) they found that it was empty! This year, I'm not going to boil any eggs (whew) but have some interesting things planned. But for now, a great song that I heard in church today that really helps prepare the heart. The chorus is my favorite part: Living he loved me Dying he saved me Buried he carried My sins far away Rising he justified Freely forever One day he's coming Oh glorious day