Five Weeks of Freedom!

My first semester of university is thankfully over, and I have a five-week winter break. I had no idea it would be this difficult, and the thought of having to live through it for another three and a half years is making my stomach hurt. I can only hope it gets better as I become accustomed to the Taiwan "stuff the duck" style of education. What is that? you ask. Well, their method is to overload students with a minimum of ten different classes per week, as well as the so-called "practical" sessions for a few of those classes, expecting that the students (in lieu of actually learning anything in these classes) will simply utilize their incredible memorization skills to "stuff" all this information into their brains in order to pass a test. After which they can cheerfully forget it all and prepare the brain for the next round.

This is going to be a very, very long post. I hope you're all curious enough to bear with me and read to the end. I'm going to take my week day by day, class by class, and try to give you a feel for what my life has been like since September. And then maybe you'll understand why I wasn't able to find time to write regular updates or answer e-mail! Next semester will be much the same, although I'm losing a couple classes and gaining two others.

Monday
At least I get to sleep in for a little while on Mondays. My first class at 10:10 (til noon) is Introduction to Literature. My teacher, Wang Li Hua, is a woman who appears to be in her 50s or early 60s, difficult for me to tell. She's quite nice and at least has had the experience of having a foreign student in the past, the Russian girl that I hear so much about but have never seen.

Ms. Wang's method of teaching is a slide show to accompany her lecture. The first few weeks I barely understood anything she said and had to rely on trying to read the Chinese slide show, which didn't really contain a lot of information. We don't have a textbook for this class, the teacher just gives us copies of short stories (in Chinese) to read. Some of the copies are very poor, and it's hard for me to make out the characters because they're so small. Hence, it takes me forever to try to read the stories. If I'm lucky enough to find the text somewhere online, it's a big help, because my Chinese word processor has a built-in dictionary, and that's way quicker than trying to look up a word I don't know in a regular dictionary. You see, first you have to figure out what radical the character would be listed under, then how many strokes the character is formed with, and then you can find the word. Sometimes I can guess at the pronunciation and look it up that way, but generally not. So for me to read a few short pages takes hours and hours. The Taiwan kids get through it in a snap.

The most annoying thing in this class is the behavior of my classmates. While the teacher lectures, most of the students are chatting with each other, and not quietly, either. I couldn't believe that the teacher never told them to shut up! They were so loud that I couldn't hear the teacher, even though she was using a microphone. It's very difficult for me to understand Chinese when I hear it in a noisy environment, because I just can't separate one voice from another. After suffering through this for weeks, I finally one day asked the teacher if she could please ask them to keep it down so I could understand what she was saying. She ended up giving them a scolding, told them I was more diligent than them, they should be ashamed, blah blah
blah. That kept them quiet for about 20 minutes, then we had our break, and when we came back from that, they were just as loud as before. The teacher started her lecture, and I turned around in my seat (I sit in the front row) and gave them all a loud "SSSHHHHH!!!" Only then did the teacher admonish them again. Even though it's currently better than it had been, they still talk, but they're starting to fear me. More on that later, too.

We watched some interesting movies in this class. The first was a Swedish film called 「Mother of Mine」: "During World War II, more than 70,000 Finnish children were evacuated to neutral Sweden to avoid the conflict. "Mother of Mine," the latest from the award-winning Klaus Haro ("Elina"), tackles that painful patch of history in a tale of 9-year-old Eero, a child who increasingly feels abandoned by his biological Finnish mother and yet not attached to his Swedish surrogate mom. When he is returned to Finland, his confusion intensifies." A wonderful film, this, and one I recommend. The film was in Swedish and Finnish, with both English and Chinese subtitles. Next we watched the German film, 「Run Lola Run」, in German with only Chinese subs, so I had to try to read those to understand: "Lola receives a phone call from her boyfriend Manny. He lost 100,000 DM in a subway train that belongs to a very bad guy. Lola has 20 min to raise this amount and meet Manny. Otherwise, he will rob a store to get the money. Three different alternatives may happen depending on some minor event along Lola's run." An awesome movie, if you haven't seen it, get it! These two movies we watched before mid terms, and part of the mid term exam was writing about them. The second half of the semester we saw a Japanese film called 「The Last Dance」(no English subs) and 「Immortal Beloved」, in English, yay! These were featured on the final exam.

The exams were difficult for me, because I write slowly in Chinese. On the mid term I did not have time to answer one question, and I also didn't really understand it. We were supposed to talk about the writing style in one of stories the teacher gave us, but we hadn't ever discussed it in class. I'd read most of it, but I didn't really pick up on the fact that it was a satire, because I didn't understand all of it. The teacher gave me 60% on my mid term. I just checked my final grade for the class and it's 76, yay! One great thing about her tests is that she allows us to bring all of our notes with us, so this time I used the notes I'd taken (which were better than during the first half), but once again I didn't have time to finish. I think some of the other students had the same problem, though.

When Literature ends at noon, I go back home and start to type up my notes from class, look up information on the Internet (gotta figure out which authors she talks about, because she uses the Chinese transliteration of their names, and I have to find out the English, because we don't just discuss Chinese literature, but Western as well). I have my lunch and take care of any eBay stuff, and I try to relax a little bit. At 3:30 I head back out for a fifty-minute class that begins at 4:10.

I hate this class more than I can say. I hate the subject (Introduction to Computers, Practical Session), and I hate the smarmy Teaching Assistant who runs it. Here's how the class goes: the kids file in, sit down, fire up the computers, and start surfing the Internet. The TA starts his slide show and talks a mile a minute, flipping slides faster than I can read. The other students completely ignore him while I try to follow along. I got completely lost when he was giving the lesson on using the university's BBS system (talk about outdated, who the hell uses BBS these days?), and the kids on either side of me were doing their own thing, so I asked the TA for help. That supercilious little prick told me to ask my classmates. I finally gave up toward the end of the hour and started surfing like the others, and that asshole came over to ME, completely ignoring the 75 other kids who were playing, and told me I should pay attention. Yeah, right,
fat lot of good it does to pay attention when I don't understand and you're not willing to take time to help me.

So in the first semester this completely unnecessary class has brought us lessons in how to use Internet search engines like Google and Yahoo, the bare bones of how to use Word and Powerpoint, how to set up Outlook Mail, and other basics that any 10-year-old child these days already knows. I've often not gone to class, sending the TA an e-mail telling him I'm too busy focusing on more important studies. Half the time his projector stops working 5 minutes into class, and it takes him a good 10 minutes to get it going again. If I get 30 minutes of actual instruction out of this I'm lucky. For that I should leave my comfy home and make the trip back to school? Uh uh.

The TA's section on the mid-term exam was laughable, 15 multiple choice questions, such as "What's Tamkang University's website address?" "Which of these websites can be used to search?" "Which of these e-mail addresses is for the university?" Of course these are things EVERYONE knows, how ridiculous is this? The final exam was more difficult, because there were quite a few questions about Word and Presentations, but since all I have is the English version of these, I don't recognize the terms in Chinese, and I couldn't understand many of the questions. It's not like he actually TAUGHT us anything during his sessions, either, because he himself didn't seem to know it. More gripes about computer class to come.

Tuesday
No sleeping in, it's up at 6:00 a.m. for the first class at 8:10 - English. My teacher is Wang Wei Ying aka Wanda. She's either in her late 20s or early 30s, a tiny little thing with a mass of permed hair that she wears in two bushy pigtails with a head scarf, making her look like a refugee from the 60s. She's kinda laid back, which is a bad thing, because these kids really need some stern measures. When we first started, she only used English, but she soon realized that the kids didn't understand anything she was saying, so now she uses English and then repeats it all in Chinese. I'm not surprised the kids don't understand, as the Taiwan method of teaching
English is stupid. The kids almost never get a chance to talk in class, so they never use any of the words or grammar they're "learning." The teacher's English is not great, either. Oh, she's not horrible, but she often leaves the "s" off plurals and her pronunciation is odd, as well as the rhythm of her sentences. It's a very boring class for me, but since the alternative would be trying to learn Japanese, I'll gladly sit through this. When the kids have dictation tests, I get to read the sentences, and they love that. One day I didn't go when they had a test, and they all complained to me after, saying they can't understand the teacher.

This is another class where their behavior annoys the piss out of me. We had to do group assignments, reading dumbed-down versions of classic books and then giving a group report. Every single time a group was at the front giving their report, the rest of the class was chatting and laughing and totally ignoring the group on stage. Wanda rarely tells the kids to shut up, and although their noise didn't affect my ability to understand, it just made me angrier each time. Many times I'd turn around and to the "SSHHH!" at them (and remember, I have a lot of classes with the same kids and have been through this more than once).

I didn't have trouble with the tests, of course, although I didn't get 100%. There were sections where I had to fill in the blank, given the first and last letter of the word. I just couldn't think of any words that fit sometimes!I'm sure if I'd memorized the lessons, like the other kids, it would have come to me, but I honestly didn't spend much time reading the boring textbook. I also think I'm slowly forgetting English!

So, my last day of this semester in English class, the final two groups gave their reports, and I had to keep turning around and shushing the students. Before we dismissed, I asked Wanda if I could say a few words to the kids. She gave me the microphone, and I blasted them. I told them they were incredibly rude, they had no respect for teachers or classmates, and that if I were their teacher, they'd have been kicked out of my class and given a big fat zero. I told them they were adults, not children, and that they should start acting like it, especially if any of them wanted to go abroad to continue studying, because this sort of behavior wouldn't be tolerated
in Western universities. I scolded them in English and then in Chinese to make sure they understood. They all looked pretty sheepish, but I'm betting it doesn't make a bit of difference. They may be 18 years old, but they're more like 13- or 14-year-old American kids.

After English class is Phys Ed. We spent a few weeks in the weight training room, which I enjoyed, then a couple sessions of volleyball, which I couldn't do as I can't run (but I helped serve the ball a few times), then I had to go buy a bathing suit for our swimming portion. We ended up in the water exactly once. Then we moved on to badminton, which was sort of fun for about 5 minutes and then was a huge bore.

I totally love the teacher, Sunny Qin. She was a pretty huge basketball star in her youth, and she's got a great sense of humor. She also doesn't tolerate any nonsense or impolite behavior from her girls, which I really appreciated. I'm quite sad that I can't have her next semester, but she'll only be teaching basketball, and I sure as hell can't do that. I have to choose my Phys Ed class this time, and so far I don't know what to take. There's not much I can do with this knee, but since it's a required course, I need to pick something. It ain't gonna be swimming, because that's co-ed, and damned if I'm putting this fat on display.

Tuesday noon it's back home for a much-needed shower, lunch, and then working on any assignments I have (which is usually a lot), plus the eBay.

Once again I have to leave home at 3:30 for the much-hated 4:10 - 6:00 Introduction to Computers class. I tried, I really did. I did my best to pay attention, although the volume of the other students' chatter effectively kept me from understanding the teacher. No one is interested in this class, and they either spend the time sleeping, studying other subjects, or talking loudly. The teacher is a nice enough guy, Xu Zhi Peng, and he's even sorta cute, but the stuff he teaches is way over our heads and completely unrelated to the normal person's needs. He's teaching us as if we were majoring in computers, for crying out loud! The first part of the semester I did manage to learn some things, like the Chinese names for computer system parts, and the test was relatively easy (I got an 87% on it), although I couldn't manage to memorize some of the meaningless data. The second half of the semester was ridiculous, with him teaching totally technical stuff that I'll never, ever need to use and certainly don't understand (and wouldn't
in English, either). I asked him when he was reviewing some complicated number chart for the final, "Can you please tell me when I will use this information and of what practical use it is?" His reply, "No use, just for the sake of taking a test, that's all." WTF? I'm quite certain I failed the final, because most of the questions I couldn't understand. I kept writing, "I don't understand the Chinese." next to the questions.

I have to suffer one more semester of this required garbage. I'm gonna die. I loathe it, simply loathe it, and now I use the time to study my other subjects, because I don't need this information, I don't want this information, and I don't understand this information. I'll be goddamned if I'll waste my time memorizing completely useless stuff just because Taiwan'
s Ministry of Education has decided that all students need this crap.

Wednesday
Another early day, but I eventually began skipping the first class at 8:10, because I already know how to type, both in Chinese and English. I've become friends with my teacher, whose name is Way, and I'd at least go in early enough to chat a bit with him before my 10:00 class. He's a sweetie, gave me 100% on my tests. I'm losing this class next semester, but Way and I will still find time to hang out. Instead of this class, I have to take some stupid Science and Technology Revolution class (it's on Friday afternoon,not Wednesday a.m., I can sleep in, but now my Friday is totally screwed.), and I know I'm going to suck at that. I checked out the syllabus, and it's stuff about DNA, genes, air pollution, global warming, the development of
technology - I'm supposed to be able to understand this in Chinese? Yeah....right.

My Readings in Chinese Poetry class if also extremely hard for me. The first few weeks I mostly didn't understand anything the teacher was saying in class and found it difficult to even know where in the book we were. The teacher, Ma Ming Hao, is an awesome dude, though. He's funny, tells entertaining stories (even when I don't understand I can tell they're funny!), and is very patient with me. He and I agree that it's stupid to expect a foreign student to be able to understand poetry during the first year, and this class should be deferred until year 3 or 4, but since that's not possible, he's found a lovely PhD student named Sammi to work with me once
a week to help me learn. He was also totally nice for both exams, allowing me (and the three Korean exchange students whose Chinese is much worse than mine) to work on the answers at home instead of having to do it during the test. He gave me 60% on the mid-term, and I'm hoping I did a bit better on the final.

So one day, after he'd found Sammi to help me but we hadn't started yet, he says he'll be having lunch with her that day, so I asked if I could go along so we could talk about how to help me. Well, it turned out that five of us went to lunch at a nearby Japanese restaurant, and instead of discussing teaching me, we all got rip-roaring drunk. :) Mr. Ma treated us (he has lunch with those three PhD students every Wednesday, too), and the beer just kept coming. I had a blast and missed my 3:00 class, and that evening I didn't manage to get anything done because I had a hangover. But damn, it was fun!

I'm trying to make a head start in poetry for next semester, with a goal of reading at least five of the 300 Tang Dynasties Poems every day and trying to analyze their structure (old Chinese poetry has some strict rules which must be followed when writing). Sammi has given me some very helpful info, and I'm looking forward to our weekly sessions.

Here's how great Mr. Ma is - he gave me an overall grade of 77 for the semester! So far Literature and Poetry are the only two classes for which the grade has been posted, keeping fingers crossed for the rest.

On Wednesdays I usually meet my friend Maria for lunch, but sometimes she's busy, and I end up eating lunch alone. I like my classmates, but they're all so immature that I really don't want to spend much time with them, I can't handle that much giggling. I'd been eating in the cafeteria when Maria couldn't join me, but now I go to a nice, quiet place called Black Tea House. It's a little more expensive, like US$5 as apposed to US$1.50, but worth it for the peace.

At 1:10 on Wednesday I had my very favorite class, Taiwan History, and I can't tell you how sad I am that I don't get to continue this next semester.

I love my History teacher, Wu Ming Yong. This guy knows how to make a subject interesting. And it's the only class in which I had so much laughter and a good time. Plus, the guy is a hunk! Well, to me he is. I find him very attractive, but I'm quite sure he's married (I think he's in his late 40s), although he doesn't wear a ring and says he's always in his office until midnight or later working on his thesis, which doesn't sound like a married guy. I mean, wouldn't a married guy go home and work? I flirt with him outrageously and ply him with baked goods, too. If there's a wife, I'll find out sooner or later. But anyway, I did love the class, although I had to read a lot on my own in English because the textbook was too hard for me. You see, one problem I have is not being able to differentiate Chinese names (of people or places) from other Chinese words. It's not
like English, where is you see the word "David" you know it's a person's name. Chinese name words are also regular vocabulary words, and that makes it really hard to make sense out of what I'm reading sometimes. So, most of what I read about Taiwan's history was in English, and I had to use a lot of English to answer the questions on the final, but I don't think Mr. Wu's English is very good. :( I was able to use Chinese on the mid-term, though, and I got an 80%. Now, I don't really think I did that well, I think Mr. Wu just was being nice to me, because he knows how hard I try (and because I give him Kahlua cake, cheesecake, and tiramisu, hahaha). I also helped translate some Chinese to English for him, although I had to enlist help from Aaron and Claire to do so.

Anyway, I'm thinking about auditing one of his classes next semester, right before the stupid science class. I figure if I can have a fun class with a gorgeous guy first, then it won't be so awful. I'm not willing to give up a class with the first guy I've been attracted to (well, other than Wu
Bai) since I got here! Funny thing, he's from the same part of Taiwan as Wu Bai, has the same last name, and similar facial features. Hm, I guess that's just what I like. I'd better hope he never stumbles across this blog, huh?

The class that's replacing the History class on Wednesday's next semester is one dealing with ancient Chinese novels, which I'm a bit anxious about, because one of my classmates told me that the ancient language is super hard to understand, even for native speakers. However, I read the students' critiques of the teacher, and she sounds pretty cool, so I'll give it my best shot.

Thursday
Best thing about this day is getting to sleep in, because the first class isn't until 1:10. It kinda goes downhill from there, though.

Well, not entirely. I truly do like Chinese Paleography, because I love studying the origins of the Chinese language. My teacher, Gao Wan Yu, is in her early 30s and really easy to understand. Also, we have a fairly easy textbook, with Chinese that's not very complicated, and she pretty
much follows the book in class. The problem is the amount of information we're covering. It's a lot for me to absorb, because I have to read the text more than once, and that takes a long time. I also read as much as I can in English, as well, because that helps me remember more.

I had my first breakdown of the semester in this class. I'd already been feeling totally overwhelmed and wasn't understanding much in any of my classes, and we had a "small" test, for which I'd prepared the best I could. Well, I got a zero (first time in my life I ever failed a test!), because I couldn't even answer one question. I started crying in class, and I kept crying through the rest of the afternoon. It was so frustrating, because I was understanding what I was reading, but none of it was staying in my head. I went to the Office of Foreign Exchange that
afternoon and just sobbed my heart out, trying to get them to understand how hard it was and telling them I felt cheated by the department chair. When I'd gone to see him before I applied, I asked him if he thought a foreigner studying in the Chinese Department would have difficulty (since ALL my Taiwan friends told me it would be too hard, they thought it was too hard for them!), and he assured me that I'd have absolutely no trouble at all. Liar!

Anyway, he must have realized I was in distress during his class after the Paleography class (the tears probably gave it away), and I ran into him on campus as I was heading home. He told me he'd talk to Ms. Gao and see if they could come up with an alternate method for me.

After that is when I discovered that Wikipedia had a lot of info that was taken from the English translation of our textbook and started studying that. I wanted to buy the book, but the only one I found online was US$200, and that's just too much. So, I studied harder, and the next "small" test we had, I got 57! That time I used English to answer a lot of the questions, and the teacher has no problem reading and understanding. I felt so good about my improvement, and Ms. Gao told me that for the mid-term I could also write a report about Oracle Bone Script to add points. I learn so much more when I do research on a subject, and research I did. I knew all the ins and outs of Oracle Bone Script by the time I was done with that report. I studied very hard for the mid-term, and I got a 56 on it. Best of all, mine was NOT the lowest score in class - I did better than some of the Taiwan kids, yeah!

I probably spend more time on this class than any other, because I actually do understand this one, and I feel that I'm really learning something. I'm crap at taking tests, though. For Christmas, Ms. Gao gave me a gift - another "small" test. Yeah, we don't get Christmas off here in Taiwan, I had a test that day instead. And once again I did a miserable job, despite the hours of preparation. I only got 4 points on that one. Sheesh. And I got an assignment to add points - another report, this time on the script used during the Warring States Period.

The final wasn't quite as bad as I was expecting, and I managed to do an OK job (but I still couldn't remember a lot). I know I passed, because I went by to talk to Ms. Gao on Friday, and she said I did a good job and that my report was very good. I'm sure I'll have an OK time next semester, as she wants me to help her with her English, and she knows how much I like her class, so at least I don't have to stress about possible failure for this one. The two of us are going to go to the National Palace Museum together during my break, because I want to go and really LOOK at all bronzes that I wasn't impressed with before, because I never realized how very old they were and that they contained some of the earliest writing found. I have a new appreciation for bronzes now, Carol!

So, after Paleography is the "sweep up the already immaculate road" class. I have no problem with doing some productive community service work, but my group got assigned to hunt down and rake up leaves in one of the cleanest areas of the campus. And talk about a bunch of lazy-assed kids, I had to keep grabbing the rake away from one of the guys and doing it myself because he doesn't know the concept of "put your back into it." It's annoying, but we're usually done within a half hour, so what the hell. It's no fun in the heat of summer, and it's no fun when it's cold, either. Maybe we'll get assigned to a dirty area next semester so I'll get some some of feeling of accomplishment.

Thursday is the day I dread the most because of the last class of the day, Introduction to Chinese Classics, taught by Mr. Cui, the head of the department (you know, the guy who promised me I'd have no trouble?). I'd leave this class confuzzled every time, because I understood NOTHING, and I'd have a headache from the way he would scream into the mike. I think my friend Maria must have said something to him about that (lord knows I complained
to her enough about it), because over the last few weeks he's not been so loud. I would often begin to cry in this class, because it seemed so hopeless and futile. I couldn't make heads or tails out of the handouts he gave us, because they're all in very formal Chinese, which is nothing like what I learned in language class. I couldn't understand anything he was talking about. I couldn't read what he wrote on the board because he uses calligraphy, which while very beautiful is not easy for me to interpret. After ever class I'd tell him, "Teacher, I don't understand ANYTHING AT ALL." He'd just reply by telling me not to worry, take it slowly, you'll get there, just come to class - "Trust me!"

I had no clue how to prepare for the mid-term. I didn't even know what the teacher's objective was! I got my test paper, looked it over and couldn't understand a bit of it, and spent the whole test time writing a big long letter (in English) to him, telling him how I felt, not just about his class but all of it, and then waited for him to talk to me. It took almost 3 weeks for the test score to be posted, and I damned near fainted from shock when I saw he gave me 80%. Again, WTF? I didn't answer even one question! While I appreciate his kindness, this is totally unfair to the Taiwan students who spent so much time studying.

The day he handed the test papers back, he took me outside the classroom and told me he wanted to find a Master's student to help me. I asked for Amy, the girl from Malaysia I'd done English camp with. She set up an appointment with me, and I went to see her, hoping she'd be able to shed some light on this subject. It was a joke. She said, "Mr. Cui just wants you to know
you don't have to worry, just go to class every time, take it slowly, you'll get there....blah, blah, blah." So, basically, I could do nothing except bring my body to class and I'd pass. OK, that's fine, but I'm actually trying to LEARN something here!

Nowadays I set next to Momo during class, and she helps me to make sure I've written down anything Mr. Cui says is for the exam. She helps me decipher his handwriting, too. Momo is a sweetie, and she loves the Chinese Department. She's helped me quite a bit this semester. But you know what? I thought I'd be much more prepared for the final, as I had what I thought was all the info I needed. I studied it, copied it over and over, tried to remember it (which is damned hard when you don't understand what you're trying to remember!), but when the final came, it was loaded with stuff I didn't even remember seeing. Crap on a rope. Oh well, I'm not worried, because I was able to answer at least some things this time, so he should give me 100% for that!

Friday
Last semester Friday was the best, because there was only one class at 9:10 a.m., and that only for 50 minutes. However, because they've added that stupid Science class in the afternoon at 3:00, that effectively ruins the whole friggin' day, which is why I'm willing to audit Mr. Wu's 1:00-3:00 class. I mean, what the hell, it's not like I can do anything else.

This class is the "practical" session for my hated Intro to Chinese Classics. The first few weeks, I sat in the back next to a guy who is very helpful, but again, because of the noisy conversations going on, I couldn't understand anything the young TA was saying. She had a mike, but it didn't help. I finally moved to the front row, and after suffering through the same rotten behavior (talking during class, talking during group presentations), I turned on them one day and told them to shut the fuck up, that I couldn't hear anything, and that I was already under enough pressure. I was so pissed off that I was crying, which I hate. So, they shouldn't have been too surprised when I lambasted them after English class, because they'd already gotten it once.

I don't feel that I got anything at all out of this class, but at least I got to watch a great movie, 「Rouge 」with Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui. The TA let me write a report on the movie instead of doing a book report like the others, because she knew it would take me forever to finish reading a book. I hope next semester I will understand a bit more of what's going on.

So, that's been my life since September. I'm mostly miserable, with a couple of bright spots such as two fabulous pub concerts (although queuing in line all day sucked) which got me up close and personal with my adored Wu Bai and China Blue, an autograph session where I stood in front of my adored Wu Bai and told him it was all his fault that my life sucked now, because if I'd never discovered him then I'd never have moved here. He laughed at me, the stinker. Another very fun thing is that Dino, the drummer for China Blue, and Xiao Zhu the bass player have opened a fabulous Italian restaurant not far from where I live, and I've gone there a couple of times for food and fun and will go again on Saturday.

I had no Christmas. I had no New Year's Eve (we were off school Thursday and Friday, but since finals were on the following Monday, my time was spent preparing for those). I considered the December 20 pub show to be my Christmas present, and the party at Dino's place on January 3 was my New Year celebration.

There are two more bright spots coming: I'm going to Thailand January 23 through February 1 for Terry and Cheryl's wedding, and I'm really looking forward to that. I miss my friends, damn it! I have no social life to speak of here, and I'm sick to death of being around immature kids, I need adult conversation. And then on February 28 there's another pub show, so I get to see my favorite guys once again (but queuing all day will suck, ha).

Next semester I have nine different classes, all of which are required, so please don't ask me if I can't take it a bit easier. I would if I could, believe me. I need 139 credits to graduate. My first year I'll only make 31 of those. I need to average 34.75 credits per year to make that 139, so there'd best be some classes in the future that give more than 2 credits per, because I don't think I can handle any more classes per week!

I'm all typed out now, and about to faint from lack of food (it's 1:56 p.m., haven't had a thing to eat today). Thank you, my friends, for understanding my lack of communication and still remaining my friends. You can just figure that the next few months will be pretty much the same as what's written above. I'll do what I can to stay in touch, but don't expect a whole lot
out of me, K?

Love you all, miss you much.....

Round One: Tainan Concert

Note: Original post was written on 10/28/07 in Chinese, just now getting around to writing the English version (sorry!). So, the "yesterday" was actually 10/27. :)

For the past few months I've been eagerly awaiting the Wu Bai & China Blue concert, and yesterday the day finally arrived. Charlene and I met up at 1:00 p.m., had a quick bite to eat, then boarded the bus for Tainan. I love the buses in Taiwan, with the big comfy seats, almost as good as first-class airline seats (although this bus didn't have the "flight attendant" offering snacks and drinks like the Aloha Bus does). There's a small TV which gives you the choice of watching a TV station or a movie. When we started out, I was watching "Charlotte's Web" but halfway through I got creeped out by Charlotte and decided to sleep. When I was a kid, I loved that book (still do, actually), but I never pictured Charlotte as quite that "spidery" looking! I loathe spiders, ugh.

It was already dark when we got to Tainan, a little before 7:00 p.m. Another one of our friends, Lonely Bird, had driven over from Chiayi with another fan, a girl named Ah Ga (I think), so he swung by and picked us up from the bus stop. We drove directly to the concert locale, where we miraculously found a parking spot right across the street, ran into a little noodle shop where we sucked down some dinner within the space of ten minutes, then headed for the concert.

Charlene is absolutely amazing. The seats she bought for us were in the second row, not only extremely close to the stage but also close to the center. When the concert began, first Da Mao, Xiao Zhu, and Dino came onstage. Xiao Zhu was directly in front of us, Da Mao way off to our left, and Dino center stage on a raised platform in the back. The music began, and Wu Bai entered from our right, carrying a big black umbrella, singing "I want, I want, I want...." as he walked to the mike in the center, the beginning of the song "Innocent Years." He sang the first bit, where he doesn't play the guitar, while holding the umbrella, then it was snatched into the air and he grabbed the guitar for his opening chord.

Every time Wu Bai plans a concert, he spends a long time wracking his brains for new ideas, because he always wants to give the fans a new surprise. This time he threw off his cool rocker look for glam rock look. I'd already seen a photo of him all dolled up in the newspaper, so I knew what to expect. It was a little weird, because the blue eyeshadow he was wearing wasn't on his eyelid, but under the eye. He was wearing a little pair of diamond-studded horns, and his shirt and jacket were Vivienne Westwood designs. It was as if he'd suddenly changed identities and become an adorable, handsome little devil. Ah, Wu Bai, in my book, you don't need to gild the lily, you're already perfect and flawless without any adornment! My preference is Wu Bai drenched with sweat and hair in disarray, and thankfully that came later in the show. :)

As I fully expected, the concert was fantastic from beginning to end, and for over three hours we had a great time. When Wu Bai came and stood directly in front of us, with his face wreathed in smiles, and played that guitar while smiling right at me, my own face was also one big grin. This is one of the things I truly appreciate about him, he will always acknowledge the fans he knows, letting us know he appreciates our presence. Sometimes it's winks and grins, sometimes it's guitar solos in front of us, sometimes it's just a finger pointing our way with a nod, but he will always do it. Since Dino, Xiao Zhu, and Da Mao are always wearing sunglasses on stage, it's difficult to know if they're really smiling at us particularly, but Dino also takes pains to let us know he sees us. I was bobbing my head side-to-side
during one song, and when I turned to look at Dino, he bobbed right back at me, so cute.

Lately Wu Bai has been on a dancing kick, and we once again got a few songs where he danced with four scantily clad young things. I just can't help laughing when Wu Bai dances, because he truly can't dance (I think he's too nervous, and that makes him stiffen up), but I admire him for his courage to try, and he gives it his best shot. The dance they did to "Crush on You" was really cute, though, hope that gets into a concert video for all to see.

The seats in the whole first row had not been available for sale, apparently
reserved for VIPs. Well, it was a total waste, because none of those people
exhibited any sort of energy at all! They barely moved, and even though some of them stood up for a few songs, it was totally without enthusiasm. The woman in front of me was blatantly using her cell phone to video the show, and one of the security folks came over and told her to stop. She just kept on doing it, prompting a second, sterner visit from security, after which she finally stopped. Jeez, if those people don't appreciate the primo seats, then don't let them have them, give them to us instead! Not fair, truly.

Sigh....times passes all too quickly, and eventually the last encore was over (I love the routine of Wu Bai yelling "Hurry and go home!" and all of us yelling back "We don't wanna go home!"). Three of us piled into Lonely Bird's car and took off to the south, to Gaoxiong to see Sharrie. She and her husband now have a little food stand at the night market, where she works until 1:30 a.m. on Saturday nights, so she wasn't able to come to the show. We were there in a little under an hour, then had to find the night market. Sharrie was surprised and happy to see us, and we hung out there for a little while before heading back to Tainan. Charlene and I
boarded the 2:00 a.m. bus back to Taipei, arriving around 5:30 a.m. The MRT doesn't start until 6:00 a.m., so I had to wait a bit before I could get home. It was close to 7:00 a.m. by the time I tumbled into bed, and then I only slept for three hours. I'd slept on the bus back, and also in the car, but it wasn't a good, deep sleep. However, I had too much to do Sunday (like homework!), and in any case, the noise from the builders outside and the brats upstairs ensured that I wouldn't get any rest even if I'd stayed in bed. Next week is the concert in Taizhong, and I know next Sunday I'll once again be exhausted!

And now it's November 3, and in a couple of hours I'll be taking off for the Taizhong show. I'm sure it will be the same as the Tainan one, so I'll likely not write about it, unless there are surprises or something cool happens on the journey. At least I'll be getting home sooner this time, as Taizhong is only about two and a half hours away by bus, not four, and we won't be making any unexpected road trips to other places.

You all remember my former friend, Hiyoshi, the one who got married last September, went back to Japan, and since then has never once gotten in touch with me? Well, as we were on the road to Gaoxiong, I received a message on my phone: "It's Hiyoshi, the wife and I have brought our kid back to Taiwan, can we meet tomorrow? I really miss you!" I was spluttering with indignation as I wrote back: "Bullshit. If you missed me, you would have stayed in touch. That's what friends do. I'm in Gaoxiong and won't be home until morning, and I have things to do tomorrow." Jeez, talk about having nerve! How the hell can he expect that I'd just welcome him with open arms after more than a year of silence? He's been off the "Friends" list for a long, long time, and I have no interest in re-writing his name there. Hmph.

In other news, I've been spending a lot of time looking for a new apartment and finding that rent has risen considerably in this area. Tuesday I'll be checking out a place in Danshui, not nearly as convenient as where I am now, but about $100US per month less than my current rent. Wish I could stay in Zhuwei, but everything I've looked at so far that meets the price is pretty crappy, and the nicer places are just over my budget. I'll keep looking, though, just in case something new shows up.

I like my new teacher, Lin Laoshi, although she's a little on the low-key side in class, and sometimes it's difficult to hear her over the sound of the air conditioner. She has an interesting method of teaching which gets us interacting with each other, giving little performances in class, etc. My first test is next Wednesday, no clue what it will be like, but I don't think it will be really easy. She requires homework three times a week, but she lets us decide what to write. My plan is to continue writing one composition a week and the other two assignments will be practicing making sentences with the new words and idioms we study (and that's not easy!).

Getting Krosa to You

Once again we have a super typhoon paying a weekend visit. This time it's Krosa, and it's been krosing in on us for a few days, putting panic into the hearts of many, who say it's one of the biggest, baddest storms in the last 100 years. Jury's still out on that one, since it seems to me that typhoons in Taiwan always remind me of the little boy who cried "Wolf!" all the time. However, it's better to be prepared, so I have a bathtub full of water to use for flushing toilets should our water supply be cut off (apparently this happens) and boiled water to make coffee and for drinking. I think the water problems are more apt to happen in areas like Taichung, though. We had a typhoon on September 17, and everyone got the day off work and school. It hardly even rained in my area and it was sunny most of the day! The wind was howling at times, but not that bad. Didn't even stop the workers from continuing on the buildings that are going up close by.

So, right now I have rain, rain, rain, and then there's a little rain on top of that. Wind is still pretty mild, but I don't guess I'll be hanging my laundry on the balcony to dry today. Nope, the dryer will be put into use (as long as the electricity doesn't go out).

Next week is the last of the semester. Wednesday is a national holiday. Monday I have a small test, Tuesday I have a bigger test, and Thursday I have my semester final. Gee, the teacher just loves tests! We had a four-day holiday for Mid-Autumn Festival, Saturday through Tuesday. The Friday before she gave us four pages of homework to complete and told us we'd have a test on the first day back. So, I spent most of my holiday time studying. Paid off, though, because I did well on the test. I have no idea which teacher I'll have next semester and what the textbook will be like. Part of me is hoping for less homework, but another part of me knows that being pushed is good for me and helps me make progress. I'm a lazy soul and if no one prods me, I tend to not do anything on my own.

I still haven't gotten a working ATM card. The password never did arrive for the first one, so the bank cancelled that one and issued a new card pre-pinned with a password I'd selected. That one arrived, but when I tried to use it at the bank, no luck. Wrote back to the bank asking what the problem was, and got the reply that apparently foreign banks don't accept US cards with passwords beginning in zero! Would have been nice for both me and the patient woman who's been helping me to have this knowledge in advance. So, she sent yet another card, pre-pinned with a different password that I know. That was on 9/21, and it's still not here. What worries me is that I just received my September credit card statement, and stamped on the front was "Missent to Bangkok Thailand." Oh, hooray for the US postal service, which doesn't know one country from another! My friend Wendy, who works for the USPS, once mailed a package to Nigeria. It got sent to Nicaragua instead and took a whole year to finally get to Nigeria! So who the hell knows if my ATM card ended up in Thailand? Thankfully the card for the second account is still working, or I'd be SOL for sure.

My trip to Japan is set for October 14 through 19. I'll arrive very late on the 14th and will return on a 1:00 p.m. flight on the 19th, so really I'll just have four days there, and two of those will be used for visa application and (hopefully) pickup. Kayun is so sweet, she's going to meet me at the airport because she's worried I'll get lost. I think I'd be OK, but it will be nice to have someone to talk to on the hour ride to her part of town. I'll meet up with Kieko, too, and might spend one night in Kyoto at a guest house that's pretty cheap. I'm not looking forward to spending all the money for this, but I need the visa, and the Hong Kong office most likely won't give me one, so it's to Japan I go. And of course I'm very happy about seeing Luke, Kayun, and Kieko!

I'm still on the diet, but I haven't lost much more. The total lost is 9kg, not too bad, but for the last two weeks I haven't gotten as much exercise as I'd like, so the weight ain't budging. Nat and Charlene are doing so well on the Herbalife diet that I'm tempted to try, but I don't think I have the discipline to not eat in the evenings. We'll see, maybe I'll try it for a month or something.

I'm really bummed that Carol can't come for the Wu Bai concerts. Now I need to sell the tickets I got for her, and if I can't, Charlene and I might just go to the Hualien show, because we can exchange the tix for that venue. Originally, we had decided it would just be too expensive, because there's no way to get back at night and we'd have the expense of the hotel. But what the heck, we may do it anyway. If I return the tickets for a refund, I only get back 70% of the cost, so I kinda hate to do that. And besides, I've never been to Hualien yet! But dang, I really wish Carol could have come, since I didn't have a chance to see her when I went back to the US last year, and it's been five years since she's been to Taiwan for a Wu Bai concert!

Another friend, Krista, is mulling over the idea of perhaps coming for a visit during Chinese New Year. I have two weeks off, and even though so many places are closed, there's still a lot to do and see. She thinks perhaps she could come during the last week and then stay on a bit longer when things are back to normal. It sure would be nice to have company, because I'm always so bored then. Maybe I can talk Cheryl into coming over for the first week! Or maybe I can actually go to Hong Kong to see her (depends on what sort of visa I can get).

My friend Ye Ying, who went to Leiden, Holland, to study is finding that the Dutch are not very friendly. Her boyfriend, Xuan Yi, went with her and stayed a couple of weeks, and they traveled to Brussels and to Amsterdam, and he said they ran into some incredibly rude people. It's quite sad, really. I find the Taiwan people so friendly and helpful, always willing to assist me, asking me if I'm lost if I'm looking at a map at the MRT station or on the street. I recall how the first time I needed to take the airport bus from Minquan W. Rd. station, and I couldn't figure out where it was, a complete stranger went out of her way to walk with me and ask people where the bus stop was, making sure I got on the right bus before going on with her own business. I hope Ye Ying will soon be accustomed to the unfriendly atmosphere in Leiden and not let it bother her so much.

I miss my language exchanges sessions with Ye Ying, and next week will be the last language exchange I have with Xuan Yi, because now that he has graduated, he needs to move out of the dorm and go back to Tainan. Then he needs to do his army service before looking for a job. He's going to help me find a new partner. I get to see Shannon sporadically, which is nice, but she's working every single day, not even one day that's completely free, so it's not easy. She's going to spend the night Tuesday, since we have Wednesday off, and that should be some fun (but I have to spend a lot of time Wednesday afternoon and evening studying for my final!).

My Wednesday afternoon brother and sister students flaked out. Pisses me off, because I met with them first, told them that learning English wasn't something that could be done in a once-a-week, one-hour lesson! I told them they'd need to spend time themselves working on it. The brother is just too busy with his business, and since he was paying for the lessons, both and his sister have quit. Now I'm only teaching Claire for one hour on the weekend, and her friend Jessica is supposed to start, also for one hour on the weekend. Meaning: no money coming in. I guess it's OK, because I do need a lot of time for my own studying. I've decided that I'm going to be picky about students. Just like I pay for three months in advance and if I don't go to class, I don't get any money back, any new student is going to have to do the same. I want a commitment out of them! If they aren't willing to do this, then they aren't serious about learning, so forget it. I hate wasting my time, no matter how much someone is paying me. This way I should weed out the flakes for sure.

Oh, here's an ad I happened across, can't even recall where:

"Don't strees any more over which tense to use and how to rearrange your sentences on your college application essay. Let a Berkeley graduate help you to create the best written expression of your qualifications and get into your dream school. I'll get into your head and help you turn your cognition into English. A coheret and fluid essay makes a vast difference!! $2/per please contact via email (removed)

Rather pitiful for a college graduate to produce such a poorly written advertisement with spelling and grammar errors. I can't figure out what her actual charges are, either. Per word? Per essay? Huh? But hey, she could get a job teaching English in Taiwan, because she has a degree!

My friend Aaron is back from England, yay! So nice to see him again, and so funny for him to be talking about how fat he got there. Yeah, right, if he walked outside today, the typhoon would blow him away. I'd be surprised if he even weighs 140 pounds! His sister's wedding celebration is today, and I'm afraid it's going to be ruined by the typhoon. Part of it is supposed to be in Keelung, and that's on the coast and getting battered severely right now. Relatives from Hong Kong were supposed to fly in this morning, but I'm sure they weren't able to. He said when his other sister got married, there was a typhoon that day, too!

I guess I've written enough. I should be doing homework, but I can't get into it right now. Still, the wind is picking up, and the power might not last, so I suppose I'd best get to it while I still have the 'puter to use.

Time Flies as Fast as a Weaver's Shuttle

歲月如梭 - that's a Chinese idiom for "time flies." And that's how the days are going by now, as quickly as the shuttle flying along the strands of threads as the weaver makes her cloth. My lessons have a fixed pattern: Monday we begin a new chapter in the book, and by Wednesday we've covered all the new words and then some. On Thursday we have a 聽寫, a test that's basically taking dictation (my prior experience taking notes at meetings helps with this one because I first scribble the words in pinyin and then write them in Chinese), and on Friday we have a test on the whole chapter. I'm going to continue to toot my own horn by saying that for each test I've scored the highest in class (teacher doesn't give a numerical score for the dictations, but I've done well on those, too). I rock. We had our fourth test yesterday, and I think I did pretty good, have to wait until Monday to find out. If Joe or De Ming gets a higher score, it's only because they cheat when the teacher leaves the room, using their dictionaries in their cell phones to look up words! Damn, I hate cheaters, I really do. I sit behind them, and I'm so tempted to smack 'em both with my umbrella.

So almost every day when I get home, I'm dragging out the dictionary to look up stuff the teacher taught us, to be sure I understood her explanation. I'm making tons of sentences using the new words and phrases to see if I really get it. I'm writing scads of characters over and over to burn them into my memory. And I'm writing one composition per week, which isn't easy when I have no inspiration, like this week. They're coming back to me with very few corrections, which gladdens my heart, as it means I'm actually learning something. I wrote my longest one week before last, almost 1,000 characters. Is it any wonder my right hand hurts like a sonofabitch most of the time? This is worse than any carpal tunnel syndrom could ever be! Well, OK, maybe not, but it's still hell on the old hand. Right now, just after this little bit of typing, my right pinky is totally numb and the ring finger isn't far behind.

Last weekend Super Typhoon Sepat came calling, but it was a tempest in a teapot up in my area. Although it battered other parts of the island and vegetable and fruit prices are now nice and high, I barely saw any rain and had hardly any wind here. The best thing is that the weather has been cooler (just a little) since then, especially in the evenings. I had to use the air conditioning a lot more this year than I did last year during July, and I don't really want to see my bill when it comes in September!

Still plugging away at the diet and have managed to lose a total of 7.9 kg (17.5 lbs) now. That's still 3.6 kg (8 lbs.) more than I was when I got here two years ago, and it's also 8.7 kg (just about 20 lbs.) more than I was back in November 2004! Crap. Why is it so easy to gain weight and so hard to lose it? My fruit-selling family vanished on me, taking away my extremely convenient buy-it-on-the-way-home method, so I haven't been eating as much fruit as I should. Now I have to go over to the busy and congested street for fruit, so I often just blow it off because I don't want to deal with the crowds and the cars that keep trying to run over me. I'm gonna make a fruit run today, though. And my Kashi Go-Lean cereal, that I was able to buy last time for about $3US because the store had it on sale, is now costing $7US! Uh uh, no way, I'm not paying that, it's hard enough to pay $5US for Kellogg's Just Right Mueslix. Why is it that fattening food is so cheap and anything healthy costs the earth?

I'm looking forward to the next four months. In September Taka is coming with her family from Singapore, so I'll get to see her briefly, probably just long enough to hand over some Wu Bai merchandise Angela ordered. There's also a possibility that my former stepson, Chris, will be coming. He's in the Navy now (amazing), currently in the Gulf, and he said they're coming to Taiwan for a week. But, he doesn't know exactly where in Taiwan they're going. And now I'm not sure he's actually coming to Taiwan, because his last e-mail said "everyone I work with that has been to Hong Kong says its a blast there so I am looking forward to it." Perhaps he's not sure just where Taiwan is, I dunno. (Edit later same day. Yup, he thought I lived in Hong Kong, said he's sure that's what his dad told him, and despite at least five e-mails that talked about him going to TAIWAN. Kinda worries me that this boy is in the Navy.) Also in September is Aaron's return from England, right around Mid-Autumn Festival (which means a day off school).

October gives me another day off school, right before the end of the semester, and brings me my trip to Japan mid month and then the Wu Bai concert at the end of the month. It will hopefully bring Carol, too. Slight chance of Cheryl also being able to make a stopover on the way back from a training seminar in Korea.

November has the Wu Bai concert on the 3rd, because Thanksgiving is meaningless here as I can't possible cook a turkey dinner. But I will probably make a pumpkin pie, so all is not lost. This month might also see the return of Guoxi from his airline pilot training in Australia. He'll be back either October or November, I'm pretty sure. He can't wait, says the food in Australia sucks and he misses Taiwan food.

December - another Wu Bai concert! This one is bringing some Singapore fans over, which is always a treat. So far Lee Ying and Lee Yang, David and Tona are for sure. Angela, Taka, Vynson, and Nicole are possibilities. I hope they can all make it. That show is my Christmas present to myself.

OK, I'm stopping before my hand gives out completely. I have to save it for the Chinese writing I'll be doing later. Bye now.

The Dog Days of Summer

{Trumpet Fanfare} Hear ye, hear ye! Please note the passing of 6.5 kilos of ugly flab! That would be 14.3 pounds for you US folks. Ah, the little things in life that can make us so happy.

Next week is the last week of the semester, with the semester final on Thursday. So, I've been cramming for that, plus trying to write the compositions that I haven't yet written (yeah, I'm a slacker sometimes and do my best work at the last minute). And after the semester is over, I have 10 days off before starting the new one on July 30. I'm guessing I'll be bored senseless most of the time.

However, I do have one lovely thing to look forward to - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! The book comes out on July 21, and I've already pre-ordered at Eslite. So this week I'm re-reading The Half-Blood Prince, since it's been two years since I read it and have forgotten some of the details. This is a strange sort of anticipation, because this book is the final Harry Potter book, and I'm so sad about that. How can Ms. Rowling leave us like this? I'm hoping she won't, that she'll continue writing books related to other characters or at least set in the same magical universe. Surely she needs to make even more millions than she currently has.

One of my friends here in Taiwan is writing a book, and she's been letting me to read it as she writes. It's a quirky vampire novel, and I love it! After reading some of the complete drek that's on the market now, I'm quite sure she'll have no difficulty getting published, as her work is miles above a lot of that crap.

The weather this week has been truly miserable, hot and humid like you would not believe. We had one or two days of marginally cooler air thanks to super typhoon Man-Yi that was making a fly-by on its way to Japan, but it wasn't enough. Today is supposed to be a RealFeel of 106F, bleah. At least there's wind, which does help a bit, and it will probably rain sporadically all next week. Being the bright bulb that I am, on Tuesday I decided it would be an excellent idea to walk from school to Zhongshan MRT station. The temp was probably around 103F degrees and not a cloudy day, and no breeze. After my almost one-hour walk, I damn near collapsed at the station! First thing I did when I got home was take a cold shower and then guzzle down a bunch of water. Yikes, won't be doing that again soon. Although I will try to force myself to go for early morning walks along the river while I'm on my school break, instead of sitting on my fat ass in the house all day long.

I started teaching a brother and sister last week. Jerry, the guy, is quite good looking (IMO) but a bit shy. He's 33 and is an interior designer with his own business. His 31-year-old sister, Celine, is an interesting person. She says she has "healing hands" and can use qi gong energy to help people heal. I'm hoping to get her to try on my bad knee, which still bothers me quite a bit sometimes. And I'm trying to surreptiously find out if Jerry has a wife, girlfriend, or boyfriend, because if he's single and straight, I'm going to introduce him to some of my friends!

Wu Bai & China Blue will be going to Malaysia in August for a concert at Genting. I will not be going, because if I leave, I ain't got no visa to come back. Just as well, since it would cost me tons of money that I can't afford. I also didn't go to the autograph sessions that were held today in the central and southern Taiwan because 1) it appeared that it would be just Wu Bai and not the whole band and 2) I have to study for my final. Hopefully there will be a session in Taipei that will feature everyone. Not that I don't madly adore Wu Bai, of course, it's just that if I'm going to get a CD autographed, I want EVERYONE'S signature since EVERYONE worked on the CD, not just Wu Bai.

Just one more month and my friend Ye Ying will be leaving for Holland for her studies there. I'll really miss our language exchange sessions. She's an excellent teacher and a fine friend, and I'm so proud of her for passing her IELTS exam and being accepted at Leiden. If the opportunity arises, I'd love to be able to visit her there, but I'm afraid it's probably far too expensive a trip to make.

And then in September my good buddy Aaron will be returning from England, where he's been studying for the last year. It will be great to have him back, and I know he'll be happy to be on home ground again. He called yesterday, and we talked for an hour and a half. One of his best friends had gone to England to visit him, and the cheap bastard sponged off Aaron the whole time! This guy is a teacher who makes good money. The only thing he brought as a gift to Aaron was one single pack of instant noodles, that's it. He stayed in Aaron's dorm, in Aaron's bed, while Aaron slept on the floor. Aaron had to spend his money eating out every day while his friend was there, and not once did the guy offer to pay for a meal - even after he won 25 pounds (around $50US) at the casino! Like they say, with friends like that...... So yesterday on the phone I taught Aaron all sorts of new words: cheapskate, tightwad, miser, stingy, penny pincher, niggardly (which I told him to avoid using, as it sounds far too much like a very unpleasant word, despite having nothing at all to do with that word). I'm so grateful that my friends are the generous sort.

The first year I was here, I wasn't very careful with my money at times (what a dork!), and I also spent a lot furnishing my apartment. My bank balance dwindled by $22,621 that year, which is not bad by US standards but for a person without an income not so great. So the next year I was much more careful, and I also managed to earn a bit more from teaching. Yesterday I finally calculated the cost of last year to my bank balance, and it was $11,223. Wow, I managed to cut expenses in half without even realizing it! I've been working on paying off the two credit cards I have, so I've been spending about $250-$300 per month on that (and was spending a lot more per month that first year). So, once I get those paid off (I have about $2300 to go), I'll be spending even less. I just want my little nest egg to get me through four years of university, and I think I can squeak that by, especially if I can keep teaching just a little bit.

By the way, a big thank you to all of you who faithfully read my blog instead of sending me e-mails asking me what's new (yeah, you know who you are, if you finally dropped in to read, cuz I already chewed you out for it). I have to say that it's truly disappointing to know that some friends don't bother to read it, especially now that I write so little, so it's not as if they have to spend hours a day catching up on my doings. I admit that I don't check my Chinese friends' blogs very often, because it's not so easy to read the Chinese, but everyone who blogs in English gets an almost-daily visit from me to see if there's anything new. I may not always leave a comment, but I'm reading!

If at First You Don't Succeed.....aka No Joy in Mudville Part Deux

Steeeeee-rike two!

I didn't get the scholarship. Again. Despite having the highest grade in the school (no applause, just throw money), they didn't give it to me. Why? Because out of 110 hours of instruction (one semester, 11 weeks), I missed 8 hours (4 days of classes). Two hours was because I had a recording job that day and earned $1,800NT, nothing to sneeze at, but I could have not gone. Two hours was because I was home puking my guts out after eating something bad, and there was no way I could get to school. Two hours was because the fucking unhelpful girls at the front desk couldn't be arsed to tell me in advance that I'd need two weeks to apply for the ARC, causing me to make a frantic run to the Banqiao immigration office in the morning for a short extension and then on a futile trip to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (you'll recall I didn't get the ARC), leaving me no time to make it to my 1:00 p.m. class, which wasn't even a real class, as the teacher had taken everyone to a teahouse that day. Two hours was because I had to friggin' leave the country because I didn't get the friggin' ARC and there weren't any cheap flights on the weekend or even later in the evening, so I had to vacate on a Friday afternoon, again missing a class.

The Powers That Be at the school only allow you to miss 6 whole hours if you want a scholarship, so I was over by 2 hours. The rules the government sets down for student visa requirements allow one to miss 10 hours (5 days of class) per month, and you'd think they'd be the stricter ones. Deng Laoshi told me that although they really, really, really wanted to give me the scholarship, they thought the other students would complain. How the hell the other students would even know how much time I missed was a question she couldn't answer.

Pissed? Yes. Disappointed? Yes. Giving up? No. But I swear, if they blow me off one more time, there's an explosion gonna be happening.

Plum Rainy

Let's see, it's been steadily raining for about a week now, with very few breaks. We've gotten 5 inches of rain so far today, and I was wading in deep puddles getting from the bus stop to the MRT station at Jiantan this afternoon. This is the 梅季雨, the Plum Rains season. The nice part is that the weather is much cooler, even though it's still quite warm during the day. I'm continually drenched with sweat, and I'm really tired of my paper sticking to my arm when I'm in school and trying to write. Still, I'll take this over California winter rains any day!

Observation: no matter how flippin' hot it is (with a RealFeel of 103 to 107 degrees Fahrenheit), you will see these teeny, tiny Asian women wearing long-sleeved sweatshirts, denim jackets, and other various forms of warm clothing. I'm not sure if it's because they're so damned skinny they freeze to death when the air conditioning hits them or if it's because of their unreasonable dread of a single drop of sunlight falling on their skin. There was actually an article in the Taipei Times awhile back stating that Taiwanese women were often deficient in vitamin D because of their vampire-like dread of sunlight. When my teacher went to Thailand over Chinese New Year and came back with a beautiful tan, her Western students complimented her on how lovely and healthy she looked, and her Asian friends started back in shock and exclaimed how dark (and therefore ugly) she was. Me, I'm envious of the beautiful color of her skin when she tans. I just end up turning a very funny color when exposed to sunlight, not pretty at all.

Got my official grade from last semester, and it was 93. I surely hope this means I will get the scholarship next time. Gimme money, gimme gimme gimme. I'm doing OK so far this semester, getting in the mid to high 90s on my tests (Wang Laoshi doesn't actually give a grade on compositions). I truly enjoy her classes, and I'll be sad when the semester ends on July 20. She'll be going to the actual university to teach beginning in September this year, so maybe I'll be lucky enough to have her again when (and if) I start at Tamkang proper.

Was going to go apply for a visa extension today but because of the torrential rain decided to wait until Monday and hope it lets up. If they say "no" then I guess I make an emergency trip to either Singapore or Osaka for a new visa. Osaka will cost more, but if I go there I can see Luke and Kayun, and everyone says it's never a problem to get a visa in Japan. Some folks have had issues with the Singapore office. Well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

More than minor annoyance: my friend Carol was kind enough to do some shopping for me, as I'd checked the US Postal Service's shipping rates online and decided just how much I could spend for some stuff. She ran all over and got the things I wanted and then went to ship it, only to be informed that as of May 14 the post office has discontinued economy surface shipping internationally, everything is now priority mail and hence much more expensive. Like costing about $5US per pound expensive. WTF? So poor Carol had to return a bunch of the stuff, since I wasn't willing to pay $5 to ship a box of low-fat Cheez-its! As it was, it cost me $37 for the small 7-pound box I got, but at least that was all stuff I just can't get here, important stuff like earplugs, ibuprofen, and hair color in lighter shades.

Hm, what else? Well, next Saturday I'll be going to the Golden Melody Awards, IF I get my visa extended and don't have to leave the country. Wu Bai's official website was giving away 50 tickets, and of course I got one. Being a foreigner does have its perks. Wu Bai & China Blue will be performing, and Xiao Zhu has been nominated as best producer for an indy band. Hope he gets it. Then the following week is the concert, also looking forward to that. The new CD came out today, and I was going to pick it up this evening but decided it wasn't worth a trip out in the rain. I'll go get it next week.

The diet is going well, losing weight albeit slowly. I've lost 8.4 pounds (today, Saturday, was weigh-in day, so even though no loss last week, at least there was this week!), and I feel better already. If I could get more exercise, I'd lose more, but until my foot is better, I just can't walk much. If I ever manage to get the home gym I bought in November put together, then I could use that, but I haven't found anyone who can help me yet. So, it's still in pieces in the spare room. What a waste of money, huh? I guess I should just sell it.

On Wednesday I got together with Sherry, the woman Hiyoshi used to teach Japanese to. I hadn't seen her for over a year. Last week I got on MSN, which I hardly ever do, and she was there, so I started to chat with her. Apparently she'd called a few times, but every time must have been when I was out of the country, because my phone never showed any missed calls. She thought maybe I'd left Taiwan. She's the one who told me about Hiyoshi's baby, and she said he had never contacted her, either. Because she's going to Tokyo next month, she called him to ask him a question, and then he told her about the baby. I was very happy to connect with Sherry again, because she's really cool. Hopefully we'll be able to meet regularly now. Oh, and here's an example of just how straightforward the Taiwanese are. We were at Sherry's house chatting, and her husband was there working (they have a home business). I was bemoaning my weight, trying to refuse the snacks Sherry was pressing on me, and she said I hadn't gained weight. Then hubby piped up with, "Oh, yeah, much fatter than before!" Gee, thanks, I needed that. There is such a thing as too much honesty. Never mind, continue to diet.

Next Wednesday our class is going to the museum to see the special exhibit of the Terracotta Warriors. If you don't know what they are, just click the link. Someday maybe I can visit the museum in China to get the full effect of the magnitude of this amazing project.

Can't think of anything else right now. DZ is fine and is still misbehaving whenever she gets the chance, although she hasn't torn up any posters lately. Life in Taiwan is still great, despite the summer heat and all the rain. I still love Wu Bai as much as I ever did, despite wanting to give him a good hard whack on the head sometimes. And...that's all. :)

Jeez, two weeks just vanished

Seems like only yesterday I was here with an update, but it's been two weeks! Whoa. One day just blends into another and flashes by at the speed of light.

Well, I'm in my third semester at school, and happily back with my first teacher, Wang Laoshi. I love her, she's just so much fun. And the book is way simple, much easier than the last one! This one is called, "Chinese Moral Tales" and it's like Aesop's Fables for Chinese folks. Even though we're only on lesson one, I've already read up through lesson 5, piece of cake. Which hopefully means a good report card. :)

Speaking of which, I got either a 92 or 93 on last semester's! Deng Laoshi said she can't remember which grade it was, but it's great. Wang Laoshi said it's kind of an unwritten rule that the teachers don't give out grades above 93. Yup, I'm way happy about that, and I hope next time I apply for a scholarship I get it (that will be in June).

Here's what I'm not happy about: Those two days of concerts I wrote about last time? Well, the first thing to piss everyone off was the price of the tickets changing and getting higher. And then yesterday, they suddenly announced that there would be no Sunday show, only Saturday! WTF? Charlene had already bought our tickets for Sunday, in the standing rock area, last week at the Tai Ke concert and had gotten them autographed. We bought seated tix for Saturday since we didn't have anyone who could queue in line, figured we'd do that Sunday. Fuck. So now Charlene has to scramble around and change tickets. At least they're going to return the signed tickets to us after the concert is finished, which is nice. But we gotta give 'em back first. Thankfully Tona and David from Singapore were coming on Saturday anyway, but poor Sharrie from southern Taiwan might not be able to come on Saturday due to work. This is really inconveniencing a lot of people.

And because so many people were on the message board at the official site complaining about this, mysteriously that board is now closed, with a message that it's just not up to today's Internet standards and that they'll be giving us a new one after the concerts. Bullshit. You think we're stupid enough to believe that? If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. What kind of idiots are running Moonlight Music anyway?

Tomorrow we're going to see ABS at The Wall, and that should be fun, despite the fact that they have a new owner who seems to think that raising the price of beer to $6US per bottle is a good idea - and using a smaller bottle, too! Yeah, right, Bud, we're gonna drink a lot of that beer. Pfffttt. If I'm thirsty, I'll pop outside, run to 7-11, buy a can of beer for $1US, guzzle it down, and go back to the show.

I started a diet on May 1, not a super-strict one, but more focused on not buying beer and chips and eating more fruits and veggies. It's working, because I've lost about 4 pounds. I'm hoping once my poor foot is better that I'll be able to do a little more exercise and get the weight off faster. I'm truly sick of the way I look, and the clothes I bought last year in the US are almost too small for me. I spent so much time and worked so hard to lose 50 pounds before, and now 30 of those pounds are back. Not good. I decided this is something I need to do for myself, and so I'm doing it. Because it's Friday, I bought two cans of beer and some chips today, and that was my dinner. Tomorrow it's back to being careful. Even though I'll go out to eat with the gang before the show, I'll still be somewhat good. And at those high beer prices, no worries about drinking too much of that! I think this is when I start missing Hiyoshi - not missing the guy but missing having a person to hang out with and walk, walk, walk. I haven't really met any new friends at school.

But my good friend Kayun called today from Korea! She and Luke had their Korean wedding, and next Saturday they will have their Japanese wedding. She sounded so happy. Gosh, I miss her. But I'm sure saving money on my cell phone bill by not having her around, ha. If I can't get to Japan to visit them this year, maybe next year.

And as for the noisy monsters upstairs, recently it's been much better (except tonight they were doing something earlier that sounded like dropping 50-pound weights repeatedly on the floor. I truly hate those kids.). I think maybe the family on the third floor had another chat with them about the way they bother all of us, so now they're being quiet, yay. However......now there are barking dogs! Last Saturday night at 2:30 a.m., the dog in the apartment across the street from my bedroom started in, yap yap yap. Small dog, one of those annoying yappers. I got up, slammed the windows shut, and turn the fan on to a higher speed to drown it out. Then this week, on Tuesday night, it started in at 5:30 p.m. and kept it up constantly until 10:00 p.m.! I suppose the owners were gone, otherwise they would also have been driven to distraction. Then on Wednesday night, another yapper on the opposite side of the building began barking at 8:00 and kept it up until after 9:00. Obviously the owners had stuck it outside and then proceeded to ignore it. I mean, ke-rist, why have a dog if you're going to treat it like that? I'll bet it's the same one I saw one day as I walked to the MRT station. It was a hot, sunny day, and this poor little white dog was stuck in a tiny metal cage barely bigger than itself, no food, no water, placed on top of the trunk of a car in full sun. Jesus, people, have you no brains in your heads? Do you not realize how easy it would be for the little thing to die? If I see that again, I'm tracking down the owner and giving him or her a piece of my mind. And if they let the dog bark for hours again, I'm calling the cops.

The other night DZ was at the kitchen door, the one that goes out to the balcony. She was just sitting there watching something for the longest time, so I went over to see. Ah, a cockroach. A big cockroach. I opened the door, and she dashed out, but the bug was too quick for her and ran behind something where she couldn't get it. She kept trying to figure out how to get it, so funny. Finally, I made her come back in, but she stayed at the door and kept meowing. Eventually I let her out again, then I moved stuff around so the bug would run, and she missed it again. I didn't want it to get inside (the screen door doesn't always stay completely shut, sometimes there's a gap), so I closed the inner door. Poor DZ, she really wanted that thing. Now every night she goes out looking for it. I tried taking her outside again the other day, but she was completely freaked and wanted to go back in. She likes to jump up on the shelf on the balcony and watch the birds and such, but she doesn't like that big blue sky over her head. Now she's curled up in a box in the computer room, waiting for me to finish so I'll play with her. So, I'll go now. Catch ya'll later.

Spring Break

I'm on break from school, don't have to go back until April 9. April 5 is a holiday here, commonly called Tomb Sweeping Day in the West. This is the day that families go to take care of the graves of their ancestors, sweeping up, pulling weeds, putting everything in order. Originally, the school was only going to be closed on that day, but apparently someone in the government decided he or she would like the full week off, and suddenly the schools were all closing for the full week. I wouldn't mind, except that I'm getting cheated out of one week of classes, and I paid money for those! Now I'm only getting 10 weeks of instruction instead of 11. Truly unfair!

In other unfairness news, I have learned a valuable lesson about one of the big differences between Western culture and Chinese culture, and that is called "guan xi" - 關係. I already knew that 關係 played a huge part in the business world, where it's not so much what you know but who you know that will get you a good job. Relationships between people are very important here, so it's a good idea to makes friends with as many people as possible, as one never knows who in the future may play a part in helping one with something. However, I didn't realize that 關係 extended to scholarships, which I have always assumed to be awarded based on merit. They posted the names of those awarded scholarships, and I wasn't on the list. My teacher said it was not because I'm not a good student, because I am. She said the American guy who got the scholarship has been at the school for a long time, and although he's not a very good student and I'm much better (her words!), he got rewarded for time served. She encouraged me to apply again in June, since by that time I'll have six months in and have a better chance. So, no money for me this time around. I did decide on one more year of Chinese classes before starting at the university, because if I want a scholarship for that, I need to maintain a good grade, so I'd best be good at Chinese!

I've started teaching Xiao Niu and her co-workers on Wednesday evenings, and that's fun. They're a good group, and they seem serious about learning. Right now they don't understand a lot of what I say in English, so I'm using more Chinese to explain. I was hoping to do total immersion, like I get in my Chinese classes, but they just aren't ready for it. They chose a very good book, TV English, which contains "real" conversational English, like that between friends. They also chose a much more difficult one for business English, and I'm guessing those classes, which will alternate every other week, will not be as much fun. I also need to teach them some basic grammar. This will be a long road to travel, and I hope they stick with it. The downside is getting home at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday nights, but I can live with that once a week.

Last Friday evening ABS had a performance at Riverside Pub, so of course we attended. We had a large group this time: Twiggy and Joel from Hong Kong, Elsa (I can never figure out if she's from Hong Kong or Taiwan!), Charlene, Caroline, Xiao Niu, Kennie (who brought a co-worker with her, a guy who looked a lot like Nic Tse), my former teacher Shannon, and the birthday girl, Natari. Nat's birthday was actually on Sunday, but we celebrated that evening, getting Dino to sing "Happy Birthday" to her and providing a ridiculously expensive cake. Charlene, I know you're reading this, and I'm never going to stop saying that that cake was so overpriced it was laughable! Folks, for a 12" cake, we ended up paying around US$54! If you want to see what it looked like, view the Ripoff Cake here. If the flavor had put us into spasms of ecstasy, maybe that would have been OK, but it was your normal, not-sweet-enough, weird-stiff-pudding-in-the-middle sort of cake, i.e., Japanese lack-of-flavor style. But, boy it sure was pretty, and I think Nat liked it, so I suppose that's the most important thing, right? But damn it, next time give ME the money and I'll make two killer cheesecakes that will make everyone swoon and still have money left over for profit.

Every time I see ABS perform, I'm blown away by the talent. Dino's energy on the drums combined with his fine voice, Da Mao's magical keyboarding (sometimes you can almost see flames spouting out of him when he gets into it), Xiao Zhu's heart-thumping bass underscoring it all, and then the fantastic technical skill of guitar players Xiao Yang and Lao Liu. It's no wonder these two guys are both referred to as Stevie Ray, because that's how good they are. When the band is covering Stevie Ray Vaughn tunes, if you closed your eyes, you'd swear it was the man himself come back to life. As much as I adore Wu Bai, I have to be honest and say that Dino can outsing him anyday, and Xiao Yang and Lao Liu play guitar far, far better. No, Wu Bai's pull comes from somewhere other than just skill, it's his music combined with his passion, some weird charisma that sucks you in and makes you overlook it when his voice cracks as he sings. Somehow that just doesn't matter at the time. And if Wu Bai weren't backed up by three excellent musicians like Dino, Da Mao, and Xiao Zhu, would the magic be there? I think maybe not. I think that spell requires four key ingredients, and if you leave any out, the result just isn't the same.

We didn't ever really have "winter" this year, more like a cool spring, and now instead of real spring it seems we're getting a slightly cooler summer already. It's hot and sticky, and I'm afraid when we hit June and July it will be unbearable. Damned global warming. Eh, maybe I'll sweat off some of the excess poundage. Probably not, but we all need dreams, hm?

Daily life is much the same as always, nothing new or exciting. I'm truly enjoying having the afternoon class, able to sleep later in the mornings, given that the brats upstairs still drive me nuts with their noise in the evenings. Now it stays quiet until around 9:00 or so and then the noise starts, usually up until 11:30 p.m. I find that if I'm playing on the computer it doesn't bug me as much, but if I'm just trying to read or study in the living room, I get totally fried. Sometimes now I just put on a CD of instrumental music to drown them out, and that helps. When I signed the lease for this year, I told my landlady I'd seriously considered moving, and she said she'd understand if I still wanted to. Having experienced living under this family herself, she knows how intolerable it is at times. I like her, and I like my apartment, so I'm going to stick it out.

Last night when I turned on the laptop, it wouldn't. Instead I was greeting with "disk read error, press Ctrl +Alt +Del to restart." So, I did, but got the same error. Oh no! Major tragedy! I tried three or four more times with the same result, even turned it off and back on, no go. I called Charlene to ask if one of her friends could help, and she suggested I contact Rudy. So, I sent him an SMS, and when I turned back to the computer, it had started. Whew! Funny thing is that I already have plans to go with Xuan Yi on Monday to buy a new computer, a PC. I thought the laptop was acting a bit sluggish, and the color when it first starts is now red which slowly changes to blue, so I was afraid the video card was on the way out. It's four years old and it gets a lot of use, so I figured it was time for a new one before I lost everything. I made backups last night, since last time I did it was a couple months ago, and I'm always saving new stuff. I hate to spend more of my ever-dwindling money, but I gotta have a computer for school and teaching and staying in touch. Gotta. The laptop started right up this morning with no problems, not sure what was wrong yesterday. Charlene said it was protesting the heat of the day, and that could be true. :)

And DZ.....she's gotten herself banished from my bedroom at night (she's been banished during the day when I'm not home for a long, long time). Normally she comes in late and sleeps on the bed with me until I get up, but night before last she jumped up on the dresser and attacked yet another Wu Bai poster, so she's being punished. I might let her back in after a week. What is it with that cat and my posters, my WU BAI posters, not the kung fu movie ones? And no, I'm not getting her a playmate, because that would just be destruction times two!

I'm meeting a potential student today, one of Funck's friends, named Claire. I hope she ends up being one who will actually come to class so I can make a little money. She wants Saturdays, and since Xiao Zhu says his son is too busy, I'll take Claire for twice the fee, no problems. If Vincent ever gets "unbusy" I'll try to work him in. I'm still meeting Ye Ying once a week for language exchange, and Shannon and I started yesterday meeting for that, too. It's great to have two Chinese teachers to help out with my questions, as well as enjoying their friendship. I haven't been able to meet with Ye Ying's boyfriend, Xuan Yi, for our language exchange for a long time, because he's been so busy writing his thesis. Now that he's done, maybe we'll be able to find some time.

OK, well, this was a long post. I'm done now, thanks for reading. :)

Ugh

I've been sick all week. It started last Sunday evening, when my throat began to hurt. Monday I felt awful, but I still had to go to school, because it was the first day of the new semester. I got my final exam - and it was 99%, wow! I was amazed. I got a final grade for the semester of 90%, which I assume is based on tests and homework completed. It's high enough that I am eligible to apply for the scholarships they give out, so I think I will.

After the first session with the new teacher, I knew I wasn't going to be very happy. Boring, boring, boring. This teacher seems like a nice person, but no spark of life in her at all. Perhaps her mind is on her upcoming wedding in March, but all of us were in danger of falling asleep.

Tuesday I was so very sick that I did stay home, feeling chilled all day despite the warm weather outside, even my skin hurting when my clothes slid across it. I dosed myself with some Theraflu and spent most of the day sleeping. Dragged myself to school Wednesday and Thursday, still feeling like crap, but if I don't go to school, then I have visa problems. The bright point was that the teacher, Chen Laoshi, decided that it wasn't worth her time to teach a class of only four students, so on Friday we split, with my three Indonesian classmates joining Chen Laoshi's 8:00 a.m. class and me going into Deng Laoshi's 1:00 p.m. more advanced class.

I like Deng Laoshi. She was the one who gave me the placement test, and I thought at that time she was pretty cool. Even though she's one of the older teachers, she's not stuffy and rigid, she's funny and lively. I was still half out of it on Friday, doing a lot of coughing, but I enjoyed her class, and it's obvious the other students really like her, too. I'm now on a two-week break for Chinese New Year, and I'll be spending a lot of time reviewing things I've forgotten. The book we're using in the new class is called Taiwan Today, and when I was at CLD we had studied up through lesson 4 of this book. Thankfully, a lot of it isn't brand-new stuff, but reviews what we learned in the Practical Audio-Visual Chinese Book 2, Part 2, and that's the one I've forgotten most of.

Today is another book-signing event, two actually, and Charlene, Natari, Xiao Niu, and I are going. Charlene and I went last week to the one at the book exhibition, but there were so many friggin' people there that I didn't think it was worth standing in line. Besides, my lower lip was blossoming with a huge cold sore, and I certainly didn't want to stick that in Wu Bai's face. It's better now, despite two smaller ones that popped up over the course of this rotten cold. Since I am sick, I might wear one of the face masks folks here use to prevent germs from running rampant (popularized by the SARS epidemic). I already have my book signed, but I need to get Alice and Caroline's signed, if possible, which means standing in line twice.

Oh gosh, I don't think I've written about my first lesson with Xiao Zhu's son, Vincent. Well, I consider it less than a success. His mom dropped him off last Saturday, and I spent two hours trying to get the kid to say more than "yes" or "no" to anything! I think he was just so shy that he didn't know what to do. I finally discerned that he liked Harry Potter and brought out my Harry Potter books. Vincent picked up each one, opened it in the middle, stuck his face in, and inhaled deeply. I have never seen a kid smell books before. Very strange. He also enjoyed playing with DZ and wandering around my house as if he lived there. I need to sit down and talke with Xiao Zhu and Du Du and find out what makes the kid tick, what he's interested in. I can't spend two hours just talking at him, he has to talk back. This week my voice is so bad that I told Xiao Zhu no way could I teach, so hopefully during the next week I'll be able to meet with the folks and form a plan. If anyone has hints on how to get a shy kid to talk, let me know. I even plied him with chocolate! He's either 13 or 14 (Dad says 13, kid says 14), and he's as tall as me, maybe a little taller, and he's pretty chubby, which surprised me. Xiao Zhu and Du Du are both rail thin, like most of the people here. So at least Vincent and I have one thing in common - a love of food. :)

Hm, I think I'm still a little loopy from the Theraflu. Sadly, last night I downed the last packet, and I don't think I can buy it in Taiwan. It's about time to make up a shopping list and impose on the folks back in the US to shop for me. I'll bet I can twist Dad's arm a little bit, ha.

New Look

I've switched over to the new Blogger, so I opted for a simpler look. Hope ya'll like it. I also went through a lot of the older posts and put labels on them.

I've started a Chinese blog, so I can practice my writing, but I haven't actually put anything there yet. Once it gets going, I'll put a link in the sidebar for all of you who can read Chinese. I hope you'll help me by making corrections for me, so I can improve :)