3rd Time's a Charm

Today was nothing super special. I told Nancy today that it's weird. I'm here in Taiwan, who knows how many miles away from home, and it still doesn't seem real. Having Nancy be my guide is making it way too comfortable. Don't get me wrong, I REALLY appreciate her help and I love that I'm not terrified out of my pants... But I never got too anxious for the trip while I was home and I told myself "when the time is closer, then I'll get anxiuos" when the time was closer and I still wasn't anxious, I said "well, once I'm on my way, on the flight, and once I'm there, then it will hit me" Nope, still hasn't really hit me yet. I'm starting to wonder if it will ever hit.

Today I woke up and went running on the same trail with Nancy. Then she went to a breakfast store to get a hamburger for breakfast (that's the only time they have hamburgers here). I decided to go back and cut up my aisan pear and eat half of that for breakfast. Then we talked a little bit before getting ready for class.

Class went by normally: the kids are wild and full of engery, they chanted their brainwashed "good morning teacher-- we love you", etc.

For lunch I did try something new, on top of the rice today, I put pork powder. I don't know what it was, but Nancy discribed it this morning, they apparently cook the pork so long that it turns into a powdery substance. I did not particularly enjoy it, but because lunches are free to me, it's a perfect time to try new things. Oh, and the fruit they had today was absolutely disgusting. I took a slice and had one bite and wanted to spit it out (I swollowed it, don't worry). But later, the teacher put some powder stuff on it (no, not the pork) and I thought, oh, everyone thinks this fruit is disgusting, that's why they put the powder on it- if I take another piece, it will taste good. WRONG! I got two bites out of the next slice, but that's because I was just hoping that it would get better with each bite, it didn't.

We didn't do any exploring after lunch today, because there was a meeting for the teachers at 2, which cut our break down by an hour. I went to the meeting and got a heads up about what I'll be doing next week. The meeting was also a mini going away party for Josh. He's been teaching here on and off for a year and a half, and he's ready to leave. Which, it's a sad thing, because he's a really good teacher, but I'm glad, because he's opened up a spot for me to teach.

We got out of class a little early so that we could take school pictures (we had to take them early because it's Josh's last day and we had to make sure he was in the pictures). It's kind of funny. It's only my third day in the classrooms, and I'm not even a teacher, but I was most definately in all of the pictures. It was so funny. We took pictures of each of the age groups with the teachers, and then individual pictures of the each child with the three interns (Josh, Nancy, and me). So there was a lot of picture taking going on. And when we were doing the group shots, we had to take so many because Yuling (the owner of the preschool) wanted good pictures, with everybody looking at the camera and their hands on their laps. But, all the kids wanted to look away, and hold up their fingers in a peace sign. Apparently making the peace sign is what you do here whenever you see a camer, but it was driving Yuling crazy. I just laughed.

Also after school, a lady came into the office to switch the insurance so that Josh no longer would have insurance, but I do now. When I went into the office to sign the form, Yuling said, "And we need to know who gets the money if you die." She's quite subtle in her communications :o) But, good news, I have insurance, which is super good because (and I wouldn't admit this if I didn't have it now) I forgot to buy some from BYU before I left. It's something that I paniced about when I left Provo, but it was too late then, and I didn't know what to do.

For dinner, I went to the bakery and picked up a sandwhich type thing- Since we all know that I love to cook, I'm sure that I'm going to have people wanting me to make food I had in Taiwan when I get back home, all I'm going to do is pull out some bread and stuff it with whatever I want because that's what they do around here, that and noodles. It was just a sesame seed roll cut open and stuffed with chicken nugget type things, an egg, and a piece of ham, oh, and a leaf of lettuce. It was pretty good. I also bought a loaf of wheat bread while I was there and on the way home I stopped by a store and bought some nutella type stuff. Only this stuff is so much better. It is hazle nut butter and carmel swill. So you know that nast jar of peanut butter and jelly in the same jar, it's the same idea, but with nutella and carmel. I had some on a slice of bread for dessert and it was amazing. I'll have to make sure I limit my intake of that stuff or else I know I'll be sorry.

Oh yeah, almost forgot this story. So the garbage truck comes by every night. And, they don't pick up the garbage for you, you have to run out and put it in the truck yourself. So, to let you know that the truck is coming, they play music. It's pretty much like the icecream man music, and we all know how annoying that music is. And it wouldn't be so bad if trash day was just once a week or if you could only hear it when it was on your block, but no. Apparently every night is trash night and last night I heard its music all night, and it started up again tonight and I've heard it going for quite some time. Hopefully I'll learn to drownd it out.

And that's my day today. Hopefully I'll have something more exciting to write about tomorrow, it's possible that Nancy and I will do our run tomorrow morning at the beach, that's the plan so far, anyway.