Missionary Dinner

This morning I got up and went running. I almost didn't go because I was so tired. I went to bed late last night and was depleted of my energy when I crashed. But not only that, but some body called me TWICE last night. It was the same number, and it was a number I didn't know. They called me once at 12: something am, so right after I had fallen into a good sleep. And then they called me at 2 something am, so right after I had re-fallen into a good sleep. It was a 760 number so I know it's from back home, but I can't figure out who would call me that I don't already have their number. And it's not like it was an accident because they called twice. I wish they would have listened to my voice mail and then maybe they wouldn't have called the second time. Regardless of being exhausted when my alarm went off, I woke up and headed out. I did a hill workout this morning and it worked me pretty well. It was remarkably cool this morning and so once I got outside I was glad that I didn't waste this perfectly cool morning sleeping in because it was PERFECT workout weather.

Beth tagged along with me to all my classes today, to see how things go. She'll be taking over on Monday, so it's pretty important that she see what she's doing. The kids didn't warm up to her as readily as they had to Kaylene and Natalie, but I hope that'll change soon. I was worried about my lessons today because I hadn't gathered all of the objects I needed to teach my lesson on opposites, but I was able to get things all together before class started (well before, I wasn't even rushed) and that lesson went well. It helped that I had a whole ton of things to show them- bring ice and hot water was one of their favorites :o)

In the second class I taught about earthquakes. I had been really excited about it when I had planned it last week, I was thinking that I could ask Teacher Steffanie about getting a wooden board that the kids could stand on so we could have a real earthquake (I'm pretty sure she'd mentioned they'd done something like that with another intern) but Steffanie got stuck in Taipei because of the typhoon and didn't come to school until Wednesday and when she came back she had a lot to catch up with and so I didn't ask her. I was really nervous to see how my lesson would go today, but it turned out to be quite a good lesson. Instead of having a board for them to stand on, I had them shake on their chairs ranging from a level 1 earthquake to a level 8 earthquake and they LOVED it! Sometimes kids are very easily entertained and I love it.

At lunch time I was getting ready for the dinner with the sister missionaries. But, instead of coming at 5pm, last night I got a call from Sister Woods and she told me they would be coming at 5:30pm. That worked out better for me because I had to do less prep and things were fresher because I didn't have to prep them so far in advance.

In the afternoon class I taught about hockey and then we played hockey at the end. It was pretty interesting to see the little kids play hockey. They actually caught on better then I had expected. And, there weren't any injuries. I was impressed.

After class I ran upstairs and started getting dinner all put together. I was so excited for my chicken Cesar salad with homemade croutons; garlic bread; green beans; and mangoes. I had invited Beth to eat with us and it was a great night. The food was delicious (okay, I think I over cooked the green beans a little), the company was great, and after dinner we sang a hymn (in English :o) and read a scripture. Sister Woods thanked me for the great example I set by coming to church each week. She said that I was amazing because I come to branch and have to listen to terrible translation and that she was so proud of me for coming and she told me that the other members look to the interns (because we all always go to church) as a strong example of faith. That threw me. I didn't even think of it being a question not to go, especially because we have the translation. And, I had never thought that the other members of the branch looked at me (and the other interns) as an example. It got me thinking, and I was so grateful that Sister Woods had shared that thought with me.

After dinner I took Beth out to show her the grocery store so that she could pick up some supplies and have food ready and available in the house. She's starting off shaky on the bike and kept apologizing for being so slow. It was okay, I'd rather get there slowly then have her crash into a car, ditch, wall, bike, scooter, dog, etc. I hope she's able to get used to it soon though, because bike is our number one (and almost only) means of transportation. We got back from the store and played a couple card games and chatted it up a bit. She's a really nice girl and I think we can have some fun together. I just have to be careful that I don't push too much too fast. She's already admitted that she's kind of a homebody and that she likes to explore, but she also feels very comfortable at home. So, I'll just invite her where I go and if she comes, she comes- if she doesn't, she doesn't.

Over all- it was a pretty good day.

New Arrival

Beth came today. She's the new teacher. I was right, Luke and Kaylene weren't ready to be gone by time noon rolled around (the time we knew that Beth was moving in). But apparently they weren't really planning on being gone. They stuck around the apartment all day- well, Luke went to Tzu Chi for part of the day. But they were even doing laundry AFTER they were already supposed to be gone. I don't know what was going on, but I felt awkward for Beth, having to stay in the tiny apartment with a married couple. They left after Kaylene finished tutoring at 9pm, but they still have clothes hanging on the line. Kaylene's coming back every day to tutor, so I know that it'll be gone soon and even if she wasn't back tomorrow, they're still going to have Sunday dinners with us so it would have been gone in a couple days. It's not a big deal, I just find it weird (and I think I'm the only one, I don't fit here anymore).

Beth coming was probably the biggest news I have for today, it was not a terribly exciting day. In the morning I taught about obstacles. Okay, that lesson was actually pretty good. I dragged a bunch of things from the office into the room. I taught that an obstacle is something that tries to stop you when you're going after something you want. I told them that we wanted to get to Grandma's house and showed them that we just had to walk from the front of the room to the back. But then I put up obstacles and made up a story as they made the walk and over came all the obstacles/barriers. I was pretty proud of the story that I came up with, seeing as I made it up right on the spot.

The second lesson was on soap and how we need soap to kill germs because even if our hands look clean, they can still have germs on them. The craft we did was not as easy as I had hoped it would be, but that was also good because it sucked up time. But not good because it meant that I did most of the cutting and that's not too fun!

During lunch I cleaned my room, the bathroom, and swept the kitchen (Luke had cleaned the kitchen counters earlier that morning). It didn't take all break, so I even had time to read a little bit of Harry Potter. Beth had come in by then, but she was unpacking and resting so I didn't disturb her. I introduced myself when she first came and I told her I was available if she needed anything, but I didn't want to push any further then that.

My afternoon lesson was on gymnastics and I showed a bunch of video clips of gymnastics performances which made it way easier to teach about. I taught about each event first and then showed them the video. I enjoyed watching it, and I'm pretty sure they did too.

After class I tutored Kristy and then ran off to Carrefour to pick up Cesar salad dressing for tomorrow's dinner. After I got back I went to dinner with Beth and Natalie. We just went to the night market and got coffin bread (it's good, but it's way too greasy). I had tutoring from 8-9 with Dar-sen and then I headed off to the grocery store to pick up some more supplies for dinner. After dropping those off at the house I went to the juice stand because it's been a while since I've had juice and also it's been a while since I've talked to Ronald. I bought juice, but still didn't talk to Ronald because he was too busy. Eh, it was okay, I had to go to the fruit stand to get fruit for tomorrow's dinner anyway, and I know they still like me there. And, I'm right, they do. After I paid, the fruit stand boy gave me a peach. Mmmm. I'm so excited to eat it with breakfast tomorrow, it looks really good and they're not the cheapest things so I wouldn't spend my money on fruit I can get back in America for cheaper, but when it's free, it's soooo good.

I came back and I finished up the last few pages of Harry Potter. I really like reading, but it appears that it's dangerous because I read and read straight through and don't get much else accomplished for a couple of days. Either that or I like the book but have so much school work to do that it ends up taking me a whole year to read it and so I lose interest (the reason I'm convinced I have to read Sense and Sensibility again because I really didn't like it, but I'm sure it's a good book).

Dang it, it's a little later then I realized and I just remembered that I was supposed to pull some objects together for my morning lesson tomorrow that I haven't done yet. That means that I have to wake up earlier tomorrow, be quick about my run, and then come back and gather all the objects.

Dah, I've Got to Finish This Book!

I meant to get more done today then I managed to get done, but I started the Harry Potter book yesterday and so I've spent my free time today reading it. I really wanted to clean up the kitchen and living room area today because the Sister Missionaries are coming over and I wanted the place to look nice. But if I finish the book tonight, then I still have tomorrow to clean and run to the store to pick up supplies for dinner on Thursday. Beth comes tomorrow, which means that Luke and Kaylene have to be out of here by tomorrow afternoon. I don't know if they'll be ready. I haven't really seen them prepare much for their leaving. But, I'm sure it'll be done. I guess not everyone loves to be all ready and geared to go as early as I do. I'm learning to accept others for the way they are instead of the way I think is right, but it's hard for me.

Alright, so I'll recap my day now. I woke up at 7am instead of 6am because I didn't do my workout this morning. The things I've been working says that I need to rest my body more so that it can work more efficiently. I felt so weird and lazy by not working out, but if it's better for my body (which I do believe it is) then I'll do it. I got more fully prepared for my lessons since yesterday was not spent worrying about class.

My morning class was about learning the phrase, "I like" not like they don't already know it, but we made a "Me Tree" where I had them draw pictures of things they like and then we cut them out and put them up on a large tree I had made previously. They all seemed to love that, but the best part of the lesson came during calender. The five year old class had begged me to bring Maggie the Mutt (the puppet) back to class to help with calender. So when I brought her out, they were thrilled and asked if I could bring her again. We decided that Wednesday I would bring Marvin the Manatee back down, Thursday I would bring Catherine the Caterpillar, and then Friday they could pick their favorite. I'm so glad that they love the puppets. They thought that they were so cool for knowing that it was just a sock, but they are still enthralled. Thank you drama class!

My afternoon lesson was about the different genres of music. As I was thinking about it before the lesson, I started to wonder how I was really supposed to make it take 45 minutes for the kids to listen to clips of the music on my computer. But, it worked out some how. So class was pretty awesome for me because I got to listen to the music I like. The kids really enjoyed it too, for every song they would make sure that I knew who liked it and who didn't (I think that there were a total of 5 kids in both classes that didn't like a total of 3 songs, so no big). It was freaking hilarious though. The kids' favorite genre of music was definitely rap! I told them it was called hip-hop, and don't worry, we only listened to the first 30 seconds and so it was clean enough for them to listen too, but I'm telling you, it was hilarious to be in there with them as they listened to rap. Annie, a cute and quiet now four year old started dancing so awesome when I played the first rap song. It looked so appropriate for the music that I had to point out how perfect she was dancing to the music and therefore all the other three and four year olds went gansta on me. Then, in the five year class, when I played the first intro to the rap song they started doing the head bob and when I stopped it they screamed "again, again" I played it again and Areti got up and started stomping around the room. She had a few followers and I was wondering who taught the five year olds to get crunck! I stopped it right after the words came on and they again yelled for me to play it again. I chose another rap song and played "Forgot About Dre" and again, right away we had the gansta dancing going on. It was the GREATEST lesson. I wish I would have got it on camera, seriously!

Lunch was spent reading Harry Potter, and NOTHING else. My afternoon lesson was about the Olympics. I taught a little about the symbols and traditions, like the rings and the torch. They seemed pretty interested, but I know they have NO idea what the Olympics are. That's okay though, I've got three more days to teach them about it. And, hopefully anytime between August 8th and August 24th they'll be able to watch some of it and know a little more about it still.

After school I read a little more before my tutories came. After tutoring I read while Natalie finished up her tutoring session and then we headed out for dinner. I didn't have an incling to go anywhere and neither did she and so we just road our bikes hoping that something would look good. We decided to try out a little restaurant that I'd seen before but never gone in. I saw a menu outside and walked up to check out the prices. The prices weren't too bad and so I was about ready to walk in to ask if they had English menus, but a waiter walked to the front door holding a paper. I knew right away he was about to hand us an English menu. He pointed out that they had curry and I was sold. I've been looking for a curry place ever since coming and I haven't found one. The dinner was good. I was, however, not super excited about the curry. I don't think I'll need to go back there, but it definitely was good. It was also good for Natalie and I to spend a little time together. We got along well and so I was really happy. I guess the solution to my irritation is simply small doses. I think I'd figured that out before, but I forgot when through no fault of my own the circumstance had turned into no contact instead of limited.

Natalie's computer broke a week or two ago, but there is a member of the Hualien branch who thinks they can fix it, so that's where she ran off to right after dinner. I've just been reading. And, reading is where I'm headed off again. I just need to finish the book so that I can rightly focus on the other obligations in my life. So, wish me luck, I'm off to see how far I can get before falling asleep. There's no sleeping in tomorrow, I've got to be up at 6am again so I shouldn't stay up too long.

All's Well

The storm did come last night, but it was nothing too bad. It rained and the wind blew all night, but there were only a couple times when the wind shook the house and it only shook it a tiny bit. And then today it rained some more, but there wasn't too much wind and it didn't even rain that hard. If we had to, we could have gone out an been just fine. We didn't though because the storm is unpredictable and we didn't want to be caught outside in case it decided to pick up again. So yeah, all's well, our walk way is soaking wet and since it's wood, it'll stay wet for a while, but that's really the only thing that's affected us.

Today was noting too exciting, seeing as I really did stay inside all day, but it actually went by quicker then I thought it would. It helps that I slept until 10 am. I wasn't being lazy though, I still didn't even get a good amount of sleep in. Last night I got into bed at 9:45 pm, but I wasn't tired and therefore could not go to sleep. I went to the bathroom like 4 times and did a lot of staring into the dark and just laid still and listened to the storm. I probably didn't fall asleep until 1am or later, but even then, I woke up every 15-30 minutes. The storm would pick up in intensity and I would wake up when a louder gust of wind came. The storm didn't settle down until around 6:30- or 7:00am and that's about the time that I started to get a restful sleep. So, if you view it that way, I only slept for about 3 hours, so I definitely wasn't lazy.

I did a little workout in my room and then went and made myself lunch (it was 11:30am by time I finished working out and showering and stuff). I spent a decent portion of the afternoon on the internet talking to friends but soon got tired of starting at the computer screen. In the living room area we have a couple of books. One of the books is the last Harry Potter book. I've already read it, but I needed something to occupy my time so I decided to start rereading that. I've gotten pretty far into it and it's helped the hours fly by. I probably should be going to bed soon, but after I finish this post up, I'm going to get back to reading.

Thinking about it, I could a, would a, should a done a little bit more lesson prep then I did, and I still have time to do it, but I think I'd rather read. So, I'm off to see how much farther I can get before I force myself to get to sleep because there is class tomorrow, and seeing as I'm the teacher, it's not like I can just not go to school.

It's Here!

Today at church, in every meeting, they reminded everyone that the typhoon is coming and they were wanting to make sure that everyone was prepared. So, today after church we ran to the store to buy some more water and food to last us at least 3 days if it was needed. We also moved everything that was outside on our balcony, inside. We've shut up all our windows. We've moved our bikes to a better covered area. We've got flashlights. And, Joseph came by and gave us the key and alarm code in case of emergency and we need to leave our tin box and be in a safer, more sturdy area.

The wind started to blow harder around 5 pm and then on and off we've had strong wind and some rain. Nothing too bad yet, but the last time I checked the weather report, it said that the storm would actually hit Hualien around midnight and then everyone says that it will be the largest tomorrow. The worst part of the storm isn't supposed to last too long, only a few minutes, but all of the residual wind and rain can still wreck havoc so that's why we've got to be so ready. When Joseph stopped by to help me move the bikes and drop off the key, he told me that the preschool would be closed tomorrow. It's my last week, so I don't really want a day off, but I am teaching on Wednesday because Luke and Kaylene have to be gone by then because Beth is coming Wednesday afternoon and so it's really okay. The worst part about the school being closed is that I will have NOTHING to do all day, and I'll be stuck inside because tomorrow is supposed to be the worst of the storm.

In other news, at church today I signed up to feed the sister missionaries. There is a new branch mission leader and he came into Relief Society with a sign up sheet. He started it at the opposite end of the room and so I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to sign up for the day I wanted. I wanted to do it this Thursday because I don't have tutoring to worry about and I need to do it this week because I'm not sure what my plans will be in August. Luckily when it came to me, this Thursday was open. I turned to Sister Woods and asked her how I sign up to feed just the sisters (I can't feed the elders because it's just me and now priesthood in the house). She said that the new branch mission leader was American and so I could just write on there "I want to feed the sisters" and so I did. Hopefully the stores will be open again by Wednesday so I can pick up the supplies I need. They announced that the missionaries only have from 5pm-6pm as their dinner time. That means that I'll have to book it out of class (school ends at 4:30pm) and make sure everything is prepped as possible before my last lesson. As long as the stores are open, I'm going to make chicken cesar salad with garlic bread, corn on the cob, and fruit. I'm way excited.

Luke was in charge of dinner for tonight. He made tuna in a coconut sauce that we put over rice. He was thrilled about it and he loved it beyond belief. The rest of us, however, were not as fond of it. It tasted alright, but no one but Luke had too much of it. For dessert we had the cheese cake we bought yesterday. It tasted pretty good, it had chocolate cookie on top. But it was way rich and I ate too much of it so now I'm a little sick.

Ever since dinner I've been doing some reading and some fiddling on the computer, but I'm not having an easy time keeping myself entertained. And what's worse, it's not even tomorrow yet, where I'll be locked inside ALL dang day. I hope I survive. Thinking about it, I'm more worried of surviving the boredom then I am surviving the storm. I don't know, maybe something will happen tonight that will make me more afraid of the storm (but hopefully not).

There's a Storm A Brewing

So there is supposed to be a big typhoon hitting tomorrow. The problem with typhoons though is that you don't know if they are going to stay on course or blow off so you don't know if it's actually going to hit you until it's hitting you. This one is supposed to be pretty big and it is coming toward us. We'll have to see how things go tomorrow.

As far as today goes, it was a beautiful sunny day with only a few spurts of random rain droplets. And we definitely lived the day up, just in case we're stuck inside for a few days. I didn't go to sleep until late last night, like 12:30am- ish. But my body wouldn't let me sleep in. At 5:17 am I woke up thinking I was supposed to be awake. When I looked and saw what time it was I rolled over and tried to go to sleep. I was able to fall back asleep, but a little before 7am I woke up again. I tried to turn over again, but knew that trying would be futile and the best I would get was another 15 minutes in bed, but probably not 15 minutes of sleep. That didn't even matter though because right after I checked the clock, I heard Luke playing music on his laptop. I tried to ignore it, but there was no way. My body was telling me get up and Luke's music wouldn't let me sleep. So, on Saturday morning, I was up and going at 7am. I did a little workout in my room, ate breakfast, and showered.

After my shower I got online and spent my morning looking up hotels in Hong Kong. It took a long time because I had to look at the hotel, what it offered, and where it was in comparison to the things I wanted to do. That means that I also had to look up the things I wanted to do and also where those things were. I wasn't super successful, but I was sick of being on the computer and so I got off. Natalie and I started talking a little bit in the kitchen and she again asked me how to get to Carrefour. I asked if she just wanted me to show her again. She was really glad that I asked and said she would love it if I showed her. We had an hour and a half before Amy was coming to meet us at the apartment and so we took off. I'd seen a sign pointing to Carrefour on a street we ride on all the time and I had a feeling that that road would be a more direct way to get there. I explained to her that we were going a new way and she was all for it. We made it there (it really is a better way to get there the way we went today) and we went inside to get Natalie some sunscreen. She wasn't given the warning to bring her own because the stuff here is expensive and she feels bad asking Beth to bring her some so she had to drop some money on sunscreen.

We made it back way before Amy came over (we were back in time to meet her, but she was 30 minutes late, so that's why I say we were back WAY before). Amy, Natalie, and I were going to go hiking at a hill near by. We put together a picnic and then headed out. Amy led the way on her scooter and Natalie and I followed on our bikes. Amy slowed down and was constantly checking in the mirror to make sure we were behind her, but it's not like we could expect her to go too slowly, so we were booking it the whole time there. The hike was more like a walk, but it was up hill and it used a sufficient amount of energy to get up to the top. Once we were at the top we ate our lunch. Natalie had bought some raisins at the store, but it turns out that they still had the seeds in them. I guess that grape seeds are healthy for you and keep you looking young, so it's not unusual to have seeds in your raisins. It was interesting, I'd never had raisins with seeds in them before. I think that I prefer mine without, but they were edible.

Mist started to roll in on the mountains across the way and we felt some rain drops so we decided that we should start our decent just in case the typhoon was coming a little early. But the rain stopped, the mist dispersed, and the sun kept shining and so we went exploring several different paths as we slowly made our way down the mountain. Even though Natalie and I were getting along a whole lot better today then in the past, she still drove me crazy at times. She only REALLY bothers me when she is being inconsiderate. (Sorry, short bitter diatribe, but I promise to keep it short.) It seemed to me that she made most of the trip all about her. She would ask our opinion every once in a while (probably because I gave her a dirty look or something) but I knew that she didn't really care. I can't really explain it, but it was aggravating, but stand-able, so on the whole I most definitely had an enjoyable day.

Natalie wanted to go and get juice after the hike Amy was thirsty too and so we went to the downtown market to get some juice (I passed, I wasn't really hungry- and that's one of the times I was irritated with Natalie because she knows Amy hates spending money, even on small things). While Natalie and Amy were drinking their juice we walked around a few of the stores. After juice we split, Amy went back to her place and Natalie and I went back to ours. I was so tired. I had been up and moving all day, no rest. OH!!! And I forgot. I was extra tired because when we went to the store to get stuff for our picnic, I took Amy on the back of my bike. Natalie was saying that she could follow us on her scooter and then I was just teasing and said, "or you could just ride here" (pointing to the luggage rack of my bike). Amy said "Really? Are you sure?" Which made me realize that she really wanted to. It was much easier to take Amy on the back of my bike then it was to take Nancy. For one, I'd already had the practice, two, I think I'm getting stronger, three, it wasn't as far, and four, there were no hills I had to go up. Amy was pretty proud of me and told me she thought it was funny. I thought the same thing. But boy was it a workout. It may have been easier then pulling Nancy across Green Island, but it was still harder then biking myself to the store.

But, regardless of being pooped, we still needed to head out and pick up food for tomorrow's dinner. I could hear that Luke and Kaylene were back and so I asked them if they wanted to go and get the food. They said they had just gotten back and were too tired and asked if we could go in 30 minutes. Kaylene wanted cheese cake for dessert and the place closes at 6pm. It was a little after 5 pm when we got home and so I told her that the cheese cake place wouldn't be open if we waited. That got her up. I told her that we were tired too and so we could just make this a quick trip. And we were pretty successful at making it quick. We went to the market that is right by the cheese cake place. I was the only one who knew my way around and so I was able to navigate the group and do it with speed and precision. I was worried that Natalie would wander off and look at other things, but we had a cheese cake that we needed to get back home and we bought fish that also couldn't be out too long and so if she started to wander, I had a little speech ready to deliver, but there was no need. I think that the whole chickens laying dead on the table stifled her desire to run away on her own (she only saw the fresh food section, not the clothes or bakery section so she didn't know what she was missing I guess).

When we got home I made a new concoction using my beans. I put rice in a frying pan and heated that up, then I added chili pepper and an egg. I fried that up a little bit and then added in beans. It turned out pretty tasty actually, I was pleasantly surprised. After dinner I got back on the computer and did some more research on where to stay in Hong Kong. I got onto Google Earth so that I could pinpoint the locations of the attractions I want to see and also the locations of the hotels. I ended up choosing the Cosmopolitan Hotel, not because of it's stellar location, but because at their website they give me information about how, how long, and how much it takes to get to a bunch of different attractions from the hotel. Then, I tired to get back to the website I had been on with Sabrina. I typed it in without the .tw and the website was in English. Yay! But in English it told me to choose my country and when I pressed Taiwan, everything turned into Chinese. I fumbled around a while trying to find a way to get it to be in English, but there was no way. I finally decided that I would pull up a translator in another window and just piece my way slowly through the process. It took me a long time, but I didn't get anywhere. Verbatim translation isn't super helpful and I thought that I had selected flight and hotel, but that's not what it was giving me. I had to give up. I haven't given up on the trip, I've just given up trying to help myself get through a Chinese web page. But this had better all workout, I'm looking forward to it so much! I really just want to have the tickets purchased right now so that I can be assured that I'm going.

Hong Kong Anyone?

I tutor from 7:00pm to 8:45pm, but it's 11:35pm now and I just got back. Here's why. I want to take a trip to Hong Kong, but my travel agent/boss (Yuling) had a baby less then a month ago and has to stay in her room for a month after having it. (It's a boy by the way, don't know if I ever said that.) Betty is the name of the mom of the family I tutor for on Friday. She's great and I love that she makes me fresh fruit juice and feeds me dinner. Last week I told her my traveling dilemma and she told me that if her younger sister Sabrina came to town that she would ask her to help me out. Sabrina came in around 9:45pm and we've pretty much been looking into trips ever since. I REALLY wish that I could tell you that we found one, booked one, and I'm all set. Unfortunately, that's not the case. I tried to get a deal with a travel agency, but that was way too expensive (that whole, if you travel alone we're going to make you pay more thing). I'm not discouraged though because Sabrina says that it's cheap to get a flight and hotel combination and then once you're in Hong Kong it's easy to ride the train and I most times the hotels will offer one day tours. We spent a while looking for flight and hotel packages and we finally found a site and she just printed off a list of hotels and prices. The sheet has the English names, so it's good that I will be able to look up the hotels myself, but how in the world am I supposed to navigate my way back to that ONE spot with the lowest prices? I don't know, we'll see how it goes. But I've pretty much got my heart set on going to Hong Kong now, if only for the reason that I would be able to go to Disneyland Hong Kong. Honestly, I will be SO sad if this doesn't pan out because I am seriously looking forward to going to Disneyland in Hong Kong. But anyway, that's why I'm writing so late, I've been over at the Chou's researching trips to Hong Kong.

This morning I did a hill workout. I went to the hill trail and just ran up the first part of it. That hill wasn't quite long enough, but I needed to start my workout so I wouldn't be late or rushed to get ready for class.

My lessons went well today. The lesson I taught on mixing colors (primary and secondary colors) went phenomenally in the 3/4 year old class. I took water and added food coloring and then mixed the waters. The colors changed quite nicely and the 3/4 year olds were quite impressed. The 5 year olds were still impressed, but not as much. In the second class I taught about after school snacks and we made "Winnie the Pooh Honey Pot Balls" so of course the kids LOVED that lesson. Don't worry, I saved the snacks on a plate so that they were not snacking right before lunch. My afternoon lesson was on how we are all super heroes. I wanted to play a clip from the Disney show "Higglytown Heroes" but in the first class, the clip wasn't done buffering and so we couldn't watch it. I had the idea half an hour before class to use the paint program on the computer to turn the kids into super heroes. It's a shame that I only thought about it half an hour before class because I only had time to do 3 kids' pictures. The class loved it though. I showed them the first picture of Charlie, just normal Charlie and then I said, "Do you know that Charlie only pretends to be a preschooler? He's really a super hero. Do you want to see Super Charlie?" Then I change the picture to show the doctored one. They loved it. I did it with 2 more kids and everyone was asking where there picture was. I felt bad telling them that I didn't have a picture for them. Boo on me, but really, I did the best with what I had (meaning the thirty minutes I had before class).

Nothing too exciting after class except for being at the Chou's for 3 1/2 hours. I'm not tired, but I really should go to bed. Hopefully I can sleep.

Sweat and Sleep

That seems like all there is to do around here now a days, sweat and sleep. I was planning on going somewhere at lunch today because I am tired of spending SO much time inside. But, it was blazing hot and I didn't feel like getting sweaty without a purpose. If I knew where I was heading, I would have gone out, but just heading out and possibly not getting anywhere and being drenched in sweat just to get no where didn't sound too appealing. I tried reading, but of course that made me sleepy so I took a nap. Good news though, I really did only take a 20 minute nap. I actually woke up and got up when the alarm went off.

At least my down time was productive today and not totally filled with solitaire, crosswords, and reading. Yesterday and today I've been working a lot on prepping for my lessons next week. I never have enough props because I have to make them all and so I decided to start early. I planned lessons where I would need a lot of visuals and so I'm working on pulling them together now so that lunches next week can be spent exploring, regardless of the temperature (I'll suck it up if it's hot and I'll cover up if it's raining).

Wow, it's the third paragraph before I'm getting to what I did very first thing this morning. I guess I'm not always one for chronological order. Today was the first day that I tried one of the workouts I've been reading about instead of my run. It didn't take very long at all. I don't feel like it pushed me too hard, but while I was doing it, I was definitely working. I'll see how sore I am tomorrow before I say if I think it did any good or not. Tomorrow I'm going back to the one trail I found that is a climb up a mountain. I think I'm finally ready to attack the hill (because according to my reading, that's better for me then straight running anyway). Good news about this new workout plan that I'm adapting is that I'll be able to sleep more. For one, it doesn't recommend working out everyday, and the workouts take less then the hour it takes me to bike to the trail, run, and bike back.

I didn't need the time saver this morning though. Because I taught the morning lesson for Kaylene yesterday, she taught the morning lesson for me today and so I didn't have to be doing anything until 10:40 am. So this morning is when I got my scripture study and ensign reading in. It was a good morning.

My afternoon lesson was on leaves and the veins in the leafs. For the activity we did crayon rubbings of the leaves so that it was easier to see the veins. I had lots of different kinds of leaves that I had picked on my run yesterday and at the start of class I passed them around for the kids to look at and feel. Between passing them around and letting the kids do rubbings of the leaves, the leaves got pretty demolished (especially when Jared got his hands on them and honestly ripped them to shreds). I had like 10 minutes left after they had colored all over their papers (so it's not like I could just let the keep going) and I needed more leaves before the next class came in so I decided to do a leaf hunt. We walked around outside in a line, holding hands. When they saw a really neat leaf, they would stop me and I would pick it. It was pretty good quick thinking if I do say so myself (although it just occured to me that I wouldn't need good quick thinking if I would have prepared a better lesson).

At lunch today they had corn on the cob as their soup. So it was corn on the cob in a broth. I was getting out a piece of corn and I realized that there were funny black things in the broth. Ha! They were chicken's feet. I was so close to asking Teacher Steffanie if I was allowed to have a chicken's foot, but I decided not to. I wouldn't know how to eat it, the kids would laugh at me, and I wasn't feeling too adventurous at the moment. But thinking about it now, I don't think that the feet were prepared to eat, I think they were just to give flavor to the broth.

I've already covered my lunch break, a lot of working on my next week's lesson and a little bit of napping. My afternoon lesson was on Wonder Woman because I had to represent my own sex in the discussion of super heroes. I felt sketchy teaching about her though because her outfit is seriously inappropriate (and so are the outfits of the female villains she fights). Needless to say, there were way less pictures on my PowerPoint today.

I played with the rascals after school today and I got sweaty and my feet got so dirty. But I'm glad that they have fun with me. May is so cute. They all tell me I'm beautiful (which of course makes me feel good) but today May told it to me on several occasions (they were all saying it a lot today actually, which is weird because I chose to not wear makeup today). She told it to me right before I left to go upstairs. She said "Teacher, you are so pretty" and I said, "No, I'm so sweaty." Then May tells me, "No, you are so beautiful, your sweat is beautiful." How precious is that? Even when I'm a sweaty sweaty beast, they still think I'm beautiful. Oh, I'm REALLY going to miss Taiwan, if just for the shallow reason that people tell me I'm beautiful :o)

I had a grilled cheese sandwich and a side of re fried beans for dinner. The beans were so bland and so I would eat a bite of bland beans and then eat a bite of sandwich so that I had flavor. I'm pretty sure that's how my dinners are going to go for the next several days- fix something really flavorful and in between bites of that, eat bites of beans. I still can't believe that I was so moronic and made all of the beans at one time.

I did more lesson prep after dinner and was just sitting in my room so bored. Natalie had been gone forever and I was wondering where the heck she goes all the time. Then I realized, it doesn't matter where I go, I just need to get out of this place. So, I got on my bike and swung by the juice stand. Ronald is either mad at me or he only really ever like Nancy because he doesn't ever want to talk to me any more. Which, actually that's okay because I really did just want juice tonight. I mean, I would have talked if he wanted to, but I rode up on my bike (meaning I didn't park it in hopes that he would have time to talk). I took my bike to the beach, but not the normal place I usually take my juices or dinners or what have you, I took it further down to the side of the beach I had explored on Saturday. It surprised me because it was pretty crowded. Everyone there was a freaking couple though. I felt like such a loser being the only one on a bench without a boy to hold. A little farther down there was a bigger group of people shooting off tiny fireworks. It wasn't much of a show and it made it so that I couldn't hear the ocean waves. I did stay for a while, but probably not as long as I would have stayed if I had been at the quieter end of the beach. I took the extra long way home just to be out of the house that much longer and I stopped at the fruit stand because I was in need of fruit. I laughed to myself when I realized that I was buying California nectarines. And I also bought some apples. Today the guy didn't through in any free watermelon, but he did put in some dragon fruit. Dang it. Is there a way I could have picked out the free fruit he gave me? Dragon fruit is not my favorite. Oh well, it's still pretty good, and I'm way appreciative of his generosity (so don't get me wrong). I'm starting to wonder if he always throws in a free bag of fruit if you spend a certain amount or if he really is just friendly to white people. Either way, it makes me happy to get free fruit :o)

Hmmm... what's left for today? I'm not tired, so it's a good thing that I promised Dana that I would stay up until she got to work so we could talk for a little while. I've got 4 minutes until she's at work so I'm going to go get ready for bed. Peace out!

Part Day Off

I feel like I really was not able to accomplish much today. I went for my run, which was really slow because one, my shin really hurt me and two, I had to stop and collect leaves for my science lesson tomorrow. But, I couldn't go exploring my bike trail after the run because I had to come back and teach for Kaylene. I taught about puppets and had the kids make their own puppets out of paper bags. It went really well because the kids loved Maggie the Mutt (the third of three puppets that I brought and used in Taiwan- goal accomplished) and they loved making their own puppets. The problem was that there wasn't enough time. The kids liked Maggie a little too much and I couldn't get them to stop wanting to talk to her and pet her long enough to teach a quick lesson before moving onto the craft.

Because I had already showered and was clean, I didn't do my normal Wednesday cleaning. I was already planning on boycotting cleaning up anybody else's mess, but I had wanted to at least sweep my room out. Nope, no such happenings. Today was a big reading day. I don't mean reading my scriptures like I've been doing the other days that I had lots of time to kill. For the past couple days I've been reading about ways to be more healthy so that I can try to lose some of this extra weight that Taiwan has put on me (not that Taiwan is the only reason I'm a little wider then I'd like). But it's a little depressing. I've learned that my running every morning is doing almost nothing (and may actually be a hindrance) to help me get slim and that if I really want to trim down I have to buy organic foods like grass-fed beef and eggs from free range chickens. Okay, well that's discouraging because I wouldn't know where to find those types of food in Taiwan (even if they're available) and it means that when I go back to America, my grocery bill is going to be a lot bigger if I have to buy at whole, natural food stores. Not only do I need to change my eating, but my workouts as well. I've been reading how weight training is the best thing that I could be doing to lose weight. Again, that's discouraging because I don't have access to a gym here. I think that I've seen one, but I don't know how to get a membership. So, there are some things I can do without weights, but mostly I really need a gym. I'll do the best that I can while I'm here though. But that's why I haven't done much of anything today, I was busy reading the health articles.

I was going to make re fried beans and salsa for lunch today, but reading articles online made me sleepy and so I took a nap. I think I was asleep for about an hour and by the time I woke up it was almost 1pm and I wasn't willing to wait 3 hours for lunch. So I grabbed something quick for lunch and decided to make the beans and salsa for dinner. I went to the grocery store to pick up tomatoes, lemons, and lettuce. I was so excited that I found the store had real lettuce. Last time I had gone I saw that they had ice burg lettuce and that's what I was planning on getting, but today I went and they had Romain lettuce. I was thrilled. I also saw that they had spinach leaves. I wonder if this whole time I could have been eating tasty salads or if it really did just appear in the store today. I had looked up a recipe for re fried beans and was all excited to be making them and to see if I could really do it. I got out a measuring cup to measure out some of the beans (I obviously didn't need the whole bag, it's just me eating). I dumped out all the beans so that I could wash them. Something distracted me and when I came back, I forgot to measure out a smaller portion and put all the beans into the pot. By time I realized what I had done, it was too late, the beans had already started to boil. Because I made too many beans, the beans kept on soaking up the water and I had to keep putting more water in. They turned out okay, but they could have used some seasoning (I didn't have salt, so the only thing to give it flavor were some sauteed green onions). The salsa on the other hand was fantastic. Mmmm... I really wanted some chips to go with the salsa, but I didn't have any (Taiwan doesn't have any). So, in my head, beans and salsa wrapped in a lettuce leaf was going to taste so amazing. Not quite. The beans weren't bad, the salsa was excellent, the lettuce was lettuce, but the combination of them did not turn out as good as I had planned that it would in my head. It's regrettable that dinner didn't taste that good because I think I'm going to have to repeat it a few more nights. I have so many beans and without chips or tortillas, I don't really know what else to have them with. (If you have suggestions and read this asap, I would LOVE to know how to use them- throwing them away is not an option, so don't say it.)

After dinner I kept busy for a while just cleaning up all the dishes I had used for dinner. Then it was back to reading about health and fitness, a cross word puzzle, and just waiting for Dar-sen to come for his tutoring. Right now I think I'll do another puzzle (yes, I know, I'm kind of sad and pathetic) and then go to bed.

Ha, I forgot

I guess my day was extra not exciting because on dull days I can still remember to blog. But today it escaped my mind entirely.

So, like usual I got up and went for my run. I didn't feel like getting up this morning because now that I'm actually going a decent pace, my legs are sore and I can feel some injuries beginning that come from too many miles put on shoes and running too much on concrete and asphalt instead of nice dirt trails. It definitely was a workout while I was doing it, but I felt really good and rather accomplished on the ride back (luckily it's almost all a slight down hill on the way back so it was easier to recover and feel good about the run).

My lessons went over okay and I didn't get any dirty looks or rolled eyes from any teachers, so that's good. Do you know how long it takes to read a Dr. Seuss book? My 45 minute lesson was on Dr. Seuss and I was worried that I didn't have enough to say. I talked about him and his books for 20 minutes and then had 25 minutes to read a book. Don't worry, it most definitely took the whole 25 minutes to read the book. I felt bad for the kids, I didn't mean to read to them for so long, but they actually really enjoyed it. At one point in time I asked the first class if we should stop reading. Some people said yes and I took them seriously and started to put it away (wondering what else I would have to talk about) but then they all yelled "NO!" and so I realized that they weren't as bored as I thought they were. My Superman lesson wasn't as exciting as my Spider Man lesson, but the kids really enjoyed making the "S" symbol and wearing it on their clothes.

I tutored after school from 5-6pm. I was supposed to have two people come, but only one of them showed up. After I finished tutoring I took off right away so that I could catch the 'afternoon' market before it closes. I haven't had a chance to go to that one for a while and so I was excited to go pick up some dinner and pick out some fresh fruits and vegetables. When I got there it was thriving. Perhaps they stay open later now that it's summer. I walked around to the different fruit and veggi booths but nothing was catching my eye. I eventually settled with some green beans (they could be peas too, I'm not exactly sure) and a bag of freshly sliced pineapple (which doesn't matter that it's fresh because I won't eat it until tomorrow) and an Asian pear. The pears are expensive (here and in America) but I found a small one that was only 20 NT$ instead of the big ones that are 55-75 NT$ so I got one. I really like them, so every time I see one I'm really disappointed that they're so expensive. I picked up a steamed roll and a cup of soup for dinner. I decided that on my way home I should stop along the river and eat my dinner there. I ended up just eating my roll, but it was nice. Right before I finished there was an old woman walking down the street who came up and started talking to me. I have no idea what she was saying. I think she asked if the food was good (I told her "hao"-"good") and then she started pointing to my face so I'm assuming she was pointing out the fact that I'm white (yes, I am aware of that little tid-bit of information:o) and then she touched my leg (possibly so she can go home and tell her family she touched a white person?) too bad I didn't shave this morning and so she probably scratched her hand.

I came home to eat my soup. Last time I bought the soup at a different place and it was a really good corn chowder. Today it was still a chowder, but it was a seafood chowder with I don't know what in it. I did see a purple tentacle, so I'm guessing that's octopus. There's squid in everything so I'm betting there was squid in it. And I saw white meat with red coloring on top so my guess would be that there was also some lobster in it. As I was eating it (especially the purple tentacle) I realized how impressive I am; I have really branched out in my tastes.

Since dinner I've just been doing some reading, a little lesson preparing. Tomorrow's my day off but I'm covering the 9am class for Kaylene because she has some kind of conference call from America that they apparently didn't plan out too well. So that means that I had to prepare my Thursday morning lesson a little early.

Was it a Holiday Today?

Nope, it was just a call home day! I woke up early and did my run from the apartment so that I could be back in time to talk to my family before class. On my run a guy passed me on his scooter and slowed down so that he was driving my running pace. I'm not exactly sure what he said, I think he asked me where I was going (he could have asked me where I'm from, I'm not so sure any more). First of all, he was speaking Chinese, but to make it worse, he had a cigarette in his mouth and was riding a loud scooter. I'm pretty sure if he had spoken English I still wouldn't have known what he said. It was okay though, I turned and he went straight so he didn't try talking to me for very long.

When I got back from my run I ate and showered really fast so that I could call home. The call was nice. I got booted off a little early because dinner was ready, but it was fine. It turns out I needed a little more time to prep for my lesson then I thought. My day was nothing spectacular (other then talking to my family of course!). My lessons went well. Although, one time I got in trouble for letting the kids eat popcorn right before lunch (I was teaching about movies and Yuling knew I was making popcorn so I don't know why she didn't stop me before doing it...) and so today my lesson was on traffic lights and so I had the kids separate M&Ms into red, yellow, green, and other. After they were done separating each kid got a red, a green, and a yellow M&M. I had asked Teacher Steffanie before class if that would be okay before lunch because it was a measly 3 M&Ms. But when I pulled out the bag in the 5 year old class Teacher Michelle got this look on her face like, "you've got to be kidding me, are you a freaking moron?" I guess that the other teachers don't talk. I told her they were each only getting 3 M&Ms and that Teacher Steffanie told me it was okay. She still looked at me like I was retarded. That didn't make me feel too good, but luckily I got over that one half way through lunch break.

I had no lunch plans. I had to do a couple minutes more of prep work for my afternoon class, but other then that, nothin'. Actually, I guess it's kind of a good thing that I have more time to myself now. I read my scriptures more that I have the extra time. Well, the time issue and the fact that I have a roommate that I'm not particularly fond of and I'm hoping that as I read my scriptures and strive to be a better person I'll be granted more patience to be able to handle her. Sometimes it works, other times I just think I'm not super righteous because it doesn't feel like it's helping too much. (Oops, sorry about the side track confession.)

My afternoon lesson went pretty well. Our theme this week is super heroes (thank you Luke for the idea) and I taught about Spider Man. It always takes the kids a while to come in and sit down and so today while they were coming in I played the cartoon with the Spider Man theme song. If they sat down quickly they were able to watch it, if they were slow, they missed out. That worked pretty well because not only did they come in quicker, they were quiet when class started too. I think I'll be youtube-ing the other super hero theme songs as well.

And how fitting, today I taught about Spider Man, and then on tonight on TV Spider Man 2 was on. I wasn't super hungry when I finished with tutoring and so I decided just to whip up something small here. When I sat down to eat I decided to flip through the few English channels we get here and found Spider Man 2. Of course I had to stop it there. So my night hasn't been too extravagant either. I made dinner at home and watched a movie at home and now I'm still home typing up my blog.

Wow, sometimes it's amazing how much I can write when I really have nothing to say. I'm sorry that I wasted your time with my nothing blog, but then I remember that this is my journal and then I'm a little less sorry because it's for me just as much as it's for anyone else who reads it.

Garlic Chicken Dinner

So, scratch what I said about making lunch together. It turns out that Amy is supposed to go to the Hualien Branch, not the Ji-An Branch. Natalie is going to go with her, but they don't meet until 1pm. So, we decided to make Sunday dinner after all.

Rewind- I got up this morning, took a shower and got ready for church. The Relief Society lesson was on obedience (I know, we're a little behind). The teacher mostly read out of the manual. At the very end, she did have some sort of wrap up, but Sister Woods (whom we use for a translator) had to step out of the class really quick and so we missed the part where the teacher actually spoke.

In Sunday School we talked about sacrifice. The teacher was asking about things that we really like and that are important to us. She asked if anyone was wearing jewelry and I showed that I was wearing earrings. She asked if I liked my earrings (they were ones I bought in Thailand and this was the first chance I had to wear them). I said yes and she asked if she could have them. I handed them over. Then she pointed to my watch and so I handed that over to her too. She was shocked that I actually handed them over. I figured I would get them back, and if I didn't, the earrings were less then a US dollar. Although, as I sat in class I was contemplating asking for my watch back. I use that a lot. But, there were no worries, at the end of her lesson she thanked me for giving her my jewelry and then told me she would return it.

Sacrament meeting went better then last week. By that I mean that Kaylene stayed awake and the Branch President didn't chew out the members of the congregation. There was a white guy who spoke today. I guess he's in the Stake Presidency and he spoke about how there aren't enough Taiwanese people going on missions and shared ways that everyone can start preparing because you're never too young to prepare, and you're never too old to go. Most of the things he spoke about I can check off the list. I know how to cook and clean and be on time. Things I'm not so good at: money management (I mean, I'm cheap most of the time, but when I splurge, I splurge) and self control/will power.

After church I came home and read scriptures, my lesson manual, and the Liahona. I did take a little nap because I didn't have anything to do, I had prepped most of dinner last night expecting that it would be lunch. At 3pm I went into the kitchen to finish up everything for dinner at 4pm. I always jump the gun. Dinner was ready way before it was time. Church gets out at 4pm and so we waited until 4:10pm but they still hadn't shown up and so we started putting the food on the table and getting ready to eat (it was getting cold because it was done early, remember?). Luke, Kaylene, and I started eating without them. It's a good thing that we did because they (Amy and Natalie) didn't end up coming until 4:40pm. By that time we were done with dinner and halfway done with dishes.

When everyone had finished dinner we sat and chatted. Amy had to go tutoring at 7pm and so right before 7, she left. And that's when I headed out of the kitchen too. I went into my room to work on some props for my lesson tomorrow and looking up facts about Spider Man (I'm teaching about him tomorrow afternoon). It's not that late, but maybe I'll go to bed early because I've got nothing else to do with my time.

Oh yeah, the dinner turned out well. We had garlic chicken, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and watermelon. Although it turned out well, it didn't turn out like it was meant to. But that's the story when you try to cook American food in Taiwan.

I Love Tiawan...But I Hate Boredom

This morning I didn't set an alarm and so I slept in. It's funny because the absolute latest I could sleep was 9am. When other people talk about sleeping in, it's until noon or later, when I talk about sleeping in, it's 9am. I love it. I was really glad when I looked at the clock and I found out that I hadn't slept the day away.

I didn't feel like going for a run, but I knew I needed to get out and exercise and so I decided that I would go for a long bike ride. First thing I love about Taiwan... the people are so nice. I was on my bike, and a scooter pulls up next to me and the guy of the scooter offers me a beetle nut. "Bu yao, xie xie!" Beetle nut is a stimulant. You get a small high from chewing it, but it stains your teeth and gums red. It's obvious who the chewers are around here and it's disgusting. So that was interesting, I've been offered food by strangers before, but never beetle nut (heroine yes, beetle nut no). I had planned to head north and take the long way to the flat running trail that I run on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I wanted to know what was beyond that trail. Second thing I love about Taiwan.... everything connects. I've decided that it's impossible to be lost for too long. I headed down the road that is parallel to the running trail, and with in 15 minutes I had popped out onto the main road that takes me to the train station. I started laughing because every road really does connect. Third thing I love about Taiwan.... the Taoist temples are amazing and everywhere. There is a huge temple at the end of the running path. I took my bike into the parking lot and made a quick circle (I didn't think it was too appropriate to linger around the temple when I'm sweaty and in workout clothes). This one is huge and even more intricate then the others that are nearby the house. Because I had come out by the train station, I decided that I would keep heading east and go to the beach. I've never been all the way down that path and so I wanted to see where it led. Fourth thing I love about Taiwan.... the people here love Americans. I passed by this guy who had a hiking backpack on. He said hi and so naturally I said hi back. I kept biking, but then I hear, "excuse me" I turn around and the guy waves me back. He told me he was taking a trip (to Hualien) and he wanted a picture with me. I took a quick picture and then was off along my trail again. Unfortunately the trail I was on did not take me all along the beach, it ended. Fifth thing I love about Taiwan... the beach. I had already been biking for an hour and so I decided it was okay to sit and watch/listen to the water for a while. Although it's really sad that we can't swim there, I loved that there were no people crowding the beach. It's so peaceful and clean (on the surface it looks clean, but apparently it's way polluted). I headed back after the beach, but I took the long way home.

That's where my day stopped being exciting. I was hoping to go on some grand adventure, but it didn't end up happening. I did a few crossword puzzles and I don't know what else the whole afternoon. Natalie took off for a ride about an hour after I got back and she was gone for two or three hours. When she got back we decided to go and pick up the food we needed for Sunday dinner. First we went to Fashion Market (it's just a store) to see if a bike lock wasn't too expensive (remember, I lost mine). Natalie had been to the store before, but when I pulled up to park, she kept riding. I called out to her, but she didn't respond. I got back on my bike to chase her, but by time I crossed the street she had gone. She had turned somewhere. I went up and down looking for her. I had about given up and was just going to shop on my own when she biked passed. This time she saw me and we were able to get a bike lock. We went to the grocery store next and got almost everything we needed. But, we still needed a fruit and a few more potatoes. We went home to drop off the chicken and biked down to the market we had been to last Saturday. We bought some potatoes and then biked all the way down to get a quick look at what else they had there. I saw a lady with a bean stand. To my amazement, she was selling pinto beans. One time Nancy and I had the urge to make a seven layer dip, but then discovered that they don't have canned refried beans and that they don't sell pinto beans so we couldn't make our own. Ahha! I've got the pinto beans now, I just have to figure out how to make refried beans. And then there's the other thing that I forgot about until we were already home... they don't have tortilla chips or tortillas so I don't know what I'm going to eat my beans with once I've made them. Sad day.

Natalie said that she wanted to pick up dinner while we were already out and so we went to the dumpling place and had dinner. It's funny that she wanted to go get dumplings because that's what I had planned in my head, but I was planning on going later then 5:30pm. Oh well, they were really busy so by the time we got our food it was almost 6:00pm which is close enough to dinner time.

On our way home from dinner we picked up some watermelon for our fruit for tomorrow's dinner. We bought a fourth of a watermelon (they cut it into wedges and wrap it so you can buy a fourth, a half, of a whole) and it was too big to put into the fridge and so I set to cutting it. I had to do some rearranging, but I got the bowl in.

I haven't paid my tithing since I've been here. It was always easy for Nancy because she had lots of cash laying around. I don't have lots of cash because the majority of my tutoring is the class tutoring and so Yuling deposits that into the bank account. I kept on forgetting to go to the bank on Saturdays to draw out some money, and so I haven't paid yet. I remembered tonight and made a trip to the bank to pull out some money. On the way back I decided to get some juice. Not because I wanted juice, but because I hadn't seen Ronald in a while. Unfortunately he was really busy (it's Saturday night, duh, what was I expecting) and so we couldn't talk. I went home sad :o(

But it worked out okay because I forgot that I had wanted to prepare the garlic chicken for tomorrow tonight so that we didn't have to wait forever for lunch to be ready (because Amy from National Hualien University joins us for dinner we've actually decided to make it lunch). We'll still have to wait for it to cook, but at least now we don't have to wait for it to be prepped and cooked. That took me a while and kept me entertained (I love to cook) and now I'm blogging. That was my day. If it sounds like it wasn't really all that boring, it's because I only wrote about the exciting stuff, remember how most of the afternoon I just did cross words? That was the boring part.

It's Raining, It's Pouring

So the buzz from the movie did not carry through to today. Dang shoot! It rained all night last night and so when I woke up this morning and heard it still going, I decided not to get up and run. That made it so that I got an extra hour of sleep, but I regretted doing it because when I woke up and actually saw the ground and how there weren't giant puddles everywhere like I had imagined, I just felt lazy for sleeping in. It did help that I had more time to prepare for my morning's lesson though. I don't know, there's give and take, but I think next time I should just get my sorry behind out of bed and run.

I was really excited for my lesson on patterns this morning. I made different shapes with different colors and put magnets on them so that I could put different patterns up on the board, and then the kids could tell me what parts repeat and then they would make their own and they would have such a blast and be so captivated by my lesson. WRONG! That was not at all how it went. Well, it went better in the 5 year old class, but the 3 and 4 year olds weren't into it at all. It made me really sad. They were into it for the first few minutes, but then I lost them. They would come in and out with excitement, but pretty much I lost them. I was proud of myself though because I stayed enthusiastic about the lesson the whole time even when they weren't.

My second lesson went better. I taught about hiking, but it was funny because I taught it to the 5 year olds first and I kept looking at the clock and I couldn't remember if we finished at 11:20 am or 11:25 am. I convinced myself that it was 11:20 am and tried to dismiss them at 11:21 am. Teacher Michelle looked at the clock and told me "no, teacher, four more minutes." Well shoot, I had already expanded as long as I could. Don't worry, I completely had it covered, we played follow the leader, but they had to follow the leader who was staying on the hiking path. You were not allowed to wander off the path or else you fell off a cliff. That definitely lasted 4 minutes, so I was good, but it was funny. And I wonder what Teacher Michelle thinks, I've only been teaching two and a half months now, you'd think I'd have the schedule down my now... but, not so much apparently. The second rotation of that class took longer and we didn't have time to play follow the leader. The other thing that I'm proud of about that lesson was that I showed them that they need to bring a flashlight in case they come to a cave or tunnel. I had them stand up and make a human tunnel with their legs and had the kids take turns going through the dark tunnel with the flashlight. I was pretty proud of my idea because it was pretty spur of the moment, but Teacher Michelle made it even better by turning off the lights and closing the curtains so that it really was a dark tunnel- thank you Chinese teachers.

It was raining all day today and my lesson was all prepared for the afternoon so I decided to take a nap. I told myself that I would for sure get up when it went off and I would find something to do so that I didn't just sleep my life away. Well, Natalie was tutoring at lunch and she's really loud and so when my alarm went off I justified resetting it because I wasn't really napping for very long, I was listening to Natalie try to get Anna to say the word "ball." Then when the second alarm went off I didn't need justification, I just reset it. I'm so lazy!

My afternoon lesson was on tigers and I had brought paper so that if I had extra time I could let them draw a tiger and color their picture, but in both classes we didn't have the extra time. That threw me, I didn't know my lesson could last that long. I started out the lesson by blind folding the kids and leading them around the room. Then I took off the blind fold and walked them around the room again. The first walk around the room was like humans walking around at night (you can't see very well) and the second walk was like tigers walking around at night (they can see 6 times better then humans in the dark). That's probably what sucked up all my lesson time, it took forever to get all the kids blindfolded (they kept taking them off) and in the second class, the kids wouldn't stay holding onto each other and so the train became disconnected and I had to go and hook them together again. I wouldn't say that was my most exciting lesson ever, but it did go pretty well.

I tutored Kristy after class and then did a whole lot of nothing while I waited for it to be time to go to the Chou's. I really like that family. Angelo gets really sad when I win at the games we play in between reading the pages of the story (we name the items in the pictures, don't worry, it's an educational game) and so today instead of him just saying that he lost, I helped him through the words and gave him second chances, and he likes it better when he only loses by one point versus losing by three (we only play to five). Then for Abby, I tried working with the sounds of the alphabet with her and tried blending words with her. That did not work. In the beginning it did work, but then she thought it was more fun to push the alphabet cards around rather then push them up while she says the letter sound. I'll try again next week and hopefully the more we do it the better she'll be at it. Toward the end of Cami's time she started talking about High School Musical and played a song for me from High School Musical Two. I went downstairs and Betty (the mom) had dinner waiting for me and after dinner I was going to play wii with the kids. They just got it a week ago and today was only their second day playing it. The kids went upstairs to wait for me and I sat with Betty and talked. Dinner was really good, and I had a great time talking with Betty. I told her how I want to go to Hong Kong but Yuling usually takes care of travel arrangements and she's a little indisposed. She told me that her younger sister is really good at travel arrangements on the computer and that if she comes down from Taipei next week then she'll call me and I can have her sister help me out. I love this family, they are so great. Apparently I took too long to eat dinner because the kids came down and called for me. I hurried up and finished my dinner and went back upstairs. It was the first time I'd ever played wii, and boy did I suck. Which, that's no surprise, I wasn't raised on video games and so I suck at pretty much all of them. It was still fun though. I start tutoring them at 7:00pm and I tutor until 8:45pm. I checked the clock when I got back and it was almost 10:00pm. So I must have had fun over there, if I stayed an hour extra.

I'm so bummed that I don't have plans for tomorrow. I had been invited to go to Taipei with Tzu Chi people, but because the past two Thursday lunch meetings have been canceled, I couldn't ask if I was still invited. So Luke and Kaylene are going, but I'm stuck here with no plans. Hopefully I will find something to do, I really don't want to waste any of my time, I've only got five weeks left. Holy cow, that really isn't that long! Shoot! I have to come back to America soon. I don't want to go back to school, I like it here. Well, maybe if I'm bored every weekend for the next five weeks it'll make it easier to come home :o)

I'm newly addicted to my crossword puzzle book so I think I'll do one more of those and then call it a night.

Fan-flipin-tastic Night

Okay, I should be going to bed right now, but apparently it's no longer okay for me to miss a day of blogging, some people (who shall remain nameless) hastle me if I'm even an hour late. So, I'm sorry I'm late, but I'm staying up. Shoot, this is where it's hard to type out what I want to say because all of that was sarcastic. I'm wired right now and definitely do not mind typing this out really quick :o)

Okay, I can't recap the day because it wasn't too eventful, I want to focus on the last 5 or so hours. Batman: The Dark Night came out in Taiwan today and since it's still only 100NT$ to see a movie, of course we were all over it. Luke and Kaylene know a good restaurant down by the movie theater so the four of us all went out to dinner and then to see the movie.

Dinner was really good. I spent more on it then normal, but it's still cheap when compared to the US and it was a restaurant so you can't expect night market prices. It was really good, but it was way too much food. I ate it because I had paid for it and it was really good, but I know that I shouldn't have. I had fried paprika chicken, which was fried chicken with two kinds of dipping sauces. We lemonade to drink (it was the only drink they offered that wasn't tea) and for dessert I had a red bean pastry. I think I've already told you that beans are used for desserts here. I didn't prefer them at first, but now I like pretty much anything people will lay in front of me.

After dinner we went to the movie theater and bought our tickets. We had half an hour before the show started, but it was raining outside and so we just took the elevator up to our floor and waited. The theater has assigned seats, but not everyone follows that rule. Luke and Kaylene bought theirs together so their seats were together, but the rest of us were split. We decided that we would try to sit together and then if we got moved, we'd move. We sat down when we first got there and had to movie before the movie started. We all moved together, but when the previews were playing, a big group of friends came in and needed our seats. It was a full theater and so we had to sit in our own seats. It worked out for me because I had a pretty good seat. The only thing was, after I moved, I forgot that I wasn't sitting next to Luke anymore. I saw the guy next to me pull out a water bottle and I thought, "where the heck was he carrying that?" And then a minute later I saw that him and the girl next to him were sharing popcorn. I was half way through thinking, "when did they buy that?" when I remembered that we were all split up and that I was sitting next to an Asian couple, not Luke and Kaylene.

The movie was AMAZING! It was really quite long, and usually when movies are long (even if they're really captivating) I get way antsy. But not tonight, I thought the movie would end, but when it didn't I was really excited and wanted it to keep going even after it did end. It was SOOOOO good. Really! Which is why I'm so confused why Natalie left the theater and took a nap in the hallway. Because we were split up, I'm not quite sure when she left, but she said it was too violent for her and so she left the theater and napped (she didn't know how to get back on her own).

I guess I do have to mention something about the day day so that this next part will connect. There is a typhoon that was on course to hit Taiwan, but it's course was diverted and if it does hit, it will only be hitting the northern most tip of Taiwan. But, the typhoon is still close enough that we are feeling some of the effects. All day it has been raining on and off and it has been quite windy. When we all went out to dinner, we layered up (thank goodness for that rain coat I bought right before coming!) and still got pretty wet. But, that wetness didn't compare to the shower we just got on the ride home. I think that it only added to the night though. I mean, as long as you're going to be wet, you might as well be really wet, right? It was awesome, there were giant puddles we had to ride through, plus it was/is still raining, and then there are the cars that drive in the puddles and you get the splash from them (okay, could have done without that one) so by the time we got back, yeah, we were wet.

I'm so happy right now, I really had a great night. And considering my day wasn't super fantastic, I am extra excited to have a good night. I hope that this high will last me through tomorrow, but I also hope that I can relax enough to get some sleep. I've got to be up in less then six hours to go running, I've got to get to bed!

*I think that I've used more exclamation marks in this one blog then in the rest of the blogs combined. Can you tell I had a good night?!*

Who Knew?

Who knew that there were still places in Ji-An that I still hadn't explored?

Today Natalie did wake up and come running with me. But that's as far as it went... she came running with me, but less then a minute into the run she got distracted by a lizard. I didn't know how long she was going to spend hunting it down and so I kept running. I passed her on my way back, but she didn't turn around to run with me, she decided to finish the trail. Normally that would have been fine, but my bike lock fell out of a hole in my basket last night and so I had to lock my bike to hers. It was good having to wait for her though because I never take time to stretch on my own. So this forced me to get in a little bit of a stretch, which actually felt really good and was definitely needed.

After the run I went to go explore on the bike path that I found last Wednesday. I'm kind of glad that I have two cameras now. The one is the fancy one that I'm having fun playing with and the old one I feel okay bringing in my bike when I go over bumps and I am okay with running with it and letting it get a little sweaty. I headed out in a different direction then I went last week and looked up and saw a big blue and white something off in the distance. I remember that Adam told Nancy and I about this large memorial in the mountains. I was interested in finding it, but we never had time to go search for it. I had forgotten all about it until this morning when I saw it up on the hill. I made my way over there. It was weird. It had military equipment set up on display around it so I wonder if it is some kind of war memorial. There were LOTS of stairs that had been covered by lots of spider webs, yick! I was a little bit hesitant at first because it was eerie that there was NO one there. But then I thought that it was good because if for some reason it was inappropriate to walk around in my running clothes and take pictures, there was no one there to tell me so and to stop me. I hiked up the stairs to the main hall but it was closed, so I really don't know what this place was. All I know is that is was beautiful.

After checking out the memorial I decided to check out a cemetery that I had seen from the bike path. I snapped a couple of pictures, but really didn't know how appropriate that was and so I felt guilty as I did it and didn't take too many. If you thought coffin caskets were expensive, you should see these miniature houses that people buy for their ancestors! It honestly looked like a mini village. From the path I could also see what looked like another temple or shrine, but when I went up closer to it I saw that the road that I believe led to it was long, windy, and up a steep mountain. I decided not to try to bike up there. One, I was tired from my run and two previous excursions, and two there was no guarantee that the long windy hilly road actually did take me where I wanted to go.

Exploring really didn't take all that long and I was back before Kaylene and Natalie went down to teach at 9am. I had planned on only tiding up my room just a little bit and using my day for more adventuring. But, I opened the fridge and remembered how that desperately needed to be cleaned out. There was food in there that I'm positive was here before Nancy was (and she was here 6 months and has been gone for 1). So I cleaned out all the old food which is more involved then just throwing it away. Because of the intense recycling they do here I had to wash out all the nasty old sauce bottles and separate the trash from the recyclables. Once I took out the nasty food, I realized that I might as well wash out the actual fridge. So I took out all the shelves and cleaned them and wiped out the walls of the fridge. I finished that right before Natalie and Kaylene came up from teaching. That means that I spent an hour cleaning out the fridge. When Kaylene came upstairs she went into the fridge to get some water. I hear her gasp and shout, "Brooke, did you clean the fridge?" "Yes" "Wow, you're awesome!" I didn't need the compliment because hearing how excited she was to have a clean fridge made me happy. It was pretty disgusting and time consuming to clean it out, but I wanted it clean and so I did it. But then, it made it even more worth it to hear Kaylene's reaction.

After cleaning the fridge I cleaned my room and the hallway in my apartment (swept and mopped the tiny little area that leads from my bedroom to the bathroom). That only took 30-45 minutes.

On Monday I talked about water safety and decided that I wanted to go swimming today because it's my day off and I can. But today it wasn't as hot as it has been all week. I was debating whether to go or not, but I finally chose to go, I'd been looking forward to it for two days and after the bike ride there, I figured I'd be ready to jump into some water. I did a little more site seeing on my way over, but didn't find too much. When I got to the river, I had become heated and was ready for a dip in the river. Unfortunately the river had dried up tremendously and I couldn't swim in the spot I had wanted to. I didn't want to hike up very far and so the first place with water in it was where I decided to go. It wasn't very big and it wasn't very deep, but it was cold and relaxing. I was there alone and there wasn't much water, so I wasn't able to keep myself entertained for too long. I made it back before Natalie and Kaylene were done eating lunch (I was gone a little over an hour).

After showering and eating lunch I decided to work on my lesson plans a little bit. I had honestly planned on just getting some stuff done and leaving the rest for the weekend but I ended up planning all of next week (no real complaint there). Then I made the mistake of laying down for a nap. Like always, I set my alarm and then rest it once it went off. By time I actually woke up, I didn't have time to do much before it was time to tutor Kristy.

After tutoring I waited for Natalie to do her tutoring and we went out to dinner. I had been hesitant to take her to this one restaurant because it's very authentic Taiwanese food. I think it tastes great, but Natalie's not big on trying new things. She said that she was up for it tonight though and so I took her along. She really liked it, which surprised her too. She saw a store she hadn't explored yet so I made sure she knew how to get back and then I went to pick up some fruit and then headed home to get ready for tutoring.

I just finished up with Dar-sen and then worked on evaluations and after blogging I plan on doing a crossword puzzle and going to bed.