Home Alone

Natalie and Beth took off for Taipei today after school. I thought they were just staying tonight and they'd be back Saturday night, but it turns out that they are staying Saturday night too so they might not even be back in time for dinner tomorrow. Okay, fine with me. So when I got back from tutoring the house was dark and I'm kind of liking the quiet right now.

This morning I slept in because Natalie and I were going to try all of those new fruits and I figured that unless I got up really early, I wasn't going to be done with my workout in time to eat with Natalie. So I waited, but Natalie woke up late and we did have time to try all the fruits, but I was in the kitchen cutting things up while she was getting ready. No big deal, just not what I thought was going to happen. It turns out that the thing that looked like a mini cantaloupe was in fact a tiny cantaloupe. I am not the hugest fan of the star fruit, but it looked pretty neat when you cut it and it really is a star (sorry, I forgot to take pictures of all the fruit). The little melon was like a honey dew and it was good, and there wasn't really a rhine, it was just a skin. The citrus that I bought that Amy told me was tradition for the up and coming Moon Festival wasn't quite ripe I think. It tasted like a citrus, but didn't have a whole lot of flavor, and it kind of made my mouth go a little numb. And that was our breakfast.

Because I waited for Natalie to get up, I went for my run a lot later then normal. There is such a big difference between running at 6am and running at 7am, so imagine how killer it was to be running at 9am. It was a hot hot morning, and of course there was no shade where I was. But, all in all, it was a god hard workout that made me feel good (although insanely tired) afterward.

I came back home and showered up and went to the bookstore. It was mostly full of English learning books, but there was a small wall with legitimate books. I spent some time in there looking at all the titles. I'm such a moron. I bought a book that is fairly large and expensive, when Persuasion by Jane Austen was pretty small and only cost 80 NT$. I really want to start a collection of the Jane Austen books, but I also really wanted to read Wicked, so I chose Wicked. On the way back I decided to go out of my way to visit a tea shop where I've seen some really nice tea pots for sale. I've only ever seen them in the window, so I wanted to go in and look around. It turns out that the store was not open yet. I headed back, but stopped off at a random store that I knew had lots of random things in it. I spent some time looking around in there and ended up buying a couple of things. As I walked out of that store I was just thinking that me having down time was bad today because apparently I was in a money spending mood.

I got back during the kid's lunch time and spent my time trying to use Beth's computer to copy a cd onto my computer. Sounds confusing, right? Well, the cd player on my computer doesn't work. So I wanted to put a cd onto Beth's computer and then use my usb to transfer the music to my computer. It worked, it just took me a while. Oh, and before that I was writing Teacher Steffanie a thank you note for everything she's helped me with (she dropped off my jade necklace today) and wrote in the "Bye-Bye Book" that the preschool has all the teachers sign. I did some more organizing, because I don't want to actually start packing yet because I know that I would end up having to unpack and repack on Sunday anyway.

After school I had Eliza deliver the thank you card and present to her mom (Teacher Steffanie) because I am an awkward person and didn't want to hand it to Steffanie directly. And I talked to Beth and Natalie while they got packed and ready to leave for Taipei. I kept organizing and fiddling on the computer until it was time to go to tutoring. I walked up the stairs and Angelo was really confused that I was there. He told me that their mom had told them I wouldn't come today. Cami ran and told her mom that I was there and then got Angelo's book and sat him down. I guess they also didn't realize that I am leaving on Monday and that tonight was my last time with them. When the mom (Betty) found out that I was leaving, she apologized for not having a gift prepared for me to thank me for teaching her children. I told her that it wasn't a problem, but she suggested that we go out to dinner tomorrow night. Okay, sounds good to me. So I tutored the kids, and gave them some of the wooden cut outs Grandma sent me. They really liked them. Betty made me fresh pineapple juice while I was tutoring and then for dinner she had dumplings and soup for me. I asked if she had made the dumplings and she told me that she had. I could tell, they tasted so much better then the freezer ones. Not only did she make them herself, but she also used vegetables that came from her own garden. I always love having dinner at their house because she is a good cook and she always lets me know what came from her garden. There was no wii tonight, but it was okay, tutoring had already gone a little over and we were talking during dinner, so I was there late enough, no need to keep the kids up too much longer.

So now I'm back home, and it's nice and quiet. I've got to stay up because I'm washing my table cloth before I pack it away, but I don't think this will be a very long night.