The beautiful woman to my right is Gloria, a dear friend who shares in my love of outdoor activities. Its quite nice that she's also my co-worker so I get to see her frequently. We've had some good times this week traveling to various doctors and taking hikes. This is a photo taken on a mountain just outside of the city of Feng Yuan where I live. If I am feeling really ambitious (which has happened once since I've been here) I can ride my bike from home to the beginning of the hiking trails, hike to the top and ride back all in about 45 minutes. Its nice that a natural getaway is not too far out of reach.
Gloria's daughter, Vivian is one of Derrick's (my roommate) students. She, like Gloria is a very outgoing and vivacious soul. I have gotten to know Vivian pretty well, too because she's interested in learning Spanish. Anywho, yesterday as I was indulging in a combination haircut, massage, and shampoo (done all at the same place by the same person for the price you would pay for just a haircut in America---cool,eh?) Vivian waltzed in and asked me if I wanted to go play baseball. I was wondering how she knew I was there, when Derrick walked in and said, "Yeah, she just called the school and said Gloria told her that we were looking to do some exercise, so do you want to go?" I was stoked until she said they were leaving at 1:50 and I looked down to read my watch...1:45. I had only finished the massage and shampoo portion of my treatment. How was this going to work? Well, in severely broken Chinese, I told the lady, "I have a beautiful face, so it doesn't matter what my hair looks like." I think she took me and the others around her literally as we urged her to just hurry and finish. We were looking for speed, not precision. What did we get? Speed, not precision. Sure, my hair looks great when I comb it forward and disguise the jagged length discrepancies, but when I wish to wear it in my preffered spiked style, the discrepancies are painfully apparent. In the lady's defense, when I was asked what I wanted my hair to look like (at least I think that's what she was asking) I turned to a picture of Brad Pitt and gave her the thumbs up sign. I didn't really pay attention to what his hair looked like, but assumed that having the same haircut as Brad Pitt would somehow automatically double my good-looking points, not taking into account the fact that Hollywood's styles are rarely, if ever, truly desirable.
Massage, shampoo, haircut (some of them were cut and some were not)---check. We rushed out the door excited to get to the baseball. We met up with 3 of Vivian's friends and after a short train ride we arrived at the 'field' which turned out to be an arcade with batting cages and a pitching simulator. It felt good to spank a few homers a la Barry Bonds. Exercise?---highly unlikely. More fun than a barrel of monkeys? Definitely. Worth the expense of slaughtered hair? Certainly.
Did I mention that Vivian is one of Derrick's students? He and I continuously cracked up about the whole situation. Two male teachers, both in their mid twenties going out for a full day of arcades, shopping and dinner with a seventeen year old female student and her three seventeen year old female friends? It may sound a bit creepy to you, but it was done with Gloria's complete consent. It was a wonderful time...and if I'm honest, I think my neck is sore from all of the twisting during batting practice. I got my exercise after all.
This sign was in the penguin exhibit. Has anyone been studying the effects of Hubbub on penguins and can enlighten me as to why it is specifically harmful to them? Do other animals have a higher tolerance for Hubbub? Why haven't these penguins evolved to deal with Hubbub? What exactly is Hubbub? Please post your answers with links to any useful information. Thank you for your assistance.
Oh Dane, it dissapoints me so that you don't know what a Hubbub is. It's the Irish word for a front butt, sometimes called a Melvin in America. Hubbubs remind the poor penguins of their only natural predators, harbor seals. I feel that I'm correct in the assumption that only penguins are intollerant to this lipid-ridden belly fat. Lions, for example, love a good Hubub. It reminds them of baby hippopatumuses(plural hippopatami?) which happen to taste like pig's blood soup to a Chinaman.
ReplyDeleteNow that I've cleared that up, what a day! A slutty day at that. Am I allowed to say that on your blog? If not, I did it anyway. But hanging out with a student of the opposite sex? That's called statutory rape here in the states. Only joking, your adventure sounded quite amusing. It's too bad that your hair looks less than desireable now. hehe. I thought it was hellarious(again, hehe) when your baseball field ended up being an arcade. I chuckle now as I'm typing. If you keep practicing that batting you could be the next Steve Young! That was a joke, I'm really not that sports-uninclined.
Well Dane, I'm glad that you got your excercise, because I don't want you to get a Hubub. You wouldn't be able to see your favorite aquatic birds with one! K well love you bi.
Funny story. At the first of your this blog post when you talked about the girl on your right, I was looking at my right. I thought, oh, that girls pretty manly...too bad. Then I zoomed in and realized that it really was a man and I was looking at my right, not yours. I found the whole situation rather amusing. Gotta fly...on my nose. Oh I kill myself. buh bye.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I'm jealous that you went to the batting cages. I've never even done that. And now you can say you've done it in Taiwan! Right on!! I don't have a link to a website to post about Hubbub, but I CAN tell you what it is... It is a Bar for penguins. They wanted to infrom the visitors that the penguins were no longer gong to be entertaining due to the fact that they weren't hammered. They were warning tourists (like you, sorta) that the penguins wouldn't be doing their regular back-flips off the ice blocks! Were you mad? Maybe you should go back when the sign says "Hubbub is back!"
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, you've always had some interesting hair cuts, why stop now? Both your and Hanna's blogs have talked abou massages and baseball recently. What do these Twainese people do all day? Relax then hit the batting cages? Well, you will be hearing some hubbub from me about it! The rest of us are working hard trying to get catheters into people.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that they put the english word Hubbub on the the sign. Who told them that that was a commonly used word? Some grandpa man, that's who. I think you only hear that word in old timer movies. My friend Doug wants to start calling old guys, "Old timer." That is just a side note, but can you imagine going up to your old neighbor and saying, "hey there old timer, how you doin' today?" Ridiculous...
Well old timer, keep on truckin'
Herro! My dear brother, your adventures are truly entertaining! How nice would it be to get a massage everytime I got a haircut?? Talk about saving money! I've been giving good 'ol Leroy $50.00 the last two months as well as paying $25.00 to get a haircut! Oh, the benefits of living in Taiwan! You are so very lucky! Count your blessings! Im jealous about the batting cages too.....I've never done that! Maybe when you get home we'll have to go to Fiesta Fun and do batting cages (and of course the go carts....that's a must!)
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should go get your haircut fixed? You have to keep impressing those taiwanese women!
Love you!
Hilarious definitions by the way! I openly displayed my ignorance on that one...Vicki, you're a sharp one! Happy catheter week!
ReplyDeleteWord History: It has often been remarked that the early Celtic inhabitants of Britain contributed very little to the stock of English words. Perhaps this should not surprise us, given the difficult relations over the centuries between the people of Germanic stock and the people of Celtic stock in England and Ireland. It seems likely that a certain English contempt resides in the adoption of the word hubbub from a Celtic source, which is probably related to ub ub ubub, a Scots Gaelic interjection expressing contempt, or to abu, an ancient Irish war cry. In any case, hubbub was first recorded (1555) in the phrase Irish hubbub and meant "the confused shouting of a crowd." In addition to the senses it has developed, hubbub was again used, possibly in an unflattering way, by the New England colonists as a term for a rambunctious game played by Native Americans.
source:American Heritage Dictionary