Julia Goolia

I know one is not to play favorites as a teacher, but one is also not encouraged to: hit students with bamboo sticks, fall asleep in class, speak Chinese with students, allow students to use four letter words (hey, it's good English practice, right?), or give students breaks that are over half as long as the total class period, but it happens.

Reasons that Julia is my favorite:

1. She's probably the only student I teach that I haven't caught with her finger buried up her nostril to the second knuckle. I'm sometimes extremely apprehensive about giving kids high fives and being left with a little present on my palm, but not with Julia.

Ok, maybe that's the solitary reason.

No, wait. I think I like her because she giggles at my mere presence. She is very easily amused by me for some reason. The other teachers often talk about her crying sporadically during class, but I have never heard her do anything except snicker, snort, shriek, split her sides, chuckle, chortle, cachinnate, guffaw, roll in the aisles, die laughing, be in stitches, and titter.

Feeding Ray

Remember how Ray was so so so so so so hun hun hun hun hungry? So hungry, in fact, that he ate my arm fur? Well, we finally fed Ray some real food at the:

Ray's Mom wanted to tell me thank you for donating parts of my body to Ray's diet, so we went out for a nice dinner. Who would've thought I'd be eating German food and drinking Malzbier in Taiwan? German music sparkled in the background throughout the evening and as we left, the waitress told us "Dankeschoen." I always feel so strange when my mission life is resurrected in obscure restaurants in Taiwan. It happens more than you'd think. Like, once.

This one's for my shrimp-loving mother and grandmother. Yumm

By Taiwan standards, this restaurant was extremely expensive and classy. My meal cost about fifteen U.S. bones. Contrast that with my last night's meal of delicious bean noodles, veggies, and meat that cost me less than one dollar and you get some idea of just how elegant this place was attempting to be. That's why the bendy plastic straws surprised me. They actually made a valid effort to classify (as in, add class to...sorry, but I have no concept of speaking good English anymore after spending all day with persons who have no clue what English is) them, though. They were tied into various shapes and knots as they floated in our sparkling fruit tea desserts. Ray hooked everyone's together and tried drinking from this gigantic thing. What a funny guy! Weren't/aren't bendy straws such a great blessing?

Oops!

I like to think that I have a little of an adventurous side. I've engaged in my share of 'extreme' sports in the past i.e. cooking with gas, watching the X-games highlights on Youtube, riding my bike with no hands, etcetera. Thus, it is with great shame that I announce how I became the not-so-proud recipient of these beauties. Any guesses anyone? Nope, I was not walking on, walking on broken glass (cue: Annie Lennox), although I did do that at a glass museum a little while back. No, I was not playing that ridiculous boy scout game where you have to stand still while your 'friend' throws a knife as close to your feet as possible. Swimming. Not ocean swimming getting bitten by ferocious sharks swimming. Nope. Swimming in a tranquil indoor pool swimming. Supposedly, on the day I decided to visit the pool, they released a flock, herd, swarm, or whatever of flesh-eating piranhas to increase the excitement. As if sharing a lane with 13 other people isn't thrilling enough. C'mon!

One of the lifeguards followed my bloody footprints to my resting place along with almost every other person swimming at the pool that night. I guess the red water, blood-stained poolside, and foreigner combination was too much to ignore. Luckily, two of the three hundred thirteen people surrounding me spoke English and graciously offered to take me to the hospital.

En route via Taxi we just so happened to slam into a scooter driver in the middle of a busy intersection. I was only paying enough attention to see his body flailing through the air into some nearby bushes. Isn't the timing of life's events hilarious sometimes? By law, our taxi was required to remain where it was for police investigation. Mr. Scooter Driver regained consciousness and shortly thereafter an ambulance arrived to whisk him away. Meanwhile, buses, scooters and cars were weaving their way around our damaged taxi with the bloody-foot man (me) in the back waiting anxiously for his ride (a substitute taxi) to take him, too.

A few shots, a little sewing and four U.S. dollars later (Hooray cheap medical care!!!!), my hospital adventure was over.

Is it wrong for me to still be laughing at the fact that we hit Mr. Scooter Driver?*



*No, it's not wrong, because you know you would be doing the exact same thing.

Monkey Mountain

Those monkeys are actually wild monkeys Jaimie and I were able to see on our hike up a beautiful mountain on Saturday. It was cool to see them in the wild.

The signs with their funny English translations will never get old to me. What the #$%@ is pythoncidere? To think that I've spent 25 years of life not knowing about this is just ludicrous! I feel so ignorant. Oh well, I guess nicotine will have to suffice for now.

Little Lori

Happy Easter! Doesn't she look thrilled? I would love to post a picture of Lori smiling, but most of her time at Berhan is spent sobbing and crying out in Chinese, "I want my mom!" You see, Lori is only 2.5 years old, so her desire to be with mommy is completely natural. There exists an interesting contradiction in Taiwanese culture concerning this situation. It is very common for Taiwanese children to sleep in the same room as their parents until they are 8 or 9 years old, but they send them off to school as soon as they turn 2. Hmmm? I guess they just need to prepare them for the days ahead where they'll spend their every waking hour in school (my writing students go from 7:30 A.M. to 9:00 P.M).

I'm anxiously awaiting the day Lori actually says something in English. I'm going to try to make her say something along the lines of, "Yes, Mr. Danger, you are the most ridiculous excuse for an ABC* I've ever seen."

*American-born Chinese (some days I feel like this is true...like I'm an egg...white on the outside and yellow on the inside and then there are those days where I feel as white as rice)

Sky, My Hairstyle Homie

Sky will always hold a special place in my heart because each time I see him with his mullet and lightning bolt haircut, he reminds me of those glorious, pre-professional (I don't know if I'll ever truly feel or act 'professional'), college student years when I had the exact same thing. I guess there were some variations when I had the steps and my personal favorite...the EKG monitor. Oh to be a boy again!

Sky pretends: he is a robot every day.
Sky never: does anything anyone asks him to do. (also reminds me of myself in younger years)
Interestingly enough he: really enjoys sparkly, glittery, pinky, purply stuff. (I think the Taiwanese are in general quite the gender benders.)
Sky will probably: grow up, move to America and join the Hell's Angels, subsequently becoming the first member to wear a pink, glittery jacket while raising hell.

Chickety Chinese Choir

Elder Bednar has been here in Taiwan for the last few days. We did a fireside with him on Friday night, had stake conference with him on Saturday and again on Sunday. I decided that I would embarrass myself and join the choir to sing....in Chinese! I thought it would be a good excuse to be as close to him as possible. And he would probably get a good laugh out of me trying to sing in Chickity Chinese the Chinese Chicken.

Let's just say that over these last three days, I have been very blessed to be taught by an apostle of Jesus Christ. I certainly felt the power of Elder Bednar's calling as he talked with us. The whole fireside on Friday night was just Elder Bednar answering questions that people in the audience would ask. It was awesome to see him respond with such powerful answers out of the scriptures and from personal experience. I felt it was a stunning visual/auditory testament to the scripture, "open your mouth, and then will it be filled." He obviously had not rehearsed his answers because the questions asked were very specific and he gave specific answers out of the scriptures. It was awesome!

I had been thinking the whole time that it would be so cool to speak German with Elder Bednar. He served his mission in Germany, after all. I told myself over and over, "You've got to speak to Elder Bednar in German!" I just had this burning desire and couldn't calm it down. I was singing in the choir, right? Well, after the sunday session of conference was over, I still hadn't talked to him. We all stood up in respect for Elder Bednar and as he was walking off the stand, I yelled at him (because he was pretty far away by this point) and said, "Elder Bednar!" He looked at me and I was nearly stunned into silence. Then, I stuttered a few times and finally managed to blurt out, "I was just wondering, do you speak German with President Uchtdorf?" He got a big smile on his face and said, in German, "Yes, we do it all the time." I was so overcome with joy and nervousness that I was rendered speechless for what seemed like a few minutes, but I was at last able to come through with, in German, "I think that's great!" I felt like a complete dork afterward for a little bit and everyone I was with was making fun of me and are still making fun of me. They are quick to mention that the whole chapel was completely quiet and reverent except for the yelling white man. (oh and everyone was staring at the yelling white man!) But, who's the one that got to speak to the apostle in German?