sent from my iphone

exciting news.. faj and i went to the cingular store after i picked him up from the airport today, and i just was going to get whatever freebie phone they offered me since my old one is dead/locked. so we started talking about email on phones and a regular cheapy phone is $20/month for internet and an iphone is $40/month, so nowww i am the proud owner of a shiny new iphone. it is so much fun and now i have email with me wherever i go!

i apologize for the lack of real, interesting posts this week. austin just isn't the same as taoyuan in terms of cultural excitement and interesting stories. i've had a nice time catching up with friends and visiting though. DC in less than a week! it's sneaking up on me.

we just had late happy hour at a sushi place and it felt good to use chopsticks. i missed them.

503

we've passed 500 posts! woooo.

i wish i brought my camera to the lake today. ripley went swimming in 'the gladiator' (the name of her doggie life jacket). too cute. she is such a princess though. she would just stand on the steps and bark at us until jeff went under water and didn't come up and then she'd finally feel like she had to jump in. what a lovely day on the lake though. boats were zipping by, it was warm but not scorching out, we had cherry limeaids.
i slept for an hour or so in my big, soft, wonderful queen sized bed. it had my old sheets and duvet on it and i was in heaven. miss that bed so much.

jeff and i stopped at opie's on the way home and had brisket, ribs, jalapeno sausage, potato salad, beans and cherry cobbler. yuuummm!! on the way out, they were closing down so the woman sent us home with spicy corn casserole and tater tot something.

kuo

called the kuo's this early morning while it was their evening. makes me cry. i miss them so much. i think i'm going to call them every sunday. that will just be our thing.
(ripley got a bath. this is the scene of the crime).
yesterday was jam packed full of stuff. will, abha and i met with our journalism adviser from high school for lunch at chuy's, which is such an austin-y restaurant. we meet with her once a year or so and discuss what's gone on, what everyone's doing. since she worked at school, she knows everyone we know. the fact that everyone keeps in touch with her speaks to what a formative experience working on the hs newspaper was for all of us. for me, it lead me to work at the daily texan, which was the only reason i got a job when i graduated.
after that, will, abha and i met up with andy at barton springs which is a freeeezing cold spring in downtown austin with kind of a giant community pool. we hung out on a hill for a couple hours and people watched/critiqued bad tattoos.

then i went to dinner at the neighbors house. we've lived here 13 years and our neighbors have a son my age, so we've always hung out. we had yummy chicken a l'orange (heck if i know how to spell that) and cupcakes for my birthday!
(just to be clear, this is an 'after' photo).
after thatttt i went to a house party downtown and chatted with people i used to work with at the paper in college. i ended up spending quite a bit of time chatting with a linguistics major, now law student in a pink shirt. he was camp as christmas but we had a nice time.
THEN, i come home, i'm exhausted, i'm taking my shoes off and the power in the entire neighborhood goes off. jeffy isn't home, i just let ripley outside. luckily i had JUST used the wind up flashlight for something the other day so i know exactly where it is. pretty creepy to brush your teeth by the light of a flashlight.
and after all that, did i sleep past 7:30 this morning? nope. jeff and i are headed to the lake though so i knoooow i'll be able to sleep when i'm in MY REAL BEDDD!!

dc and beyond

i can't think of any good new blog names for my DC/after DC blog.
i kind of want blonde in the title, but it doesn't have to be.
i want to be able to use it after DC also but heck if i know where i'll be then.
ideas, friends?

p.s. went to lunch with patrick, who i used to work with in college. he's one of my besties, i'd say. he made a cute card with a drawing of my kids, me, and obama and he wrote 'welcome back' in chinese! what a talented friend.
finally went to j. crew and almost bought one of everything. i think i'm fully prepared for fall in DC now.
andy, abha and i had dinner at a sushi place near campus. it's fun how you can catch up with your friends from high school in 2 seconds. i'm so glad we've stayed friends. and plenty of people have gotten married/had babies/done crazy things, so we had lots to discuss.
you can not imagine how thrilled i was to get out of this house and go see people and do things and eat food! i think i'm officially back in the land of the living.

sweaters and shoes

guess who overheard/understood a conversation in mandarin while she was in the dressing room at the j. crew outlet today?
i ALMOST jumped out of there with just a sweater on, but decided against it.

if you want to sing out

quick sickie update. went to the austin regional clinic to get checked out. i had to breathe into a breath-o-meter and apparently my lung power wasn't super fantastic. the eastern european doctor was super friendly and she said i have bronchitis, so she gave me an inhaler (which was a free sample, woohoo) and a prescription for an antibiotic. she kept saying 'you're going to be fine' and she would have definitely been the winner of a no blinking contest.
so it's been all water and popsicles around here for me. we determined that my mystery rash isn't bronchitis related. i'm thinking it's laundry detergent or ripley fur or somethin. anyway, hydrocortizone cream and benadryl are my best friends right now.
dropping fajtown off at the airport tomorrow morning. we have to leave the house at five thirty in the moooorning so i'm headed to bed. i haven't been able to sleep much past 6 all week so i guess i shouldn't be whining.

the dorm got THREE new people in the time i've been gone. i hope they had a nice welcoming committee.

p.s. this is the funniest list. it's all "random thoughts from people my age".
highlights..
18. Was learning cursive really necessary?
21. Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.
29. MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
32. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

brotherly love

jeffy and i are going to be besties by the end of this weekend. we're going to be the only ones home until tuesday. luckily, he's the animal whisperer in our house.
tonight he was "dancing" with ripley and the cat.
it might look cruel and unusual but i think they all enjoy it.
going to the doctor tomorrow. i've finally broken down.
now we're taking turns playing songs. death metal vs indie.

i'd have baked a cake

i think murphey's law is in full swing for me right now. decided not to go to the doctor about my flulike symptoms while i was in taiwan/covered by the national health insurance, coughed all the way from taipei to austin, haven't stopped since. although ironically after i took an expectorant this morning, i haven't coughed much at all.this is the jungle that we used to call our backyard.

my lingering illness is making it so i don't have the energy/good health to visit with any of my friends, which has left me in the house by myself all day while my brothers are at school and my mom is out working.
those pots are empty because every time we plant flowers, the cat just smothers them until they die. it's his favorite place to sleep/keep a lookout.

this morning i thought i'd treat myself to a nice, lung-opening bath. i haven't taken a real bath in a whole year. so i grab some girly bubble bath from under my sink, have a nice bath, and then about an hour later, the lower half of my legs are on fiiiire itching. i think it was from the old bubble bath. not sure what else would just make the bottom of my legs itch.and then i was eating taquitos dipped in parmesan cheese and cheese went all down the front of my dress =\ and it probably would have just easily fell out if i wasn't wearing my newly found, faaavorite bra that i left home at christmas by accident.it took an hour to kick in, but now i stand behind aveeno hydrocortizone cream.
so now it's just me and ripley, hangin' out. can you tell how excited she is?

dad is the catfish, mom is the tree

i don't believe i have any other pictures of the coffee shop.. but this is one of my favorite places in taoyuan. calm, smells like coffee, the dog (also named coffee) will lay at your feet, the owners shen and fanny are super friendly. i'll miss spending late sunday nights there.
the coffee shop is alex's special place in the way that the kuo's was my special place. shen and fanny speak very little english, so you'd have to be fluent in chinese to really get in there.

well i think i'm slowly recovering from whatever illness i have. i'm still coughing up a storm but i actually felt motivated enough to hang up most of my clothes in my closet today and resisted the urge to nap during the day. yesterday i thought i was going to take a short nap and ended up sleeping from 3 to midnight. then from 3 to 9am. whoops! i guess i needed it though. now if i could just kick this cough.
coffee just came and stood with us when we took the picture. pretty random/funny.

i still miss taiwan a lot. it's funny how it only takes 24 hours to completely flip flop times zones and your life. i miss my kids and the kuos and having an income. but it's fun to be around my family. my mom made my favorite dinner! time to eat.

angel money

11 is my favorite number because my mom/grandpa/brother and i always see 11:11 on the clock, angel hour.
so i went to look at my bank account to make sure the money i transferred in taiwan went through. guess how much it turned out to be, after the transfer fees? $1,111.11. seriously! you cannot write this stuff.

my dad and i went to the asian market today and bought super supau (taiwanese gatorade), lychees, and some jasmine tea and oolong tea. they have a lot of familiar things in there.. squid balls, oodles of noodles, thin eggplant. other than that, it's been very quiet around here. we went to see the new house which is different than i last saw it. had migas breakfast tacos which didn't taste good to me since i'm still ill. looking forward to feeling better and getting some energy to get unpacked this week.

red, white and blue

mom, dad and jeff got home today so it's feeling more like home around here. my mom has the same cough as i do so we talk between coughing fits. kind of gross. fajtown bought juice and popsicles though which have helped quite a bit, at least psychologically.

i think i might go on a blogging break for a while until i figure out what the name of the DC blog will be. all i'm doing around austin is trying not to spend money and packing up my room so my parents can move into the little house.. not too thrilling to read or write about.

for now though, here are some pictures of familiar places in taoyuan.
the flashcard section in the stationery store. i guess they're really business cards or little calling cards or something, but i used them as flashcards for chinese.
the doraemon section.
down the street from the dorm.
chair store on the way home from bobo's/on the walk to the bus that goes to taipei.
the old bowling alley.
orange cafe.
fried chicken at the market.
this is the meat i had to walk by to get to my fruit ladies in the fruit market.
note the hooves.
foreign food section in carrefour which means french, italian, canned and jarred foods of all kinds.

i still have some pictures on my camera that i need to upload once i unpack. maybe that will be a project for tomorrow. time to try to sleep. goodnight, america!

midnight snack

smoked chicken deli meat, pepperjack cheese and grainy mustard on real french bread. i guess america isn't all bad.

deep in the heart of texas

i'm home! matt picked me up at the airport wearing a t-shirt from high school, gray thai fisherman pants and loafers. i was so ill by the time i got to austin i could barely talk without coughing. i already had a cough in taiwan but it just got worse and worse breathing that dry air in the planes. anyway i'd prefer not to think about all of that traveling.

when i got home, my mom had piled up all of the stuff i've sent home over the last 9 months on my favorite chair in the living room. it really was christmas. dresses, necklaces, cookbooks, shoes, masking tape! i haven't opened the regular mail yet but i know my non-expired debit cards are in there somewhere, too.

ripley found a baby opossum. i don't think she killed it.. it looks like she just licked it. i guess we'll see if it's there in the morning or not.
matt bought me taiwanese lychees from HEB! i love matt. i love lychees. i love taiwan.

很喜歡台灣

12 hours ago..well, i managed not to cry in the car even as mr. kuo dabbed at his eyes without saying a word, but i haven't really stopped crying since i walked through security (and i haven't even read what the people in the dorm wrote to me in my goodbye book). it makes me think of the first time i was in this airport, crying my eyes out because i didn't know what anything said, everyone was staring at me, and i didn't know how to get to my house or have anyone there except those friendly taxi drivers, who didn't understand a word i was saying, to help me.
(bras on the sidewalk in front of carrefour).
now i can ask for help and talk to the people around me. sometimes i can figure out a sign even if it isn't in english. i've swum illegally in taroko gorge, gotten $3 massages in the philippines and learned to dive in thailand. i've eaten squid balls, pig intestine soup, sheets of seaweed and fried durian.
i'll miss the stares on the street and people who talk to me through giggles just because they think i'm pretty. i'll always remember all of the things i've done and seen, all of the people i've met and things i've eaten. it's been an awesome year and a couple of months.
(asian-fab post-its).
even though i have blonde hair in blue eyes, i'll always feel a little taiwanese on the inside. i already find myself wishing i wasn't hearing the english around me. i've gotten pretty used to everything in chinese and i always looked forward to seeing the little change in people's faces when i started speaking chinese to them.
(entrance of carrefour.. which isn't usually filled with shopping carts).
time to get on the plane! all i brought in my carryon is my laptop, a book i had all of my friends/kids sign, my blanket and some shorts. and my pillow. first stop: honolulu. i asked for an exit row seat. here's hoping whoever sits next to me isn't a germaphobe because i still have a pretty annoying cough.
(fruit market).

thank you for following along with me for however long you've been here. even if you've never commented, i know you by your city from my hits tracker. from dumfries to sunnyvale, grandville, rockville and denver, columbus and brampton, the netherlands, hong kong, finland, france, sweden and beyond.. it's been nice to have you along for the ride and i hope you come with me wherever i end up!

goodbye taiwan

it's my last night in taiwan, in this bed, in the dorm, listening to clinking poker chips through my paperthin door (in a good way). most everyone hung out in the common room for a while and i got to see everyone who doesn't live at the dorm which was really nice. i can't imagine not seeing all of these teachers for several hours a day anymore! working/living/socializing with the same 30 people really brings you together in a unique way.
i've been going going going since i woke up this morning. jimmie and i changed the scooter into her name, i turned in my books, took pictures of everything/everyone in the whole country, saw the doctor for one last almost-free checkup, went to dinner with allen, showered, visited with the spa and coffee shop, chatted with everyone, raffled off my matress. it was busy.
(flashcards outside of the stationery store).
time for bed so i can get up tomorrow and finish everything. i have a looonnnggg travel day [and a half] tomorrow, so i'll post the rest of the pictures from various airport lounges. goodnight!

some people i want you to meet

these are the people that i look forward to seeing every week. funny they're almost all food related. i guess when you don't cook, the people who make your meals become very important to you.

tsong dra bing lady who always sees it's me and then just nods and makes my food because she knows how i like it.
the people who make my stamps in guei shan
tea people in guei shan. there's one more woman but she works when the other 2 aren't there. i see them every monday and friday
linda, my chinese teacher
tina coffee ladies
ching xin tea shop people where i pick up green tea almost every day
ji dan gao woman in carrefour. we always smile and wave when i go to/leave carrefour, regardless of whether or not i buy ice cream or cakes from her.
..you've seen these three before. look how cute bobo's haircut is!
grandma of grandma's
fruit market ladies. the grandma gives me a new fruit to try every week.
time to go to dinner with allen but i have about a million more pictures to upload tonight if i can find a spare moment. halfway down the to-do list!

goodbye tuesday

alex and i picked up the stuff we made at ying ge this morning and i just realized i never managed to get a picture of it! the glazing job they did was amaaaazing. they're blue and silvery with all different shades. i gave the mug to the kuo's even though they saw my blog from when i posted the pictures. they liked it a lot.
they also said they stayed up until 2am last night translating my blog into chinese with babelfish! i would kill to be a fly on the wall for that.
after ying ge, alex, dawn and i went to tina coffee for lunch. this is my favoriiite tina coffee woman. she always sneaks me little things and we chat about her daughter and our lives. she asked if my friends would still go there. i said yes but they really want an english menu!
my fav: a waffle, fruit, panna cotta, a pot of milk tea and a scoop of the most delicious strawberry gelato. $7.

tonight was my last night at school in taiwan! i love my tuesdays but today the vibe was a little bit off because i have the flu so i couldn't be really loud. they were all kind of calm since i was being so calm. not our usual crazy selves, but still fun.
we had a nice last day in my first class. i wrote them all messages in their QA books, which i've been doing for all of my classes, and helped them translate them. and they all got double stickers today which was a big deal for them.
so cute.

my second class was a little off tonight. we just lost our old native teacher and they don't quite know what to make of the new teacher. she doesn't have a mean bone in her body, so they're pushing her limits. i couldn't really do anything today since i was so ill, so i just gave them the disappointed mom speech. 'you guys are so fun, please leave me with good memories of you. i don't want to remember you misbehaving'. and it worked. i think it took them half the class to realize that they'd never see me again.one kid wrote 'megan you is a good teacher' at the top of the page in the book i've been asking them to sign, so a bazillion kids copied them and now it looks like all of my kids are dummies! ahhhh!!! it's kind of funny though. if you aren't their teacher.
right at the end of class when we were getting ready to leave, kevin 2 (below, front middle) blurted out 'megan you are pretty!' like it was his dying sentence. it was so sweet. it's funny how you can't help but get to know the kids who sit in the front a little better than the others.
the kids who smile biggest in all of my group pictures are the smartest ones in the class, and vice versa. jeffy and i were chatting earlier and he said next time i should just take a picture of my classes on the first day and i would know who's smart and who isn't. space cadet kids. in any language, if someone is taking a picture, don't you know you're supposed to smile?
goodbye front desk ladies!
mrs. chan gave me some chinese medicine stuff for runny noses and headaches and it worked like a charm. my kids were pretty amused when they saw it.
i am so busy tomorrow. i'll post a bazillion more pictures at the end of the day once i finish my million errands.

p.s. happy 25th anniversary, mom and dad!