if i leave before you, darlin'

these are bobo's pictures of the water gun extravaganza.
well i had my interview tonight. they asked questions that i wasn't really prepared for.
who inspired you to go into public service?
if someone was writing a memoir about your life right now, what would your legacy be?
(is it just me or does joyce look noticeably taller?)
if you were running for office, what would your campaign slogan be?
[note the onlookers.]
i feel like i answered as well as i could given the 2 seconds i had to think about my answers. fingers still crossed. she said something about another department making the final decision, so i think how i look on paper is the most important part. they'll let me know the first week in july.
tonight we went bowling for steve's birthday. there must have been 20 or so people there. i finally met mike's much-talked-about girlfriend. she seems nice. she looks eerily like him. mike was wearing socks that she knitted for him.

smooth jazz has no lyrics

squirt gun fight 2009 was soooo fun. allen and i went to carrefour and bought 6 big squirt guns. we came home and filled them up in the kitchen sink and then i passed them out to chris, danielle, tess and dane while we were all sitting around in the living room, half an hour before we were supposed to go to the park..
it started with one little squirt.. and then an all out war broke out. we just couldn't sit there with loaded water guns without shooting each other. thank goodness we have vinyl couches and tile floor. everything was soaking wet. it was sooo fun.
i'm going to steal jimmie's pictures because she has a waterproof camera.

around 6, we relocated to the big big park where we met bobo's family and jerry. we decided to use 'banana' as our code word and shoot jerry when he walked over.. he was about to go fill up his squirt gun and tess randomly said 'jerry.. do you have a banana in your back pack?' and then we attacked.
jaime and joyce came armed with these silly little bamboo 'squirt guns', if you can call them that. it was a piece of bamboo with a little hole in one end and a plunger. they had a range of about 3 feet. they also had water balloons that refused to pop and just got covered in grass and bounced away when thrown. i think eventually they comandeered some of our squirt guns.
joyce was adorable. she would come up to you and say 'i'm for your team!' if you pointed your gun at her, but she attacked indiscriminately. 6 yr olds.
i didn't see allen for most of it. jimmie said he was just running around in circles shooting from the outside.
the big park was pretty mobbed since it was 6pm on a sunday, and a crowd gathered around us to watch. some people were laughing and vicariously enjoying the whole thing, while some people were just staring blankly like they didn't know what to think. looking back on it later tonight, we decided that a group of 20somethings and some kids having a giant water fight in the middle of any public place would probably attract a lot of attention.
what a fun day! after about an hour, all of our guns broke. the pump thing would break or it would just spray mist even after you pumped it up. bobo brought a big bucket and it was dumped, gatorade cooler style, on me one time and on tess one time.

no typhoon. i'm hoping the rain will come in about an hour just when i'm ready to go to bed.

watch the speech.

man it was nice not to wake up at 7:15 this morning for class! what a nice saturday.
this afternoon tess, bobo and i went to song shan to hit up the cheap clothing shops. we found a lot of brightly colored stuff this time thanks to bobo. apparently last time tess and i went, the street we went down was mostly clothes from korea which are all cream, dusty pink and gray.
i found a couple of dresses and a top i couldn't live without. i'll show you pictures after i've washed them in our newww washer. our old one was dying a slow death, so now we have a new one with chinese buttons. one of the secretaries labeled it in english this evening.
after shopping, i went over to bobo's because i haven't seen the girls in weeks and weeks. joyce's hair is longer every time i see her. we colored up a storm and played about 20 rounds of hide and seek.
when we couldn't take any more hide and seek, we headed for the big park. now every time we go, the first thing they want to do is cartwheel. people always watch us play.

this evening i went to this place called tina coffee. all of the teachers have been going there lately because they have a sandwich/coffee or tea deal for $150. i brought my chinese homework/flashcards and camped out at the counter for 2 hours tonight.
[you have to click to enlarge that pic to fully appreciate how adorable joyce is. i would leave all of my possessions here in order to fit her in my suit case if i didn't think she'd get all banged up in the cargo area.]
one of the women working there helped me order something, since the menu was all in chinese, and we chatted for a long time. i think i might become a regular there in my last month.
tomorrow i'm headed to the zoo with allen and i'm all excited because i get to practice the zoo animals.

through times of victory or defeat

it is really hard to take pictures of kite flying with a camera that lacks a good zoom lens. here's the best dena and i could do today.

i sort of felt like i was walking a dog except that the 'dog' in this case was getting no pleasure out of it.. it was just me holding onto a string. i sat on my blanket studying chinese while the kite just did its thing.
this shirt is one of my favorite taiwanese finds.
tonight my jerk class had the QA 'who do you look up to? why?' and one of the kids who can speak almost zero english, said i was graceful, which i thought was uncharacteristically nice. we had a good time in there today. chinese abounded, but they weren't being hateful.
..although they were talking about boobs a lot which was kind of awkward. they were picking on me and i told them to check in after high school and we could compare notes then. middle schoolers.

twbf and i went bowling tonight. i won 2 out of 3.. but he won't swim in the ocean. i'm supposed to think of a consolation prize. we were a liiiittle more touchy tonight.

when we were saying goodbye, outside of 7-11 with what seemed like hundreds of people walking by/waiting for the light to change sitting on their scooters, he took my hand and said he wanted to tell me something and ended up stumbling over 'i just want to say.. i love you. i mean! i like you.. i like you very much.'
it was adorable/awkward/sweet. so we'll see. the saga continues.

other things to be excited about..
these saltwater sandals that i just found on my blog crush of the week.
[photo from katiedid.squarespace.com]
a pair in yellow is on its way to my house right now. those red ones are calling my name too..

you would be in bloom

these are some leftover pictures from park day yesterday.
on monday, my 9-10 year old class had the QA 'what do you like to collect?' with the new vocab 'stamps, marbles, stickers and coins'. i got around to one kid, scott, who's cute and likes to joke around with me and he had written 'a pretty Megan'. i gave him a sticker, but i had to tell him that you can't collect megan's.
it has been so crazy windy the last few days. it's so scary to be driving along and then it feels like someone just pushed the wheels of your scooter out from under you. all of the sudden you'll be 2 feet to the left or right and you can't do anything about it. i just stay a little further away from the side of the road and try to be extra aware of who's behind me and how fast they're coming up on me.
(the next 2 pictures are from the little park next to our house).
twbf sent me a whole list of places we can check out today and their corresponding websites!
tonight i had a demo with my kindy girls. the parents were concerned that i talk too fast and that their kids don't want to listen to the CD that goes along with their book. we told them to let their kids watch any kind of english shows or cartoons they're interested in.

i finally know enough chinese that those meetings are starting to make more sense to me. it's pretty weird to be in a conference when everyone's talking about you and your class but you don't understand what's being said and no one's translating.
katie turned 24 (or 25?) today and we all sang happy birthday and someone bought her a taiwan-fab cake.
it had..
a layer of jello-y custard
a thick layer of [some kind of] purple bean
some jelly covered fruit
and tons of cake art on top
and it came in a super patterny box.

i'm doing research for my outside class tomorrow who chose to learn about sports, comics and the environment and i found..
at greenbydesign.com. sad.
all the more reason not to buy plastic things and buy things likeee..
these organic bags bec sent me the link to yesterday. they're on saleee. $34.99 for all 5.

i don't know if you can swim

i woke up at a startling 7:30 this morning and couldn't fall asleep again, so i rolled out of bed, grabbed a blanket and headed to the park. there's nothing like being up when everyone [you know] is sleeping.
still loving the book tess lent me.
if you don't know what flag that is, please stop coming to this website. :)
i texted dena to let her know i was there in case she wanted to stop by. she's the only other person i could think of who might be up that early. any time dena and my camera are in the same place, a photo shoot breaks out.
click on the photo above and check out that woman's sun gear. it's completely normal for women over 50 to be decked out in this outfit all summer long. long pants and puffy sleeves to cover your arms with a bandana covering your neck/face and a giant traditional hat.
i needed sunscreen today, it was so sunny out.

taiwanese boyfriend and i went to lunch at latini's today. jon and josh walked in while we were sitting there and i was just hoping they wouldn't sit within earshot. it's embarrassing to fumble through getting to know you conversations with your friends listening.
anyway he gave me a link to some of his photos online so now i have pictures to show you!
cute, no?
i'm hoping we'll eventually get past the language barrier/getting to know you questions and get a feel for each other's personalities. today we brainstormed about a million places he wants to take me before i leave taiwan.

p.s. looook how awesome the ACL lineup is this year! i just bought my 3 day pass.