Monday, May 11, 2009

wishful thinking

highlights from today, and pictures from yesterday.
class #1.
common grammar mistakes
-she is like tall and thin and pretty, we have fun together, i like her.
-we are going to swimming tomorrow.
-'sank' you instead of 'thank' you, which has resulted in 'thhhhhhank' you. teddy and lin and i have a battle going on and every time they say it right, we high five.
class #2.
-these 2 boys, jerry and scott (who are 10), call me 'pretty megan' when they want me to do something for them and when we say goodbye at the end of the day. i think jerry may or may not have winked at me today.
-we have a new kid, ethan, who is a wild child. he just got up and started headbanging to an air guitar in the middle of my lesson tonight
-we played marker bowling and it was carol and i against each other at the end and i got a strike! my kids thought i was the cooooolest.
a white bird of paradise, who knew?

the subject line of twbf's emails are getting more and more serious.
MK i miss you so much..
I really like you,your cute and sweet smile to attract me ...^^
we have fourrr dates this week planned. goodness gracious.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

helped steven

remember steven? he won the contest! he gets to go to the conference.
thank you for watching his video

just to see you smile

while allen was in the rest room for all of 3 seconds, i unwrapped half of my sushi triangle in the middle of the MRT and was just about to take a bite when he came out yelling MEGAN NOOO!
apparently you can't bend the no eating in the MRT rule, so we wrapped it inside a print out of the national palace museum he had in his bag and saved it until we got out.
2 hours or so later he said 'i'll tell you a story. one time, this crazy girl was eating a sushi triangle inside the MRT. i think her name was megan..'
we saw everything inside that museum today. you couldn't take a single picture anywhere inside, so you'll have to just imagine the miles of hand painted scrolls, bazillions of things made out of jade, and thousand year old ceramics. (or just click on any of those links).
it's interesting to be in a place with a bunch of foreigners in it. half of me felt oddly homesick and half of me wanted to speak all kinds of chinese and show that i'm not a visitor.

the big exhibition was this apparently very famous jade bok choy. we decided we could take it or leave it. in my opinion, the coolest thing in the museum was another food made out of jade.. a chunk of 'pork meat'. the plaquard mentioned how it was amazing because of the way the artist made the layers look like real fat.
have you ever seen a black swan before?

(these are from the garden just to the side of the museum).
after the garden, we headed to ximending. there were a bazillllion people. we stopped in this place called meet fresh that has traditional desserts. it's ice topped with herbal jelly topped with taro and mango ..what i would describe as gnochi.. i dunno, it's made of rice flour. then you pour cream all over the top of it.
i've always walked past it and never had the guts to order anything, so i'm glad we tried it out. i probably wont be headed back too soon, but it was much better than i had imagined. on a hot day its pretty nice to eat something so cold and not overly sweet.

once it started to get dark, we hopped on a train to shilin night market. it's taipei's big night market. this woman is getting her ear wax sucked out of her head with a paper cone lit on fire.
oyster omelets are one of taiwan's traditional night market things.
twbf and i had the best time. we have about a million inside jokes now including 'megan, follow me. this way' like my own personal tour guide. and we compared notes on all of the taiwanese/american animal noises.
it gets much more interesting when you move beyond the getting to know you stuff. i was a little afraid that my sarcasm would never make it through the language barriers, but it did. turns out that he has a very similar sense of humor.

oodles of noodles! waiting to be cooked.
oh! i ate soup with pork intestines in it at ay-chung flour rice noodle. it's apparently famous in taipei and there are no tables, you just stand around with a bowl in your hand. i didn't ask what the chunks in it were until i had finished eating it.. you think you can get swine flu that way? ;)
i offered up some american culture at the end of the day with french fries dipped in ice cream, a first for him. good day. we even hugged at the end.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

add one to the list

my bestie is engaged! congratulations bec & nirav

with my flippy floppies

this is a picture of a field along highway 71 on the way to the lake that ashley garmon took.
she's a photographer in austin and i've been obsessively reading her blog all day long. it's full of the best pictures of babies, weddings, people sleeping in public and bits of austin accompanied by witty captions and stories.
speaking of weddings. i got the invitation to justin's wedding today. it's on jeff's birthday.
i had a low-key day today. the highlight was learning BPMF (the phonetics for chinese that the kids in taiwan learn) with the kuo's. mrs. chan was not too happy that i didn't have the complete set so i couldn't learn it in order. i picked out the ones with pictures that the kids knew how to say in english, so i only had half the deck.
but i did learn them, to all of our amazement.
went to the park for an hour to read in the fading sunlight until this family comprised of a grandma and two 60something people sat down right next to me, dangerously close to my blanket, definitely invading my personal space. grandma was basically in my lap. i couldn't take it. i left immediately.
jimmie, a girl i used to work with at the paper in college, got offered a job at my school today. that's pretty exciting. i sent her a loooong list of what to pack. we've been emailing back and forth for a month or so now, so i'm glad that she decided to take the leap. she should get here just before i go home so i'll have a chance to show her all around.
by the way, random readers, if you have questions about teaching or possibly moving here or anything, i'd be more than happy to email you more information than you'd want to read. just send me an email.

Friday, May 8, 2009

it's amazing


new favorite song. jem, it's amazing. my favorite part is 'makes my heart siiing'.

nothing to say today. picnic with twbf was cute. he seems to want to tell me something but he can't find the words. he keeps saying he gets sad thinking about me leaving. i told him that's the trouble with foreigners, we always leave. we're going to the national palace museum on sunday. it should be really cool.

tonight i added katie did's blog to the list
could her kids be any cuter?! and she made those dresses (and collars)
i wish i didn't have to pay for highlights like those.

p.s. do you see that shiny spot on the edge of the sink? that's where my contacts case is supposed to be. tonight it has mysteriously vanished. this happened a few months ago as well. i think our cleaning lady thinks they're old or something?

Thursday, May 7, 2009

laptops don't grow on trees

"you know how pizza hut has personal pan pizza's? well taiwan gave you a personal pan earthquake." -my brother jeff

i think there was an earthquake only in my room today. i was sitting on my bed and i hear CRAAACK. at first, i didn't notice anything. but when i walked out and walked back in, i saw that half of my room had cracked in half.
you may or may not have to click on these pictures to fully appreciate the cracks.
also, things have been moving in odd ways. right now my ethernet cord is waving back and forth like a foot in either direction for no apparent reason. and earlier my door almost closed all the way and then it just slowly opened all the way again. ..i can see how that might not sound crazy to you, but you'll have to take my word for it.
i'm going to go chat with maj and jeffy on skype.

p.s. this is classic cute/confused ripley with some texas hail a few weeks ago
AND how awesome does this movie look? love norah ephron.

also.. twbf emailed me today to say..
I just say that I wanna go to lie down in the big park on friday lunch time ...I wanna to resupply more energy from sunshine and soft wind ..I have mony many things want to tell you,but I don't know how to speak to you ..

friday lunch time can you go big park with me ?

have more smile, you will get more beautiful

what could it be?