stars shinin' right above you

hands down, the worst part of this job is the inevitable goodbyes. you have to say goodbye to your friends, your kids, the taiwanese people you make friends with. steve is leaving next week but tonight is the last time i'll see him since i'm headed to thailand. he's the kind of guy you marry. dependable, super nice, easygoing, wants a lot of kids, fantastic bowler, blushes like a girl. if we had the sparkle, i would snatch him.

joycie and i said goodbye today too, but not forever. she and jaime are going to their grandma's house for 3 weeks. she's like a whole different kid than i remember. she must be a few inches taller. she can say things i didn't even know she knew how to say before. we spent the afternoon playing with her webkin and some korean kids game website that we can't read.

we're getting somewhere with the automatic please and thank you.
joyce: megan, you do this one
me: i'm sorry, i think you forgot a word
joyce: you do this one, please
..5 minutes later..
joyce: you finish this puzzle
joyce: you finish this puzzle please
..15 minutes later..
megan: joyce can you hand me that marker?
joyce: please?
megan: pleaseee can i have that marker? thank you

i went to tuesday night bowling tonight since i knew it was the last time i'd get to hang out with steve and it was a lot of fun. i did hoooorribly, but it was ok. the bowling guys (and julia) are all really awesome. now it's 2am though. time for bed. cross your fingers that sleeping on wet hair will result in beautiful waves and not crazy morning hair.

p.s. jimmie is way more ballsy than me and she took pictures of the market where we've been buying fruits and veggies. tell me you would be able to walk past all of that hanging meat to get to the fruit in the back!

when the lights go down in the city

well it was another apartment-y day in taoyuan. i asked the owner about the water when we were touring it with him yesterday and he told me there was no filter but the water in taiwan just isn't good anyway and we would need to boil it. then the real estate company guy, eddie, called tess later in the evening and said the owner decided to install a water filter on the sink for us. so we spent the morning hanging out while they installed it.

the landlord is an interesting guy, mr. dong. he was in the air force for a long long time until he started flying for china airlines. he's retired now and lives in taipei. for the first 10 minutes of our lease meeting yesterday, his face was stone-cold serious. no smiling, no laughing, arms folded.

but tess, katie and i are all pretty smiley, bubbly north american girls and we were super excited about signing everything, so he loosened up over time. he said he has 2 daughters, 20 and 18. by the end of it, he was smiling and laughing and making little jokes. i think he's pretty good.

the beeest part of the contract signing was when we had to stamp 3 sets of contracts with our thumb prints. we had to stamp every folded over page.

we just got back from the friendship store, where everything is super cheap. we spent $100 on everything we need to get up and running. dishes, cleaning stuff, kitchen stuff, bathroom stuff. we opted for asian-fab whenever we had the option. the mop is barbie pink.

i find out about the internship sometime this week and i leave for thailand on wednesday! exciting week for me. at least all news is good news at this point. oh! speaking of good news, i was able to put my plane ticket on hold so i only have to change it once and i don't lose the $700 i have in it. good day all around.

parade of homes

i could tell you about my day, but it's more exciting to just show you a million pictures of our new apartmenttt! let's go on a tour.
welcome to the Romantic Paris Mansion.. (the name of our apartment complex. seriously.)
you'll know you're in paris because the louvre is right inside the courtyard. ours is better than the original, in my opinion, because it's surrounded by a moat.
we're on the 15th floor but we're apartment number 21F which i'm not sure i understand. you'll notice the door has been outfitted with the necessary lucky paper. if anyone who actually knows what that says feels like pointing it out, that would be lovely.
inside is super '80s fantastic. we're going to replace the window treatments.
this is the view from katie's room. the dorm is where you can see all of those green lights in the bottom righthand corner. when we were there this afternoon, we could see josh on the balcony so we just started screaming his name. he heard us, but he couldn't see us.

this is the view when you're looking out from the kitchen. there's a little dining room.
the dining room chairs might be my favorite part of the whole thing.
the kitchen is pretty bare bones. it's like we're camping. there's a fridge (there was originally a mini fridge but we said that wasn't going to fly..) and a stovetop. i don't cook a thing now though so i don't see that being a problem.
i just went over with jimmie and i introduced myself to the security guards at the front desk.
me: i live here now. my name is Megan.
them: 15F?
me: yep.
them: you need a thingy to get on the elevator. write down your name on this post-it.

they seemed less than enthused, but i'm hoping we'll all be best friends by the end of the month. i need to find out what kind of tea they like.
the end!

p.s. glad you're caught up, cherry hill, NJ. that was amazing.

fireworksless fourth

after christmas, i think the fourth of july is the best holiday. it's just a day of barbecues, flip flops and hanging out. even though we don't have fireworks here, it felt like the fourth of july hanging out with a bunch of americans at a bar last night. the owner, a canadian, had strung up american flag garland from the ceiling. margaritas were 100NT. that's why i'm posting 12 hours later than usual.

no kuo's yesterday. they were in kaohsiung visiting their son, steve, who just started his 2 years of mandatory military service. just as i was walking over to their house and saw the big garage door was down, mr. kuo called to tell me they weren't there. i don't know if what i've said about them gives you a clear enough sense of how much i love that family. i'd bet that if you could see how my brain chemically reacts to hanging out with them and hanging out with my own family, it'd be the same. we have the bestttt time.

and the more chinese i learn, the more we can talk about. the other day we had a big conversation about religion and the mormon church down the street and how it's not cool that they offer "free english lessons" to kids when they're really just talking to them about religion. and mrs. chan and i talked about our underwear color preference for a long time last week when i was learning clothing. (she prefers pink and purple, which you would never guess.)

oh! did i mention that tess, katie and i are signing an apartment lease today? it all happened kind of suddenly. they started looking at places and then we found one we liked that was unfurnished, but the woman offered to buy a tv, couch, fridge, 2 beds and a washer for no additional cost, so we said OK. if i get the internship, one of the other girls here will move in instead. i need to go wake them up actually, our appointment's in an hour. allen's coming to help with the chinese.

free and easy down the road i go

i think i've finally reached a point that i don't feel homesick at all anymore. who ever thought that the girl who cried every day for the first week would say that! i do miss hanging out at the lake and seeing the fam, but hoooopefully i'll see them in another month and get to do all of that summery stuff. the lake is probably the biggest thing. the lake and my queen sized bed with millions of pillows.
well there's one girl in my second class, coco, who i don't know what to do about. her sister is older so all of her books are already written in. lots of times, she just won't participate. today she was supposed to ask a question and she knows if she just stands there long enough, we'll tell her to sit down. last time i held up the class until she did something, she just started bawling. it's times like those that a little training would come in handy.
that class was pretty cute tonight when i told them i was going to thailand for 2 weeks. at first they were kind of disappointed, but then we decided i could ride elephants, swim in the ocean, and eat lots of thai food (which ryan says is disgusting). they said they want to see lots of pictures of elephants when i get back. 5 days!
dawn left for thailand today. she was eating a mango and she noticed some little white things and we think they were maggots. OMGGG. dena, dawn and i inspected it for about 5 minutes before we decided they were definitely worms. then dawn got sick. it was gross. i made her some tea and disposed of the partially eaten, wormy mango for her.

p.s. rattlesnake in chinese - xiang wei she

pink and brown but not just pink

i got sucked into the time vortex trying to find comforters for my cousins. martha wants solid pink and brown. emma wants blue and green. pbteen, pbkids, IKEA, pennies, overstock and 'outdoor kids' (or something) are all a no-go. taking a break to blog.

it rained today in what seems like the first time in a long time. i think the majority of us were in bed until early afternoon because it was so dark out. i went to the fruit market and the grandma was speaking about me in taiwanese to the guy next door. i feel like the use of taiwanese as a code language isn't fair. i'm finally just catching on to what people are saying in chinese. mrs. chan does that a lot. i think they speak mostly in taiwanese all the time though.

there were a couple of cute things in my little kid class tonight.
ben, jimmie and barry's new thing was 'ben loves teacher megan' or 'jimmy loves teacher megan'. after ben finished reading with me, he said i love you. boys!

and charlie, the tiniest, cutest boy in the whole country sits right next to where i stand so before class and during breaks, we do paper scissor stone or thumb wars and he squeals like a little pig. it is so cute. anyway lately we've been doing variations on paper scissor stone. i stole 'the claw' from jerry. the claw beats everything. so today he came up with 'the snail' which is just a peace sign with one hand and a fist on top. i think snail even beats the claw. we haven't quite worked out the rules yet.

o canada

jaime and joyce are the cutest kids in the world. this is a picture joyce ordered the other day. she has a flashcard book and she picked out a picture and i drew it. including principal howe. i think it's hilarious how you can't tell the difference between the ones she drew and the ones i drew.
they're extra lucky because my grandma sent them stickers andd wrote them letters because jaime and i drew a picture and mailed it to her. bobo said they're going to be sooo excited tomorrow morning when they see them and she couldn't believe my grandma would do that just because she liked jaime's picture so much.
it was a team effort from the sewing group. i think norma found the webkinz ones. norma, deedee, fran, joyce and gram meet once a week for 'sewing group' where they all bring a bag of sewing or knitting which they leave at their feet as they all chat, drink tea and eat cake.
i forgot to tell you about frank and the big test yesterday. frank has a giiiant smile and big, flashy eyes and he's cute as can be, but he never ever pays attention in class. the rest of the class will be reading and he's looking up at me or looking around or causing mayhem. he never ever knows the answer to anything.

but yesterday we had a big test and he was awesome. he could recite the lesson, ask me questions, read another book and everything like a pro. i gave him 48/50. i was so proud of him. we always announce who got 100 and i announced frank's 96 and the class was in awe. good for him.
today was low-key. we sat by the pool at jon and chris' apartment for an hour or so to celebrate canada day. i went to tea with keith, who wiped his sweat all over me. gross. tonight i had fun in my jerk-kids class in spite of their unwillingness to smile. linda complimented me on my improvement with chinese over the last 6 months which made me feel good.
there were even some stickers for me! and a cool plastic sticker map of america with all of the states that you can stick to the window and peel off. thanks guys!