we have a typhoon day friday! no school!
driving to school today was crazy. last year, i was still taking the bus, so this time around was a whole different thing. there was a weird layer of yellow stuff on the roads that i later figured out was sand from the ocean water? or something. anyway it was pelting me as i was trying to drive over this bridge on the way to school and i was in a mixture of giggles and screaming as water was really hurting my arms as it hit my thin little stupid north face rain jacket, and my helmet turned out to be completely useless. water was dripping right from the top and hitting my nose which was just making me laugh.
after successfully crossing under a bridge through 6 inches of water, i was just happy to have made it to school/the kuo's, where i knew i could seek refuge. my shirt was soaked right down the middle where it leaked at the zipper, so mr. kuo gave me a polyester baby blue zip up polo to wear. so funny.
anyway we found out we have no school tomorrow at like 9pm tonight so everyone ran to 7-11 to buy wine and then we started watching movies. it's 2am and i'm exhausted so i'm headed to bed. tomorrow we're watching a marathon of true blood, some vampire show. i love typhoon days.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
typhoonin'
dear typhoon morakot,
please live up to the hype that we've been feeding to the new teachers since october. i expect at least one typhoon day. preferably saturday.
sincerely,
megan
please live up to the hype that we've been feeding to the new teachers since october. i expect at least one typhoon day. preferably saturday.
sincerely,megan
save me
i've had a headache all day and it's making me minchy so this will be short.
..did some laundry and started to sort through what's staying in taiwan and what's coming home. i didn't get very far. i think i'm just going to see how much i can cram into my suitcases and then edit based on what won't fit. imagine packing your life for a year into two suitcases. clothes, shoes, decorations, a quilt, a duvet, a pillow, books.
before
after (yes, after.)
i brought the kuo's a custard apple, a bag of tangerines and one of the bags of tea i bought in ying ge. i learned that custard apples need to be refrigerated to taste good so we'll eat that tomorrow, you apparently only eat tangerines if you're sick, but we broke that rule today, and i shouldn't buy them tea because i get ripped off. i said meiguanxi to that and we just ate it.
before
after
mr. kuo made me tuna salad. ingredients: canned tuna packed in oil, coarsely chopped white onion. onion to fish ratio: 2:1. green onion. soy sauce. sugar.
i am a pro at forcing myself to swallow things that i wouldn't usually eat though. am i a soy sauce and sugar tuna salad convert? no. but did it taste kind of good by the 4th bite? yes.
before
after
i forgot about my chinese lesson with linda tonight which bums me out. i look forward to that all week. i think the aleve is kicking in!
..did some laundry and started to sort through what's staying in taiwan and what's coming home. i didn't get very far. i think i'm just going to see how much i can cram into my suitcases and then edit based on what won't fit. imagine packing your life for a year into two suitcases. clothes, shoes, decorations, a quilt, a duvet, a pillow, books.
before
after (yes, after.)i brought the kuo's a custard apple, a bag of tangerines and one of the bags of tea i bought in ying ge. i learned that custard apples need to be refrigerated to taste good so we'll eat that tomorrow, you apparently only eat tangerines if you're sick, but we broke that rule today, and i shouldn't buy them tea because i get ripped off. i said meiguanxi to that and we just ate it.
before
aftermr. kuo made me tuna salad. ingredients: canned tuna packed in oil, coarsely chopped white onion. onion to fish ratio: 2:1. green onion. soy sauce. sugar.
i am a pro at forcing myself to swallow things that i wouldn't usually eat though. am i a soy sauce and sugar tuna salad convert? no. but did it taste kind of good by the 4th bite? yes.
before
afteri forgot about my chinese lesson with linda tonight which bums me out. i look forward to that all week. i think the aleve is kicking in!
iQ font - When driving becomes writing / Full making of from wireless on Vimeo. this is aaaamaaaazingggg. from katepruitt's blog.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
she's got everything i need
my mom got an iphone. i think this means she can't make fun of the faj for his blackberry ways. we'll have a contest for who can drive one handed the best in a few months.
(the story of this stamp is at the bottom of the page so just deng yi xia.)
today was super fun and super long, so here are the highlights..
alex and i went to yingge this morning. i really enjoy alex, and riding on the back of his scooter is so nice. we were having the funniest luck. he doesn't like to acknowledge mistakes, but our mistakes today were what made the day really interesting. we got on a train that neither of us realized wasn't the kind of local train that stops frequently, so we zoomed right by the yingge stop. then we were waiting on the wrong platform at banciao station and would have just kept going toward taipei if i wasn't so lovely and attentive.
thennn we walked through downtown where all of the little vendors were set up with their baskets of produce and fish swimming around. once we got to the top, nothing was open. it was sweltering hot and we just walked around in circles pouring sweat until we stopped for some emergency ice cream and then ended up making some ceramic cups at one of the shops. the whole town is famous for pottery, so a couple of the places offer informal classes or just the opportunity to use a potter's wheel to make your own stuff. the girl showed us how to do it (all in chinese, i'll add) and then left us to our own devices. my previous ceramics experience didn't really help much. alex did awesome though--the wheel can be really tricky.
our ying ge day ended with a tea shop where alex chatted like a pro with the tea shop woman and i did my best to catch anything i could. i think i understood about half. the most interesting part was learning the proper tea etiquette.
(this is leila's picture of a tea farm (?) in the Ruili/Alishan area.)
1. put dry, shrunken tea leaves into small cup
2. steep in boiling water for 30 seconds
3. pour hot tea all over the tea pot and cups to wash them
4. refill cup with boiling water and dump out, this time to rinse tea leaves
5. refill cup with boiling water and this time you get to drink it!
6. pour from little cup to strainer to pot to little cup that your drinking cup goes upside down on top of so you can smell the tea and then taste it
the tea i bought is from alishan which is where dawn, leila and dena went for vacation not too long ago. i'll be thinking of those tea fields every time i sip that tea.
after that, i spent 10 minutes at home and headed to da chu to go swimming with mr. kuo, his sister and nephew. it's funny that we've spent hundreds of hours together but never outside of their restaurant. we picked up his [taiwanese only speaking] mom and the three of us went to his sisters. he told them i was an english teacher andd a swimming instructor which is a little more than a white lie. then they wanted me to teach the nephew how to improve his swimming strokes. luckily, my blonde-girl-in-a-ruffly-bikini trick worked well enough to distract them from the fact that i don't know how to do any fancy swimming strokes, and the afternoon was a success. we stopped at a fried dumpling place on the way home and i think i ate 14 dumplings in about 3 minutes.
after class (which was the last class with my coteacher, angel. she's going to canada for her masters. we did the QA 'what do you like about angel?' and the kids wrote their answers in a card for her. sad! fun!), after picking up dinner, i went to family mart to cash in these stickers that would get me a free stamp. this girl with blue hair was waiting to buy stuff so i said i like your hair and asked the family mart dude if 15 stickers was enough to get me a stamp. he said no, i need 20, but since i just told that girl i like her hair, and since he likes my hair, he'll just give me 5 stickers and not make me buy anything. love taiwan.
cucumber salad that tastes juuust like aunt carols.
p.s. this video is what inspired me to apply for the internship in the office of correspondence. it is awesome.
and the o'sullivans have arrived in taichung and their blog is soo fabulous. it'll probably make you cry and definitely make you laugh.
(the story of this stamp is at the bottom of the page so just deng yi xia.)today was super fun and super long, so here are the highlights..
alex and i went to yingge this morning. i really enjoy alex, and riding on the back of his scooter is so nice. we were having the funniest luck. he doesn't like to acknowledge mistakes, but our mistakes today were what made the day really interesting. we got on a train that neither of us realized wasn't the kind of local train that stops frequently, so we zoomed right by the yingge stop. then we were waiting on the wrong platform at banciao station and would have just kept going toward taipei if i wasn't so lovely and attentive.
thennn we walked through downtown where all of the little vendors were set up with their baskets of produce and fish swimming around. once we got to the top, nothing was open. it was sweltering hot and we just walked around in circles pouring sweat until we stopped for some emergency ice cream and then ended up making some ceramic cups at one of the shops. the whole town is famous for pottery, so a couple of the places offer informal classes or just the opportunity to use a potter's wheel to make your own stuff. the girl showed us how to do it (all in chinese, i'll add) and then left us to our own devices. my previous ceramics experience didn't really help much. alex did awesome though--the wheel can be really tricky.
our ying ge day ended with a tea shop where alex chatted like a pro with the tea shop woman and i did my best to catch anything i could. i think i understood about half. the most interesting part was learning the proper tea etiquette.
(this is leila's picture of a tea farm (?) in the Ruili/Alishan area.)1. put dry, shrunken tea leaves into small cup
2. steep in boiling water for 30 seconds
3. pour hot tea all over the tea pot and cups to wash them
4. refill cup with boiling water and dump out, this time to rinse tea leaves
5. refill cup with boiling water and this time you get to drink it!
6. pour from little cup to strainer to pot to little cup that your drinking cup goes upside down on top of so you can smell the tea and then taste it
the tea i bought is from alishan which is where dawn, leila and dena went for vacation not too long ago. i'll be thinking of those tea fields every time i sip that tea.after that, i spent 10 minutes at home and headed to da chu to go swimming with mr. kuo, his sister and nephew. it's funny that we've spent hundreds of hours together but never outside of their restaurant. we picked up his [taiwanese only speaking] mom and the three of us went to his sisters. he told them i was an english teacher andd a swimming instructor which is a little more than a white lie. then they wanted me to teach the nephew how to improve his swimming strokes. luckily, my blonde-girl-in-a-ruffly-bikini trick worked well enough to distract them from the fact that i don't know how to do any fancy swimming strokes, and the afternoon was a success. we stopped at a fried dumpling place on the way home and i think i ate 14 dumplings in about 3 minutes.
after class (which was the last class with my coteacher, angel. she's going to canada for her masters. we did the QA 'what do you like about angel?' and the kids wrote their answers in a card for her. sad! fun!), after picking up dinner, i went to family mart to cash in these stickers that would get me a free stamp. this girl with blue hair was waiting to buy stuff so i said i like your hair and asked the family mart dude if 15 stickers was enough to get me a stamp. he said no, i need 20, but since i just told that girl i like her hair, and since he likes my hair, he'll just give me 5 stickers and not make me buy anything. love taiwan.
cucumber salad that tastes juuust like aunt carols.p.s. this video is what inspired me to apply for the internship in the office of correspondence. it is awesome.
and the o'sullivans have arrived in taichung and their blog is soo fabulous. it'll probably make you cry and definitely make you laugh.
Monday, August 3, 2009
if you cut it down, then you'll never know
these are some of jimmie's pictures of xiao wu lai that i stole from facebook :)
today was very quiet and slow but the funniest part was after our demo tonight during the parents meeting. i had to go around the room and give all of the parents my comments on their kid and after that, it was time for them to ask questions.
the first thing one of the moms asked was 'is megan getting married?!' because a long time ago, i told carol the story of allen's girlfriend proposal with the little black box and my kids just saw me down on one knee and assumed i was getting married. the rumor never really died, and the moms wanted to know what the deal was.
they brought a blow up dolphin. pretty fun.
balancing on a rock, which was much harder than it looks.
the kids did so well though. their pronunciation was awesome, they remembered their stories, they were speaking loudly. when it was time for them to make sentences they could do it without any help. they were great. i have a special thing for this class because it's the first class i ever taught and they were little teeny babies then and they've grown up so much and done so well.
today was very quiet and slow but the funniest part was after our demo tonight during the parents meeting. i had to go around the room and give all of the parents my comments on their kid and after that, it was time for them to ask questions.
the first thing one of the moms asked was 'is megan getting married?!' because a long time ago, i told carol the story of allen's girlfriend proposal with the little black box and my kids just saw me down on one knee and assumed i was getting married. the rumor never really died, and the moms wanted to know what the deal was.
they brought a blow up dolphin. pretty fun.
balancing on a rock, which was much harder than it looks.
the kids did so well though. their pronunciation was awesome, they remembered their stories, they were speaking loudly. when it was time for them to make sentences they could do it without any help. they were great. i have a special thing for this class because it's the first class i ever taught and they were little teeny babies then and they've grown up so much and done so well.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
where this road i'm headed down might lead
i'm going to join a motorcycle gang. from now on, i only want to drive in packs. it is so much more fun than driving alone. 9 of us drove to xiao wu lai (little waterfall) today to swim/hang out on some rocks. jimmie's pictures are on her blog.
the drive was easy, only a couple of turns. well. a couple of real turns where you change roads. a million actual turns. the whole thing was through this neighboring city, bade (pronounced bah duh) and then over a beautiful, giant (windy like you wouldn't believe) bridge and then up a winding mountain road. my 50cc scooter wasn't totally loving it, but we made it. everyone else drives way faster than my usual 50km/hr, andd my brakes are a liiittle iffy, so i wasn't so sure how it was going to do.
(from goteamjosh on flickr).
you forget how beautiful this country is when you spend all your time in industrial taoyuan. the mountains in the north are so pretty. i was all clinched up and my abs, arms and legs were sore driving up the mountain and then i peeked over the side and felt like a dummy for spending so much energy freaking out about the drive when we were in such a pretty place.
(from radio ado on flickr).
that's where we were swimming. can't beat cold water after a sweaty drive and then eating warm picnic lunch when you're really hungry. it was like the asian version of going to dairy queen after a schlitterbahn trip (they opened one in KANSAS?).
on the way home, there was some kind of parade that went for several miles and it had something to do with some kind of .. now i can't remember if we call them gods or not. well, something that people were praying to. there was music and lights and big ornate carriages and incense and general mayhem. i'll have to get the story on that tomorrow.
tess, jimmie and i went for leg massages this evening and it was a perfect end to a really good day. reflexology hurts. and my scooter was jammed between 2 others when we finished so my massage dude had to help me get it out (which has been the case all 4 times i've gone there, for one reason or another). in the process, i smashed my big toe into a neighboring scooters kick stand. ouch.
the drive was easy, only a couple of turns. well. a couple of real turns where you change roads. a million actual turns. the whole thing was through this neighboring city, bade (pronounced bah duh) and then over a beautiful, giant (windy like you wouldn't believe) bridge and then up a winding mountain road. my 50cc scooter wasn't totally loving it, but we made it. everyone else drives way faster than my usual 50km/hr, andd my brakes are a liiittle iffy, so i wasn't so sure how it was going to do.
(from goteamjosh on flickr).you forget how beautiful this country is when you spend all your time in industrial taoyuan. the mountains in the north are so pretty. i was all clinched up and my abs, arms and legs were sore driving up the mountain and then i peeked over the side and felt like a dummy for spending so much energy freaking out about the drive when we were in such a pretty place.
(from radio ado on flickr).that's where we were swimming. can't beat cold water after a sweaty drive and then eating warm picnic lunch when you're really hungry. it was like the asian version of going to dairy queen after a schlitterbahn trip (they opened one in KANSAS?).
on the way home, there was some kind of parade that went for several miles and it had something to do with some kind of .. now i can't remember if we call them gods or not. well, something that people were praying to. there was music and lights and big ornate carriages and incense and general mayhem. i'll have to get the story on that tomorrow.
tess, jimmie and i went for leg massages this evening and it was a perfect end to a really good day. reflexology hurts. and my scooter was jammed between 2 others when we finished so my massage dude had to help me get it out (which has been the case all 4 times i've gone there, for one reason or another). in the process, i smashed my big toe into a neighboring scooters kick stand. ouch.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
in my best dress
there's a mosquito in my room! it's been months since i've seen one. the worst part is that i had him under my hand and when i took it away, he hobbled off. part of his little dusty self is imprinted on my wall.. so i know he can't last long. but i can't sleep until it's a confirmed kill, so.
today was really low-key. my big accomplishment was one load of laundry. our dryer takes 40NT to run, all 10NT pieces. i had 30 and 2 5's. justin only had a 50. but when i was taking my stuff out of the washer, there was a shiny 10 in the bottom that had just been in the wash cycle. magic.
tomorrow we're going to a little waterfall an hour away. i hope my scooter makes it. jeremiah and allison o'sullivan are on the island right nooowww! i think. they might still be in transit. so excited for them.
today was really low-key. my big accomplishment was one load of laundry. our dryer takes 40NT to run, all 10NT pieces. i had 30 and 2 5's. justin only had a 50. but when i was taking my stuff out of the washer, there was a shiny 10 in the bottom that had just been in the wash cycle. magic.
tomorrow we're going to a little waterfall an hour away. i hope my scooter makes it. jeremiah and allison o'sullivan are on the island right nooowww! i think. they might still be in transit. so excited for them.
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