The Gift

I don't care if I ever get another present in my life, this is what I want.

Colin's Gift, click me.

Give it a minute or two to load, it should boot up Windows Media Player, it's clean and great for kids.

"You're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to sludge"

Well, the black sludge seems to have helped. It has the consistency of maple syrup but is black as tar. It doesn't taste great, but not too bad. It seems to keep my throat ok and last night, I slept for 11 hours. Today, Jam brought me a BBQ pork sandwich for lunch and last night, I called upon my jungle friends to help cure me.

I had baked Ostrich, deep fried breaded mussels, and some too spicy beef and rice... if there's any way to try ostrich, you should, it's soo tender. Anyways, I still have a wee bit of a runny nose and a sore throat but I'm feeling better.

Mucuos Monday

Well, I'm sick and sore. Baseball made me sore and my throat made me sick. I hate being sick, I haven't been sick for a long time now. I don't want to go to work tomorrow, but I don't want to call in sick... I haven't called in sick since I got here. I've been drinking this funky "Bottle o' black goo" that I mix with hot water. It has pictures of herbs and stuff on the side of the box... some of them look poisonous. It doesn't taste good, but it seems to keep the throat better, I put some into a bottle and add hot water to make some funky smelling drink, not too bad to drink. The only English inside or outside the box/bottle: "King To Nin Jiom Chuan Pei Pi Pa Koa (Compound)," I think that's the name, who knows. It does work and I didn't die from it last year, so it's good enough for me... and, if it does kill me, not such a bad option number 2 right about now. I get to sleep in tomorrow, don't work till 4:30. Wednesday I get off early and then Thursday and Friday are my full days, I hope I'm better by then.

"Ban Choe" squared.

Sunday was "Ban Cho" day (Baseball). We lost because we suck, we got completely hammered (more ways than one) because the cops keeping score were dirty, next week, we bring a bloody chalk board, seriously. I banged my knee playing right field, so I played catcher on the second inning. The first inning, we were down 10-2 as there is no 7 run end of inning. Whatever, I caught some balls, missed some balls and dropped some balls. Made one great pop-fly catch. I got up to bat 5 times, struck out once, they caught the ball once and I got on base 3 times but no runs, no fault of my own. We lost against the crooked cops 15-28 (19-23) and dashed out to catch a real baseball game. We ran off the field, I ran to change clothes and we stopped at 7-11 and made it for the top of the third inning at the stadium, Kaohsiung vs. Tainan. Kaohsiung won 8-2, it was fun. Then, we went to the bar on the lakeside of ChengChing lake for a burger, more beer and some cards. Oh yeah, they were flying remote controlled airplanes in the park and sometimes they would go over our heads. One crashed about 5 feet from me and I got really pissed at the guy when he came to get his plane, he was VERY apologetic. Later, one of the guys took his plane out with the softball as he was trying to hit a home run. It fell down in pieces, he wasn't happy about, but he had been warned.

My throat is a little sore, and tomorrow's Monday, yuck, I haven't been sick for a long time, let's hope I can sleep it off.

Candy returns.

Well, I was wrong about the weather, it was beautiful today. I went for a short drive south of the city, then to Costco for some junk. I bought a bunch of crap and had to be inventive with my packing techniques (motorcycle, remember?). I bungied my 6 Liter jug of Cheer detergent to the backrest, my salmon burgers, huge block of cheese, cheese smokies and my box of Bistro ham and cheese pockets in one saddle bag, my family bag of Dorito's and some other crap in the other saddle bag, my scones...mmm.... scones balancing on my gas tank in front of me and my extra helmet dangling from the backrest oh. Dropped her off with her cookies and went out to meet up with Candy for dinner.

Candy's cell used to have music for a ringer sound, but the music stopped and she never answered her phone... she SEEMED to have a great time when we went to the park for the concert, but now, for two weeks, no answer. I figured something was wrong and as the only contacts I knew of her were her apartment building (probably 300 people there), could play Doorbell Roulette, her cell phone... not working, and her work. I stopped by her work this morning and she came running out and gave me a big hug, not a bad sign. Anyways, she had lost her phone somewhere, and with it, her numbers. I should back up my numbers again. So, we met up tonight for some coffee and she invited a couple friends. Candy doesn't speak English, but I manage to slug through Chinese, her friends don't speak English either... talk about Chinese immersion. I did ok and had a great time... although one more hour and I would have stuck a pencil through my ears, 3 hours was enough. Anyways, I'll see Candy tomorrow after 4:30 maybe when she's done work. I need to figure out what to do with her tomorrow... any ideas? ...other than the "dinner and a movie" routine. Maybe there's some live music tomorrow somewhere.

Weekend planning.

Well, it hasn't rained since November or something... it rained tonight. It has rained the last 3 nights, but only a sprinkle at like 4am or something. Anyways, I figure the rain might stop on Tuesday or something. Weekend cancelled.

...I wish I had a car...

Anyways, maybe it's time to break out the rain gear for the bike. I have a jacket, pants and shoe covers... though I've never felt 'free' enough to use the shoe covers (they were here when I moved in). I really hate soaked shoes though... I usually wear sandals ('cause I'm screwed anyways) and then keep my shoes in my bag or something... shoe covers might be nice... nope... well, not yet anyways.

Maybe I'll finish cleaning my place and do some prep for school. Maybe fire up my Xbox (video game system) and try out my unused collection of games saved for a 'rainy day'. Doing some painting might be cool... oh, and music.

I used to only listen to music in my car when I was 16. Now, it's a part of me. I'm addicted to my iPod MP3 player, I try to listen on my way to work or something, just to get me energized. It makes my drives a little more serene and an MP3 player can make walking through an airport feel like nothing at all, not to mention a workout... hey! I'll go to the gym/spa this weekend! Anyways, I just got KFC and I'm hungry. Mmmmmmm.... bye.

Oh, I cut my cable in early January and my life seems just a little bit better (except that one evening when I just wanted to watch tv, one out of 90 ain't bad).

My Personal Review

I asked one of my students' parents what I could be doing better as a teacher. I teach her 5 year old daughter for 10 hours a week, and her 7 year old son for 4 hours a week. I have had coffee with her a couple times and she has tried to teach me the Chinese Phonetic alphabet (Bu-Pa-Mu-Fa) so I think we are good "friends" with a comfortable relationship. I occasionally eat lunch with their family on my lunch break at the corner food stand.

Anyways, I wanted to know what I could improve on and she just sent me an email:

"Colin is a responsible teacher.
He has friendly and philanthropy.
He is a good man
Kitty's father
Jacky"

What kind of English teacher doesn't know what 'philanthropy' is? Would this be a back-handed self evaluating compliment? Still, a very nice compliment.

Friday is late!

Well, all I have to say, is that Friday is a day late by my books and Monday will probably show up about 3 days early... like usual. Can't they ever switch? The people at work have confirmed my "Tardy Friday/ Eager Monday" theory, especially Andy, I guess it's been a long week for him also.

While snooping around on the net, I found this, and seeing as I could not have written it much better, I'll just post someone else's work:

*******************************************************************
The top 5 reasons living in Kaohsiung is key:

5. Telemarketers hang up on ME when I answer the phone
4. There are food stands open pretty much 24H
3. Every day is 25 degrees or over (this time of year)
2. The beach is only 2 hrs away
1. Telemarketers hang up on me when I answer the phone
*******************************************************************

Cooh, huh? I can clarify this a little though.
The "beach" is a whole bloody resort, complete with fresh air (Kenting), there is a decent beach in the city, but it's not a resort and never will be.

And yes, telemarketers DO call me sometimes, and yes, they hang up. Next time they call you, answer the phone in Chinese... "Wei? Ni Hao! Hao Joe Bu Jian!."

Plans for this weekend are still in the works, when I say, "in the works," I mean, "I have no bloody clue where to start."

Maybe I can go to Taipei, but Taipei is ALWAYS raining and I can't drive a motorbike there (there is a subway system, but they won't let me drive the train, either). I could go to TaiJung and see two women I haven't seen for a long time. I have two friends that moved up there that are two of the nicest girls I know... it's close to Taipei and is also probably raining. Yep, just checked, thunderstorms. Looks like staying here or going to Kenting or TaiDong to soak some partly cloudy up on the beach. I think a drive in the mountains is out as it might rain, I hate getting drenched on a bike. Last time Jenn and I went in the rain, our feet were under water some of the time as the road dipped too low, though it was warm and exciting, motorcycles were built for good weather.

"It's Shake n' Wake, and I Felt!"

Well, I messed up setting my new fancy alarm clock last night. I needed something with a little more oomph, to get me up in the mornings (all a part of my 'blindless' "New Leaf"). So, as I'm sleeping in bed at 5:00AM, my new 'Earth-Shaker' alarm goes off... oops, I must have set the time wrong or something.

This alarm is so cool, it has a progressive wake up feature. It starts by shaking your belly 'like a bowl full o' jelly', then it shakes the bed, and then your room, your apartment, your building, city and then finally... the whole bloody country. Yep, "Earthquake-awake," as I like to call it. I woke to my tummy moving (sad, I know) and then my bed, and then I placed my hand firmly on the concrete/tiled floor and yep, it was moving, too. For about a minute, until someone must have hit the "snooze." I went back to sleep.

The government's website hasn't said anything yet, but 3 of my students told me that their parents had told them about a quake last night, confirms that I may be crazy, but not delusional.

Also, my "Seisma-Jenga-ometer" registered a 1 of a possible 2 on the Jenga-Reichter scale. A '0' level means the precariously stacked Jenga block set is still precariously stacked on the floor in the junk room.
A level 1 means that the Jenga blocks toppled onto the apartment floor, a level 2 means that the upstairs floor toppled onto the Jenga blocks... level two is bad.

Other than that, it wasn't very exciting, I didn't even bother to get out of bed. Most people at work didn't even wake up.

"A Meeting with the Bobs"

For a reference to my title, go rent, "Office Space," in fact, it's an old release, buy the bloody thing, you won't be disappointed.

Well, today Ii had a meeting with Keith and Andy about my students test results. Not bad, but could use some improvement. They knew all the stuff, but weren't used to using it. With some help, they all could spit out what was required... the verdict? I don't review enough. Sounds fair enough to me.

So, how did this happen? How did they get to the end of level two and not be able to say that we use 'an' infront of a word that starts with a vowel sound? "Because 'a' is a vowel," is the proper response... they knew why and when to use 'an' but their explanations were not so hot. Keith went on for a minute about that and asked me why. I was not to happy with his tone and told it straight as I could.

Last October, my students had poor phonics (they did, but they could read fine, go figure), really poor. Why? My fault, but also, no one bothered to check in on my class for 14 months!!! This time, my phonics were good, but other stuff was missing... October was 5 months away. My solution? Follow the teachers manual and have someone come into my class once a month, doesn't have to be all of my classes, maybe just one. Keith's been threatening to do this at the teachers meetings since before I started. Keith backed off and almost apologized... pretty good for him.

Short of the long: Retests at the end of April, contract negotiations at the end of May, contract expires or renews the end of July... assuming retests check out ok. Now he's off to test the other teachers as I have finished running the gauntlet with some skin to spare. I have forgotten about my raise last month, I'll ask for it in my new contract or after my tests... depending. I would like to break the $700/hour mark (CAN$28/hour). On a good point... the Canadian Dollar fell and the American dollar is rising, now is a good time to change my US$1,000 left over from my Cambodia trip, add in some Taiwanese cash (I seem to have more than usual lately) and send it off to Canada. Seeing as I don't have blinds in my window anymore, tomorrow might be a good day to go to the bank.

P.S. My water heater was leaking, I called my landlord last night, plumber came today and replaced a pipe, CAN$12 and it's deducted from my rent, he also came within 10 minutes of when he said he would. I can't see ANYTHING like this happening back home.

"Price Check! Sports!"

I forgot the whole basis of my last post, "The price of losing."

The price rings up to a total of sore muscles around my kidneys, my upper right leg and a few other small parts. I DID stretch, but I didn't do any body twists and I hit the dirt once to boldly miss one of my failed catches. I think it would have been a better value if there was some victory thrown into the mix but I'll be a returning customer next weekend.

The price of losing.

Well, I played baseball on Sunday. I played left field in the first inning, I missed one easy catch, one hard catch and made a hard catch. We lost the first INNING 14-5. I wasn't the only one playing bad, nope, I didn't even stand out... we got hammered. We were playing against dirty cops, they were cheating with the score... it didn't matter. The second inning, I played 3rd base and got to bat, I got two bases and as the next player hit the ball, I hit the dirt as it went straight at my head, I picked myself up and made it to third and then home. The team thought I was done like dinner, but I ducked it and made a run. Third inning, I knocked that bloody ball right out of the infield and into the centre fielders glove, I don't even think he moved his feet. I played Centre field and caught myself watching the remote control planes buzzing above our heads once, no one else caught it though. We lost 19(17) to 10 and did another beer run till the next game, we won... sort of. The games are only 3 innings and after the second inning, they quit because we couldn't see the ball. A dust cloud had blocked out the sun, it was bright red. Last night, I read that the Taiwan government put out a warning because a dust storm in Mongolia and northern China had come to Taiwan in the jet stream and there was a pollution advisory. Whatever, there was no dust storm on the ground, just a haze very high up. We were winning, so we declared ourselves the winners. Me? Well, I made 3 runs, missed 2 balls, dropped one on base and threw one error. I tagged 2 people out and caught 4 balls. After the game, I played catch with a couple of the guys, but the light was bad and we couldn't see the ball.

The cool part: Foreigner baseball, we get to stand in the outfield and sip beer between pitches.

New leaves of spring.

Well, on Saturday, I got pissed at all this pollution that has pretty much come to an "end" and did some Spring Cleaning. It all started with my mess, my DVD collection wasn't fitting under the TV, I had Cosmo magazines in the living room bookshelf and I had old bills laying around and just stuff that shouldn't be. Also, I had bought that vacuum cleaner a few weeks back and haven't tested it out. My room has been collecting laundry and just general dissatisfaction with the whole scheme. My spare room has become my office for my school stuff and the only thing that remains true to it's name is my 'Junk Room'. Well, the junk room is tidy, and my bedroom got a complete overhaul.
I picked up my laundry to find dust bunnies under my closet, then I swept my closet and this lead to cleaning up everything from the floor (fan, air cleaner, stuff). Then before I could vacuum, I had to sweep but it would be pointless without first cleaning off the bookshelves and stuff. So, off the shelves, dresser and appliances, then I put my bed up on 'jacks' (toilet brush tray, Jenga set, bowl and a couple books) so that I could sweep under it. After this, I cleaned my fan blades, lights and then realized that my air conditioner was filthy, so took the filter out into the shower. Then the windows, screens and blinds... did I mention I hate Venetian blinds? First, they never form a complete cover, so there's always cracks of morning evil light; secondly, they are made of translucent material that merely reduces the evil light but makes it impossible to enjoy any sort of view. Well, after about an hour in the shower with both sets of blinds and my trusty toilet scrubber, I tried to put them back up. Both sets are in the garbage, I tried many things and the bloody things were tough to get down, and impossible to get up. I called a friend to help me put them up and she always got distracted and wasn't available when my arms were really sore and I needed the hammer. Well, I pitched them on the floor and now they are waiting to go down to the garbage. The didn't clean up worth crap and Venetians were never suitable to be considered a "blind" as the only thing they do is obscure your view and nothing else.

Now I have to go find blinds that block out the sun, or I have to turn over a new leaf and get up early, yuck!

My room now has a Tatami mat beside the bed and soon will have my Thailand "Axe Pillow" couches. I need to make my room a comfortable place as it has my air conditioner in it. I didn't leave anything out, I vacuumed EVERYWHERE.

Frog Teacher and the automated classroom of insanity.

Fun first... my week later.

The saga begins...
I was teaching my favorite class of 6 7 year olds and was reviewing phonics and we had been goofing around. It's a tiny class on the third floor of my school sort of in no man's land. One other teacher on the floor and no windows looking into the hall. We were having a great time, but this fly flew in front of my face and the kids were laughing, then it almost landed on my cheek. I pretended to snap at it with my teeth and the kids hollered, then it looped, right in front of my nose, I snapped at it again. Well, even the mosquitoes here are more skittish than Canadian house flies... faster, too. I snapped at this bloody fly and it disappeared, I felt little pin pricks in my mouth and then my tongue had a tingly spot... uh-oh. My kids were looking all around. My eyes went wide and I licked my hand, there he was, kicking and rolling in the slick of saliva from my tongue. No sooner had I said, "yuck!" had I heard, "Teacher!" and turned to see Vincent skidding on the floor and my bottle of Iced Tea flying at my head. I caught the tea, took a swig and went to the bathroom. Well, the kids were off the hook, I left the bathroom door open and they could hear me spitting and gagging and they were completely incoherent with laughter. I was having some fun and actually didn't really care about the fly, I had eaten worse but I never intended to actually catch the fly.
The students settled down and I asked if they had any questions. Nancy asked, "Frog Teacher, may I please go..." Well, it was about another two minutes before anyone could talk and sit straight again. I signed her homework book, "The Frog."
...The end.

Well, it's been a hectic week and I don;t know where to start. Keith tested some kids in my class and he picked two of the slow ones, yes, I'm pretty sure it's not "random". They tested poor, so on Thursday, he came in to show me some ways to review in my other Tues Thurs class, those kids were better but had the same problems. He had asked me to grab some flash cards with clothing pictures on them, which I already had. When he was reviewing, he asked for the rest of them and I told him that was it. I had asked the girls for more and was told they didn't exist. Keith looked at me like I was full of crap and went to get the cards himself, I offered but he was pissed that I didn't have them because the girls had just finished making them and I should have had the new set. Well... the "NEW" set was the one I had and the missing flashcards never existed, that was the end of Keith's assistance to me. None of the classrooms having magnets on the whiteboards to hold flashcards up didn't help either, I had a few in my box that I had bought. He left muttering under his breath about the school falling apart and none of it was aimed at me. Then, today, he came into my afternoon class and tested my kids and they were ok, but needed some work. Then Andy was going to pull some kids out of my afternoon class and Keith was going to watch my writing class.

I decided to prep my kids for the test, but he never came, too busy. Whatever, we had a blast. Keith pulled a kid out of my writing class and sent her back up with a note saying she was great, but a few mistakes, at least he was happy with one of my classes. It pisses me off that he charges like a mad bull every 8 months but does no monitoring in between. By the way, this "random" testing started on Tuesday and so far, has included ALL of my classes (except the one Andy was too busy for) and none of the other teachers'. Whatever, I think I'm finished for now, got some stuff to pick up on but their phonics are fine now, so much for October's problems. If he would provide some constructive criticism and not be the China Shop Bull, things may be smoother for everyone... however tyranny also has it's advantages... if you're the tyrant. In the midst of things, I DID look at some other jobs, I start on Monday for 2 of the 3 I looked at if I had decided to change places. No, I was just sniffing around, I have been out of the job loop for about a year and a half, so I just wanted to see what's out there. I would lose about CAN$3 / hour if I switched, but could work in a small town about 15 minutes from Kaohsiung in a valley between mountains in the fresh air... mmmmm.... fresh. However, everyone I know who has been here for a while wants to work at my school, so I must be looking ok.

Best things happen when plans fail.

My nutty weekend in a nutshell.

Well, I went out with Cherie (Chinese Paul's girlfriend) and one of her friends that she wanted to introduce me to. Went out to an Indian restaurant downtown, it was great, though a little pricey. Cherie's friend, Sammy, was very nice but nothing leaped out at me, I think we may become friends. Sammy is 6 months younger than me, teaches English at a kindergarten and is fairly good looking. She had a cold, so maybe that had something to do with it.

We stopped for some Strawberries over ice shavings from a block of milk ice with some sweetened condensed milk over top, mmmmm...

After, we went to a music pub where there was a live band. The lead singer was a very pretty girl all dressed up in punk clothes, she had an army skirt, boots, fishnet top, a studded belt and leather bracelets, maybe we might get some good music. The best song they played, was "Black Cat" which is maybe a 70's song? They also sang a bunch of love sonnets, slow songs, and old songs, even the theme song to Doremon (kids cartoon). The songs were as far as punky as you could get but she sang them well, certainly a shock to everything I have ever known to see a punk bopping her head to the side while goofing around with a kids cartoon song... no there were no kids... Taiwanese people like crap like this. Anyways, it wasn't completely her fault, the songs were by request and a Punk-rocker was playing for a Blues crowd... by request.

On our way out, I saw three Taiwanese girls point to me as they were talking excitedly but I had no idea who they were. One gets up and runs out, "Colin!!!" It was Candy, the really nice girl who doesn't speak English. I was supposed to see her on Sunday (the next day). Things were good.

As we were walking to the car, I saw two girls on a scooter stopped in the middle of the street looking down at the scooter, I saw a blond ponytail out the back of one of the helmets and knew they were foreigners. I offered a hand, but when the visors turned towards me, I saw it was Emily (Jam's roommate and my friend) and her friend. Weird night, for a guy who doesn't seem to hang out with people, I bumped into a lot of em'.

Sunday, I woke up late and called Candy, she had promised her friends to go to the beauty salon or something, they were all going for haircuts, styles and massages, I was invited but I was just leaving the salon as I called her.

My hairdresser seems to be on permanent vacation since Christmas, I always get the, "Come check next week" speech. So, as I'm having this compulsion to howl at the moon at night, I decided to risk it. I decided to get a haircut from a different shop, then I can always come back and no one's offended. One of the teachers at school has nice hair, so I asked him where he goes. "It's down this alley close to here and it has two Ss on the door, one's backwards." So, off I went in search of the fabled symmetrical Ss. I found it and it looked like a 'Mom n' Pops' thing, whatever, I was told to stick with the younger woman. I sat down on the bench and an older lady told me to come sit in her chair, I politely told her that I wanted the young woman as she cuts my friends hair, she wasn't offended.

When the young woman finished with some rich gangster, she invited me to sit, Ii told her I wanted it "Western" and not fancy. She brought me some tea and sat me in her chair. Ohhhhh..... head, shoulder and back massage, tea, massage, more tea... The tea cups have a little lid, smart for a hair salon. Then comes the cut, looks good, but a little too much off the bald spot... just like my old hair dresser. Then she asked if I wasted a massage, shave and a face cleaning. Sure, whatever, I'll take what I can get. This was an OLD SCHOOL hair salon...

Well, the shampoo was cool, they use a bottle of soapy water, put some on your hair and play with it for like 20 minutes, so nice, the suds get scooped into a bucket and more water applied. Then, over to the sink, not much different. Now for the shave, I don't really know what she did, but she showed me a new razor blade, then put some stuff on my face and went at me with a straight razor!!! It was fine and she was quick, then a steamy hot cloth over my face and she cleaned the sleep out of my eyes and everywhere else she could find it. Then my ears, more steamy cloths... Then she used a metal spoon thing and started digging in my ear, not very deep, but in all the cracks and stuff. Then she lights some crap on a stick on fire and cleans my ear, then it gets weird... yeah, it's not weird enough yet. She turns me head to the side and gets a huge glass bottle looking thing out, it has a little spout and some crap inside. She lights the crap on fire and jams the spout in my ear!!! Wow, really hot, but not too hot. It felt nice and I think it melted the wax out of my ear or something, whatever, more cotton swabs and pokey things and then a repeat on the other ear. More steamy cloths, another massage and "Thank you!" ... the ONLY English words I heard from that place. I paid my bill (CAN$12)and called Candy.

Like I said before, she had some plans and I had had "The Works" so I wasn't going to join them. So I went home, grabbed my glove and drank beer and played baseball with the foreigners against the police, we won. After baseball, we drank more beer and decided that tonight's dinner was STEAK! Paul (Vancouver), Phil (Canada) and I ran to the 24 hour shop and bought 28 cans of Asahi (Japanese) beer and Ryan and Penny (Toronto and Taiwan) bought steaks at the grocery store. We all showered , changed and met at Ryan and Penny's apartment. Good time, we watched the Toronto Maple Leaf's game, played some games and had steaks... did I mention that Phil has been a cook for 10 years and is an expert chef? BBQ'd steaks, fried mushrooms, onions and peppers along with baked potatoes and home made spring rolls for a starter... mmmm...

Then, Paul and I went to John's place to play some PlayStation II Olympics video games and have some non alcoholic beverages. I went home at about 3:30AM cause I had to work this morning.

This seems to me a much bigger nutshell than I anticipated.

Bread and Butter.

Well, it has been an eventful weekend. The whole fiasco from Friday seems to be nothing at all, I guess a couple of the students mothers got phoned on Friday to ask the kids what had happened. None of the mothers were even a little mad, they were happy that their kids were having fun... but as each student was depicting the events on the phone, the mothers were laughing hysterically, or so I'm told.

Next, on Friday, I asked Andy about my CAD$1 raise and today he told me that Keith had said, "no." What the hell? From when my parents came, my phonics sucked with my kids and the whole time-off fiasco and 2 instances where my kids homework books weren't up to snuff (from last year!). Anyways, Andy is like a managerial puppet, he keeps the school on track and stuff, but the big descisions are on Keith. I mentioned that I have never called in sick (in almost two years!), I think my phonics are much better and that Keith hadn't observed my class for 14 months before my crap phonics... oh, and those homework books were from last year. He's going to talk to Keith again. I expected the $1, but wouldn't have been suprised to not get all of it, half would be fine. Who knows? I'm still making good money, but it's always nice to feel appreciated, although ungenuine, monetary scales ARE a good way to demonstrate appreciation, although completely invalid.

...ummmm... ...uhhhhhhh...

Well it happened.

I was writing homework books today and if there's a mistake, I promptly circle it and then throw the book accross the room for the student to correct. It's funny and the kids love it.

In my folling writing class, the secretary told me that one of my students was crying at home because the students were throwing her homework book or something... then she asked me if I saw anything... ...see paragraph one.

...ummm... how do you explain this? The girl was laughing and seemed to be having fun while it was going on, most days, she goes to the other side to try to catch the book. I think it's a fun and light hearted way to keep the students concientious, except today, every time she fixed a mistake, she made one more.

Whatever, I called her and she was happy and seemed to be completely cool with it and her mother was just laughing, maybe it was just one of those moments. But, how DO you explain something like this? Not only did I see it, I started it.

Seems like, "No harm, no foul."

Drinking games can severely impair your sobriety.

So, Sunday, I went to play baseball with a bunch of foreigners against the fire department and after, we went to the "Fish Market". I'm sure the "Fish Market" has a proper name, but seeing as it has lots of fresh fish and foreigners generally can't read the Chinese, silly names stick. It's like if Taiwanese people came to Canada and couldn't read the English, they'd be calling Red Lobster, "Expensive Seafood", McDonald's "Not really beef", Dairy Queen "Ice Cream Shop", 7-11 "7-11", Pizza Hut "Red Roof Pizza", Shell "Clam gas", Esso "Tiger gas", Toyota "Toyota"... any more?

Most places I know in Kaohsiung have names that have nothing to do with their real names, but my favorite restaurant has a big red door, so we call it "Red Door", it's real name is 山东国 something, something, something... meaning Mountain East Country Blah, blah, but if you can't read, what good is the name? Did I mention it has a big red door? It's traditional Chinese food from somewhere, it's cheap, fresh and good, just look for the big red door.

Where was I... oh yes, we went to the "Fish Market", a restaurant that serves fresh everything and is even cheaper. It is like a parking lot with a tin roof, tin bathrooms and a tin kitchen, should we call it the "Tin-a Fish?" Anyways, it's cheap tables and cheap but sturdy chairs and you order (point) to the fresh stuff and it arrives cooked on a plate later. One of the guys' wives was Taiwanese so we left it up to her and we took care of the beer.

Everything started out well, it was an early (5:00) supper and the beer was CAN$4 for 3 large bottles of Japanese beer. I was warned not to go to this hexed place, it must have been built on an ancient burial ground because there is a time warp, you enter at 5 for a quick bite and come out at midnight, drunk... two of the guys didn't come, specifically for this reason. Anyways, the food was great, mussels, veggies, pork, and ostrich. The ostrich is my new favorite meat, it is like eating the tenderest meat ever, but through a very fine fishing net... don't ask, but it's true.

We drank more beer and someone decided to teach us a drinking game. In a drinking game, there is no such thing as a loser... or a winner, just one unified plunge into incoherence. Well, being the only foreigners in the place of about 200 diners, we attracted much attention with the fun we were having with our game. An audience gathered and Taiwanese women started joining in on our game, beer and company. One rule: you sit at our table, you play...

The game is easy, shuffle the cards and deal two cards face up, the person must decide if the next card will fit between the two face up cards. If it is between, you get to give half a glass of beer to anyone at the table, if it is not in between, you must drink half a glass of beer, if it hits one of the cards, you must drink a full glass. If you don't think the card will hit, you may pass and a new deal goes to the person to your left... or, you can double if you think it's definitely going to hit. Well, going In a circle and only having to deal 3 cards per half glass can consume a lot of beer in little time. What a blast we had, some of the guys had to go home because they worked early in the morning but there were plenty of nice women to take their places.

At 10:30, it was just me and one other guy... and 7 Taiwanese girls, after fighting off the inebriated future wives vying for our comforts and boyfriendships, we managed to get them all into various taxi's and separate ones for us. The bottle count was 40 x 1.5L (not a factor of 3 because we had won 4 bottles by looking under the cap).

We had gone in for a quick bite at 5:00 and came out at 11:00 to our yellow chariots of taxi. The legend of the Drunken Fish holds true...

Missed the bus to Canada.

Read the two previous posts first.

Well, I just checked the weather... it's snowing on Jade Mountain... damn, there goes my sledding expedition, show these loco-locals how it's done... should I really be sledding down a 11000foot mountain? Tonight would have been awesome, but tomorrow would have been damn cold.

Slip Slidin' Away

Well, this weekend was going to be my trip to YuShan (Jade Mountain) close to the ruins of the great waterfall. It's about 3 hours away and last weekend, my boss was shin deep in snow. It goes from about 800feet alt. to 1100feet in about 70km worth of driving and the temperature changes from +24C to +2C (76F to 36F ???). Never been there but I'll bet it's alot like driving up into space, my ears'll be poppin away. At night, it's been about -4C, I'll be spending a lot more time there in the summer to cool off.

I never went, the forcast said it will rain tomorrow and Ii have better things to do than drive my motorbike on twisted mountain roads from hell when there's ice... did I mention I would be on a motorbike? Even if the ice is gone, it would be wet roads and when you drive at 70km/hour, it's raining, and it's only 2 degrees Celcius... bloody cold I'll bet, colder than I want to try.

However, it sounds like fun and I will try to get there soon, there's a hot spring on the way, so I'll bring my B-suit (still haven't decided whether the "B" stands for "bathing" or "birthday".)

Monday's the day I send money home and mail some cd's for my sister... any requests?

Houston... we have a park.

Well, I didn't go far on Tuesday, the sun just wasn't shining. I have done the ultimate "geekism" though. I decided to go relax in a rice paddy somewhere but didn't want to go too far away... hmm... where could that be? I can't just drive down the highway because all the highways are lined with buildings and shops, so I used my computer.

I logged on to "Google Earth," a program that combines satellite and aerial imagery to form a globe of the Earth. I located my home and then scrolled around until I found a large green area beside a river about 35km from my house. I knew what highway it was on and I headed for PingTung, a close city. Halfway to PingTung, I saw my bridge and low and behold, under the bridge was not a rice paddy, but a huge grassy park. I walked past the people flying kites and sat on the riverbed in the grass and read my book for a few hours and watched a completely un-spectacular sunset over the dry riverbed. Nice place and it's only about 20 minutes away, I'll be back.