Welcome to 'Chateau de Moi'

Well, off to LeoGuei for Chinese New Year. I lost the first half of this post, cause I'm a little dumb. Valentines was great, we went to a Cajun restaurant for some shrimp, crab, French Onion soup, Steaks, a bottle of wine, Blue Cheese salad, and some bread pudding for dessert, yummy.
Yesterday, we (Candy, ShiaoMing and I) went to Love River downtown to walk in the park. This is ShaioMing (No Englsih name), Candy's friend and I on a rock in the park. It was fun, then we went to Jason's, an Australian grocery store, for some steaks. We bought 2 beef steaks and two chicken steaks for CAN$20. Made some spaghetti, toast and then threw the meat on the BBQ... wow... we cut our steaks with a fork. They were so good. Anyways, I have been searching for a good steakhouse for a long time and finally found one, 'Chateau du Moi'. There will defiantely be a repeat offence. We also rented a couple movies, The Guardian (good) and 'Curse of the Golden Flowers' (Chinese), it was fantastic... and subtitled.

As far as last weekend, we went to LeoGuei and Candy's brother lent me his sport bike to go tripping in the mountains. Yep, it's 1981, 25 years old. No, it can't do wheelies (my old sportbike could), but it handled nicely on the windy roads. I'm a big guy though, my legs are long, the bike isn't as long. As we were cruising, I realized why all the sport bikes are Japanese... Europeans simply don't fit. Anyways, it was fun anyways, and I liked the ride, I just wish I could have lasted a little longer. We made it an hour up the mountain and then an hour break and then an hour down. Next weekend, I'll do it again, but on my bike, maybe make a day of it, just beautiful. 

The ship has sunk.

Well, I don't remember Saturday, I think I slept it away, which is nice sometimes. Sunday morning, I went to a University where my morning kindie kids were doing their Chinese New Year show, yuck. Too much freaking out about nothing, too many cameras, not enough talent.

Anyways, it went ok, I finished at 1:00pmish, and that was it. I don't remember Sunday afternoon much either.

Monday was ok, my co-teacher's grandmother passed away on the weekend, I gave her a traditional "White Envelope" with about $40CAN in it to help pay for the flowers and the grave, etc. I guess her grandmother was taken care of or something as she turned me down. She said that they weren't accepting envelopes from anyone, and I guess this sometimes happens.

Today (Tuesday), I went to my school I had been waiting on, and found that they had given the job to a 'Younger, fresher, cheaper, monkey that would work for much less than anyone I know.' Anyways, they didn't make the class size they wanted, only 4 students. Also, they found someone who just swam off the boat from England who would work for NT$420 ($16)/ hour, the lowest wage I have ever HEARD of, is NT$525 (about $20). Anyways, I told them that if the monkey isn't worth his peanuts, I'll take the monkey's place for $650. Back on the job prowl, 3 possible schools came up for me today through my inbox, worth a look. I'm still in a not too bad place for work and pay, so, time is not really a problem. Just creeping through the jobs till I find one that's fantastic. I'm looking for something to replace my current afternoon and evenings, but what I have still works well... I just want better... always want better.

Then I subbed for someone at the last minute, then went to my evening job, then my night tutoring. So, I worked from 8:30am to 9:30pm, with a one hour break for lunch, yeah... goodnight, I'm going to sleep.

P.S. Candy's mom seems to be doing ok, as soon as her blood sugar drops, they'll let her out.

Candy's Big Birthday Botch.

Well, it was Candy's birthday on Wednesday, HotPot (yuck), some shopping and a movie, what a wonderful night....

...never happened. Her mom wound up in ChiShan Hospital for elevated blood pressure, so Candy camped out there last night and I guess tonight. Anyways, I'm off to ChiShan to see her mom (whose Chinese is less than mine, but somehow we manage to talk, she speaks only Taiwanese, I don't).

It worked out, as last night, I was to come to an in person interview for this new school, we did the first bit bilingually, but Chinese seemed more comfortable for both of us. For the second half, when the big boss came, he asked which I preferred and I said either is ok, so he asked if we could do the interview in Chinese. So, they offered me less than what I would work for, and I told them that it's never going to happen, then they offered me a base bottom of the barrel price (not a bad wage), I said possible, but still don't know. So, they asked what I wanted and I told them my fair price. Too high, it's against policy, can we meet in the middle? Nope, I think my price is quite fair... it was. The "big boss" asked me to do a demo, so that he could convince the "second boss" to give me what I want. Whatever, I did a good demo and they'll call me tomorrow. I am skeptic of the whole "convincing" thing, but whatever seems to work best for them, I'm not dependent on this particular job, and my "sources" tell me the job pays on time and there are no rumors surrounding this place, so no news is at least not bad news. The seem to be similar to my old school, and seem to have some good things going.

I hope it all works out, wow, I did a job interview in Chinese!!!

Anyways, off to ChiShan to bring some makeup and to see Candy's mom, it's about hour's drive.