Last night in Taiwan. So strange. So, so strange.

Over the weekend we went to green island, and now, I'm a certified scuba diver! I always wanted to do that. My ears are hurting right now. I don't think they're damaged... just sore.

went through several piles of paper/books/miscellany that has been collecting in a few spots. made a trash pile, a "to school where maybe someone wants it" pile, and a to-usa pile. I'd like to have everything sorted and ready for packing or selling before the 15th, so the last two weeks can just be enjoyed.

mmm... passionfruit green tea:

apparently all the windiness on monday was a dust storm blown down from russia and china. and boy did it bring a lot of dust! at one point I was in the living room and noticed the cat's bowl full of tiny black something. I didn't understand at first because we also tend to have ants in her water sometimes. So I picked it up to wash it out and there was a white circle where the bowl had been sitting. Then I realized the entire floor was COVERED in black soot. So nasty.

if you haven't bought halloween candy yet... ta da! union made candy: http://www.unionplus.org/union-made/halloween-treats

We’ve got typhoon cloud leftovers on top of us today. Gusty! No rain though. I looked out the window toward the mountains and it looks like it might be rainy there.

Still waiting to hear if we can reschedule the scuba course for next month. We’re moving back to the USA on November 30th and I have a Saturday speech competition class, so the timing with the instructor may not work out. I’ve wanted to learn to scuba since I was 10. My family had just moved to Muskogee and there was a scuba diving shop close to where we lived. Before I saw the shop, I thought scuba diving was something only certain, special people could do, not something anybody could learn. Isn’t that strange? Why did I think that?

My teenagers were pretty disappointed to see me stroll in yesterday. Either because I caught them cheating or because it’s exciting to have new substitute foreign teachers, or both. I told them to get over it because their disappointment was no match for mine.

After class I won some points with three of the boys. A couple of them were writing math equations on the board while their friend was making up homework. While the friend was finding answers to some questions, I went up and wrote the quadratic equation on the board beside theirs. One boy turned to me, and with 100% shock and amazed confusion in his voice said, “YOU HAVE THIS IN AMERICA, TOO???” I said, “… uh… Math is the same all over the world, duh.” He looked like he’d had an epiphany.

halloween costume idea: bioluminescent fish. just buy some glowsticks and clip them to a black outfit. hell yes. feel free to steal the idea. I can't use it this year because no one would understand "bioluminescent" and all awesome would be lost.

anybody read any blogs they love?

I'm liking:

http://youngestround.blogspot.com/
That girl trying to sail around the world.

http://askamanager.blogspot.com/
Honest job/career Q&As with a manager.

http://1000awesomethings.com/
Always spot on.

I can't wait to go home to an oven and BAKE THINGS. Asia is missing out on baked goods. There are bakeries... but... I am not in their target market.

We had our last teacher training today and we're going home in 75 days. How can we already be so near the end!?!?! It seems like yesterday we were sitting in our hotel in Taipei, fresh off the plane and feeling excited and TERRIFIED and adventurous and NERVOUS and thrilled and SCARED TO DEATH. I remember we got to the hotel around 7 or 8 in the morning which was too early for check in. We walked until we found a Starbucks. Then we got online and called home to let our respective moms know we were safe. (I don't remember how we found the Starbucks. Did we know it was there? Or did we just get lucky? Probably the latter. That's generally how life in Taiwan works. You just keep walking until you get lucky or figure things out.) Then we walked to Taipei 101, feeling and looking greasy from our 24 hour travel experience. Then we sat in a park until we could check in. After showers we bought subway sandwiches for dinner. No other sandwich in my life will match the level of deliciousness and comfort that it brought to me that day.



I learned some new games today and shared a few of mine (my time to SHINE!). One of my favorites that I (created and) shared is Airplane Sentences. The students write the sentence pattern for the day's lesson on a slip of paper. Then they fold the paper into airplanes (with or without my guidance) and throw them. If their plane hits the wall their team gets a point. If it doesn't, I get to shove it in my pocket. When everyone has thrown, I unwrap all the planes and write the sentences word-for-word on the board and we make any needed corrections as a class. It works because the sentences are anonymous at that point and the mistakes are usually common ones.

I also learned that if the job situation at home is as dire as the news tells me, our school's arms are open and we can always come back. That's comforting.

I like this quote from goddamnitbabies:
The interesting thing about life is that none of it is really all that hard.

The trick is A) knowing what exists, B) knowing you can use it, C) knowing HOW to use it, and D) getting off your ass and using it. That's pretty much everything.

Normally during breaks at school, the teachers go to the teachers' lounges and chat or grade. In the last couple weeks I've started staying in the rooms with the kids unless I really need to do something. Frankly, the kids are more fun to hang out with.

saturday at school from Sara O. on Vimeo.

I'm pooped. What a long day.

Every now and again I try to find a new podcast to listen to when I run out of This American Life and Radio Lab episodes. I tried out one called "Stuff You Missed in History Class." The topics are interesting, but the women hosts don't seem to be doing anything other than reading wikipedia entries with their UNBEARABLE voices. I thought, "I must be the only one." Then I went to read the reviews and was so happy to not be:

"Unfortunately, the most obvious 'fact' revealed is that the hosts are annoying."
"To say that these two women have voices best suited for newspaper would be an understatement."
"Like nails on a chalkboard."
"I can't stand Candice. She has referred twice to humans existing for millions of years. She is so stupid it almost makes this podcast intolerable."
"If I could have chosen to not give any stars, I would have. Actually, if I could take some away I would. It is unlistenable."
"It may be good for people ages 4-6."

I laughed so hard.

This is also very funny: http://yasminspired.tumblr.com/post/169220882.

12. I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I’ll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone’s laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I’m still the only one who really, really gets it.
14. I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.
15. I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
21. Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.
28. While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it…thanks Mario Kart.
36. Whenever I’m Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don’t mind if I do!
44. "Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this ever.

This article is stupid: Surviving the tarmac delay

We are goddamned human beings that need to do ANIMAL things like eat, drink, and poop. We are free human beings and if I decide I don't want to be locked up in your plane for 4 hours, YOU do not get to hold me hostage there for the sake of your place in line. MAN, I HATE AIR TRAVEL. TSA and this "don't try to get out" bullshit. That article is just encouraging unquestioning compliance.

I want to get glasses. I think it would make my face look less "youthful" (ie. 18) and more "Hello. I mean serious business. Let's get to work."

"Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the capuchin outclimb you, the elephant outpower you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all: the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence; the gift of revulsion against its implications; the gift of foresight - something utterly foreign to the blundering short-term ways of natural selection - and the gift of internalizing the very cosmos." -RIchard Dawkins

Saturday morning I was driving to class and I had the following thought: If someone asked me what my favorite thing about Taiwan was, what would I say? I would say: tea and scooters! The tea from the tea stands tastes so fresh and perfectly sweet and delicious and airy… I think the franchises here would really work at home. How would I open one? Where would I buy that plastic for the lids? How do you even make tea? I mean, I follow the instructions on the box, but it never tastes that good. Am I using the wrong kind of sugar? Is that even possible? Maybe there is a Taiwanese person back home that would go into business with me. I love driving my scooter.

And then I almost got hit by a car. But that’s just par for the course. At home we grow up hearing, “Look BOTH ways before crossing!!!” but people in Taiwan must not. Everyday I either nearly kill someone that has decided to stroll into the street as though they were crossing a meadow, or I nearly get hit by someone who has decided to ignore the reality of intersections.

I think the crazy driving is what has made us put off going to see the wind turbines and marsh outside the city. We have been wanting to go since the very day we found out we’d be living in Taichung. We started researching and found cool pictures of them. Today, we finally went. I told James, if we get lost – we’ll turn around. If we get overwhelmed by traffic – we’ll stop and wait.

When we got close, we could see the turbines but weren’t sure exactly which road to take to get near them. We were waiting at a traffic light talking about which direction we should try when a young guy on a bike pulled up to us and, without looking at us, starting pointing at the turbines and (I think) asked how to get there. Then he saw our foreign faces with James looking hot and stressed and me grinning like that kid in A Christmas Story. He was momentarily shocked into a state of complete stillness, then rode a few yards ahead to ask an old man who gave him directions. So we followed our guts and trailed him. He and his friend led us right to them.

here is the video. for some reason my camera's video function has transported itself to 1969 and the color is old-timey.

scooter trip to the wind turbines from Sara O. on Vimeo.