Sneezing my life away....

Oh boy, I think I've sneezed about five thousand and three times since yesterday morning. How biserable. *sdiff*
I have a sneaky suspicion that this terrible affliction was brought on by my mad cleaning frenzy on Thursday night. I decided I needed a closet. Heretofore (a term which I think, but am not sure, means "up until now") (let me know if I'm wrong!) I've been hanging my clothes on an open pole setup thing in my room, which was annoying for twofold reasons: 1.) it was ugly, and 2.) my clothes were subject to all manners of dust and floaties that drifed down from the airconditioner above them. So, Jimmy and I went to Carrefour and bought a smallish sized portable closet that is constructed out of metal poles and covered with a cloth curtainy thing. I will post a picture at some point but not tonight.
At the Carrefour we had a conversation that went somewhat like this: Jimmy: (pointing at the closet I eventually bought) "This is a good closet. I had one like this in college. I'm sure it will fit between your airconditioner and the ugly green immovable shelf thing in your room." (*note: he did not say "ugly green immovable shelf thing, because we both just call that shelf "that green thing". It's this huge ugly green monstrosity of a metal shelf that takes up a third of my tiny bedroom and can't be moved because it belongs to the landlord and there's nowhere else for it to go in the house. Grr. Anyway, moving on in the conversation... Sharon: "I think it's too big and will cover up the airconditioner". Jimmy: "No, it will fit. I'm sure." (this goes on in similar manner for a while). Sharon: (finally) : "Ok. Maybe it will fit. Are you sure we can get it home on your scooter?" Jimmy: "Leave it to me".
Well, he was right about being able to get it to my house on his scooter... however, once we set it up and tried to put it in my room, ooooh guess what? It's too big and covers up the airconditioner! Jimmy: "Oh. Oops." Well I figured I'd be right since I live in my room and he's only been there once to survey the green thing situation and decide that indeed there was nothing that could be done with it. Well, I figure it doesn't matter too much since it's still sort of wintery weather and I don't run the airconditioner until probably May or June. I'll figure out where to put it then. In the meantime, it's really nice to finally have a closet! I feel slightly more settled in now that I can't see all my clothes. Haha.
Pudding is really really fat now but she still hasn't had babies. I'm becoming rather doubtful. I think she's just overly fond of her seeds and corn.
Hm..what else has happened lately. Oh, our school went on an all day field trip on Wednesday. Oh my goodness, was that an exhausting experience. I took lots of pictures but I'll upload them later. We went to this....Place...I actually don't know what kind of place it was. Like a farm...activity...place..I don't know. Anyway, they just kept herding us from one activity to another! Our day went like this: 1.) 40 minute bus drive, arrive at Place 2.) All kids spoon rice mixture into hollow bamboo tubes for later cooking for lunch 3.) All kids file smaller hollow bamboo tubes to use as cups for tea at lunch 4.) Individual classes break up to build "fire pits" to later cook their sweet potatoes in. This involves digging, finding clay chunks, and piling chunks into a dome kind of thing. Also finding sticks and leaves. 5.) Helper Place people build fires in our pits and start cooking our bamboo rice tubes. 6.) While we wait for lunch to cook, all kids go find and paint stones. 7.) Eat bamboo rice lunch. It was actually pretty good. 8.) All kids go feed some goats and chase some pigs. 9.) Kids get to ride on a cart behind a big cow. 10.) Kids get to pour water into holes in the ground to drown out and catch crickets. 11.) Kids get to look at and play with beetles and snails. 12.) Kids get to make toys out of leaves and have a toy leaf swinging contest to win popsicles. I actually won a popsicle too, which I gave away to the winner of a big paper scissors stone contest. 13.) Kids get to plant flowers in their bamboo "cups". 14.) Kids get to eat sweet potatoes and eggs roasted in ground oven for snack. 15.) Leave the Place.
It was a looooonnnnng day.
Whew. I'll post pictures another day. Just typing about it makes me tired.
I'm so ready for Chinese New Year break. Bring it on.

Hmm....Pregnant hamster or non-pregnant hamster, that is the question..

So...no hamster babies yet. Pudding is definetely fatter though, even than my last blog post. I hope she hasn't got some "hamster fatness" disease. The internets says pregnant hamsters will get noticeable nipples on their bellies and we have looked and looked and don't see any. But in all other respect she looks and acts very pregnant. So, we don't know.
Hm. I suppose time will tell.

In other news, Jimmy cooked me some traditional Chinese New Year "stuff" tonight. It was sweet. All this special food comes out into stores for Chinese New Year and all of it is packagd in red and gold (tradional Chinese New Year colors). He bought this "traditional cake", which when I asked him what it was made out of, he says "bread stuff". (your guess is as good as mine!) I should have taken a picture of it, rats. Anyway, it was dark orangey colored and very very heavy and dense and had a thick gelatin sort of consistency. He sliced it, then coated the slices with egg/flour mixture and fried it. It was a new sort of feeling in my mouth, not bad though. It tasted pretty good, like really sweet gummy stuff coated in fried egg, but it was so heavy and dense. It was my first taste of "Chinese New Year food". And if I plan to stay in Taiwan a while, I'm going to have to get used to this kind of food! :)
Taiwanese people, I've noticed, have a tendency toward more sweet tastes than salty. So I'm getting used to this becaus I really like salty food. They have funky desserts, like beans and ice cream (not even kidding - red beans are a big dessert item here), but the beans are sweet and not salty. Hm.
Haha, my funny for the week: oh, and the week just started, that's nice;
new vocabulary in class today, school rooms like "office" "library" "lunchroom", etc.
So I show the "office" flashcard and ask "what kinds of things can you find in an office?" so I get the normal answers like desk, telephone, books, papers, computer, etc. But one of my cutest but most troublesome students (who very often gets sent down to the office for disciplinary behaviour) raises his little hand and says very sadly "me". My co-teacher was trying so hard to stifle her laughing.

On that note I'm now very sleepy. Happy February to all!