Hello friends and other folkses! It seems it has been a while since last I updated here. My apologies once again! I really haven't got any excuse, since most of my days here are filled with .... nothing! This will change soon, however, the last month of not working or really having any commitments has left me in a lazy state of mind, and then that brings a load of guilt for not having accomplished anything of importance with my time.
What do I spend my time doing? Welll... I've been practicing my guitar a lot, which I suppose is productive in some sense. I've been cleaning more than usual, although not as much as I could be. I've gone on walks, although not long ones, since the heat and humidity dampens my enthusiasm for walks within ten minutes of being outside. I've browsed numerous stationary stores, done some drawings, watching a bunch of movies, cooked more than usual, done a little bit of babysitting, tried not to spend too much money, and today after I clean the bathroom I think I will try my hand at a painting.
This is all in the daytime while my roomates and friends are at work. In the evenings, I mostly hang out with my friends if I don't have a church meeting. BUT this week I will register for my classes at Feng Chia (my university which I will probably refer to a lot in future posts), and classes start a week from today. I'm excited, although a little nervous since I'm not sure what to expect.
The news is telling tales of a typhoon called Nanmadol that is supposed to have made it's stormy way to the south of Taiwan and work its way upwards and west into China. We've had some drizzle here and there, but nothing like the "Torrential Rainfall" that we were warned of. While this well and good for the businesses and safety of the city, I think all the teachers are a little sad that we may not get a typhoon day after all. We had no typhoon days last year either. We'll see.
OH! As soon as I wrote that it started to rain harder outside. Well! Words indeed have power!
My friend Amy and I were asked to be bridesmaids in our friend Annie's wedding. I believe I have mentioned Annie at some point on my blog in the past. Annie has been a part of my cell group since I came to Taiwan, and when Amy came last year, she started working at Annie's English school. So we both know her very well, and were pleasantly surprised and very honored to be asked to be bridesmaids! Annie (who is Taiwanese but speaks fluent English) and her fiance Michael (who is from the US), will get married in October, and their wedding will not be the usual traditional Taiwanese wedding. They will have the ceremony and reception Western style, at Banner church.
Last Saturday, Annie invited us to go with her and Michael and Annie's mom to help choose the wedding dresses! She chose two - a traditional white one for the ceremony, and a beautiful fluffy red one for the reception. What a fun day that was! Annie tried on a bunch of different styles of dresses and showed them to us and we gave her our thoughts. Amy and I are pretty excited for the wedding, to say the least.
This is definitely the year of weddings and romance. :) Annie and Michael are the fourth wedding in Taiwan I've been invited to this summer, and on top of that, I got to travel to my brother's wedding. And another couple friends of ours are getting married in the beach town of Kending in February next year. Fun! side note - many couples here are getting married this year in particular because this is Taiwan's 100th anniversary year. October 10th is the independence day holiday for this country, so this year's 10/10 celebration is the 100th year of independence, making it a huge holiday and a very "lucky" year for weddings, etc.
Well, I can't think of anything else interesting to add to this, so I'll leave it for now. Thanks for reading and tune in next time! :D
Monday, August 29, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer..
Hola!
August is half over, and I feel rather unproductive of late. I am not working these days, and my Chinese classes don't start until the beginning of September. So I'm pretty much just hanging around, working on my guitar skills (haha!), cleaning up and organizing stuff accumulated from the last two years, and spending time building relationships with people. I suppose all that is kind of productive, especially the last one!
Two of my roomates have been bitten by the painting bug and decided to beautify their rooms by painting the walls a beautiful shade of eggshell. Or buttercream. Or...white. Whatever. So our apartment has had furniture all over the place, and a lovely scent of paint fumes has permeated every corner of the house. But the results are great, and their rooms look amazingly improved! All the walls in our apartment are dingy to say the least, and most are covered with sticky stuff from years of Things being hung on the walls, etc. My solution, as a lazy person by nature, is to simply cover up the dinginess and stickiness with other stuff to make the walls more dingy and sticky in the future. My roomates, both being fixer uppers by nature and wanting to make the world a better place, put the hard work into a more permanent solution. I'm proud of them! They worked really hard.
Every year in February, the public schools here give a three week "winter vacation" break. One week of this is also usually Chinese New Year holiday break which we foreign teachers get off. Since I'll be a student and only teaching a few hours in evenings, I will also get the three week vacation. Why am I telling you all this now, in August? Banner church is planning a Winter Camp for university students, and it will be an all English outreach camp. This is a big difference from the bilingual camps we helped with the last couple of years. This time, us foreigners from the Banner English zone will be running the camp. AAAUGH! I was put in charge (er, rather, volunteered) to head up the games committee. I have a few general ideas, but I need to put a lot of work into specifics. We went to scount out the facility last week, it's a nice college campus at a Presbyterian bible college about an hours drive outside Taichung, in Hsinchu (which incidentally is where all the "made in Taiwan" computers, like Acer, factories are). We also have a small groups committee, a drama committee, a promotion and advertising committee, and a worship/music committee. The Banner pastors will do the messages. This is a huge project. I, as well as all my teammates, would really appreciate your prayers! We need to not only get our stuff planned out, but also recruit people to help us at the camp. AAUGH! It's only August, but we're feeling some pressure.
Soooooo, that's that. Life is good. Life is great, actually! Although I have way too much down time, I know that will change once school starts, so I am trying to enjoy my time off for now. Transition, new possibilities, and fun! I like August! :)
Until next time!
August is half over, and I feel rather unproductive of late. I am not working these days, and my Chinese classes don't start until the beginning of September. So I'm pretty much just hanging around, working on my guitar skills (haha!), cleaning up and organizing stuff accumulated from the last two years, and spending time building relationships with people. I suppose all that is kind of productive, especially the last one!
Two of my roomates have been bitten by the painting bug and decided to beautify their rooms by painting the walls a beautiful shade of eggshell. Or buttercream. Or...white. Whatever. So our apartment has had furniture all over the place, and a lovely scent of paint fumes has permeated every corner of the house. But the results are great, and their rooms look amazingly improved! All the walls in our apartment are dingy to say the least, and most are covered with sticky stuff from years of Things being hung on the walls, etc. My solution, as a lazy person by nature, is to simply cover up the dinginess and stickiness with other stuff to make the walls more dingy and sticky in the future. My roomates, both being fixer uppers by nature and wanting to make the world a better place, put the hard work into a more permanent solution. I'm proud of them! They worked really hard.
Every year in February, the public schools here give a three week "winter vacation" break. One week of this is also usually Chinese New Year holiday break which we foreign teachers get off. Since I'll be a student and only teaching a few hours in evenings, I will also get the three week vacation. Why am I telling you all this now, in August? Banner church is planning a Winter Camp for university students, and it will be an all English outreach camp. This is a big difference from the bilingual camps we helped with the last couple of years. This time, us foreigners from the Banner English zone will be running the camp. AAAUGH! I was put in charge (er, rather, volunteered) to head up the games committee. I have a few general ideas, but I need to put a lot of work into specifics. We went to scount out the facility last week, it's a nice college campus at a Presbyterian bible college about an hours drive outside Taichung, in Hsinchu (which incidentally is where all the "made in Taiwan" computers, like Acer, factories are). We also have a small groups committee, a drama committee, a promotion and advertising committee, and a worship/music committee. The Banner pastors will do the messages. This is a huge project. I, as well as all my teammates, would really appreciate your prayers! We need to not only get our stuff planned out, but also recruit people to help us at the camp. AAUGH! It's only August, but we're feeling some pressure.
Soooooo, that's that. Life is good. Life is great, actually! Although I have way too much down time, I know that will change once school starts, so I am trying to enjoy my time off for now. Transition, new possibilities, and fun! I like August! :)
Until next time!
Monday, August 8, 2011
Samson, did you miss me?
I'm back! I've uploaded some of my photos for your viewing enjoyment. Or something like that.
This is my mother and I at John's Pass boardwalk somewhere in St. Petersburg, FL.
My dad's brother and his family came to visit us the day I got there. They live fairly close to where my parents are staying in St. Pete. My aunt is an outstanding cook and brought us the best food from home I've had in a looooooooooooong time.
Here's my family lookin' all cute in Marion, NC. This was taken in a series of really funny, but not so amazing shots of our family after the wedding rehearsal. I figured this one was the best of the bunch.
Pre-wedding fun. That's my brother Ryan to the left, and David on the right. David's the one who got married.
I told them to make faces and this is what they came up with.
David watching Megan walk down the aisle.
Dad did the second part of the ceremony.
Aren't they adorable? I think so.
Mr. and Mrs. David Smit!
That's my Aunt Susan, my mom's sister, on the left, and my Aunt Millie, my parents co-worker from Suriname, on my right. I hadn't seen either of these aunts in many, many years....
SO there you have it! I hope I get a copy of the photographer's photos at some point. Well, I arrived back in Taiwan a couple of days ago, Saturday morning, after a wildly turbulent flight from Tokyo. Somehow I managed to sleep a record 7 hours in the airplane on the way to Tokyo from LA, so when I got to Taichung, I was feeling pretty good for such a long trip! I didn't sleep much Saturday night, but last night when I went to bed, I slept for hooouuurrsss like a rock.
I'm extremely thankful I got to go see my family, but I'm also very very happy to be back home. I missed my tea, my cat, my bed, and my friends. Although Samson has gotten significantly more vocal since I've been gone. He is now staring out the balcony window at the heavily downpouring rain, thunder, and lightening, and I can only imagine what is going through his fluffly little head. "Hm... my plan to take over the world has again been thwarted! When will victory be mine!?" He doesn't know I'm on to him.
These next couple of months will be ones of transition for me into a new schedule of classes and teaching. I'm so excited, but at the same time, it makes me nervous to start new, unfamiliar things. And it's scary to have such a significantly lower income than I'm used to. So far, I'm doing well, thanks to help from family and friends. I'm constantly amazed at the way God takes care of me. He's never let me down yet, and I don't expect He will.
I'm going to go forage for food now, so I wish you all a happy week! Zai jian!
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Sitting around...
So, the last couple of times I posted, I included in the title "Road trips", and then proceeded to write nothing about any road trips. I suppose I just assumed everybody would know about the 10 + hour drive from St. Petersburg, Florida, where my parents are staying right now, to Marion North Carolina, where my brother got married. Oops. =) And now I will continue typing this post, without mentioning road trips again. I'm the best blog - ger ever! :D
I've spent more time sitting around on this trip than I think I ever have! I sat around on four different flights on the way over here, I sat around for hours on end in various airports waiting for those flights, I sat around in the car for a two hour drive from Orlando where I flew in to St. Pete, I sat around on the 10 hour drive to Marion, I sat around on the 10 hour drive back from Marion, I sat around on the 2 hour drive back to Orlando, I'm sitting around right now for 12 hours in LAX, and I'll be sitting around some more on my flight back to Taiwan! I'm not complaining, because I actually love sitting around, as long as I'm properly entertained by something like Youtube, a magazine, music, or Strongbad emails. However, once I return home, I figure I'll have to start walking or running or something to even out all this sitting around.
I have made a discovery!! Last week, I was doing some research while pondering what to do with my little self for my 14 hour layover to day in LAX. I have read on many a website review that LAX is one of the worst international airports. I personally have no real complaints about it so far, but I did check a bag on this trip and it is quite heavy, so I didn't want to putter around a large airport full of strangers with a huge heavy suitcase and a really heavy backpack. (why do I collect such heavy things? perhaps things I like are just naturally heavy? I have no other theories on this. ) Anyway, while I was doing my Googling, I found that LAX has a lounge open to the public for a fee, called the reLAX lounge. So upon arriving at the airport this morning, I found the Big Red Monster (as I affectionally dubbed my suitcase), and trucked it over to the lounge. I paid the fee, and I've been sitting here ever since, in the airconditioned, sunlit, clean, quiet, uncrowded reLAX lounge, properly entertaining myself with all the things in the aforementioned paragraph. To me, it's worth the fee, especially since I think I saved money checking my suitcase on the way over here. I figure by the time I go to check in, I'll have been in this one seat (minus the times I got up to get a snack or whatever else), for about 10 hours. Aiyo!
One would think with all this grand time and good internets on my hands, I would upload a few photos. But the hard drive with all the photos is buried in the bottom of the Big Red Monster. So, I'm sorry, but I'm not opening that. Photos will come later.
I've run out of interesting things to post. So, I think I will pursue other entertainment now. Thanks everybody who's been praying for me and this trip, all has gone exceptionally well thus far, as exceptionally well as an itinerary such as mine can go, and I'm honestly looking forward to being back home!
OH! I had real Mexican food last night! My last night in the US! T'was lovely, and made the trip completely complete. I had the largest chimichanga known to mankind. I wish there were chimichangas in this lounge. That would make it more perfect.
Zai jian!! :)
I've spent more time sitting around on this trip than I think I ever have! I sat around on four different flights on the way over here, I sat around for hours on end in various airports waiting for those flights, I sat around in the car for a two hour drive from Orlando where I flew in to St. Pete, I sat around on the 10 hour drive to Marion, I sat around on the 10 hour drive back from Marion, I sat around on the 2 hour drive back to Orlando, I'm sitting around right now for 12 hours in LAX, and I'll be sitting around some more on my flight back to Taiwan! I'm not complaining, because I actually love sitting around, as long as I'm properly entertained by something like Youtube, a magazine, music, or Strongbad emails. However, once I return home, I figure I'll have to start walking or running or something to even out all this sitting around.
I have made a discovery!! Last week, I was doing some research while pondering what to do with my little self for my 14 hour layover to day in LAX. I have read on many a website review that LAX is one of the worst international airports. I personally have no real complaints about it so far, but I did check a bag on this trip and it is quite heavy, so I didn't want to putter around a large airport full of strangers with a huge heavy suitcase and a really heavy backpack. (why do I collect such heavy things? perhaps things I like are just naturally heavy? I have no other theories on this. ) Anyway, while I was doing my Googling, I found that LAX has a lounge open to the public for a fee, called the reLAX lounge. So upon arriving at the airport this morning, I found the Big Red Monster (as I affectionally dubbed my suitcase), and trucked it over to the lounge. I paid the fee, and I've been sitting here ever since, in the airconditioned, sunlit, clean, quiet, uncrowded reLAX lounge, properly entertaining myself with all the things in the aforementioned paragraph. To me, it's worth the fee, especially since I think I saved money checking my suitcase on the way over here. I figure by the time I go to check in, I'll have been in this one seat (minus the times I got up to get a snack or whatever else), for about 10 hours. Aiyo!
One would think with all this grand time and good internets on my hands, I would upload a few photos. But the hard drive with all the photos is buried in the bottom of the Big Red Monster. So, I'm sorry, but I'm not opening that. Photos will come later.
I've run out of interesting things to post. So, I think I will pursue other entertainment now. Thanks everybody who's been praying for me and this trip, all has gone exceptionally well thus far, as exceptionally well as an itinerary such as mine can go, and I'm honestly looking forward to being back home!
OH! I had real Mexican food last night! My last night in the US! T'was lovely, and made the trip completely complete. I had the largest chimichanga known to mankind. I wish there were chimichangas in this lounge. That would make it more perfect.
Zai jian!! :)
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
cute weddings, road trips, and overweight suitcases!
Well, my brother is officially married and I officially have my first sister! (in-law!). Megan is as sweet as can be and the wedding was about as cute as a I imagine a wedding could ever be. Photos soon to come, but right now my stuff is all packed up so the photo uploading will have to wait until both I and my stuff are safely back home in Taiwan.
I leave tomorrow to make my long journey back to the beautiful island I call home. Although my time back in the US has been short, I'm so glad I've been able to come! I've met people I haven't seen in years, had a lot of down time to just think my thoughts, and picked up a few things that aren't at all available in Taiwan.
Once back, I still have a month of "vacation" before I start taking my classes at Feng Chia university. I'll be doing a little tutoring, but otherwise just taking the opportunity to relax, get some things in order, and have some good fun that is funny!
This post is just to touch base a little and let you all know photos are on the way! Yay! I'm ready to get this trip over with! Long flights and layovers, cold planes and heavy baggage, here I come! Bring it on! :)
I leave tomorrow to make my long journey back to the beautiful island I call home. Although my time back in the US has been short, I'm so glad I've been able to come! I've met people I haven't seen in years, had a lot of down time to just think my thoughts, and picked up a few things that aren't at all available in Taiwan.
Once back, I still have a month of "vacation" before I start taking my classes at Feng Chia university. I'll be doing a little tutoring, but otherwise just taking the opportunity to relax, get some things in order, and have some good fun that is funny!
This post is just to touch base a little and let you all know photos are on the way! Yay! I'm ready to get this trip over with! Long flights and layovers, cold planes and heavy baggage, here I come! Bring it on! :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)