On the Move

Just wanted to update everyone that I will be moving tomorrow and I’m unsure of what the internet situation at my new place will be like so I may be out of contact for a few days. If you don’t see me for a while, now you know the reason why. Also, I’m currently working on a pretty big entry regarding my first Chinese Professional Baseball League game that I attended on Wednesday night. I took a ton of notes during the game so I’m trying to trim some of the fat and organize my thoughts right now. I’ll be sure to get that up as soon as I possibly can so stay tuned! Vaya con Dios, amigos. Someday soon I’ll learn how to say that in Chinese.

Wha Wha What???

Check it out! Multiple updates in one day! You, my friends, are one lucky group of readers. I hope you all appreciate it. Let this be testimony to the claim that I haven’t been just lounging around for the past few weeks.

Many of you have been asking when I actually start teaching. I start my training for American Eagle School next Monday and classes begin on the 1st of September. I will be teaching four elementary English classes throughout the week. I’ve been spending some time at the school recently to gather more information on my job duties and how the school works so that I’m not going in totally unprepared. Still, I think the first few weeks are going to be quite daunting. However, I’m willing to learn and I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it. It’s going to be weird going to work every day as I have not had a regular job for the past three months. I’m sure it’s like riding a bike, though. At least I hope it is or I may need to go buy a set of training wheels. No matter how it goes, it will be nice to have a routine again. I find that during my period of unemployment, I find it difficult to discern which day it actually is. There have been many time when I had absolutely no idea what day of the week it was and my best guess has been one or two days off. It’s quite a disorienting feeling.

I haven’t been completely unproductive during this time, however. I spent one week substituting for a kindergarten class at the school where Kai works. It went quite well but I found it to be a little disorganized for my taste. Trying to wrangle a group of ten or eleven young children can be a bit like herding cats. That being said, I was rather impressed with the children’s level of English. Most of them spoke very well and they were all very, very smart kids. For the most part, it was a good experience and it gave me the ability to put some much needed cash in my pocket. As it turns out, I may go back on Friday and sub again for one day. That will certainly give me another much needed financial boost as well.

 

Front row (left to right): Yumika, Stephanie, Wiser, Towa
Middle row (left to right): Linda, Paige, Gordan, Takahiro
Back row (left to right): Jack, Willie, Henry

Behold! Your eyes do not deceive you! That is indeed an actual picture to supplement the same old boring and mundane text you’ve come to know and love. This is a picture of the class I substituted for. And here is a picture of one of the drawings that Takahiro did. I was rather impressed.

 

Pretty impressive, no? I’m hardly what you’d call artistically inclined but I know a good drawing when I see it, especially from a kid that age. He’s like six-years-old and already has a good understanding of perspective and shading. It’s amazing how talented the kids here are.

Speaking of photos, I’d like apologize for the lack of images on this site but my camera is not with me right now. I lent it to Sarah for her two week trip to the south end of the island and I’ve yet to get the opportunity to retrieve it. Hopefully I’ll find my way up to Taipei soon to do so. In the mean time, if you’d like proof that the camera actually still works, you can mosey on over to Sarah’s weblog.

There is a lot more that I’d like to tell you, my dear readers, about but if I afraid that if I went into them, I’m sure this entry would be almost unbearable to read through as they would be rather lengthy. Plus, I’m sure your slumped over your keyboard right now anyway so I’ll cut you some slack. Just let it be said that I have every intention of keeping this site going throughout the year and now that things have settled down, the updates will come a lot more frequently. If I start to slack off again, feel free to send me a gentle reminder to get my act together. Or if you prefer, you can send a not so gentle reminder. The motivational method you employ will be left to your discretion.

Holy Smokes! He Really Is Alive!!!

It’s been a very hectic time since my last update. Once again, I apologize for the lack of updates. There’s just been a lot of issues to resolve. Most of which revolve around the church that I was affiliated with. After being in the congregation for a month, I’ve decided that that is not the church for me and have since moved on. Yesterday I returned the cell phone which they lent me so hopefully all ties there have been dissolved and all issues reached their conclusion. It feels good, like I’m getting a fresh start in this city.

For those of you that are unaware of what I’ve been dealing with, let me give a quick synopsis. My teammate Kai and I arrived in Hsinchu five or six weeks ago. The church kind enough to send our resumes to different schools and also to transport us around for the subsequent interviews. However, they seemed like they very much wanted to dictate which job we accepted. I don’t know if that’s a cultural thing but I did not feel comfortable with that. I liked the first school in interviewed but the church staff seemed confused as to why I would want to continue to search if I liked that job. It felt like they was a lot of pressure for me to just accept the first job I was offered. Again, this may have been a cultural difference but there’s no way I’m going to accept a job just for the sake of accepting a job. So I continued to go to interviews and they seemed very put off by that. I tried to explain my feelings on the matter but I don’t think they understood. So that seemed to be one point of contention. As it turns out, I eventually ended up signing a contract with that school I orginally interviewed with but you can imagine my frustration.

A couple of weeks ago, Mandy and Andrea, two more team members from our organization, arrived in Hsinchu. They had a rather rocky beginning as well. Not to get into specifics, but they felt that they were treated rather poorly by the church and had already decided that they did not want to be affiliated with the church. Personally, I can’t say that I blame them. I thought the way they were treated was quite reprehensible as well. Still, I hate to say anything bad about that church because they did do quite a few things for us. However, they seemed ill-prepared to deal with non-Chinese speaking foreigners. It felt like they just expected us to know exactly what we were doing. They are a very busy group of people and they seemed to have little time for hand-holding. I completely understand but on the other hand, I was also expecting a little more support there.

Deciding to leave the church was a little bit more difficult for me than it was for Mandy and Andrea. I felt almost obligated to stay even though I never felt comfortable there. Part of me hoped that things would get easier with time but part of me just wanted to get the heck out of there. In the month or so that I spent with that church, I never once felt comfortable and at times, I felt rather unwanted and worthless. After much thought and prayer, I decided that it was best for me to find another place to go, even though Kai had made the decision to stick it out and stay. I hate splitting our team up in that fashion but it was something that just had to be done. Hopefully our team of four will still be able to meet on a regular basis.

Last week, Mandy contacted a missionary who is a friend of her family. Her name is Shirley and she is currently living in Taichung. She made a special trip up to meet with us and to introduce us to another missionary named Nancy who has been living in Taiwan for the past 25 years. Nancy turned out to be exactly what we needed. Her and her two Taiwanese co-workers, Diane and Joy, have been nothing but a blessing to us. They have really helped us to adapt and get acclimated to this city. They spent the better part of an entire day showing us around and helping Mandy and Andrea find a place to live. As it turns out, they were able to secure a very nice apartment in the same building where Nancy lives.

On Sunday morning, the three of us went to a service at the church which Nancy attends. I thought it was quite good, though it seemed to be quite a ways away from the area where I will be living. Still, that’s one option. That night, we attended a service at Hsinchu International Church and I thought it was great. The people there were so friendly and caring and offered us all sorts of help and advice on living in Taiwan. I felt really comfortable with that church so that is another option. It is also a lot closer my area of the city so that is definitely a strong possibility. We will continue to search for a new home church but in my opinion, it’s clearly the front runner. More details to come, I’m sure.

Great Moments in Movie History

My good friend Ryne passes along link to a small video clip that many are touting as one of the greatest silver screen dialogs in the history of Hollywood. I know James will especially enjoy this.

http://www.brutallyhonest.org/brutally_honest/2005/08/greatest_movie_.html

Lack of Updates

Sorry for the lack of updates. Things have been rather hectic here lately. I’ve been meaning to sit down and write an update for quite some time now but something always seems to impede that goal. Also, I would like to apologize for the lack of pictures. I don’t have my camera with me here. I lent it to a friend in Taipei a few weeks ago and have yet to have the opportunity to retrieve it.

I just wanted to give a quick little update to let everyone know that I’m alive and well. Hopefully when this situation that our team is dealing with is resolved, I will have more in the way of updates. Please pray for us if you’re the praying kind.

National Pasttime

Personally, I can’t believe I’ve been writing these updates for a couple of months now and I have yet to mention the greatest sport on the planet… baseball. For you unrefined cretins who think baseball is boring, you may want to go visit the NFL.com or maybe the WWE’s website for the next few minutes. Of course, that’s assuming you can spell NFL or WWE. Which, if your a fan of either, may be a pretty big assumption. Oh, get over it. I’m just giving you barbarians a hard time.

Okay, back to the point. In my spare time, I’ve been able to catch a few Chinese Professional Baseball League games. Obviously, I don’t understand a thing the commentators say but it’s still entertaining none the less. The language of baseball is universal, which is just another thing that makes it such a beautiful game.

For those that don’t know, the CPBL is made up of six teams which are owned by large Taiwanese companies. The teams are the Brother Elephants, the Chinatrust Whales, the La New Bears, the Macoto Cobras, the Sinon Bulls and the Uni-President Lions. One very interesting thing about the league is that none of these teams have home stadiums like their American counterparts. How it works is all the teams play games in a the bigger cities around the country so that most everyone in Taiwan will get a chance to catch a few games each season. Seems like a pretty good idea especially since the island isn’t that large. From what I’ve been told, there are about 30 games per season here in Hsinchu. Needless to say, I am definitely interested in attending at least a handful games. Thankfully, the stadium is not too far from the part of town I will be living in. However, I have been unable to find an English website that has any sort of schedule on it. If anyone has any idea where that kind of information can be found, please send along an email or leave a comment.

The only other difference I’ve noticed thus far is the height of the pitcher’s mound. Actually, I don’t even know if you can even classify it as a mound. Bump might be a more descriptive term. That’s definitely an advantage for the hitters. That being said, I haven’t seen a lot of high scoring games. The games I’ve witnessed are nowhere near the disgusting homerun-fest that MLB has morphed into. Now don’t get me wrong, I love American baseball but the direction the game has been heading over the last decade or so has been deplorable. Homeruns in the CBPL actually seem to be somewhat rare. The style of play seems to be much more team oriented. There doesn’t appear to be that “stand around and wait for a three run dinger” philosophy that has become a staple of American baseball. There much more manufacturing of runs, which is one part of the game that I find the most entertaining. Of course, all of this is merely a first opinion based on a limited sample size so my initial analysis may be way off base (Oh man… off base… I just slay myself sometimes!).

For those of you wondering if I’m still able to keep up with MLB, the answer is yes. Mostly I check scores and whatnot on the internet but believe it or not, I have been able to catch a few MLB games on television. There’s not nearly as many games broadcast as the CPBL but it’s still nice that I’m able to watch an American baseball game every now and then. As a matter of fact, I’m watching the Angels beat the snot out of the Orioles as I type this. Of course, it’s not a live broadcast since there is a twelve hour time difference between here and the east coast of the US but as the saying goes, beggars can’t be choosers. Sadly, I’ve yet to see a Braves game. On the other hand, I’ve yet to see a Dodgers game so I guess it works out (that one’s for you, James).

Update: Just after I finished typing this, I noticed that there are two CBPL games on. Both are in the 7th inning. In one of them, the La New Bears are getting slaughtered by the Brother Elephants by a score of 12-1. In the other, the Chinatrust Whales are knocking around the Uni-President Lions by a count of 10-2. As a matter of fact, I just witnessed a homerun. So the odds are high that everything I typed two paragraphs up is complete and utter nonsense. Those that know me know that this is not an uncommon occurrence.