My friends Mandy, Andrea, Carrie, and I were cruising a local street market one fine evening and came across this fashion slash culinary statement.
Sounds tasty but I think I’ll pass. To tell the truth, I sometimes wonder if maybe I’ve unknowingly followed the instructions given by this t-shirt.
Taiwan is well know for it’s seismic activity and experiences quite a number of small tremors. While I’m well aware of this fact, I hadn’t consciously felt any of these minor quakes in the 110 days I’ve been here. Well, up until last night, that is.
At 11:51pm local time, an underwater quake of 7.0 in magnitude occurred in the the East China Sea. The event took place 110 miles off the northeast coast of the island. While no injuries or damage was reported on the island, we still felt it. I was sitting on the couch watching The Last Castle with my roommates when all of the sudden, something began to wiggle the couch I was lying on. The movements of the couch were very subtle and for about five seconds, I felt a little disoriented. My brain just couldn’t deduce the cause of the movement. I finally figured out that an earthquake was the source of the disruption and was about to say something about it when one of my roommates said, “Hey! An earthquake!”
By my count, the slight shaking of our floor lasted for a total of ten seconds. It was a pretty fun little ride but I have to admit that I’m a little disappointed in it’s duration. I think it would have been cool if it had lasted for another ten or fifteen seconds so I could fully “enjoy” it. Yeah… I’m weird. That being said, I hope that’s as close as I ever get to a major seismic event.
It’s been about 10 days since my last update so I figured I’d hop on here again and let everyone know how it’s going. It’s Saturday morning anad I’m in Taipei, sitting in my friend Sarah’s classroom at Kang Chiao Bilingual School. I came up to visit her this weekend since her birthday was on Wednesday and it had been two months since I’ve seen her, in spite of the fact that she only lives about an hour away. Right now she’s having a parent/teacher type meeting with a group of parent while I sit here in the corner and type. I have to say, she really has a knack for this teaching stuff. She sounds like she’s been doing this for ten years. I’m quite impressed.
As far as my teaching goes, I finished my first week yesterday and I have to admit that I had a pretty good time with it. That being said, it’s very exhausting work and I’m really glad the weekend is here. I’m teaching four different classes and for the most part, the kids are great though I have been having trouble with one class. There are about five kids who just don’t pay attention and do nothing but make noise the whole class. Not surprisingly, this is the only class that I have every single day of the week. But that’s just how life works, isn’t it? The kids that are giving me trouble are very smart so I’m thinking that they just get bored easily. I’ll have to spend some time coming up with some new strategies for dealing with them. If anyone has any tips, feel free to pass them along because right now, they’re pretty close to driving me insane. And it’s olny been a week!
My living situation hasn’t changed. The place I mentioned in the previous update fell through. I talked to the guy renting the place last Thursday and we agreed that I could come by on Saturday morning to look at the place. He called me about an hour before I was supposed to meet with him and told me he had already rented the place. I was kind of pissed but I quickly got over it. I figure that was just God protecting me from a bad situation. I’ve still got a few possibilities so all hope is not lost. I am getting rather anxious to find a place, though. It really sucks that I’ve been here for two months and still don’t feel settled.
After three days of training/orientation this week, I was expecting to have my first class today. As it turns out, I’m sitting in my friends’ apartment writing this update. Last night, Typhoon Talim made its way over Taiwan and thus, school for today was canceled. It’s the third typhoon I’ve experienced since I’ve been here. They’ve all been about the same… nothing more than a lot of wind and rain. Of course, we’re on the west coast of the island and the east coast usually takes the brunt of it. Still, it was nothing compared to what’s going on in New Orleans right now. There were a few times last night were it got pretty hairy, though. This morning, I noticed the wind had knocked over quite a few motor scooters. It looks like the worst of it has passed and that I’ll be officially starting my new career tomorrow.
In other news, I moved into the dorm that my school is providing for me on Saturday but I don’t really care much for it. It doesn’t have internet access, which is somewhat of a bother, but that’s not the main reason why I don’t like it. I just don’t feel comfortable there and I don’t think I ever will. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a dump or anything but it’s just not the kind of place I want to live for the next ten months. So I’m going to look at a couple of places on Saturday. I’ve got a really good feeling about one place but wish me luck anyway.
