Only one more week of work before we finish, pack up, and leave! Wooo!
There’s not really much to say today. I’ve entered into that annoying, inevitable, pre-big thing mode of constant, niggling worry. Will we get everything packed? Do we need to ship some things? Will our tickets (grr…they’re paper tickets - I didn’t realize those were still around) get here in time? Will I ever be able to not worry about the sort of things I can’t do anything about?
Things I Can Do In The US That I Can’t Do In Taiwan:
- Flush my toilet paper.
Today, in my kindy class, I let my students “read books” as they finished their snack. They love this, even though they don’t so much read as idly look at the pictures and then leave the books on the floor to stomp on as they go for another. I don’t really expect much more from three-year-olds, but it’s a little hard on the books. It’s especially hard on the hard-cover picture books with regular, thin paper. For whatever reason (I’ve given up on trying to find any logic in almost anything I don’t understand here, especially as it relates to this particular job), we don’t have many board books, but lots of pretty picture books.
Guess what? A few finally broke under the stress of providing 15 3-year-olds with such unrestrained entertainment. One lost 2 or 3 pages, but the other one actually BROKE - its spine split and the covers tore apart. My co-teacher sort of lost it on the kids, and wanted me to back her up. I did, but only half-heartedly. It seems unrealistic and unfair to expect these kids to understand how and why to treat the books properly, and honestly, I’ve never heard her say anything to the kids regarding the proper care and feeding of the pretty books (in Chinese or English), and nothing I’ve ever said about being nice to the books has really registered (them not really speaking much English and all). I think if I ran the world (or just had some modicum of authority over the materials my classroom was equipped with), I’d toss most of the regular picture books (or at least hide them and use them for story time only), replace them with lots more board books (and maybe even some fabric books) of the more indestructable variety, and enjoy the fact that the kids want to read books instead of getting angry when they love them too violently. (Oh, and I’d make sure a lot more of them were in English, since it’s a bilingual kindy and the parents are clearly paying a premium for all that super English learning. But that’s another issue, I guess.)
Things I Can Do In The US That I Can’t Do In Taiwan:
- Make and eat biscuits and gravy. Oh, lordy, biscuits and gravy. So good. So not hard to make, as long as you can actually get your hands on chub of breakfast sausage and have plenty of time to stir. (Once upon a time, I didn’t like gravy, preferring butter and honey and jelly, letting Mom and Dad eat all the gravy. Once upon a time, I was a so, so, SO missing out on the starchy, porky goodness that is baking powder biscuits and sausage gravy.)
We woke up to a dry sky today, the sun struggling to (and briefly succeeding in) breaking through the cloudes. Two days in a row, people, TWO DAYS IN A ROW. Call the news stations, notify your neighbors - it’s a freakin’ miracle.
And, for a fun non-sequitor, I’d like to introduce a short series, folks. It’s called “Things I Can Do In The US That I Can’t Do In Taiwan” and I’ll post one thing a day.
Things I Can Do In The US That I Can’t Do In Taiwan:
- Get a 32oz diet Coke, straight from the fountain, at almost any gas station.
Well, crap on a stick and call it a corndog! The sun came out today! We didn’t get to enjoy it much, since we had to go to work, but the rain-free ride there and back was a pleasant change.
It looks like we’ve found a buyer for almost everything we weren’t planning to pack, which is nice. It’s a good deal on both sides, as she’s getting lots for a song and we don’t have to worry about what to do with all of our stuff.
In other non-news, I feel like I’m coming down with something, and am actively considering going to sleep now, well before 10pm. After all, we’ve got plans to play tourist again tomorrow, so I’d hate to be a big grey cloud (with a drippy nose and gurgly tummy) hanging over our day.
* I miscounted yesterday. We leave on March 3rd!
Well.
What the heck happened to me? I go and tell you we’ve got big news coming, then let Seth tell you all about it while I forget to blog for two days running. Uh…that wasn’t my plan.
Anyway, as Seth said, we’re headed back home in the very near future. Lots of things factored into the decision, but really, when it comes down to it, we aren’t happy here, and that was affecting our health and our general outlook. Not cool!
Now that we’ve given notice, we’ve got one-and-a-half weeks of work left, and then 5 more days after that before we get on the plane. It’s a little crazy, and I look around our apartment and wonder how the heck we’re going to get it all taken care of. We’ll leave plenty of things here, of course - I’m not planning to lug home the toaster oven or anything. Still, it’s going to be whirlwind, but we’re excited. Seth has a pretty firm job offer already, and I’m probably going to concentrate on renewing my teaching certification, looking for a teaching job for 08/09, and finishing up my languishing master’s degree. There’s going to be so much to take care of, from finding a car to getting real winter clothes, but I’m really, really looking forward to being home.
T minus 19 days and counting!
Lisbeth promised big news, and she’s letting me deliver it.
We’ve purchased tickets to the US and given notice at our job. After much flip-flopping, wishy-washiness, mind changing, and whatever else you may call it, we’ve made a final decision to come home. See you soon!
Mum’s the word for now, but I’ll have details for you very soon, I promise.
Stay tuned!
So, today was a touristy sort of day, but it was mostly good. Some pictures? Okay.
Well, okay, this one and the next one are from yesterday. This is Kato and Tony, looking all adorable and well-rested and not-overworked.
These uber-geeks are some weirdos we ran into while enjoying the two-for-one happy hour at The Outback just next door the the Ikea we went to. Hey, we picked up a new French press (I broke ours yesterday morning while doing dishes), cheese grater boxes (they’re boxes! with grater plates that fit on the top so you can grate directly into the bowl and then use/store it! they’re fantastic!), and some dish towels.
Aaaannndd, the time between starting this post and now has gotten too long (this happens when you blog around others and get distracted talking), so that’ll have to hold you for now.
Oh, and the game last night? Seth and Kato merged their holdings and totally whomped everyone. I held out for almost two hours, but in the end, I couldn’t hold my own against the behometh that was their monoply. Shed a tear for me, mmkay?
Wellll…..so, I lied to you yesterday. I have no finished sock to show you (and now I am sad). Instead of knitting today, I worked on cleaning the house. Seth helped - he mopped, unprompted! How freakin’ awesome is that? And then, going to pick up Kato from the airport, I had a minor meltdown, and felt to anxious to knit while we were waiting for them. It’s crazy; usually, when we get of the train in Taoyuan, there are loads of taxis, and they always shout “Airport?” at us. Today? Two cabs. Not especially interested in fares, either - we (ha! Seth did the pantomime while I hid behind him) had to approach a cab and pantomime an airplane. Then, as we got close, the cabbie wanted to know what terminal. Hu-wha? Terminal? Oh. Uh….I don’t know. He seemed to think we wanted Terminal 2, which was the correct one as it turned out. Of course, he was also trying really hard to take us to departures, despite what seemed to me a distinct lack of luggage on our part (well, I had a backpack, but it was neither large nor full, so I guess he was seeing things).
Anyway, we finally got where we needed to be, and now we’re back home, and things are good. So, in the interest of being a good hostess, I’ll wrap this up and go back to actually talking with my friends.
So, even though it’ll be a while before I see it in print, the Spring 2008 Interweave Knits previews are up (oh, wait, no…I think Mom just sent the last issue of my subscription. Shoot. I’ll have to take care of that). It seems like a particularly cardigan-centric issue, not that there’s anthing wrong with that. There are only a few projects that I really like.
First is the Flutter Sleeve Cardigan. It’s pretty, and it looks like it’d be a nice layer over lighter summer clothes if you work in an office somewhere that runs the AC non-stop all summer long.
I also like the Printed Silk Cardigan. Mostly, I like the shape, and especially the neckline and the sleeves.
Then, there’s the Cobweb Lace Stole (rather uninventive name for it, I think). I don’t care much for the yarn, and I’d like to see a better shot of more of the actual patterning, but it looks intriguing.
Finally, there’s the Bleeding Hearts Stole (see? A much better name, even if it’s just named after the lace motif). I really like the look of this one, and although I suspect the edging may be picked up and knit after the middle portion of the stole (a technique I haven’t yet attempted, mostly due to my suspicions that I’ll screw it up something fierce), it looks like something that I could manage. Maybe I’ll give it a try. You know, later. When I don’t have a mental deficit caused by working for an insane company.
