July 3^rd – 5^th

Ahh, the beauty of electricity. I have watched more Doctor Who and crappy Sci Fi in the past few days than one person should watch in a year, and I have enjoyed it to a potentially absurd extent. This is not to say that I have not ventured forth from my apartment, though tearing myself away from the now-functioning laptop was, to say the least, quite difficult. I can’t even imagine what it will be like with internet.

I have now visited: the store (the Buying Buying, and no that's not a typo) not once but THREE times, the thai food restaurant, the school, and wandered within a two block radius of home. My building is 12 stories high, you wouldn’t think I’d be afraid of losing it… but I am, I very, very much am. I am also paranoid of losing my key, but have recently been informed that in the case of emergencies, it turns out Harris lives in the apartment below mine (information that would have been useful, had he previously chosen to depart it… but since the man forgot to give me his name when we were introduced, I guess that’s not that important!).

I have also figured out how to use the washing machine (which also sings when you push each button – this is a very musical country, Taiwan), figured out (with assistance) when the garbage truck arrives, cleaned the floors (though my feet STILL turn black jut form walking around… WHERE is that coming from?) and read many, many first-grade level books. I actually found myself thinking yesterday “what will Little Duck do next!” so I’ve taken a bit of a break from catching up on my textbooks.

I also went and had lunch with Meagan and Todd, who are from Idaho and Washington respectively but both went to U of P. Meagan is very tall and missing an ‘H’ so people will suffer less confusion. They seem to be very nice people; took me to the thai place, then took me on a guided wander through the grocery store and gave me some recipe advice.

So as you can see, I am keeping incredibly busy. And yes, that is code for “if it were any hotter, my ass would already have molded with the couch on a molecular level.” They would be like the tin soldier and the ballerina, and I can’t decide which toy figure I would wish to represent my rear more.

Things that May be of Interest:

-It thundered, very cool. I saw big bolts of lighting, walked around in the rain thinking “well if I’m near the 12 story building that the lightning chooses to strike, will it still go through the ground and electrocute me? Or am I cool? I’m probably cool, right? Hm. Maybe I should get inside.”

- The milk ladies were there on Saturday (they apparently had the week off). These wonderful ladies are hired by the milk companies to sell you milk, so they stand around in the grocery store and convince you in chinese that their milk is superior. Theoretically; I suppose they could be chanting lullabies or something, but that doesn’t make much sense.

-The city here sometimes smells like sulfur, Chinese food, or chicken shit depending on where you are. I thought I had a gas leak the first time I smelled the former, then I thought maybe the water was heavy in sulfur, and now I just must accept that it is just a randomly passing cloud of noxious origin, and not to worry about it. The Chinese food and chicken shit are slightly less alarming.

 -I start teaching next week, doing morning activities at 8:30 AM with the wee ones. I plan on playing some bat/moth, and will try to remember not to give them the hankerchief I’ve been wiping my sweat off with (this is pre-emptive; I haven’t actually purchased said hankerchief yet but I think it’s a solid idea and will pursue it further soon).

-The expiration dates here start with the Chinese year (97) and then go month and day. I thought they were random numbers until Todd and Meagan explained…

-The garbage truck arrives at 7:10 every night. Weds and Saturdays are recycling days, and you separate out your food waste for the pigs.

-You can hear the garbage truck from abut 6 to 8:30 every night.

- I am getting rather tired of the garbage truck song.