Nothing

That's what I have to write about today: nothing. I got up at noon and was careful to eat a healthy meal to prepare myself for a grueling afternoon of falling asleep on my book and watching a podcast.

The rub, of course, is that today was NOT supposed to be one of lethargy. I have an application due in 10 days, and so far I have only a first draft of the big essay, which, at present, looks as though it has swallowed parts of the other two essays I need to write. Today, I was planning on teasing these components out and nurturing them into independence, and then filling the holes they left in the original with the dozens of crucial experiences I had left out in my first enthusiastic writing spree.

But, given my current mental state of mind, I have a hard time imagining that whatever work I would do would be any good whatsoever. So...I'm stuck sitting and waiting and hoping that the people I asked for recommendations get back to me SOON, and debating the merits of just getting SOMEthing done. I did turn in my first weekly report today--a bit of a pain, really--but that's it. I guess I should go write the dialogue for Morning English at Han-Min, which begins Wednesday.

Oh, and it's the Moon Festival today! Which is why such lounging was possible on a Monday--Taiwan National Holiday. (The 7-11 is still open, though, and they gave me a cool Moon Festival folder when I went down a while ago to buy eggs.) Moon festival festivities typically include sitting outside with your family, eating moon cakes, barbecuing, and eating pomelos and putting the skins on your head like a hat*, all while watching the huge full moon. Yesterday, Tom told me that today is supposed to have the brightest full moon in six years. But the sky here, unfortunately, is overcast and rainy--retrospectively, yet another reason yesterday's barbecue was so amazing: it's been all but impossible to celebrate today in Kaohsiung. It was big, bright, and almost full yesterday in Taipei, at least!

Ever seen this before? I definitely used it to run for student council in high school, and it's labeled "watermelon helmet cat"--but yeah, that's definitely a pomelo skin. Happy Moon Festival!

So far, by the way, this has been the summary (and highlight) of my day:

It's a Taiwan-shaped mooncake, given to me by one of my students! And note that this picture was taken on my bed. Yep, my day in a nutshell.

So I'll go back to eating off of the mountain of moon cakes I received from my students, LETs, and Dr. Tsai, and maybe see how much I can wake myself up to accomplish.

Either that, or go watch TV. Hmmm....

*not my class, for the record. But cute!

Taipei again

I'll be honest--I don't *really* want to blog tonight. So, in brief, today I...

• went to brunch with Rachel, Brittany, Karina, and another American whom we met in the hostel;
• met up with Analicia, together with Karina and Tom, and chatted and had tea with Analicia's church friends;
•  went, together with Tom and Karina, to the Chaing Kai-Shek memorial, where we witnessed the changing of the guard;
• went, together with Tom, Karina, and Tom's friend Amanda, to a moon festival BBQ Tom's friends were hosting down by the river.

This last point is the only one I'm really going to expand on--it was so much fun! Hundreds of people camped out underneath an overpass barbecuing, hanging out by the river, looking at the (enormous, really bright, almost full) moon, and setting off illegal fireworks! Especially as I missed the 4th of July this year, I really loved the similar sense of joyous outdoorsy celebration and fun.

Sparks!

As a result of the fireworks, though, (we think that was why?) a fire truck showed up in its full glory, drawing a migrating crowd who followed the sole fireman charging throughout the BBQs, looking for violations. Turns out, we were one of these: the big BBQ fire which we had been using to cook a chicken, and which had been scattering live coals across the entire underpass thanks to a strong wind throughout the evening. Fortunately they let them off with a warning, but it was a bit embarrassing, since there were also several news crews wandering the area.

Then back to Kaohsiung! One fun bit was that, as we left the HSR station, Karina and I saw a family from Spanaway, WA. Don't see that every day around here!

I'm done for now, but here's some quick pictures to give you a sense of the day:

Watching that moon...

...by the river.

Chaing Kai-Shek's memorial

Changing of the guard!

(It was a long ceremony)

Moon Cakes and Scooter

Today at Cing-Shan, we taught about the Moon Festival--which was fun, considering that, until I began prepping for the lesson, I knew next to nothing about it.

But I do now! After pulling together an easy-to-read version of the legend behind the holiday from an amalgamation of what the curriculum said, what my co-teacher Patty put on the worksheet for the kids, and what I found online, I got to school and found out that I would just be reading the worksheet, after all. Which was a VERY good thing, considering that, even with me just reading the shorter version which was written on the worksheet, it turns out that the vast majority of the kids didn't understand it, and needed Patty's translation to figure it out.

And man, our first class on Thursdays--insanity. They are approximately 75% boys, and 6th grade boys that deserve the reputation. Featured prominently in their midst is Jack, the first and most persistent kid hitting on me last week, who is threatening to put a very black mark on one of my favorite names. I'm going to have to work hard to keep it clean, though, in a class full of screaming preteens.

Our lesson today was pretty great, though--we just taught the vocabulary (standards of the festival like "moon" and "moon cake," plus the names of the characters--"Hou yi," "Chang O," and "Wu Kang," which I thought was funny because I had trouble pronouncing them, since they're definitely Chinese, not English!), then went through the worksheet, then just let the kids eat pomelos and moon cakes. So that was fun. :)

And then, after school, I went out and picked up my scooter! Which was fun in its own right, taking the MRT with thousands of high school students and then withdrawing $28,000NT from the ATM amidst hordes of people so I could go pay for my scooter (and have some money on hand for later). So tomorrow, I attempt driving to school solo. A bit worried based on Google's directions, which have me bizarrely weaving from scooter lane to car lane and back again, but I think if I follow common sense, and street signs, I should be okay. And then tomorrow afternoon, it's off to Taipei for the weekend!

So here's my beautiful scooter, and I'm off: