apparently, i am already starting to lose my passion for this very prestigious job of teaching english good. it's not that i mind it so much, it's just that it isnt really something that excites me when i get up in the morning. i am enjoying interacting with alot of the people, and some of the kids are hilariously cute, but there are other times when all i can think about is heading off again. there have been several instances though where i've done a pretty good job of amusing myself. tonight they made me sub for a late friday night class, so i just played scrabble with the kids for 2 hours, followed by some impromptu dodgeball in the very small, rather breakable classroom. and then there was yesterday, when i was just really bored, so i decided to teach the teenagers in my class how to play beerdie, with the accompanying ruse that they had to speak english when they bet on the outcome of the games. unfortunately, water had to be subsituted for beer, but i was playing pretty well and one of the kids was pretty close to throwing up from chugging so much water, no big deal. so, consider beerdie exported to asia.

so i finished teaching a 3 week intensive course with that aforementioned bunch of teenagers, and despite convincing them that i was a gay, 32 year old father of 3, they asked me if they could treat me to come to the asian version of pizza hut buffet, which was pizza hut buffet accompanied by chicken fried rice and some other very random stuff. it was actually pretty interesting just hanging out with the lot of them, and it was especially nice that they paid for my meal, but i paid them back in kind by sitting still for, no joke, a 20 minute session of the entire class lining up to take my picture while i smiled awkardly.

my mom sent me a great package with a few tshirts and my sweatpants. unfortunately, but hilariously, one of the shirts was a blue RDS shirt, which uses a chinese symbol that is found everywhere here. ive been told it means in the middle. so, as i am walking around with a symbol meaning "in the middle," which is very much open to interpretation, i found myself sitting in the bank today and had the female tellers pointing and laughing at me and my shirt, as they evidently interpreted my shirt as meaning "in the middle" in terms of my sexual preference. its a good thing i have thick skin, most likely thanks to you mcgloughlin, ferg, mikey, etc..., because i sure as hell am used to being laughed at in asia, haha.

ive mentioned the unbelievable traffic and danger on the streets here, the waves of scooters that come rushing at you every time you cross the street, and the pollution. i found myself empathizing with a lady as i watched her get cut off and thrown into a gnarly scooter accident yesterday. she sat up and looked around very shocked. i ran over and tried to console her, but i think i made things worse, as i consoled her in english and she started bawling. i somehow then made it even worse than before, as i wheeled her scooter off the road because the light was changing and we were about to be run over by another wave of scooter-riding asians, and she started to scream louder as she thought the evil white man was stealing her bike. i really just cant win here haha.
but no, things are great. anyone swinging through taiwan sometime soon? you know you are.... holla at yo boy.