The love of my life...Zhou Jie Lun...the King of Chinese Hip Hop. 

Miss Jill in action: checking homework in my Basic Reading class...that's Daisy...cutest girl ever. I know I say that about all of them. 

This is my new favorite thing I have done in Taiwan BY FAR...scootering on my 125 cc Kymco. Lee-Ana and I rented scooters for the day and drove up to Sanyi, the woodcarving village, and then down the west coast. And we didn't even get lost...well, until we were almost home in Taichung. But no accidents :) I seriously need to get myself one of these puppies. 

They actually do have beaches in Taiwan...and this is one of them. I use the term "beach" loosely here...not so much a place you want to swim, or lay out...or touch the water. And it was really cold. This was on the west coast of Taiwan on me and Lee-Ana's scooter excursion. March 19, 2005 

Berhan had a spelling bee, and this was one of my second grade students, David. My other student, Yvonne, is on the front row on the right. They didn't win, but they were really cute up there :) It brought me back to my days in spelling bees. Speaking of spelling bees-- "Do I sound like a musical robot??" I'll give anyone 10 kuai if they name that movie... March 18, 2005

Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy

To me, it's always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, "Hey, can you give me a hand?," you can say, "Sorry, got these sacks."

It makes me mad when people say I turned and ran like a scared rabbit. Maybe it was like an angry rabbit, who was going to fight in another fight, away from the first fight.

Why do the caterpillar and the ant have to be enemies? One eats leaves, and the other eats caterpillars. Oh, I see now.

Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo!, I'd have all my money back.

You know what's probably a good thing to hang on your porch in the summertime, to keep mosquitoes away from you and your guests? Just a big bag of blood.

It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.

If you're in a boxing match, try not to let the other guy's glove touch your lips, because you don't know where that glove has been.

Is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo, flying across in front of a beautiful sunset? And he's carrying a beautiful rose in his beak, and also he's carrying a very beautiful painting with his feet. And also, you're drunk.

I bet a funny thing about driving a car off a cliff is, while you're in midair, you still hit those brakes! Hey, better try the emergency brake!

Broken promises don't upset me. I just think, why did they believe me?

My kids didn't know about St. Patrick's Day, so we had to have a party...complete with pinching. These kids were the ones who got hardcore with their green outfits...check out Koala's boss vest.

Me and Michelle in our fabulously attractive rain ponchos. As ugly as they may seem, with the amount of rain we got here in the past couple weeks, you honestly just don't care. And it's what everybody else is wearing, so we just try to blend in...bright yellow plastic, yeah, we're Taiwanese, baby.

When this little boy grows up, he's gonna be a heartbreaker. Charlie is the smartest little kid in Kindergarten...and he's already picked up on the hip picture-taking pose.

This is Ted...the cutest little miniature Taiwanese person ever. I don't know what happened to the bottom of that picture. Huh. 

My last day of Kindergarten with Chiverny, George, and William. I had them for 2 months, and then they decided to up and switch around schedules, so I didn't get to teach them anymore. Now I have new kindergarteners at night...as for the cuteness comparison, the jury is still out on that one.

This is probably the only picture I have of the whole Berhan crew--it was Jay's birthday and I made a killer cake...so we ate and ate. From left to right, back to front: me, Jacquie, Michelle, Amy, Tanya, Michelle, Lee-Ana, Emily, Brittany, Jenn, Anna, Robin, Jay, Ginger. 

Me on Monkey Mountain in the Mist. Sounds like a good name for a movie. 

Some good quotes

It's not enough to succeed...others must fail.

You can only be young once...you can be immature forever.

There isn't a problem that can't be solved when the solution means there's shopping involved.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.

If you always do what makes you happy, at least one person is pleased.

Love people, use things, not vice versa.

Everything is OK in the end. If it's not OK, it's not the end.

Life is one dumb thing after another. Love is two dumb things after each other.

You cannot make someone love you. You can just stalk them and hope they panic and give in.

We would spend less time worrying about what others thought about us if we knew how seldom they really did.

Janalie, me, and Jay on our way up monkey mountain. We somehow ended up on the military side of the mountain with barbed wire and everything. Mike had to work his Mandarin-speaking magic and persuade the Taiwanese guard to let us through. 

Here is a picture of me and my monkey friends...this picture was taken just seconds before that one in front of me brutally attacked me. No harm done, but that's the last time I try to pet a wild Taiwanese monkey.

This was one of the many cab drivers we have had...he was all excited that we were in his cab, so he pulled out his camera from the glove compartment, and yes, took pictures of us. Three hot white chicks in your cab, what more could you ask for? He was also the cab driver that I had a FULL five-line conversation with in Chinese. I'm straight-up hardcore now. 

I caught this picture of the sunset on the back of Jay's motorcycle on our way back from church one Sunday. 

Jay...and the REAL Jay 

The lanterns at the Longshan Temple during the Lantern Festival 

Ginger, Amy, Emily, and Tanya on their scooters taking "The ChungDe" back from church in Taichung. 

The busy night streets of Taipei 

More good quotes

Life is like a mullet...kinda long, kinda short, and no one can explain its purpose.

If it's stupid, but it works, it isn't stupid.

Some mistakes are too fun to make only once.

Some day we'll look back on this, laugh nervously, and change the subject.

Most good judgments come from experience. Most experience comes from bad judgment.

A word to the wise does no good...it's the stupid people that need the help.

Talking about love is like dancing about architecture.

It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean.

There is a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot. (That's for you, dad ;)

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

I have good days, and I have tough days. On the good days I live, on the tough days I learn.

A day without sunshine is like, well, night.

Jay and I in front of the Taipei 101...the tallest building in the world--see next picture. March 2005.

Jay and I in front of the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial entrance gates in Taipei. March 5, 2005.

A view of Taipei from the tallest building in the world...conveniently in Taipei. The Taipei 101 is 508 meters tall and has 101 floors, hence the name.

A Taiwanese guard doing his choreographed changing of the guard dance at the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial in Taipei. Some of that footwork was straight-up 'NSYNC. March 5, 2005

My favorite little student, Jammy (pronounced Jamie).