Poke out my eyes with a screwdriver

     Just another Friday night at Berhan Language School

In brief explanation of my Title, this was just one of the many quotes associated with me in this last week when after teaching for 7 hours I had to sit down and plan the next weeks lessons. This was the first full week of classes, and what a fun filled ride it was.  I don't have to work until 1:30 everyday so I enjoy  being  very lackadaisical in the mornings.  But the whole week in general was any thing but lax.  I work almost nonstop  form 1:30 to 8:50. But then after I can't speak English, it comes out in a jumbled mixture of verbs and nouns and conjunctions. 

 I have also taken to referring to my in the third person. It's almost imposable to escape it when working with the kids. But it transfers very nicely into general conversation. Such as; Jessica is hungry and wants to go to the bakery, dose any one want to come with Jessica.  Jessica has lost her ability to understand and converse with normal English speaking people, I'll be doing that talking from now on. Yes it dose sound like I have a split personality but perhaps that's just what happens to people put under stress, but one would one assume that it will only get better. But referring to my self in the third person is other issue completely, but one would assume that that too with fade.

One wonderful piece of news though came at the end classes on Friday. One of the wonderful Chinese Secretaries came into my class room and told me that since one of the other teachers bikes a wobbly wheel that they had harvested a good wheel from my bike and bought me a new one. Well, this did sound strange. Why would have they just put the new wheel on her bike. So after the classes I checked it out. I must a misunderstood her Chinglish, for there in the glow of the motion censored spot light lay a my new number 7 bike, I was so excited it think I hugged it. I have dubbed my new bike  Speeda the second.  

After the tedious movement of this week the weekend seamed not to have happened at all.  Friday night we went to a night market in Fung Yuan, where I proceed to examine all the local delicacies.  Fried chicken feet, and other misc. parts of the chicken boiled, breded, and fried and ready for consummation. There was everything that  one would ever want. It did remind me a bit of "Bedknob's and Broomsticks" were they where at Portebello Road, But perhaps a bit more well lit and less musical. Upon bypassing all the the local fare, I found some of the only food not from Taiwan, Hong Kong Waffles. Not scary in the least. So I enjoyed my semi Oriental fare.  The next day we continued are whirlwind weekend by going with our branch on a Temple Trip. 

It was wonderful. We hopped on our ultra fancy bus with curtains, reclining seats, television, and microphones for karaoke.  The two hour trip up to Taipei went on with out to much excitement.  But the ride up did remind me of Portland, everything was green and lush, it would have been like driving around in Oregon minus all the Chinese. On the way up we past the Empirical Hotel, fancy,  right behind it was where the country of Taiwan was dedicated to missionary service.  

We finally got  to the temple but before we went in we went to the visitor center. Which is set up like a stake center, it even had the basket ball court in the middle. But we made ourselves down to the distribution center.  They were playing Legacy in Mandarin, but I translated for the rest of the group as a almost have the whole movie memorized.  In the center they had a free section where you could take things that were cut of folded in someway, or that they  just feel that they shouldn't charge for. One of the items were stickers that are a red and blue houses that say, I think," No success  in the world can compensate for failure in the home."  I guess what members do with them is put them on the backs of their scooters, or  the bigger sticker on their taxis.  So picked up a few of these for most everyone, that you can have bit of Taiwan church culture too.

The Temple was wonderful and full the Spirit as always, but one of the new things was that you take your shoes off  before even entering the main part of the temple.  It reminds me of Moses  on Mt Sinai.  We were told that the only person that was allowed to keep his shoes on was President Hinkley, but one would think that he being a spiritual and respectful man would have taken off his shoes anyways. They give you plastic bags to hold your street shoes while you are in the temple, so it gives the temple a nice sound of crinkling plastic bags. Which I think you only really hear on the way in a out.

After the Temple we when to eat and window shop a Taipei 101 was is or was the tallest buildings in the world. The shopping was a amazing. Dior, Armani, Tiffany's, and every other designer label I could imagine. WOW. But the best part of the whole evening was the passion fruit ice cream that I bought with my change. Dairy is rather costly due to Taiwan being so Small and having such a large population, raising the cows is hard. And Ice cream is hard to come by  especially since it's winter, and in Taiwan your not suppose to eat cold things in the winter because its not healthy.  I imagine that particular view of health is associated with our... very sturdy health beds. But hey, I've gotten use to wakening up not able to feel one side of my body or another. 

After returning home we still had fun. I cut my roommates hair. It turned out fabulously. Hey Audrey you next!  And we did our nails while watching a movie. The only bad part of the night is when  I, wanting to see my roommates face while cutting her hair, stubbed my toe so bad that I was sure that the nail was going to fall off. It was bleeding and I was sitting on the floor crying out in pain and no one was concerned.  Yes, I am accident pron and I guess every one here is has gotten used to me hurting myself.

 Sunday was long. 45 min there and then we got on some random bus that took us a really random way back so that took even longer. But we got home safe, and refreshed to start a new week, with the children that I will grow to love, one day.