around

I had a stress problem last week and, being an introvert, I desperately needed to both be productive and not have to interact with anyone while feeding myself, so I turned to my new oven for salvation. Like a boss , I marched down the street into the local grocery store and started picking things out. I had no plan, only manic desire to create my own sustenance for the night. As I began selecting ingredients I realized there were parts of my brain waking up that had gone unused for months. Decisions were made in a flash, and I was a little astonished by the number of things I was evaluating and deciding upon in seconds. Chicken? Yep, good standard, I can cook that sixty ways into next week. Vegetable, I need something--potato. Chop, cook, done. Yes. Now for a topping, because potato and chicken are bland and they'll need flavor. Campbell's cream of mushroom soup with corn. Yep, that sounds like it'll have enough flavor, plus moisture to cook the meat and potato. I got h...

This place has giant glasses of tea, giant toast with Nutella, good wireless internet, and outlets for plugging in your computer. It's about 25 minutes from my house by bus. Is this heaven?

I am slowly and luxuriously chewing a mouthful of melted cheese mixed with pasta, tomato sauce and mushrooms. After swallowing, I reach for my glass of iced green tea to wash it down. Recorded piano music is playing and people are talking casually in Chinese. The tables have the dark, striped look of wood but the solid, flat feel of plastic. The chairs are big and sturdy and coffee-brown, with the appearance and texture of faux alligator skin. I'm in Silly Boy, a restaurant near my home in Xinzhuang, Taiwan. I'm American, and I wouldn't be here if I wasn't a certain kind of person. There's no reason for me to be in Taiwan. None. Five months ago, despite the absymal state of the job market in America, I had finally secured a decent job three years after graduating college. The office environment was friendly, my coworkers were fantastic, the pay was decent, and the job itself wasn't hard if you were talkative, friendly, and hard-working, which ...

The other day, myself and the other Shane teachers, Dennis and Jason, bade a sad goodbye to two of our TAs, who are going back to school. Naturally, this called for going out and sharing epic food: BBQ. This place is very close to my home by bus. We had to make a reservation, since it was Saturday, but once we were all there and inside, it was awesome. Each little dining area was on a raised platform with space under the table for your feet, and you took off your shoes before sitting down. We had a six-person table with two grills, one for each half of the table. The grill was literally a metal bowl with live coals in it and a grate on top. For NT$500 each, we were allowed to keep ordering as much raw food as we wanted to cook: beef, pork, seafood, vegetables, etc. We were also given a soup , which sat on a little gas burner between the two grills. Everyone got a little bowl and a shallow dish filled with sauce. Once we sat down, we had two hours to eat as much as we cou...

One thing I've noticed is that there are a lot of drinks available in Taiwan. Tea, milk, drinkable yogurt, fruit juice, coffee, and many combinations of those. While out with friends this evening, we stopped at a tea stand to get drinks. Then, later, I was in the grocery store looking at all the drink options available because I was thirsty, but I didn't want to just drink water . This made me wonder if maybe the reason there are so many different liquids to drink here is because people need to consume lots of water, and drinking water all the time would be just plain boring. Think about it. How much water do you drink daily? Maybe 20oz? 40? That's at least 2 standard-sized bottles of water. What about on hot days, how much do you drink? What if it was that hot almost every day for five-odd months at a time? How much water could you really consume on a daily basis before you said, "Man, this is DULL. I wanna drink something different." I think this is in t...

The title of this post is the official stance of my CE12 students on the subject of the English language. Considering English just another class they have to take after having been at school all day, I don't blame them. Still, I don't think that's reason for them to not get something out of the experience of learning another language. The students took the test for this unit last week, and there was no official material to complete today, so I winged it. I let my students make a list of what they thought of English, and it was hilarious that they were using English to tell me they thought English was "stupid, difficult, hard, crazy, blah blah blah." I used my Mandarin dictionary/language guidebook to illustrate what Chinese literally translates to in English, so they could see the differences between how they construct sentences in their language and how the same thing is put together in English. I doubt it changed their entire perspective of English or mad...

I have a confession: I'm a bit of a view-count watcher. I've been watching the number of views my blog has gotten and it hit 1300 today. It's probably from about five people viewing it again and again, but still, I'm glad I've put up enough stuff often enough that you guys still find it interesting, so hooray!

Pictures taken nearby Taipower Station in Taiwan.