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I apologize for the little delay, but at least I bring you an accounting of my antics.

Saturday night featured hanging-out at Ximen by me, Anna, Greg & Katy. We ran into Laura, Noemie & Lisa, with whom Anna ditched, and then we went clothes-shopping. I didn't buy anything--I still have my original clothes from when I came except 2 free tie clips from Rotary & 2 free shoes, also from Rotary. When Katy went shoe shopping Greg & I played pool because, one or maybe two pairs of shoes is fine. Pool was good, Gregg won 2 of 3 at eight-ball, but I won the game of nine-ball. I like pool.

At the end we saw my old Chinese teacher, and he gave us people-shaped things made of balloons. We had to hand them off to random girls as we were leaving though. I'll see if I can get hold of a picture of that.

Sunday morning I was awoken by a voice speaking English. It turns out Scott's mom was hanging out with the Zhangs because her glasses were broken & in the repair shop. Later I met up with them at CKS.

For once the Memorial Hall was actually open, so we got to see the big, badass statue of the former President himself. It looks kind of like the Lincoln Memorial, except he is smiling & wearing a robe, with no hat. Inside there is an art gallery, a memorial library and lots of cool stuff. There were exhibits with Chiang Kai-Shek's cars, uniforms, books, writings, and all sorts of neat pictures from the early days of the Republic. He had a gigantic bilingual world map bigger than the wall of my bedroom (much more than 10 feet high). It was really cool, and I totally dug the 50s decor.

Later we went to the National History Museum. This involved walking, which involved getting wet feet. We noticed that around the current President's residence the barbed wire barriers have been replaced by a smooth 10+ft concrete wall. Well-dressed guards (secret service agents?) with umbrellas are placed at regular intervals. We wanted to ask one for directions to the museum, but he wasn't allowed to talk. At the museum, we mainly checked out their special exhibit on some area of China... like Duangzhou or something. I forget. Anyway, it is like a mega cultural heritage place because back in the day when Buddhist grottoes & caves were the big thing, over 50,000 pieces of art, frescoes, religious writings (incl. sutras) and historical records got stored away.

Of course, some French sinologist ganked about 7,000 prime pieces for some French museums (gotta visit someday) and other countries took at least 6,000 more, so they didn't have that much good stuff. Some was reproductions, and I'll admit stuff like wall frescoes are near-impossible to move around. There were good reproduction classical instruments though. The National Palace Museum is better in the way of having the real prime pieces (bless that tricky KMT government for 'relocating' them all to Taiwan).

Evening we had Subway & tangyuan (little balls, mine had sesame inside, in a hot soup, mine being sweet red bean) for dinner while watching Lord of the Rings on tv. The next morning they left so that ends the saga of "hanging out with Scott's parents."

Monday and Tuesday were pretty regular days. I got one of my classmates to teach me a bit of Taiwanese so I could try to understand the lyrics to a really famous song we are singing. Also in music class on Monday, Kenta & I shared a laugh at some lyrics... our class has to sing at the graduation ceremony for the 3rd-years, and of course they are sappy sentimental songs. We took semantic exception to the line "bravely shedding tears" (or "bravely crying"). But Ms. Liu & some classmates insisted that it's ok to say that in Chinese. What about you guys, do you think it's ok to say that you are "bravely crying" in English?

Today Scott & I went to Tiffany's school for our presentation. We got there around 11, and proceeded to talk/peruse their English textbooks while our lunch boxes heated in the machine. We started around 12:45 and finished near 1:45... it was pretty crappy overall. The room was apparently so nice that everyone had to take shoes off before entering, though it was just a lecture room. One unexpected problem: the students had remarkably terrible English.

At the start Tiffany had told us we weren't allowed to speak any Chinese & in fact to pretend we could only speak English. Unfortunately this was not working as they basically understood nothing of Scott's basic introduction & extolling of the glories of Texas. I had an idea though... Tiffany & the other teacher were going to start translating, but I am like "wtf, let's just do it ourselves." So while Scott spoke I would go after line-by-line or paragrah-by-paragraph. I got hung up on "pride" (there are 2 ways to say it, but one is the same word as for "arrogance") & "rodeo." Honestly, when do I ever talk about rodeos in Chinese? Later, Scott returned the favour for me.

We even met a kid (grade 9) that was taller than us. He was the banzhang (班長 class leader) of one of the classes. The teachers overall thought it was really good, and another teacher wanted us to come back another time, I think. Tiffany was really hung up on "safety" or some such with the classic "pay attention to safety" caveat spouted by Taiwanese people everywhere. She said she wanted to protect us, but from what I'm not sure. I've found Taiwan to be pretty darn safe, with the most dangerous thing just crossing a street. I don't know what she expected to protect us from, as she can't weigh much more than 110 lbs & is no master of any crazy martial arts.

Afterwards Scott & I went to Gongguan & played pool waiting for Flora to come hang out with us. She took a long time & we racked up about 2 hours 35 minutes of pool, with some close games and some total domination where Scott or I would clear half the balls & sink the 8-ball with the opponent having only 1 ball in the pocket. I was up 5 balls on Scott when Flora finally arrived, but in a stroke of mad skillz he caught up with a series of consecutive beautiful shots. I managed to win in the end in a battle to pocket the 8-ball. good times

Dinner at Subway was followed by a retreat to Starbucks to play with Scott's card games. We played a few different ones (all are pretty r0x0r) and eventually it was 9:30ish and time for Scott to make the long trek back to Su Jia in Donghu. Flora suggusted that because I am hilarious/fun she will try to hook me up with one of her hot university classmates. While I can't fathom her reasons for going to school in the summer (studying Russian) I welcome any potential developments this might bring. Fingers crossed.

Tomorrow I hope to attend a Rotary meeting, then watch some Smallville with Scott. Then there is a bunch of Rotary stuff on the weekend. Now I present for your viewing pleasure, some recent keyword searches which brought people to my site:

• "body crumbles"
• "pictures of person with lots of post"
• "what two things does continental drift propose"
• "taiwan dollars"
• "places to eat in taipei, gongguan"
• "wonder drift"
• "what makes people happy"
• "MEXICAN DESSERT PCITURES"

Once again I would remind you to, if you feel the urge to leave a comment and have an opinion, give your take on the concept of "bravely crying" or "bravely shedding tears." Rock on