overwhelmed!

It seems as if I keep stumbling across all of these really great songs lately. I am not complaining, of course, but how is a girl meant to keep up? Seriously!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKXujEphWS8

(the real video is something else, but's it's not PG... so, just playin' it safe!)

a first...

I got to experience my very first "American" Thanksgiving, and what better place to do so than in Taiwan! Now that the week-end is over and the eating has come to a hault, I can say that my first American Thanksgiving was very similar to the Canadian Thanksgivings that I have celebrated in the past.

On a related note, at the second Thanksgiving meal that I attended, we were asked to write something that we were thankful for. I decided to take a less serious route and write: "I am thankful to be swine-flu free, naturally". H1N1 is all of the rage in Taiwan right now, which is also why earlier in the day we were forced to wear these masks as we volunteered at an event with our school. They are just not fun to wear in any way (but we certainly did a good job faking it for a picture!).

the long way round.

I am so thankful to have remembered my sister telling me about this documentary. It has taken over my life-- for the time being, and I have no complaints or regrets. I could watch these two guys travel around the world on their motorcyles all day/night long (it's sort of what I have been doing, actually!). I am quite envious of their friendship, their adventures, but hope that one day I will find that perfect travel mate to also travel around the world with (maybe not on a motorcycle, maybe so?).

If you can, watch Long Way Round (the first trip, where the two lads travel from London, England to New York in about 3 months). Then, you could always get into Long Way Down (their second trip, that takes them from Scotland to Cape Town).

In a nutshell, their journeys are truly inspirational and "real". I won't waste time writing because there are certainly no words to express how I feel about the whole thing. But, I will say, what a world we live in!

Watch this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk_Qkz_5ti8&feature=related

just try!

This song is so contagious. Just try to dislike it... impossible!
(thanks for coming through again, Trent!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyU7udQhBr8

how to name your kids... the asian way.

While outside on recess duty today, a little girl introduced herself to me. I have been in Asia long enough to know that kids' names can be interesting from time to time. I had a boy named Rock, in Korea, and now a  girl named 'Tree', in Taiwan. I said, "Tree?", and the little girl pointed to a near by tree. I thought "right...". She said there was one difference between her name and the tree she was pointing at and that was, HER name was spelled with a capital letter 'T'... to which I replied "of course it is, because that's your name!" (I could have gotten into a whole lesson about proper nouns at this point, but held back! It was recess after all).

Although my intrigue began in Korea with 'Rock', this incident has made me wonder how on earth do parents come up with names for their kids in this part of the world? I am going to go ahead and say, some parents must have their child, look out a window and name it after the first inanimate object that they see. There is just no other explanation (of the logical sort), in my opinion!

dig these dudes.

http://www.mtvu.com/video/?vid=454602

some funny things...

I went out looking for boots tonight and some funny things happened before and after the actual shopping commenced. First, I know that in one of my posts from way, way back, I mentioned that garbage trucks in Hsinchu blare Beethoven from them as they drive through the streets. I have since found out that this is not to make the streets sound more "classy", or to make the duty of collecting garbage seem more luxurious. Nope, these trucks play this familiar song so that people can hear it from miles away and prepare their garbage for pick up. A pretty hilarious/ingenious concept in itself, right?

Well, tonight I got to witness a really great garbage truck moment (how often does one get to say this?). I was waiting outside of the store and I hear "the song". I see a scooter pull up swiftly to the curb beside me. I think "this woman (or man?) means business!". S/he hauls this oversized, clear bag of garbage off of their scooter and onto the road. The song is getting closer. The person goes away for a few seconds, and returns to JUST get the tail end (most important) part of the truck. The truck does not slow down, maybe it gets even faster around the corner? This person literally tries to throw the giant bag of  trash on the back of this speeding Beethoven-mobile, only to miss it... by a tiny bit. So close.. but yet so far! ha. They don't give up though, they keep chasing after the truck and picking up the bag with every miss! It takes a few more tries until the bag is safely in the back of the garbage truck. Success! Garbage disposal is not an easy task around here, but if you're looking for a challenge... wait to hear that Beethoven!

Shopping is over with. I found some boots and I am on my way home. I find a taxi and a young driver greets me as I hop in. I hand over the card that has my address on it. He looks at it, pulls his car off to the side of the road and calls somebody, apologizing to me and saying "wait". I say "okay!". It takes about 5 minutes for the guy to sort out where I live and even still, I don't feel like I've gotten myself into the most promising of situations, but adventures can be fun! He apologizes again and tries to explain to me that it is his first night on the job (of course it is!). I laugh as I try to piece together any recognizable fragments of the english language coming out of his mouth. He is trying so hard, it is actually pretty sweet! He tells me that I look young, and from this point I don't really care if we get lost-- I like this guy! We talk about English music because he has a sweet pop mix on. It's playing some of my favourites: Nelly, Akon, Gwen Stefani and Beyonce. Cab drivers are so funny here: "ohhh white girl... she must like shitty pop music! yeeeah, I'll put that mix on repeat!". The ride is entertaining as we try to teach each other some basic English/Chinese. He is much better at learning than I appear to be! At one point, he asks me "is this the right road?". Thankfully, I know the area a bit now and know that we are on the right track! We get there safely and I pay my $175NT. I tell him to 'have a good night!' and he happily repeats it after me with a big smile of satisfaction on his face.

... I love this place.

a gem.

No beating around the bush this time. Just another great Canadian artist, covering a fantastic song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2dJ1ZoTCKk

a lot of talkin'

I am proud to say (sort of), that this morning was the first morning since being in Taiwan that I was able to see the sunrise (I should point out that this was not done intentionally, nor was it because I was so incredibly ambitious and motivated to wake up at 6am to see such a sight!).

Despite feeling totally consumed while I dragged myself out of the taxi at 5am, it felt good knowing I wasn't alone and that it had been a pretty good evening. After a really great dinner and some more bowling (probably 2 rounds more than we should have been allowed to play), the three canucks and our Texan friend decided to go to the only familiar place in Hsinchu (sort of like 'Cheers', except not half as cool).

We drank and talked, but mostly talked. In the midst of all of this conversation, I was able to have a pretty solid chat about music with my friend, Tommy. We got talking about how each generation has had its' innovators-- each generation before us has had a new and refreshing approach to making music. There was always someone, some band, challenging what was popular or familiar; reinventing. So, how would our generation be remembered? What singular bands would define us? 10, 20, 30 years from now? We sort of left the conversation with a question mark at the end of it. What we ultimately concluded is that a lot of today's music is "recycled", or bi-products of the past. Maybe this is good? Bad? Maybe we're on to something? Who's to say, really.

I really just wanted to have a reason for putting this video/song/band on my blog. I am trying to substantiate my pop culture rants, somehow, with stories from my travels. Sneaky, I know.

One of the best Canadian bands around!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CE5rQd5D14&NR=1

too cute!

Sometimes, my students are just way too darned cute. Today, I was working with one of my students while the other two boys worked on a writing assignment. They weren't meant to be working together, but one of the boys really understood when I said I'd be busy working with the other student, so he took it upon himself to help out. I noticed what was going on out of the corner of my eye and had to smile. One of my boys was making sure that the other was skipping every line in his notebook, even helping to erase and start a new. He also suggested to the boy (who had been sick all last week), that he should really stop "working" and take a drink of water, which he did so obediently.

If you're reading this, you may be wondering 'why on earth is she taking time to write about such uneventful things!'. To those people, I should readdress my main reason for being in Taiwan in the first place (despite the fact that most of my blog has been devoted to pop culture ramblings and week-end fun updates!). I am a teacher and I love teaching. Some days are better than others and with each day that seems to be complete shit, you just have to nut up (to put it eloquently), and realize that no one is perfect, especially first year teachers. Other days are gems and you have to take these days and really save 'em up in your memory for a later, and bound-to-happen shit day, if you will. Today was a gem, which is why I had to write.

Currently listening to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A7OruAFESw (way, way, way too catchy!).

Sidenote: Not sure what I think of the album, as a whole, quite yet--but this song is a-okay. If nothing else, a good one to dance around in your living room to! (that never happens in our apartment... never!). ha.

30 degrees? in November?

This past week-end, it hit me (as it does from time to time), that I am not living in Canada anymore BUT in subtropical, beautiful Taiwan. We guessed it was about 25 degrees, but soon found out from a neon sign that it was, in fact, 30 degrees. Wild. It IS November, right?

This week-end was fabulous because:

a) Beth and I drank wine, talked about life and watched a Justin Timberlake DVD.

b) Beth and I, later, met some really nice Germans!

c) I found my way home (by myself!), maybe for the first time? Yes, Miss Independent. ha.

d) Austin took me on his scooter and I shopped on my
own for the first time! I think I did pretty well, but certainly realized the value of having company around while shopping. I also realized I don't want to die here, so I will continue to take rides with Austin. Being the passenger is too much fun anyway!

e) We went bowling! And in Taiwan, as opposed to Korea, you can have a few drinks while playing (the 2 should almost always go hand in hand, in my opinion!). I got a few strikes, too! So, overall a really fun night.

f) We spent the day today, in a little town by the coast called Danshui. We took some free shuttle buses, some trains, some more buses and another train to get there. It was sunny all day and we were by the water, for a change, so it was wonderful!

....only 5 more days until next week-end.

halloween in hsinchu!

Now that Halloween is over for another year, I can look at my costume, and the evening, in retrospect and try to figure out "would I be a robot again?". The answer would be, yes. BUT, although it was a pretty sweet costume and for about 10 minutes at the party we went to we were treated like celebrities, I would say, being in a box made it sort of difficult to do the things you take for granted on a daily basis.

It seemed as though no matter how big I cut my arm holes, it was still quite difficult to drink/eat, take pictures, bend down and most importantly, be self aware of your size and shape. Although this had its' perks, too. You could run into people (by accident, of course!), and they just simply could not be angry with you when they looked over to see a robot. Who gets mad at robots? No one.

Having to scrub silver paint off of my body the next day, and finding bruises and scrapes on the left side of my body would indicate to me that it was a successful evening. It was good we went home when we did, though!
Thank you, Beth. Good decision!