Saturday, June 09, 2012
I found my camera. I know, you didn't realize it was missing, but it was. Now that it's been found, the pictures have been secured to the computer and I can share (some of) them with you!
1. I went on this embroidery spurt. Actually, I made two of them. This one here I did not keep, but gave to my friend who had a baby boy shortly before I came home from Taiwan. Pooh is hard to get just right, I think because he's so large.
2. I had a "surprise" birthday party! There are pictures of my parents in the party hats, which I adore. However, despite what you might believe, I am not stupid, so those pictures will not be going anywhere on the internets. Come to my house, though, and we might have a different story to tell. Drawly "loved" his party hat. Can you see the look of defeat on his face? This is after 20 minutes of trying to get him to hold still while wearing the hat on his head. He kept shaking it off. Violently.
3. There was an eclipse! I'm sure you noticed. Well, at least heard about it. Mom and I drove over to the church where we would have a clear-ish view of the sun. The day before we'd purchased these special glasses so that we could actually look at the sun without doing any damage to our eyes. We got hot pink for Reasons (well, only one, really, and that was to make my dad wear pink, relatively by choice), and we were SO COOL! Dad met us out in the parking lot, and we watched the sun and the moon do their eclipse thing.
4. Finally, the parents and I recently went to Southern California for a little R&R. Actually, I don't know how much R or R we got, but we still enjoyed ourselves (speaking for myself, anyway). We took a day off from the Wonderful Lines of Disney to go to the San Diego Temple and do some family sealings. This was my first time doing sealings, and I loved it. Afterwards, we walked around the temple for a bit and I took some pictures. We were also able to get the cute sister missionaries to take a picture of all three of us together.
Labels: crafts, Drawly, Family, Friends, travel
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Once upon a time it was today, and Nica and I were coming home from church on a scooter. Sara and Christina were on another scooter (also coming home), and for a while we were basically traveling together. Then we hit this one intersection, and Nica and I sped ahead of Sara and Christina. Eventually, Sara and Christina must have taken a different turn, because suddenly they were no where in site; and, oh yeah. The scooter Nica and I were riding
died basically in the middle of an intersection, but we had enough momentum left to get us through the intersection and over to the side of the road. Sara and Christina did not pass us. Ever.
So we sat there, Nica repeatedly trying to get the scooter to turn on.
It didn't turn on.
It still didn't turn on.
I noticed a gas station on the next street corner, so we got off the scooter and started pushing it towards the gas station. The attendants there saw us coming and one of them came running over to us (at this point we were just across the way), thinking we needed more gas.
You know, despite English being a required course in schools here, it surprises me how many young people don't know a single word. They make up for their lack of knowledge in kindness, though, and it's not like I can really speak their language, either, so I can't complain.
Well, the kid tried getting our scooter to turn on. Wouldn't. He noticed that the gas meter said we still had about half a tank of gas left, so then he helped us push our scooter the rest of the way to the gas station. Then ALL the attendants came over and tried to help us. Finally, after a lot of discussion in Chinese and Nica and I just staring dumbly at the scooter not knowing what was going on, the female attended pointed to the scooter, to herself, and then to the street. "Follow you?" I asked, hoping they would understand. "Ah!! Follow you!" said a male attendant (I think the one that had first tried to help us). So she starts pushing the scooter down the street, and Nica and I trot after her for a ways. We arrived at what I am assuming is a scooter repair shop, and this short little man came and took a look at our scooter. He started unscrewing things, trying a few times to get the engine to turn over... Then he took out a part and replaced it (cost: $80NT) and tried to get the engine to turn over again. Still wouldn't work. Then he got the bright idea to actually look
in the gas tank and, oh. Guess what? No gas! The male gas attendant that had first tried to help us arrived on his scooter, words were exchanged in Chinese, he left, then came back with $20NT worth of gas in a water bottle. The engine turned over, the scooter turned on, it was glorious! A neighbor to the repair guy came over to us and was able to tell Nica and I what the trouble was. "The oil meter is not sensitive. You should get it replaced. For now, though, it is OK, only no gas." We said our thanks, then followed the gas attendants back to the gas station and had our scooter filled with gas. I told the female 谢谢 (xie xie: thank you) and she said, "Ah?" and then garbled off some Chinese to me, sounding really excited. I stared at her rather dumbly and then said,, in the most-used Chinese that I know, "Dui bu qi. Ting bu dong." (I'm sorry, I don't understand." "Ah. Ting bu dong," and she smiled, and Nica and I proceeded to follow the attendants back to the gas station. They filled our tank the rest of the way with gas, we expressed our sincere thanks once again, and made our merry way home without any more trouble.
Thing I learned from this experience:
- Always be prepared with phone numbers (check). By some stroke of genius that I can in no way attribute to myself, I had written down a bunch of Important Phone Numbers on my Berhan business card that I carry around with me at all times. Even though we didn't end up needing to call anyone, it brought me some comfort to know that we could if it became necessary.
- Never travel alone on a scooter. Or anywhere.
- People in Taiwan are basically good and will go out of their way to assist a Mei Guo Ren (an American) (this has actually been affirmed to me several times now, but never quite so obviously as with this experience).
- Prayer is powerful. Even though the miracle didn't happen in the way I expected, it still happened.
- God is great.
- You should always go to church and do everything in your power to remain worthy of the blessings that you seek after and/or ask for.
On that note, let's talk about Friday. If you haven't heard or gathered by now, I have been suffering from extremely severe insomnia for the last two months (give or take a week or two). Like, it's been really bad. I've averaged 4 hours of sleep a night (sometimes only 3 hours) and have been unable to even fall asleep for a nap. I haven't been able to get myself to fall asleep at night, and when I have fallen asleep, I've woken up to Every Little Sounds. It's ridiculous. I've never slept so poorly in my life. Recently it reached the point where I would burst into tears randomly at least once a day simply because I was so tired. My anxiety has shot through the roof, and I've had a fairly severe migraine almost every day due to lack of sleep. P.S. I have even been taking the Ambien that I brought with me, but it has done me little to no good.
Well, last week I mentioned my sleeping problem to Fenny when I was at her house. She, being the wonderful person that she is, offered to help me find a doctor and to take me to said doctor. This past Friday we were finally able to go. The doctor is a specialist, and actually a psychiatrist. He's also located right next-door to one of the supermarkets that I shop at. His English? Impeccable. Much better than Dr. Wong's (the ENT doctor that I saw back in September). We chatted for a while, Fenny occasionally clarifying somethings for him in Chinese that weren't coming across real well in English, and I came away with a week's supply of medications (Xanax, to help with the anxiety, a higher dosage of Zolpidem, and... something else that is also supposed to help me to sleep, but I don't remember the name of it right now). Fenny is going to take me back this coming Friday for an evaluation, but let me tell you. Wow. It has been so nice to sleep again! I've even taken
naps the past few days and
still have been able to fall asleep at night. Also, it only cost me $150NT for the visit, drugs included. For those of you not in the know with the conversion rate, that comes to about $4.97 USD.
I don't care what people say about national health care. Here in Taiwan? It works, and I have no complaints about it.
And... there are only 6 weeks of the semester left. That's only 24 more days of AK, 18 more days of Elementary, 6 more days of my writing class, and 5 more days of tutoring. In just 54 days, I will be home enjoying my parent's company, my mother's cooking, delicious restaurants that don't make me sick from all the MSG and onions, a room (and house) all to myself, and having my preciously adorable kitty cat following me around.
(What? Don't pretend like you didn't know a picture of my cat was coming.)
I anticipate, however, that I'll also be pining over lost friendships (or friendships with people that, really, who knows if I'll ever see them again?), never seeing my little kindergarten devils, and the kindness and generosity of people in Taiwan.
I love this country. I love the people. I love the children (most of them). Good-byes are always hard, but at least I
do have 54 more days to prolong the inevitable.
Also, hey. Fun fact: today Sara and I discovered that we had the same First Grade teacher, just two years apart. Awesome? I think yes. Note to self: when you get home, find your third grade yearbook and try to find Sara's picture.
Labels: Drawly, Family, Roommates, Taiwan, travel, work
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Dear Drawly,
See you in a week and 2 days!
Labels: Drawly
Sunday, May 17, 2009
His tail looks sad right now. Please bless his fur grows back!
Labels: animals, Drawly
Sunday, May 10, 2009
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Sunday, April 26, 2009
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Sunday, April 19, 2009
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Sunday, April 12, 2009
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Sunday, April 05, 2009
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Sunday, March 29, 2009
My, how you've grown.
Labels: animals, Drawly, Photography
Sunday, March 22, 2009
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Sunday, March 15, 2009
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Sunday, March 08, 2009
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Sunday, March 01, 2009
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Sunday, February 22, 2009
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Sunday, February 15, 2009
To show my great love and appreciation for my cat (and also as a manifestation on how much I miss him), I have decided to post a weekly picture of the Small Fry.
Sorry, bismark. I know you'll hate this. Just be glad it
isn't daily, as I had originally planned. (But the alliteration still sounds nice.)
Labels: Drawly
Thursday, December 25, 2008
I'd leave it at that, but that feels lame. Also, Christmas isn't entirely what I want to blog about right now.
I forgot to mention in my last post about California how Dad and I were at the beach on the same day (one of many same days) that it was dumping snow in Utah. And we weren't there (well, we were that night and had to dig my car out of the snow in the parking lot at the airport, but the beach did not have snow, and that is my point). Well, the tide was going out (it was quite a ways out already) and we were just walking along and I was picking up shells (I love sea shells!) and we got over to this area where there were a lot of rocks (also where the tide would completely cover) and there were this little, brown, roundish things that looked squishy. I couldn't figure out what they were (some of them were actually not that little: fist sized), so I poked it with one of the sea shells in my hand and it went "shlurp!" Whoa. Cool, right? So I poked it again, just to be sure, and it went "shlurp!" again!!! So I yelled to Dad, "Dad! It's alive! Come look!" Dad came over, and I pointed to it, and told him it shlurpped, so Dad poked it and it shlurrped right into the sand! Yes, I was very excited about this and still kind of am. Also, I want to go back to poke it again because it was all so very interesting (and I want more sea shells, but I need better attire for that). Good thing the beach will only be 20 minutes-ish away from where I am moving to!
In other news, Christmas was nice and quiet today, for the most part. Granted, Drawly woke me up at 6 being not angelic, and then he started pulling clothes out of my suitcase, and then he started being even more not angelic and crying at my door, so finally we got up at 7 (plus Dad was up by then and we usually get up at 7 on Christmas, anyway), but not to worry. I took a nice 2 hour nap around 11. Blessing.
The Sister got 5 Stitch pins (2 from me that Dad and I found this past week and 3 from Mom and Dad), some Wizard of Oz games, and a new HDTV. She was well pleased, I think, and actually seemed to like my gift this year (I try so hard every year but seem to fall short). Probably she got other things, too, but my memory is a little lax on that. Meanwhiles, I got a tripod (yea! Now I can take pictures in the darker times of day!), a GPS (also yea! Now I won't get lost in California with not-grid-system roads!), and
my Book that I fell in love with (slightly different edition, maybe just different printing company, but still old and not as falling apart and it's wonderful. I love old books!), and a pretty tennis bracelet, and Hello Panda cookies (I love these things so much), and Disney games, and other fun things. Also, My Rochelle gave me some really cute Hoops and Yoyo things, and some of them talk! I heart
Hoops and Yoyo. (I was going to add an audio clip to this post, but I don't know how. Sad heart.)
There was also the inviting of a guy from Mom and Dad's ward over for dinner. He had no where to go, so he got to come spend a few hours in my crazy house. And Dad, Sister, and him played the wii. He is an awesome person, from what I gather, and it was fun to share our family Christmas with someone this year.
Labels: Christmas, Drawly, Family, Holiday, travel
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
You'll have to excuse the poor quality as I took these on my phone (only camera available in a hurry), but, man. Have you seen a cuter/funnier cat? I think not.
Labels: Drawly
His tail looks sad right now. Please bless his fur grows back!
To show my great love and appreciation for my cat (and also as a manifestation on how much I miss him), I have decided to post a weekly picture of the Small Fry.
