Birthdays

There happened to be about 5 billion birthday celebrations in October and actually November too! Here are some pics and comments on a few of them!


On October 22nd we celebrated my roommate Katrina's 25th birthday, or her 'quarter life crisis' as she fondly called it :) About 25 of us went to a really good Italian restaurant on a Wednesday night. Afterwards we went next store to the local sketchy bar/club where every Wednesday from 10pm - 12am is SALSA NIGHT!! It was a blast.


On Oct 24 we celebrated Augusto's birthday ...
latino style!
Saturday November 8th we celebrated Andrea, Laura, Ramiro and Damian's birthdays at a Mexican Restaurant in Jhong li. We had great food, drink and music the whole night! It was also a special occasion because my roommates and I were all together for the first time in awhile (Katrina, Patrick and I) :)

New edition to my family!

Some of you might know that I recently welcomed a new edition to my family! Isn't she a beaut!


Panda, Brad and Patrick, master bike people, graciously agreed to help me pick her out and bring her home safely :)


I got a great price for her due to us unknowingly bargaining ... it mostly had to do with Panda and Patrick talking about the bike in English thinking that they couldn't understand, when they did and then drove down the price :)


Since I bought her oh so long ago (I'd say at the end of September-ish) ... I have an exciting update ... I still drive her to and from school and a bit on the weekend. We've developed a strong bond! :)

Wednesdays

I'm sure I have never really explained my school schedule. It's pretty cool. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Fridays are block scheduling. The students take eight classes, so we see them twice a week for class. One of our distinctive features is Wednesday. We have Choice period (8 - 9:15 am) where students choose what they want to study, plan the whole class themselves and also plan how they will be measured on how well they reach their goals of the class. We then have Academic Time (9:30 - 11:40am) where teachers can sign up to have a class for more time. For example, in Language Arts 8 we are doing a Spoken Word poetry project. We sign up to have the class on a Wed too (on top of regularly scheduled class time) so that we have more time for the project. Then, after lunch we have Activity Period. The past three months we have been alternating community service and wellness activities (like rock climbing, swimming ...). I've been involved with the Animal Shelter community service project.



Every other week I go with some Institute II students (9th and 10th graders) to an animal shelter about 20 minutes away from school. The first time was absolutely chaotic and wonderful. We walked into a loud and smelly room full of caged dogs and were told to grab one and spend the next three hours walking them around (there is a beautiful beach close by). So we did :)
It was a really hot day and after a bit the puppies (and humans) got tired and decided to take a break.

Art Opening in Taipei

Wow, it's been awhile since I have updated my blog! So ... fasten your seat belt, get ready for all the awesome updates!
September 19th a bunch of my colleagues and I went to an Art Opening in Taipei. One of the parents at school gave us tickets to go and be apart of it. The exhibit was at the National Museum of History, which is absolutely exquisite (see picture above!). The opening was magnificent, there were many people, lots of free food and drink and entertainment. The entertainment was culturally a bit confusing for us because the full band played songs ranging from 'Memories' to crazy disco. But hey, it was nice to get to soak it all in with my colleagues.

The artist of the new exhibit was Chu Teh-Chun, a well-known contemporary Chinese artist who did much of his training in France. The exhibit was called, "88 Retrospective." Guess how old he is?!? I really enjoyed his work, especially the colors.