Treats, Typhoon Evasion and...trouble spelling "mileage". ("Milage"?)

I'd just like to start by saying that getting a package with Halloween treats in it makes a bad day about 90% better. Thanks Xiao Gu Gu. :)

Well, we avoided another typhoon this weekend. We seem to be really good at that- since we've been here, we haven't been in the actual path of a typhoon. The last one went south to the Philippines, and this one turned north toward Japan.

So, instead of rain and wind today, we had some really nice weather. There was sun and even (whoa!) blue sky. It felt exactly like Michigan in June. In October. This is when Taiwan weather starts to get nice, apparently.

With the weather this nice, we needed to get outside, so we went to this park in Luodong (the next city over from Yilan) to climb a mountain. It took about an hour and a half, but the view from the top was great. You could see almost the whole county all the way to the ocean.

But honestly, that's all I have. No particularly interesting stories. I had a...philosophical discussion with the Dean of Students on Thursday, Evan's a little sick, and I started larnin' to play the gitfiddle. I'll try to have a more interesting day tomorrow. :)

[Milage: 35 miles this week. Let's not tell Murray about this week, huh?]

Computer crises, classmates, and Confucius

So, in the past week, I've lost half my computer screen (and of course it's on the side where all the important things are) and my left and right arrow keys, which is just annoying enough to frustrate me, but not annoying enough to justify whining.

I might actually be getting more used to school here. I'm not saying I'm having a wonderful time, but I know most of my classmates now (and even some of their names!). Most of them are really helpful (they help me pick what I'm going to order for lunch and explain what the teachers are talking about) and they're probably the reason I'm surviving school.

Which reminds me.

I'm sick of Confucius.

Not that I've ever personally met him, but I'm really tired of this old-school Chinese teacher-student interaction that's still ingrained into the schools here where the students are expected to shut up and be grateful to the teacher for sharing his wisdom. And, mostly because there's a statue of him in the library and his birthday is Chinese Teacher's Day, I blame Confucius. Damn it Confucius.

I'm going to try to write short blog entry every day right after school, so if I miss a few days, remind me. (Facebook or email or Skype or...hell, if you want to send me a letter, that would be nice too.)

[By the way, milage so far is: about 200 miles from August to now (yes, I know it's embarrassing...I'll bring that up), and 20 miles so far this week, not including today.]

It's been a while...

I've discovered just how lazy I am when I decided to do this blog. I don't know what to write here...a lot of the ETA's (the English teachers who came over for the Fulbright program) can actually write blogs. I don't get it.
Well I have ten minutes to get back to class before it starts, so I should probably start thinking about walking out the door, but I just wanted to post something here. To let everyone know I'm still alive.
More later. If I'm not too lazy.
Psh. Yeah right.