Friday December 14th, 2012

View from my balcony

7:15am — wake up.  7:30am  — drag myself into the shower.  7:50am — eat breakfast while checking email and Facebook.  Take the image shown here with my iPad.  8:20am — leave the house.  8:55am — arrive at school.  9:05am — short of breath after walking up hundreds of steps to reach my classroom.  9:10am — sit through a three-hour 'techniques of video shooting' class without actual cameras, lights or computers but a classroom where a professor draws various boxes on a whiteboard with a marker that lacks ink.  12:20pm — Chinese proficiency exam.  Totally aced it.  Note: basic level.  1:30pm — head back to my neck of the woods.  2:30pm — An hour and a half Chinese class at Dante's coffee shop where I finally grab lunch and a coffee.  Sweet, sweet coffee.  4:30pm — teach a grade three class for two hours.  7:00pm — start a new private class with two young students who speak near perfect English and really want to learn.  Nice.  9:15pm — decide that now is a good time to get some errands done.  Stop at the "everything store" for three items and walk out with seven.  9:30pm — stop at the "bag store" as the strap on my bag is sadly being held together with a butterfly clip, and admittedly has been for months.  The lady remembers me and, as always, compliments me on my Chinese.  I like that.  After quickly replacing a broken piece on my year-old backpack, she refuses to take any money.  I love Taiwan.  9:45pm — finally home and exhausted and still have yet to eat dinner.  My desktop contains dozens of icons that stare back at me, reminding me of pressing homework that should be done, however, here I am typing this blog.  Three more weeks of classes, one week of exams and then Hawaii.  Bring it.