Another Week Another Typhoon

So Taiwan was hit by yet another typhoon this weekend. It actually felt bigger than the last one. Needless to say I didn't do a whole lot this weekend. I did get to catch up on my movie watching. I made it though: The Snow Angel (good but depressing), The Stone Angel (kinda dull but some parts were good), Graduation (eh), Meet Bill (quite good) and Superbad (not quite as bad as I was expecting but not overly good). I also watched the first 3 episodes of a new tv show called Fringe which was well impressive. It's being pegged as a new X-files...you know before it started sucking. The lead woman is an Aussie.

So yeah the week kinda flew by which I guess is good. Sunday was Teacher's Day here, dunno what that really means except that some of my students wrote me little notes etc which was sweet.

Because I spend so much time in the office doing basically nothing I have lots of time to chat with students outside of class. Sometimes we listen to music, sometimes I help them with homework other times we just play games. Two students in particular I spend a lot of time with. One is Sophia, she's in my Oral GEPT class and is one of the smartest and most dedicated students I have. We were discussing her schedule the other day and quite frankly I could never do it. Sometimes they stay at school til like 9.30 at night after starting at 9 in the morning or 8 or something stupid like that.

I will never understand the huge push for education that goes on here. Education is important but it isn't the end all and be all. Teachers like to give homework and tests here as well. A good memory is a prerequisite in all kids here it seems. I would have so failed if I was a student here.

The other student is Winston, he's basically my main source for learning Chinese here. He says I'm a bad student and it's totally true, I always forget the words he tells me. But then he isn't a saint of a student either, he reminds me a lot of myself as a student.

I got taken to a really nice Italian cafe last week. The pasta was the best I've had here. I just wish I weren't allergic to some of the seafood here because it is so stupidly fresh and cheap here. Although they serve mussel like things with green shells which seemed odd to me. After some experimentation I think I'm actually slightly allergic to the prawns here which I don't undersand cause I don't have that issue in Australia. It's quite depressing as I've become quite fond of prawns. Now I only eat seafood when I know I don't have to teach for at least a day that way if I do have an allergic reaction I have a day to get over it.

The weather seems to have calmed down slightly for the time being but it's still raining and slightly windy. The water comes in through the window a bit, I've got towels wrapped up next to the window sill soaking up as much of the wetness as possible. I considered moving the laptop far away from the window but I really dunno where to move it so for now it stays and I just hope the window doesn't break or something and let all the water in.

I managed to do my washing again this weekend. It's becoming a tradition to do my washing in a typhoon. I even bought more coat hangers so now there are no clothes in my suitcase and the only clothes laying around the place are drying after being dragged from the washing machine. I'm quite impressed. Yet it still looks kinda messy here. Eh, it's my weekend.