*Birthday Alert* Today is My Birthday

my little sister in the u.s. wrote me on msn:
"tina =) says: byeee have a great birthday in your favorite country! love you"
how sweet! (she reads my blog so she'll probably see this). hi mei! here is her picture - (LOL Tina...now everyone's going to know what you look like):





on an unrelated note, i watched a movie on crunchyroll.com (check it out - it's awesome!) the other day called "letter from an unknown woman" directed by xu jinglei, an adaptation of another foreign film...really good movie, though i can see why some wouldn't think so. but, i love asian/chinese films, so i loved it. i especially like the narration...very poetic. it wasn't in plain chinese, because it was a woman writing a love letter at the end of her life to a guy she had had relations with (lol, Clinton) but the guy never remembered who she was, but she had liked him from when she was young until death. so romantic. *hand on forehead and sigh*


一个陌生女人的来信

A verse I just read that comforted me:

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

- Philippians 4:6-7

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i got called in for an interview at this private english school and taught for 2 hours, 1 hour teaching composition, the other grading the compositions. afterwards, the teacher watching me said it was very good. then asked if i have an ARC and i said no. then she said i'm coming back monday morning to interview with the principal. this is more tiring than applying for big companies in the u.s., gosh darnit.

funny thing...i was grading their compositions, and it was about going to the store or something. at least 2-3 mentioned "it was on sale so my mom said i could buy it", or something to that degree. lol, you'll only see this kind of writing with chinese kids. i've never taught kids in the u.s., but it's just funny to see the way chinese are with money and how they teach their kids. "you can only buy it if it's on sale..." lol.

on the blue 5 going up the mountain today...i was STANDING, along with like 4 or 5 other people. i was holding on for my life, and some of the other people almost slid to the front at this one sharp curve. i head shoes screeching. haha.

/edit/

so my ex-boyfriend's good friend is also here in taiwan. he asked me how the job search was going, and i said good and told him the above. we talked about pay rate, etc. then i said, "all this talk about money is making me feel like....it's important to me", and he goes "it's not?" (lol..here's my IN!) and i go, "i need it, but i know God will provide", and he goes "God will provide? i don't feel provided at all. living under financial stress is hell", and i go, "i worry too, but i just know he'll provide. i prayed about this." and then i proceeded to tell him why i'm here and that teaching english is just something to sustain me. i told him i'm mostly glad i found a small group here at a good church. and i go, "i know you don't understand....", and he goes, "i wish i did." heh heh heh. gotcha.

i don't know if he has my blog address, but just in case...hi marco ma! you're my testimony. =) this will encourage a lot of people, i hope!

some random thoughts...

- i was riding the infamous blue 5 (yea, even you know what this is by now) up a mountain (where i now live) and the blue 5 is like a mini bus...but it's still a bus. the road is very narrow on the mountain and he was driving like he was in the fast and the furious III. there were about a billion chances to for him to "oops....oh well" and hit & run but he didn't hit anything. i was scared for my life.

- chinese relatives are HORRIBLE!!! they say "eat, eat...you're not giving me face! if you don't, you're not showing sincerity!" and i'm like, what does that have to do with anything? so instead of hoping to naturally lose weight in taiwan from all the walking, i think i've actually gained weight. and a lot of people in taiwan smoke so i'm eating at the same time inhaling second-hand smoke. if i don't die because i'm obese, i'll die from lung cancer.

- so im not that good at meeting strangers, esp old creepy men distant relatives. tonight there was this one creepy relative that kept staring at me. i moved to the living room and he would occasionally glance over. gosh what a creeper! i left and came back to this apt...thank goodness. i'd rather ride the blue 5 and get into an accident than have him stare at me like a creeper.

- this is the website of the church i'm attending now. it's the mother church of a small, Chinese home church in Houston. there are also divisions in san jose, cali. http://www.llc.org.tw/llcpage/. it's all in chinese, unfortunately.

- so God has really blessed me, because im in a small group with people that all have been abroad to study. we're doing the bible study in chinese, but at least they can understand me when i speak english. this is awesome cuz i get to improve my biblical chinese. woot. which is exactly what i'm looking for!

Pure Cuteness

Here is "Do Do", which means little dot or pea or something!






This is "Do Do" and "Xuan Xuan" (the little girl) mommy. She married from China to Taiwan, and she's only 24 - barely a year older than me! Her and her husband met through a friend of a friend's, I think, and I'm always surprised at how good she is at being a mommy.



This is a stand from the early-morning, traditional food market. My aunt said this meat was slaughtered yesterday - GROSS!







This is the stand (another one - lol) where we ate our breakfast. Yummy. The owner of the stand's daughter went to Columbia University!



More food!

I'm going a concert/sermon thing on Saturday with a small group I haven't met yet, lol. The person speaking is Rev. Franklin Graham and the performers are Vanness Wu, David Tao, and two other female singers I don't know, but I think they're pretty popular. This is a Christian event, so they brought Christian celebrities....Vanness Wu and David Tao are Christian, from what I've heard. Cool, huh?

jaywalking is normal in taiwan

and if you don't do it, people think you're stupid for waiting....just a little factoid.

so, today i moved to another location. this very convenient location that i'd been living in was remodeled and the relatives kicked out, so i can't live there either. anyway, i moved further up the street and up a mountain. oh yes, you heard me right, up a mountain. only one bus gets there - the familiar Blue 5, and it doesn't come to my door, but at the bottom of the mountain. L.O.L. i have to walk up the freaking mountain. the grocery store is also at the bottom of the mountain. ha-ha. are you kidding me? i'm living with my cousin...who i hear is very dirty. she works at night so she's not there most of the time. that means...partaaay. jk. it just means more privacy...a little more than i'd like, so i'll probably be having people over.

anyway, as my aunt and uncle were cleaning, i had a thought. the other day, i was reading lord, only you can change me by kay arthur and it talked about meekness and sovereighnty (sp?). it means knowing that God is in control and he can take any situation and bring glory to Himself. this is also a good learning experience when i do missions in china in the future. i'm sure china is far worse...at least i have a/c. the kind of cleaning you do here is different than the kind you do in the u.s. the houses in the u.s. have nice floors and nice kitchens, etc. so cleaning is not so bad. this kind of cleaning is pretty gross, because the kitchen floor has a little gutter (lol) so when you clean, you pretty much scrub the floor and pour water over the floor. i felt like puking when i saw my aunt clean the bathroom and kitchen. for regular water, i have to bowl it, wait for it to cool, then pour into a container. omg. im used to using electric water boiler (i forgot the technical term). i live on the fifth floor and there's no elevator. hahahaha. im sure many places i will go on missions to will have far worse conditions and i may have to do a little cleaning. good practice - for when i have a family and for missions.

an aside: there's a mousepad with a big, pink pig on the front that says, "hi, i am puki". LOL. you need to pronounce it "puky" instead of "pooki". my cousin who lives in chile and has lived in this apt cracked up when i told her. she said the same thing when she was here. lol. she's coming january - woohoo! never been in taiwan the same time as her. should be fun.

man, there were many funny things that happened today, but i forgot to write it down, and forgot them! too many things happen in one day.

my uncle came today (my dad's younger brother and the chilean cousin's dad) and the first thing he said to me was, "woah....oh, and don't hunch your back." lol. thanks. i knew it.

i haven't had my milk tea today. i feel like i'm missing something...this has become an addiction.

i'm a little behind....

so, i didn't write in my blog yesterday, so this is what happened yesterday as well as today. not all of it, just the more interesting parts. i went to a bookstore called Page One in Taipei 101 yesterday and just roamed around by myself. i asked the guy at the counter for the section with the pamphlets with things to do in Taiwan, etc. i didn't know how to say "pamphlet" so said the version I used in Chinese class, which is the version that people in China use "ce4 zi" and the girl gave me a confused look. so, i said pamphlet in English and the guy next to her started speaking in English with a face that seemed to say, "please, who cares if you can speak English, so can I", no smile. so, some people in Taiwan thinks it's so cool you can speak English and there are some that think ABC's (American Born Chinese) are all stuck up, which is true sometimes if you look at some of them behave here. but, what the heck am i supposed to do?! it's my native language! but then again, maybe i'm thinking too much. on the other hand, there's so much Asian literature here that bookstores in the U.S. don't have!!

then i met up a friend i met last time i was here at Xi Men Ding. it's a really cool shopping area but filled with high-schoolers, tattooed people, emos (sorry that's not the correct term, but u get mah drift), etc. i met her at a restaurant called "the tricycle restaurant"...don't ask me why! i didn't name the restaurant. i went there a year and a half ago once before i left for the u.s. and they had the BEST milk tea i had ever tasted in my ENTIRE life, and i've been thinking about it since then, lol. you never forget your first love. lol, that's not true, actually. i haven't forgotten any of my exes but i wish i could. the idiots are engrained in my mind. lol, jk. i took a picture of my milk tea so i can remember it forever. i love you. *kiss* anyway, she's this really cool girl who was also an intern at the international cooperation and development fund in tianmu. really smart. she's getting her masters degree in international relations right now. we just caught up and talked. i told her my testimony. lol, everyone i know in taiwan is going to know my testimony because it's basically why i came to taiwan. "oh, so why are you in taiwan?" and then goes my testimony... we started shopping around and she told me that her courses are really difficult. she told me about this one class where the teacher is super strict and scary. the class is on a thursday, and every wednesday, one of her classmates, while studying, has a bloody nose. LOL. i mean, everyone pretty much just stays up the night before and studies, but this one particular guy's nose always bleeds when he studies for this class and no other time. lol. talk about pressure...."hao3 kwa1 zhang1"!

i found a store called "CheckFun" (rarely does an english name ever make sense here....they're creative though...) in ximending and it just had these really cute things! i found a corner where they had these miniature like sofas, chalkboards that look like they were meant for a dollhouse. so cute. i also found chocolate-flavored, strawberry-flavored, etc. straws! they're little chocolate pebbles enclosed inside the straw and when you sip the straw, the liquid you're drinking passes through and melts these little pebbles making the liquid taste like whatever flavored pebbles are in the straw. oh shoot. didn't take a picture of those. that's okay, they're only 20NT...i'll probably go to the store again and take pics.

so, i came home and took the "Blue 5" again, and remember when i said all the people rush to the bus? well, this time, i stood at the front and people STILL managed to cut me! you really have to be tough. anyway, i was standing in line, and this guy was holding a shopping bag. suddenly this girl rushes past him and knocks his bag upwards really high, really obvious, and really fast and gets onto the bus. LOL. the guy after him let me go first, probably because he was afraid i would also be "mong3" like the girl. it's taiwanese slang for "aggressive" i think.

after i got off the bus, i went into a small, dingy, and really full stationery store. a tv was playing in the back and there was a shelf in the middle dividing the store into two sections. perfect setting for a horror movie. i walked down the left section towards the tv and i turn to make a right and an old lady was sitting on the ground watching tv! you know those Chinese movies with those old lady ghosts? she freaked the heck out of me! she had white hair, tiny, skinny, and sitting on the ground with her legs curled up and arms around her legs. i almost had a heart attack. then, i proceeded to leave the store, fast and furiously. heh heh.

oh and i forgot the other day i went to the Tonghua Street night market right around here. it's still the same. i wasn't really interested in buying any clothes there. there was only this one store called "Hana", which means flower in Japanese. their clothes are from Korea, and they're really nice, quality clothes and accessories. the rest of the stuff in the night market is crap. people just go there for the food and snacks, which are really good. there's more variety at Shilin night market though. i went with my aunt, cousin, cousin's gf, aunt's husband's younger brother's wife and two kids. lol....family is really important in Chinese culture.... today, i went to get a chemical peel at this skin cosmetic center. it didn't hurt at all but it made my face all red and blotchy. i got a lot of stares so i just stayed home. oh yah, i went to the park with my aunt, cousin, etc....mainly so the kids could play and get some exercise. but i pretty much stayed home, because my skin looked horrible. i also took a nap. boring. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. oh yah, my friend William called me to go out again. HE HAS GREAT TIMING.

talk with the lady at starbucks

so, i went to the starbucks in the taipei medical university near where i live to use the internet. i was preparing to relax, get on the internet, listen to music, people watch, etc. i went in and a lady sitting by herself offered me a seat where she had put her stuff because it was closer to the outlet. i noticed she had the book the Life of Pi (a classic).

i thanked her, set up my stuff, bought my internet card (100NT - 3 U.S. dollars - for a whole day, incredibly cheap), bought a drink and sat down. my internet worked fine, but then all of a sudden, it stopped working.

i asked the starbucks employee to help me, and after everything she did, she said everything was fine. i thought that was weird so i kept trying to figure it out. i saw the lady who offered me a seat kept looking over at me and my computer. i looked over at her and smiled. then, she started talking to me, lol.

she asked me if i was ABC (i guess they can tell, haha), and i said yes. she then asked me what i was doing here and since my internet wasn't working, i kept talking to her. after a while, i looked at my internet, and guess what?! the wireless wasn't on! i think God switched it off, lol.

anyway, we started talking and i told her i arrived just three days ago and proceeded to tell her the story of why i came. i asked her why she was here, and she said "to see the doctor" (kan4 bing4)....literally it's "to check out her disease/sickness" but it could mean anything from a cold to something more serious. kan4 bing4 is very general. i mean, it was the taipei medical university. she looked tired and worn.

then her next question surprised me. she goes, "you just seem....so...happy". and i kind of chuckled and said, "i'm christian?" then she goes, "does that make a difference?" she spoke english well. and i proceeded to tell her my testimony....i told her that before i came here, i had a job, i chased after money, etc. but i realized that life isn't about that, etc. i said more about my ex-job. i asked if she was christian, and she said yes, but not very familiar with it. i don't know why she said yes. maybe she had accepted christ in the past....

i asked her what she does and she goes, "i'm an international saleswoman...but i don't like my job. when i see other people that love their jobs, i'm so envious, because i want to be able to find a job that i love too." i thought, is her sickness so bad that she can't start over?

then she goes "you seem very ambitious", and i laughed and said, "what's the definition of ambitious? i would say i was ambitious in regards to pursuing career and everything before, but now ambitious means something else altogether for me." she goes, "you're from the u.s., so your parents must have some money to take care of you. it's not like you need to work hard to put food on the table. why are you so ambitious still?" well, i explained to her that there are too many opportunities in this world not to pursue them, and i felt that if i became a lawyer, i would be able to tell people, yeah i'm a lawyer. but again, i realize that life isn't about that at all." then i had to leave for a bit for some reason, i came back, and we just started talking about something else.

when she got up to leave, she smiled and said bye, and i smiled and said "it was great talking with you."

WOW. when i was there, it felt like a regular conversation with a woman, but now that i think back on it, i hope it was a powerful testimony that gave her hope and transformed her thinking, esp in the kind of situation she was in. many times when people do what they call "evangelize", it seems like a glorious thing and you're doing so much for God, but honestly, it's just about being yourself and having other people see the life of Christ in you, esp people like her. we really aren't sacrificing a lot, albeit, i did suffer and learn A LOT to be in this position, but i realize now, it's all for the glory of God! all of that learning is so i can tell other people what God has done in my life. God really is the one doing all the behind-the-scenes work and we are his result.

WOW...all glory to God and none to me, because i pretty much did nothing. lol.

i hope to whoever is reading this, it lifts you up.

God Bless!!

/edit/

I'm feelin' this song, oh yeeeeaaaah......

"THE SHOUT OF THE EARTH WILL BE YOUR PRAISE,
GOD FOREVER,
AND THE LIGHT UNTO ALL WILL BE YOUR WONDERFUL NAME,
FOR THE GLORY LORD IS YOURS,
GOD FOREVER,
ALL THE GLORY LORD IS YOURS....."

KING ABOVE KINGS!