Bill as of 10/23/2006

Hello from Bill

You know…sometimes it just gets better! We are so grateful for SKYPE because we can talk to you for so little. It is a great link to home whenever we need it. AND CHEAP! Just hearing the voices of those we care for makes life half way around the world as normal as living in Door County minus and plus a few points on both sides. I urge you to get SKYPE, a free download and application if you have high speed internet connections. It is the way most folks at TAS talk to their kids and friends. Just be careful about being phished. I am embarrassed to say I fell prey and only lost less than $250. Always go to the original site rather than use the link provided.

There have been so many Taipei moments since I last wrote.
There was the youngish mom riding the scooter with her 3-4 year old dinky sized daughter. The kid was not tall enough to reach the handlebars so the solution was to stand the kid on a box in front of the mom on the scooter so she could reach the bars while standing. My God where is OSHA?

The political demonstrations and recriminations continue daily. I urge you to familiarize yourselves with the current politics of Taiwan. It really is hugely important to the west and the USA even if there is little noise in the press. Mainland china is just waiting for this democracy to stumble and fail so it can say, See we told you it would not work. The constitutional issues are as much or more critical than those of the US. And the ramifications of an overthrow of the current government will be felt immediately and harshly. Remember folks, it was martial law up until 1989 and this last election was the first democratic election in the history of this county. This place is doing baby steps in a nasty world. And what is US doing???????? And now the President of Taiwan is beating the drums for complete independence from China with the surety of reprisals and real potential for invasion. US is not in support of independence. It is interesting times here. One learns to just live today and enjoy.

I am enjoying the California Fitness experience. As I may have mentioned my “personal trainer” Daniel is helping me by counting in Mandarin so at least I will learn to count up to 15 with the days of the week and months thrown in. We are now working on counting by hundreds and thousands and it is paying off. I can now understand the girls at the cash register if they speak slowly. Again my attitude towards Multilanguage signage and instructions in the US has really changed. For all you northern folks, especially da uppers and da finns, I have a very hot (85C) sauna every day. It is tough but someone has to do it.

I continue to sample the local fare as I roam around the streets. I have decided just to try stuff and ask questions later. My spit reflex works but I have not had to use it yet. Tonight I tried some great looking dough balls filled with stuff cooked in an apple skiver type pan although the cook was using chop sticks to turn the little balls. They were served HOT with a light squeeze of mayo and wasabi, chili powder and what I take to be bonito flakes. After I tried one, I realized I had seen them on Anthony Bourdain’s food show and that they were filled with chopped squid or octopus. . Ok, I really LIKE squid and calamari so it was great. I went to a ????????shop for lunch today and just pointed to something that came back as a huge soup bowl filled with a really spicy hot broth with pork, a half tea egg, seaweed, noodles, bonito flakes, enoiki mushrooms and other stuff in a really good combination. It was really spicy though. So the point is I can try lots of things. I draw the line at pig intestines, and pig esophagus. They do not let the squeal go uncooked. It is really not Kansa!

I am in love with the 6th grade students. I do not know how I could be so rekindled in teaching MS. Part of it is that I know I can not ever get HS back to what I had at SBHS so there is little motivation to push. Academics have replaced the ubiquitous and omnipresent sports as the major block to continuation in music. BUT was are going to take the concert choir down to CKS national concert hall to sing with Erich Kunel and the orchestra in a Halloween spectacular. The hall is one of the best I have ever seen and we love being there . One of the MS kid told her friend I was crazy so I must be doing something right. Keep the buggers off guard at all times.

The Shidong fresh market is just down the street from us. One charming aspect of this place is that each booth is unique and has its own procedures for selling. I stopped at one and fumbled to ask What the hell is this thing? Only to be answered in approximate English that is was ?????? I still did not know what it was because they told me the Chinese name only in English. When I finally put my shitake mushrooms, baby corn and scallions in the plastic both, I was surprised to see in the final bay that there was a bunch of Thai basil and a knob of what I tasted to be fresh ginger since it seemed like I might be doing a soup with beef and veggies and ginger. Just free because. Every time I go to this one stall, they give something free, so guess what? I go back every time. Good business.

And then there is our butcher…a swarthy man to say the least with one tooth missing, an overpowering physical presence but with an open smile, firm handshake and huge embracing greeting that is winning and effective. He tries to teach me something about his business, pricing secrets, and how to say a few things in mandarin. When I introduced him to Carol he noted that she really liked the ground chicken so when we stepped out of the shop to carry on, he came roaring out with a log of the stuff just as a gift for us and oh remember that every we buy is 20% off because we are teachers. “YES SUR YES SUR” is his greeting and if he cuts more thin ham than I asked for, he serves the extra slice to me as a gift.

Another Taipei moment…I am in the daily sauna with a very very very fit Korean man with one leg tattooed from toe to p-----, I AM intimidated. The man is sitting ramrod straight doing some sort of meditation when all of a sudden he takes a big swig of water from his bottle and goes to the thermostat and spits all the cold water on it so the heat will go up. It was already 85C (185F). Talk about tough!

Yet another..the young woman riding her scooter with the miniature silky terrier running around on the floor board without restraints. And when she was driving, he just stuck his head around the front frame to see what was going on and all this about 4 inches off the pavement at 30kph.

We had a personal development day Friday and like most of them it was contentious. But at 3:30 we went up to the 4th floor library deck where the admin team was opening and pouring wine from 5+cases along with service world cheeses and veggies while we chatted and looked at the mountains. Yea like that happened in the USA.

The new library is beyond full description but magnificient. They designed it so that each school level has its own unique space complete with performance area for book reports or author discussions, age sized furniture, complete and immediate access to computers (they can completely lift the floor and reconfigure all the computer hook ups and locations\) along with color schemes and high end light fixture. The MS library has a computer “Bar” with swivel seats just like they might sit at an ice cream stand. And the Upper School library looks like a first class airline departure lounge and an organization like a Borders Bookstore complete with lounge deck and snack bar for coffee and smoothies and juices and snacks. Then there is the faculty workroom resource room…..like a Michigan Ave law office conference room/ library with big comfortable couches, overstuffed chairs, many computers and floor lamps, art work and plants. I hope to get some pictures to post because this new addition is truly state of the art. Did I mention that each section of the library has an atrium with full sized trees and HUGE skylight access/? Oh well.

I will close this for now because there is a lot of material but know that we are well, having the time of our lives and give thanks for many blessings. We miss you all. Please email us when you can and respond with your name to the blog when you visit us there.
Peace (please!)