happy hippo thanksgiving

A few weeks ago I went to the annual thanksgiving dinner put on for the bigshots at our compayny. (yes, mmmmeeee!!!) Since I bailed last year, I felt obligated to go, and since the head of the English department actually personally told me about it, yeah, you get the idea...I was suckered in. Anyway, here's a clip of the evening.




I am in the background of the clip with Adam saying he's thankful he doesn't have to give two speeches. I'm probably not on the actual video because as soon as I saw Moose come around with the video, I ran to the bathroom.

a warning

I was told that on one of my posts here that someone was reading (hi mommy) I used some rather foul language. (and that especially because I sent this to everyone one at my parent's church AND my grandparents, I needed to watch my language) I don't actually know which post she was talking about and I would have to go back and look, but I am warning you right now, I don't censor myself on here. If I use language you find offensive, well, I would apologize but I'm not going to because that's the way I talk sometimes and it is definately the way I write. Just chose to ignore it.

It's midnight, it's bedtime. I work afternoons on Tuesdays which is great in someways and not good in others because I stay up late on Mondays and then my clock is screwed for the rest of the week. Tomorrow I am going to go and pick up my new glasses. Oh yeah, I bought new glasses.

food, food and more food.

So the greatest thing about living in a country where food is such an important part of the culture is that you get to try so many different things. After a nice dinner on Saturday and a great evening, we went out again last night. For Barbeque.(if you are new to this space and unaware of how things work, click on barbeque and you'll be taken to where you can find backstory or information. Look out for this in my posts, I do it often) Jacqui, Tom and I have been there before but no one else had. We had wandered in there on the pub crawl on Saturday (no, it's not a pub, just a restaurant which sold beer) so we made a reservation for Sunday. You would have thought it was Thanksgiving in America the amount of food we were eating this weekend.

Normally, two terrific meals in one weekend does not occur, but oh man I'm glad it did. It was nice to go with foreigners and not all co-workers. Don't get me wrong, I love my Taiwanese friends, but they really do have different food tastes. We were able to order off of an English menu rather than having them order for us (of course, Piper did order a couple of things off the Chinese menu that weren't on the English one, but really, only one of two things) It made a big difference to what we were eating and how much we enjoyed it. I mean, we always get Fish Jaws when we go with people from work, and personally, not too fond of fish jaws thanks. This way, we actually knew what everything was and we were not afraid to try it.

Last night we discovered the greatness of beef, beef and more beef (it was really good, we kept ordering it) We didn't have fish jaws but we did try the Frog. The Frog was really good and honestly I think the strangest part of it was the fact that it was my suggestion. We even had cows tongue and it was really good...cut nice and thin and no weird skin with tastes buds involved.

seafood buf-fet

I was woken up by one of my students calling for a telephone test. I forgot the questions at school so now I'm going to have 4 more people calling me this morning. Since I'm hanging around having to tell all these kids what a big freak I am (instead of just not answering my phone, I'm nice like that) I am going to share my dinner from last night with you.

1) lobster (was covered in mayo though)

2) Sashimi!!!!

3) rice with shrimp on top
4) shrimp (this was amazing too)

5)fish meatballs, a little scary with the eyes looking at you, but really good!
6) scallops (see below for more info) Nice radish flower hey!
7) Johnny's vegetarian thing
8) Crab
9) lamb soup

It was soooo good. 10 courses of just amazing food. Well, most of it. Some was a little mysterious (sea cucumber) but everything was tried. Even the scallops with the mayonnaise baked on them (there is an obsession with putting mayonnaise on the seafood here. I love my mayo, but even I think it's a little gross. Could be due to the fact that it's not even the good mayo) with the mayo scraped off, the scallops were really good!
Favourite, the sashimi...I knew it would be and I was right. Even if I felt really bad after because one of the chefs went to get a fish, dropped it on the floor and proceeded to kick it into the kitchen. Then put a towel over it to stop it from moving. It was better than the sashimi we had at the last place, so even better. The lamb soup was really good too but I'm still a little confused how it's considered seafood.

Pub crawl after was great. The one drink max at each place was good, we were allowed road beers so it made up for it.

sometimes I just love Saturday mornings

Top five reasons I love Saturday mornings
1) The lie-in. God, I love the lie-in, even if it means only sleeping until 9 (this is rather early than normal I know) but just lying there reading crap books, it's great!
2) Cold pizza for breakfast, smoked Chicken and mushroom on thin crust....soooo good!
3) Hour long amazing talks on the phone with my sister who used to always call me on Saturday mornings but never does anymore since she moved to Calgary and changed phone plans (stupid telus) even if it was on my phone bill
4) being able to lounge around in my pj's watching stupid movies (and by stupid, I mean movies with some dog and leopard cubs with no dialogue which, really it's because I'm too lazy to get up and change the channel because my remote doesn't work) and not having to be at work until 12:30. Now normally I don't work on Saturdays, so when I do, it's just nice to be able to work later, you know? And I can't really complain, I'm only working for an hour and getting paid for two. Not much wrong with that.
5) Looking forward to big ass SeaFood buffet at the fishing harbour tonight so can expect massive amounts of incredibly fresh and amazing seafood, even if the sashimi does have mayonnaise and sprinkles all over it (don't ask, I'll explain more later, perhaps even take pictures)
(with a pub crawl to follow, even though I've cut back on drinking...luckily for me, it's a one drink limit at each bar, and very few bars in Keelung)

I have to start writing down the cool things my kids say. Twice today I remember laughing out loud and now I don't remember why.

Today has been a crazy day. We are in the midst of writing essays and practicing for a speech and writing competition that my company is holding. Let me tell you, it's a lot of work. Normally, as NST's (native speaking teachers) we only have to edit and proof-read essays that the kids have written and then our co-teachers have pretty well re-written. That was last year.

My Treehouse class (kids that went through the whole Kindergarten experience go onto a special English class because usually their English is too advanced to go into the language school) they have finally reached the age where they can enter this contest. So here I've been organizing, re-writing, editing, proofing, typing, practicing...everything that is involved in this process has fallen onto me. Yes, I'm tired (mostly because as I write this, I'm waiting for another essay I have to proof over email from my language school) but tonight we had our first real practice, and while yes, they don't really know their entire speech, I really think they could do well. It makes me proud to see them trying their hardest and this is just when we are sitting on the floor going over pronunciation. All this work is worth it seeing my kids having so much fun learning a freaking speech that they have to say in front of God-knows how many people.

The competition is next Saturday...I hope they do a great job, I really believe they will. I'll keep you updated.

blah blah blah

I'm tired, almost too tired to post anything. I wanted these posts to be something I could look back on and think, oh yeah I remember that. For some reason that is TOTALLY not what has happened. Maybe I should start that now, except it would all be totally mundane stuff. I'm getting annoyed by stuff at work and it has to do with someone who doesn't even work for me anymore. It's stupid because it's all just becoming a pissing match of things. Oh well...rule # 1 don't ever blog about work. Right, I need to remember that.

memories

in other words, I don't have any from the past 5 seconds. I signed in knowing what I was going to write about and now I've forgotten...oh wait I know...
007! Went to see Casino Royale, Royal? I don't know, anyway went to go and see it. (and it's Royale...figured it was, should have gone with my first guess..oh wait I did, didn't I) Personally, I didn't think it was half bad. It entertained me, I didn't think "OMG when is this going to end" (and it was a looonnng movie) but admittedly I did sleep through part of it. Okay, it wasn't even in the middle. I was so tired from the night before and we had just finished Indian Buffet so I was sooo tired and slept straight through the previews and the beginning of the movie. Good thing that I only missed action and didn't really need it for the gist of the story line, or at least that's what I'm telling myself :)

my school

I found this on YouTube and wanted to share...this is a clip that the tv show 5Takes (I don't know why it's all in Chinese) but anyway...they came to do a show at one of the schools in my company....

ah annoying!

I am trying to do my makeup for a function I have to go to and I keep sweating!! AH THE WEATHER HERE!! It will never make up it's mind! It has been cold the past few days so I thought, sweet a makeup day for me! (keep in mind, I never wear makeup...maybe the odd time if I know we are going out, but it's not a daily occurance) I have a meeting and then a dinner right after so I thought I'd try and look nice. Now as it stands, by the time I get to Taipei it will have all sweated off...I don't get how people don't sweat here. It seems like it's only me that always ends up in a huge puddle of wetness...okay, and some other foreigners too.

so sue me

I guess it's a good thing I'm not officially part of the nablopomo thing..I missed a day. I am trying to think of what I was doing yesterday to have made me miss a day but the reason isn't really all that difficult to come up with. I was working. It's back to long days again, but this time doing office work. I was able to shirk my responsibilities before but I guess now that I actually have less classes and more time on my hands, I have to fill it in by doing crap. Yes, that's basically all it is too, crap. All of us were in shit moods today so it didn't really help anything and as lame as this sounds...tfgif...thank fucking god it's Friday. Even if I do have a meeting tomorrow, all fucking afternoon/night, I can sequester myself away from everyone else and that's what I plan to do. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it!

mcdreamy

I've been reading in blogland about how great Grey's anatomy is...my sister raved about it last year and so when I was home I bought the first season DVD...of course, as luck would have it, the show aired in Taiwan about 2 months later. We are now onto the second season, and while it is behind everyone at home, I am really enjoying this show. For some reason though, Meredith annoys the hell out of me though!

Of course the fact that Patrick Dempsey is in it has great appeal for me. I totally remember loving Can't Buy Me Love and ever since then, he's been a favourite. Of course, off the top of my head, the only other thing I can actually name that he was in was Sweet Home Alabama, but that's okay...I like him just the same.

it's done

So all my worrying about leaving in March was for nothing. I was told today that they really want me to stay and because of that, they are willing to have 4 brand new teachers next August if it comes to that. So now, I have no idea when I will actually be home because I plan to go traveling after...but I still have to figure out what to do with all my shit! If anyone has any travel advice for Asia, let me know....

oops

I caused an accident between a scooter and a taxi last night. I was outside Carrefour trying to get home. I flagged down a taxi and as he was changing lanes to pick me up, he sideswiped a scooter coming up behind him. The scooter came from no-where, I didn't even see it until he was right up beside the taxi. I'm assuming that both parties were okay because they both drove off, but I'm not actually sure because I walked away and was hiding behind a bus stop shelter.

blogging everyday

This blogging everyday thing is hard, especially when I'm not around my computer all day long. I always have ideas for what I can write when I'm not here and then when I get back to my computer the idea is gone. I try to think of interesting things to say, but usually, it doesn't work very well. So I will just tell you about my day yesterday.

We decided we wanted to do something and not just hang out all day and go drinking at night so we all met up at the coffee shop. J&T, D and P and myself. We headed into Taipei and went to the astronomical museum (on my suggestion I have to say because I've been wanting to go there for a while) When we got there we noticed that they had 3D and IMAX theatres. After much confusion we went to the 3D. It was really cool, and while all in Chinese, pretty easily understandable. They showed two shorts and the first one was great, the second one dumb, but good animation. My eyes were going weird at some points and I found it really hard to focus at the beginning, but I got used to it.

After that, we went around the museum an it was cool. There were lots of things that you could play, lots of buttons to push. I think it's time for the Science Museum next.

remember

It's remembrance day. Get yourselves to a cenetaph. It is weird to think that it is remembrance day. I miss everyone wearing poppies and the uniformed men and women. I miss going to the ceremony in the freezing cold, but I will still remember. I will always remember, I hope you take to the time to remember too.

so, I went beta

I went beta and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I know, I know, there were a few red flags...like I can't post on regular blogger blogs, and the fact that I absolutely can not go back. I haven't really noticed much of a difference other than the blogger search bar at the top of my blog looks different (the black menu at the very top) I am not really sure what it means to be beta, I guess I should find that out. I do know that I was in beta on both hotmail and yahoo and I switched back, but that was mostly because the browser at work didn't support beta so I couldn't check my email...annoying (because yes, we are allowed to check our email at work) Hopefully beta will work out for the best....I'll let you know.

it all changes

I wanted to have this great lovely blog about the US elections and how the Democrats have kicked some Republican ass, but I don't want to offend anyone and I can't actually be that witty about politics, it just doesn't work for me. I will say this...you know things are bad when this is the first time in 12 years that the Democrats have held a majority in the House. hmmm, does that say anything to you? (enter own random "you got yours" here...I had "you got your ass kicked" but then realized I had already written that...hate to repeat myself)
Donald Rumsfeld was fired too! Well, okay, he "resigned" but did anyone notice that the man Bush has nominated for his replacement was "visited" on Sunday. Coincidence? Think he knew it was coming? Poor Donald, guess who's the scapegoat now.

When discussing the change, this right here pretty much sums up the American President. (I read it here, in fact that's pretty much where I get all my information)
"Asked whether his announcement signalled a new direction in the war that has claimed the lives of more than 2,800 U.S. troops, Bush said, "Well, there's certainly going to be new leadership at the Pentagon."

Well, that's what usually happens when someone resigns (is fired) He's a smart one that George W. He can really state the obvious.

already a little lame

I have been waiting all day for inspiration to strike and I could have a great blog entry today. No such luck I suppose. I guess the day was too busy and too stressful to really have time to sit back and look at what is going on in the world (other than the U.S. election of course) Somethings I learned today? I am royally getting screwed because I am a nice person. Isn't life grand?

I love drunk Patrick

the things you miss

I have become accustom to missing out on vital information since being in Taiwan.
Grandfather sick: get told after the fact
This guy gets his house: parents tell me 4 months later (luckily I'm smart and found out when it happened)
Sister gets engaged: okay, I found out the day that happened, but regardless I had no clue her relationship was at that point yet and I haven't even met the guy yet, I mean really.

So I'm sure over the past 3 years there has been more but I can't remember...the point is, the real kicker in all this? I get an email this morning from my best friend who casually informs me that her sister is going to have her baby next week...like what the fuck? She's pregnant??!!! Keep in mind, my best friends sister is also a very good friend of mine. She's pregnant??!! How could I have missed that? How could someone somewhere not told me that??

On the positive side, I just talked to my mother. She claims she didn't know either which is dumb because hello, you live in the same town as these people. It's not that big of a town!! Realistically, she should have been pregnant when I was home last February but I had no clue and I'm sure I didn't just forget this. Man, I feel so out of the loop sometimes.

lunar birthdays

Last week was Piper and Tim's lunar birthdays. Needless to say we went and celebrated in Taipei. I discovered something important about me last night....I have really fucking small hands...


Paul

Piper Tom!!!
Tim
Jacqui
Michala

day four

After a week of being out too late on school nights, we stayed in. A Friday night and we stayed in. All of us. Of course, we are going out tonight for Piper and Tim's lunar birthdays, but all the same. We stayed in. We got pizza in (holy crap Domino's is so much better than Pizza Hut) and we watched Gremlins at mine. I'm sure my neighbours will complain, as they always do whenever I have more than two people here. That and the fact that Dan and Irene were outside talking. But oh well, for the amount of time I actually have people here, they can suck it up. So this post definately lives up to my blog name alright.

ah well

so I screwed up on the email for the nablopomo. Totally sent it to the wrong place and by the time I got the message telling me that, it was way after Nov. 1 11:59. So I didn't make that list, oh well, I'm still going to try and post everyday to try and give this blog a kickstart. Hopefully some good will come of it, I just might not have anyone reading it. That might be a good thing though.

So last night Jacqui, Tom and I went for sushi. Sushi express, it's like the McDonald's of sushi but they have pretty good sashimi so it was worth it. That was about all that was good though. It used to be so good but now, it's kind of crap.

Had the most random phone call in the cab on the way to Keelung though. Dan called. I was like what the hell! He was back in Taiwan after going back to the US and then to Japan. Not really sure why. First Paul and now Dan. It was really weird going out last night because it was such a mix of the old people and the new people, but it was great, I loved it, drank too much for a school night and was out way too late. On the plus side Buxiban caught on fire yesterday so I only have Kindy today.

it's always hard to say goodbye

Since I am doing the posting a blog a day and I missed yesterday, I will post two today. So here is my blog for today.

It was a sad, sad night on Tuesday. I don't think I am ever going to get used to the goodbyes that I've had to endure throughout my time in Taiwan. Everything is just so fluid and changing. It is hard to imagine that people who have been so close, I will probably never see again and I treasure every moment with each of them. They have all had a huge impact on my life. The latest, probably the most. It has been the thread throughout all of my friendships.

On Tuesday, my favourite bar in Keelung closed it's doors forever. Boo Hoo!!!

You are probably thinking, oh yeah, typical. Tobi is sad because a bar closed. Well, yes, it is one less place that I can go and drink but this place was special. It has really had a huge impact on my life in Taiwan.

I had been here for just over a month the first time I went to the Mariner's. I went with a couple of friends from training who came to Keelung to visit me. We had started at the Lucky Star (sailor bar, oh yeah) and after wandered over to Mariners because the owners were the same and we wanted to check it out. I will always remember it because Troy was making fun of one of the hostesses. Probably not the nicest thing in the world to do, but being drunk I thought it was the funniest thing ever.

I never really made Mariner's my home until Cheryl came to Taiwan. Yes, I had been a few times over the first six months I was here after drinking at the Lucky Star but it wasn't until Cheryl and I met Travis that we really started going there a lot. It was located right near the Keelung buxiban (we work in ChiDu remember) so it was a very convenient place to meet up with the Keelung people after they were finished work. Sometimes it would just be the three of us and sometimes Travis would bring people. Mariner's was where I met Patrick, Ben and Paul.

When my parents came to visit me, I even took them to the Mariner's. THAT'S how important this place is to my life in Taiwan.

By the time Tom and Jacqui came to Taiwan we had found a few more places. We spent a lot of time at the Truck because it was cheaper but we always ended up in Mariner's for the free pool and people that gave us hugs and cheered when we walked in the door (seriously, I felt like I was in Cheers some nights) The first night I was home from my great Canadian vacation, we went to Mariner's.

It was one of the friendliest bars I have ever been in and we are all sad to see the end of it. I have seen so many people come and go, but Mariner's has always been there and everyone that has been important to my life in Taiwan has shared the Mariner's experience with me. It is truly the end of an era. The end of my era.

nablopomo

nablopomo - It's national blog posting month. The idea behind this is to post every day in November. Okay, I've missed a day, but technically somewhere in Canada it is still November 1st and to my credit, I only found out about this right now. I have decided that I will take part in nablopomo here rather than myspace. That way I can write about anything including random crap that I really don't care if people read or not and it will be a good jump start for this blog. Maybe if I actuall write something that isn't completely lame, I will actually tell people about this blog. Oh, but then there may be pressure to actually write something that isn't crap. I may have to rethink this...

EDITED: for the record, I'm not actually a "registered" participant of nablopomo. I have sent an email in hoping to have my blog added (crap, people might actually come looking!) but I may have missed the deadline. I am having math issues right now what with the time change last weekend...grrr