Quick Post

This will be a quick post for some of the week as well as Friday evening. After I lost my map of Hualien last weekend (it flew out of my bike basket while I was riding around and I didn't want to stop and pick it up because by then the two helpful women were leading me back to the night market), I decided to get another map, because I like having them around. Well, I found a map book of ALL of Taiwan, effectively eliminating the risk of getting lost again. Unless you take into account that the map book is in Chinese. Oh well, it will be fun translating it.

The preschool has a Chinese "intern" named Jasmine who has been very helpful to Steph and me during the past few weeks. Her position with the school is weird, because she sometimes drops in to teach the English classes, like she did during the first two days I was here, but she is not an official teacher. She has only been at the preschool for a handful of the days, so I'm not sure where exactly she stands with us. But she is very experienced with teaching a foreign language to little kids, so she gives us advice where it is needed and takes us to activities around Hualien. Her friend, a guy named Chad, suggested I take my map book to new places around Taiwan and get it signed by the people I meet in those new areas. It sounds like a neat idea, so I might try it.

On Friday evening, Jasmine took us to see Harry Potter: Deathly Hollows (Hallows? Too lazy and tired to look it up right now) Pt. 2. I was hesitant to see it because I haven't seen the first part yet, but I decided to go and be social. It's interesting to see how Chinese theaters differ from American theaters. The movie was in English with Chinese subtitles and the concession stands served chicken fingers and nuggets along with the standard movie stuff like popcorn. I was tempted to get the chicken, but they said it would take five minutes and I didn't feel like waiting so I got some popcorn. It was actually very sweet popcorn, which surprised me since I'm used to salt.

The movie was excellent. I want to see the first part now whenever I get the chance. I won't give away any spoilers, although I'm sure everyone who wants to go see the movie has read the books by now, so they know what's going to happen anyway. I will say that stylistically, it was very beautiful. The action scenes were easy to follow and the tension built up nicely. I'm still not a fan of Harry and Ginny getting together; I would have preferred Harry and Luna in a relationship. They seemed to have more chemistry. Luna's quirkiness would balance out Harry's seriousness. And on screen, those two had more time together than Harry and Ginny, so it just seemed like it would make more sense. Oh well, there's always fanfiction.

During our 'Learning about Sickness' week, Steph had the children make the doctor headbands. They all looked so cute with them on!

Me failing at a first person shooter called 'Vampire Knight/Night'. I would have done much better had I only known how to reload the gun. The screen looks like it is blank because it is loading. No, I was not pretending to shoot at monsters whhen it was actually a blank screen!
This is a special kind of caterpillar that can only be found in Taiwan. I can't remember the name of it right now, but it is something Chinese. The kids were making a big fuss out of it, so I picked it up and put it safely in the bushes where it wouldn't get squished.

Pay special attention to the Chinese down at the bottom of this poster.

Oh, Harry. Forget Ginny and come to me!