Linkin Park Concert

My sister was travelling through the Internet world one day about a month or two ago, specifically Myspace.com, looking at a band's page, specifically Linkin Park, when she just happened to skim through the tour dates and see Taipei listed. Normally this would not cause any sort of notice at all except for the fact that I happen to live quite close to Taipei. So she informed me of this and I went into research mode right away. I confirmed the date on their website and contacted my friend and old classmate, Ping Jia, because I knew she was also a huge fan of the group, they are actually very popular in Taiwan considering they are California based, but it's because two of the members are Asian. Ping Jia also confirmed the concert and I asked her to get tickets for me. They were pretty much sold out of course, but she found someone online who had numerous sets of tickets, and I said get 'em!!

So November 16th with Gretchen, Alida, and Leon, we headed into Taipei to a huge soccer stadium where the concert was being held. I'm not even going to go into detail of me forgetting the tickets in the apartment because I'm still upset over that little hang up, I'm just glad I realized it in the first 20 minutes on the bus, rather then standing outside the stadium. Luckily the band started 45 minutes late so I didn't miss much. It was standing room only, which is fine because we were all jumping and rocking out, it was packed though and completely awesome!!!

Here are video snippets from two of my favorite Linkin Park songs, both of them you can hear me singing along, sometimes I don't really sound that good!!:

Chester, one of the main singers of the group, on the big screen right in front of us:

We actually weren't that far from the stage, although a lot of the shots are fuzzy from the crowd moving so much:

Chester and Mike, lead singers:

Trying to see the stage again:

I thought this was a cool shot, I just happend to snap a pic right when the were changing angles on the screen:

Rocking out:
Enjoying all the pretty lights:
Only good shot I could get of the crowd, it was huge: Nice finale picture :) :

Our after party at Roxy 99:

Gretchen enjoying herself:

First, second, or maybe third round of Tequila shots:
I don't really remember this picture, but I guess I was trying to take it myself and that's why I'm not smiling because I'm to busy making sure we're all in it:

I'm a Taiwan Resident!!

I finally recieved my "ROC (Taiwan) Resident Certificate" I have an ID card with all my info on it, basically it says I'm allowed to be here for a year :D Good enough for me! By getting this lovely little card I was able to open a bank account, so now on payday they don't have to hand me a huge wad of cash anymore, I love direct diposit. It was a bit of a difficulty finding time to get to the bank though. They are only open from 9-4:30 Monday-Friday. Gretchen and I went during a lunch break, we usually get two hours. It took two hours and we were 5 minutes late for class :P It's cool though, I feel like I belong more now.

Really bad picture because I have horrible lighting in my room. But I wanted everyone to see it :D It has all the basics of any ID except most of it's in Chinese obviously. It even has my English name translated in Chinese. Because the bank is an offical establishment, it's usually recommended that you get a name stamp or chop, which I also have now. It only cost 50NT ($1.50) and he made it while I waited in his shop. Very cool, now I don't have to sign my name a million times to papers, I can just hand them my stamp and it's like a signature.

Taipei 101

I've finally been able to do some shopping....for books of course! November 9th, Gretchen and I ventured into Taipei to Taipei 101. A building with 101 floors obviously, that was under construction when I was first here and finished the summer after I came home. For awhile it was the tallest building in the world, but was quickly beaten out in the world race to be the best :P We only ventured through the first 5 floors this time, but there is an observatory on the 91st floor that I plan to get to sometime. The layout though, goes like this:

B1 - Grand Market - has an international grocery store called Jasons Market Place, which is where everyone goes to get cheese :P and there is a huge food court with everything from Mcdonalds and KFC to Japanese and Thai high-quality restaurants

1F - Avenue 101 - International popular fashion brands including Kenneth Cole, DKNY, Tommy Hilfiger, Roots and swatch

2F - Designer Walk - International designer brands like Coach and Ralph Lauren, along with SOGO 101 which is a huge Taiwan department store, there's at least 3 others throughout Taipie

3F - Galleries Couture - Couture brand flagship stores like Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Versace and Tiffanys

4F - City Square - Restaurants and Page One, which is a huge bookstore that likes to have sales on English books ;)

5F - Financial Center - Banking and VIP services, didn't really go here much except there is a Bose and Sony store with new hi-tech electronics

It was just weird how it was very much like a shopping mall that you'd see in the US, which is not common here at all.

New News

Well the greatest thing that's happened recently -- I finally figured out how to view my blog and this whole website in English (which is really really great news)! It was so frustrating navigating around Blogger with all the buttons and tools in Chinese, which is probably why I've started blogging less and less.

I've been wanting to blog for awhile because there's been so much going on, but it's been difficult....because there's been so much going on! Last week was super busy.

Tuesday evening was spent creating a haunted house in the school basement. Although I didn't get to help during the time it was going on and it was for the older kids that I don't teach, I still wanted to help out ahead of time.

Wednesday was Halloween obviously, and all the teachers and kids were required to wear costumes because in the afternoon we went trick or treating. The previous Sunday I went shopping with Angela and her mom and sisters for a costume. I was a bit discouraged because I knew I wouldn't find any clothing to fit, so I ended up just buying a ton of random little things. I turned into a "Funky Fairy" as I call it, which also turned into the "Uncle Sam Fairy" and a "raver" by some :P It was fun and the kids were so cute.

Thursday I ended up going home early in the afternoon because I was not feeling well...I think it was a combo of the sort of flu season Taiwan is in right now and exhaustion from the long days. I came home and slept all evening and night and was feeling better on Friday.

Saturday, Gretchen had plans to meet with a Chinese teacher from school, Franny. Franny wants Gretchen to help her with her English, although she already has really excelent language skills, she still wants to improve. They met here at the apartment and I was in the living room just wanted to say hi and then get out of the way, but I ended up staying and it turned into the three of us doing a language exchange sort of thing. We're going to meet every Saturday from 2-4. The first hour will be English and the second will be Chinese. I'm excited because I already feel like I've learned a lot from her and she's a very aggressive teacher which will make me practice more.

Sunday morning Franny took us into Taipei to her church because Gretchen mentioned wanting to find a place with English services. We ended up visiting a Morman church. It was very beautiful, but a little awkward for us since we didn't really belong. We didn't go to a service, just toured the church. It looked exactly like a Morman church I went to in California when I was visiting my friend Steven. Franny also took us to a clothing store in that area that has larger sizes, which was totally awesome...I'm going shopping this weekend!!!! And she took us out to lunch to a pretty popular place that serves beef noodles...very yummy! And all of these places were in the same area as my Chinese lessons. Gretchen and Franny walked with me to see where my classes were at and then Franny made me practice my vocabulary before class (I told you she was aggressive!!) It's all good though :D

My Life Timeline

This is something I have considered numerous times in my head, but never really put to paper (or computer), but recently I've been more motivated to figure things out, get things done, and be an adult haha. So, this is my Tentative Life Timeline where all events are subject to change :D

August 2007 - August 2009 = Teaching in Taiwan and taking online Grad classes

August 2009 - May 2010 = Graduate school
(with hopes to graduate, depending on how many classes I was able to take in Taiwan)

Summer 2010 = Either an international trip or large road trip :D

2010 - 2015 = Computer or advertising specific job with international possibilities

Summer 2015 = if not moving up in current job (or completely in love with it), start my own web design firm or change to new job
= if not married but financially established start to adopt kids / if married better have at least one child by now :D

2015 - 2019 = continue working and raising a family

2019 - 2022 = concentrate on Research doctorate

2023 - 2035 = if happy with current job continue, otherwise change to college professor

2036 - 2040 = travel the world to all the places I still want to go and haven't been and continue loving life :D

A Taste of Home

So, being here in this place all by myself can get lonely occasionally, I have been lucky with having a roommate that likes to do similar things as me and who likes to hang out with me :D so I haven't had much homesickness or anything like that. But it can still happen, so I do what I can to make this place feel like home to me! So I always have to bring things that remind me of home and the people I miss. I don't have nearly as many picture framed pictures as I did last time due to suitcase weights this time, but I still have plenty of pictures to look at when I need to. Lucky for me paper and pictures are so lightweight!

Chinese Lessons!!!

I registered for Chinese lessons tonight with Alida, Jason, and Patrick. It's at the Taipei Language Institute. Kelly told us about the classes, because she takes lessons there also. It's called the Chinese Survival Course, only 8 Sunday sessions from 2:30-5:30. It cost 5,000NT (around $150) and that's including all materials and the registration fee. I think that's a pretty good price for it. And it seems like a very intense course, so I'm super excited :D:D

Celebrating 22 years

Dinner at Citizen Cain. Jason, Amanda, Chris, Kelly, me, Patrick, Alida and Leon.

Alida, Gretchen and me enjoying the club, Roxy 99.

Me and Chris

How they got me to dance I'll never know, might have been the shots...sorry mom :P

Heading home at 3am, very sucessful birthday!!

Many more at www.rhoslynn.shutterfly.com

Turning 22

So I can't decide if I'm looking forward to my birthday or not and if I'll get homesick or not. Am I grown up yet?? Because I don't feel like it. I was still getting used to being a teenager and now it's 22. Sure that's not really old, but for only being 22 I've gone through a lot more than I ever expected. It's been good and bad: I've watched people come and go in my life either through death or just time to be done. I've dealt with really bad depression and survived (something I never thought would happen). I graduated college in 3 years and am now planning graduate school (yes, I'm a dork, there are many lists and schedules being made!). I've traveled the world a few times and am currently living in a beautiful country that I love like a second home doing my dream job of teaching little kids. I couldn't be much happier at this moment except for the fact that my location now keeps me away from so many I love.

I understand why I love computers so much because I'm more connected to people now than ever before. I think I even talk to my sister more often now than I did when I was home, so that is one thing keeping me strong. How I did this before with once a month phone calls I will never know and I know I struggled a lot then with homesickness. Now when I'm feeling the slightest homesick, I put on my headset and call my mommy through my computer. I really haven't felt homesick at all in these 5 weeks because I can stay so connected and because I have an awesome roommate.

I have been very lucky throughout the 22 years of my life, very blessed, very loved. I may not have always seen it as so, but I always knew that there were so many people who loved me. Despite the hardest times I've gone through there has always been someone there, but that was never the problem. It is very easy to be loved, to feel loved and to know you are loved, it was always a matter of me loving myself. That was the hard part, but it's gotten better. I am at a good point in my life and it's nice. But the fact that things are so good of course makes my mind wonder...but I can never stop thinking, evaluating, questioning things...and I will never know which parent I got that from!!

It's been too long...

I haven't written for awhile. It's been a busy time. Holidays at school created chaos and then making up those days required work on Saturday. Sunday though I got to go on a trip with the church Gretchen and I recently joined.

It was a lot of fun despite the fact that we gave up our one-day weekend for a full day outing. We went to Keelung which is in the Northeast of the island, close to the ocean. We went to a "sister church" and their worship service in the morning and explored the area all afternoon. We went to an old area that used to be a gold mine and then to the Gold Ecological Park which had museums about when the whole area used to be a big mining area. It was very interesting.

I posted 5 pictures here but because it is so difficult and time consuming to load them all into this blog I started a Shutterfly account (www.rhoslynn.shutterfly.com) where you can view them all in an order you want :) I have all the pictures from this trip up there, but I don't have captions on them yet. It's almost midnight and I need to go to bed, so for now use your imagination with the captions haha.

Gretchen and I enjoying the view

This one's for Dad, your homework: name this plant/flower.

Our hotness :P

The old area of the city. Has a lot of commercial shops now, but it's still very neat, and very crowded.

Just one of the amazing views!

Pictures!!!

I found these pictures on Alida's Facebook page. These are the toddelers I teach so I borrowed the pictures to show you.

These are the T3Butterflies (2-3 years old) L-R: Cherry, YunYun, Andrew, Josh, Rich, Bill

The T1Dragonflies: Alice, Paul, Vivian, Summer

The Butterflies with Teacher Alida

Joshie

YunYun and Bill sleeping with Teacher Yvonne

Cherry sleeping with Alida

Typhoon Days and Moon Cakes

So, some people are probably wondering if I will miss all the snow days we had in Nebraska. I'm not afraid to admit that some cold, snowy days I wished hard for a snow day, not just because it was snowy and cold but because I just didn't want to go to class or work :D Well, have no fear, because here in Taiwan there is a nice substitute: Typhoon days!

Tuesday turned out to be one of these days. Monday seemed fine, but there was talk of a typhoon coming, nothing to serious, but they did postpone the zoo field trip for the older kids, but no talk of canceling school altogether. Monday's I teach my evening classes and afterwards I take a school bus home. On the bus there was the uncle driving, me, and a student. Uncle was talking to the student about something in Chinese (he doesn't speak much English) and he told her to translate into English. She was nervous and it ended up being "Tomorrow, typhoon. No go Uncle Sam" I clarified that she meant not going to school, I asked if she would be going to school and she said no, and then I got all excited about no school of course. I also tried to explain snow days to her. After she was dropped off, my phone rang and it was Fiona from school making it official that we'd have no school.

I really was very happy about it because I didn't have the best day at all. I had a meeting with some supervisors about a student of mine not behaving the best and I have to come up with a solution to fix this. Plus they sounded like they were criticising me about everything and I just wasn't in the mood to try and defend myself or deal with it. Then, on the way to Joy I ended up getting lost and being an hour late. So, overall, it was a horrible day and the first time I was really upset. So a day off was very welcomed. Although I ended up being incredibly lazy (is there any other way to be on a typhoon/snow day?), and I didn't have Internet because of the weather.

But it really wasn't that bad, the typhoon brushed over us killing one person and went on to China killing 5 people there. They call it Typhoon Wipha, a woman's name in Thai. They were saying it was going to be a super-typhoon originally, but after it landed in Shanghai it was downgraded to a tropical storm, so no biggie!

This Monday and Tuesday I don't have to work again (I'm just so lucky!). It is the Moon Festival or Mid-Autumn Festival, officially on Tuesday, but we're getting Monday too to have a long weekend. The moon cake is a food created for the festival. I received a box of moon cake things from work. The cake is usually small and different ones are filled with different things like red bean (not my favorite) and pineapple (pretty good). The apartment building is having a party on the 24th that I think I'll go to, just to see. I'll have to let you know how it goes.

Hope the moon festival will bring you happiness!

(I'm keeping the box, it's cool! Yes Dad, it's coming home with me, stop shaking your head, I don't care! :P )

Weekend news

So this weekend was pretty good. Yesterday (Saturday) I offered to substitute teach for Leon so he could be up at 3am to watch the World Cup rugby game that was on. I taught from 9am-12. It wasn't too bad, it was the oldest class at Joy Language school and they were very quite, so it was a little difficult to get them to be interested and talk. The bus I take to get home stops in front of a Pizza Hut so I bought some to bring home for Gretchen and me. I got the chicken and mushroom pizza, finding out later that it's topped with chicken, mushrooms, onions and corn and the other was a Hawaiian with pineapple and ham. Just having the pan crust was wonderful!! After lunch we were pretty lazy the rest of the day, watched movies and hung out around the apartment.

Gretchen has been wanting to find a church to go to for some time. She talked to a teacher at school who found one very close to our apartment that had English. So we went this morning. She told us the service started at 9, when it really starts at 10 so we were a bit early. The pastor and other worship leaders were there and they talked to us and were very friendly, but soon informed us that the service isn't in English, they just have a lot of bilingual parts. There's 4 TV screens around the room that sometimes have the Chinese and English and the hymnals have Chinese and English which was pretty neat. So while everyone else is singing Chinese, Gretchen and I are singing in English :P It was a very warm environment though, so it was worth the language barriers. We pretty much understood everything that was going on and then they started the sermon...all in Chinese! A woman sitting behind us leaned forward and asked if she need to translate and soon she was sitting between us explaining everything the pastor was saying. After that there was communion. The little kids are in Sunday School during church but they bring them up to participate in communion. One of the kids, Joy, goes to Uncle Sam and I teach her class 3 times a week. She was walking up the aisle, saw me, and yelled "Teacher Marisa!". It was so cute, but then during a prayer, she got up again and came towards me and said "Teacher Marisa" and went to her mom to point me out! It was cute and funny at the same time.

Near the end of the service they announce new guests. We had filled out a sheet with our names beforehand and they called my name first and I had to stand up in front of everyone, then Gretchen, then other new people (all Chinese). After everyone was introduced, the guy said welcome, this is your family and it was easy to believe him.

After the service they have a lunch where everyone came up to introduce themselves and I got a chance to talk to Joy and her mother. We are planning on going back next week and probably repeatedly because it was so inviting and there were many people wanting to help and be friends. It was really great!

After we got home I left to go visit my first host family when I lived in Taiwan as an exchange student. I did not know which bus went directly from Sanxia to Shin Dien (the city they live in) so I had to go the long way: bus, subway, switch subway, bus. I left at 1:30 and got to their home at 4....don't ask. A lot of it was time spent waiting for the different transportation's and then after the subway I had to remember the community bus I used to take to get up the mountain, I was so nervous I would miss it or get on the wrong bus. After I was safely on the right one I couldn't remember where to get off at! I got off on a road that I thought was close to their house, but I didn't know which way to walk. I asked a guy in Chinese if he knew where the road I need was, he answered in English and helped me figure out what to tell Eric so he could come and get me :D

Back in their home it was great, so many memories, after a lot of chit chat I went out on the balcony just to admire the view again!! Next time I go I'll have to take pictures again, it's just so peaceful. We talked about everything, working here, being back, family back home, what I do on the weekends, their sons (both in the US). Stacey's English is not the best but she tries so hard it's cute and I love her for it. Eric sometimes had to translate things for her, but I was teaching her new words throughout the night like I usually do. She made dinner for us, very simple, dumplings and soup. Afterwards we watched TV for a little bit, Eric fell asleep and went to bed, but Stacey and I watched Steel Magnolias until I had to leave at 8:30.

It was a wonderful day and even though it's 12:30 pm and I should be sleeping, I'm happy that I got to meet so many new people today and visit with some old ones. This really is my second home.

Gorillas go to the zoo!

This morning was our trip to the Taipei Zoo. It was fun, but tiring at the same time. Trying to keep 12 little people in order as we walk around is not easy. At one point they wanted them to walk two by two, like the buddy system....I can barely get them to walk one by one!! It was fun though. I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked because I was busy keeping them in order, but I did get some really great ones. All of these kids are in my homeroom (K1Gorillas), so they aren't the little little ones, but the little ones :PThis is Dora waiting outside the zoo all redy to go inside.

This is the only animal picture I took :P

Attempt # 1 at a group photo

(Jasper, William, Dora, Candy, Polly, Vicky)

Attempt #2

Attempt #3, and we gave up!

(Ken, Selina, William, Dora, Polly, Vicky, Emily)

Lunch time, they made sack lunches for everyone.

Close up at lunch time, Emily was yelling at me so I took a picture.

Candy sat with me on the benches to eat lunch because there wasn't enough chairs for everyone.

Leo and Vicky

Polly

Vicky

Emily - one of my favorites, she's very smart!

Playtime after lunch, just running around.

(Gavin, Vicky, Emily, Candy)

Getting rid of all that energy!!

This has to be my favorite picture. This is William, a newer student that can't understand much and likes to run wild. The fact that he actually stayed still for this is amazing!!

Candy could not stand still at all

Emily

Vicky and her froggy friend

They had an area near the bathroom of decorated styrafoam poo and this big plastic poo shape that the kids could climb in....don't ask me why!

Trying to stand in line to head back to school

Gavin, waiting on the bus

It's blurry I know, but you can kind of see the small seats in the bus. The bigger person in the back is Teacher Phoebe, my Chinese teacher.

The kids were very tired after the zoo, this is Dora sleeping on the way home.

Emily was sleeping but she woke up when she almost fell over :P

Candy was sleeping but woke up, sat on the floor and went back to sleep, so I had to take a picture lol

Teacher Pheobe borrowed my camera to get a picture of Candy because it was so funny.