NEWS UPDATE

It’s 6:15 Saturday morning.

Bill just left to meet Ben. They’re going rock climbing up on Yangming Mt this morning. They want to get an early start to avoid the scourging sun. Frankly, I don't know why I'm up, and you have to excuse me for using only simple sentences in my writing.

Birds in the neighborhood are also awake, chirping and singing and teasing Nuage out of his skull. He lowers his body and swerves across the floor when he hears them, his motions smooth and fluid you'd think he's skating on ice. When he realizes his can’t get the birdies, he takes his frustration out on his furry mouse toys. Every once in a while my leg gets smacked as well for no reason whatsoever.

Thank you all for your birthday wishes. I’m not big on celebrating my own birthday, but I live in a country where it’s unacceptable not to make a big deal out of it. I had planned to go shoe shopping that morning, but I got called in to sub for two hours (oh well, now I can get TWO pairs of pretty sandals, guilt-free). My colleagues bought cake and ice cream and crackers and one very strong cup of iced coffee. My students gave me a surprise party with flowers and (more) cake. By the end of the day, I was so high on sugar and caffeine that poor Bill had to listen to an extra long and fast and completely disorganized Kate Report.

Now we’re planning for Bill and Ben’s Birthday Bash. The weekend after BB’s birthday is a 4-day weekend here because of the Dragon Boat Festival this year, so we want to drive down the east coast and camp in Hualien.

BB want to rock climb and I want to go river trekking and hiking in the Golden Valley (check it out at http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/hualien-travel/article?mid=1921

The river belongs to Taroko National Park and it has been closed to ensure growth in the population of species in the river. Now that the ecosystem is stabilized, it is recently open to the public. Only a certain number of visitors are allowed each day, and each group of visitors needs to get a permit. The community center then assigns a guide and a life guard to each group of visitors for a day tour in the valley. You have to swim across three natural ponds and climb up big river rocks to get to the waterfall inside. The place got its name because the waterfall looks like a fountain of gold when sunlight dances off of it.

Doesn’t that sound like the perfect way to spend the day?

In other news, I got accepted into the Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language Program at NTU. I guess I passed the exam, eh (though I don’t exactly know how)? I’m excited ‘cause this program’s got my name written all over it… in reverse!!! Since the course covers the semantics, syntax, phonology, and phonetics of Mandarin, I’ll get to do the linguistics of Chinese in Chinese. Hey, I may get some questions answered as well. After all, I do seem to remember wanting to do comparative research on the articulation of, and the differences in, vowel sounds in Mandarin and English. That was the proposal I wrote before I came back to Taiwan (boy, it seems like eons ago). I will, also, get to see if what Dr. Berwick taught us in our TESL training program can be applied in a Chinese class (yes, Lisa, I will write you a report on that). Most important of all, (voice volume increasing) and what I’m most excited about, is that I’LL GET TO LEARN SOMETHING NEW AGAIN! I'll get to use my brain and stuff it with all kinds of new and interesting information again!! It’s great to be a nerd, and I’m damn proud of it.

That also means no more summer weekend excursions for Kate.