04:34 am greencastle, june 30; 05:34 pm taipei, june 30

...and today, i have done little. slept until 10:30 or 11ish. then...lay around for a while not doing much, reading, got the tv fixed and watched some pictures moving on it, listening to some sounds. uhh...nothing of interest, really, on the tv; but i did finish "brightness falls from the air" last night just before i went to sleep, and so i started "strata" today. it's...really good so far, as i'd expected it to be, but also exceedingly familiar; so i've probably read it before, but i can't remember how it goes. that other book, though...was pretty disappointing. my dad read it many, many years ago, apparently, and thought it amazing, so he found it again and picked it up; flipped through it, then dumped it on me. well...it's an extraordinary story, but not too well written. i do like the voice in it, though; everything is told in the present whatever tense (you know, as opposed to narrative historic, or whatever it was; can't remember exactly what it's called.), i.e. "cory stares at kip as he begins yet another one of his 'tales,'" as opposed to "cory stared at kip as he began yet another one of his 'tales.'" i liked that a lot; i think like that, too, sometimes.

oh, wait; something important did happen today. first, as i was...doing something on my computer; probably rearranging stuff or writing a post or something...a stack of papers was brought to me to correct. wait...so yeah, that's when i turned my computer on, so's i could look up chinese words that i don't know to ensure correctness in the english. well, that wouldn't have taken long, but my mom showed up when i was about 2/3 done. she went to visit tao yuan, her home town, this morning, and got back rather early; furthermore, the bus she took stopped just a block or so away from where i'm staying, so she dropped by. we talked for a while, i finished correcting, and then we tried to get those dvd's i burned to work. unfortunately, they are largely a failure; first, the disc as a whole dvd project doesn't work--it doesn't read like a normal dvd, just a disc with tons of stuff on it. then, when i tried to play the clips anyways, they would only play in very small pieces; i think that's either because i've not enough memory or the disc drive can't read fast enough--it is full dv quality, after all, where only like half an hour of media will fit onto a whole 4.12 gb or however big dvd. well, so we tried going upstairs to attempt viewing on an actual dvd player, and that, too, failed. wouldn't even read. ah, well...most unfortunate. i'll have to figure something out.

...but while we were upstairs, daisy came out and talked to us for a bit, and i now have a definite teaching schedule for the next few weeks. lesse...i'll go grab it, because i'm sure you're so interested. all right. i'll be, aside from independent tutoring of others, teaching some sort of "story telling" class wednesdays from 12:50 to 1:50, ta'ing mondays and thursdays from 1:00 to 3:00, and leading a conversation class of sorts tuesdays and wednesdays from 1:00 to 3:00 and 2:00 to 4:00, respectively. means i'll have fridays, saturdays, and sundays off. *sigh*...if only i could land a job with work days like that after college--one that pays well, isn't too bad, and gives me three consecutive days off a week--specifically, those three. ideal, i say. i'm also supposed to keep some kind of "journals" for the classes. i'm...not really sure what that entails, but i'll see about that (surely) before i start. monday. hrm...woo. i'll be teaching up until the very last day before i leave--the nineteenth. is the last day of teaching, that is, for clarification. it should be really interesting--quite an experience--and pay moderately well, if not better than that. woohoo!

after we talked about that stuff for a while, my mom was really hungry, not having eaten any breakfast or lunch or anything, so she and i set out in search of decent food. well, we didn't do extremely well, but we found some really tasty street vendor stuff. well...it wasn't exactly street vendor food, but it was pretty dang close. open to the street, no seats, other stuff, general effect...whatever. bought a few meat buns (you know, filling in the middle surrounded by white dough stuff) and some drinks. you know, first time i've ever had *passionfruit slush*. oh, man. it was awesome. so good...and the buns were really good, too. so good, in fact, that we went back a little later and grabbed four more that i've taken back to my room for later enjoyment. oh, ate the stuff along with some mango cake thing and blueberry cheesecake in a local starbucks. it was alright.

...well, i'm off to read more or eat dinner or something now. i think i'll see (get this construction) to what else barney is up. wait...up to what else barney is? oh, my...that's a good one. uhh, anyways, i'll see if barney is doing anything exclusively important--such as homework--later tonight. if not then, soon, i want to check out these "internet cafes" that actually exist in multitude and my price range around here. guy says that he also plays computer games (presumably on a lan network) at these "wang ka" (literally, "web cafe," so it's pretty close). 'kay.

oh, wait; i uploaded the rest of the pictures on my mom's camera, and i'm about to do those from mine; there were these cool waterfalls in those "twin towers" in which we ate, with a few other families, one of which was the li family. the train station was before we got on for that three hour trip, the bikes and statue were at the other end. most anywhere has about that many motor bikes, by the way...it's crazy. oh, and the "dinning" sign was also in some interiors store of those "twin towers." now, for my pictures, with brief explanations in another paragraph...

...unless, of course, something goes wrong, such as the camera requiring an only *very slightly* different cord. blaarg