Prisoners of Typhoon Sinlaku!

We’ve experienced our first typhoon—Typhoon Sinlaku! Up until now, I barely knew what a typhoon was! I’m guessing that the only difference between a typhoon and a hurricane is that typhoons happen in the Pacific Ocean, and they’re not necessarily named after people. We were safe, but it was ultra windy and rainy! My main disappointment is that the Autumn Moon Festival was supposed to happen, and it had to be cancelled! I so wanted to experience an Autumn Moon Festival, which other than Chinese New Year, is supposed to be one of the most important events of the year! John and I were scheduled to perform for the on-campus festival, but everything was cancelled! Well, at least we ate some moon cakes—a common pastry eaten during this time. Lauren and Luke LOVE moon cakes!

We received emails from the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange (Fulbright Taiwan), and Dr. Wu advised us to stay inside and read a good book! We have a DVD player, but we needed one more cable for it to work. The kids got a little stir-crazy, to say the least!

So I must say that I’m really enjoying MANY things in Taipei! I LOVE using public transportation, and I really enjoy walking the children to school. The teachers have been SO wonderful, and they sincerely seem to enjoy having Lauren and Luke in their classes. Also, there’s never television at their schools! And no mean children or bullying! John and I have found 2 awesome noodle/dumpling places that are EXTREMELY inexpensive. It’s wonderful being in an old-fashioned neighborhood in which we get our bread from a local bakery and buy fresh produce from local markets. We’re also drinking tea every day, and John has given up coffee for tea. Ever since he began drinking tea instead of coffee, he no longer has to take Prilosec! Poor John, for health reasons he's given up 2 of his favorite beverages--beer and coffee! The only thing I have not adjusted to is the abundance of motor scooters! The motor scooters SCARE me! They’re everywhere and appear out of nowhere! I’m COMPLETELY terrified that one will run over Luke or Lauren. I try my best to always stand between the children and the motor scooters, and I’m constantly holding their hands. During orientation, we were HEAVILY discouraged from using motor scooters. A speaker from the American Institute of Taiwan (AIT) told us there were numerous accidents and deaths from motor scooters and that Taiwan is a slippery country, which I’ve definitely noticed, especially when it rains. Motor scooter accidents happen when they slide from underneath the riders. We frequently see parents and children on motor scooters! But at least they’re wearing helmets!

One issue we have not conquered is our washing machine! We’re getting better, but it has been VERY trying. It’s actually a really fantastic machine—an LG Intellowasher—it cleans AND dries clothes—but apparently it’s much too intelligent for us! One hurdle is that the directions are in Chinese, but I doubt we would even understand how to use it if the directions were in English. There are billions of cycles, controls, lights, and buttons. Believe me, we’ve asked several people for help, but we’re still screwing up royally! John and I very technologically-challenged, and this machine is too sophisticated for us! We can’t even open the door sometimes!! When we do get the door open, it’s by SHEER LUCK, and we have no idea how we got it open! And then we think we’re drying the clothes, and after spending about 90 minutes trying to get the door open to see if the clothes are dry, the clothes are still sopping wet! This machine is totally kicking our you-know-whats! John is normally a very calm person who displays no temper, but this machine has almost driven him to the brink—I’ve never seen him so annoyed!

John had a terrific visit at Taipei National University of the Arts. He has a long commute as well—about 90 minutes. His is a little easier than mine in that he’s pretty much on the subway the whole time. I need to explain this a bit—John’s original Fulbright proposal was to teach at Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA). When John was selected to be a Fulbrighter, there was a housing issue—TNUA was not able to provide housing. Dr. Wu saved the day by getting National Chengchi University (NCCU) to serve as our host university and provide housing, and in return, John would teach a music appreciation class and serve as an artist-in-resident at NCCU. NCCU is a very excellent school and community, but it does not have a music major. So John is teaching at both NCCU and TNUA. Anyway, he found TNUA to be a lovely campus and the faculty and students there are amazingly cooperative and friendly. He’s really looking forward to teaching there—he will start conducting the wind ensemble this week. John starts teaching at NCCU this week as well. The NCCU people have also been PHENOMENAL. Greg, the Ph.D student has been GREAT, and Teacher Linda and Shirly, John’s teaching assistant (can you believe he actually has a teaching assistant—this is the first time he has one) have also been INCREDIBLY helpful and have taken wonderful care of us. I have no idea what we would have done without the assistance of Greg, Shirly, and Teacher Linda.

NCCU is a first-rate university and many, many people want to come to school here. Greg also told us that it's very expensive to live here because people want their children to go to the NCCU-affiliated schools. So our kids are very fortunate!

Lauren and Luke have settled into a schedule and are sleeping well (knock on wood). Luke is even taking naps! Luke really reminds me of Brett Favre—when he’s doing well, he’s incredible, but when he’s doing badly, it’s DISASTROUS! Just like Favre, we never know which Luke will show up! But both kids seem happy here and are adjusting very well!

One of the pics is an image of Taipei from the MRT. I also wanted to provide a picture of John's office door with his given Chinese name--hopefully my Chinese-reading family can tell what it is.

Next up….more on my teaching gig, John’s first wind ensemble rehearsal, Taiwanese vs. Chinese....