It's Ken Follett's fault.

I apologize for being both lame and lazy on the blog writing front, but every free moment I have obtained as of late has been spent with my nose deep in the pages of Mr. Follett's "Fall of Giants".  I highly recommend it should one find themselves able to finagle time away from lesson planning for an evening.  All excuses aside though, here we go...

Here's what I wish:

• I wish I spoke Chinese
• I wish that the atmosphere of Dantes Coffee would combine with the coffee (and price) of 7-11's lattes, creating the ultimate coffee house...one that I would never leave.

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Today I  signed the lease on my new apartment!  After the great roommate debacle of Taipei took a turn for the unexpected (they are no longer roommates, but we continue to be buddies) I began to hunt for an apartment where I would live alone.  For the first time in my life.  And in Taiwan.  It took two days of walking the streets of Xizhi (just East of Taipei) with my fellow teachers before I found an apartment within my budget, with a kitchen; as it turns out, a kitchen is a difficult thing to acquire in an apartment here.  The place that I settled on is in the same building (and the floor below) one teacher, and the same complex as another; they've both been roped into showing me how tending house is done in Taiwan.  As I watched the realtor and my head teacher's wife discuss the terms of my lease in Chinese, thus confirming how badly I need to learn the language (lessons are being researched).  I felt much like a member of my Yo-Yo class--adults were talking about me, but I couldn't speak unless spoken to.  So frustrating!  Also, I'm running out of places where I don't have to talk to order food; I'm practically a regular at all the food stands where finger-pointing is both an appropriate strategy, and an acceptable one, to my ordering.

After the papers were signed I headed over to my new apartment(!) to look around and make a list of things to do.  The list is long.  The thing about Taiwan is that it is not the previous renter's responsibility to clean...it is the new renter's responsibility.  I made a list, and headed to the store to gather all of the cleaning supplies I could visibly see were necessary.  I don't know much about cleaning products, but what I do know is not helpful when all product descriptions are in Chinese.  My trip to the store took longer than I had originally hoped.  Only products with the two following qualifications made it to my cart: those that were inexpensive, and those containing a diagram of how they worked.  There is still work to do, but the floors are clean, the furniture dusted and rearranged, and (most importantly) a list has been created for an Ikea adventure.

Thursday is the proposed date for an adventure so big, so wonderful, and so colorful that only the Swedish could provide it...because they were the ones who thought of the mega store...and the fish (they must have their do).  I have an accomplice/very enthusiastic partner in crime for this extravaganza so I must commit myself to not straying from 'the list'.  The all important list, full of actual necessary items and home-y items deemed necessary so that I might soon snuggle up and get cozy in my new digs.  After that, and only after, will pictures of the apartment begin to find themselves on the internet...traveling through cyberspace, back to the U.S. of A.  Be cool.  Be patient.

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I don't know what protocol is about posting photos of small children in the blogosphere but I can only assume that it's frowned upon.  You'll have to take me at my word when I say that at our Halloween celebration my Yo-Yo class would have taken first prize at a contest for "Cutest Collection of Toddlers".  Utterly adorable.

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The children's bookstore on the "Magic Street" where I had originally hoped to reside.
My rental proposition was rejected by the owner.  I can only assume she
couldn't read my handwriting.