Hello again!
So sorry that we haven’t written! It didn’t seem as long for us as it actually has been since we have been so busy. We are starting to get adjusted and feeling more comfortable as teachers. At first it was a lot of hard work (not that it still isn’t) and a lot of hours spent agonizing over lesson plans and grading. It still takes us a lot longer than the other teachers, but that is to be expected since it has only been a month.
We are starting to settle in some in Changhua. We have two wonderful little kitties that were rescued from the streets! Pizi, which we are told in Chinese means something like Lothario, and Xiao, which means little or small, have helped made this place feel much more like a home. And Xiao is super little. You can see in a picture below that she is about the size of a neck pillow. Pizi is a very cute, funny looking city. I think he looks like one of those black and white cows, in the best possible way. Our apartment could still use a lot of work, but things move slowly around here and as for cosmetic fixing up that is pretty much for the residents and not the building management. So that means we have some gross areas on the walls that could use a coat of paint and the tiles on our balcony are falling off, but it’s structurally sound for the most part! The AC in the living room is broken, which is a huge pain. Although it’s not as hot as when we got here, it’s still in the 90’s every day. We have temporarily moved the TV into our bedroom, just so that we can have a space where we can cool off and relax after teaching long hours or when it is raining outside. Its typhoon season, and although we have not gotten one yet we have our fingers crossed! We are supposed to be getting one this weekend, but I am not so secretly hoping that it holds out a little longer and we will get Monday off work :) Typhoon days here are the snow days of back home, so a teacher can dream.
Sorry for not getting pictures of our apartment up sooner! We actually are having some difficulties locating the camera charger, so we might have to replace it. We’re hoping it’s not too difficult to replace, because I believe it was made in Taiwan, or that it just shows up one day soon. So I have had to take these pictures from our old camera, making the quality really not that great. Most of the pictures are pretty self-explanatory, just basic ones from around our apartment. I also have a few pictures of the view from the 2nd balcony, where we do laundry and which looks over the park, some buildings, and on to the mountains. Also, I really love our Koi and turtle pond/fountain, but the turtles where not cooperating and the weather was starting to get bad so use your imagination. It actually looks a lot cooler than it is. We do have a really weird elephant slide out front too. Mostly I have seen children play on it (you can’t actually slide down it because it’s concrete) but I have seen a neighbor’s very cute beagle play on it also. I’ll try to write more often! I hope everything is going well for you back home!
