I just wanted to share how many more working days there are until the Christmas break, I can hardly wait. I am looking forward to an eggnog latte and long hot bath!
I had a good weekend, yesterday I went exploring to find some felt for work and discovered amazing yarn stores in the process, well they are actually bead stores that sell yarn. It is really funny to see, there are these signs in Chinese and then in English that say D.I.Y. (do it yourself). Like beading or crafts is up there with plumbing or some other trade, I don't think of a crafts as a DIY activity, just something that is fun to do.
Anyway after that I met up with the gang from work and knit for awhile, I love knitting! On Saturday night I went and saw Alexander at the theater, don't see it. It was okay but I found it to be rather slow, difficult to follow and disjointed. I had high hopes.... oh well I had fun with my friends.
Alright well that's it I am off to work , we are being PC this month and learning about winter celebrations, this week Kwanzaa, next week Hanukkah and after that Christmas. I just want to make potato pancakes and gingerbread for 3 weeks!
have a good week.
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Happy (American) Thanksgiving
well it's Thursday here, thus if I was American it would Thanksgiving and since I work at an American school it is but we still have to work. We are having lunch today and I am looking very forward to turkey and cranberry sauce, 2 of my favorite things.
In other news... I have been knitting up a storm as Christmas is coming and it seems the whole world is pregnant too. I heard from a high school friend the other day, she is expecting in January, one of the teacher's at school is due in February and I have heard a rumor that one other person in Winnipeg is also expecting but that has yet to be confirmed. Thus the blanket and hat knitting has begun. I am also working on a few xmas gifts and something for the staff gift exchange. I have been branching out and trying new stiches and making up pattern as I go along, I am having fun and I guess hat's all that matters in the long run.
Anyway that's it, gotta go.
J
Okay just one more comment... I wrote that entry about no comments , over 40 people visited since then... that's it I won't comment on your silence. That's it, I won't say anything else about it, just needed to draw your attention to one last time.
In other news... I have been knitting up a storm as Christmas is coming and it seems the whole world is pregnant too. I heard from a high school friend the other day, she is expecting in January, one of the teacher's at school is due in February and I have heard a rumor that one other person in Winnipeg is also expecting but that has yet to be confirmed. Thus the blanket and hat knitting has begun. I am also working on a few xmas gifts and something for the staff gift exchange. I have been branching out and trying new stiches and making up pattern as I go along, I am having fun and I guess hat's all that matters in the long run.
Anyway that's it, gotta go.
J
Okay just one more comment... I wrote that entry about no comments , over 40 people visited since then... that's it I won't comment on your silence. That's it, I won't say anything else about it, just needed to draw your attention to one last time.
Monday, November 22, 2004
Mysterious
My sister says it looks lonely here with no comments! (see her comment on the last post) I think she's right, I know that you are out there and that you read but you never tell me what you think. Thus the mysterious title... I was curious about if anyone ever visited this and so a few weeks ago I added a counter at the bottom, so now I know that there are people out there but they are very quiet people.
Speaking of quiet that is how I can describe my weekend, not much happened. I did laundry, took tai to the vet for her last round of shots, met a friend for dinner, knit and read. Oh yeah I walked the dog too. Not to much just life and such. I have a lot to do for work this week, report cards are looming in my near future and so is our Christmas play.
Alright I am off to make some dinner and tidy the apartment, the puppy had too much fun to day! She found a box with packing peanuts in it and a pen... both have been ingested and the remnants are scattered around the apartment, the packing peanuts anyway. The remaining pen is all over her! PUPPIES.
J.
Speaking of quiet that is how I can describe my weekend, not much happened. I did laundry, took tai to the vet for her last round of shots, met a friend for dinner, knit and read. Oh yeah I walked the dog too. Not to much just life and such. I have a lot to do for work this week, report cards are looming in my near future and so is our Christmas play.
Alright I am off to make some dinner and tidy the apartment, the puppy had too much fun to day! She found a box with packing peanuts in it and a pen... both have been ingested and the remnants are scattered around the apartment, the packing peanuts anyway. The remaining pen is all over her! PUPPIES.
J.
Thursday, November 18, 2004
the rest....
Okay so I have about 10 minutes to do this, it's going to be hard but I will rise to the occasion, at least I will try. The dog has decided she wants to play a rousing game of find the stuffed toy and I really don't want to play. She doesn't understand and keeps on putting her paws up up on the side of the chair... it's cute but I want her to move on and entertain herself for the next 10 minutes or so. I guess that is a lot to ask of a 6 month old puppy.
Okay so to finish the last post, on Sunday I went to Yinnge. It's a pottery/ceramics village that's a 30 minute train ride away. I went with some friends and we all had a great time. The shopping was good (very important) and there was a really cool museum full of great artifacts from the area. It was a great day and really nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, there were lots of people but not as many as here.
I was just thinking that I should add some photos to this post and realized that my camera is at school... oh well I will add them later.
I also wanted to tell you about my zoo experience, this is a developed country and apparently has a great zoo. Well the developed country part is accurate but the zoo is really horrible. The animals live in cement enclosures that may or may not have plants inside. The koala's live in little cement rooms with a tree like structure and some leaves shoved into a canister. I saw pacing wolves and unhappy cougars. It amazes me that zoo's can get away with this. It is apparently hosting some international conference this year, maybe it will help. The grounds are huge but it is mostly just space for walking and taking photos on statues rather than space for the animals to move around.
Some times I really wonder why we bother to keep animals in captivity, I agree in protecting endangered animals but keeping wild animals in tiny enclosures just seems so wrong. Yet over here it is the norm, not the exception. Why is that?
Okay gotta go to work... Yippee it's FRIDAY.
Okay so to finish the last post, on Sunday I went to Yinnge. It's a pottery/ceramics village that's a 30 minute train ride away. I went with some friends and we all had a great time. The shopping was good (very important) and there was a really cool museum full of great artifacts from the area. It was a great day and really nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, there were lots of people but not as many as here.
I was just thinking that I should add some photos to this post and realized that my camera is at school... oh well I will add them later.
I also wanted to tell you about my zoo experience, this is a developed country and apparently has a great zoo. Well the developed country part is accurate but the zoo is really horrible. The animals live in cement enclosures that may or may not have plants inside. The koala's live in little cement rooms with a tree like structure and some leaves shoved into a canister. I saw pacing wolves and unhappy cougars. It amazes me that zoo's can get away with this. It is apparently hosting some international conference this year, maybe it will help. The grounds are huge but it is mostly just space for walking and taking photos on statues rather than space for the animals to move around.
Some times I really wonder why we bother to keep animals in captivity, I agree in protecting endangered animals but keeping wild animals in tiny enclosures just seems so wrong. Yet over here it is the norm, not the exception. Why is that?
Okay gotta go to work... Yippee it's FRIDAY.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
So much to say, so little time
I have had an impressive time since I last wrote and I don't even know where to start. I meant to write here last night but it had been a long day and I had a headache so I went to bed instead.
On Saturday the director of my school took all the teachers out the this amazing dumpling restaurant for breakfast, yes they eat dumplings all day. I couldn't eat them but I did have a few so that I could say that I had eaten there and tried them. They were really good, think about the best wontons you have ever had and then think about something better, that's how good they were. The fillings were really good and wrappers were very thin and tasted great. Apparently the restaurant is on the list of the top ten in the world, the food was good but I haven't eaten any other dumpings here (just wontons from home) I have nothing to compare it too.
After that a few of the teachers and I went to the park and knit, it was an amazing day ( I could of had shorts on!), we attracted a bit of an audience, it was really funny. Anyway as we say and knit this lady came up and tried to help us because I guess she decided that we didn't know what we were doing. Sarah speaks pretty good Chinese and talked to her a bit and then she fixed the way that Steph was pulling her wool off her ball. I guess she doesn't like pulling from the the inside like I do! Anyway she was just one of many who stood and stared at us, I imagine for white chicks knitting in a park is not something you see every day here.
Okay i have to get moving so that I can go to work but I still need to tell you about Sunday and my zoo trip yesterday.... I will have to write again later.
J.
On Saturday the director of my school took all the teachers out the this amazing dumpling restaurant for breakfast, yes they eat dumplings all day. I couldn't eat them but I did have a few so that I could say that I had eaten there and tried them. They were really good, think about the best wontons you have ever had and then think about something better, that's how good they were. The fillings were really good and wrappers were very thin and tasted great. Apparently the restaurant is on the list of the top ten in the world, the food was good but I haven't eaten any other dumpings here (just wontons from home) I have nothing to compare it too.
After that a few of the teachers and I went to the park and knit, it was an amazing day ( I could of had shorts on!), we attracted a bit of an audience, it was really funny. Anyway as we say and knit this lady came up and tried to help us because I guess she decided that we didn't know what we were doing. Sarah speaks pretty good Chinese and talked to her a bit and then she fixed the way that Steph was pulling her wool off her ball. I guess she doesn't like pulling from the the inside like I do! Anyway she was just one of many who stood and stared at us, I imagine for white chicks knitting in a park is not something you see every day here.
Okay i have to get moving so that I can go to work but I still need to tell you about Sunday and my zoo trip yesterday.... I will have to write again later.
J.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Whining children are universal
I saw the whiniest child ever the other day, I wish that I had a movie camera. She was about 8 and ready to burst, I have no idea what was happening but I think she should get a prize for the most annoying whine ever. Her mom was patient at first and then started to lose it when her daughter wouldn't stop. Then last night at school I had 2 grade fours who were tired and whiny too... so annoying.
On a completely different note, I found a place on the weekend to walk Tai where I could take her off her leash and actually let her play in the grass, she was very excited to be able to run around without me having to run along side her. The only downfall was that it was by the river and she managed to find a dead fish... yuck! It was pretty old though and as a result not to smelly.
Okay I am off to work... 1 more sleep till the weekend and starting next week I am getting to teach all kindergarten, all the time. They have hired a new teacher and so I have given up my grade 4 class (they are a really tough group) and will just teach Kindergarten. Woo hoo I am very happy about this. I also have plans to go out of the city this weekend on Sunday, to a village that specialize in pottery, that means new pictures and lots of exciting things to tell you.
Have a good day/night/whatever.
J.
On a completely different note, I found a place on the weekend to walk Tai where I could take her off her leash and actually let her play in the grass, she was very excited to be able to run around without me having to run along side her. The only downfall was that it was by the river and she managed to find a dead fish... yuck! It was pretty old though and as a result not to smelly.
Okay I am off to work... 1 more sleep till the weekend and starting next week I am getting to teach all kindergarten, all the time. They have hired a new teacher and so I have given up my grade 4 class (they are a really tough group) and will just teach Kindergarten. Woo hoo I am very happy about this. I also have plans to go out of the city this weekend on Sunday, to a village that specialize in pottery, that means new pictures and lots of exciting things to tell you.
Have a good day/night/whatever.
J.
Saturday, November 6, 2004
knitting anyone
I am happy to say that helped a new knitter today (and refreshed the memory of another)... We will take over the world eventually. I made a scarf for one of the other teachers at work and some others saw it and expressed interest. So today we went off to the other side of the city in search of some yarn and found some! There is a yarn store in Taipei I think there is probably more than one but I was excited to hear about this one.
They had all sorts of exciting things, not a huge selection but enough for the new knitters to find some wool for scarves and also some cool merino and some other really soft fuzzy something that looked great . I don't need any wool at the moment but if I do I know where to go. Then we went to a coffee shop and got the scarves started, everyone is doing well and hopefully they will knit without to much trouble.
I was walking home after and all of a sudden there was this guy beside me and he started to talking to me... it was very funny.
him: Are you from France or England?
me: neither, Canada.
him: Ontario or BC?
me: Ontario, I guess
him: Toronto or Ottawa?
me: Ottawa
him: so you speak French?
me: no
him: are your descendents from England or Ireland?
me: neither my ancestors are from lots of places
him: Oh, Catholicism or Protestantism?
me: catholic
him: are more Canadians catholic or protestant?
me: neither, not to much religion in Canada.
him: so your English teacher
me: no not really just regular teacher.
him: republican or democrat
me: neither Liberal.
And on and on, and on it went until finally there was a spot where I could say that I was turning. It was so weird, apparently in his world there are only 2 choices for everything.
I am off to walk the dog.
J.
They had all sorts of exciting things, not a huge selection but enough for the new knitters to find some wool for scarves and also some cool merino and some other really soft fuzzy something that looked great . I don't need any wool at the moment but if I do I know where to go. Then we went to a coffee shop and got the scarves started, everyone is doing well and hopefully they will knit without to much trouble.
I was walking home after and all of a sudden there was this guy beside me and he started to talking to me... it was very funny.
him: Are you from France or England?
me: neither, Canada.
him: Ontario or BC?
me: Ontario, I guess
him: Toronto or Ottawa?
me: Ottawa
him: so you speak French?
me: no
him: are your descendents from England or Ireland?
me: neither my ancestors are from lots of places
him: Oh, Catholicism or Protestantism?
me: catholic
him: are more Canadians catholic or protestant?
me: neither, not to much religion in Canada.
him: so your English teacher
me: no not really just regular teacher.
him: republican or democrat
me: neither Liberal.
And on and on, and on it went until finally there was a spot where I could say that I was turning. It was so weird, apparently in his world there are only 2 choices for everything.
I am off to walk the dog.
J.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
