Random Happenings

Here are some things I've been up to lately in no particular order.
*The end of April my co-workers and I traveled to central Taiwan to watch Team Expansion MK Nathanael perform the part of Cat in the Hat in the musical "Suessical". He's so talented in the area of drama so it's always fun to watch him. We were all proud to tell everyone the WE are close personal friends with the Cat in the Hat.*We hosted a group from the University of Illinois during the last part of May for a 10 day trip.
Here's a picture of them with some of our students from NTUT.
I found out that 4 of the students are from Carthage, Illinois, a very small town in Western Illinois about 5 minutes from an even smaller town, Burnside, where my brother used to preach. So they actually know who my brother is. Even in Taiwan I can't get away from being Chris' sister!!!:-)
*I did a happy dance as I watched fellow Missourian and self proclaimed "word nerd" David Cook win American Idol. We had one Archuletta fan in our midst here in Taipei but he's only 6 so he got over his disappointment pretty quickly. Finally, the right person (the person I like) won! That hasn't happened since Carrie Underwood won ages ago. It's also cool to see the rocker win for once. And thankfully he got rid of his horrible comb over hairstyle halfway through the season. Good hair might not be the biggest factor in a successful life but it certainly can't hurt.
But the best thing about David Cook winning is that since the right person finally won all of us who LOVED Melinda Doolittle, and believe she was robbed last year, finally feel a little bit of American Idol justice has been done.*I finally got a copy of the Passion "God of this City" cd. And it is SOOOOOOOOOO good.
My only complaint is that the album art doesn't contain a sketch of Taipei 101. What's the deal with that? It's not only the world's tallest (completed) building, with the world's fastest elevator, it's also the only building that I know of that can simultaneously inspire images of bamboo and stacked up chinese take out boxes. And just think how cool this building would look next to London's Big Ben or the Sears Tower! Well, maybe we'll make it onto "God of this City 2".
*Since I'm going on furlough this summer I've started the round of goodbye dinners. Here's the first one. This is with my Wednesday night English Bible study group. The lady on the left is my Chinese teacher, Christy. I wish I would have studied Chinese with her from the beginning of my time in Taiwan. She is a Christian and her dream is to teach Christian missionaries so that our Chinese will be better than the mormon missionaries! She also helped me translate the song "God of this City" into Chinese. Yay!!
*We also had a girl scout mother's day tea and the girl scout bridging ceremony. My troop of Junior girl scouts is now officially a troop of Cadets! Sadly, some of our girls are either moving away or participating in other activities next year.
*And then last night I caught up with some students that I haven't seen in 3 years. The last time I was together with this whole group of students was around my 30th birthday. Then they graduated, I went on furlough and we haven't seen each other much since. But last night we were able to get together for a few hours. They are so sweet. They were all impressed that my Chinese had improved and that now I will eat all the crazy Chinese food they love without making any outward signs that I think it's a little gross. They also said that I didn't look any older but in fact had become more beautiful in the past 3 years. I think I need to spend more time with these people. They're very good for my ego. :-)
Now, I'm getting ready to head home on the 18th for home service (furlough). I'm excited to see my family, do all the fun things that go along with summer time in America AND buy that new computer that I've been saving up for the past few months. Wahoo!
Oh yeah, and I'm trying to think of a new name for the blog. Any ideas??

----------------
Now playing: Chris Tomlin - God Of This City
via FoxyTunes