Well, I can safely say that when I initially embarked on my adventure to Asia I never thought I would be writing a blog entry for my two year anniversary. It occurred to me over the weekend that it has been over a year since my last post and, well...that's too bloody long. My last post was about my motorcycle wreck and I have my scars to remind me of that, so I think a new post would do some good.

Where to begin? A year is a long time, especially here; despite the fact that here it seems like someone has their finger on the fast-forward button. I suppose from the beginning(ish) is as good a place as any.

Directly after I wrecked my bike I spent a week in Singapore, for work, as a counselor/teacher for an English summer camp for Taiwanese kids. I don't think I have ever been that tired in my entire life. I was in teacher/buddy mode all day, teaching lessons, singing and dancing on the bus, corralling 22 kids and getting them to speak as much English as possible, eating once in a while, and averaging 4-6 hours of sleep a night.

Oh, and I was completely hoarse on day two of 6. Fun.

But overall I had a fantastic experience and I got to see some of the most touristy spots in one of the most unique places on Earth. For the record, you cannot purchase chewing gum in Singapore and can still be publicly flogged for serious offenses. But it is certainly one of the cleaner places I have ever been and on the whole people were quite friendly (see Facebook for my photos of the trip).

My return to America in December of last year was a...curious experience. I certainly suffered from reverse culture shock, and that made the first few days rather interesting. Everyone (almost everyone) looked very generously proportioned, I understood everything people said, I could read menus and street signs, I was once again part of the masses and not something to be regarded with reserved novelty if not with outright amazement.

I was home.

It was so good to see the people I did and I hope next time I can catch a few more faces when I'm around. It's a lot of the little things that I missed the most, and I think there were just as many big things I did not. I got almost everything I wanted to do done, including lots of nothing. But, I do not have another return trip planned in the foreseeable future so just hold on to your butts, kiddos.

Chinese New Year brought one of the most bad-ass road-trips of all time, and definitely of my life (see Facebook for photos). That trip deserves its own entry and any blurb I put here just wouldn't do it justice. Check back for a future posting.

Oh yea, I got promoted. Quite soon I will be the Head Native Speaking Teacher at my branch and will be, officially, middle management. Hooray. I'll make schedules, observe other NST's classes for pay appraisals, things like that.

I'll be the bossman, of sorts. Not too shabby, eh?

To answer that question that just popped into your head, yes, I still really, really enjoy my job. I consider myself lucky that I can say that so often and actually mean it. Not to be a snot, but I'm pretty damn good at what I do and I'm more experienced than most Hess teachers in Taichung. Now, I say that out of genuine pride, not arrogance. I do not mean to say "Haha I'm better than you, chumps!" It's just that I've worked really hard and overcome a lot of obstacles to get here, and I'm damn proud of that. Teaching is such a public job because of that simple reason that you are always working with people. Mostly kids but also parents, other teachers, my superiors, my co-teachers. You're always in the limelight. Its a daily fact of life that a lot of people don't think about. But, I've had the privilege to branch out from the everyday teaching. I've judged spelling bees at junior high schools all over Taichung, Taichung county, and even as far as Miaoli and Changhua, which are both an hour away. I've made encouraging speeches to audiences of over a thousand students and faculty after listening to them sing songs in English (for three hours) and made them laugh to boot.

Most days I did that before I went to work and made an ass of myself for the benefit of keeping a baker's dozen of children amused enough to learn some English.

I found out a few weeks ago that my Head CT (Chinese Teacher) did a presentation on one of our curricula that is geared for kindergarten aged students (usually 4-7 years old). Unfortunately, I'm quite familiar with it because I've taught the first two levels of it twice.

I am not a fan.

But that is not the point. The point is that she showed a five minute video of me teaching some of these monsters to everyone in attendance, which consisted of pretty much all the branch managers and head CT's in Taichung; about 80 people all told. Pretty cool. I talked to some people that were there and they loved it, especially the part when I pretend to be covered in feces and chase the kids around the classroom.

I'm still studying Chinese and it's recently become a daily habit to sit down and learn more. I can read a bit, but mostly simple food items. My spoken is much stronger and I still get a good feeling when I have entire conversations in Chinese. I'm finally becoming bilingual, or at least heading in that direction. Lots of people throw out the word "fluency" and I have a hard time applying it. It's a difficult word to define, language learning being such an amorphous thing. I prefer the term "expressive." I feel that in most situations I could express myself, explain myself, or at least talk around something I don't know the exact words for. Which, I can tell you, is hard in any second language, especially Chinese.

Hard to figure that two years ago I couldn't speak any Chinese at all. It's such a big part of everyday life that it feels weird to think about not being at the level I'm at. Which makes me excited to learn more!

As far as my other travels are concerned, in June I spent a week in Bali, Indonesia.

Wow.

Indonesia is a hell of a place, and, like my Chinese New Year trip, deserves its own post (see Facebook for photos), which I will be writing soon. It was a strange trip. Fun, but odd in many ways.

Especially the last day.

Anyway, I think this is enough for now. You hooligans will have to wait a few days (cross your fingers) for another post. The next won't feel like such a summary, but I just came back to this so have a heart. I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the lives you lead; they're too short for anything else.

So, until next time...Long days and pleasant nights, friends.

Nik