Many people have died for their freedom, I just asked for mine.

After the principal forced me into a newspaper interview, I decided to quit Chinese class with him. The only reason I was still doing the class with him was because he's the principal and I should show him respect. The interview changed that. So after four days of worrying about how to quit I finally walked into his office and asked if I could quit Thursday's Chinese lessons. He agreed quite readily and I walked away with both my freedom and a new appreciation for the principal. He really can't be all bad. =)

And off in the distance, a dog barked.

so, many years ago my mom got me a barking dog alarm clock. She got it as a small revenge for my dog that used to wake her up barking. Well, the alarm clock is almost useless as an alarm clock as it doesn't have a snooze button. It is probably the loudest most annoying alarm clock in the history of alarm clocks. However this thing has proved to have other uses.
When I first got to Taiwan I set it and put it in the backpack of my accountability leader, Simon, during CI. Everyone could hear barking, but no one knew where it was coming from until the entire searching party ended up at Simon and one of the guys said "Dude, your backpack is barking." From then on the alarm clock had an obnoxious habit of turning up in people's bags or backpacks. You never knew who was going to be barking next or where it would start. Those were good times, really good times.
Well, a year had passed and I was looking fondly at my old alarm clock as I started packing for the new CI, when I suddenly had a brilliant idea. I could set my alarm to go off when it's in the baggage room full of everyone's suitcases. Then no one would be able to find where it's coming from. So, I put my brilliant plan into action. "12 pm should be late enough to go off. Everyone should be together then." So I set the clock and put it in my suitcase and Naomi and I set off to the train station. 3 hours later, in the crowded train...my suitcase started barking. Naomi who had not been privy to my "brilliant" plan could not understand why my stupid alarm clock was going off in the crowded train. We neared our stop and decided we'd try to get off the train and through the crowd as quickly as possible, so no one would know the barking was coming from us. A nice young man helped me get my suitcase down from the rack, then paused at the barking. He looked puzzled and looked hopefully at me for an explanation. I smiled, took the suitcase and Naomi and I ran out through the Taipei main station. Then we got out through the building and then hopped into a taxi. My suitcase, with the obnoxious barking still going on, was put into the front next to the taxi driver. The taxi driver got into the driver seat and paused, listening. "Is that a real dog?" he asked. Naomi assured him it wasn't, but he still had some doubts. Finally he shook his head and took off driving. For five minutes the dog was going off...Finally we reached our stop. We jumped out and payed the taxi driver (he charged us more than his original quote...I don't blame him) Then we crossed the street to starbucks, where I finally was able to shut the stupid alarm clock off. As we sat there on the suitcase and listened to the non-barking silence and sipped our coffee, I wished dreadfully hard that I had had someone else I could blame for the entire annoying affair, but there was nothing for it....I did it. I pranked myself.

sniffing chamomile???

Naomi and I had made plans to visit the small Island of Kinmen over the weekend. It's a really cool island full of history, old buildings and the added plus of seeing the amazing Kinmen tesol team. So, Friday after school our dear baba taxi driver drove us over to the Taichung airport. To our chagrin flights to kinmen were canceled due to heavy fog. So now what? We couldn't go home, because we knew we'd probably end up wallowing, eating chocolate and watching office episodes. We decided to visit the big city of Taichung. The Taxi driver we payed to take us there wasn't as nice as Baba. He drove like a maniac all the way there and by the time we got there we were both feeling some serious carsickness. So then we got out into the street and we were greeted by the most horrendous gutter smell ever. There were a few awful seconds as the smell turned our already aggravated stomachs. Then we tried moving to a different place, only the gutter ran parallel with the sidewalk we were walking on...there was no escape. I turned to my purse and found a bag of chamomile tea, which I promptly opened and stuck my nose into. The rest of the walk we were passing this opened bag of chamomile tea back and forth. It was a little odd, but at least it kept the gagging at bay.