One second I was walking down the street on the way to the post office and the next second I was part of an air raid drill. Thats exactly what happened to me today.

Emily and I were puttering around our house getting everything ready for our summer-break departure tomorrow. All of a sudden we heard an extremely loud and extremely long alarm from outside. It was the same kind of noise I remember hearing as a kid that signaled tornadoes.

We opened the window to see if people were rushing away from buildings or anything giving us an indication of real danger from an earthquake or something but seeing no one we just continued what we were doing and finally the alarm stopped.

A few minutes later I left for the post office and walked down the street to the first intersection. I was about to cross the street when a Cop standing there told me that I had to stay. Looking around I noticed several people just hanging out at the corner and then I realized how eerie it was that there were no cars or scooters or pedestrians or bicycles or anything moving along the streets. One of the other guys standing there spoke a little English and he explained to me that this was a 15 minute air-raid drill that is done across Taipei city once a year.

After the obligatory 15 minutes were up the deafening alarm sounded long and loud again and as quickly as you can snap your fingers the streets were full with cars and pedestrians.

In a country where I feel less in danger than when I’m in America this was a surreal experience.

I have now entered the state in between school’s end and summer’s true beginning. On Wednesday I finished my last final in Statistics, cleaned out my desk, put my textbooks on the bookshelf and threw out a ton of papers. I was planning on taking a bicycle trip down the east coast of Taiwan but the other day riding my bike to the store I got a flat tire which totally deflated (get it) my motivation.

On Thursday evening we had our 2nd annual End of Semester house party. Last year it was in Gueishan but this year we rocked out Taipei style. There must have been at least 40 people who came throughout the night. Most of them were mine or Emily’s classmates but there were some other friends from church and stuff. Our roommates really enjoyed it too! People started showing up around 8pm and we still had hangers-on until the subway opened back up Friday morning at 6am. It was a great night of fun complete with PS2 Soccer action, Texas Hold’em, and in general good times. I was so tired by the time the last of them went home…I’m gettin’ old. One of the attendees who knows Emily and I are serious about Christianity remarked to me how surprised he was that we could have such a good and raucous time. Its always nice to bust up stereotypes isn’t it? Although our neighbors didn’t officially attend I’m sure they were very aware of what was going on and were gracious enough to let us carry-on without any spoiling.

Saturday night we put an ad up on tealit to find a sub-letter for our room while we’re away this summer and by Sunday morning we had one! Thank you God!

Emily still has her finals through Thursday so I’ll be finishing the painting of our bedroom and maybe I can do some bike riding here in Taipei along the river trail or something. Once she finishes up we’re taking a little excursion down to the Taiwanese version of Florida known as Kenting at the very southern tip of Taiwan before we head back to America.

Sunday was our last visit to New Hope Christian Fellowship before America so we’ll miss our church family here. However, I for one am starting to get seriously geeked about being back home with my homies.

This spring and last spring I have suffered from it. My brain just doesn’t want to follow the academic calendar here and shuts down about 3 weeks before school does. So far I’ve had my Web Programming, Environmental Issues, & International Trade Regulations finals and the only one I studied for was the last one but only for about 25 minutes. Tomorrow morning begins with a Marketing Management final followed by an International Economics final in the afternoon and again I cannot bring myself to study. I’ll bring my econ textbook with me and study in between…maybe. Tuesday I’ve got a Global Industry Analysis final and finally I’ll finish Wednesday morning with a Statistics final. Its hard to find motivation to study when: (a) I don’t want to, (b) blogging is even more appealing, and (c) there is almost no chance that I can fail any of my classes regardless of the final. I know I know these statements aren’t the mark of a good student…maybe I’ll try that next year.

I am excited to be finishing up. On Thursday we’re having an End Of Semester Party at our house for a bunch of friends. It should be really, really fun. Emily will still have another week before she finishes so my plans are to finish painting our room (which we started during Chinese New Year aka beginning of February), read in my book (Freakonomics), and take a two-day bicycle ride on the East coast of Taiwan from Hualien to Taitung. Its supposed to be a beautiful ride as well as easy enough for the less astute cyclist. I’ve been reading up on this particular ride on some of the other blogs’ of foreigners here in Taiwan who have taken the ride. Here’s one account with pics if you want to take a look. I’m excited to give it a go. You know what I mean; put a tent & sleeping bag on my bike’s little holder thing and ride off into the land of real men. Hopefully I’ll remember to take video footage and put together something cool.

Speaking of which I haven’t put up any new videos for a while. This is due mostly to my computer (thanks again Dick) going on the fritz with Windows and not coming back until I nixed Microsoft and am now using ubuntu 8.04 hardy heron as my OS. I really do need to figure out how to get my video editing software to run on this OS because I’ve still got footage from Korea I want to get up not to mention our upcoming party and then the bike ride.

On Friday my Environmental Issues professor, a very interesting Canadian women (I mean interesting in a good way), gave me two tickets to a show at Taiwan’s National Concert Hall for tonight that she couldn’t use. Emily and I had never been to a concert there before and it was really fun. We got all duded up and scootered over….we turned out to be among the better dressed for this particular event but I didn’t mind because I got to see Emily all beautiful. It turned out to be a concert of Taiwan’s performing arts school. I’m assuming its somewhat akin to Juilliard. They were very good. It made me want to play my violin more and get a little ensemble or something going.

I wrote this in May, because that’s when I did these things. Somehow it got stuck in Drafts and never got published. whoops
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The weekends tend to be quite busy for us, but yesterday was especially full for me. I woke up mid-morning, ate breakfast and gave the kitchen a thorough scrubbing, then set out with some trail mix and water to join a few classmates for hiking.
We hiked Elephant Mountain (象山), the nearest one to Taipei’s (used to be the world’s) tallest building. It’s from this spot that all the astounding pictures of this valley city are taken. We weren’t able to wait for sunset, but what we did see was spectacular. The day was clear and sunny, so at the top of the mountain we lazily rested for an hour or so, soaking up the rays and perfumed air. There are some moments that seem just perfect, and this was definitely one of them!

We climbed down the other side of the mountain, descending straight into the city. It’s amazing how sharply the mountains rise up from the valley, how suddenly the city halts its growth at the base of these gentle giants.
After finding our way back to the subway system, I headed North to meet Michael and my classmates headed South. Of course we’ll meet again bright and early Monday morning. It’s great when goodbye is only for a few days!
It was 6pm, and I was supposed to meet Michael at 7 so we could go to a Bible study with a friend of ours from school, but he was at home and I was across town. So, we decided he would take the scooter and I would take a combination of the MRT (subway) and a shuttle bus to the nearby department store. Well, a simple plan turned out to be not-so-simple, as no one knew where I could catch the free shuttle bus or which public bus I should take to get there. Michael waited for over an hour as I walked around aimlessly, asking help from strangers and getting none, until I finally spotted the bus as it was pulling away, only to wait another half hour before the next one came. We finally met and were able to go to the study, which proved to be really worthwhile. The people were so sincere and open, and besides hanging out and listening to the scripture, we spent some time in earnest prayer for each other’s needs. It was really a wonderful evening with the body of Christ!

I can’t believe it. Three more weeks.

I didn’t take very many pictures this year, partly because every day is so much alike it doesn’t feel necessary. However, I did take a few. These are the ones on flickr. To see the comments and/or full screen slideshow, click on the four arrows on the bottom right.