One trait that Taiwanese people seem to desire a lot is convenience. When I tell people I live near Guting MRT station but my university is near Jiantan MRT station they’ll tell me how horrible that is because “it’s not very convenient.” I explain that it’s because Emily goes to a university near Guting. In reality though the distance is still only about 20 minutes by scooter when it’s not rush-hour which, to me, is still pretty good.

The desire for convenience by her residents gives Taipei some wonderful features. Lets take me and Emily for example. Our house is right in the middle of the city. We are three blocks from the MRT: Taipei’s ’subway.’ On our block we have multiple convenience stores, bus stops, our preferred scooter shop, a dry-cleaners, not too mention a bicycle store which has proven to be very useful as the air in my tires is always running low. Three blocks away are electronic stores, a grocery, Starbucks, McDonald’s, and a lot, lot more. 5 blocks away you hit Emily’s school and two more past that brings you to the Shida Night Market and some of the best restaurants in the city! I haven’t even mentioned that we are just a few blocks from several parks including the River Park system that goes on for miles following Taipei’s various riverbanks.

You know how in American cities you have to drive out to the suburbs to go to Wal-Mart or Home Depot or any of those big box stores? Here in Taipei we are about 10 minutes by scooter from Carrefour (a French version of Wal-Mart), 20 minutes from B&Q (basically Home Depot with a different name), and while we have never gone 20 minutes would also bring us to Costco.

One of the uniquenesses of Taipei is how small, geographically speaking, it is. It’s actually one of the most densely populated places on earth in terms of per-square-inch with a population of 8 million (I think). While dense population does present some down-sides I really like how “convenient” my city is!

It’s been a few weeks since my last post so I figured I had better get on the ball. The problem is there is not much to tell. I mean sure, I can tell you that Emily is super busy and harried with schoolwork and that I’m not but is that really post-worthy news?

If you are a praying person you can pray for Emily. She is incredibly challenged by this semester’s workload and doing her utmost to measure up. I, on the other hand, have one of the lightest loads of my academic career right now. With that in mind I’ve been trying to work on becoming more in tune with the housework and meal needs and all the jobs that Emily remembers so naturally but that I just don’t even think about. I want to be better at having all that stuff in my head constantly and being able to remember that the bathroom needs cleaning, or the roommate needs to be reminded to do their cleaning job, or the groceries need buying. And then once I get that stuff in my head on a constant basis I want to do those things.

I’ve been having fun building my Mandarin vocabulary. It is a constant challenge but I’m hoping the consistency of lessons and such will help solidify all these new words into my brain so that I can actually benefit from them in real situations. Our good friend Sandy has agreed to do some language exchange with me and she is a really, really good teacher. We are so blessed!

Oh, I just remembered there is something I can talk about. Last Saturday Emily and I went to Guang-hua Market electronics district and bought a new desktop computer. Both of our laptops are 4 plus years old and are getting quite temperamental. We have high hopes for our new computer! Guang-hua Market seemed like a geek’s paradise. Picture a billion little stores that had all these menus of computer components. You could buy each component individually or put them together to create a new computer. Emily and I ended up at this store and the guy had this order sheet and basically filled in what type of each computer component we wanted. He told us to come back in thirty minutes and the computer would be built. Great way to buy computers as far as I’m concerned because I could choose how good/expensive I want our computer to be!!

It’s amazing but we’ve already been back for a little over two weeks. Many things have happened in that amount of time but it seems like we’re less busy than back in Michigan. It’s like we’ve come back to our normal life and it’s a vacation.

Last Saturday we took advantage of the hot weather and went with some friends to Fulong Beach. We rented a surfboard and had a great day! You know that question people ask you about weather you’re a beach person or a mountain person? I think I’m a beach person.

Last Sunday was a big day as well. Our first Sunday back we were asked if we’d like to lead worship sometime and we said sure. Later that week, Thursday to be precise, we got a call asking if we wanted to lead the coming Sunday. After a 15 second hesitation I said sure why not. I’m from a big Irish family so embarrassment is just another part of life anyways. It actually turned out great too! I played guitar and our pastor’s wife played piano. Emily and I sang together on the English parts and she sang alone on the Chinese parts with me getting in a word here and there. We sang “Create In Me A Clean Heart,” “This Is My Father’s World,” “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” and “Because He Lives.” I really enjoyed it to be honest. They have put us on the rotation too so if you’re ever in Taiwan and you want to see me stumble my way through a song in Chinese make sure you are here on a Sunday.

There really has been quite a lot going on. Thanks to Emily I picked up another tutoring gig. Emily’s student’s boyfriend is now my student and he’s a pretty cool guy! I’m also excited to be doing some Chinese classes as well a few evenings a week in addition to my normal classes.

A few days ago on the stairs at school I ran into my Calculus professor from freshman year, Jennifer Hu. I hadn’t seen her since then but she has been my favorite teacher thus far and we had a nice little chat. She told me that she’s taught over a 1000 students and that I’ve been the most consistent in coming to office hours…thank goodness she offered them because otherwise I wouldn’t have had a prayer in that class!

(SIDE NOTE: Just this second there was a pretty good sized earthquake shaking our house. Don’t worry mom, it didn’t do anything. By good sized I mean it was noticeable.)

Just yesterday I came out of the school gate and ran into a group of Taiwanese Gideons handing out New Testaments. They were bilingual Chinese and English Bibles and they gave me two of them. After walking away a little I decided to see if they’d let me help them hand out the Bibles. At first they weren’t sure if that would be okay but they ended up letting me so for about 20 minutes or so I gave out Bibles to classmates and students who go to MCU. The ones that were most interesting to me were the ones that were interested in whatever was being given out but when they found out what it was they gave a little wide-eyed look and a little ‘no thank-you’ wave of the hand. It was like what I’d expect if a group of people tried to hand out Korans outside an American high school except without the cops being called, the newspaper writing a story about it, and a bunch of angry parents feeling like their children had just been violated. Gets you thinking about your own religion doesn’t it? It does me whenever I remember that my religion isn’t the mainstream or dominant one here. It’s the weird, avant garde (in some people’s eyes) religion. The religion that when someone is converted their family and neighbors wonder what happened to them and why they got so strange.

This semester I think every, single one (or maybe it’s just almost every, single one) of my classes have group project assignments. What is with these group projects? They cannot be as valuable as all that? Enough with the group projects already!!!