Merry Christmas! I truly have a great life and this is truly a great Christmas. Here’s our house, all decked out.

Yesterday two packages arrived. One from Emily’s family and one from mine! We found wrapped gifts in one and food in the other. Could a guy ask for a better mother than one who sends him Christmas cookies, fudge, nuts & bolts (our family’s name for homemade Chex Mix), and chocolate? I can’t think of anything better! I guess it just goes to show how highly I value food huh. Now I just have to figure out how to keep Emily from eating it all…

Yesterday was also a big day in terms of busyness. I had to go out to  MCU’s Taoyuan campus (where Emily and I lived our first year) for an awards ceremony. I won third prize in the English Prose section of MCU’s 21st Annual Literary Competition. Maybe its a false impression of mine but Taiwanese seem to really go for lots of pomp & circumstance; so there was a big ol’ program to  take part in. I was really happy for  my classmate, Edineau, who won first prize. He’s from Brazil and beat out all the native English speakers to win first place by writing his life’s story of going from the poorer neighborhoods of Brazil, where his brother was murdered, to two years on The Doulos (a missionary boat that travels around the world helping people) to a student at Ming Chuan. He is a cool guy and I know winning has got to be a big encouragement to him in his English skills. After the ceremony ended a friend  and I got dinner at the Thai restaurant there in Gueishan that I still am not over even though I haven’t lived there for so long. The owners still remember me and we talked some as my friend and I partook of incredible eats and Singha (a popular Thai beer). After getting back to Taipei I had to pull myself together and get Christmas shopping done.

This morning  Emily and I were  able  to skype with her family and help decorate the Christmas tree (virtually) and sing Christmas carols and talk. It was great! They wanted us  to open the presents that they mailed to us, which had arrived yesterday, and we were happy to oblige. This very moment I am adorned with comfortable and warm pajamas thanks to the generosity of mom and dad M! We also got a dvd of “A Christmas Carol” and a calendar!

This weekend we’ve got so many events planned it’s a little overwhelming.  Tonight (Christmas Eve) we are going  to go to a Christmas service at a  church nearby  that puts on a nice little show every year. Tomorrow we are going to skip school and have a wonderful family Christmas with just  the two of us. Ending the day will be a trip to a fancy nightclub where a friend is celebrating their birthday. Saturday we are throwing our own Christmas party at our  house. Then…on Sunday Emily and I are going to lead worship at church as well as Christmas carolers from our church around Da’an Park (Taipei’s version of Central Park) after the service. And then…we are going to go hang out  with my sister Megan, who will be in town for a few hours. Whenever that ends we’ll head home to hopefully get all our homework done in time for Monday. Oh man it’s gonna  be crazy.

A mountain of polyethylene terephthalate bottles (commonly referred to as PET) collected is seen at the Tzu Chi Foundation’s recycling center in Taipei on Dec.10, as nations continued U.N. climate negatiations in the Danish capital Copenhagen this week.

Tonight, Michael and I felt the biggest earthquake since we’ve been in Taiwan, a 6.4! At the time I was at a friend’s apartment, on the seventh story – the grand piano was rocking back and forth and the heavily laden bookshelves swayed. The whole building was moving like it was made of jello. The two other women and I grabbed our things and tried to get out the door, but the locks wouldn’t come open and the door was stuck in its frame. This was after more than 15 seconds or so, which is a really long time in earthquake-land! Finally we got the door open, but by that time the heavy rocking had stopped. We waited through the aftershocks, then took our coats off and went back to practicing for tomorrow’s Christmas service.
Michael was in our bedroom at home, in a much older apartment, and said he actually held up his hand in belief it would protect him from the falling ceiling.
What a night!

MAJOR EARTHQUAKE STRIKES TAIWAN; FOUR INJURED, MINOR DAMAGE IN TAIPEI AND NEAR EPICENTER
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (CP)
TAIPEI, Taiwan — A large earthquake struck Taiwan on Saturday night, causing some injuries and damage in the capital of Taipei as well as damage near the quake’s epicenter.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the 6.4-magnitude quake was centred off the eastern coast of Taiwan, about 15 miles (25 kilometres) from Hualien. It struck at a depth of about 30 miles (45 kilometres). The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not immediately issue any warning.
Buildings shook in the capital for over twenty seconds after the quake struck.
“It was the strongest quake to hit Taiwan this year,” said Kuo Kai-wen, head of the Seismology Centre at Taiwan’s central weather bureau.
Local TV reported at least four people in the capital had minor injuries, most resulting from falling debris. The reports said traffic Taipei’s subways and the island’s high speed railroad was suspended.
TV stations also reported that windows were blown out in a Hualien hotel and that there was minor property damage in Taipei.Taiwan is located in one of the most seismologically active areas of the world and registers a large number of quakes every year. Earthquakes frequently rattle Taiwan but most are minor and cause little or no damage.
However, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in central Taiwan in 1999 killed more than 2,300 people. And in 2006 a 6.7-magnitude tremor south of Kaohsiung severed undersea cables and disrupted telephone and Internet service to millions throughout Asia.

Well my workload is finally up. It seems like all semester long I haven’t had too much to do or study but that is just because it was all delayed. I guess the stars aligned this semester or whatever ’cause most of my classes have end-of-semester projects but not really stuff that I could do until after I learned it. So between now and mid-January I’ll be busy, busy, busy with papers and presentations.

My university had a blood drive last week and I donated so sometime soon some Taiwanese dude, or dudess, will be walking around with 250cc of Michael Jefferies coursing through their veins…pretty cool huh? They even gave me a pair of socks with hearts on them for donating! Not too mention the added benefit of finally discovering my blood type…B+ thank you very much.

In other news I finally got up enough courage to ask the homeless guy who sleeps on the bus stop bench across the street from our house if he wanted some food. Why do I always go back to worrying about doing stuff like that? I’ll go through times where fear about that sort of thing really doesn’t bother me and then other times where I hesitate. But every time I overcome the fear I remember that it is no big deal at all and I kick myself for waiting so long over nothing. In any case the guy said he’d love some food so we gave him some leftovers.

I’m playing guitar at church pretty regularly now or at least playing what I know and fumbling through the rest. It’s fun and I’m excited to be playing an instrument more regularly again. Our new roommate, Phil who took Darren’s place, has a keyboard and the other night we “jammed” for a bit.

Lately I’ve been missing work. Studying is nice but going so long without an honest day’s work has been getting to me. I keep on going back and forth between doing that accelerated Masters program I’ve mentioned before and getting a job after I graduate. Right now I think getting a job is winning in my mind.

Last week we had an British guy stay with us for a few nights who has moved to Taiwan from mainland China and needed a place to stay for a few days before moving into his apartment. Ken, our other roommate, is signed up at www.couchsurfing.org and this dude connected to our house through that. It’s a really cool idea and I’m becoming more and more intrigued with the idea of using couchsurfing for vacationing and traveling myself. Lodging is such a big expense and being able to stay on nice people’s couches for free is so appealing. Everyone should check out the website!

Left to right: Phil from Michigan, our newest roomie; Ken from Taiwan, our faithful roomie; Jim from England, couch-guest for a few days. They’re all painting over the leftover weird wall drawings and scribblings in Phil’s room.

Hey everybody!
We’re getting excited for Christmas over here. Next weekend I’m hosting a cookie-making party, there’s a big church service for which I’m singing some special music, and potluck on the 20th with all our friends in Christ. Michael even bought a poinsettia! Starbucks started playing holiday music before Thanksgiving, which was taboo as far as I’m concerned…but I did not have words with the manager. The rest of the city’s drink stands and hot-pot restaurants have put up a few funny-looking wreaths and sometimes misspelled wishes for a Merry Christmas, alongside the leftover decorations that were never taken down from last year. According to them, good decoration is good decoration. Don’t discriminate!
The weather was bone-chilling cold a few weeks ago but has taken a funny turn for the tropics recently, which is very confusing. Nobody knows what to wear! Yesterday I had on both short and long sleeves, shorts, long socks and boots, thinking I’d fool even the trickiest weather…and ended up hot at midday and cold at night. All that to say, it doesn’t exactly have the feeling of a white Christmas. But neither does Australia, my friend Hannah says…she remarked that it was disorienting as a child, hearing songs with subjects like snowmen, blazing fires and reindeer. I answered that those are only the commercialized songs and should be paid no attention. Christianity has no borders, and the older songs celebrating God’s baffling gift to man in the form of a helpless baby and our joy because of it hold true in any country, for any people.
Our new American roommate Phil replaced Darren, who moved out last week, but since Phil is going home for Christmas it will just be Ken, Michael, (Lottie) and I home for the holidays. Even with one roomie missing, I’m looking forward to a great couple weeks
Love to you all!
Emily