"Buy new shoes" said the laoban.

I had an encounter with the local shoe man tonight.  I have this brown pair of shoes that I absolutely LOVE.  I bought them at least before I came to Taiwan, but quite possibly while I was still in college.  It was one of those pairs of shoes that is just meant to be.  Mom and I were shopping at the mall.  As we were talking through Dillards, she mentioned just 'looking' at the shoes (I HATE shoes!) As I was looking at the sale rake (the one place I will look for shoes often), there they were.  It was like Heaven opened and the angels started singing.  Those brown American Eagle shoes were destined for me--and only 20USD at that. 

Then I move to Taipei.  One thing you must understand about Taipei is that you need good shoes.  WHY?? Because you are constantly walking.  And when you own a pair of shoes that you were destined to wear...you wear them a lot and like all things, they get old. 

Enter my life about 3 weeks ago...

As I was running out the door one morning, I quickly slipped on my shoes only to realize that they seemed looser (and maybe a little "breezier").  As I looked down, I realized that there was a hole that was beginning to form as the sole was pulling away from the actual shoe. 

Today...

At school, a piece of my shoe actually fell off and was on the floor.  I realized that action had to be taken.  At Chinese class tonight, I asked my teacher how to say "Can you fix my shoe?" So, after Chinese, I continued to practice the line as I walked to the shoe man.  I successfully recited my line only to be met with 10 minutes worth of Chinese conversation.  Throughout the conversation, the 'laoban' said many times, "How expensive were these shoes?  BUY NEW SHOES.  These are old.  If they were more expensive, then I would fix them."  Over and over he said these things to me, while explaining what was wrong with the shoe and what he would have to do to fix them.  I continued to say "but I like these shoes...do you think you can fix them?"  After much debate, I said, "ok thank you...nevermind...thank you" and sadly took back my shoe.

So now I must buy a new pair of brown shoes, but I must continue to wear the broken ones, or else I will wear tennis shoes.  Plus, my black dress shoes are also broken (not wearable, broken), but I am afraid to take those to that shoe man because he'll really have a fit that this dumb meiguoren keeps bringing her broken shoes to him instead of simply buying new ones.  Oh how I hate shoes...

It's a Good Day!

It's only 9:38 and it's already a good day.  First of all, today is the kickoff of the holiday drinks at Starbucks.  Therefore, Teecy and I decided to help them kickoff the much awaited holiday drinks by bypassing coffee at Ann's for a much more expensive, yet heavenly gingerbread latte.  Oh how I love going to Starbucks at Christmas time.  All the Christmas decorations, music and gingerbread lattes.  What else do you need to feel right at home!?!?  Now, you must understand that Taiwan is all about the gimmicks and goodies.  For example, at 7-11, there is constantly something that you "win" just by spending money.  There have been magnets, and little figurines, and stickers and card sleeves, etc.  It's always something!  Well, Starbucks was trying to promote their Christmas drinks so they had these scratch off cards that you could win things from them.  Teecy ordered her drink first and when she scratched off her card, she got a free TAZO tea bag.  Merry Christmas, Mary Christmas...When I ordered my drink and scratched off my card, the girl said "Wow!" and ran in the back.  Soon she came out with a wrapped Venti size Christmas travel mug!  A total value of about 400-500 NT (12-15 USD).  MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ME!!! :)

My next bit of exciting news may not be as exciting to some of you, but...I OFFICIALLY applied for graduation today!! Yep, that's right.  Only a mere 13 more weeks of grad school.  Oh I am begininng to taste brief moments of freedom and I LOVE IT!!!! :)

a heartbreaker

Today was our boys volleyball tournament.  They did great.  They were undefeated going into the championship.  They were super duper excited.  The first game, some strange aliens overtook my boys bodies and we lost fairly bad.  The second game we won!  Now, it all came down to the third game of rally scoring to 15 points.  The score was 7-8 and we went on a scoring run and got the score up to 12.  Then, the other team starting scoring and brought the game to 13-14.  The other team serves, we receive and send the ball back over the net.  Soon the ball comes soaring over the net and thanks to a bad call by the ref, is in. :(  The pressures rises.  The next serve comes and lands on our side in foot from the line.  I call a time.  I bust out one of my motivational, "you just gotta let the past be the past and work hard to get this next point" speeches.  The next serve comes over and a semi bad pass is made, followed by 2 more bad moves and the game is over...

Parents and students are all complaining about the bad call made the ref and I am trying to comfort the boys and keep the peace...oh the joys of middle school sports! :) 

Penghu

Wow.  Vacation in Penghu has finally come and unfortunately has already gone.  It was so nice!  I think my favorite part was that Nick was there. :)  I know that sounds cheesy and all, but for the past 8 months, every time I have been able to do something fun and he couldn't come, I missed him.  I absolutely enjoyed myself because he was there enjoying it as well.  It never rained, although Tuesday was cloudy (and not a good beach day), but Wednesday was gorgeous.  We had to come back a day before everyone because he had to work today, but it was all good.  I have decided that I will gladly take shorter vacations in the future if it means that he can come with. 

This year, we put our heads together and decided that we did not need 8 people taking pictures.  Therefore, Andy and Chris were the primary picture people, which was great because, a) I always forget to take pictures until after the fact and b) Andy and Chris take great pictures.  All that to say that I will be posting pictures either on Friday or Saturday.