LJ's back, Kay's last day at school, plans for August
granted i only update maybe once a week now, but not being able to have access to all of my entries was a little unnerving... :( for those of you who don't know, there's been a cyber attack ("DDos" attack to be technical) against LJ for the past few days. so for around 3-4 days (some people say it's been a week), i was worried that i'd lose all 10+ years of my entries on here! thank goodness i was being kept up to date with the situation on facebook, so when they announced that things were going to be put back to normal now, i breathed a sigh of relief. nevertheless, i've begun manually backing up all my entries, just in case.
so far, i've gotten all the entries up to August 2003, and it's been an interesting blast to the past skimming my old college entries while i copied and pasted everything onto a word document. it was interesting to see how i was in the last years of university here and getting into the transition period after i graduated and still continued living in Taipei. i remember in one entry where i said that my home would always be Virginia Beach as long as i had family and friends still there. what i didn't realize then was how much of a home Taipei would become for me. what with getting married here, having a baby, and starting a family, Taipei really is my home for the moment. ever since i heard that our old home was bulldozed to the ground (you should see it on google map, it's 5 acres of flat ground...;_;) a couple of years ago, that little piece of my childhood that sort of rooted me to the Beach disappeared with it as well. granted my parents are still living there (dad's enjoying his time now as a real estate agent, and mom is working a desk job at some Chinese run factory, i think), and most of my friends are in the Hampton Roads area, it's still not the same, ya know? hubby sees a house/condo as more of a liability than a "home", and that's why we haven't really thought about anything like investing in one. however, i don't know if i'll ever feel secure until i really do have some place to call my own. maybe it's a girl thing... i dunno :P right now, all i can tell myself is home is really where your heart is and that's with hubby and Kay. :)
anyway, i'm just glad that LJ is back, and i guess it was a good time to peak into the past a bit to remind myself of how far i've come :)
now, this week was very bitter sweet since we had to say good-bye to some of my students and Kay's preschool. i'm still going to be teaching a couple of other classes through the mid of August, but everything stops before the 19th. since the 29th was the last day before the preschool started their summer vacation, they had a big party with pizza, games and all kind of fun. unfortunately, she had so much fun that she ran into another kid and got a bloody nose. the teacher was a little worried when she told me during pick-up, but i told her that Kay got a bloody nose almost every other day, so that made her feel better. :) i'm just glad that Kay didn't stain any of her clothes since she was wearing one of her new dresses that day ^_^;; so after hauling two big bags of her stuff back home, i finally got to see what she's been doing in class over these past four months! :D no wonder she'd gotten so good at coloring/gluing/cutting/etc.! ^_^ so i guess the NT$32,000 tuition we paid didn't go to waste after all. :) i also got to see pics of her and her classmates from the CD the school burned for us parents. i think i miss the school more than Kay since she's been looking forward to the end of school all month ^_^;; although, she is very excited for school in Japan, but that's because her daddy's been telling her how "fun school is and how she's going to make tons of friends". lol *crosses fingers*
speaking of Japan, we're in the last month that we'll be in Taipei. i'm in the process of collecting more boxes for the move. i usually get them from nearby bookshops, local baby stores, and occasionally, Costco. i prefer the baby stores because i assume that they're cleaner than most stores, so i don't have to worry about cock roach eggs hidden inside the cardboard ^_^;; of course, this might just all be in my head and actually all storerooms are covered in the same kind of filth ^_^;; although, the baby stores do give pretty big boxes. for example, i was able to get the box of a car seat the other day (SCORE!) which was a meter high and just the right size for the plastic drawers that we use to put our clothes in. on the other hand, having all that space crammed up risks the package being over the weight limit (30kg is the limit for shipping packages to Japan):/ so, i have to pack carefully. i'm also using vacuum storage bags for our cloths, and it did wonders in helping me store up my big fluffy comforter, down jacket, and pillows! :D although, can't put too much in or else they get really heavy. made that mistake yesterday and had to rethink of what to really put in the bag. :P
other than packing, there will be a ton of things that i'll have to do come August. like for this Monday, i'm running to the post office to mail off some stuff to my sister, then right afterward, i'm gonna have to make a run to the household registration office to get a copy of my "household registration", and then Japanese Embassy to ask them to look at the paperwork i've collected to see if my application has any problems. i'm going to spend the rest of the day searching for boxes and all this with Kay in tow ^_^; sigh... since everything has to be done before hubby leaves for Japan on the 22nd, i'm going to be running around like a chicken with it's head cut off! so, that gives us exactly three weeks, which you know will fly by in the blink of an eye ^_^;; well, wish me luck :)
so far, i've gotten all the entries up to August 2003, and it's been an interesting blast to the past skimming my old college entries while i copied and pasted everything onto a word document. it was interesting to see how i was in the last years of university here and getting into the transition period after i graduated and still continued living in Taipei. i remember in one entry where i said that my home would always be Virginia Beach as long as i had family and friends still there. what i didn't realize then was how much of a home Taipei would become for me. what with getting married here, having a baby, and starting a family, Taipei really is my home for the moment. ever since i heard that our old home was bulldozed to the ground (you should see it on google map, it's 5 acres of flat ground...;_;) a couple of years ago, that little piece of my childhood that sort of rooted me to the Beach disappeared with it as well. granted my parents are still living there (dad's enjoying his time now as a real estate agent, and mom is working a desk job at some Chinese run factory, i think), and most of my friends are in the Hampton Roads area, it's still not the same, ya know? hubby sees a house/condo as more of a liability than a "home", and that's why we haven't really thought about anything like investing in one. however, i don't know if i'll ever feel secure until i really do have some place to call my own. maybe it's a girl thing... i dunno :P right now, all i can tell myself is home is really where your heart is and that's with hubby and Kay. :)
anyway, i'm just glad that LJ is back, and i guess it was a good time to peak into the past a bit to remind myself of how far i've come :)
now, this week was very bitter sweet since we had to say good-bye to some of my students and Kay's preschool. i'm still going to be teaching a couple of other classes through the mid of August, but everything stops before the 19th. since the 29th was the last day before the preschool started their summer vacation, they had a big party with pizza, games and all kind of fun. unfortunately, she had so much fun that she ran into another kid and got a bloody nose. the teacher was a little worried when she told me during pick-up, but i told her that Kay got a bloody nose almost every other day, so that made her feel better. :) i'm just glad that Kay didn't stain any of her clothes since she was wearing one of her new dresses that day ^_^;; so after hauling two big bags of her stuff back home, i finally got to see what she's been doing in class over these past four months! :D no wonder she'd gotten so good at coloring/gluing/cutting/etc.! ^_^ so i guess the NT$32,000 tuition we paid didn't go to waste after all. :) i also got to see pics of her and her classmates from the CD the school burned for us parents. i think i miss the school more than Kay since she's been looking forward to the end of school all month ^_^;; although, she is very excited for school in Japan, but that's because her daddy's been telling her how "fun school is and how she's going to make tons of friends". lol *crosses fingers*
speaking of Japan, we're in the last month that we'll be in Taipei. i'm in the process of collecting more boxes for the move. i usually get them from nearby bookshops, local baby stores, and occasionally, Costco. i prefer the baby stores because i assume that they're cleaner than most stores, so i don't have to worry about cock roach eggs hidden inside the cardboard ^_^;; of course, this might just all be in my head and actually all storerooms are covered in the same kind of filth ^_^;; although, the baby stores do give pretty big boxes. for example, i was able to get the box of a car seat the other day (SCORE!) which was a meter high and just the right size for the plastic drawers that we use to put our clothes in. on the other hand, having all that space crammed up risks the package being over the weight limit (30kg is the limit for shipping packages to Japan):/ so, i have to pack carefully. i'm also using vacuum storage bags for our cloths, and it did wonders in helping me store up my big fluffy comforter, down jacket, and pillows! :D although, can't put too much in or else they get really heavy. made that mistake yesterday and had to rethink of what to really put in the bag. :P
other than packing, there will be a ton of things that i'll have to do come August. like for this Monday, i'm running to the post office to mail off some stuff to my sister, then right afterward, i'm gonna have to make a run to the household registration office to get a copy of my "household registration", and then Japanese Embassy to ask them to look at the paperwork i've collected to see if my application has any problems. i'm going to spend the rest of the day searching for boxes and all this with Kay in tow ^_^; sigh... since everything has to be done before hubby leaves for Japan on the 22nd, i'm going to be running around like a chicken with it's head cut off! so, that gives us exactly three weeks, which you know will fly by in the blink of an eye ^_^;; well, wish me luck :)