May 10th: Epic Meal Time -- Leftovers Edition ;P

Making food in a shared kitchen is harder than you'd think. Not only is there the obvious issue of fridge space and cleanliness, you also have to take care of other peoples' leftovers (i.e. turn them into delicious things and feed them to hungry people so that they don't hang around forever) and gauge how much everyone will eat so YOU don't leave leftovers for the next person to take care of, or worse, sit uneaten in the fridge until it goes bad!

AMAZING fried rice with green beans, red peppers, and vege-ham.  I don't know how Putao does it.  We don't even have a wok!

This is especially important for me 'cause I make dinners on Thursdays, and there's no Friday or weekend classes that require meals, so any leftovers will sit until Monday, at which time they are probably not so delicious. But before I get to do anything Putao (the CUTEST little old lady EVER) makes lunch for the daytime Thursday class. It's always difficult to gauge how much will be left 'cause even though there are 50 people not all of them stay for lunch. This particular day she made food for 50 and only 30 stayed, leaving us with a GLORIOUS amount of leftovers. Since dinner is usually about 20 people's worth (sometimes 23-25 if Tingquan and/or another adolescent male shows up) this worked out AWESOME for me :D

April 26th: Spaghetti Galore + 1st Day of Light Messenger Beginner Course

Maggie made super-colourful spaghetti!!! She prepped all the ingredients herself (with some washing & cutting assistance from Zhenxing) and I made up the spaghetti for her ahead of time so it could be sauteed with the ingredients.

Tomatoes, pinch of sugar, herbs, and cheese.

Look at those COLOURS!!! Everything was so delicious!

Balsamic Tri-colour Peppers with Herbs.

I used to really dislike balsamic vinegar, but it's grown on me.  I actually ended up adding extra vinegar to my spaghetti 'cause it wasn't sour enough for me xD

Chopped cheddar cheese, for even more flavor!

My humble contribution consisted of cranberry-orange steamed banana cake with vegan ice 'cream'.

The cranberries were donated by a Chi-mate who'd come back from the States.  They were from Trader Joe's, and they are AMAZINGLY GOOD.

JESSICA ARRIVED! Weekend Fun Time with Smoothies and an Excursion to Donghai

After missing her connecting flight in Chicago Jessica finally arrived safe and sound Saturday 'round noon-ish. No pictures 'cause EVERYONE looks terrible after 20+ hours in transit. Instead, oggle at these pictures of Tai and me enjoying smoothies at 79Style Cafe at Taipei Main Station K mall while waiting for her to show up!

Hazelnut Coffee Smoothie.

Delicious and filled with CREAM (topping...not real cream, obviously ;).

Matcha Smoothie!

Delicious but too sweet.  I couldn't finish it Dx Gotta remember to ask for no sugar every time!

Actually we ended up meeting Jessica at Mommy's house, and then Mommy had to leave right as we got there 'cause her brother just came back from mainland and they had to talk about moving my maternal grandpa to Taoyuan. And then we ended up going back to Taipei main station (Y mall this time!) and showing Jessica all the fun otaku stuff. Gracie stayed home 'cause she has FINALS D:< We watched her work on two different projects while we were at Mommy's house O_o  Stay strong Gracie!

'round dinnertime I took a bus to Taichung for fun time Hochi youth class while Jessica and Tai apparently got lost for 3 hours in the city (I have yet to affirm this; this is just what Facebook tells me. And we all know FB speaks the truth.) At the class we did a bunch of meditating and worked on our group projects and worked on the youth camp stuff for over the summer -- I'm in the service group for both, so stuff like finding support staff and making up shower charts and scheduling etc. Gotta write up that script for the how-to movie we're shooting still...I'M SO SORRY WEITING! I PROMISE I WILL GET TO IT THIS WEEK! Look! It's Yi-An and some creeper on their way home from class!

Guess how old Yi-An is!!! Scroll down for the answer!

..
...
....
......
........??

BAM!

Okay she's in high school.  Apparently some people think she's like 25 or something, but I think it's just 'cause she's relatively tall -- she's almost as tall as me!  But it's okay, thanks to the Asian Anti-Aging gene and cultivation she'll probably look like this forever :D  I can't wait to see her as a cute old lady! She'll be the most adorable old lady in the history of forever. /earlymorningblogging.

April 5th: Tomato Thick Soup by Maggie!

The meals for the Thursday Evening youth class have been taking on a rather European theme -- mainly Mediterranean and French. On the fifth we had 2 kinds of spaghetti (balsamic tri-colour peppers & tomato w/ cheese) and this AMAZING soup that Maggie made, along with super-crunchy toasted baguette and hard cheddar. Maggie pretty much made everything (except the bread -- she bought it from a specialist bakery the day before, and even brought her own oven so we could have it toasted!). Like a CHAMP!

This soup is made with nothing but tomatoes and potatoes, simmered 'til soft and whirled in a blender, then spiced with herbs de provence and salt and pepper. She even took the skins off the tomatoes! @_@ So dedicated!

Another picture. Just 'cause.

April 3rd: Wasabi-Cucumbers & CAKE

Gui-yi is a baller who makes food on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the Compassion Field. She taught me how to make wasabi-pickled cucumbers :D

After weighing the cucumbers, double-bag'em with salt

Also, Xingyi, who just had a baby, finished her 1 month thing (坐月子 sp?) and got a cake for the Tuesday evening class~

April 2nd: Gua-Bao with Gracie & Tai at the Taipei Compassion Field

Gua-bao is like mantou in a different shape. A handy-dandy one-handed-sandwich-y kind of shape! It's usually filled with meat and pickled vegetables -- we filled them with vege-meat and pickled vegetables and stir-fried cabbage! Oh, and it's topped with peanut powder :)

These were Kathy's idea, so we made some for the Thursday evening youth activity.  There were some leftovers, which I made up fresh filling for when Gracie and Tai came over for lunch.

I MADE IT!!!

I feel like I can never shove enough veggies in it though xD I loves me some cabbage!

Gracie-Faces after the jump!

LONG TIME NO SEE!

Why HELLO BLOG! It's been a while!



I have a huge backload of terrible photos and commentary to upload. Unfortunately, I am too busy being SUPER awesome to put any of it up right now. In fact, I am almost 10 minutes behind schedule to go buy stuff for the youth group dinner on Thursday.

We're making vegan cake WITHOUT AN OVEN and some bun-thingy. And fruit tea :3

And I need to go translate more things. ALL OF THE TRANSLATING.

Oh yeah, btw, I left my full-time job and am currently freelancing it up as a translator and tutor. Everything is wonderful.

In the meantime, feel free to amuse yourself with these pictures of MY FACE doing weird things.

Feb. 2 青年弟子營 Day 4: PHOTO TIME Lunch edition [Part 2]

More lunch preparation photos!


Fried tofu skins---delicious!

Feb. 2 青年弟子營 Day 4: PHOTO TIME Lunch edition

I got to play with a Canon 550D and a...can't remember the lens...like 15-200mm or something like that. If you right-click it should be in the pic info. AWESOME range. HIGHER ISO than the Rebel Xti. LOVE EVERYTHING. BUT I didn't take the time to optimize all the settings, so most of them turned out just a little bit blurry. RAGE.

We are assigned shifts on the camera so we can practice! I got to do lunch yesterday, and I'm doing dinner today~ Oh happiness!!!

Light Check! And the door to the kitchen ;P
Let's see what's inside...

Feb. 1 青年弟子營 More of Day 3, and the Mysterious Day 2 Pictures Solved!

My camera has been taking really good pictures of food recently! Usually my pictures look GROSS (if you've been following my cooking blog you are acutely aware of this ;P) I think it has to do with the white tabletop; it fools the camera into thinking there's a lot of light xD

This is one from last night:

Taro rice vermicelli soup with pepper-salt daikon pickles, broccoli, and cherry tomatoes! It was a lighter meal than I would have liked, especially after climbing 13 flights of stairs -- TWICE! and doing some plank variations (more cardio @_@), but I'm actually feeling really good today, especially considering how sore my thighs and back were yesterday xD

As for the mystery...

Jan. 1 - Feb. 1 青年弟子營 Days 2 (?) & 3

I found these mysterious pictures on my camera...that I didn't take @_@

Jan. 30-31: 青年弟子營 1 & 2

I planned on starting this post with a picture of me on the bus, but the file was corrupted when I copied it from the camera card D: It was a good picture too!

Instead, you get this:

There were all these gross dead (and some alive) bugs in the dorm room when Ingting, Kathy, and I got there the night before.

We cleaned it up and it's all good now :)

Jan. 11: At the Compassion Field

Chillin' at the compassion field with Jackson (the little kid)

Jan. 18: Hochi Youth 1-day Class

1/17
18:00 -- get off work
18:30 -- get on bus to go to Taichung
21:20 -- arrive
22:00 -- sleep

1/18
4:30 -- get up
6:00 -- Lirusong
9:00 -- breakfast
cleaning
class
lunch
nap in sunshine
class
take a walk

purchase milk popsicles!
Hochi -- spinning meditation
18:00 -- dinner
19:15 -- leave for bus stop
22:00 -- coincidentally meet Hsuantzu's friend at the MRT
22:20 -- home
2:00 -- sleep.

Most of December, in a Nutshell

These past three weeks have been SUPER busy putting in loads of overtime -- I was put in charge of one of our VIP students for a week and a half. I'll be getting two weeks off at the beginning of February though, so that'll be nice :)

Finally had a 'normal' week this past week, but things are picking up again 'cause now I'm in charge of making the food for the company Christmas party -- more overtime yaaayyyy!!!

Anywho, here's what we've been up to in the interim~

Cake, Employment...? and MORE Cake!

It has been a very eventful several days.

On Monday, I declined my first job offer because they couldn't afford to pay me more. But then it turns out that NT$15,000-20,000/mo is pretty standard for an entry-level position with a Bachelor's degree. Getting a degree from overseas'll land you a nicer NT$30,000-35,000/mo, which works out to about a grand+ USD. However after taking into account lower cost-of-living [insert long and way more detailed-than-necessary analysis here] it might be more financially responsible to take the job, despite the fact it pays less per hour. But enough about money, let's talk about CAKE!!!

Tuesday: Tai and I went to the compassion field for lunch. And Cake-making.

Chocolate-mousse cake at Taipei compassion field!
It was Sister Lixue's birthday!

Lunch! A delicious noodle medley!

Then I made a test cake with bananas using Gracie's super-awesome steamed banana cake recipe.

This is a very unattractive picture of my cake.
There were chocolate truffles inside.

Yesterday, I made more banana cake for the Wednesday night event. Except with SEVEN bananas and it took like TWO HOURS to steam. This is in part because the steamer at the compassion field has a busted lid so steam escapes all the time instead of staying and cooking the cake. Also, there were raisins and walnuts in addition to chocolate truffles, 'cause some of the chi-mates heard about cake-making and brought over baking things!

And the Ingting's mom brought 3 different kinds of Taiwanese fluffy cake, which was ALSO delicious. So much cake we had.

What I wore to my interviews!
High-waist skirt

Random picture: Broccoli pickles!

Relationship Fulfilment Class Support and Other Things

First up: Other Things.

Hankyu is having an event where you get NT$500 department store credit for every NT$5000, or NT$200 for every NT$2000 you spend on most items (excluding lingerie and I think electronics, but I'm not sure.) Since we just got a bedding set and pillows, we met the min. and got a credit! Along with tickets to a fashion show, which we couldn't go to since it was on the day of class support.

Yeahhhhh! We get stuff for spending monies! Shout-out to my dad for helping us with the bedding!

I guess it's a popular type of event, since I just saw a similar thing being advertised on the television at the MRT station, but for a different department store.

Mommy's Birthday was on Saturday~!

I'm still waiting for Gracie to upload cake pictures, but we got her a cake from How Sweet 幾分甜 and it was filled with pudding and strawberry mousse and even though the topping was whipped topping instead of real whipping cream it was pretty darn tasty. I had three pieces :D Also, my mom made the hugest feast in the entire world and my maternal grandpa and cousin and uncle and 2 twerpy nephews all congregated at her house for dinner.

The Happenings of the Week

Friday: Long day at work. I think I might actually get some training, now that I've been working my job for a month. v.v

Pro-tip for first time teachers: DEMAND CLASSROOM OBSERVATION BEFORE you start teaching. I guess at most places it's mandatory and part of the training, but at smaller schools they might not do it, and that's fucking dumb. It is SO much easier to just copy what the experienced teacher does, as opposed to being told what you have to teach and how you're supposed to teach it, but without any real demonstration.

Also, ask about classroom management and discipline. I wasn't told about ANY of that shit before I started, and now I have a bunch of rowdy kids who won't listen unless the principal or former teacher pops in. Ugh.

After work came home, worked out, took shower.

Saturday: 和氣照顧 for Wei-Chun's Dad at General Veteran's Hospital.

^{Public art at the hospital. It was SUPER-windy that day! But it didn't rain very hard in the afternoon, just sunny showers, which are my favourite!}

There were like...13 of us, and some Chi-mates even came from Hsinchu and Taoyuan!!! I am awed by their generosity and dedication. After the hospital we went to a vegetarian buffet for delicious delicious lunch!


^{Check out how colourful my lunch was!!! THOSE EGGPLANTS WERE AMAZING. The veggie-meat was mediocre. Not shown was this delicious lightly almond-y tofu dish. It is, quite unappealingly, called 豆腦. If you can't read Chinese, do not GoogleTranslate until after you're have it. Knowing the name will ruin it for you FOREVER.}

Then Maggie invited Ingting and me to have coffee by her place so we could talk about the day-care volunteering we're doing for the Relationship Fulfillment class this coming weekend. @_@ We went to Mr.2 which was FANTASTIC.


^{The exterior and interior of the store is abound with these figures in various sizes and positions. I like them!}

Event Report! 老人家紀念會 Laorenjia 17-year Commemorative Event 9/25

So I found out about this event when Wei-chun mentioned it in passing like 2 week ago, and since she said that Laoshi said that if there was one event in the year you should go to, it'd be this one, I decided to go.

Last Wednesday during the Hochi Youth Group cultivation night I found out there was registration involved. I proceeded to promptly forgot about it as I tried to figure out how I was going to get to Taichung with Wei-chun who, at the time, was unsure if she could make it on account of her dad's unstable medical condition (which has improved, if I read the FB message correctly @_@). We decided to take the 通聯 (U-bus, an inter-city bus line) from Taipei Main station.


_{Check out this frog I found on the street on the way back to 北海 Compassion Field after a late-night 7-11 run for toothbrushes and munchies. I was surprised to see it because I assumed that Taiwan's freshwater was too polluted to support normal amphibious life-forms, but this guy looks okay. I took it as a sign to be less germophobic and more optimistic.}