lucky.

i didn't realize that i didn't really mention it yesterday, but school was canceled today because of the typhoon. they called us at like 11pm which is why we had the whole scrabble tournament. anyway we had really heavy rain and wind all through the night but then today we barely had anything. we were afraid to answer the phone all day in case it was someone telling us that we had to go to work since it wasn't even raining :P

i kept going back to sleep this morning since it was dark out and i knew i didn't have to be anywhere. eventually i walked over to the coffee shop on the other side of the park and i had a wonderful vanilla latte. i was the only one in there so i settled into a low velvet chair at a cute little table and did lesson plans for an hour and a half or so, intermittently petting the funnily groomed golden retriever they have there. they left a little fluff ball at the end of its tail and left its head so it seems like a lion.

then i went back to the dorm and serena and i were hungry so the 2 of us walked to carrefour and had foodcourt food. i had pretty good chicken dumpling soup that i had with jerry like a month ago. my chopstick skills have improved considerably. afterwards, i went to starbucks to do some more lesson plans.

there was a man sitting next to me at starbucks who i noticed kept glancing over at me, and at one point he asked where i was from, so we started chatting. his name is paul and he's from canada. he's been living here for 8 years and he married a taiwanese woman. he just opened an english school a year ago and he saw my lesson plan books and asked all about my classes and what i think of taiwan. i told him that i've learned some lessons about teaching and about myself. he decided that i was a 'sweet' person and that i would be a good teacher with the right training so he offered me a part time job in september. he said he knew one person who teaches at my school and it turns out that it was keith. i thought that was a ridiculous coincidence because keith and i have been spending a lot of time together and i told paul that and he had a whole bunch of things to tell me about him. he said keith's a genuinely good person who enjoys teaching and is good at it. (as a side note, i can't deny that there are some sparkles there. i'm still waiting to see what happens, but as of right now, i can't find any major flaws. will keep you posted.)
it just seemed like it was all meant to happen. paul even mentioned that he believes that life works out the way it's meant to and that we were supposed to meet today and that he's sure i'll fit in well there.

tonighttt natalie, alan, leila, josh and i went to the mall to see batman. it wasnt starting for like an hour after we got there, so we went and had dinner at subway. it wasn't as disappointing as most "american food" here is, but it wasn't the same. pretty close. not quite.
the movie was awesome though. it was extra creepy since heath ledger died after filming it and he played a creepy villain. it had reaaally cool special effects. i would see it again. afterwards, josh decided he wanted to be like batman and drive really fast down back alleys on the scooter on the way home, so we start going down some random street and this vicious dog comes out of nowhere and starts barking at us and chasing us. i was terrified but we got away pretty quickly.

that was my night. taipei tomorrow to apply for my resident visa.