the best is yet to come

people kept complaining about the heat but i knew we hadn't reached the worst of it when your booty leaves a pool of sweat on the black vinyl chairs in the living room.. and that day has finally come. it's texas hot in taiwan right now. the big difference is that in texas, common areas, businesses, elevators, classrooms and, most of all--your car--all have really cold AC.
driving a scooter is not the same. you've got hot, dirty exhaust pouring all over you. and thennn, you park in the sun somewhere so your seat is scalding when you get back on. it's crazy. even when you get inside a building, it's just as hot if not worse because of the lack of air flow. my first class tonight has one wall that's solid windows and we just bake in there. and there are 14 sweaty boys, all eating chips and cheeto's.

i told one of my favorite classes that i'm leaving and their reactions were..
"obama!?? cooooll!'
"will we have teacher katie?!"
katie subbed that class while i was in thailand. so i'm excited that they're excited for me and excited to have a new foreign teacher. the coteachers make it seem like your kids are going to freak out and think it's such a big deal, but they're used to having teachers change after a year. i'm going to miss those babies though!

p.s. oohmygoddd the daring bakers' challenge this month was milano cookies and homemade mallows. check this out. (this website continually updates so it may or may not be all cookies when you click. just search for 'milan' or 'milano.'

wisdom

my american boy

can you believe it's the end of july already? three weeks from today, i'll be on a plane to the US! to say that i'm thrilled is an understatement. it all feels so right.
(this weekend was the first/only time ripley has been in the back of the truck. you can see the happiness. she loves to go for rides, but i think this took it to a whole new level.
speaking of puppies, one of my favorite girls, angela, is getting a new puppy tonight and she offered me one. the "mom dog" has 3.)

for nowww though, i'm trying to enjoy the last few weeks in taiwan. my body freaked when i decided to limit myself to one cup of tea a day and i've been feeling sooo thirsty that i figured to heck with it. if i spend an extra $30 in tea this month, it'll be worth it.

tonight was the first time i've had to tell a class i'm leaving them. this class isn't one of my favs and i don't think they're super crazy about me, but they were pretty shocked. i told them about my job and they thought it was preeeettty cool. two more weeks with them.

the kuo's were funny tonight. i brought 3 cups of green tea; one for me and one for each of them. when i was at the tea shop, i thought 'should i get an extra just in case amanda is there? noo, she doesn't get off until 7 so i won't see her, and mr. wang and mr. chen haven't come on a weekday in months.' so i get there and mr. kuo and mr. wang are sitting there, drunk as skunks, and mr. wang is wondering where his tea is. whoops!
mr. kuo said i could marry his son if i was interested, and mrs. chan showed me her pumpkin plants, growing by the side of their house in a big pile of broken up concrete and glass, that have sprouted thumb-sized pumpkins.

best story of all!
we had a review day in my little kid class that can't read, can't remember any QA's, can't sound out words. i reviewed 'ae', 'ee', 'oa' and 'ow' words, got them reading, and then told them to look in their little story book for words with those phonics. these kids usually don't give a hoot about phonics, but today they were screaming 'megan! deer! tree! boat! road!' and running up to me with their books, pointing at words. i really could have cried, i was so proud of them. some of them would find a word with the right letters and point to it, but they forgot that they knew how to read it now. watching the lightbulb light up over their head as they sounded it out was aaaamazing.

start at the very beginning

my head is swimming after my chinese lesson tonight. linda grilled me on DC (which i didn't know any of the vocab for.. which makes it hard to follow along/answer questions) and i was proud that she was proud. she's such a serious, no-nonsense teacher that it's the kind of thing where you study extra hard just so they'll think highly of you.
this was our "look sexy" pose, which i'm not very good at. natalie's got it down (far left). these are jimmie's pictures from wine and cheese girly night at RPM last week.

here's tonight's chinese lesson.. past tense.
i watched tv yesterday. zuo tian wo kan dian shi.
i watched tv. wo kan dian shi le.
i've watched 4 hours of tv (and i'm still watching it). wo yi jing kan le si ge xiao shi dian shi le.
i watched a movie. i watched it for 2 hours. wo kan dian ying. kan le liang ge xiao shi.
i watched a movie for 2 hours. wo kan le liang ge xiao shi de dian ying.

woo! i think all of those are right. i'm not going to cheat and go get my book, so here's hoping i understand.
we watched a movie in class tonight! it's fun to get paid for watching movies. every time you change books, you get to watch a movie in english. this week i have twoooo movie classes.
cross your fingers that i find the perfect apartment in DC. it's pretty rough going from paying $40/month to live in taiwan to paying $600 or more to live in DC. it will be worth it though. ballet! yoga! bai gong! culturally varied food that isn't taiwanese food masquerading as another kind of food!!

elmer the patchwork elephant

from the same boy who brought us the cutest valentine in the history of mankind, i present: the elmer the patchwork elephant pencil case. jerry and i stopped going to chinese together a couple of months ago, so now we hardly ever see each other. but a month or two ago, i commented on how i loooved his pencil case.the english isn't weird, the drawings aren't crazy or particularly asian, but this pencil box is just screaming 'jerry'. it's endearing, it's random, it's baby pink on the bottom. so how thrilled was i when he showed up with one for me on saturday night? i know i'm not going to fill it with pencils, since that's what my purse is for, but i'm not sure what to put in such a shallow space. ideas?well today was the last day of big important errands with deadlines. now all i need to do is mail some packages, find housing in DC and start banking money to last me through december. i think that includes limiting myself to expensive indian food once a week, and restricting the tea consumption to one cup a day.three days until the o'sullivans hit taiwan! they're a couple from the US who are relocating to one of the cities in the middle of taiwan and i've been following their blog. they seem super sweet and i hope i get to meet them before i go home. i'm so excited for them!

p.s. this is so funny and asian. heck if i haven't seen it at carrefour :P

p.p.s. this is the song (sorry sorry by superjunior) that my new kid, ethan, spontaneously gets up and sings/dances in class. it is hilarious. his hair is like a shaggy bowl cut and he has moves like a little break dancer.

a drink with jam and bread

you know you're a fried wreck when a spontaneous musical makes you tear up :P
thanks aunt carol for the video!

such a long road we've been walking on

these are some pictures from the very end of the night. dane came over after everyone had left.
it's funny how time flies by so much faster when your schedule is full. it would be nice to be able to push pause. i've been doing a million things every day; getting ready to leave taiwan, tying up loose ends and filling out forms, and i haven't even really begun to look for housing yet. i did buy my plane ticket! sept 5, DC here i come!
a bunch of things that used to be annoying just seem like funny quirks of taiwan lately. the ladies pushing dollies full of trash and recycling across the street in the middle of traffic, wearing their flowered arm covers and big sun hats. getting lost in tiny little alleys. getting stuck behind the trash truck as everyone comes out with their bags in hand. going to tea stands and seeing all of the workers run to the back of the shop and force the one sort-of-english-speaker to the front.
bobo called me from the book store today to ask if i wanted her to buy a chinese children's book about obama for me. she read it to katie and i today at lunch and the story is sooo cool. i'm supposed to get it signed. we'll see about that.
time for bed, i'm behind schedule.
..let's look at the dress one more time before the window of time has closed that it's acceptable to keep bringing it up.
facebook album can be seen here

from around here

some of my favorite pictures from last night:
my coteacher augusta and her fiance, jerry. last time i saw jerry, i couldn't say much chinese at all, so every time i would talk to him last night, he shook his head and said 'it's so weird to hear you speak chinese!'
jerry, katie, krissy, phil and george
augusta's taiwan fab shoes.

the couples were awesome.
alan and natalie
steph and carly in perfectly taiwanese matching couples shirts.
martin and olenka (in homemade shirts)
tess, danielle and i (look at that dressss!! i felt like a taiwanese princess)
evvvveryone playing bubblegum
dancin'
i bought balloons for minimal cost + maximum decor impact
katie, me, tess, phil

tonight i went over to the apartment to pick up some stuff i forgot and i asked the security guards what we should do about the cable and our lack of hot water. the security guard called the cable guy (at 11:30pm), woke him up, and scheduled an appointment for tomorrow.
megan: we don't have any hot water either
retired guy who hangs out behind the desk: you can say that in chinese
me: we don't have any hot water
guy: did you turn on the gas?
me: we can cook with it, but the water isn't hot
guy: did you try turning on the gas..?
me: we're a bunch of american girls who can't read the chinese. i don't know how to turn on the gas
guy: let's go try
me: now?
guy: yeah, why not?
..as we're walking to the elevator..
guy: you guys had a lot of people over for your party last night. was it fun?
me: yeah it was a lot of fun, i'm sorry we were loud, but we just wanted to show all of our friends the new apartment
guy: it's ok. it was saturday. i went to sleep at 2am
me: could you hear us?
guy: yep

so that was funny/productive. turns out the battery was missing from the hot water heater unit. we never would have figured that out on our own. we were also surprised to find out that the retired man lives on our floor, across the hall. he asked why i wasn't staying there that night and i told him i'm not going to live there since i'm going home. he told me to come over often. those guys are so nice.

double your fun

tonight is romantic paris mansion's housewarming party and i think everyone's starting to get into the tacky taiwan theme. everyone wants to keep their outfit a surprise. i'm exciteddd. pictures tomorrow. i can't waitttt to show you my dress.

i went to the kuo's after class today and mr. kuo's entire family showed up! his mom, 2 sisters, 1 brother in law, 1 nephew. mrs. chan told them all about how i go there all the time and my life history. she's my taiwanese mom. they were speaking taiwanese the whole time, but i picked up a little bit of the chinese that was thrown in. the brother in law said my chinese isn't too bad but i'm too quiet. mr. kuo insisted that i drink some taiwanese red wine and i've had a headache ever since. mr. wang and mr. chen were there too.. and they were behaving themselves. no bai jiu and not very much smoking today.

it was fun to meet his family but i'm glad that mr. kuo's the one who i got to know. the sisters seem nice, but he's just so much more outgoing and friendly and smiling. i got an invite to go swimming with the younger sister tomorrow though (by younger, we're talkin' like, 54). she kept filling up my bowl with random food that i just scarfed without thinking about it too hard. it's growing on me now that i'm getting ready to leave.

time to tackle these false eyelashes.

had to run from you

i've got nothin today, so i'm leaving you with the most awesome wedding-aisle walk in the woooorld.


and this conversation:
[ryan is reciting his spelling words to me, and as he's handing me the list, i rip it in half by accident. the whole class stops what they're doing and looks at me as ryan and i are looking at each other with our mouths open and hands on our face, home alone style, screaming.]
ryan: MEGAN!
class: what happened?!
[megan pretends to cry].
paul: megan, no cry! no cry!

..and this conversation
megan to tsong you bing lady: one day, can you teach me how to make these? i'm going home in 3 weeks and we don't have them in america
TYBL: sorry, i can't
megan: i can make the dough, i just want to learn how to do the fluff thing
TYBL: no, i really can't. you know how you go to the tea shop, and they can't teach you how to make their tea? i also can't teach you how to make tsong you bing because it's not my own recipe, it's the companys.
megan: oooh ok. ..but can't you teach me how to fluff them?
TYBL: no. are you an english teacher down the street?
megan: yep. but i'm going home soon
TYBL: many foreigners only stay one year. i didn't know you could speak so much chinese
..so that was kind of embarrassing but i'm glad that we had a chance to chat at all. i'm not sure why that woman and i haven't bonded before. i've gone there twice a week for a year now. she's always really hot from standing above the grill thing and listening to her ipod, so i just let her be.

i wore my pretty new bright aqua jersey dress today and i felt like a million dollars. i don't know why the taiwanese are so averse to color in general. the most popular colors are dishwater gray, black and purple.

but the vibe is wrong

i feel like i haven't stopped moving since i got back from thailand, things have been so busy. i'm filling out this application in all of my free time and then doing lesson plans, going to lunch, getting tea, doing stuff with the paris mansion girls, etc.
this was lunch from the monarch hotel. they set up this little stand out in front of the hotel and you can buy a 'lunch box' for 80NT. today i got the last one they had and it's spareribs with tofu cubes and some fried cabbage. seaweed miso soup to go with it. i had such a headache from drinking so much wine last night that i just kept eating the seaweed soup even though it's not my fav. i know seafood is packed full of all kinds of nutrients.

tonight tess and katie and i went shopping for our taiwanese fab party outfits. i am dyyyying to show you my dress, but i'll wait til saturday. i am sooo excited!! hint: sequins, chiffon, tulle, AND organza

booked my ticket home! i'm flying the 20th of august, with a long layover in hawaii, to be in austin the morning of the 21st! yay

love the way you move

i spent aaaaalllll of yesterday filling out this monstrous form for the internship. crazy. i'm still only halfway done.

well yesterday we threw a last minute girly wine and cheese party at romantic paris mansion. girls only. katie and tess had filled the apartment with tea lights and flowers and it was so pretty and clean and girly in there. 9 of us just ended up sitting around the dining room table, sharing 5 chairs, and eating our weight in cheese, crackers, chocolate and fruit. 9 bottles of wine.

i forgot how much fun it is to hang out with your girlfriends. it was interesting to hear that some of those girls never really had a group of girlfriends at home. so i think we're going to do that more often. it's probably a nice break for the boys, too.

at the end of the night, we pulled the twin bed mattress into tess' room and crammed it in the teeny space between her bed and the wall so 3 of us had a sleepover in her room. i'll post some of the pictures once jimmie and tess upload them.

yooooooohooooooooo

today was kind of a funny contrast with the past few days where i've just been all excited and floaty. this afternoon i went to lunch with allen, who was really quiet and somber and kept mentioning how he's sad that i have to leave. he's understandably not excited at all about me leaving in a month.

after that, i went over to romantic paris mansion to help them set up the internet. while i was waiting for the internet guy, i hung out in the lobby at a table with 2 security guards and 3 men who live in the complex. they were chattering in chinese as i sat down and they quickly asked if i understood chinese. i said yes, we became fast friends, as they said we have no foreign friends, you can be our foreign friend. they were all smoking and drinking tea so one of them bought me a tea from the vending machine and money just started pouring out of the change slot. we laughed and they kept pointing at me and telling me i was so lucky. so i felt a little twinge of sadness about not becoming besties with those guys. they seem like a lot of fun.

thenn i sat with tess and katie while the internet guys did their thing and it was sad that i don't get to live in romantic paris mansion with them.

thennnn! i went to see the kuo's who were all excited to see me after thailand. mr. kuo just stood there for a long time and looked at me when i first walked in. mrs. chan made some kind of cold cucumber salad she's never made before, and she made golden curry just for me because it's my favorite (as she reminded me when i told her i wasn't super hungry.. so of course i ended up eating a giant bowl of it).
but then i told mr. kuo about the internship and he was sad. he kept saying one month! and we agreed that this year has flown by too quickly. he kept staring at me as i ate and said taiwanese people love you. we will miss you when you go to america.

and my classes tonight are so sweet. i had a gaggle of girls meet me at the door when i came in and we all walked in a big clump up to the classroom, where the other kids raced to show me who got hair cuts (i always make a big deal of it when they get one because i think you always feel kind of special with new hair and it's fun to be noticed).

my next class had changed their seats all around and we have a new set of twins, eddie and .. someone. i forget the other kids name. that class loves to pick on me and today whenever i would say 'ask a question' (instead of ask a QA), they'd say 'what is megan's phone number?' or 'who is megan's boyfriend?' and they thought they were sooo clever. even emily, the quietest girl in the whole world, said something like 50 words to me at break which is unprecidented.

so it was kind of a bittersweet day. i think i'm going home under the best possible circumstances, but i do have a life here that i'll be sad to leave behind.

koh tao pictures

i added in pictures to the previous blogs about my vacation. just scroll down. there are also some on the previous page.
here's the link to the entire album of koh tao (with a bunch that aren't on my blog) on facebook.
and you can click here to see the album of the grand palace in bangkok. it is so pretty.

give it to someone special

it is so hot in taiwan. uncomfortably hot. it's like when you have a sunburn and you feel heat radiating from your skin. only one more month though!

i'm just floating on a cloud now. a month seems like such a short time, so i'm just enjoying the everyday things. this afternoon i went over to bobo's for chinese and then stayed to play with the girls. jaime was singing 'last christmas' and joyce would sing, but all she knew was 'last christmas, i gave you my heart.. blah blah blah dah dah .. SPECIAL'. she sung it at the top of her lungs in the car with her own madeup words at least 6 times on the way to pick up lunch. and she was extra lovey dovey and wanted to be picked up every 2 seconds and taiwanese people on the street were giving us the funniest looks.

i was thrilled to see my babies tonight and they're two of my favorites so they were equally excited to see me. they wanted to know all about thailand and some of them got hair cuts that they wanted to show me, and we just got back into our groove. it was nice. my little boys let me hug them without even really pretending to run away and scott just came and leaned against me while we were reading without me even doing anything. working with kids really is so much fun on the good days.

tea lady, stamp man, grandpa (i haven't mentioned it in months and months, but there's this little corner store right across from the school and we call it grandma's because this old woman is always behind the counter, but in the morning, it's her husband with parkinsons who continually hits himself with a long rod) and the cleaning lady all said long time no see to me today, so it was sweet that they noticed that i was gone and came back.

tonight as i was walking back from dinner and ice cream with tess and katie, i saw alex inside the coffee shop, so i went to say hi to him.
alex: welcome back, did you have fun on your vacation?
me: yeah, i had a lot of fun
fanny: how strange that the foreigners are speaking chinese to each other

thailand adventures

i haven't finished uploading/editing all of my photos from thailand yet and my eyes are fighting to stay open, so i'll go through and add them to posts on the right days tomorrow and put up a link to some facebook albums.

for nowww i'll leave you with these..
steve has lots of moves.
iced tea peach!
emil was being extra weird the last night. i think he needed some TLC.
emil, jane and jeff
jane, me, emil, dawn, leila, keith
steve, ashley and jeff

so much fun!

one night in bangkok

this keyboard leaves something to be desired. maybe it's a ploy to get me to pay for more time on the internet. slow going.

well this morning we left koh tao in the rain on a giant boat. 2 hours later we got on a bus for 7 and a half hours. it was amazing how all of that sitting around exhausted us by the time we moseyed over to koh san road in bangkok. it's super busy here, i think a lot of people must be heading home tomorrow since it's sunday. i guess it's busy here all the time though.

dawn, keith and i spent the evening shopping and people watching. i found a few things for jeff and matt and a few things for myself. i lost the battle for a necklace because the vendor wasn't willing to come down 10 batt (30 cents). haggling is no fun when you're super tired.

i've spent most of the day in a haze of DC excitement. it feels like i'm dreaming. really it just feels like a huge weight has been lifted and i know that it will just be awesome. i'm really excited. we get to help out at random social functions and attend a weekly lecture series headed by various 'senior white house staff' members which will be awesome.

5 minutes left on my timer! taiwan tomorrow. i'm excited to sleep in my own bed and have my own computer and see everyone.

ecstatic, excited, thrilled

i'm going to the white house in september!! i got the internship!
whew. i'm all trembly and excited. i just read the email, called my mom, dad and gram. my internet connection is too crap to actually talk to any of them for very long, but yayyyyy!!!

today was just perfect all along.
slept in late, had chili chicken soup for brunch, followed by some time on the beach with my favorite girls, then for an oil massage which made us all smell like macaroons, then a pedicure, then a brownie with ice cream on the beach, then delicious indian dinner with perfect company and lots of pictures, then drinks on the beach, then drinks off the beach, then white house internship email to come home to!it was sad to say goodbye to everyone though. we've had such a nice vacation. i can't think of a better way to have spent the last two weeks. we made new friends who were tons of fun. i got to see leila, derek and emil again when i thought i'd never see them. i got a chance to get to know steve, who is super sweet and lovely. it was great.
i am so excited about DC!!
now i need to work on finding [cheap] housing in DC. anyone with connections, feel free to start working on this right now.

peach tea

a couple of random things.
- a dog walked off with my leather flip flop :( at least that's our best guess as to what happened to it. they weren't super easy to walk in anyway, so i hope whichever dog nabbed it is enjoying it.
- dawn and i are thinking about going to hong kong for our birthdays in september. one of the girls who's joined our group, jane, is living there and she has a pull-out couch that we're welcome/planning to use
- they have peach liptons iced tea here in cans at 7-11 and it is so yummy. it tastes like those peach candies that come in the white box. the jelly ones. and 7-11 has "toasties" which are white bread sandwiches, put into a sandwich maker and sealed shut and grilled on both sides. ham and cheese toasties are my fav.
time for bed. we had to swim 200 or so meters to the boat after chris slightly miscalculated where the boat was and my legs are talking to me. the silver sands resident dog just curled up under my legs. one more day in koh tao! ..maybe my classes won't notice if i just stay.

tropical island band

i'm drinking out of a coconut while looking at the ocean. i think i've hit vacation nirvana. i've been dreaming about crispy duck on thin pancakes with plum sauce and we had some last night. then dawn and i had a candle-lit evening glass of wine on the beach, sitting in puffy bean bag chairs and looking at the ocean. it was heavenly.

this morning everyone but leila went diving and it was a bunch of fun. another early morning. keith, dawn, steve, jane and i were all in the same group when we went diving so it was nice. we saw a bazillion fish.. i bet if i look, i can find pictures.. first we were at red rock. it was a little tiny island and the bottom was all rocks covered in giiiiant coral.
next we went to japanese gardens. it was mostly one kind of coral and pretty flat, but there was a diving boat that sunk a few weeks ago that we got to swim around. it was covered in a thin layer of seaweedy stuff.

this website isn't affiliated with us at all, but that's what it looks like. it's on this island somewhere. i guess i'll be posting my own pictures soon enough.

i had a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel for lunch that was super lovely. now it's time to check out on the beach for a few hours before massages. buy a ticket!

red roses, too

ahhhh i wrote a whole post, saved it, and it disappeared. round 2..
i spent seven hourssss on the beach yesterday reading, napping, tanning, listening to music/the ocean. i think this beachy lifestyle is really starting to appeal to me. derek, leila, steve and emil all came here once their contracts were up and they're here for several months teaching or getting scuba certifications of various types. jealous. i don't really want to be a career diver or i'd follow suit.

while we've been here, we've met steve's friends ashley and jeff, who he knows from home. yesterday was ashley's birthday so we went to dinner at the italian place, farrango's, which i love. their pizza is better than all of the "pizza" in taiwan and rivals my favorite pizza at home. and they have peach iced tea. ymmm. ashley is super sweet.
after that we spent a little while on pillows on a deck overlooking the beach, sipping cocktails. steve tried my pina colada and said he thought it was disgusting. unbelievable.

today is another low key, beachy day. dawn and i are going to lunch in a few minutes. i'm thinking about a pedicure.
i'll hear about the internship in the next couple of days, so it's time to cross our fingers again.

forever young

we're PADI certified open water divers now! yay. it means that we can set up our own equipment unassisted and go diving with a dive master who makes sure we go down/come up at the right speed and who will show us around in the water.
today we had to meet at 6:45am to go to the boat. we did one fun dive just to swim around and look at fish. we saw some angel fish munching on a coconut. i held a starfish the size of a rugby ball. i didn't turn upside down and twirl around in circles. happy about that. keith and i both used way less air than yesterday, so we're improving. he was noticeably calmer today.
(they drive on the other side of the road in thailand. who knew? this is the truck that would drop us off at the dock before dives. emil insisted on sitting inside the cab because there was like an 80degree incline at times.)

then we took a break and did a second dive at hin wong bay, where we practiced the last of our technical skills. taking the mask fully off under water (which still makes me a little paranoid because you're so afraid you'll forget that you can't breathe through your nose) and clearing it, blowing air rings, using a compass, stuff like that. glad all of that stuff is out of the way so from now on we can just look at stuff underwater. my ears are feeling the pain of being popped and filled with sea water for 2 days. i need a break.
aside from diving, our days have been perfect and tropical-island-paradise-y in koh tao. we had delicious curry and fruit smoothies for lunch with dawn and then got a thai massage. keith giggled like a schoolgirl the entire time. dawn, leila, keith and i had dinner at wind beach which faces the ocean and has pillow chairs on the deck. i had pad thai with a baileys, rum and banana shake (!!!!!!). at night, they dig holes in the sand and light kerosene lamps on fire so it's all beautiful and lit with the palm trees. there are men who stand on the beach twirling batons with fire on the ends and people playing soccer and dogs playing with coconuts. could it beeee any more fantastic?

today i made friends with a black community dog with one eye and who was missing part of a paw. i was scratching the lower part of her back while i was sitting on the porch and now we're best friends. good day.

favorite quote from yesterday:
keith: liden, do you feel like superman in your wet suit?
liden: not really
keith: spiderman? peter pan? nothing?
liden: i kind of feel like wendy.

liden is our dive master trainee who's been diving with us for the last 3 days. he's quiet, bashful, english and sooooooo attractive. i'll find a picture somewhere or be sure to take one before i leave.