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.