Week of March 21st, 2014

There will be no entry the next two Fridays...we leave on Thursday for a 9 day Spring break trip to Cambodia and Vietnam.  4 days in Siem Reap, Cambodia to visit Angkor Wat., then on to Hanoi.  While in Hanoi, we're going on a two night junk trip on Halong Bay.  Have been looking into things to see, and a couple of the darker ones include a killing field in Cambodia and the Hanoi Hilton, which is not one of Paris' dad's hotels, but rather the prison for Americans during the Vietnam War - aka the American War to the Vietnamese.  Should be amazing and am looking forward to sharing.

Carolyn went to her first proper show on Sunday night...Avril Lavigne at Linkou Stadium.  She went with her friend Roni, and since tickets were $125 each, Roni's mom and I decided that we both didn't need to go in, so I drove them and hung outside (and watched a couple episodes of True Detective...awesome) while they went in.  We bought floor seats, which turned out to be GA standing room and they managed to get up pretty close.

Not my camera...must be an iPhone as they are unable to be rotated properly in this site.  Sounded like they had a great time...sang along, bought t-shirts (which they coordinated with matching outfits to wear to school the next day) and are already clamoring to go to another show.  Love that...I've repeated often how seeing Kiss when I was Carolyn's age changed my life and can see a bit of that in her.  Have been thinking about taking up playing the bass guitar and will get one that Carolyn is able to handle as there is nothing more awesome than female bass players.  The list of them in RnR history is quite impressive.  While I'm a guitar lover, I tried to learn how to play it a few years ago, and after a few months of classes, and being totally frustrated with it, the instructor said that it would be hard for me to learn as my fingers aren't long enough.  Way to crush my dreams, but you know what they say, stubby fingers means a huge...  Anyway, bass seems within my grasp and am on the lookout for a decent used one.

I mentioned that last Friday, the first Board election thing was getting up in front of the parents at the "Chinese Gathering" for a 3 minute introduction.  Definitely not my strongest outing...all of the other candidates (including two white dudes) can speak Mandarin perfectly, and there is not much more a Chinese love than seeing a Westerner speak in their tongue.  You could hear them gasp out loud when they launched into their speech.  I tried to use a gag to defuse my disadvantage...when we came to Taiwan, I badly wanted to learn to speak Mandarin and am happy to say that is exactly what I accomplished.  I now speak Mandarin badly.  Crickets.  As I led off with that, it was a slog for the next 3 minutes.  Did do better at the tables during lunch as I prefer the informal setting when you can dig deeper.  I met a couple of moms whose kids are on the same baseball team with Paul and they asked if I knew that the boys were planning to go together to Hooters after the game the next day and if I thought it was OK.  I did not know that was their plan but thought it was cool enough (secretly thinking it was very cool).  I often wish I was more like Betty...she can go into almost any room of strangers and will walk out making life long friends.  I'm not shy to say the least, but am far more guarded talking to new people.  This election thing has been great in the fact that I have to open up faster and am meeting tons of new people. 

As part of this thing, all the candidates have to prepare a poster that hangs in the lobby for the 4 week election cycle.  The posters are pretty similar in stating objectives...we all want the best teachers, cutting edge facilities, blah-ba-di-blah, but when it comes to the family photos, ours is unique.  The other candidates have lovely professional shots with their beautiful families...the kind where everyone wears a white polo shirt and blue jeans.  I have always hated those and prefer candid or funny shots, but am probably off base as a lot off people have them.  This is what I went with...

Looks better in person as this is a picture of a picture of it, but this is the photo at the bottom.

The kids both said they were embarrassed but secretly think they like it as it is different and a conversation starter.  A friend of Carolyn's says Paul looks like a Taliban.  Betty looked at all the posters yesterday and declared that mine was weird and our art teacher friend loved it.   Whatever...I guarantee that it gets more eyes than any of the other ones and that is the point, no?