mostly pictures

Wow! Ivo is 15 months old! Yay!
He's got 7 teeth with 3 on their way in various positions of gum-breakthru.
March has been mostly warm with a couple cool days.
Here are pics from cooler days.

Yay - the video went up!

Not until the second try however. But it went up fast! Toward the end, when Ivo touches the doggie and it starts singing Pat-a-cake, he puts down his toy and starts doing the "roll it and roll it" hand gestures. After that he's so happy, he does one of his new-ish things which is looking up as much as possible til he tips over!

laughing Ivo Pat-a-cake

laughing Ivo Pat-a-cake

Watch the video

On our way to Soho street

It is a sunny day - more distressingly, it is a humid day. Feels like summer coming. Ivo, Ryan and I are getting ready to walk over to Fubar - there's a Taiwan league baseball game on tv - and being played to a packed house in TaiChung City. Ivo and I will probably wander over to Tea Street for some window shopping and helium balloon buying.

Yay.

Am posting a video of Ivo:)

Ivo and friends at the park. Ivo and papa reading at home and eating at Mitsukoshi.

6:56am

It's light and the boys are sleeping...
coffee is on the horizon
I've been gathering the final bits of info for my paper
Regarding the online student center - they're gonna let me know! I hope they do one - but still I think I'll make a blog for it.

Paper's half done - Ivo went to the babysitter on Tuesday for 5 hours and I went to Starbucks with the laptop. It was the first time I'd ever done either of those things: leave Ivo to do something not-work (even though it was school) and use a laptop in public! kinda fun. I felt strange but liked it. maybe important. NOw I don't think I'll be able to go into a Starbucks without my opwn computer - it's all about the laptop!

Ivo and I are going to Heather and Dylan's this am.

new pursuits

I am pursuing an MA online thru SUNY at Stony Brook. I've always thought well of Stony Brook - especially the radio station - I had a boyfriend who was a dj/student. The station's motto at the time was, "Your first station of the '90's". That's how long ago that was - 1990.

Anyway, it's cool - I love being a student and in a lot of ways, I think participating in a totally online program is like being a pioneer - trailblazing and other forefront metaphores. There are caveats - I wouldn't have wanted to do an undergrad online - that's where I learned how to be a student and had academia modeled to me.

At more than US$400/credit, I expect a lot. There are a number of administrative things that have been and continue to be glitchy for me as an overseas student - but those seem like issues to be worked out together... happy to be on the team and so forth - as long as I can have access to book lists/syllabi in time to get my books here... a struggle each and every semester! But I'm promised each time, they're working on it.

The program offers no online student center - the only place I, a strictly online student, have access to other students is on the class blackboards. While each class has a "water-cooler" area - it is all under the purview of the professor and only available during the semester. So, it's not a place where I can ask other students about their best/worst classes, professors, or what they plan to do with their degrees... Had there been one, I wouldn't be in the class I'm in now!

So I'm gonna create one! It'll be an experiment too - I'll employ the tools of blogging I've been reading about, how to get hits, show up on search engines - and I'll email all the stoodents I can.

happy dayz at the park with xiao kong long

happy indeed! holding at 7 teeth - but must be teething.

also starting to not share - he wouldn't let the mei mei at babysitting play with his special musical dog - he hit her on the head.

First strawberries

This was 22 Feb. He had strawberries with his usual vegemite butter toast. He was quite suspicious... but by dinner and the next few days, he loved 'em.

i just remembered I already did this!

Taipei with Cuy

Sadly for us and uncertain for them, Leonie, Rob and Cuy left Taiwan on Monday 27 Feb.

Ivo and I went up for a fun goodbye on Saturday. We ate the best sushi ever in Ximen at a restaurant that's been open since 1946! Then we took the bus home. The picture in red is Ivo at the bus station.

divergent agenda

It's becoming clear that Ivo is not onboard with me reading and writing. In fact, these pursuits of mine are in direct contradistinction to his preferred pasttimes.

He really doesn't "get" what I'm doing and I'm begining to think that he doesn't understand much about our family at all!

My self-imposed deadlines have slipped, unsatisfied, into history. I'm left facing actual deadlines - all the while bearing a malcontented Ivo-shaped appendage. He wants the pen, the book, the boob, the eye contact... what is he thinking?

What I outta be doin'

1. writing my outline
2. researching my paper
3. resting my achy eyes which sting
4. revelling (later) about the miasma of cool which has head-light-stunned me
5. sleeping
6. shooing stray cats off the balcony
7. reading the article, "Geography of the Blogosphere"

and we're off

Pictures of Ivo eating strawberries for the first time - today - he's quite suspicious - he doesn't seem to appreciate them so much for their food value as for their smearing value. We'll try again later... oh but it's messy;/

On Friday - 17 Feb - Ivo and I had lunch with Sho and Brendan before he took off for a semester in Brisbane. Ivo loved the non-spicy Thai food.

We've got to go outside and play - but first we need to get dressed. It's warm - I guess no winter for TaiChungers... Yesterday while walking around with Ivo, I had the miasmic sticky sensation of summer...

upkeep

trying to change fonts and fix this place up a bit

cat's eye nebula

teflon and tuna

Leonie and Cuy were down this weekend - very fun - a couple pics - I think tho none are loaded on the computer yet.

Like me, Leonie is a lapsed vegetarian/vegan. She hadn't eaten meat for 15 years or so until her pregnancy. I didn't eat it until Ivo was 41/2 months old. Both of us ate chicken 1st. Leonie craved it - I was just hungry. But with all that (possibly o-c stuff) in common and one year olds in Taiwan - we naturally got to talking about food. Much of the time - we can't know what kind of fish it is...

Fish-eating vegetarians eat a lot of tuna - so years ago, when my mom told me tuna was mercury-laden, I cried for months. Once I was pregnant, I researched and found so much contradictory info. Even in pregnancy mags and on websites - there was so much qualification - frequency schedules and kinds of fish , it was tempting to just disregard. I ate tuna once a month and then stopped. When I went back to work, still nursing, I started eating tuna around 2x/month. I stopped a couple months ago - b/c I could - and I was scared. So I was asking Leonie and she said they eat tuna maybe 1x/month. I told her I'd heard that just expensive tuna is polluted/dangerous and the tuna-for-the -masses/cheapy chicken-of-the-sea is ok. She said albacore is worse but all of it is bad.

We talked about salmon and fish n chips - farmed and wild - it's all effed up. I'm gonna do new/more research - but I'm pretty sure tuna's out forever - maybe a once/year thing... salmon I've gotta check on - and what all is the fish in its eponymous dish with chips??? Leonie says in Oz it's shark

Here's the dirt - and I do mean dirt - on teflon... DuPont chemical has gotten in trouble for hiding that they knew that carcinogens could transfer to food... Her are 2 sites to check out. An AP story sited on truthdig.org from 16 Feb 2006 called, Board: Teflon Chemical a Likely Carcinogen. The other is from Alternet, Making the Teflon Ban Stick - from 11 Feb 2006.

So - not really surprisingly - man-made chemicals are bad for you - very bad. Use some olive oil - demand antibiotic-free butter.

extend-o-bed

After the walls were finished for the 2nd time in as many months - we re-re-re-moved into the bedroom, making some changes - Ivo has a bed adjacent to ours. It's just a little bit lower but just as comfy-cozy. Brunswick-sheeted! He seems to really like it while waking. So far we've been as such for 2 nights - Ryan and I think it's nice for all of us to have more room - Ivo says 'what's wrong with sleeping ontop of eachother?' The first night he spent half his sleep in his bed. The second night he spent 10% of the time in his bed - objecting even to my turning around.

We've gotten our mitts on the 4th season of the Sopranos - very exciting! Makes me swear in a cruder than normal fashion, though.

Ivo's citizenship card

Ivo and Cuy Feb 06
Ivo is now in possession of the official document that legally proves he's Canadian. It looks like an old-style driver's license - easy to forge - no fancy schmancy watermarks, holograms or metalic/magnetic strips...Also - his picture is from when he was 2 months old and his height is listed as 55cm!
He's around 75cm by now.

I'll post a pic of the card this weekend.

Our first week back to school has ended. All 3 of us weathered it well. Only Ivo suffered a vomit-y day... well, we all kinda felt his pain... He's fine now. He's excellent.

Our walls were re-repaired+
+ (plus signs courtesy Ivo) So far they look6 3gre6at (numbers courtesy Ivo).
We're gonna move bedroom back and make an Ivo bed adjoined to ours -- we all need a little more room!

I have a song in my head that's about not waiting in line and uses all kinds of words that can be prefixed re-...so that there's double meaning of everything.

My class is going fine though I'm not excited about it and it's way not fun. Perfunctory. I'm looking forward to next semester! And a class where more than summarizing and defining...

Ivo wants to go watch tv - night night:)

Quail Hunting

So much has already been said about this, guns don't kill people, people with guns do... or they at least pepper them. I hope that Whittington will be ok. Cheney hasn't surfaced nor issued an apology. What I don't get is why this wasn't pinned on someone else in the hunting party in the first place.

timing

It takes a long time to download the video from ivo and the bbboys - so start it, go check yr email and by the time you frgot about it - it'll play!

happy vd!

Ivo and the basketball boys

Ivo and the basketball boys

Watch the video

This is from 4 February at a sports place in TaiChung.

More Pictures from New Dog Year

The warmest winter ever - currently wearing a tank top!

Happy Valentine's Day

While Doug and Gail were here, we returned to the shishi batting cages - with video games and shop - near Mitsukoshi. It's a popular spot for buying wearable souvenirs - Mom bought a bunch of stuff there last year.

Speaking of which - it's been a year since my mom arrived here and Ivo was so little. Wow - feels so clear and so impossible - that shifty changey nostalgia feeling.

Tomorrow is my first day back to work - Ivo's first day back to the babysitter - 1:30-6:30pm. Ryan started yesterday. So far so good.

So I'm gonna try to post a video of Ivo at the baseball games place. It's a great show of how he (1) loves balls (2) likes kids (3) goes after what he wants - but carefully. He's so cool - he kicks butt!

Wrapped up in a bow

Grammie and Grampie just took Ivo to the park by themselves - they brought him back sleeping like a baby! Yippee!

We are having a great time.

The other night we were talking about how having a baby has made us change our former free-time squandering ways. How just having an hour to do what you want or need to do feels like a gift. At the risk of scaring the few darling friends I have from coming by... We mentioned how sometimes visitors think this free time is still up for being taken for granted - and won't leave... Doug said when stuff like that happens the best thing to do is just to say, "Now isn't a good time." I think that's great but Ryan said, what if they ask why? Somewhere in there I said, tell 'em "Now's really not a good time, I just got my period." Still makes me laugh!

seed the clouds video test

seed the clouds video test

Watch the video

learning curve

Theoretically, I'm using this blog to become more computer literate. But I can't seem to get rid of any of the duplicate pictures from the Ivo at the park posting.

I'm working on posting videos.

Ryan's parents are coming on Thursday!
It's my first day of school vacation and my first day of the SUNY online semester.

I got the car inspected this morning. It resulted in my having to take the car to have the headlights replaced. But it went super smoothly - all things considered. The inspection site is out in Da Du in Taichung County, right on the coast. 15 minutes or so from the main drag, Chung Gang Road... It reminded me how hideously ugly industrial small town Taiwan is... locals call it "the countryside" - This can only be country as opposed to major metropolis. A linguistic quirk. Da Du makes Chung Hua look beautiful... Main Street is packed with giant buses, too many cars, scooters, motorcycles- all spewing black stink - which makes me wonder what the parameters of this vehicle inspection are... oversized tricycles, bicycles, people, people, people - tiny breakfast shops and assorted other vendors of cheap things. So compressed - no sidewalks, no parking areas - lots of unattractive people walking around wearing pajamas. So different from the city slickers I live among - who make me look the slob!

I'm wondering how the preference for re nao (hot noisy - crowded) coexists so happily with buddhism...

Ivo and I went to Starbucks afterwards - a haven that, unless I lived in Asia, I would totally boycott. That's how flexible my values are.

Yay!

Ivo at the park

Ivo loves to ride other kids' bikes. We thought about getting him one for his bday/xmas but decided to wait til he could really ride it.

We usually go to the park in the morning when a whole bunch of under 2's go. It's so cool watching him learn to play with other kids.

The park's also fun at night. It's clean (for Taiwan), well-lit and almost empty.

Saturday - da shiao qu

I’m getting ready for school which starts Monday. I’m expecting DHL to come thru sometime this am. After the trauma of the first aborted delivery, my package is now under Taipei-based Agent Meico’s personal care.

Ryan has winter school thru Thursday. Ivo and I are spending this Saturday morning vacuuming and trying to get the house in a little bit better shape… Our landladies 4 are coming to visit. They are gonna do a bit of an inspection of the work that was done at the beginning of the month. The work was SHODDY. The kind of job that looks good when the workmen leave but begins to flake away the following day. I emailed them pictures but never got a response.

Several walls in our house have “wall cancer”. It’s very hard to get rid of but easy to fix! It’s a fungus or mold which thrives in the moistness of the cement walls. Are there leaking pipes there? Is it the position of the house vis typhoon winds? Is it that the walls were painted before the cement was completely dry? Does anything completely dry in this urban subtropical humidity?

I’ve been told that the only way to really get rid of it is to knock down the walls and pour new cement. I’ve also been told that it can be contained by coating the walls with elmer’s/pvc glue.

So we’ll see.

hao jio bu blog

It's been soooo long