progress report: rock n roll weekend pt 1

Ivo and I went to Taipei to meet Phil and Genevieve at the airport on Thursday night - 30 March. We went up to Taipei, stayed in a hotel and then spent the next day sight seeing. Weather was great and so super fun. Ivo had a blast.

We went to the National Palace Museum - which had a lot of renovations going on - sothe grounds were mostly closed. But on our way out - we found a beautiful garden with paths and ponds. Then we walked to the MRT - which I think took about an hour and on the way stopped at a temple. Phil is an excellent map reader, getter-arounder, he was able to navigate the MRT system without a hitch.

Three trains each way to the zoo stop where we caught a cab to Maokong - atop a mountain with a view of Taipei 101 and lush forest.

Then we trained back to the Wall where Phil n Genvieve sound checked. There were about 50 people waiting on line - even before doors opened.

Ivo n I drove home - only took 2 hrs 15 min. Today Ryan, Ivo n I are all going to Kenting!!! Yay!!!

More soon.

Ivo likes to play with water

Ivo likes to play with water

Watch the video

this is a reposting because it didn't cross post

ivo likes to giggle

ivo likes to giggle

Watch the video

ivo likes imported chips

ivo likes imported chips

Watch the video

bad luck with blip.tv

I've tried to post a video of ivo for the last couple of days and it just won't go up - so I'm gonna use my limited time to post pics instead,

it's raining - ivo n i ran to the store to get a little yogurt drink - we're making yogurt and didn't have enuf starter. ivo's never had yakult - he was all happy and excited to have his own little bottle n straw. when we got home, he poured it all over me!

he still cant quite use a straw - but all other indications are: genius!

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.