Taiwan Blog Feed

I’ve completed the web site for my new web design business. Currently my portfolio is rather sparse (just my teaching blog), but I’m working on a client site right now and have a second client lined up for later in the summer.

Create Sean Web Design now open for business.

單車~不只是交通工具

牠是一種生活中的配件

除了背包,還有跟我同一天生日的”黃香蕉”




在台北市

捷運發達

帶小折上車一點也不難

簡易的黑色塑膠袋蓋著

想去哪都是暢行無阻

早晨

提早與陽光約會

早個幾站下車

騎車上班去

騎著速度不快的黃香蕉

享受上班前的慢活步調

午間

用完午餐過後

不用十多秒的時間

又可以與黃香蕉散步於東區街頭

晚間

趁著夕陽落下前的時光

進入河濱車道

感受綠水藍天搭配金黃色夕陽的天空

輕巧的踩踏

行人也將多看一眼你的優雅

【女生單車通勤】專欄不定期刊出，歡迎來稿(請註明所在縣市)。
下期預告：不要看別人了，就是妳啦！把妳單車通勤的心情寄來吧～

【小編的話】基於許多人對單車通勤的誤解(危險/廢氣/速度/清潔?/美觀??)，加上其他主客觀因素，目前單車通勤的人口與自用汽機車相比，還是占少數，而 騎單車通勤的女生就更少了，希望藉由這個專欄的刊登與大家的分享，讓更多人了解單車通勤，進而鼓勵更多人選擇單車通勤。


【台北女生，單車通勤】專欄一～四期回顧

【女生單車通勤】之五--我，為什麼開始騎車？

Here is my cv as a wordle or tag cloud. As seen on many many blogs, the popular wordle.net keeps on thundering along like an out of control tank. So far this week I have shown wordle to a number of people and everyone has gone mad for it. Why not do your own? It’s a great [...]

No Child Left Behind, or NCLB may be impacting the teaching of foreign languages, such as Chinese per this article. Language Study Left Behind? from the Connecticut Business News Journal.

I have mixed feelings NCLB, I like the idea, but unfortunately the implementation has lacked some common sense. And then 9-11 came along and there went the focus on education that the Bush Administration had. Actually putting in measurements for schools is great, unfortunately states can set them as low as they want that increases their compliance on paper with NCLB.

The idea is because school districts are being forced to focus on basic English Language and Math scores due to NCLB, Foreign Languages funding and hours are being cut.

Of course if the students were at grade level, there would be no need for extra focus on this. Learning a foreign language is a great asset, but if you have not even mastered the basics it's hard to build on a foundation of sand. There are schools that have a 60% drop out rate, and then there are schools like my daughters that just had a Siemens Science winner. And they are located within 30 minutes drive of each other.

Am currently in the middle of Taiwan (literally) slogging it out at a summer camp. Thankfully (yet unexpectedly) in a week's time I get a week off before doing a camp in Taipei. But as I wasn't expecting it I don't know what to do for a WHOLE week in...

Thought I saw a beluga whale roaming the streets of Taipei the other day. Oh, no! It was really a BMW 6-series! Those things are beautiful. Especially in white.

That's how it feels sometimes.

Sigh.

I'm going to slow down. I'm going to hibernate. I'm turning off my brain and turning off my heart for a while. Hibernating in summer sounds like a good idea, no?

I've lately been rediscovering some items in my collection of Chinese learning materials. I'm a bookstore junkie, and learning Chinese has given me far too good a reason to always be buying new books. I have so many Chinese books that, if they weren't all written in, I could probably make a fortune by selling them. Anyway, I got started this week on Book II from Practical Audio-Visual Chinese,

There is a very enjoyable dish that anyone who has visted a Taiwanese night market must have enjoyed. It is an oyster omellete or er a jien (蚵仔煎) . It consists of a corn starch base with egg, a dozen or so fresh oysters and cuttings of fresh green vegetables. All quickly fried such that the oysters are just warmed and greens keep their stalks crisp. It is then covered with a mostly sweet but slight chilli sauce. Yum.

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