Before, after and another year wiser

Jeremiah's hair has been getting long, really long. When it dries the right way in the morning you can't really tell how long it is because of how curly it is, but when he gets home from school and messes it up, or wakes up on the weekend it looks like this:

Now granted, this is especially "froofed" for the camera and to demonstrate just how long it had gotten (and he would never go to work with it like this), but many times after school or on the weekends during the last few weeks he'd come out of another room looking like this. (These pictures scream "mug shot", don't they?)

Jeremiah goes back and forth with his hair often. He likes it long, then doesn't like it, likes it short, then he doesn't. I see why his dad was so quick to hand the job of Jeremiah's barber over to me. I don't mind cutting his hair though because we made a deal that I get a pair of shoes every time I cut his hair.

After some debate lately of whether to do it or not, he told me to cut it before he changed his mind again.
And now I get to go shopping for my next pair of shoes!


On another Jeremiah note: this week he turned 28! Luckily for me, Jeremiah is an easy going guy who appreciates thoughfulness and originality. I say luckily, because this birthday was a little different than our normal birthday festivities in the states. First, on my end shopping was much harder. We don't give each other big gifts for birthdays, but all my standbys were hard to get here (Wii games bought here don't work in our system, clothes fit differently so I can't pick them out for him, he doesn't really have a hobby here yet ). I also don't have a store I can go to and know I will find something. I ended up going to a pretty big mall and getting lost, which was embarrassing because when you are the only white person people notice when you go by the same store 5 times.

The cake was another obstacle. At home I would bake a vegan cake for him - but we don't have an oven or vegan baking supplies. Nor can you go out and buy vegan desserts (well, maybe you can but I don't know where to do that). So, I went on a mission to find whatever vegan treats I could find. I ended up building a "cake" out of cookies and some make-shift frosting to hold it together. In the end, with a big "Happy Birthday" sign, some Taiwan-fab gifts, a unique (to say the least) cake, and a surprise dinner with a bunch of our teacher friends, I think it was a successful birthday!

here and there

Things I like here:

• paying for everything at 7/11. so easy. so nice. except it gets a little tricky when you can't speak chinese. i kind of just hand them a bunch of money and hope they're honest.
• going out to eat and spending $3 to get 15 vegetable dumplings and a bowl of noodles. it did help that we had our friends girlfriend speaks chinese. or ordering 5 items at the thai place, plus rice, plus a tiny dessert and paying $15
  
• not having people honk at other people all the time. most relaxed drivers ever over here. amazing how it looks "crazy" and "out of control" when you're not driving in it, but once you get out there, the cars/scooters are like ants... they just go with the flow
  
• going and buying housing stuff to put in our place that makes allison happy. (we're still working on having her not automatically pick up the first split pea colored thing she sees!)
• water bills that are $5. granted, you're not getting the cleanest/freshest water. but it is still nice.
• catching and releasing cockroaches. long story short. allison "kill it!" me "no, just move the whole bed to the side and i'll throw a box over it." done.
  
• getting multiple boxes of sandpaper-y kleenex when you fill up at the gas station that i never use
  
• spending $60 per month on gas instead of $360 when we were at home. amazing
  
• working at the same school as allison
  
• staring at other westerners because it is so rare to see them
  
• going out to eat. a lot. too cheap to pass up.
• buying electronics for cheap. they're made here, they better be cheap. (except apple. damn you apple)
  
• dear espn360, thank you for letting me watch the ucks lose to boise state. and then accepting their victory with pride and without any... oh wait. nevermind.
• skyping with people back home. especially video skype.
  
• hanging out with some of the other teachers here. they're pretty nice.
  
• light switches on the outside of a room. i mean, whose idea was it to put a light switch inside of a dark room? makes much more sense. and all the light switches have little green dots on them if they're off... so if it is dark, you can actually see where you need to be going to turn it on. genius.
• reading other people's blogs about living abroad: columbia, taiwan, used to live in taiwan, and kazakhstan are the ones i check out the most often... just because i know them. or have been looking at them the longest. if you're out there, leave us a comment so we can read about you too.
  
• paying way too much for good beer. seriously. just import some micro brew in bulk and charge less
  
  

what i'm looking forward to in portland:

• taco cart on se 84th and woodstock, vita, herbivore, sweet pea, food fight!, taco bell fire sauce, mexican food
  
• sidewalks
• humidity under 80%
• hub, deschutes, rogue
  
• watching football with my dad
  
• talking about wedding details with my brother (joke)
• playing wii with sister and her bf
  
• making food with mom
• being cold
• kicking tk's ass in anything
  
• buying allison a new computer
• flying from portland to taiwan and knowing what to expect

i probably missed a lot, but realized it'd been a few days since we posted, so wanted to get this out. hope all is well.