Popsicle Fun

Last Thursday was my last time having my tutoring group. It has been getting warmer and so I decided to get ice cream to share with all of my tutoring students (which was really bad as I discovered something really yummy---mango on one side and milk/ice cream on the other side!). I allowed the girls to have some time at the beginning of the class to eat theirs.

Kristy decided that she didn't want hers so she gave it to Missy (who ate both in the same amount of the time the other two took to eat their one :D)

I love the little bit of ice cream on Amy's nose :)

Cute Rose!

Missy wasn't too excited about me taking her picture, so it was a bit of a struggle to get a good one.

PES Films

One of my tutor students showed me this tonight, it's pretty cool!

of course after watching that I had to see what else they did, I liked these two...I think that the fireworks one is my favorite though!

Hairs a Thought

A couple of weeks ago I was tutoring Jenny when we had a little bit of time left at the end before her Dad showed up. Jenny noticed my earrings on my desk and picked them up and started looking through them, she tried every single earring on me and decided which ones were the most pretty. Somehow she went from looking at my earrings to doing my hair, this is the result...

A couple of days ago I decided to see if my hair was long enough to do the cone head, it works but I think it would do better my hair was a little longer and if it was straightened.

When I was walking around after-school yesterday Zoey told me that I look like a Christmas tree...quite funny! So then as Wendy was leaving she said "Good-bye Teacher Beth Christmas Tree!"

Yuling told me that I was "brilliant!"

Bug Attack

Tuesday evening I was supposed to have tutoring at 7pm, it got to be 7:15 and I hadn't seen Jenny yet...I decided to go outside and see if she was hiding or something (because that's the sort of thing these kids do), I stood up from my desk and noticed 3 bugs flying in my room, I was annoyed to see them but didn't really think that much about them. I opened the door to outside and see at least 60 of the same bug flying around the light on our porch, I'm pretty sure that I screamed and slammed the door to our room at the same time.

Andrea (who was tutoring in the kitchen) turned around at my scream and her jaw dropped, the girls that she was tutoring freaked out! They started screaming and opened the door to the kitchen so even more flew in there.

Andrea and I went crazy with the fly swatters, pretty soon the floors and everywhere else was covered in wings, quite disgusting but we rather have the wings than the flying objects.

At one point I turned off the lights outside and they all rushed towards my window (the lights were on still inside), kind of funny but I wasn't excited to be in the way of the direction they were all flying.

I asked Teacher Stephanie about it on Wednesday, she said that they are flying ants and that when it has been warm and then starts raining they all come flying out and head towards the light. My Mom suggested that also because it is spring there is an abundance of them, all I know is that we were not happy to see them.

Our tutor students told us though that we should keep a bowl of water on the ground in the kitchen, the ants will think that it's light and fly to it, but will die because it's water---works for me!

Dream Boat

Last night I was tutoring Nemo, we were reading a book about different kinds of boats and I thought to do something different I would have her describe her "dream boat" to me, this is the following list that was given to me:

*Big (as we were reading the book I would ask her which boat was her favorite, she was always pick one and when asked why it was her favorite? "because it's big")

*Cool (now what would be the point of having a boat if it's not cool?)

*Colors: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Purple

*100 Levels

*10 bedrooms (those poor bedrooms are going to be pretty far spread out)

*20 bathrooms (it's always important to have the 1 to 2 ratio in bedrooms to bathrooms)

*15 kitchens (and to have enough kitchens so that you fix something different in each one)

*3 Swimming pools

...this reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite movies Bride and Prejudice

This fellow went to America

and bought a huge American house
and built three swimming pools.
So when his father visited from India,
he showed him around his mansion
and three swimming pools.
His father asked,

"But, son, why do you need three pools?"
So he said proudly, "Well, one is filled

with cold water for when I feel hot
. The second is filled with hot water
when I feel cold. "
The father nodded and said,

"But why is the third pool empty?"
He said, "Well, that's when

I don't feel like swimming at all. "

*20 trampolines

*10 cars

*11 jump ropes

*30 TV's

*29 computers

*12 balls

*2 basketball courts

*3 soccer fields

*10 pianos

*5 movies (I'm not sure if this is physical movies or movie theaters)

*2 McDonalds

*8 music boxes

*10 violins

*2 roosters

*2 hens (yep you see those two right, roosters and hens...they raise roosters and hens and when I suggested other animals she didn't want those, just roosters and hens :D)

*50 flowers

*7 BIG clocks

*99 standing lamps (at least we know that each level will have a lamp :D)

It's interesting because as she was making her list I was thinking how very different my dream boat would be, even though I had given her the permission to add anything to her boat her mind couldn't even imagine crazy things. Oh how much longer and complex would be my list :D

If you were designing your dream boat what would it be like?

Budget

Those of you that know me know that last time I did not come with a budget in mind at all and when I came home I didn't come in the negative but I didn't come home with as much as I should and could have.

As my "plan" had been to stay at home, work, and save money for when I go back to school I decided that I needed to come to Taiwan also with a plan or budget to helped me succeed.

So this is my budget:
Every month I am paid approximately $900 US, this money is put in a savings account (of which I have a ATM card to and have full access to)--my plan is to leave that untouched for the next 6 months and take it all out at the end and put it into Travelers Checks to take home and put directly into my savings/checking accounts.
This time I will have 6 tutoring jobs every week and from each of those I will receive $300 NT (Taiwan dollars, so about $9.50US). From each $300 I will put:
$30 for Tithing
$100 for any spending that I want to do (includes food, shopping, special supplies that I want for my lessons, etc.)
$100 for any traveling. Andrea and I have talked about going to somewhere in China or somewhere else but before I can do it I want to have most of it put aside in this envelope so that I am not putting out more money than I have.
$50 for savings--my goal is to have enough money between this envelope and what is in the savings account her to pay for 2 semesters of school by the time I go home.
$20 towards paying back my Mom what I owe her.

Last week I went through my desk and found envelopes, I wrote on each of them what they are for and how much I should be putting in each one. Every night after I have received the money from my tutor students before Andrea and I go anywhere I divide the money up and put it in the correct envelopes.

I haven't always been good at saving my money or keeping a budget but I believe that this budget can work for me and I am excited to work towards my goals!