Parent conferences always seem to get our hearts racing a little with trepidation. I really don’t know why: there have been occasions so rare over our careers that have barely approached a bad experience that we could count our total on one hand. However, for some reason, even though the experience is often quite enjoyable, there is always that lingering feeling. I had two days of meeting with parents this Thursday and Friday and the experiences I had were very positive, confirming the reality of a fairly long career of dealing with a disparate group of adults always quite anxious about their child’s progress. Cass will no doubt have similar feelings at the latter end of this week as her conferences kick in then.
Our week was punctuated by things out of our control that induced varying levels of concern. We had great concerns for family members, lesser ones about work, conferences etc and relatively minor ones about a massive typhoon bearing down slowly on the island from a devastating swathe it cut through the Philippines. The latter tapped a drumbeat of incessant rain on us for four days straight and combined with an evil lashing wind, inverting umbrellas and spitting sheets of water at the pitiful pedestrian (often us as we struggled to and from school). To top the week off we attended the memorial service for a colleague who was hit by a car near school, and was in a coma for a week before dying. We didn’t know him well, but had dealings with him during our nine year tenure. He is the ninth colleague of ours at this school who has died since we have been here. Anyway, it was good to put our very minor concerns into real perspective this week: they really are quite tiny and we’re thankful for that.
On Saturday, all the way down town we went in a cab to the back end of Daan Park and beyond. It was an interesting area of the city which we’ve visited rarely and gave us yet another perspective of this seething metropolis. On the way back, we started to walk from the MRT station at the giant downtown SOGO, but I got the direction wrong. As it looked increasingly unlike the spot we were aiming for, I used the new phone’s GPS to indicate exactly where we weren’t! Back in another cab and we decided to check out Papa Gio’s for a very late lunch if it was open. It wasn’t, but Cass had spied a thriving restaurant alley just beyond on a previous visit, so we wandered to find the (as it turned out) funky and superb, Burned Cheese. We had a set meal built around baked lasagna: it was magnificent! We’ll definitely be back to this spot again to try the Indian, Japanese, French, Italian or Japanese and Korean: or maybe just try Burned Cheese again!
The MRT back to Tienmu always provides some great human theatre and we weren’t disappointed. People watching in these huge numbers always means spotting some classics…there’s a whole other story in that one!
Lazy day today for both of us although we did drag ourselves out to go to different shops to stock up on food for the week. Mercifully the typhoon has now departed, but not before killing twelve people and losing another two dozen: we are pretty well protected here in Taipei from the very worst of these storms: the landslides on the east and west coasts can be quite devastating.
Photos: Cass in front of the SOGO window, a silly self taken shot, a huge iguana being sold in a local pet shop, a truck advertising “beer” flavoured green tea and a typical “look” in Taipei’s main rapid transit station! As for books, we’re still engrossed in last week’s offerings: Cass is trying to slow down on the Franzen to linger on his genius and I’m trying to read Kosinski quickly to help ameliorate the horror!