This might be the last hurrah for the silver bullet: I'm trying to organize a final inspection, pay some lingering insurance and get the paperwork changed to the new owner. A teacher in the lower school, co-incidentally doing the exact job I did for ten years or more, has agreed to buy it after sorting a car-park for it through the week. She'll use my underground park for this coming month then move it to a spot in her alley. It's a classic old car and we'll miss it!

The hilarity never stops round at Wal and Annie's place on a Friday night! I occasionally go around for a couple of hours prior to going down to Uli's as the boys sleep later these days and they're a handful: I think Annie appreciates Wal's involvement and it smooths his exit later on! They are quite the hoot and I enjoy all the antics, mainly because I know I only get a very small dose. It reminds once again that we really don't know we're alive: I'm exhausted after this tiny taste of reality. The "nappy head" game was just one of many: the boys really like my underarm farting noise game as well!

Taiwan is still showing the rest of the world how to deal with the virus...it's an amazing array of contact tracing elements that they've employed to keep everyone safe. I read something a little sad the other day, but it really resonated with me. Taiwan is so proactive and ready to pounce on any outbreak mainly because they know that no-one will help them. China has dominated the world stage for so long and has actively bullied organizations like the W.H.O. and U.N. to deny Taiwan entry into these organizations. It has also intimidated individual countries who have had the audacity to co-operate with, let alone recognize, Taiwan. So, therefore, and sadly, Taiwan is well aware that they must rely on their own auspices to survive and now they are a shining light for the rest of the world to follow. With their unselfish and massive donations of PPE to countries throughout the world, people are starting to understand Taiwan's recent motto: "Taiwan Can Help"....let's hope they remember when everything settles down.

We're glacier-like in our progress, but we're cautiously crossing a few things off our increasingly long list. Cass is getting our cable TV subscription extended by a month as it's about to run out. I'm hopefully getting the car sorted. We're going to bite the bullet and tell our landlord, Mr. Lee, about our move today. We've been putting this off as he can be terribly long-winded, and no doubt will insist on an interminable meeting. We have to do it though, as there are many aspects of the move that we need to negotiate: rent extensions, clean-up responsibilities, timing etc. etc. We've also enhanced his property with built-in air-conditioners and will leave any white goods he wants....hopefully this gives us a little bargaining power to escape a month's rent. Wish us luck!

One extremely exciting aspect to our week was the deposits into our accounts of our "retirement" funds from the school contracted financial advisors. We'd never seriously relied on these funds as they just seemed so nebulous and far removed. It's not officially superannuation, so we could get a payout, but it occurred and we're delighted....bonus!

Photos: the silver bullet in the bat-cave, Cass with an armada of Youbikes, nappy-heads, and Taiwan showing the world how to do it (without lock-downs). Last, a Taiwan map drawn by an Australian artist plus video of a recent river walk.

A lot has been packed into a very eventful week after our shipping guy came, I had a birthday, we managed to book some flights and I'm getting some bites on the bait I threw out about selling the car.

Mr Ho's booming voice announcing his arrival had to be "shooshed" as our landlord, Mr. Lee, doesn't know about our departure as yet! Mr. Ho is a wily veteran of the shipping/packing game and is the president of his own company shipping worldwide. He did an inventory of our to-be-shipped goods quite casually, pointing out things he spotted and having us confirm or deny their status. He was very efficient and had a great eye for size, shape and approximate weight and was finished his first sweep in no time at all after going through each room. He then sat down at the table and made a more formal inventory for us to sign. He said we had a medium level of furniture and would fill no more than half a container: I'll be amazed if it fills a quarter of one, but he's the expert! Our tentative date to get shipped out is June 8, but tentative is the operative word.

Based on that information we searched for and booked some flights on China Airlines for June 11, Taipei to Sydney. There's no guarantee at all that this flight will actually take to the skies, but everyone is pretending it will at this time. I suppose we'll find out more as the time draws nearer and we won't be holding our breath that everything goes smoothly.

I was trepidatious about completing my annual pushup challenge the following day but somehow psyched my self up to just complete the requisite number. It is a strange thing to do on a special day: set oneself up for possible failure and a reminder of crumbling bones, atrophying muscle and time slowly eking away, yet when completed victoriously, the feeling is of quiet euphoria....I was secretly buzzing all day.

I've been negotiating with a few people about buying the car. Our much loved "silver bullet" needs to move onward, and is a sensational buy for someone. I've priced it at a rock-bottom level to get rid of it but the result has been that it has scared some people away: they are wondering if there is something wrong with it because it is so cheap! The fact is that despite its great luxury specifications it's pretty old...even I was shocked when I realized it was a 1997 model! Anyway, I'm racing over to the garage after school to retrieve it and then drive it to show to a potential buyer...fingers crossed!

We walked the river on the weekend before eating out at Bad Ass Burger (!) where we enjoyed the latest version of the previous shop, Eat Burger. They've retained most of the good taste and interesting menu of the former shop while instilling a wrestling theme, creating a fun atmosphere. The much loved Jake's Country Kitchen was our first stop, but despite the opening hours indicating it was open, the restaurant was forlornly shut up when we visited their Deshing East Rd. location earlier. It is rumoured to be closing for good at the end of the month, so we're trying to get one last meal in: they've been open and offering American fare in Tienmu since the late seventies!

Taiwan continues to do a spectacular job in controlling the coronavirus here, but a warning for everyone occurred just yesterday. You can never rest on your laurels. Despite their superhuman efforts and results on containment and tracking, it just goes to show that simple things can upset the apple-cart, even though there were zero cases on three occasions this week. A navy ship doing a tour of the Pacific docked and three young guys had symptoms. They immediately quarantined 700 people and 21 positive cases were found. The authorities have already contacted about 3,000 possible contacts with more to come. Taiwan's total caseload, as a result of this, is now 420, a remarkable effort, but one that shows vigilance can never waver.

Photos: Taiwan can help, "Blackie" got a parking ticket and a nice photo in the mail!, a meat truck leaves nothing to the imagination, Bad Ass Burger wrestlers and singers, photos from the river walk. Oh and video of my annual birthday challenge!

It makes very little difference to us whether we're in a formal isolation/quarantine or not. After long, exhausting weeks dealing with various shocks of on again/off again online learning stints and the concomitant planning and logistical nightmares that each iteration brings, we're usually quite happy to just potter around the apartment, watch some TV, read, do some grocery shopping and prepare for another unknown, no doubt surprising, week to come.

It's psychologically enervating to be in such a constant state of flux. We've always got an eye on various emergencies or disaster scenarios that might loom up out of the mists of swirling facts and figures on the virus domestically. No day will look the same as the last, and we can plan only as far as the day we are currently dealing with as far as school work is concerned.

Adding to the pea-soup fog is the timeline associated with our departure. As yet, we haven't secured any flights home in June and our departure is a fluid beast. Airlines are shutting down routes and cancelling more flights as each day passes. We have an appointment with our movers/shippers this afternoon which may shed more light on when we will get packed up and if/when our goods will be shipped out. Freight lines are also experiencing significant downturns and we may not be able to ship things out with any certainty. Adding to the problem, we ourselves might not be able to beat our shipping home if we're delayed, creating another dilemma.

Mary is currently ailing and doesn't look like she'll last the distance, but this is yet another mind-bender. We're looking for air transport options for her in case she recovers, but we found out that the only animal quarantine port in Australia is now Melbourne: how do we get her from there?

We're slightly hopeful on two fronts however. Firstly, after getting our shipping quote this afternoon, we might have a little more certainty on packing dates if not the shipping date itself. We can then, hopefully, find a flight that leaves not long after we're packed up. The second reason for some optimism is the fact that our permanent resident cards seem on track for the end of May, meaning we can extend our stay with impunity if we need to, into the Taiwanese summer well after the school term ends.

This blog entry all ended up a little glum after I went off on a tangent to list a whole stack of problems. Suffice to say, despite this list and a lot more (!), we're still very aware of our privileged position in the world. We're in the lengthening shadows of satisfying and worthwhile careers, we're in the safest country in the world and we've got utopian style jobs in our chosen professions still begging us to come to work. Most importantly, we're fit, healthy and happy! We've got a lot to do between now and June, but we're primed and ready! Photos: 6th graders in my Orphanage Club checking dockets for lucky numbers, and a black beauty bird spotted on our Sunday river ramble.

All things being equal, we'll be the equivalent of dual citizens of both Taiwan and Australia in a couple of months time! Were eligible to apply for a Alien Permanent Residents Card (APRC) due to the extended time we've lived and worked in Taiwan. In fact we've been eligible for many, many years. We've never bothered with the formalities before as the school sponsors our Alien Registration Card (ARC) each year and takes care of the application. With flights dwindling away to just a whiff of jet fuel, we might be in Taiwan for a while this summer, so we thought we'd do it legally!

The other big news is that we were surprised to get a call to initiate online learning again this week. This now makes a total of a month of online tutelage in two separate bursts. This week we've just finished a week that was far more arduous than the first incarnation: we taught our allotted classes one by one in regular time slots, allowing much more individual time and more boutique lessons to be developed and taught. It was exhausting and frustrating.

The sensational news was the "Zoom bombing" incident that happened to me! I was innocently teaching my period 7 class of about 25 students when I got "bombed" by about five or six outsiders who yelled and screamed, showed inappropriate language and even flashed a still screen of a porn site momentarily before I shut the whole thing down! It all happened in the space of about 10 seconds and I had my mouse hovering over the "end meeting" button, but very quickly I had to abort the lesson. The kids seemed oblivious to the extent of the "bomb" so I explained to them that the work they needed to complete was available on a different platform, set them to work, then reported the incident to the bosses. I was subsequently praised for my quick thinking and acting but couldn't help wondering what sort of morons do this type of thing to innocent kids trying to learn? The mind boggles!

As I mentioned, Cass and I were exhausted after a week of this: Brady Bunch screens with 27 participants, audio and video questions firing, as well as a dedicated "chat" line, all while teaching the lesson as well. 80 minute classes meant we were at the point of collapse after each one! We'd rush out in our lunch break to do a river walk and sometimes just get back in time to do our afternoon classes: I have to admit I did a couple in my stinky walking gear...one of the very few advantages of online instruction! We also had to speed downtown to the immigration office armed with our paperwork and photos one afternoon to beat the upcoming Tomb Sweeping Day's holidays. We did that, now we just have to wait for the slowly grinding wheels of bureaucracy to rotate through our applications!

Tomb Sweeping Day usually falls on or about Cassy's birthday and this year was no exception. We decided to take advantage of the fact that we could eat out at restaurant with impunity, one of the few places in the world that can still allow this luxury. Taiwan still has fewer than 400 cases: it's an amazing success story and a testament to going hard, going early, and a compliant and obedient population unselfishly acting in the community's best interest, not their own. We went to "Very Thai" in the SOGO building and ate all our favourites as well as enjoying a little bottle of Moet&Chandon for the champagne connoisseur! What luxury!

We're back at school today facing yet more challenges. The latest edict is that all teachers, staff and students as well as any (limited) visitors wear face-masks all day every day except when eating lunch or taking a sip of water. Yes, that means while instructing as well. It's been quite a trick listening to Iago's evil intent muffled through a face-mask or Lady Macbeth's witchery evoked through costume and makeup and dramatic flair with some part of the effect stolen by a sterile, white surgical mask! Oh well, just another punch to roll with...we're just thankful we're again face-to-face teaching, rather than Zooming.

Some flora on the river walk, precious toilet paper, masks are now compulsory on the MRT and birthday celebrations OUT!!