On 29/03/2006, according to EstasMuerto.com (It's a spanish site, sorry, but you can do what I did and translate it). Apparently, I am going to slash my wrists with a shaving blade at age 29, after a friend of mine gave their life to save mine. Oh, and spend thousands of years of suffering with the Fallen Angel who visits through a Ouija board. Hehe. COOL!

Here's the spanish transcript.

Motivo de tu muerte: Jamás has sido creyente, jamás has creído en Dios ni en Satán, jamás hasta hoy. Con tus amigas os habéis reunido todas en tu casa. Aburridas se os ha ocurrido la idea de hacer espiritismo. La flecha se ha movido por las letras. Cada una pensábais que era otra quien lo hacía. Pero cuando habéis dejado de tocar la flecha, ella seguía moviéndose. Preguntásteis el nombre del espíritu y sólo Dios, en el que empezaste a creer en ese mismo instante, sabe el miedo que sentiste cuando deletreo que era El Angel Caído. Dijo que hoy se llevaría a una de vosotras con él y disfrutaría mil años con su sufrimiento antes de liberarla. La muerte de una de tus amigas significaba salvar tu vida. Ahora asombradas, inmovilizadas por no sabes que fuerza, te observan, con un atisbo de relajación por no ser ellas las elegidas, como te tumbas en la cama y sin ser dueña de ti misma haces una profunda incisión en cada una de tus muñecas con una cuchilla de afeitar. Y sabes que el miedo que estás pasando ahora no es nada comparable a lo que vas a pasar...

Here's what I am single handedly (thanks Spanish teacher) organizing for the end of school production.

All of 6th and 7th grade are performing to a soundtrack by Juan Luis Guerra; "El Niágara en Bicicleta". It's entirely in Spanish, but I got some of the students to translate the lyrics, and basically it compares the trials of going to a Third World hospital with crossing the Niagara Falls on a bicycle. Somehow I have to fit a dance/act/comedy sketch around the following lyrics;

I passed out and fell like a fruit. They carried my to the hospital where the receptionist was listening to the lottery (thirty thousand pesos).

"Someone help me!"

A nurse approached and said to my ear "Relax, Bobby, relax" "I must check your pressure but the room is occupied, and there is no electricity for an electrocardiogram".

It is very hard to cross the Niagara on a bicycle.

Don't tell me that the doctors left.
Don't tell me that you don't have anesthesia.
Don't tell me that they drank the alcohol and that
the suture thread was embroidered in a tablecloth.
Don't tell me that the tweezers were lost,
that the stethoscope is at a party, that the X-rays melted,
and that the serum was used to sweeten the coffee.

May god help me.

today's efforts

sleeping *	exercising *	veggie-ing *
watering *****	handwashing ****	laughing ***

Okay, let's start some kind of diary of 'em, now we've had two earthquakes in two days.

The first, well, it didn't really strike so much as murmur yesterday morning. As I laid in bed trying without success to fight off consciousness, it felt like a very fat man trying to push the mattress across the room (and failing). I could see my music stand start to wobble (I'm on the 13th floor remember), but nothing like during the quake at Christmas.

Today though, oh that was much more fun. About five minutes into my afternoon class (which needed some excitement adding to be fair), the whole room started wobbling - this quake lasted much longer, for maybe two minutes in all. I was only on the second storey this time.

I tried to keep dead still to monitor the affects and the best way I can describe it is this: it's like being stood on one of those moving floors you get in the 'Haunted House' at the fairground.

Obviously massive town-flattening, life-ending shakes are one thing, i.e. not good for anyone concerned, but these Taiwanese rockers are simple fun, even if they do make you feel queasy for a little while afterwards.

Oh, I know it's been a while, so here's a quick update:

* School - it's still there. I'm loving every minute of it. Really, there's no sarcasm involved in that statement. A recently fattened pig on a 'see-it-and-try-it' tour of Mr. Walls's Sausage Factory (Life Cessation Dept.) couldn't be happier.

* Friends and stuff - great. New additions added. Recent weekend knees up with swell English couple led to mucho beer swigging, cigar smoking (I know, what's that about?), dancing like a loon 'til 5am, and two days of hangover...

* Romance - aye, a little of that too.

* Culture - It was Dragon Boat Festival last Wednesday. The nearest location for said race was around an hour's drive away, but we all gave up any intentions of going along, since everyone Taiwanese claimed it was actually really boring and the river stank anyway, so why not watch it on TV? Our TV gave up the ghost weeks ago (a good thing, I'm finding...) so nothing to report there then.

More soon (maybe)... oh, if anyone wants to hear a sick but funny SARS joke, look in the comments beneath this message (it's nasty though, you've been warned)...