Well, we are about to blow this popsicle stand. We leave Taipei tomorrow, albeit reticently. Of course today is the first sunny day in several days, the mountains looking glorious as I awoke this morning. Oh well. The SARS issue continues to grow, measured by how often my mother calls me to "check in". Still, I don't think I'd be too nervous about staying, except, well, of course, there's not a hospital I'd want to set foot in. So we'll go away for a bit and see what life is like when we come back.

I bought a way cool Giant bicycle yesterday. I finally realized I needed a new bike. Well, needed is a funny word. My old bicycle I'm pretty sure is approaching twenty-five years old. I'm almost positive I was dating Donna Williams in college when I bought it. I'm 42 now. So I hope to spend a lot of time this summer zipping around on my way cool bike. It weighs probably half of what my other bike weighs. I can't wait to ride it.

Well, this is a short entry. We still have to get up to school and clean up some stuff. And I'd love to zip up into the mountains one more time on my scooter with Megan, just to look around and enjoy the rare view.

Here are some freaky SARS pictures. There was this general neighborhood cleaning going on, probably due to the fact that an employee at Takashimaya's food court is now a probable SARS case. I was across the street from Takashimaya outside of Starbucks a few days ago and they interviewed me on Formosa TV. One of my students saw it and confirmed! I am now a star in Taiwan. No queue for autographs yet, though. Anyways, here are the pictures of the SARS cleaning undertaken by the military. What a sight to see walking down the street. So maybe it's not too soon to go home...

A woman wearing an N-95 mask just brought a fruit basket to our door!

In reading my last post, I can see that I mentioned life goes on as sort of normal. That was on May 3rd. It is now May 11th, and we are in our third full day of quarantine. It's probably a lot to recount here, but to be brief, the entire faculty of TAS was attending a meeting regarding the SARS situation on Monday. Tuesday a teacher called in sick. Wednesday they took her to the hospital as a "probable" SARS case. That afternoon they asked the students to leave the building, called the faculty into the auditorium, and handed us masks as we entered. We were being quarantined.

The good news is the teacher has been fever-free for three days, and has had two negative SARS tests.

We aren't terribly worried that we are in danger. We feel fine. But we are on a fourteen-day home quarantine. They begin counting that from Monday, though, so we'll be restricted to our apartment until the 18th of May. We are not allowed to leave the building. No going grocery-shopping. No walking down the street. No buzzing up into the mountains on my scooter.

I sure am glad we like our apartment.

The fruit basket that came to our door is a gift from the Board of Directors at TAS, an acknowlegdment of the work we have done in the school and with the students. The gift is incredibly thoughtful. Fresh fruit is like a dream.

My day is filled with surfing the 'net, e-mailing people, fixing problems on my hard drive, and looking for snacks in the kitchen. Megan has successfully completed FOUR photo scrapbooks, and has ironed every article of clothing tossed onto the "needs to be ironed" chair in our storage room. We hadn't seen the cushion on that chair in seven months...

We call friends. We look out the window. We think about doing school work, but the impetus is low right now. But life is interesting on the inside. Makes you appreciate stuff on the outside. And, oddly, we still like it here in Taipei. It's a cool place to live. There are very nice people here. And the mountains look so beautiful coming out of the mist in the morning. All this despite the scare of SARS.

So, we'll continue. There is a small hope that, if the teacher is released, then we would also be released. But that remains to be seen, and may not necessarily be the case. People are pretty jumpy in the community.

I'll try to write again when I have the time. ;-)

A Saturday morning, and we are contemplating what to do next in the face of SARS. Life goes on as sort of normal around here. A few visual clues tell you things are odd. The clinics are more crowded along Chung Shan Bei Lou as people avoid the hospitals for their normal aches and pains. A few of the children coming out of the bushibans - the cram schools - wearing charcoal masks. Security guards at banks and office buildings wearing masks as well, taking forehead temperatures of patrons and workers as they enter the building.

But the usual parts of life flood in around those peculiarities: people still in the markets, kids still coming to class, progress reports going out, work to grade, committees meeting. It is both normal and changing. The question is we don't know how fast it will change, or in what way. We are even accepting the notion that we could be quarantined for ten days when we return to the States, although at this point the US is not quarantining travelers, not even from Hong Kong or China.

So life goes on. With so little time left before the end of the school year, it is odd to not know whether or not we'll even finish it out. At any moment the government could decide to close all schools. AIT (our pseudo-consulate) could start sending non-essential personnel home. And then life would change rather quickly.

For now, we remain. The days bring new information on a regular basis, so we expect anything. An interesting way to live.