Category: News

On the weekend (2004-03-02) I went back to Ava’s home town to go and see something that her parents thought I should really go and see.

Ava goes to University on the weekends, but she thought it might be nice if I take her parents up on the offer and go down anyway to see this quite famous thing go.

So on Saturday morning I managed to book a seat on a very crowded train and take the 4 hour journey down South, followed by a bus ride that took another hour or so.

One funny thing is that often the food that Ava’s mom cooks for us I really can’t stomach. They eat every part of the chicken imaginable. I don’t fancy chicken neck, but they seem to think it’s great. But last time her mother found out that I don’t mind pizza too much. So within 10 minutes of arriving at their home, she had ordered a pizza from Dominoes.

Well that was enough to keep me stuffed well into the evening. So after I had finished we set off. Her dad and I.

What I was greeted by was something beyond what I could ever have imagined…Here’s a little background.

Every three years all the temples in an area, in this case a whole town, come together to hold a kind of traditional event, which no one so far has been able to tell me why. They all come together and for three day they carry their little gods in their carrying boxes and go and visit all of the temples in that town.

All in all their are 39 temples in their home towns vicinity, I never imagined their were so many.

Every group from every temple has some people at the front banging on their “gongs.” They are also followed by all the people who usually take care of matters at that temple and some people to push or carry around the little cart that the god from their temple rides in.

As they approach a temple the real stuff starts. It’s started off by a string of firecrackers. No, not those little ones you had as a kid, but ones that are about 10 times that size, which apparently scare off evil spirits and the like.

Along with these groups they often have groups of people who do special performances, which are traditional dances of sorts. There were some guys on stilts who did some fighting with swords at the entrance to the temple. There were some women who did another kind of dance. There were another group of men who did a Kung Fu display. On another note the group of men doing KungFu always do it in groups of 36, 72, or 108, but no one has told me the significance of this.

Back to the temple approach. When those guys come to the front of the temple they kind of run at the temple as though the god is trying to get into their temple. This is preceded by a loud banging on a very large drum, which gives a cool effect with the atmosphere.

As that god tries to enter the temple, it is confronted by someone from that temple who looks like they are in a kind of trance and being controlled by the god of that temple. When they approach, the temple protector comes in closer and shouts, at which the approaching god moves back. Once the approaching god moves back, the temple protector takes a piece of wood, covered in nails and whacks himself on his back, as though it was a terrible back scratcher. He takes three whacks and then the approaching god comes at him again. He shouts again and they move back. He then hits himself three times on the back in rapid succession. They do this ritual three times in total after which the approaching god backs down.

They then do a little prayer to the temple and move on with the procession.

NOTE: The whacking on the back maybe doesn’t sound too bad from what I have said here. But he really hits hard. I saw the blood dripping down his back, which they mopped up with “paper” money, which is paper with a print on it, which is burned to the gods.

That was probably the most freakish part of the whole event.

The next day on the Sunday we went to see the procession of children.

The kids are put up on pedastel, 108 of them, all in a really long train and are pulled along. The kid who sits at the front is the kid whose parents paid the most money and so on and so forth. They head around the town throwing candy at people who put their hands out for it.

I think the amount of preparation that goes into the event must be huge, many roads are blocked off as the procession is long and slow. It’s quite something to see, and when I remember to take my camera next time, 3 years from now, I will share them with you.

As of the end of January I started a new job.

Many people may know this already but I will restate it anyway for my friends who are not completely up to date on my goings on.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it but it is at “Joy” franchise school. The ones I had been working at before were all owned by the same boss, who owns the whole company. This school is owned by a couple who have had it open for a few years. At this school I get paid as a full time teacher, which means I also get paid for holidays (not many of those though).

The new job has been nice in a few ways.

Firstly, I needed the mental break as I working for the branch schools I have become a bit disenchanted at how they ran things and how things were organized. I don’t think they were really run too badly, I just really thought that they should all fix the school and that everything should be better.

I have taken a far more proactive approach here at this school, which is easier to do as I can just talk to the boss who has the final say and is in fact very reasonable and nice. In the end I have almost complete control over what we do during our classtime. There are certain things that we still need to cover, but beyond that they trust you to get the work done.

Secondly, I have been using my time very well. I used to just waste away my lunchtimes looking at things on the internet and checking my email. This was a real waste. Now I use my lunch to plan ahead and to prepare for upcoming events. So I am better prepared, which pays off, as I then feel better about my class and so feel more inclined to want to plan. And in doing even more planning I feel even better about things, and so all my work gets done on time and I feel good about it.

So, it’s been very positive overall so far. It is amazing what a little proactivity, something I lack, helps things along.

It’s been a while since I last wrote.

Two weeks ago, my uncle died. It was Wednesday, the 17th if I remember right.

That week was the first phonecall I’ve had from my mother for a while, as it’s too expensive to keep phoning, and we just email.

As she started to speak and told me she had bad news, the first thing on my mind was, “Mor-mor has passed away.” (She is my now 94 year old grandmother). I was a little shocked when she told me it was not my gran, but my uncle.

The sad part is that he is quite young, 50 or so, and that he committed suicide. He had been sufferring from bi-polar depression for at least the last 10 years or so. It has been quite a hard time for him, as well as his close family and friends.

Bi-polar depression is a different kind of depression where you go from very high highs, to very low lows. Instead of being in the pit of depression your body swings from good times down to the bad times and back up again. It is often a discease that needs ongoing medication.

He had a very hard time coping with it as the times when he was on the “high” nothing could go wrong and anything was possible. While when he hit a low, the wheels fell off and those times can be especially bad. And as he got older those highs and lows increased in intensity, so much as to make life quite difficult.

In the end, the sickness just became too much. May he rest in peace (thank God he was a born again believer)

It is a terrible thing for parents to have to bury their children, and I pray for my Gran and Grandpa, as this is really tough for them in their old age (both in their 80s). He was really loved by all of us. He will be sorely missed.

Wow, time really does fly, and not just when you are having fun, although it has been.

Today marks the first year of our marriage. On this day a year ago, we were at the Westville Baptist Church making our vows to each other.

Since then we have had two other weddings, so it has almost been a wedding year for us, which is very nice, but was also quite stressful, with the last wedding being organized by only us.

So what can I say after a year together?

It’s been like a whirlwind.

For those of you who are married, you might know what I’m talking about and those who are not might know too. But it has been quite a time learning to live together with someone else in such a personal way, and getting to know about them.

Both Ava and I have both had to get used to some habits that were very strange for each other, and stop some of the irritating things we did, and do some extra things we wouldn’t have done before.

Then there is the area of expectations. It’s funny how we kind of take some things for granted and assume some things to be known. Learning to communicate how we are feeling in a way that is not offensive to the other person is something else we have had to learn.

And after all is said and done, it has not been an easy year, but then again it wasn’t hard. It has been worth it, and like all the best things in life, the pains and struggles only make the end result that much more fantastic. We have grown to love each other in a way that is hard to describe. Learning to give of yourself for the betterment of our relationship.

The act of giving of oneself for someone else is the essence of true love, Godly love. Not to say that I or Ava are God, but I can get a slightly better picture of how Jesus loved people. He did not have a mushy feeling, he had genuine love. Love that is chosen and shown through sheer effort, knowing what it means to do something loving.

I have personally learned how doing the things you know are loving, no matter how you feel, makes all the difference. Taking out the laundry, even when I don’t want to, changing the rabbit’s litter when it’s so disgusting, and various other little things take little effort on my part (although sometimes I make out like it’s an epic drama) but make all the difference in the end. Because I know it means something to someone who is a priority in my life.

And that’s what counts.

Love you very much Ava.

Announcing major updates to www.peterandava.com

I have taken a lot of time to get all my pictures up on the website with lots of comments on nearly all of them.

Please take the time to browse around and enjoy.

Most importantly my wedding pictures are all up from both the wedding in South Africa and the one is Taiwan

Well, it’s been great to have the week off work. Tomorrow I have to go in to work to do a demo class for the new kids who are coming to our school.

In my week off I have been waking up early and spending time with Ava. It’s quite nice to have free time at different times of the day. I have been spending a fair amount of time at the computer, so my breaks are at different times to what I am used to.

The Monday just past (2004/07/26) I went to go check out another school. It’s the one that two of the other teachers who are leaving our school are going to.

It’s not too different from the school I am at now, but it is a different system and looks quite organised.

Things go on as usual. Ava is starting to try and sell some things on eBay here in Taiwan. It’s quite exciting and I hope we can make it go well. I am going to be setting up a webpage for her too.

The overcoming depression website is still getting a little bit of work. Now that this site is done (www.peterandava.com) I can go back to polishing off the depression one and making sure everything is working OK and looks fine, and that the forums are set out in a nice way. The forums are it for the meantime. Maybe some article submission would be cool, but it will wait.

Following Ava’s interest in eBay I have downloaded some ebooks to try and see what there is to see. I might actually try to sell some of the books on eBay too, but I will need them translated first.

That’s all for now.

Hi

Well this is the first time to put my thoughts down in here.

It has been quite amazing as I have looked through the internet trying to find the answers to so many questions I have had about websites. The one thing I have found to be so true, is that there is pretty much an answer to everything in terms of making a very cool and useful website.

Never in the history of the planet has there been a chance to send a message to so many people in so little time, without too much effort. For the first time in history, the idea behind what you are doing is infinitely greater than the skill you have in setting it up.

As I get this ‘blog’ going, I thought how much work and hard effort it must have taken others to set up the same things on their websites, but not so.

Content is king.

The technical details of setting this kind of thing up are small in comparisson to the amount and quality of information that can be stored and put in by other people. It’s the idea that counts the most, the details can be settled easily enough.

The power of giving a huge number of people the opportunity to express their thoughts and tell others what they think through the internet is truly remarkable. It is a turn in history that is quite fascinating.

Well, that’s it for now, I am still amazed myself at all of this, but still I sit here fiddling with it.

So, till next time

God bless