Baaaaallin!

One of the highlights of my weeks here is Wednesdays, when we have a students vs. teachers basketball game. You might think a bunch of grown men against middle-schoolers would be a blow-out. But man them kids are fast. And the teachers don't take it easy on em. They're blocking their shots, throwing elbows and everything. And the kids just get up and go hard right back. But it's all fun.

I must confess, however, that I came to Taiwan with ambitions of being the best basketball player in the entire country, if not the whole continent (Yao Ming aside). Those expectations have proven to be, shall we say, unrealistic. I am, like, the fourth best player on my team of middle-school teachers. Who knew Taiwan had ballers like that?

One great moment came last week in the 4th quarter. The Teachers had the ball, and since we couldn't see the shot clock I was counting down the seconds, "10...9...8..." when suddenly the ball came loose and I picked it up right behind the 3-point line. For some reason I kept counting, and as I was yelling, "1!!!" I shot a 3 that swished at the buzzer. I got some props for that one.

The funny thing is that me and the other teachers all have nicknames after NBA players. We got this huge teacher we call Shaq, this chubby teacher we call Charles Barkely, this real skinny teacher we call Reggie Miller, etc. I'm Kevin Garnett. It's cool that so many miles away from America, we all have basketball in common.

Here are some pictures from Reggie Miller's birthday party. They love karaoke here, and you know I will never pass up an opportunity to grab the mic.