Back on the Rock Update

Not too much new to report. Drai is starting to pull himself up on everything. And loving it. He can now crawl from our living room into the Japanese room. (Which is on a different level that the living room floor.) Every time he does pull himself up, he gets this cocky smile on his face and then laughs. Today, we were laying in bed and because of the heat, I didn't have a shirt on. He was standing triumphantly over me with his hands on my chest, smile stretched ear to ear as he had just pulled himself up to a standing position. He then lost his balance and fell backwards, taking a handful of chest hair with him. My god it hurt!

On Wednesday, Jenny brought him to my school to see the teachers. Jon was upstairs teaching and didn't know we were coming. So I took Draidan upstairs, placed him in front of the classroom door, knocked and hid around the corner. The class was a typical grade 3 class. Loud. Excited. Chaotic. Jon opened the door and the whole room went totally silent. Drai looked up at Jon and smiled and Jon just let out a "Huh?!" He hadn't see Drai in 4 months and didn't even know it was my baby. God, I wish I had a camera in that room to see the look on their faces when they saw the baby waiting at the door. I think some of them thought he had knocked.

He then showed everyone his dancing and jumping prowess. Much to the laughter of the kids. Draidan loves kids and isn't shy at all. I stood him on the desk in the front of class and he just began jumping up and down beaming at all the students.
He managed to tire out Zoya and Sharon's arms.

I have had a rough welcome back to Taiwan. The flight back finished off my back. And my knee started to seize up as well. Upon further inspection by my physiotherapist, I was told that my PCL in my knee is almost gone. So I am supposed to start wearing a brace to put off having to have it replaced. (Chalk another injury up to my list.) As some of you know, just before I left, a doctor noticed something strange on my pelvis while X-raying my lumbar. So he ordered a Bone Scan, which is when you get injected with a radioactive material and they scan your body. Similar to an MRI but this gives them a complete 3D visual of your skeleton. It then shows where bone injuries are. So I got my results last week and it turns out I have an "Active Bone Lesion" on my pelvis. The doctors are pretty confident that it is not cancerous but they ordered an MRI done to see what it is and how to remove it best. I am a little worried about that because I think it will involve cutting it out of the bone.
My big toe also stopped bending. WTF? Then, to top it all off, I have an infection in my bowels which has caused me endless grief and hospital visits but I think is better now.
I get my MRI results back next Tuesday. I am feeling good about it though. I think it will be fine.

Then, our lawsuit finally settled. Or so we thought. Long story short, a wealthy real estate guy sold us stolen property that didn't belong to him. It belonged to the strata council of our building. He owned most of the floor but not all of it. They never used that area, so he cut it into apartments. So for two years we have been in a class action suit over it with three other people who bought places on the floor. In the face of the evidence and witnesses which included, all four families involved in the lawsuit, two real estate companies, the strata council, building security and the police collaborating our story, the judge couldn't decide who was in the right. Moron. So she said we had to hire government architects to come in and measure the place and look at the blue prints etc. This cost us $3000 each for what literally took them 5 minutes to do. She would then base her decision on what they said. The architects took 5 months to give us our report but when they did we were totally delighted as they said he owed us about $10000 CDN more than we were sueing him for.
So finally the judge, with their report in her hand, finished the lawsuit. Her decision, not only does he not have to pay us a dime, but we have to pay him about $7000 of the money he lent us to buy the property he stole. Her reasoning... we are teachers and should have known better that to buy stolen property. Huh?! She said we should have reviewed the blue prints better before buying it.

She didn't even seem to think the fact that he switched all of his numerous properties into other people's names the day after he found out about the lawsuit was odd. She literally disregarded every piece of evidence given and sided with the crook.
I was furious and the first thing I said was, "She got bought out. He bribed her." To which Jenny replied, "That is what the neighbors and lawyers are saying too." I knew the judiciary and pretty much everything else in this place is corrupt but this just blew me away. So we are now deciding whether to appeal and take it to a hire court, which will cost even more money and time. I don't think I could handle paying this guy another cent though. It goes against every fiber in my body. So frustrating.

Oh well. At least I got a cute baby.