It's cold--hooraaaaay!

A: HA! I beat Mike! He always gets his blog out before me, but this week I win. Huzzah!

B: I know this entry is lacking pictures, and I apologize. I want to take pictures of my students, but I’m afraid that will be weird (or take away from classtime). Maybe on the last day of each class I can get some pictures, which will make some of these entries more interesting. For now please enjoy these random pictures from Taichung that have little/nothing to do with the text.

Well I had my brief meeting with the Children’s Director and she gave me some advice for what to do with my Y’s. She surprised me, however, because she said that she thinks I’m doing a really good job with them and they’re lucky to have me. She suggests doing some chants with the vocabulary words to keep the kids’ attention and rewarding the good students right away with junk cards so Mia will see that she has to be good to receive them. I tried this during the next class, however, and unfortunately it didn’t really work because Mia was too busy being crazy to notice what I was doing with the other kids. Slooooowly, however, I think we will make progress. In other news, my crier has resorted to sticking crayons up his nose and toy balls in his mouth. Good times.



Whew! My Saturday was tough! Throughout the week, teachers don’t really work until the afternoon. Thus, all of our sleeping schedules are set up so that we go to bed really late so we’re well-rested for our night classes. But on Saturday, a lot of us have classes at 9 am, and it’s really hard to make yourself fall asleep on Friday and get up early on Saturday. So since I started my first adult class at 9am this Saturday, I was not only nervous but also super tired. It’s not the public speaking that makes me nervous in an adult class, it’s the fact that they care. As a result, they will probably ask me WHY things are the way they are in English, and many times I just do not know. I’ll try to prepare myself well before each class, and I’ll certainly find out the answer for them if I don’t know, but I just worry about looking ignorant. When you’re a native English speaker, you don’t need to know the exact rules and details. You just know. Who cares what the Present Perfect tense is or why? All I know is how to say, “I have been to China” correctly. And this school doesn’t require any sort of English teaching degree or English degree period. Thus, I believe, I’m not completely at fault for being ignorant. They value foreign teachers for their real-world experience and knowledge, not their knowledge of the gritty details. Unfortunately, that’s what ESL students need sometimes. I’m also nervous because adult classes fill out a survey later in the term and you get a score, which I guess is kind of important to the director.

But anyway, I thought the class went well overall. There are a lot of activities where students talk with one another. I walk around the room, trying to listen and correct students, but they get really tense when I’m listening to them, which makes me feel bad, so I leave. But what’s the point of doing the activity if you don’t get any feedback for how well you’re speaking? I’m just going to have to “man up” (*shudder* Such a sexist phrase!) and stand there listening to pairs of students talk. I’ll tell the class not to be freaked out about it--they should want the feedback--and they’ll get used to it. I also need to stop talking so fast. I told them that if I’m talking too fast to just yell and tell me to stop. They haven’t yet, but I’m also going to try to keep it in mind. It wasn’t long ago that I was sitting in French class, translating every word the professor was slowly speaking, so I feel their pain. So that’s my plan for how to improve. They seem like a good class, though, nice people, and a lot of teachers enjoy their adult classes and become friends with the students.

There’s one activity that we didn’t get to that apparently students historically have enjoyed quite a bit (which is the only reason I’ll tolerate it). It’s an activity in which they pair up and create seven questions about the teacher that they want to the answers to. Once they create the questions and walk around discussing and noting the speculations of other classmates, the teacher has to answer the questions. One teacher was asked about the last time he had sex and another was asked if she thought Taiwan is part of China (a hot button political issue, for those unaware). YIIIIKES. When Mike did the activity with his students, he didn’t get any crazy questions, just “oohs” and “ahhs” when he disclosed his age and whether he had a girlfriend (and if she was a teacher at Kojen…I’m pretty sure Mike and I are a hot topic among secretaries and students here. My Writing students said the secretaries told them I was married to a Kojen teacher…).

On a side note, the secretaries at our school are AWESOME. They are all super helpful and sweet and nice. I kind of love them. One of them is friends with the owners of a pizza place Mike and I frequent occasionally, and the other night when we were there, she surprised us with a slice of a sweet, fruity dessert pizza (on the house). They rock.

AAAAAnyway, I like my adult class, hopefully they like me as well.

After that class (9-11:40) I had to bolt to the Old School by 12:30 for my Writing Class. That was an hour and a half, then I went home and we went grocery shopping. Then we ate dinner at a steak house (Mike had been reading about Thanksgiving and was in the mood for Western food). Although, it’s really a Japanese steak house. I thoroughly enjoyed the fusion of Japanese and Western food traditions, but the steak not so much.

The restaurant: First, it’s called “Rock” and has a cute little devil mascot. There’s complimentary tea and soup in the back, live music, and a train set running through the place. We saw a couple Japanese teachers and a secretary from our school there, actually. I like the menu, it’s quite simple: pork chop, lamb chop, a couple types of sirloin, a couple filet mingons, chicken. That’s it. We both ordered sirloin steak. “What sauce?” the server asked. I almost pointed to the A1 steak sauce at the table and said, “That.” But apparently there are sauces, so we went with “pepper.” We thought maybe he meant rub--not sauce--but no, he meant sauce. The food comes on a super hot metal plate on a rectangular tray, spitting liquid from the heat. The steak comes covered in sauce and on a bed of noodles, a fried egg, a few French fries, a couple green beans, and a carrot. I didn’t mind the weirdness of the steak dinner. I wasn’t expecting a perfect slab of meat with a baked potato. I knew it would be super-Asian, which makes it more fun. It tasted fine—I wasn’t crazy about the pepper sauce, but the A1 drowned it out nicely. Then, since it was next door, we went to Ice Monster (see photo). Plus, the steak place gave us coupons for two free coffees at the café right next to that, so we got coffee too. I was about to explode by the end of everything. I went to the apartment of one of our teacher-friend’s after that, but I didn’t stay very long because I felt pretty sick. I’m not sure which part of my ridiculous meal made me feel sick (Mike felt fine), but I was beat from my stressful day, waking up early, and being sick, so I passed out.

Sunday we were planning to go to LuGong, about an hour away, but it was raining! It started raining Saturday, for the first time since the typhoon. And Sunday it rained all day. Strangely, you can see the mountains in the distance better than when it is raining. So we stayed in town. We went to one more movie at the Documentary Film Festival (about victims of domestic violence...wow, have we seen some downers!) and visited some bookstores. I also set up my account at Blockbuster and we rented some movies (Persepolis (new release), Beauty and the Beast (don’t judge), and two discs from season 2 of Friends for $8 US—four discs for eight bucks!). Even though we didn’t get to go to LuGong, it was a nice day. And--the temperature has drastically changed from the upper 80’s and humid to the upper sixties. It was AWESOME to feel kind-of-somewhat-maybe-a-little-cold yesterday (at 68 degrees). Every time I felt cold, I would announce it and then laugh with joy. It’s so nice not to be sweaty. Today it is still what the Taiwanese would call “cold” (upper 60’s). It’s glorious. We Westerners are like, “Isn’t it nice?!” and all the Taiwanese are like, “What’s wrong with you?? It’s freezing!” Oh man, I missed feeling not-sweaty. :):):)

On a side note, Mike bought some wine for $6 US. Not quite Trader Joe’s prices, but not bad. And the wine isn’t bad either. Some of you will find this hard to believe, but not only have I not consumed any wine so far while here, but I haven’t even WANTED it. OR cheese. But I have wanted and consumed bread. Anyway Mike bought some wine, so I had to drink it, and now I’m afraid it may have “given me the taste for mammal blood” so to speak (Arrested Development reference: http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&vid=b0365296-26cd-4dce-8cd0-56b780af1fd2) and now I’m afraid I’ll want it and have to spend money on it. Hopefully not, but I’ve rediscovered how much better wine is than beer.

Also, I caved and bought milk and cereal. I have been feeling slightly malnourished lately, and I believe it’s the lack of a decent breakfast (I usually eat crackers, maybe an orange). I’ve been drinking the milk for two days and so far my kidneys haven’t failed, and the cereal, while slightly pricey ($3 a box—cheaper than Jewel but more than Target) has been delicious (Corn Flakes, yum!). I’ve been feeling much better in the morning.



My K11 and my M4’s terms are coming to an end soon, and I’m hoping that I can keep them as they go into the next level. I’m not sure how that stuff works. However, I followed my A10 to A11, so hopefully that trend continues. I need the hours, and I like the classes (particularly my M’s…I can’t get over their adorableness). I did my first oral test this week with my K11’s. Each student came into the “Oral Test Room” (can you get any more intimidating?) and we exchanged pleasantries before moving on to the test. I asked each student if they had any questions before we started, and most of them didn’t, they just wanted to get it over with. But one student did. I had just finished testing Ariel when Emily came in. I asked if she had any questions and she said, “Yes. Why is Ariel crying?”

“Oh my gosh, I don’t know!” I said, “Is she crying?”

“No, but her eyes look red and funny. I think she was crying.”

This is when I calmed down. I had noticed something strange about Ariel’s eyes too. I told Emily I didn’t know why Ariel would be upset because she did well on her Oral Test (hey, if there’s no patient confidentiality, why would there be student confidentiality? I didn’t tell her what grade she got). Maybe she continued crying after the test, I don’t know, but I think I can safely assume that I was not the cause of any tears. And she looked fine later in the class, so maybe it was allergies. But whew! I had a small heart attack. But, seriously, when I ask, “Do you have any questions?” I don’t mean questions along the lines of, “Why is Ariel crying?” or “How ‘bout them Cubs?” or “What is the meaning of life?” I mean, “What is the past participle of ‘swim’” or “How can I effectively use the word ‘ever’ in a question using the present perfect tense?” Apparently my students are never asked if they have questions.

Also, I want to send a shout out to those who have left comments on previous entries. They are much appreciated, so thank you and hello to all the commentators!

On a side note, why is 30 Rock not that good so far this season? The Office has been just OK (the Crime Aid episode is the only one I’ve really had the urge to watch over and over) but 30 Rock hasn’t been very funny at all. Sad times!

Weird Things:

12. SERIOUSLY--What’s up with the pencil bags? Taiwanese people are obsessed with stationary and pencil bags are the epicenter of the obsession. Pens, folders, notebooks, and WHITE OUT. Omigosh, the white out thing. My students are constantly whiting stuff out. I’m like, this is why God gave us pencils. He saw us making mistake after mistake with pens and, realizing we weren’t as perfect as Him, gave us pencils. With ERASERS. Historically, I’ve been very pro-pencil and anti-pen. But, being not only an adult but also a teacher, I have succumbed to pen usage. And usually I have no qualms with scratching out mistakes and trying again with the pen. But here, with my students’ white-out obsession, I get self-conscious and worry that they’re judging my scratches, so I myself have bought a white-out roller thingymajig. But it broke right away, which shouldn’t surprise me, since every roller white-out thing I touched at HFZ also promptly stopped working and fell apart. I guess I should buy the old fashioned liquid white-out, but then I’ll feel REALLY old, and we all know that I don’t need any more of that.