Happy December!

Happy December (Happy Birthday Corpsey!)!! Can you believe it?? I can’t.

I’ve had two classes now with my newbie in my Y class. His mom has talked to me after class both times to ask how he is doing. Both times I told her that he is doing fine: he knows the sentence patterns very well but is behind on vocabulary. But he pays attention, is not shy, and is smart so I think he’ll pick up the vocabulary fine. She seemed worried, so I made sure I said I thought he was doing great. Well apparently she took this to mean that he’s over-qualified for Y1 and should be placed in Y2—the next class up—and is trying to get him re-tested. The children’s director told me that the mom sees this as an opportunity to save money and skip a class. Understandable, yes, but I didn’t think what I said indicated that I think he should be in a higher class. I don’t know how much English his mother understands, so maybe that was part of it. But he definitely shouldn’t be in Y2, he only knows a handful of the vocabulary words, and having subbed for a Y2 class I know that they build upon the basic vocab words you learn in Y1. So no. No Y2. But I feel bad because the children’s director brought this to my attention, which means she’s probably not happy about it. Our school is a business first and foremost, so any attempts by parents to save money are technically bad, and this makes it look like I encouraged this mother to do so. It’s always a tough situation—if I think a student is doing poorly or is badly behaved, I can’t really tell a parent that because then I’m badmouthing their kid and they might leave this school and go to another. If I say that they’re smart, apparently they then try to move them to a higher class. I thought I was hitting a middle ground by saying he’s strong in one area but not in another, and then reassuring her that I am not worried about him, but apparently not. Now I see the importance of public school. If your kid behaves badly or is struggling, you can be told that because where else are you going to take them? If your family could afford private school, your kid would probably already be there. So a teacher can tell a parent about their student without risking hurting the school. But our English school here is optional, so I can’t really be honest all the time. I really hope America never gets so capitalist that our school system changes in this way. It’s not really fair to anyone.

I forgot to tell the story of the cockroach in my classroom a couple weeks ago. I was teaching my K12 when one of my students moved her desk away from the wall because a cockroach was underneath it trying to squeeze into a drain thing in the floor. I asked the kids what they were going to do about this situation, because I certainly wasn’t going to kill it. After a couple minutes of contemplation, a student went out to get a secretary, but she was scared of the cockroach too and didn’t want to help. So then a student got a desk and smashed the cockroach with it a few times. I felt bad for the cockroach, now in pieces, because he was just trying to escape the classroom. But I went outside and grabbed a million tissues and picked up the remains. It was gross. At least I didn’t have to step on it with my shoe, like Mike did in one of his classes. Just to clarify: our school is not a slum. Cockroaches are just everywhere here. They were in Hong Kong too. I don’t know why I’ve never seen a cockroach in the States or why we only seem to have them in the dirtiest of places, but they’re fairly common here. I haven’t seen one in the apartment yet (knock on wood) but I wouldn’t be surprised if I did.

Strangely enough, our class only went back to normal for a few minutes before another episode began. All of a sudden we heard hysterical screaming coming from another classroom. Then a man’s voice—presumably the Manager’s voice—screaming in Chinese. Like, HARD CORE screaming. I couldn’t tell if it was a young boy or a girl, but later I found out it was an 11-year-old girl. Of course, my students all looked at me and then ran to the door to look out the window into the hallway to see if anything was happening. We couldn’t see anything, just heard screaming for 3 or 4 minutes, interspersed with screaming coming from the Manager. I made them all sit down after thirty seconds or so at the window, and I tried to continue reading to them, raising my voice to be heard over the yells. But she eventually stopped and class continued on. Later I found out that one of the other foreign teachers punished this girl for not following directions, and the girl flipped out. Completely flipped out. Then the Manager came in to yell at her and she eventually stopped. Apparently this is not the first time she’s done this, but it was the first time for this teacher, who was really upset about it. I think they removed her from this class and put her in a new one, and the school told her mother that if she does it again, she’s going to be kicked out of the school. I don’t know if something is going on at home with this girl, but holy cow. To completely flip out and scream for five minutes, at eleven years old, after being punished for not following directions?? Come on. I felt really bad for the teacher, she was really freaked out by it. She did everything right, this girl is just troubled. Craziness. So yeah, between the cockroach and the scream fest, it was an interesting class. On the plus side, they were more energetic than ever before!

Thursday was Thanksgiving, of course, and there was a bar/restaurant in town doing a Thanksgiving dinner for like $10 US, but when I talked to the guy on the phone he said they would also be doing it Friday. So Thursday after classes we did Pub Quiz again. I did much better this time, and they had a special Thanksgiving round full of Thanksgiving-themed questions. Friday night Mike and I went to this restaurant for our Thanksgiving meal with two foreign teachers. The place is nice and the owner—PJ—is super friendly. When I called him a few days earlier he talked to me for like five minutes, telling me about all the parties and events coming up at his bar. The dinner wasn’t bad! I didn’t care how it tasted, I just wanted something somewhat Thanksgiving-ish. You choose white or dark meat (I had white) and you get mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and coleslaw. Stupidly, I forgot to take photos. I also had a glass of wine. YUM! It wasn’t home, but it did the job alright.

Saturday night we went out with some of Mike’s students (from an adult class, of course). We are all about the same age, so they asked Mike if he wanted to go bowling with them and they said to bring me along. It was fun! We went to this cool place with bowling, arcade games, basketball hoop games, a batting range, a ping pong table, air hockey, and pool tables. And it was neither ghetto nor crawling with children! Two of his students picked us up in their car and while we were waiting for other students at this place (called Tiger), we played some basketball. Wow, did we get our butts kicked! This girl was GOOD! Totally killed Mike. I laughed a lot.

Then another student arrived with his girlfriend (a Japanese and English major, ooOOoo), and we played two games of bowling. The balls all look like billiards balls or basketballs and soccer balls. I’m not sure if that’s normal for all bowling alleys or just this one, but it was cool. It was pretty much the same as US bowling, except that you switch lanes every turn. So we had two lanes (Lanes 3 and 4), two teams, three people on each team. So for Frame 1, your team would bowl down Lane 3. Then when the teams are done with Frame 1, your team bowls Frame 2 down Lane 4 while the other team is doing Lane 3. Then you go back to Lane 3 for Frame 3. Does that make sense? I’m not sure why that is, but it makes things a little more exciting I suppose. And of course, the machines and computers break just like they do in the States—miscounting your pins or saying it’s your second turn when it’s your first (everything was Brunswick, actually…coincidence?). But it was nice to finally hang out with some Taiwanese people. It’s a little weird hanging out with students, but not too strange. After bowling we went out to eat at a restaurant near our school. Apparently it’s where Bubble Tea was invented (the tea with balls of gelatin floating around in it, adds some texture). It was great! They knew what to order and we ate all kinds of stuff. There were noodles, turnip cakes, a couple dim-sum-ish things, fried beef and cheese blobs (tasted like mozzarella sticks), these sweet barley-tasting gelatinous balls with cocoa powder on them. The only “weird” thing was blood. They understand my aversion to organs and blood (hey, the lamb blood and stomach in Yangshuo two years ago did me in, I’m through with blood and organs), and they don’t seem offended. They want to go to a Mexican restaurant (of which there are very few…apparently most Taiwanese people don’t like Mexican food and don’t understand foreigners’ love of it) next time, so that will be fun. They are a really nice group!



Sunday two foreign teachers from our school had a Thanksgiving potluck party. It was great! Since there’s no turkey, they bought Peking duck from a very popular duck place in town. There’s always a ridiculously long line at this duck place, I’ve been wanting to try it for a while. Anyway, so there was Peking duck, mashed potatoes (TONS of butter and garlic, yum!), glazed carrots, sushi, donuts, fruit, a bunch of random Chinese/Japanese food, and I brought bread and wine, and Mike brought a cake (it was one of the foreign teachers’ birthdays too). When Mike went to buy the cake, they asked how old the birthday boy was, and Mike wasn’t sure, so they gave him a question mark candle, instead of numbers. The cake was AWESOME! It was a really light hazelnut and had walnuts in it too. Delicious. All the food was delicious and I got to meet some cool new people and play with a dog, who I’m now obsessed with.

So our school has been doing this Secret Santa-ish thing for the past month. Here’s how it works: You pick a name. This person is your “turkey.” You leave notes and small gifts for your turkey from the end of October to Thanksgiving. You are their “guardian angel.” Then during Thanksgiving week, your “turkey” buys you, the “guardian angel” a thank-you gift and leaves it under the Christmas tree. I know. The mixing of holiday terms is confusing. I’m still confused. But anyway, guess what name I picked? Mike. So I’ve been leaving him candy and cards in his locker for the past month. Then we both went out last week to buy a present for our guardian angels. So I basically watched him buy my gift. He laughed when he found out it was me. I thought I did a pretty good job of hiding it. I changed my handwriting and kept entertaining his theories about it being a Chinese teacher. I still don’t know who my Guardian Angel is. Last I checked, my present for them was still under the tree. :( But I bought them a mug and put candy and pens and white out (all things teachers need) inside with a nice pop-up card.

When I went to my dumpling place a couple of weeks ago for some shrimp dumplings, I was standing there waiting for my food when one of the guys working there said, “Obama?” to me. “Obama?” I said. “Obama?” he said. Not knowing how to react, I smiled, gave a thumbs up, and said, “Obama.” Then he and three other dudes working there all went, “OBAMA!!!!!!!!” and smiled and gave thumbs up. It was a really random moment. Then a few minutes later they started pointing to their ring fingers and saying, “Married? Married? Boyfriend? Boyfriend?” Then I got creeped out.