We have an address!!

At long last we have a mailing address where you should be able to reach us, should you want to shower us with gifts or other such things, haha. First, my parents are likely going to send a test letter to make sure that it works ok (we got a PO Box), but if you want the address, just email me (or Mei).

aheling@yahoo.com

Quiet but busy

Happy after Turkey Day!

So Drew and I ended up having Thanksgiving dinner after all. In the newspaper a few Western restaurants were advertising that they had traditional Thanksgiving dinners, so we tried the cheapest and closest one to us. It was at a British pub, and it was a buffet style with mashed potatoes (oh how i gorged on those...), rolls, salad, aspargaus, mushrooms, brussel sprouts, cheese and crackers, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and of course, turkey. And we got with dinner a free glass of red or white wine. The turkey (not bad, not great) you had to stand in line for because they had a guy carving it for you, and the gravy was ok, not very thick, but very gravy like. The cranberry sauce was the kind out of a can, I knew because it still had the distinctive can mold. The mashed potatoes were pretty good, and so were the veggies. The stuffing was strange, it was bread crumbs, tiny tiny ones, but it wasn't even cooked all the way, so it just wasn't right. As the owner of the pub said, in a thick British Isle accent, "roo f'improoment." I didn't understand half the stuff he said to Andrew and I as were going out the door, I was trying to figure out exactly what kind of accent he had, but from what I did get, the stuffing had room for improvement, thankyou very much for coming (hand shake, hand shake), and something about mandy, or dandy, or randy. Maybe candy? He was really nice though, and Andrew pointed out later that the bar would be a great place to watch the superbowl. Tons of big screen tvs everywhere, and mini ones at every seat at the bar, and the food wasn't too shabby. There were definitely a lot of whities in the pub taking in their Thanksgiving placebo.

We had a nice couple sitting next to us that we talked with for a little bit, but they were sort of an odd couple. He was a forty something French Canadian who has been in Taiwan for the last ten years, and she was a young nice lady from Pasadena, CA. And it was her first time in Taiwan. I want to know how they met, if he's been in Taiwan for the last ten years and she's from Pasadena. What gets me is that they are married. They got along really well, so yay for them. I just want to know how they met. (Theories anyone? Comment below!)

Work has been the usual busy, with a good dose of stress thrown in. The kids are going through their rounds of colds, and a teacher and our acct. lady was out on Friday sick. Both Maggie and I were not happy about being at work on Friday, we were battling colds also. I am ok, with a slight stuffy nose and a sore throat that comes and goes. Yay sleep and fresh orange juice! No new drama on the parent front, thank goodness! Christmas is coming up way too fast, but I can't wait until this Christmas show is over. It's causing a lot of tension between teachers and Ted (song selections, my classroom's cd player vanishing and not coming back, Ted wanting everything for Christmas to be perfect, but we also have to keep up with a tight bushiban lesson plan that almost all of us are behind already in, who has time to practice?)

Anywho, this weekend was a shopping filled one! Yippee! Saturday we first went to an Indian buffet, then went to SongShan (a train stop north of Taipei) and I shopped to my heart's content. On one side of the station is Wu Finpu, which is just stand after stand of clothes. We spent about three hours walking around, and didn't even see all the shops. Andrew said "I don't think I have ever seen so many textiles in one place before, EVER." There was Abercrombie and Fitch stuff everywhere, and not cheap knock-off Abberrombie and Ditch, it was the real item! I got a cute shirt for only about US $3 that had a price tag of about $50. Heehee! There was also alot of stuff with the playboy bunny logo (I thought of you Laura!), even a J. Lo jacket! Of course there was also the standard imitation clothing, there was one place selling apparel with "Hollister, CA: Surf, Sun, Style" printed on. I didn't know Hollister was known for its surfing, hm. I got a few cute jackets for the cold weather and a couple tops for work, as well. We then headed to the other side of the station, visited a four floor temple (a one stop, cover all your bases for in terms of Buddha and local gods), and then headed over to the night market. If you like to accessorize (did I spell that right?), this is the night market for you. Tons of watches, earrings, rings, necklaces, etc. were there, cute and cheap! I got some more clothes and cute Puma shoes, I had lots of bags by the end of the night. :)

Today is much more calm, we went to the market across from the MRT station and got some lunch. Andrew is visiting Todd in Taoyuan and I am going to try and do a few chores, and finish doing the laundry.

Hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving, and look, I posted a lot sooner this time!!

We've been here three months

Wow, has it really been that long? It's incredible, really; it feels both like we just got here, and we've been here for a much, much longer time. Of course you're going to feel a weird time frame in a different country, but our problem was complicated by the fact that we were in a very, very unstable situation the first momth here, not knowing our real job, where we were going to live, etc. And moving, huh! That caused a kink in things. And with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up (and passing, wow), things are even more hectic, as both of our jobs require decorations and songs and dances, etc. So time seems to fly... lo and behold, three months later, here we are.

Learning Chinese is a funny thing. It's very, very hard, even with a great teacher like Mei. I purchased a book, which apparently many of the colleges use, to guide me through my learning. However, I've barely used it. First, I had to learn buh-puh-muh-fuh, which is is the pronounciation used, the psuedo alphabet. It's similar to the alphabet in that individual characters make up words, but different in that one, it's not used in intermediate/advanced books (i.e. the chinese characters), and two, there aren't different phonics for a single character (such as there are for the English alphabet: think face and apple for 'a'). But you can combine them to form some wicked combinations... anywho, definitely not a latin language!

And so now that I 'know' buh-puh-muh-fuh, I am engaged in trying to learn the actual Chinese characters. I bought a dictionary that actually has buh-puh-muh-fuh, the characters, AND the english definition, praise be to god, they are hard to find. Either that or I haven't looked very hard. But still, my life does not get easier. I am currently in an Epic Translation, translating a child's story to English (which was ORIGINALLY translated to Chinese FROM English, AND it includes the English version, so it's not very epic, but it allows me to see if I'm getting the translation correct or not). It's hard, because many Chinese words are either one OR two characters, or their meaning is covered over two characters. So not only do you have to look up the first character, but then you must also fin the second charcter as a subcharacter of the first... kind of hard to describe, but let's just summarize that it's intensive. Also, it's not consistent!! I remember there was one instance, where the first character had something to do with scroll, or letter. Coupling the next character prdouced something along the lines of the following: page of a book, written scroll, octopus, and pen to write on a scroll. OCTOPUS?!?! "One of these things is not like the others..." Octopus?! Christ.

(Thought: Have you ever considered how a Chinese dictionary works? I mean... it's a bunch of symbols, right? It works by organizing the SYMBOLS... not buh-puh-muh-fuh, but by SYMBOLS (I think). Wow, how complicated, huh? Is this indeed correct? Can I get some feedback on this? (as I look toward Mei's mother, asking for help) )

Anyway, you might be interested to know, in my Epic Translation I've covered a whopping... paragraph and a half. Of a kids book. In two days. UGH. (I try to work in the morning before work for a couple of hours.) Trying to couple the characters and the spoken words is very difficult; one because i don't have a means to do so, and two, because it's not like you can spell out the words, unless there's buh-puh-muh-fuh!

Mei and I are going to start a system where we can only speak Chinese from 8-9 pm and also from 1-2pm on weekends. That way, I can practice enough so that we can still find time to talk (i.e. BEFORE 8 and AFTER 9), and also so that she doesn't get extremely frustrated with my butchering the language.

But all in all, it's been a fun and rewarding challenge. Even fun enough to keep me away from the Playstation in the mornings! Crazy!

I know, I'm a blogger slacker

Yes, yes, it's been forever since I last posted on the blog. Some of you are probably saying, "Sheesh, it might as well be Andrew's Taiwan Blog." And to that I say, I really will post sooner next time, really. Well, maybe not, but definitely more often once Christmas passes. Let me tell you why....

*Cue dramatic music*

Holy crap!! It's been three months! Time has definitely been flying, I can't believe I posted on the 9th and here it is, already the 23rd. Holy crap. What have I been doing for the past few weeks? Well, work is definitely keeping me busy. I'm always working on lesson plans, and all the extra stuff that goes with being a teacher. We have started planning for Christmas, my school is putting on a Christmas show. I had to pick a total of four Christmas songs for my kids to sing (two for the bushiban and two for the kindies) and also write out the choreography. I have chosen for the Bushiban: "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," and "Silver Bells." The Kindies have "All I want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth" (some of the kids are actually missing their front teeth, which makes this song perfect) and Ted (my boss) chose some weird Canadian song I have NEVER heard of before called "The Huron Carol." You can find the lyrics online, it's really weird, and I have no idea how to perform that one. And my Kindies are putting on a Christmas play, which is still in the works.

News on the kindie-parent drama front (Warning, super long rant starting now): One of the boys, Eric, is pretty mean, and pushes around other kids. But he's also a big baby, and whenever someone even touches him, he comes running to me. And he likes to cry even when there's really no reason for him to be crying. So a few weeks ago, him and Alan got into a shoving match while standing in line waiting to have their work checked off, and Eric got pushed into the edge of the white board. He started crying, so I went over, looked at his arm to make sure it was ok, told the both of them to knock it off, and then went back to checking. Long story short, last week I was in a parent-teacher-Kate-Eric-Ted conference because Eric says I never went to look at him, I didn't pay attention to his crying, and I didn't see he had a big fat cut. I will admit to not seeing a cut, I was looking at his arm at a weird angle because he had a few layers on, but if I had seen bleeding, I would have taken him to the front desk to get iodine and a bandaid, like I do with every other kid. But his arm looked fine, and Kate says that he gets knocked around so often it could have happened at another time during the day. And I went over to him the moment he started crying. I know I did. So basically it came down to my word against his, the school backing me up because I am constantly taking kids up to the front desk for cuts, even small ones, so why would I not take Eric? And, of course, his parents believing him. Sigh. His Dad seemed more concerned that if Eric was starting to lie, they just wanted to know about it so they can be more aware and watch out for it at home. His Mom was worried that I wasn't paying attention to her son and so on and and so forth. There was another topic we had to discuss because I mentioned in his communication book that Eric was running up the slide (which they aren't supposed to do) and he hit Michelle in the stomach. I saw him running up the slide, I didn't see the actual hit. But Michelle was crying really hard and said that Eric had hit her. And I asked Eric if he did, he said yes, so I made him stand against the wall for the rest of play time. He told his Mom that he didn't touch Michelle and he didn't know why he had to stand during play time. Ugh. I always ask the kids to tell me why they are standing against the wall, because at the meet and greet I had with the parents when I first started, a lot of moms voiced their concern about the kids not knowing why they get in trouble (a lost in translation sort of thing). So I make the kids tell me in their words why they are standing there. I did that with Eric that day. He was in trouble because he was going UP the slide, and he hit Michelle. It's sort of resolved now, I guess. Whenever Eric says he's been hit, I take him to the front desk and let someone check it, just to have witnesses. I have everyone at the school backing me up, which is comforting, they told me not to worry about it, I was doing fine with the kids. I think part of the problem is that Eric just doesn't like me (I'm always catching him in the act of doing something bad), so it might be his little ploy. Trust me, five year olds are super smart, and some of them are super creative, not necessarily in a good way. They definitely aren't angels anymore at this age.

Anywho, enough about that. Our weekends have been quieter lately, this weekend was seeing the Lin family garden, just a really big, old Chinese "mansion" and adjacent koi ponds and landscaping. It was nice to see the Asian architecture and gardens. Next to that was the Banciao night market, we played Pachinko, and browsed, didn't see too much good stuff. But on Sunday we went to a day market near the MRT station, and I got new pajamas for the cold winter nights. The temperature has definitely been dropping here!

I get my ARC tomorrow! yay! I'll be a legal, card-carrying resident! Yippee! Which means hopefully soon I will get a p.o. box and can actually receive cards and packages. Even more yippee!

We're gonna miss Thanksgiving. :( Turkey is an exotic bird here, and no one really knows about Thanksgiving to begin with, so that puts a damper on that. My mom said we could substitute with chow mein and fried rice, (haha) but really not the same. But I hope all of you have a Happy Thanksgiving!

A week since our last post????

Well! Time to change THAT!

Where have we been? Well... we got a new toy. Well, toys, if you count the turtles, who have been keeping us very entertained with their antics. More on them later. But FIRST, we bought ourselves a playstation II! Hot damn! We've been reveling in our games, me mostly in my REALLY COOL DRAGONBALL Z game, that I like very, very much. The graphics are AWESOME, you can be about 25 different players, and they each have their unique moves, and... and... it feels like I'm watching Dragonball Z! It's that good-looking.

So this Playstation... it's the size of a piece of paper, really, and not much more thick. It's TINY, it's LIGHT, and it's AWESOME. It's crazy how small it is. But hey, here's the interesting thing. All the systems and games here are the Japanese version, which means everything is in Japanese. Ha. It took us about two days just to figure out how to SAVE games... and unfortunately, U.S. games aren't going to be compatible on our system. Whoops. Oh well, there will be some awesome asian games we can pick up (just no role playing games, or other games that require a lot of reading!) All I really want is Gran Turismo 4, and racing is racing, regardless of the language. That and Dragonball Z......... ahem, and Madden, but they don't really sell U.S. football games here. But due to the smallllllll size, bringing it hoem will be no problem. But getting new games for it WILL be. :)

Our turtles are hilarious. They all have their own unique personality. One we named Stupid because he/she's, well, stupid. From trying to suffocate itself in the corner of the back to swimming into a glass wall for hours at a time, it's just not very bright. Then we have Robin, named due to his/her acrobatic prowress. He was climbing very, very high in the plstic bag we were taking them home in. And finally, shao oo (short for shao oogway, or little turtle). He/She's the smallest of the bunch. Ok. Shao oo chills, and isn't fazed at all by our coming near the tank. It peers at us, as it sits its lazy butt on the log/floating device. It's calm and sedate. Robin and Stupid run from us, EXCEPT when it's feeding time, when they know we will be giving them food. Robin eats his food by grabbing the floating food, and sinking to the bottom to eat it.. where upon it escapes, where he has to swim up and get it, only to sink again... where of course it floats up again. Then he decides the hell with it, and eats it all in one bite and goes to steal the other turtles' food. He's greedy. So they all have their unique characteristics, and it's a blast to watch them. Here's shao oo. He's chlling on his shell on his front two legs, with his back two legs OFF THE GROUND! Hilarious.

Shao oo on front legs.JPG

I also got a nifty new phone since my old one couldn't send English text messages. I figured that I'd save money getting a new phone and not having to pay for mre expensive phone calls.. so I got a nice one. It has a spiffy camera on it and everything. In addition, Todd got himself a nifty laptop, very much top of the line, so now he'll have 24/7 internet. More toys for the Americans!

Take care everyone!

Rocking, Rolling, and Aftershocks

Guten Tag!

So in case you didn't hear, there was an earthquake last night (shocking, again, I know) in Taiwan, that hit around 11:55pm and was about a 5.7 on the good ole' Richter scale. I got the jeebie heebies scared out of me because I was already asleep by then, and I woke up with the thought of "Why am I moving... (hampster starting to run on wheel in my head) WHY IS THE WHOLE BED MOVING? (hampster starting to pick up pace) HOLY CRAP (hampster has heart attack and keels over, gets some CPR, and picks back up again) EARTHQUAKE!" So I ran to the door and waited out the shaking and quaking. Andrew didn't seem to freaked out by it, I guess the initial shock kind of stuck with me cuz boy was my heart racing for about five minutes afterwards. Yay adrenaline! But not too much damage occurred at the apartment, nor in the rest of Taiwan. Small earthquakes happen here pretty frequently, so it wasn't that big of a deal.

Our fun adventures from this weekend:
Saturday~We went to the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, it was cool. I got to see the exhibit on the late Madame Chiang Kai-shek, it was pretty interesting. She was a really good artist! And her English was very eloquent!! We got to watch the changing of the guards who stand in front of the giant figure of Dr. Sun, and then we went outside where there was a stage/child's fair/shopping market set up in front of the hall. We got a kite, tried to catch fish with wax paper (Andrew caught one, I could not master the art of not breaking your paper in the water), played a ball dropping game and won a plastic bat, so we threw out a few pitches, and then headed over to Warner Village to watch The Incredibles. I thought it was a cute movie, not Toy Story calibur, but still worth the watch.

Sunday was visiting Todd in his home city of TaoYuan. We got to walk around, I got some new sunglasses, checked out a temple, saw Todd's abode and met some of his fellow dorm-mates, and had teppanyaki! Delicious! (Teppanyaki is basically like Benihana's, but without the fancy show and flare, they just cook in front of you on hot metal plates) And we got a few cute small turtles that we thought would be a nice addition to our fish tank. (Don't worry, that's the end of the line in pets, anything more and we wouldn't have anyone to give them away to, the fish and turtles we can easily hand over)
Anywho, we brought them home, put them in the fish tank and found out that they needed their own tank. Because right after we put them in, I remember seeing a few turtles picking at a half eaten fish carcass at the pet store, then I thought maybe it wasn't such a good idea that we had them in the fish tank, and when I looked in the fish tank, one of the turtles had one of our neon fish in his mouth. I was about to cry! Poor fishy. So the turtles were quickly fished out (haha?) and put into a bowl. Then we went and got a super cheap tank set to put the turtles in. At least everything has been cheap. Andrew has a lot of grand schemes on how to decorate the tank, I think I will just let him go at it and not stand in his way.

And great news for me, I my ARC application went through!!! WOOHOOOOO! So hopefully I can get the resident visa application going (which takes about a week) and then I won't have to worry about leaving the country because I'm an illegal alien. Whoopee! And I get paid tomorrow, which will be a whole month worth, with overtime from Halloween. And my ARC isn't processed yet, so I won't get 20% taken out in taxes. Heehee. :)

It's little comfort, but still pretty amusing *Yes Steph and poster of comment on 6q's site, I stole these from you*:

http://72.3.131.10/

http://chrisevans3d.com/files/iq.htm

Random, random, random

Today, I had the random thought, as we prepared some Thanksgiving songs, that turkeys around the land are preparing for the afterlife, praying to their Gods for forgiveness, enjoying their last meals, etc. Continuing that random thought, I thought I'd show some random pics...

A view of the Taipei landscape at night (I really like this shot):
Best night shot.JPG

Mei and I at Mei's work, dressed in our Halloween costumes:
Mei and Andrew.JPG

We arrive in Taiwan! (WOW!! What is it, 2 and a half months ago?!?)
We arrive.JPG

Now THIS is how to carry a dog around town!
Dog Carrier.JPG

Remember when Mei fell at bruised her knee? Yeah, it was pretty bad:
Nasty Knee.JPG

Mmmm. Nothing like some seaweed chips!!
Seaweed Lays.JPG

And how about a shot of 'the coolest car in the world' for Raf:
350.JPG

Here's another Halloween shot of Mei, shortly before she was devoued by the spider...
Mei and Spider.JPG

And finally, here are some of my kids at Halloween. They all went as devils, or squirrels, or little punks. Ha. No, they're good, mostly... :)
Kids at Halloween.JPG

Our mansion (w/ pics)

I thought some of you might be interested in our new home and what it looks like.
If you recall, we live on the 6th floor, with no elevator... how nice, it has a stair-master as an unlisted perk! In addition, we have many neighbors belonging to the animal kingdom, from unwanted ants to the neglected pigeons, with an occasional lizard to boot. Without further ado, here's our 'mansion.' Well, the area AROUND our mansion, since we've been cleaning the house, I haven't taken any shots of the INSIDE... whoops...

Here's what the main street looks right outside our home. Our home is a small alley way away from here, about 15 seconds away.
Outside our home.JPG

Here's a shot of our balcony...
balcony.JPG

And what we can SEE from our balcony:
daytime balcony shot.JPG

... which includes some furry neighbors:
Pigeons.JPG

Our view isn't as nice as is Todd's from his, as you can see here. Incidentally, this is the first proof that people have that he is actually here in Taiwan, as he says... nobody has his number, this is the first picture, etc. So he's not really in Bermuda relaxing on the beach, but he is indeed here in Taiwan. ;)
Todd at Home.JPG

Random, random, random

So what is your job like, Andrew? (w/ pics)

I realize I've been here a long time without really describing what my job is like. So, since I finally have pictures, let me tell you!

I'd say I have a pretty nice job lined up here. Which, of course, is in stark contrast to my babysitting job. THAT, that, that... that wasn't a good one. But this! Yes, this is much better. I let Jerry, the recruiter guy, convince me that there would be absolutely no problem getting me a job, where we subsequently had a little difficulty getting me a job (of course). Why? I am the ideal teacher here, you can imagine, blond hair blue eyed etc., so that wasn't it.. no, it's more because the companies were lying about what they had to offer (part time vs full time) or salary, etc. Anyway.. after a couple of days, we find this place near where Mei is.

It's called Yung Chi American English School, and the people are really nice. Really nice. I teach, on average, a little under 3 1/2 hours a day, and am at work every day from 12:30 to 6:30. It depends on the day, but for an example, on mondays I teach 1st graders from 1:30-3:00 and 2nd graders from 4:00-5:30. From 1:00-1:30 I 'prepare' (which mostly consists of grubbing on the free lunch they offer (and no, it's not specificly for me, everyone gets fed, including the students and the teachers), which is usually pretty darn good food... and free, meaning I only have to pay for dinners during the week). After my classes I am eye candy, where I sit up front and... look 'white' for the parents. I say hello to them, etc., but I usually go back into the classes and play with the kids, where they get a biiiiiiiiiiig kick out of me lifting them up as well as raising my hand high and they attempt to high-five it by jumping...

But Andrew, what's CLASS like, you say?

Well, I have either two or three classes a day, 1 and a half hours long or one hour long each, ranging from first grade (level 1A, the lowest English level), second grade (level 2C), and third grade (level 4B, I can speak practically in a normal voice to these kids, with my normal fast speaking voice! They're good.. even though they are reviewing the past tense). I'd say that on average, one class is really good (well-behaved, etc.), another is not so good (full of energy, harder to control), and the other is pick and choose.. it could swing either way. Each day is different as to which class has more energy. I am starting to get better ideas on how to teach, though, and to play more games with them, so things are getting better. In addition, their Chinese teacher is with them in the room most of the time, and they lay down the discipline. An average class might go something like this:

15 minutes of reviewing old spelling words
15 minutes in the Look! series book
15 minutes of the phonics book
5 minute break
10 minutes of the reader
20 minutes of a game (incorporating the Look! series stuff or whatever)
10 minutes of a communication book

So... time goes really quickly when teaching! Usually we play games with other stuff, too, like phonics and the reader, but if we do, teach first, games last! So if we play a game with phonics, phonics would go after the reader, etc. Otherwise they are out of control, obviously, I guess. :)

All in all, work is fun, but it is still a job. I enjoy going to work, mostly because the fellow teachers are really nice to me, and because I get to basically play with the kids when I'm there. The discipline is sometimes more difficult to me, but I am fortunate that there are Chinese teachers there to help me out. They lay down the law. But my lesson plans are all mapped out for me, so all I have to do is show up and teach, which is really, really nice. I should easily be able to do this for a year, if not a lot longer. ;) On to the pictures!

Pictures

So here are my students, cute as can be. These are the 1st graders. You'll notice that there are a lot more of these kids then there are in my other classes.. I have 15 kids in this class. They also are showing their true selves... lots and lots of energy. The girl on the right is actually really cute (name is May), but she looks weird in this one.
1A 2 - 10-22-04.JPG

And here are the 2nd graders. There are less of these kids, only 10, although there are less in this picture. The cute kid with the hat on his head is named Kevin. He's adorable, but always wants to "play a game!" Soooo cute, but can be sooo annoying. The big girl at the back is extremely annoying. She whines at EVERYTHING, even yesterday when we played a game that she likes, she began to whine. I wanted to smack her! The three girls on the right are really sweet, though, which is a common theme in my classes.. sweet girls and loud guys! The boy second from the left in the blue jacket is named Lucas.. he's the head bosses' son.
2C - 10-22-04.JPG

And these are the 3rd graders. Guess which one has ADHD (at least by MY diagnosis??). Yeah, the guy with things in both of his hands, the goggles and the dartboard. Good guy, just soooo much energy. But hey, check it out! Only five students in this class! Sooooooo nice. :) Queena, the girl who is putting rabbit ears behind the other girl, is super smart, and can translate things into Chinese for others if they don't understand the word (like real vs. pretend). What? Santa ISN'T real? NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! (haha just kidding). Todd, the guy on the left, isn't all there, as you might be able to tell...
3A 2 -10-22-04.JPG

Our school is classy... check out my desk and the 'common' room right next to it, with lots of classy books, etc. Check out my classy Dragonball Z figurines (thanks Mei!) and my classy Pearl Milk Tea cup next to my computer.. which doesn't yet have internet, which is why my pictures/posts are slow to arrive. I use someone else's computer.
My desk and office.JPG

And finally, here are my fellow teachers. They're really nice, Sylvia is expecting (the lady on the bottom row in the middle) and Ocean (bottom row on the very right) I can communicate with easily, because she used to work with foreigners. Her English is ok... but it's good enough! She's super nice and helpful. Jo-Jo on the other hand, the lady on the top left, isn't a teacher, but is more our administrative boss. Talking with her.. is very, very tough. It's like slamming my head into a wall. I'd probably get the same results doing that. No matter what I say, she says "Yes!" Even though she has no idea what I am saying. I speak better Chinese than she does, and she was in Canada for 10 years. Usually, Kay, a Chinese teacher who is fluent in English (and teaches the kids English grammer) is our communicator. Jo-Jo is very nice, but also isn't all there.
Fellow Teachers.JPG

I hope that gives you a better idea about my work. Take care, all!!

Halloween, explorations, and random story

Konichiwa!

So Halloween is over, and all I have to say is, thank the heavens!!! Let me tell you why. At the beginning of the month everyone got a thingy saying they had to submit a costume design by such and such date, and a sketch of how you were going to decorate your classroom/assigned area by such and such date. We were supposed to get our materials by the 12th, and have our rooms decorated by the 16th. HA. Materials weren't purchased until last Tuesday, and not even all the materials (construction paper, pumpkins, etc.). Kate kept pestering Ted the week before because everything was supposed to be decorated already, but he kept not having an answer (he's just always so busy). Grrr. So Kate started drawing and cutting stuff out on Tuesday, we were responsible for the Kinder room and the ball pool area. Wednesday at lunch, Kate and Maggie tell me we have to stay late tonight until all the decorating is done. I said, I have bushiban until 6:30, they say: "If we have to stay until midnight, we're supposed to stay until midnight." So I was there until 11pm Wednesday night, and 9pm Thursday night. Poor, generous, Andrew was also there with me late because he volunteered to help. (THANKS AGAIN! You nice fool.) The decorations turned out pretty good, except that they had it really dark, so you couldn't see all the work we had put into decorating the ball pool area. Oh well, at least I get overtime.

Friday night I had bushiban until 6:30, and the activities started at 7, so I rushed down and quickly applied some face makeup and made a tail and ears to be my staple Halloween costume, that's right, a cat. I got fake nails too, they were super long and really hard to do anything in. And they were cheap, so they only stayed on for half the night. The school had about 60 kids participating, so they were split into three groups, and the teachers split among those three groups. Kate and I had our kinders, and about ten older bushiban kids. First they heard a story about the origin of the jack-o-lantern, then they got their pictures taken, group and individual. (My kinder parents were all over the place with their cameras and video cameras taking pictures) On to Jonathan's "haunted house" where he told a ghost story and then blindfolded the kids and stuck their hands in wet noodles and peeled grapes. We then went to Kim's room where he had set up a computer and just had chunks of the stupid Scooby-doo movie playing (super lame). And Clayton's room was ice cream on a plate with a piece of bubble gum that you had to get out with your mouth.

On to trick or treating! We basically just went to a few stores and fast food restaurants, trick or treating to people's homes isn't really common place here. I think the kids had fun, but boy was I exhausted. Jenny was super nice and took Andrew (and the rest of us who stayed late) out to dinner afterwards to thank him (and us) for helping, so the two Maggies, Kate, Jenny, Drew, and I went to a Shabu-Shabu restaurant after everything was done, and had a delicious dinner. (Shabu-shabu is sort of like hot pot, only, it's an individual pot of boiling water and they hand you your plate of veggies and a plate of your ordered meat.) We finally made it home around 12am.

And then we had to get up at 10am (I know, so harsh, but the week tired me out!) so our landlord could show us how to change the battery in our hot water heater so we could have hot water again. And we were supposed to have a steel grate installed on one of our windows, but the window installer called at 9:45am saying their head master called in sick today.

Saturday was plant shopping at the cool flower market down the street from us, and then on to Taipei! We ate at a Mexican restaurant (it was a little bland, but not too shabby, yeah refried beans!) and then headed over to LongShan Temple, which was super cool. And then right next to the temple was the reptile night market in the designated "Taipei Tourist Night Market" (That was the sign posting right above the entrance) The reptile market was gross. They had a live snake cutting open exhibit, with freshly skinned snakes hanging on a stick, and pickled snakes in a jar. I hate snakes, so I really didn't enjoy it that much. Then on the street was a gigantic night market with everything you could think to buy, at super low prices. Cell phones, puppies, clothes, tea, you name it. The street market was a lot funner.

On Sunday, Todd came up from TaoYuan, and we headed over to the National Palace Museum, which has the largest collection of Chinese antiquities in the world. One of the exhibits was carvings, and they showed a tiny little carving that couldn't have been bigger than my thumb. It was amazing, it was a boat, with moveable windows, and the inside had a table set with tea, a person steering, people sitting and standing. All this carved on something no bigger than my thumb. And there was a three hundred word poem carved on the bottom of the boat! You had to use a magnifying glass to see the detail. Crazy stuff! The museum is huge, so we didn't get to everything. But they're doing renovations, and as a thank you for putting up with the renovating, we got a free ticket redeemable any time before Dec. '06. I'm sure we'll be back soon to finish what we missed. For dinner we went to a really good Thai food place, and then headed back home. I hope this coming weekend to go to the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall, they have an exhibit through the 14th on Madame Chiang Kai-Shek that looks really interesting.

Random story: So I've been getting on the same bus, with the same bus driver, in the morning, pretty consistently for the last week. And in Taiwan, you either pay getting on the bus, or off the bus, depending on what the bus driver likes. There's a sign facing each door letting the passenger know if they need to pay getting on or getting off. My bus driver likes people paying when they get off. So he always pulls way ahead of the bus stop and only opens the back door, in an effort to deter early payers. And if people try to pay when they get on right away, he grumbles at them, but last week a few people paid before he could grumble, so he would grudgingly give them a ticket for them to give back to him when they get off as proof they already paid. Today I got on the bus, and noticed that my bus driver made a sign to put over the card swiper/change collector so that people cannot physically pay until they get off the bus. He used a plastic hand fan, and must have printed out the sign at home, and then stapled it to the fan. I can't read all of what it says, but I'm pretty sure it says PAY WHEN YOU GET OFF. I got a big kick out of that this morning. If they won't listen, then dammit, I'll physically stop them from being able to pay!

Hope everyone is doing well, and don't forget to vote for Kerry! (I know, shameless plug) Ted, my boss, said he would pay to have Andrew and I receive our absentee ballots so we could vote, by fed-exing overnight, because he really wants Kerry to win (my boss lived in the New England region for awhile). We assured him it wouldn't be worth it, since CA really isn't a swing state, although if it goes to Bush, boy will I get an earful!