Happy New Years!!!

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to let you know that I was much better now, work has been a lot less stressful, and I am a much happier person. (Thanks Andrew's Dad for the soothing pic of Patches, it definitely helped my mood! :) ) Not too much exciting since the last post, but tonight is New Years Eve, the temperature is supposed to be less than 6 degrees (Celsius), which is freaking cold, but we plan to head out to Taipei 101, otherwise just stay closer to home if we decide the cold is too much. And then Saturday and Sunday is birthday celebrating in Taipei with dinner reservations at a super fancy hotel on Saturday, and a possible dinner with coworkers on Sunday. I will let you know how it all goes!

Hope everyone is with someone they love this New Years, and that 2005 brings you a year of luck, happiness, and good fortune!

Merry New Years Eve!!!!

State of the People

You know... I can't help but remember Todd's quote, when he said, "You know, people here seem extremely well-adjusted," or something along that line. And I can't seem to help but see that myself. I realize that I'm an outsider looking at young kids, but I also have had my share of high school kids (remember my first hellish job?) and the community. It doesn't seem to me like there are many 'lost' kids, extreme troublemakers, etc. I know they're out there, but they seem to be much, much less of a percentage than in the States.
Why? It's not due to sex being a problem. Here, sex ads are prevalent. Just on my way to work, I've passed a huge 7 story condom above a sex shop outside my house, an advertisement with a bare breast and an ad with a woman's naked backside. Porn shops can be found on every other block.
It's not that not feeling like you're part of a group is the problem. I remember reading a headline saying that such and such a percentage of people feel 'lost', although I don't remember reading the article.
But family seems much more relevent here. Grandparents look after kids when the parents are busy, and they aren't sent out as outcasts. They're looked upon by the family. People here are divorced, too.. my coworker Ocean has a kid and is divorced, but when she's at work, the grandma (and grandpa?) can look after the kid. Even if the parents break up, it seems as if there's this huge net for the children to fall back on. I really like the idea of family being there for each other.. it makes sense, too, because space is at a premium, and people live together. In the States, people spread out in suburbia... but here, people live with family.
Anyway, this is just a 2 second commentary on what seems to be like well adjusted people.. not attempting to explain WHY, but just making some observations. Back to work I go...

P.S. GT4 is out (woo!!). My first purchase of the New Year will have to be that game. I'll let you know how it is when I get it...

Post Christmas relief

Merry Belated Christmas to everyone!

I warned you I would not be around for awhile, and boy was I busy. And I bet you're all curious as to why Andrew keeps making references to my poop work rage and Christmas hell. Well, let's begin with the most major issue I have at work: I have yet to be paid for November. We're supposed to get paid every tenth, but I have not been paid yet this month (no one at work has), and Ted has yet to tell us exactly when we'll get paid. I asked him last Tuesday if we would at least be paid before Christmas, and his response was: "I hope so. I know it's a bummer." What kind of response is that?! Yes, it is an incredibly big bummer. Thanks for being sympathetic. JEEBUS!#$%!@?!!! I'm glad I got paid nicely in November, because I still have a reserve of money, but that reserve is starting to get a lot smaller. And I was waiting to mail a few Christmas presents home until I got paid, well, clearly those will not make it in time. Everyone is complaining and getting incredibly frustrated, Ted doesn't even seem that sorry, which is truly the vexing part. I can understand if he just sat us all down, said the school was having trouble making ends meet, blah blah. At least tell us why we're not getting paid and give us a reasonable guesstimate of when we will be. Instead he just responds to everyone with "soon" and nothing else. Sigh. Two people didn't come to work today (incl. Kate) and one of the Chinese teachers just gave birth to triplets, so needless to say, work was crappy, and no one was in a good mood.

On to my Christmas week of killjoy. My kindies were supposed to do a play and two songs, but instead we ended up only doing the two songs. Ted said the two weeks before Christmas was going to be non-stop practicing, but parents complained, (if I was a parent I would complain too, I'm not paying for my kid to dance, I'm paying for my kid to get Calvert lessons), so Ted decided maybe it would be better to just practice in the afternoon. Except that one of the kids doesn't come in the afternoons, so her mom said ok to coming on tuesdays and fridays for full days, but that didn't really help too much. The play I decided was going to be "Twas the Night before Christmas" acted out, but the kids didn't get it soon enough, and they weren't practicing at home, and Ted was super angry because last Tuesday the kids were still learning their words, so he just said "cancel the play." Big sigh of relief for me, cuz I couldn't sleep at night thinking of how the kids were going to bomb on stage. But it wasn't my fault, becuase I kept pestering him about our original play, and finally he said "I'm just going to rewrite it." Kate heard him say those exact words, so I know I wasn't hallucinating. So a few days later he asks me how the re-write is going. I just stared at him in disbelief, then muttered something about having a hard time, his response was "I just don't have the time." Well jeez, I know you are pretty busy, but you said you would re-write it. Unless he's forgotten English and thinks I=you. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

So last week was practicing and Ted screaming at all the kids and teachers about being perfect and knowing their songs. All the teachers were annoyed, first, don't expect all this great stuff and complain all the time when you haven't even paid us yet, and second, we are more worried about our kids learning English and our tightly scheduled lesson plans than dancing around on stage perfectly for two songs. I think my Christmas spirit officially died when my kindies were practicing, and Ted started yelling at GaGa, making him cry, asking him if he was a baby and he should just go home now if he couldn't pay attention. Way to spread the Christmas cheer. Friday was super stressful, the school had to be cleaned and decorated, while doing dress rehearsals with the kids. Maggie and I were arranging the food parents had brought, and we seriously considered turning the lights off in the room and sneaking some food, both of us were starving and knew we wouldn't get to eat until the night was over (which ended at 10:30). The kids ended up doing good, the parents seemed to enjoy it, my E03 class pulled a christmas miracle and learned "Silver Bells" and "Here Comes Santa Claus" lyrics and choreography within a week, but now I'm three days behind which I don't know how I will catch up on. Oh, and because I hadn't been sleeping too well, was stressed out, and all the kids were getting sick, my immune system took a beating, so by the time Friday rolled around, I had a horrible sore throat and a constant headache.

I feel much better now after a quiet weekend of sleep and presents. Saturday we went out to near Taipei 101 and had a nice Italian Christmas dinner with Todd, Sunday I didn't change out of my pajamas, lounged around, watched some movies, took a long nap, watched another movie, then went to bed.

To everyone who has e-mailed me: I'll get back to you soon, I promise, it's going to be awhile before I catch up with the back log! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, any fun stories to tell?

Briefly...

Last night was fun; there was TONS of great Chinese food, as every body brought a lot of food, and we sang and danced in front of the parents. Also, I was able to just float around and talk with the kids and some of the parents I know and like. And I dressed up as Santa and gave out candy.. I felt like I was on a humanitarian mission with food, the way the kids swarmed me. I had to raise the basket as high as I could so that they wouldn't topple me. Yeesh! But all in all, it was fun... and there was great (free) food!

Again... MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Happy Holidays to all

I am at work writing this, with the use of my early Christmas present: I don't have to teach English today (friday)! Woohoo! Quite possible one of the top three gifts I'll get. It's invaluable! Haha.

But today should be a fun day. Not teaching (woo, vacation, essentially!), followed by a dance extravaganza with the kids and the teachers. We have been teaching the kids various dances all month, really... to Christmas songs and random Chinese songs. Today we are going to perform in front of the parents. Eeep! I don't know the moves! Ha, this will be funny... but we get free dinner out of it.

Which reminds me.. last week we had an 'event' on Sunday, where we went to a park and had a recruiting/show off fair. Only I had no idea what was going on. I thought we were gonig to do our dances with ALL the kids.. but only four kids and two teachers (besides me) went onstage! Uh... what? But then the MC knew everything we were doing (he must have worked at the other Yung Chi school, as both schools were there) and taught the audience the moves, so we danced with everyone in the crowd! Uh.. ok. Thanks Jo-Jo for telling me what's going on, I swear, talking to her is like talking to a brick wall. Anywho, it was a lot of fun, and Mei got to meet my coworkers. I dressed up as Santa, and threw candy to the crowd. It was great, as I know I was pelting some people. I threw the candy high at times, and.. yeah. Raf: Think Prof. Kellogg with the yeast. That was my goal. I tried to follow Kellogg's act. Then we all went out to dinner, and Mei could talk to my coworkers in Chinese. Joy!

In contrast, Mei is losing her Christmas spirit. I'll let her explain.

But I better get back to 'work'. Ha. I wish you all a very Happy Holidays, and for those of you who celebrate it (and those who don't), a very Merry Christmas. HAVE A GREAT AND RELAXING WEEKEND WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY!!!!! Happy holidays!!!!!!!!!

To continue... circus/work etc.

Talk about sticking out like a sore thumb. The past week and a half, I think I've heard about 5 kids say "Foreigner!" (except in Chinese of course), and stop and stare at me. Sigh. It does get old... being the one on the outside looking in. But despite my attempts to say "No, I'm not a foreigner, I'm Chinese!" (Bu shi whyguo ren, wo shi zhongguo ren!) they don't seem to believe me. Oh, maybe the blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin give it away, huh? (Just yesterday in class one of my third graders was saying how foreigners have long faces.)

Back to the circus! Where I also stuck out, being the only foreigner visible (oh, there were two more alright, but they were hiding in the corner, obviously avoiding the oncoming onslaught). So Mei says to me before the show, "By the way, you're white, don't be surprised if you're heckled." With that in mind, I wasn't TOO surprised when the clowns came my way... and then pulled me onstage and had their fun. At first I was trying to help the younger clown gert on a unicycle, but of course he 'couldn't' do it... so we kept trying to help him. Then we went to jumping rope, with both of us swinging the rope. Of course we were failing, with him pointing the blame at me, and me pointing the blame to... the audience! Then they tied the rope around me, and swung away. They then untied me, and obviously could see it coming, they left to go backstage, leaving me there to entertain... myself. So, seeing the opportunity, I tried to learn how to ride the unicycle. I couldn't figure out which way you sat in it.. I tried one way, then the other, then finally I tried the otehr way again but then they came back out. They thanked me for my service, and had a bag of popcorn... which he gave to the other clown! Ha, but then he gave it to me. It was cool, it was for kids (mostly), so I tried to be at least a LITTLE entertaining and took it all in good stride.

Later the magician game, and Mei was warned by someone who had visited the place before to watch your pockets, because he takes things while playing with people. So I wore pants that specifically had zipped pockets... anyway, he was doing his act, and stared at me.. "I say to Mei, look, I think he's found his sucker." And sure enough I was one of four or so people who he took coins out of. Anyway, sure enough, he took my wallet... which I immediately realized of course and said hey, my wallet, but he gave me a reassuring nod. Anywho, I have my wallet, and all of my cash still inside.

It was definitely a fun time, although seeing the animals performing wasn't all that great. It wasn't more of excitement or interest watching THEM, them it was more anguish and being uncomfortable. Except the wolves seemed really happy doing their thing, I didn't feel as bad for them.

Last week was one I don't mind having passed through. What started out as a good week (monday and tueday morning were good) turned sour, as tuesday night I had a horrible fever, as I was burning up. I must have had a really high temperature. I don't have a thermometer, so I don't know how high, but it was high. I was really, really hot. And I was quite the unruly patient, but Mei took great care of me, despite my being such a pill. (I made it to work on wednesday, but I wasn't happy about it. But it was a 24 hour thing, complete with regurgitations, etc.) Then my immune system was compromised, so I got a pretty bad cold (by my standards, as I don't usually get colds that are too bad). Headache, the full 9 yards. That lasted a couple of days... and I don't think I'm completely over it, to be honest. I still am tired and am recovering.

Our jobs are turning south for the winter. Well, my job is the same old, same old, but I find myself having mroe difficulty controlling the kids. To be honest, it's getting less fun. And some parents are starting to complain, but I think parents always complain, regardless of how excellent the teachers are (which I know they ARE, clearly). Ha. But I'll let Mei gripe about her job. My doing it would do her rage a great injustice.

Anyway, I'll end this blog now.. I hope you're all doing great, and are having or WILL be having soon a nice and relaxing vacation/happy holidays. Some of you are on break (yay!), and others are going to be on vacation soon. To everyone, I hope you have a very relaxing time, and enjoy time with your friends and family! Have a happy holidays!!

The Circus is in Town

I have ten minutes left-let's see how much I can type~

If you recall in a previous post, we had a baby tiger come to the school to advertise for the circus that was in town... so there were a few tickets left that the school had, so they gave me two free ones! Woo! So Andrew and I hopped on a taxi yesterday and headed out to the circus! It was in a parking lot of the Asian version of Costco, in a big top circus tent. We got to see pretty standard circus fare: Acrobats, clowns, really sad looking bears, a few wolves, a couple magicians, and tigers! I felt really bad for the animals, the bears looked horrible. The wolves at least looked like they were semi-enjoying themselves. Since Andrew sticks out like a sore thumb in the crowds, and we were sitting in a front row, he got picked on by the clowns to go out and play with them, I'll let him tell you about that. I was later picked out to go help juggle, except that I can't throw and the juggler was having some issues trying to incorporate the pin I was throwing at his arm. He finally got it though (or was that I finally got it?) and he juggled some more. Then they put me in the middle of the ring and two jugglers threw their pins back and forth with me in the middle afraid to move, otherwise I would get hit in the head by a swiftly moving, somewhat pointed object. I'm sure my face was memorable, I saw people taking pictures. We got bags of popcorn for our participation, of which we're still trying to consume.

At the end they had a (it had to be drugged) tiger sitting on a podium, and you could pay to have your polaroid picture taken with it. So now I can see I have a touched a tiger, and there's a picture to prove it.

That's about all the exciting news, I'm almost out of time!

Do you hear what I hear?

Well, I was just about to click on post, when there was a power flicker at the internet cafe, so I just lost everything that I finished typing a few minutes ago. &#$@*!!

Let's try this again:

The Christmas season has descended upon Taiwan, decorations are up everywhere, even the bus drivers are wearing the red hats. Today I saw a bus driver in full Santa outfit, even the white beard! I won't miss out on Christmas carols because they play them in all the stores here, incessantly (or was that beat them into the ground?), just like in the States. Joy!

Ted wants me to stop teaching lessons and focus entirely on Christmas show practice, which is on the 24th, mostly because we haven't started practicing for the play. That's because we're still editing it. The kids pretty much have "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" down. Complete with lyrics and super cute dance moves. Next is the Huron Carol, I'm tone deaf, so this will be hard. It's a song written for a church choir, unlike All I want for Christmas.... So they'll be singing a little off key..... BUT WAIT! Ted was tired of listening to Kate and I complain about the Huron Carol, so instead... we get to do Feliz Navidad! We're so excited, and today was spent thinking up the choreography. Much, much, much, mucho better than the Huron Carol.

Yes, it was the zoo this past weekend. We powered through at least 80% of it in less than three hours, it was lots of fun. I enjoyed seeing the koalas eating, the penguins wiggling, the giraffes and their tongues, and the raccoon. I cracked up when I saw the exotic raccoon in the "temperate zone" animals area. I'm sure my mom would be more than happy to send the zoo the raccoon that shows up on her back deck once in awhile. After the zoo we went to the Zoo Mall. Mostly for little kids, but we got to eat TCBY and corn dogs! And they had these animals that you could ride around the sidewalk. You put some money in, and it's like driving a furry, slow, music playing, waist level go-cart. Tried out the lion, we got to "zoom" past a shoe stand. They also had a whale, a panda, and a dog that you could ride. Whheee!!

Just in case you were wondering: Thought I would let you know what stories we've read in my kindie class, we're reviewing Henny Penny right now (the sky is falling!), we recently read The Little Red Hen (If you won't help me, then I'll eat my bread myself), and we're going to read the Tortise and the Hare soon, in simplified form so the kids can read it by themselves. They're learning how to read sentences, and can read basic ones like "I can run." and "Can the dog come?" Science yesterday was learning about the seasons, and we just finished reviewing 3-d shapes in math, i.e. cube, cone, cylinder, sphere. Smart kids, no? Much better than my 10-13 yr. old bushiban kids that struggle to understand what I'm teaching in class.

Speaking of bushiban, here's a story about them: Wilson, who isn't that bad of a kid, did something bad! I have to check to make sure their parents signed their communication book everytime, so I was looking through them, and I was a little suspicious of Wilson's "signature." It was a character written very poorly in Chinese. Which could be ok, some of the parents do sign in Chinese, but his mom always signs in English. And the fact that it looked like it was written by a hand that hadn't been writing Chinese for very long. So I asked him about it, and he said "I didn't sign it. Really." So I took it down to Maggie, who then called his Mom, who said, "Oh, I forgot to sign it!" i.e. Wilson did forge the signature! Little turd. He tried to pull a fast one on the foreign teacher! So he had to go to Ted, and came back fifteen minutes later sobbing. Poor guy. He shouldn't have forged and lied!

P.S. To all my Jewish friends: Happy Hanukkah!

Swing and a miss / Zoo

Todd's thoughts on the typhoon:

I think you'll have to agree that this one was even wussier than the last one that hit us. We didn't even have Saturday off. I heard it was supposed to hit us on Saturday night, yet it stopped raining (at least here in Taoyuan) when I got out of my second class at 3:40. By the way, driving a scooter in the rain sucks.

Todd

Agreed. It brought us a lot of rain in Taipei, but the wind wasn't strong. Funny, we got saturday off (ha). Apparently it hit the south of the island, and worked it's way northeast... it rained here, so we got to stay inside and just veg.

So yesterday Mei and I visted the zoo. That was really, really cool, as there were a lot of animals, with, what I thought for a zoo, really good habitats for them. So that made me happy. What we liked the most, though, was the exotic, legendary 'raccoon'. Haha, that was funny. Whoops, out of time at the cafe... it's almost Christmas! Wow! We've been here 3 and a half months?! Where does the time go...

Bracing for another natural disaster

Shocking, I know. I'm at work, where it's rainy and miserable, where we're bracing for another typhoon (apparently December typhoons are more rare but more strong than in earlier months). This one isn't going to hit us full on, as the one which hit us when Todd was here (the one that was 'weak' by his words), so it won't, I don't think, hit us like the one did when we FIRST got here, when we were in Keelung. (That was CRAZY.) Also, it's hitting on the WRONG DAY!! It should have hit TODAY, so we'd have a three day weekend! But nooooo, it's coming tomooooorrow. Ah well, I'm looking forward to a good long day of relaxing, eating chips and salsa, and playing on our Playstation while watching our turtles. Check out this link for a cool image of the typhoon (go to satellite and click on loop 12 hours).

http://www.cwb.gov.tw/V4e/index.htm

Take care!

Quick Update

That's right!! We have an addy now!!! Wooo!!! Let me know if you want it, and what YOU want sent home for Christmas... it's coming up folks!

Update from work: So the circus is in town for the next few weeks, and as a promotion, they brought to the school a mini magic show, with a 3 month old tiger!!! IT WAS SO CUTE! It's paws were so big and cute. But the poor thing was in this cage that could probably barely fit a big dog. Everytime it moved it would hit one side of the cage. Poor thing. So I was excited to be standing right next to a baby tiger (the closest I've ever been, within touching distance!!!) and also simutaneously heart broken at its crap cage and probably hard life it will lead being in a circus. He should be in the jungle, not harassed by a bunch of little kids.

I'm off to go look for dinner and run some errands. I can't believe it took so long for Ken Jennings to lose on Jeopardy! I wish I could see the downfall episode!!!!