A quick update

Hello everyone!

Work has been better. My support from everyone but Ted has been really good, and I don't feel so bad anymore. Although Jennifer has been bugging Ted to go into the classroom more and work with the kids and show me more ways to teach the class. Which so far, has been once since Friday. Better than nothing. And I am getting a small raise and told I can leave if I want to when the kids are napping as long as I make it back by 2:30. Yay discussing your contract issues! And after kindergarten ends after the first week of August, Jennifer said there would be no problem signing an agreement to end my contract early. WOOOO!! Which means I can spen the rest of August and the first two weeks of September relaxing, working on my Chinese reading, and NOT WORKING. Yay! Only 14 more weeks people!

Last weekend we went to Taipei SeaWorld. Which was basically an overpriced ticket to see some fancy aquariams with sharks and pirhanas. They had other aquatic sea life, but it was a let down. This weekend will be spending Saturday with GaGa's mom, who invited Kate, Clayton, Andrew, and I over for lunch on Saturday. And I get to spend more time with her adorable halfie (like me!) nephew from San Francisco!!!! His name is Nicholas, and his family lives not more than a five minute drive from my mom in the city! I can't get over how small this world is. Nicholas' mom is here for a month on work related stuff, so he hangs out Key West, he's still in preschool so he can't keep up with what my kids are doing. But he's fun to talk to and says "Right." like a surfer! He's so cute!

At least I'm not as sick as Andrew...

My maladies are just a stomach that hasn't been digesting well and a headache that comes and goes. Nothing too serious. This week at work didn't help the headache.

On Wednesday, Ted came into the classroom, got really upset that the kids couldn't read all of their past homework, and then typed up a two page letter for Kate and I about how we should conduct the class, what we should do during lunch, blah blah blah. It was incredibly discouraging and outrageously frustrating. The suggestions and comments were all things that I wish he would have said a long time ago, not now, in April, three months before the kindies graduate. Or maybe last semester when I specifically went to him telling him that I wasn't feeling very confident in my teaching of the class and wanted to talk to him about it. Too bad he never got back to me and then waited until now to blow up. Kate and I had dinner with Maggie on Thursday, she told me that Ted has a bad habit of ignoring people when they ask him about small stuff, and then when he suddenly notices a problem he thinks is serious, he blows up and blames it on everyone but himself. And Kate and I sat down with Jennifer yesterday while the kids had nap time and talked to her about the letter. She said I shouldn't worry too much about it, and now that one of the Chinese teachers came back, she will have more time to stay at the front counter, so if I'm having trouble or if I have any questions I can pop my head out the door and ask her. And she gave some great suggestions, so I feel better now I know I have someone reliable to talk to. Kate also talked to Clayton about it, and he said I shouldn't feel bad at all since Ted didn't hold his end of the bargain up with giving me the amount of training I needed.

The parents meeting was yesterday, the kids were also there, to show their reading ability, and played some spelling and phonics games so the parents can see some of the things we do in class. The kids were a little out of control behavior wise, and the reading didn't seem that great, but the kids and parents had fun with the games, so overall, I think it went ok.

On to funner stuff: Last weekend we went to the Taipei Astronomical Museum and had fun looking at the exhibits and saw an imax dome film about the sea. And tomorrow the goal is to head out to Taipei Sea World, I'm very excited! Not much else going on, the weather is warming up, and the humidity is much more noticeable now. Oh, and the mosquitos are out now as well, which has made sleeping quite painful experience. Some of you might recall that when I get bit by a mosquito, the bite turns bright red and turns into an enormous swollen mass. Joy!

Daily life: In Chinese, there are no generic words for person to person relationships. In English, we have "brother" or "grandma." Not the case in Chinese. Because age is such an important aspect of the culture, as well as filial relationship, you have to specifically describe the relationship. Instead of brother, there is only "guh-guh"=older brother, or "dee-dee" which is younger brother. Same thing for sister, cousin, classmate, you name it. And then for grandma/grandpa, there is a different term depending of whether it's your father's parents, your mother's parents, or your husband's parents. You can't just call them all grandma. You have to use the term that specifies how they are related to you. Maggie couldn't get over how in Enlish, you could just say "My sister..." Her remark was "How do you know if it's an older sister or younger sister? Or what if it's your dad's parents?" I thought it was interesting that the mindset would be so concerned with status of the person in question and how deep the culture still runs here.

P.S. Happy Passover to all the Jewish friends!

All-time record

I can't believe it. I was getting better recently, on day #10 of taking the medicine, when... I get sick again! Just a cold, with some interesting symptoms, including bright red eyes. I look either mean or like I've been crying a lot.

Sigh.. this has to be a record for me. Oh well, I'll be better in a few days, then I'll do more running and basketball to prevent this in the future. Also, I'll be able to go to the internet cafe. As you can guess, I didn't go to the cafe today, altough I DID get my haircut.. it was disgustingly long and made me want to throw up everytime I looked at it.

P.S. I like visitors!

When my mom came, she brought me delicious home made spaghetti sauce and french bread! When Andrew's parent's visited, they brough a loaf of sourdough for me! So come visit me, and if you do, I expect precedent to be followed and you will have a loaf of yummy bread for me! (not so subtle *hint, hint* )

Oh, and a quick update with Kate. She is indeed leaving, her last day is May 6th. She said, "At least I will be here for the parents meeting next Friday." I said, "*waahhhhhhh* *sob* *sob*"

I'm a little distressed because now that Maggie has left, I'm in charge of the front counter for the half hour when Kate leaves at 2pm and when the kids get up at 2:30pm and I bug Ted to have someone come down when I go back in the classroom. I hope they don't ask me to come in early and serve breakfast to the kids! I already don't like getting up to make it at 8:45am! Hm....

On daily life: Red is a good color, new years and weddings always have lots of red. White is the color of death. In some funeral processions, people will wear white robes.

Last couple of weeks

I came to the internet cafe tonight ready to rumble, ready to recap my absence for so long and to tell how my parents' trip went. But I was pre-empted! Which is not surprising, considering I haven't been able to use the internet for awhile.. Huh, you say? Let me explain.

But FIRST! Wow, how fantastic it was to see my parents! Like I mentioned, they were the first to make it over here on my side of the friends and family list, and it was definitely good to see them. I'm really thankful that they were able and willing to come. They originally were supposed to come in on Thursday; I was expecting to meet them at the airport, and just boarded the bus when I checked my phone for any voice messages. What do I hear? "This is Dad. We won't be coming to Taipei tonight, as our plane didn't show up! We'll be coming in the morning." Uh-oh! I immediately get off the bus, luckily getting off before it takes its roughly 45 minute treck to the airport. Well.. bummer! The plane didn't show up, as a passenger was sick on the plane they were supposed to use, and it was diverted to Alaska. So they came in the morning, and I was able to meet them at the airport as I don't have to be at work until 12:30. Well, we met, then parted; they took the hotel shuttle back to the hotel, I went with what ended up being some random dude offering to take me to Banciao (paid of course, he was going around asking people if they needed rides... a taxi, but not quite). The smartest thing? No, but it got me to work on time.

Mei pretty much summed up the trip, what we did, etc. All in all I think they got a nice view of Taipei; some markets, some Taipei city, and Hualien and Taroko Gorge. Some of the city, and some of the nature. And I can't stress enough how much my co-workers did; the feast was fantastic and they were excellent tour guides. We hope that they are able to come to America, so that we can return the favor! I know my parents really, really appreciated and liked that. (A snub at work, as JoJo wasn't told about the party because, well, she's not a favorite, and she was hoping to eat with my family on Wednesday. I didn't realize that she was willing for me to cut classes in order to do so... I have talked before about the great language difficulties with JoJo!) Oh well! My parents had a good time, and so did I.

And now as to why I haven't been responding to emails, posting, etc. I WAS SICK! Probably the worst case of flu I have ever had. I came down with a little cold abot 3-4 days before my parents came; a lot of people at my school were sick, and I wasn't getting enough sleep. Then, my parents came, and they're such party animals. I ended up getting less sleep, and also I probably stressed too much about the small stuff; getting to/from the airport, getting home from Hualien, and just making sure that they were going to enjoy themselves during their time here. Mostly it was just that I wasn't sleeping enough. And so my cold got a little bit worse. Now, my parents were here for about 6 days.. so that's roughly 10 days with a small cold already, right?

The next 10 (which incidentally are the last 10 from yesterday) were just horrible. I slept 10 or more hours each day (sometimes 12), and still was miserable. I ended up with a little fever, and the infection spread to my ears, so I got an ear infection. It sucked, so then I went to the doctors and got some medicine. He gave me a drug cocktail; I ended up with 5 medicines, three times a day, for 10 days. That's 150 pills I took!! Crazy, no? Anyway, the initial visit, plus two subsequent chcek-ups, as well as the medicine, cost me a whopping $NT 360 ($US 12). Is that crazy or what? I like the health care system here.

I should mention that my student's father has befriended me, and took me to the ENT clinic all three times. He's a very nice man, and is trying to improve his English. I also teach parents for an hour a week at that same school; he is in that calss. He has done many nice things for me, and I'm truly appreciative for his kindness.

I "know" where I got this cold, too. You read those reports about some company mistakingly sending out vials of a version that killed 4-5 million people? Yeah... they SAY they destroyed them all in all of the labs in Asia, but practiaclly my whole school was sick recently... hm, coincidence?

Anyway, that is why I haven't been writing; I've been sick. 10 + 10... about 20 days. Fun! But I'm just about all better now; I wasn't great on day 9, but was feeling much, much better on day 10 of my medicine, the day that the doctor said I should feel better by (enter twilight zone music here).

So I would expect to get back to writing to people... but unfortunately, my work has decided to restrict my internet usage time (they are pay as you go). So in the future, I'll be even SLOWER than before (aye!). But that's not to say that I don't think about you guys; I miss you, and will catch up on my email writing soon.

That's my story... my parents should be getting home from their trip to Vietnam soon. I hope everyone is doing great!

Andrew's Parents are Party Animals!

Ok not really, but it took a whole weekend of sleeping to recover...

Friday night Andrew worked until 8:30pm, so we met up with his parents in Taipei at 9:30 pm to check out LongShan Temple and the night market near by. It's a small night market compared to some, but I think it is a good "breaker in." His parents got to see Snake Alley, they seemed pretty amused by the plethora of jarred snakes and the huge live python for viewing. There was a little rain, so not to many people were out that night. We got home pretty late, and then had to get up for...

Saturday was a trip to a flower market and the weekend jade market, then to Jade's (Andrew's co-worker) house for a delicious home cooked Chinese dinner and a stroll around "Fruit Alley" near the Shulin train station. Jade and Debbie were full force with the Chinese hospitality, we had way too much delicious food, and they gave a tea set and fresh tea to Andrew's parents to take home with them. They were incredibly welcoming and I felt bad because Andrew's parents seemed a little uncomfortable by it all. I'm sure the language barrier didn't help, even though I was there to translate. But all in all, I think everyone enjoyed themselves. Jade told me she was so nervous all day, afraid that Andrew's parents wouldn't like the food or the gifts.

Sunday was another early morning at the National Palace Musuem (we had the goal of making the 10am English speaking tour), then on to Taipei 101. (my mom remarked that we should get season passes, haha!) Todd was able to make it out to Taipei 101 with us and see the view from the top and have a nice teppanyaki dinner afterwards.

Monday and Tuesday was the trip to Hualien and the Taroko gorge. Monday morning was getting up to make the train, and after arriving in Hualien, we checked in to the hotel, and then rented some bikes to go up and down the beach. We saw some military drilling with fighter jets flying out into the Pacific. Andrew was taking a picture of the base, and someone started pointing, so we figured it would be best to keep going. I made sure to keep my distance in case they were going to shoot Andrew down. HAHAHA! Just kidding. The bike ride was nice, and after we went to the train station to make sure we knew how to get to the gorge on Tuesday, and we ate dinner at a Japanese style restaurant.

Tuesday was another early day to make it out to the gorge. We took a bus up, and on the twists and turns, my stomach decided it wasn't happy, so I got to throw up on the bus. Poor Andrew had to help me clean up and deal with the smell. We got great information on how to plan our day when we reached our starting point, and off we went for a nice 2 hour hike along the Banyang water fall trail. We got to see some pretty cool water falls and gorgeous drop offs and caves. Our second hike after lunch was a little shorter and not as impressive, but still nice. Apparently no one uses the bus system in Hualien, because everyone we talked to about the bus had a different opinion, so when we hit the end of our hike and started looking for a bus stop, we didn't have much luck. It was stressful because we (Andrew and I) had to make it back in time to catch our 7pm train back to Banchiao so we could go to work the next morning. Luckily I had held onto a taxi business card, and after much struggling with trying to find a signal on one of our cellphones, I was able to get us a taxi to take us back down. The driver was really nice, showing us stuff we missed and pointing out certain rock formations. At one point he pulled to the side of the road, except on the side of on-coming traffic, to show us something. I heard an audible gasp from Andrew's mother and I looked back to see her head in her hand. The crazy Taiwan taxi drivers definitely lived up to their image. After safely making it down the gorge, we had dinner at a cafe across from the train station, said goodbye to Andrew's parents, and headed back home. The three hour train ride went pretty quickly because I was sleeping for most of it.

Andrew gave me his cold that he was fighting all weekend, so this week has been recovering from that and getting use to working a whole week after having a 4 day weekend!

On the school front: I thought I would share some happy items, since it seems I'm always dealing with poopiness. John's mom wrote in the communication book that she was really happy with his reading progress, he's doing much better than before. Gaga's mom wrote that GaGa hoped I wasn't sick anymore because he liked having me teaching more than Ted. (Ted subbed for me on the Monday I took off to go to Hualien, the kids thought I was out sick.) Vincent's mom said she was really happy with his progress. He really enjoyed class, and one day he asked his mom to pick out words from his ABC book and quiz him. And when he was home sick, he kept bugging his mom about not having the homework. (Vincent is one of the best students in the class, I wonder why....)

On daily life: Did you know garbage collection here is every day except Sunday? The truck comes about two times a day at the same time (for us, we throw our trash at 7:30pm), and plays really loud classical music to let you know it's coming. So you know it's trash time when people are standing on the side of the road with trash bags waiting for the truck.

School drama

First, let me update you about Eric. Oh god, you are thinking, not again. I didn't even think there was a major issue, but boy did it come back and bite me. Anywho, Romina's mom remarked in the comm. book that "Romina says Eric hit her in class." Romina is not one to lie, and her mom never writes in the comm. book unless she's concerned about something. So Kate wrote it in Eric's comm. book, because his parents are always telling us to tell other parents when their kid hits Eric. So Eric's mom wrote back saying "Eric says he didn't hit her." Then that day Eric was hitting GaGa's book with his closed fist, hit Gaga's hand, and made him cry. So Kate wrote it in the comm. book. This was on Thursday (which was a hell day because we were super short staffed, and the kids were out of control, the kids just couldn't understand the work we were doing, everything was late, I was watching the front counter and my kids at the same time, some of the kids didn't finish copying the homework until after snack time (incl. Eric, so his mom had to wait for him to finish, you get the point). Any who, Friday comes along, and Eric's mom has written all over the page, telling us to discipline the kids whenever they hit each other when it happens, and not wait. I don't know where she got the notion that we didn't, because we always stop the kids mid-hitting and tell them to stop, or right after hitting happens. Of course we don't wait, there would be no point. Then she asks why did Eric have to stand for three hours, and he couldn't read his ABC book, what's the point of sending to him school if he already knew it all (since all he had time for was to copy the words.) This is what happened: Eric ALWAYS comes late, and he's the only one. Class starts at 9am, all of the kids are usually ready for class at 9am, except for Eric, where 9:15am is an early day for him. I go over the homework words at 9:05 with the kids, so of course he is always missing the review on what they mean and how to pronounce them. Usually I get a chance to go over the words with him once during the day, but Thursday was hellish and I just couldn't get to his ABC book. He had to stand, yes, but that's because he kept getting out of his seat and talking. I told him to stay in his chair, or he was going to lose it. Well, he kept getting out, so I told him to put his chair in the back of the room. (And he wasn't the only kid to lose his chair that day, all the other parents were fine, the kids had much better posture when they got their chairs back.) He didn't stand the whole time because while he was doing his work he was sitting on his Calvert box half the time, and he got his chair back for lunch time. (If he was late for class, and lunch started at 12pm, with him having been able to sit awhile before he lost his chair, I don't think he stood for 3 entire hours.) But we can't push what happened, because then basically we would be telling Eric's mom that Eric is lying, and no wants to open that box again. Sigh. Jennifer told me to write a letter to his mom explaining what happened, we hope he can show up earlier, we'll talk to her first if anything like this happens again, blah blah. So I had to stay late on Friday, even though I wanted to go home and clean up the house before meeting with Andrew's parents. Sigh.

And I just found out today that Kate might be leaving really soon to take care of her ailing mother in Tainan (southern Taiwan) and she doesn't know when she'll return, so basically she's going to be quitting soon. DISTRESS!!!

Almost out of time, will tell you about the visit next time!