I wish we could wear costumes everyday. They definitely make kids even cuter than they already are!
You'll see what I mean:
My babies class! Aren't they so adorable!
Me with one of my favorite classes!
David with our class. He was being SO goofy!
Rosa, my little Korean princess.
Tina, the scary witch!
Harry Potter! I mean, Wudy.
Johnathan being dopey in my Domo mask.
Ruby, my dead Geisha.
Alice and Little Janice, my pretty girls!
Edison! His grandpa is the man sitting behind him. He made this whole costume!
Oh and of course, where there are children on a holiday, there are songs to be sung! Remember this classic?
Trick or Treat Smell my feet Give me something good to eat If you don't I don't care I'll pull down your underwear!
I've always preferred this version, which is exactly what I taught to my kids.
The other classes apparently use "Not too big, not too small, just the size of a basketball."
Obviously this one is more kid friendly I suppose, but I like that the one I learned when I was a kid really lets you know what you're in for if you decide to say trick instead of treat. Just sayin'.
More Halloween tomorrow and maybe Saturday depending on how my older kids are feeling. At the very least, I have one more little kid class and then lots of jack-o-lantern carving in another one tomorrow!
Can anyone think of any other songs? As much as I love it, I'm still getting a little tired of hearing it after 25 times.
It's only Tuesday morning and I'm already exhausted this week.
The sad part is, I haven't really done anything. I'm just lazy.
On Sunday, Tess, Katie and I all slept in — for once I didn't sleep the latest though — and then we had a leisurely day of fun all planned out for ourselves.
We went to Debbie's where I finally had the eggs benedict that I've been craving for a week. It's nice to just have this nice little place where we can go to get Western food that we didn't have to cook ourselves.
Then we went to walk up Tiger Head Mountain. Yep, I finally actually went to Tiger Head. It only took me four months. Now I can start going on my own because I know how to get there. Let's see how long it takes me to get motivated for that.
After Tiger Head, Tess and I didn't a little shopping at the Baking Store. I really mostly browsed so I could get a feel for what I could buy for Thanksgiving dinner. Then we all hung out at the apartment for a couple of hours before heading out to the movies to see Taking Woodstock. It was a pretty funny movie.
I took a lot of pictures on Tiger Head but I haven't uploaded them yet. I'll post them tonight with my Halloween Party Pictures!
Yep, I have my babies class tonight meaning me and 13 adorable children playing tons of Halloween games in lots of crazy costumes. I know that you guys just can't wait to see the amazing photos that will come out of that.
Speaking of costumes, today is "Project Costume" day. I'm headed out to the fabric store so I can make mine now. Hopefully five hours is enough time. It's not like it has to be super high quality. It's just got to hold up for a week.
Today is probably the most successful Saturday I have had since I've been in Taiwan.
Four months of crappy Saturdays... yuck.
I actually had zero trouble waking up this morning even though I didn't go to bed until 1 a.m. I just jumped right out of bed and had plenty of time to take a shower, make coffee at home and stop to get some dan bing on the way to class.
I know you're probably wondering when the heck I'm going to get tired of dan bing. My current answer to that is "never," but I know that is probably not true. For now, it's the only local breakfast cuisine that I know of meaning my only other option of breakfast on the go is McDonald's.
Well, I suppose I could cook... Ew, 7 a.m. cooking.
We had a movie day in my first class. I went to Blockbuster last night and my brain was swirling with ideas of what movie I should pick for the kids. Obviously it had to be age appropriate; it had to be in English with Chinese subtitles; and it had to be something that would win me points with these kids.
Since our class is so early in the morning, we generally don't have much fun and so I always get this feeling that they kind of hate me.
Turns out, that's not it. Or if it was it's not anymore because the second they figured out that I picked Night at the Museum 2 they were all clapping and super excited.
Cool points for Teacher Jimmie.
I got a little homesick watching the movie though. OK, less "homesick" and more "last summer" sick. The majority of the movie takes place in Washington D.C. at the Federal Archives and in the Smithsonian Museums.
Well, if you don't know already, I had an internship in D.C. last summer and although I never saw myself as a D.C. person, it turns out that I really am.
I fell in love with that city.
Also, I definitely spent the majority of my weekends last summer visiting the Smithsonian Museums — they're free so what else is an intern living on $1000/month supposed to do. I went to the Air and Space Museum on multiple occasions because I just kind of love planes and all things aerospace.
Point is: They would show these awesome panoramic shots of the city or these cool parts of the museums and I just kind of felt really sad all of a sudden.
It seems D.C. still holds a piece of my heart.
That said, this blog is supposed to be about Taiwan where it's still raining. That stupid typhoon — Typhoon Lupit — turned northeast and so we're just getting all of the rain that's on the outer edges of the storm. Granted at least we're not getting the actual typhoon, but I still hate driving in the rain.
I don't care where you are, people drive like idiots in the rain! It's universal and I simply don't understand it. It's like no one has ever seen a raindrop in their lives.
Add in a million scooters, flimsy helmets and worthless rain gear and you've got road rash up to your eyeballs. At least one of other teachers does after getting hit by a car a couple of days ago. I'm just glad she's OK. A few big scrapes be she made it out OK.
So many of the teachers at our school have gotten into accidents since I've been here. It's so scary!
Back to my successful Saturday, the rest of my classes went off without a hitch.
Lately I've been describing Saturdays as a pattern of coffee, crappy class, great class, food, crappy class, great class, food, sleep.
I think I'm finally getting to that point where things really aren't so crappy anymore. I still wouldn't describe them all as "great" but I think I'm starting to get somewhere. Maybe it's my new no-nonsense attitude.
In my third class, the kids generally misbehave. One of the kids kept going "Laoshrrrrrrrrr." (Chinese for teacher.)
Finally I just looked at him and said, "Sam! Say 'teacher' not 'laoshr' or you're gonna get double homework!"
Sam looked at my co-teacher and was like... "Uh, she understands Chinese?"
Then we talked about how I am learning Chinese but still know infinitely less Chinese than they know English. And they asked if I know Spanish and I told them I started learning when I was really young. They decided that it's my background speaking Spanish that makes me speak English so fast.
Maybe I should slow down for these kids, eh?
I also gave a girl double homework because she had her cell phone out in class after me telling her multiple times to put it away. She and the other kids in class kept calling each other so their phones would go off and interrupt class. I already told them last week no cell phones in class.
That's just a general respect thing, but it made me feel like a real teacher not necessarily in a good way though.
There are some classes that I honestly feel like you just can't win over and the WOW class I was teaching tonight is definitely one of them.
I can feel the 'tweens in that class judging my every move. I'm not nearly cool enough or thin enough for them and therefore anything I do in class hardly warrants participation.
Result: a very quiet classroom, a very irritated teacher, and some seriously bored kids.
I know I'm supposed to teach through games, but I just can't bring myself to reward them with games. They don't deserve it. Then again I may just be feeding the fire by only playing one game per class.
You win some, you lose some.
Outside the classroom, I slept most of the day (we stayed out too late for Danielle's birthday last night...) and then spent time looking ahead at what I might do after my year is up here in Taiwan. While it is always an option to stay here (and I am considering it) I am also looking at where (or how) else I can grow. Of course, my ultimate goal is to put that journalism degree to good use, so that's also on my brain.
Also, it started raining sometime this afternoon and it hasn't stopped since. That's the thing about rain in Taiwan versus rain in Texas.
Texas: When it rains, it pours. That's not simply a figure of speech. It literally pours whenever it rains in Texas and then next thing you know the evidence it gone except for some wet grass (and the aftermath of a flash-flood or two).
Taiwan: When it rains, it drizzles... OK, maybe it's a little more than a drizzle, but what I mean is that it pretty much rains softly all day.
While I miss being able to hear the rain (probably my favorite noise of all time), it's nice that it's not pouring down when I'm on the scooter driving to work.
Apparently it's supposed to rain through Saturday.
At least it will be gone in time to have a fun Sunday! I'm thinking I might go to the National Palace Museum. Suggestions?
It's gotten to the point where we keep the balcony windows open all of the time now. Yep, it feels that good outside.
Though it's pretty chilly at night. In fact, I'm officially calling it soup season!
I finally tried Taiwanese beef noodle soup (niou ro mien) and it was really good. The broth wasn't exactly what I was expecting (I think I was thinking more beef stew) but after a few bites, I decided I liked it. The noodles were the best.
And it was so filling. I got a little bowl and it was even too much for me to eat.
Then last night I got some guo tie (fried dumplings, or what many of us call "potstickers") and some hot and sour soup (which I have no idea what they call hear, I just pointed).
One of my co-teachers told me about this place by Dar-Nan school that has the potstickers and so I've been going there for a few week now. But she told me they also have great hot and sour soup there.
Since she told me, she has been asking me every week if I've tried it yet. So I decided that, since it's finally cool enough, I would try them finally. I never really liked hot and sour soup at home, but I find that I'm far less picky about food here and so I thought I would just go with it.
It tasted great, but I just couldn't bring myself to eat it.
Think of what egg whites feel like when you first crack open an egg, that was the consistency of this soup. It was almost gelatinous. I am very much a texture person when it comes to food, and that is one texture that I just cannot handle. I tried though. I definitely had a good ten spoonfuls before I just had to give up.
In other exciting, non-food-related news, next week we get to have Halloween celebrations in our classes.
I'm so exciting to see my kindie class dressed up for Halloween and playing all these fun games. In fact, last night, I taught them to sing my favorite Halloween rhyme ever (i.e. the only one I can remember because it's been like 13 years since I've been Trick-or-Treating).
Trick or Treat Smell my feet Give me something good to eat If you don't, I don't care I'll pull down your underwear!
It was the cutest thing in the world.
But this means I have to come up with a costume and a ton of games. Games for little kids and for big kids. The big kids are always the hardest ones though. If you have any fun Halloween game suggestions I would appreciate the help.
In return for the help, I'll post the most adorable pictures ever. I'm going to go camera crazy in my classes next week.
I am proud of myself for holding out all day Sunday before I found out what the final score of the UT/OU game was. That's not to say it wasn't on the back of my mind the entire day, but I had enough cool stuff to keep myself occupied.
We had our big party Saturday night. It is three different teachers' birthdays this week and one of them rented this swank hotel room. We gathered in Taipei at the hotel and then went to this gigantic club called Luxy.
It was so much fun.
And since we already had the hotel room, most of us stayed in the city and just slept on the couch, floor, etc. I put two chairs opposite each other and used a bathrobe as a blanket.
It was kind of like being in college again.
As I was walking to the MRT from the hotel, I started to cross over Shin-Yi Road when I noticed that I could actually see the very top of Taipei 101. For those of you who don't know, 101 is currently the tallest building in the world.
I've been itching to go — I love heights and crazy cool engineering projects like this — but every Sunday I either already had plans to do something or it was cloudy/raining. Obviously it would be stupid to go to the top of a ridiculously tall building when it's cloudy.
The point is to see things.
I spent so much time just walking around the observatory. In general I feel like going to the top of a high building is pretty much always the same. I mean, I've been to the top of the Seattle Space Needle. My work building in Arlington, Virginia was pretty tall (I had a view straight down the National Mall).
It's not the fact that the building is tall that's all that interesting to me. Though Taipei 101 being the tallest is neat, I honestly believe there is a point at which you can't tell that you're much higher. Especially in Taipei because there aren't very many tall building to begin with. If it were towering over all the other sky scrapers, that would be cool.
But it is a different view than all the others and my isn't is beautiful. I love that it's this super dense urban environment, then a big green mountain and then more city. Taipei is a pretty unique city.
The other cool thing about tall buildings is the cool engineering stuff that goes into it. If you've been following along with me then you know that earthquakes and typhoons happen are a pretty regular occurrence here. That has got to be the first thing that pops into the mind of someone who says, "I'm going to build the tallest building in the world in Taipei."
The damper ball — the world's largest passive tuned mass wind damper (according to the 101 Web site) —weighs 660 metric tons and is 5.5 meters in diameter. It's huge. And the way it works is awesome.
It's essentially a big pendulum that sways back and forth — it has a clearance of 1.5 meters to do so — in order to level out the building during earthquakes or high winds. It's just a massive amount of steel strung up by even more steel (24 steel cables each 9cm in diameter) that keeps the gigantic bamboo-shaped steel from falling over.
The best things about the damper are the hilarious Damper Babies. In fact, this month they are celebrating the Damper Babies' sixth birthday.
See! The damper is the body and then you throw on some legs and arms and make the eyes and nose using "101."
They have four different Damper Baby personalities. Find out which one matches you best here.
My tendencies toward obsession have been preoccupied with college football for the past couple of days.
In fact, my Facebook status has something to do with OU still sucking at 8 p.m. Saturday night. What can I say, I like the idea of being "in the future."
I'm proud that although I'm 13 hours ahead and I can't even watch college ball, I still wear my orange every Saturday (even though the game generally doesn't even play until my Sunday) and I do everything I can to keep up with the stats.
I "watch" the game on the CBS College GameTracker. What can I say, I'm a Texas girl — not to mention I certainly have a team worth being proud of.
We're supposed to go out in Taipei tonight for a few of the teachers' birthdays (three people's birthdays in the next week!). I'm still trying to figure out how I can manage to keep up with the game while I'm out dancing with my friends. Maybe there will be a sports bar nearby playing ESPN or something.
I feel like I have a better chance in Taipei.
Other things that have happened recently:
Yesterday, the fire alarm went off in our building for something like an hour. They made some big announcement in Chinese and then it started going off. At first I thought it was the car dealership attached to our building because now and then I hear announcements coming from there.
Then I went out into the hallway and it was definitely the loudest thing ever.
I totally didn't get it until way later, but one of my friends' called in a Chinese Fire Drill.
If you don't know what a Chinese Fire Drill is, see below:
Me with one of my favorite classes!
David with our class. He was being SO goofy!
Rosa, my little Korean princess.
Tina, the scary witch!
Harry Potter! I mean, Wudy.
Johnathan being dopey in my Domo mask.
Ruby, my dead Geisha.
Alice and Little Janice, my pretty girls!
Edison! His grandpa is the man sitting behind him. He made this whole costume!
