Taiwanese Adventures: Let the teaching begin!

August 29, 2011

Well Monday wasn’t really like a school day at all, but I woke up super early to get ready (don’t even know why I bother straightening my hair, when it rains, it gets gross out.) I wanted to make it to the bus on time and I wasn’t 100% sure how to get there so I left pretty early. The infamous typhoon that was almost going to cancel schools, never came. So sure enough, I over shot my walk a bit and started walking into this morning market with a bunch of fruit stands and people selling used clothing and items on the ground..(Literally “used watches” on a blanket) but then I retraced my footsteps a bit and I was at the bus stop. I got to the stop at about 7:25am..plenty of time right? Didn’t have to be at the school til 8:30 am..but oh no no..not in Taiwan. Not just the people show up late everywhere..the buses also show up late. I waited until about 8:05 and I told myself “When it’s 8:10, I’m getting a cab..” then of course the bus shows up, and once I’m on it, I’m only on it for about 5 minutes haha. Ridiculous. I get to the school and was energetically greeted by a staff member, Wenli. She’s awesome! Helps me with everything, is pretty high up in the school in the staff, but she’s also one of my 10 co-teachers. Her and another supervisor of mine, Mark, insisted that I don’t take the bus anymore. They started exploring options for me and asked if I was interested in a bike or a scooter. I told them that I still don’t know the streets to well so either one might be a bit dangerous. I don’t know if I’ve expressed how crazy the scooters are here, but they’re nuts, and they share a lane with the bicycles..soo that’s scary. Sam said I’d almost be safer on a scooter than a bike, but he thinks I’m not ready for either of them haha. As stubborn as I am, I agree with him on this. I was at the school from 8:30 til noon and did a lot of planning and editing my lesson plans. Mark mentioned that in my skype interview, my hair was different, and so I said “Oh yes, it was curly.” And he’s like, “No no, you were blonde..I thought you were blonde.” I’m wondering if they were hoping for a blonde American.

Also in that time, I met more of the staff and Wenli told me that the Principal wanted to see me..my stomach dropped as if I was I student and heard this..brought back some memories. I went up to the second level of Yu Ying and the principal’s office is HUGE and has a balcony that overlooks most of the school’s campus. Wenli came with me and the principal immediately offered me some coffee and I politely accepted. Yum. I can’t turn that down, I miss my coffee. The principal is one of the nicest people on earth. He’s very soft-spoken but kind hearted at the same time. I know I’m saying this after only spending about 20 minutes in his office, but I instantly got that vibe. He too, was concerned about me taking the bus. They’re really insisting on finding me a bike and he even wants to talk to the PTA to see if they have any bikes to offer. He asked if I was married or had a boyfriend, and I said “No so I have a lot of spare time to dedicate to teaching.” We all had a laugh about this (except I was kind of serious.) He started to ask Wenli in Chinese about my background. She started asking me if I was “Juice..are you Juice?”…I’m like, “Juice..juice..Jews..OH am I Jewish? No.” and They were like “Yes yes, oh ok.” Then he’s like “Are you..mid east..uh mid east?” I’m like, “Middle Eastern, Nope.” I finally told them what my nationalities are and he said he could tell I was Italian because of my skin. Wenli and the principal both mentioned that they don’t expect me to teach every single child how to speak perfect English, they know that’s not realistic, but they just want me there to encourage the students and have them hear how I talk. Improve their pronunciation. Basically, have fun with the kids and hope they learn in the process. This was relieving because I thought my job was going to be to teach parts of speech, spelling, handwriting, past tense, but the students learn all of that in a separate class with each of my co-teachers. While Wenli was going over my schedule and class times, she was like “And this is Lunch times, and after lunch we come back here and rest and you can take a nap.” I was like..haha yea..right, nap. “Ya ya, you rest your head on desk and we lower lights.” She’s serious. At noon, Wenli drove me back to my apartment.

I had the whole rest of the day to explore, so I walked around my apartment again but in a different direction and I came upon an outlet mall right by me!! They had Tory Burch flip flops. I swear to god they were the real thing. They had all the colors! They had the ones that I broke on St Patrick’s day (doing an Irish jig of course) and they had the ones that Ashley and Gina had! They were 899 NT, so $32 USD. The lady of course didn’t have my size so she said to come back in 3 days. They’ll have more sizes. The outlet mall was a part of a Holiday Inn and it had a nice restaurant in the main level. I ate at the restaurant by myself but it was relaxing. It was “expensive” for one person (280 NT=$10) but you ordered your entrée from a small menu, then there was an all you can eat salad bar/drink bar included. I could’ve ordered beer or wine for an extra charge, but looking around, not one person was drinking. I already stand out as it is so being the only person to order alcohol at 1pm would be embarrassing. The meal I got was Spicy angel hair pasta with asparagus, shrimp and garlic. The shrimp didn’t have its face and whiskers so I was pretty stoked to eat this. I actually didn’t buy anything in the mall and I started to walk back. I wanted to go into this big well known park on the way back but it started to rain harder. I live right by the park so I’m not worried. When I got back to my apartment, I checked my facebook and saw that Sam messaged me saying he’d be at my apartment in an hour with my mattress. WOO HOOOO. He got there and I helped him with the mattress (well actually it’s a box spring, but close enough) and it’s a tiny bit bigger than a twin size but it still fit fine. He taught me what all of the buttons on my air conditioning remote meant. Basically, I only need to worry about 3 out of the 12 buttons. He also thought we should attempt at getting a phone even though he doesn’t think I’ll be able to for another week when my ARC application is in.

Church near the park

Cool squiggly trees at the park

Outlet Mall!

Great food at Great Room

Sooo good

Look! My bed is off the ground!

We get all the way to this huge place that looked like a big bank with a bunch of bank tellers, but it was a cell phone place. You type in your name and then there are these electronic signs above all 30 tellers and then your number gets called and you walk right up. No luck though, I need to wait a week. He asked if I was hungry and I wasn’t really but I knew I would be in about an hour from them and I figured I should take advantage of having him with me so I could order food. He took me to a little stand that I’m so close to and they make two different things there. A giant potsticker about the size of a baseball, but it’s not called that, and then this big pancake thing that’s cooked on a large skillet and they put an egg on it, hot sauce, soy sauce, and seasoning. It’s about the size of a large crepe and it’s cut into 4ths. He said that’s something I could save as snack for later without a fridge and it would be fine. Sooo I did. This food was so good, but again, very unhealthy. Even the black tea they gave me was delicious. I told Sam that I thought I’d be meeting Andew that night and he said Andrew was at a meeting. I also told Sam that Andew probably doesn’t even exist and it was just a big plan to get me out here. He thought this was pretty funny, and sure enough, I got an email from Andrew asking if I’d be available to have dinner with him and Sam the next night. He said it’d be at a “hot pot place” and asked if I knew what it was and I got so excited! I was like, I LOVE HOT POT!! At night, I relaxed on my big comfy bed (and by big I mean tall, it’s not one inch off of the floor anymore) and I skyped with a few people. Mom, Kristen and Charlie. Dad was doing funny things in the background. I wrote the Nanny family an email to schedule a skype date with them. I miss those little guys :(

This picture doesn't do it justice. So good.

August 30, 2011

The first day of classes was crazyyyy. I walk to the bus extra early because I had to be at the school by 8, not 8:30, and of course the bus came at like 7:05. I got to the school at about 7:20. The humidity ruined my hair and my shirt. I was dripping sweat and you could see every drop through the shirt. Whatever, people here don’t care. It’s not like I’m teaching at Naperville Central where I cared about every detail of my outfit. Wenli, Mark, and the Principal were like, “why are you so early!!” It was fine though, I had work to do anyway. The whole day I had 7^th graders. Wenli asked if I had breakfast and I didn’t so she took me to a small shop in the school for teachers where they sold juice, water, smaller “breakfast” foods. I chose a bun that was like Hawaiian bread. Wenli chose students from each one of my classes to come to the office and take me to the class. It was really nice. I noticed immediately that some were very proficient in English and others would just giggle when I talked. The first class was very quiet and it seemed as though the students understood nothing. My co teacher is this real nice younger girl who’s new also. She was asking me if I want her to translate and I was like..”sure!” Once she did that, all of the kids started their worksheet I made them. I felt bad that we didn’t do a fun game on the first day, but a lot of people suggested that I give them a worksheet that tests what they know before I plan my lesson for the year. The second class was the exact opposite of the first one. They were super hyper and yelling “TEACHER TEACHER, NI HAO NI HAO HAHAHAHHA.” I was like, woah ok, settle down. They asked if I knew any Chinese and I said, yes, 2 words. I told them I’m interested in learning so I’ll teach them English and they can teach me Chinese. They loved that. This class gave me a lot of verbal and non verbal feedback during the lesson to show that they understood what I was saying. Their energy gave me energy and next thing I know I’m acting out what I mean by Action and Scary movies or what Rap and Classical music is on their worksheet. The office gave me a microphone and said it would be best if I use it. The kids are eager to help set the mic up and the smart board up which helps. I was supposed to have 3 classes in a row but the 3^rd one was cancelled for an assembly and apparently the principal wanted to introduce me.

The assembly was pretty intimidating. It was all in Chinese and then every student turns their head to look at me and that’s when I knew the principal was introducing me haha. He brought me up to the front and everyone clapped and he asked if I wanted to say anything. I said I was honored to be at their school and I think we’ll have a great school year. But nope, that wasn’t enough, he wanted me to talk more about myself. Then I got all awkward and was like, Um I’m from the United States of America, a city called Chicago. I spurted out some things about Chicago. I don’t know why I got so nervous. After this assembly, it was lunch time and I went to the cafeteria with Wenli. I brought my own plastic lunch box and chopstick set. Everyday’s meal is different which is good, but whether I like more than one thing offered is a challenge.

Today’s lunch was pork in some kind of a barbeque sauce and then steamed veggies, rice, some tofu (which I still don’t eat) and some soup and grapes. I ate the pork (tried fishing out the only pieces with no bones) over some white rice, and some grapes. The grapes have seeds in them which surprised me. And they’re huge! After lunch, everyone goes back to the office, and no joke, they dim the lights, and people lay their heads on their desks..I was like..Wait seriously!!?? Nap time?? I think I can work with that..but I snore so I’ll just stay awake. This guy, Joe, who sits behind me, is so nice. I mentioned that I’d like to find a place with coffee and someone in the office is like “You need coffee?? Ask Joe.” Sure enough, he opens up one of his desks drawers and he has bags of coffee beans (that he roasts himself) and like 3 different ways to make coffee (not one was a French press!) So he starts grinding me coffee and uses this interesting coffee maker that you plug in and the steam rises and cooks the water and the coffee grinds at the same time. Ok I just realized that I described a normal coffee maker right there..but seriously this thing was cool and it made it faster. He warned me that the coffee might be strong and I was like, yea I like strong coffee. This was Nick double brewing style strong! I had to add water. It was awesome. After the coffee, I had more planning periods. I have so much free time. I usually just have 4 classes throughout the day and then Wednesday’s its only 3 and Thursday’s its 5. My office is nice and air conditioned but then when I get inside of a classroom I’m drenched..it doesn’t feel hot but it’s just so humid. I keep forgetting that when I go to fill my water bottle, you choices are warm water or hot water because they drink so much tea. I asked if they had cold water and they didn’t understand. I just fill up my water bottle and stick it in the freezer there. I had a few emails from Sam and Andrew confirming dinner plans for the night. They were at 6:30. Then, Wenli tells me there’s a staff meeting after school that lasts an hour and it starts at 4:30. I was nervous I was going to get out late, and sure enough, the meeting started late and we got done at about 5:30ish.

When we walked into the meeting there was a seating chart for everyone. It was really funny because it was written in all Chinese and then you just see “Diana” and then a ton of symbols. Chiao was placed right next to me! She translated some of it but other times she just kept saying “This is very boring, right?” and I’m like..well ya It’s boring but mainly because I don’t understand one word. I just clapped when everyone else clapped and then when they all looked at me, once again, I knew I was being introduced so I stood up and waved. Then the principal said something and everyone laughed and looked at me and Chiao was laughing. She said that the principal just told everyone that I don’t have a mate, so they need to find me one.

Joe's got good joe.

I was nervous about being late for my dinner plans, and Chiao kind of offered to drive me home but not really, and then offered to drop me off at the bus stop. I got off at the bus stop and it was 5:45 and the electronic sign said the bus wouldn’t be there for another 26 minutes..and then 5 minutes later it still said 26 minutes. So I was like, screw it..I think I know how to get home, I’ll just walk. Worst. Idea. Ever. It took me about 45 minutes to get back and I got so lost. At one point I walked through a town of just stray dogs..no owners or open stores..just a community of dogs. It reminded me of a Disney movie or something. One where they probably all stick together and talk to each other in dog language, and run away from a pelt collector and team up to attack her. It was sad though. The weather was shitty and I still have no phone so I of course started to cry. Then after about 30 minutes of walking aimlessly, I saw the bridge that is by the outlet mall! I was just on the complete opposite side of it. Once I saw that I was practically sprinting home and dripping with sweat and rain of course. Perfect for a dinner. I got inside of my apartment at 6:35, still had no way of contacting them by phone to let them know I’d be late, and I switched into new clothes and sprayed perfume and I left my apartment. Right outside of my apartment was the landlord’s wife and their two cute boys. She doesn’t speak English but their son Barry does. He’s so cute and smart. A little 7 or 8 year old. I showed him the Chinese name of the restaurant and he’s like, “When you get by the public pool, it’s across the street to the right.” I’m like Woah! Good English! So I’m walking fast to get there remotely on time. I get there at 6:45, and what do ya know..they aren’t there yet..I somehow managed to take a walking tour of the city, in the rain, got back to my place to change, and THEN got to the restaurant, and they’re STILL late. It’s amazing really. Never again will I rush to get anywhere in Taiwan. They put me at a table because Sam made reservations (why that kid makes reservations, I don’t know..) and then the infamous Andrew Liu walks in!! He’s reallll, he’s a real boy. Sam and another worker, Adrien, followed in shortly after.

Dinner was awesome. Those guys were so nice and funny, it was good to have dinner with a group of people. Hot pot is awesome because it’s all you can eat, so at this place they kept bringing out trays and trays of meat and then you take a break and get some ice cream and then go back to eating meat. I didn’t necessarily do that, but the 3 boys did this like 3 times!! I had pork, lamb, and beef. The beef was the best. I also drank 3 little bottles of Coke. I was so damn thirsty and it just tasted so good. I think I liked this hot pot place better because they bring the meat out to you and it’s smaller and not as confusing. Andrew is as nice in person as he was online and on the phone. So sweet! I asked him “honestly, how many times did my mom email you?” He’s like “You really want to know..” haha but he had nothing but nice things to say about her and said that his own mom is like that. After dinner he asked if he could treat us to pie at this famous pie place next door. I love pie so I said of course, but this place was a bit different. Taiwan doesn’t make fruit pies, they make bean pie and taro pie and weird pies. I ordered the only normal sounding one, Black forest. It was ok, but again, the textures of a lot of these foods are so weird that I can't concentrate on the taste...the chocolate mousse on top was amazing though. We ate our pies at McDonalds because the pie place was closing and then Andrew bought us all “Shape tea.” I guess its iced tea that is a blend of a ton of teas and it’s really good for your metabolism and is zero calories (thus giving you a good “shape,”) but like anything super healthy like that, it tasted like crap. I almost wanted to plug my nose and chug it so I could get the shapely benefits, but I couldn’t. We ended up staying out until about 11 and planned on meeting at another restaurant sometime soon and I finally went home (well after I found a cheap cute pair of flats for work at a night market, we went home.) I was so tired that I decided to set my alarm to take a shower in the morning.