Friday September 9, 2011

I have a cell phone number! Sam's dropping my phone off today because they didn't have the color I wanted last night. Even a cheap one was kind of expensive because I didn't want to sign a 2 year contract. Sam's like, "well here's the thing, it's going to be more expensive to just do a  prepaid phone than if you did a 2 year contract.." I'm like, "well here's the thing Sam, I've only been here for 3 weeks and I'm not deciding to stay a whole extra year to save money on my cell phone.." Now that I’ve gone this long without a phone, I don’t really see a need for one except for the school needing a number from me and the possibility of my horrible sense of direction getting me lost in the stray dog town again and me needing a rescue.

I skyped with the Nanny family last night. It was good to see the boys and I talked with Eric about some of his abroad experiences. He had some good advice about trying new things and accepting invites because I may be missing out on something I actually like and if people ask me to do things and I turn them down, they’ll stop asking. He asked if I was homesick, I somehow can’t answer that question without getting all choked up even though most days I feel fine and don’t think about it too much. That’s a pretty straight forward answer right there, “hey are you homesick..” “Um yea..yea kinda” (my eyes well up with tears and my throat closes up..so pathetic) He taught me how to set up a dropbox  for my pictures which I think I should set up with my dad too because my dad doesn’t go on facebook to look at pictures.

Lunch was interesting at the school, it was an “American” lunch so there was chicken nuggets and spaghetti. I wouldn’t necessarily call it gross because it was kind of nice not having rice for one day, but an Asian style Bolognese sauce over pasta, was probably comparable to Spaghetti-o’s. They had bananas again. I was excited. I took two. Chiao brought me a moon cake. She told me if you get a lot of Moon Cakes during Moon Festival, it means you’re popular, so sometimes people feel bad if they don’t get any.  I think I received a few because I’m the new American girl who everyone feels bad for and invites me to their homes for tea and dinner every week  and they think I have no friends (which is not entirely true..I’m working my way up to about 3 friends.) It’s kind of nice, but I’m pretty sure this popularity will fizzle out in about a week. The one she gave me had green beans in it but they were sweeter. I finally told her that in America, we don’t put beans in our desserts. She’s like “really?! What type of desserts do you eat?” I’m like, “well if we fill pastries I guess they’re filled with fruit or chocolate or something like that..” I feel like shipping her an apple pie one day or something. We decided to go to the Taiwan Symphony on the 24^th with her boyfriend and his friend. After lunch, I drank coffee with Coffee Joe and we talked about how pomelos are the same as grapefruits. He always sounds so interested in what I’m talking about, even the topic of what fruits we do and do not have in America is like.. awesome. So I just googled images of grapefruits and that gave us something to talk about for 10 minutes. He’s like, ”so you eat them with a spoon and don’t peel them??” Student’s came around with mooncakes, these ones were black. I was like, “Wow they’re black! what kind are these??” And then they gave me that too cool teenager look and were like “We put them in dirt..” and I was like “Wow good English!”(smartasses in every country I guess)

I changed up my lesson plan throughout the day which seems to be more of a common thing for me now. I literally start with one idea for the first class of the week and it always kind of sucks and doesn’t work and by the 18^th class I can barely remember what my original idea was and the new one is 100 times better. Crazy how that happens (I feel bad for the first class of the week.) The lesson ended up being the whole “How is your day going?” lesson where everyone has to speak and they have different answers they can give me. But I got the lesson down to a tee to where they have about 10 minutes at the end of class and I have them get into groups of 4 and write down as many questions they want to ask me and I told them they can ask Teacher Diana anything..this made for some interesting questions. I ended up adding a rule where once one group asked a question the other groups had to cross it off of their list and they couldn’t ask that anymore, so it ended up being a motivator to get the groups to volunteer first.  Some of the more advanced students asked some pretty tough questions! Others asked some funny ones . A lot of them want to know if I have a facebook..If they ever add me I’d have to do some major facebook editing, or just create a completely new one which is what Kristen suggested. 

Sam never came to the school with my cell phone which I was kind of banking on having for the night because I started to give my number out and I was expecting Wenli to call me before we headed to the BBQ. I had like, giant sweat pits in my new cute gray dress from J Crew which I wanted to wear to the BBQ, but noooo I have to sweat like an animal everyday.  I wore a different dress and attempted to re-straighten my hair which I’m still attempting to do out here for some stupid reason, at least now I know to bring a  hair tie and bobby pin everywhere I go because your hair will end up a disaster after 15 minutes in a room/outside. Sam said he’d drop the phone off to where me and Wenli were because he was running late (shocker.) Wenli picked me up on time and we headed over to this Elementary school’s BBQ. I was nervous because like I previously mentioned, Wenli said that I wouldn’t know anyone and she was leaving after an hour to go to her family’s BBQ. We followed this lady and her son (who is my student) to the bbq and I guess her and her husband are heads of the PTA. At the BBQ, Sam showed up with my phone in a bag and I had to carry it around with me. We walked into the BBQ and this school was decked out! They basically had a quad and the whole thing was set up with tables/chairs, a karaoke stage, balloon animal stand, tables and tables of food, and giant tubs of drinks. First thing I noticed when I walked in was cups full of beer on every table..I was like “wait a minute..thats not green tea..the foam is too thick to be tea…that’s..that’s..BEER!!! Hallelujah! They drink! But I probably won’t be drinking because I’m with my supervisor, the principal, and my student’s parents, right? WRONG. First thing the principal asks me is if I want a beer and doesn’t even listen to my answer and grabs me one. I gave this phony answer where I pretended to be hesitant and kind of said “nono are you sure?”, but then turned it into “ohh ok twist my arm, if you WANT me to have one, I will..” They had Heinekens too. 

This nice guy who was a teacher at the other school talked to me the whole time and him and the principal were asking me about beer and other various topics. Wenli and I went to get food from the tables and it looked like it was catered, but I think it was all made and brought by parents and staff! There was fresh fruit (the pineapple here is the best) trays and trays of fried rice, noodles, popcorn chicken, and soups. I thought that was the meal we came for but she said “Don’t fill up too much, there is still BBQ.” Up at the Karaoke stage, they were drawing names for raffles and the principal insisted that I put my name into the drawing and then he got me a few more beers. Then, my principal goes up to the stage to sing karaoke!! They kept asking me to go up there but thank god I had a legitimate excuse,  “I can’t read the Chinese on the monitor..” Everyone started to fire up their stone grills and brought cases and cases of meat/sausages and began grilling for their own table. I was at a table with those PTA parents we followed, the principal, Wenli, and that nice teacher who spoke decent English. I noticed the kids were up at the grills flipping meat and Wenli said that it’s tradition for the children to grill the food for the parents..god can you imagine the lawsuits that would follow if we did that at our schools or homes in America?? “Oh here hunny, grab that spatula and flip my steak in that high flame, would ya?” There were 8 year olds grilling, I’m not joking. Parents sat back and drank..it was actually kind of nice, I bet my parents would’ve loved that when we were growing up. 

I also asked Wenli what their culture’s rules are for table manners (because I’ve noticed there are NONE) and she basically said, they really don’t have any, the only one is to let older people get their food before you. Overall, what we consider “good manners,” they don’t use anyyyyy of those at a table. They eat with their hands, they talk with their mouths full, they spit out pits and bones from their food into a tiny napkin next to their bowl. I also noticed that people don’t use any manners in public either. I’ve never seen so much snot/mucus/coughing/lugees and even the occasional snot rocket, from someone who wasn’t a part of my family or a close friend. They literally hauk lugees everywhere, I don’t even know how to spell that term and never thought I’d have a reason to spell it. It’s gross. Aside from coughing up mucus all day long, I see a lot of older men spit this red stuff and their mouths are all red, and it’s like chewing tobacco but it’s a nut. I think it gives the same buzz that tobacco would. OK I googled. It’s the Areca Nut or they call it the Betel Nut. “Areca nuts are chewed with betel leaf for their effects as a mild stimulant,^[1] causing a mild hot sensation in the body and slightly heightened alertness, although the effects vary from person to person. The effect of chewing betel and the nut is relatively mild and could be compared to drinking a cup of coffee.” Whatever, long story short: People just love to spit here. 

Back to the BBQ. Apparently, they started drawing names for the raffle, and everyone at my table started freaking out and was like “Diana Diana you won!!” and I’m like..shut up really!! So I walk up there, everyone at this wedding reception sized BBQ claps and they don’t even know me, and I got a gift wrapped box. They had me open it at the table and it was this cute Minnie and Mickey Mouse tea set! I actually needed a tea set in my apartment. THEN, not even 10 minutes later, and another beer deep, they call my name again and everyone’s freaking out, I won a NEW BIKE??!! A brand new white and blue mountain bike. I literally wanted to say What the f—(and probably could because no one would understand anyway) but I was speechless. I told the principal I couldn’t accept it because they had just given me a bike 4 days ago!! He said “No, you keep new bike, that was an old bike, you need a new one.” It was so nice.  Wenli left before I got the bike and the principal ended up driving me home. He asked me if I had enough money for the weekend because I still haven’t gotten paid on account that I STILL don’t have my ARC card. Sam said they’re legally supposed to pay me..but actually, I think legally, I need the documentation to show I live in the country before I get paid, so I’m not really arguing it. My supervisors and principal insisted that I take money from their pockets and I told them no and that I can take out money from the States. The principal was like “this isn’t a pride thing, take the money..” I’m like haha I know. That night, Sam wrote me on facebook to say Lien was going to sleepover so we could leave early for Taipei. Because of the holiday weekend, the only bus tickets left to purchase were for 5:30am!! Talk about super early.

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

I was ready to go to the ARC office by 8am, I knew Sam would be late so I took my sweet time waking up and getting ready. He really couldn’t be late because I had to be at the school by 10am. He got to my place at 8:15, only 15 minutes late. I asked if it’d be ok if we could get coffee at some point before I go to the school and we ended up making a stop before the ARC office. We went to another 85 degrees but this location was way better. It was a full bakery and coffee shop. I got this AMAZINGGGG pastry. I swear it was one of the best things I’ve had. It was super fluffy but still tasted like a really good blueberry bagel from a homemade bagel shop, and it had some walnuts in it. It was great. The coffee was good too. They only have whole milk everywhere except Starbucks so that kind of hurts my stomach, but it’s still good. The ARC office didn’t take too long, once I have that card, my life will be in order. I will receive paychecks and have medical insurance. I was a little worried for today’s lesson plan because I only had one regular class and then the two I have in the afternoon back to back, are English club. So I need to plan different things for that class. It’s supposed to be a fun class with some English related projects and what not. I created a Human Bingo game for the kids to get to know each other, but I needed to make copies before hand.

When Sam dropped me off, he mentioned that we can go get a cell phone anytime this week. We also talked about a big group dinner happening again which makes me excited because that’s my only social interaction outside of the school. Sure enough, when I get inside the office and want to make my copies, the copy machine is broken. There’s a lady in the office who is the copy lady, she’s handicapped, not that it matters, but she’s in a wheel chair and it’s probably not nice to be like, “hey can you go get these copies printed real quick for me..” Mark noticed I was concerned about not making copies and I said, “Well I didn’t know how many kids would be in my English club and didn’t have copies made, I can go do it myself if you show me the room.” But nope, he sent the lady to go do it for me. I felt bad. 

English club went well for the first part. The bingo game was fun and I had a little lesson on Moon festival for the second part, but the second part fell super short and I had about 15 minutes left of class. I tried wingin it but it wasn’t turning out well. I ended up showing a music video of Michael Jackson’s moon walk, they liked that. (Moon walk..moon festival, I swear there’s a connection.) Me and Sam were exchanging a few messages back and forth about getting people together for a dinner tonight actually. I got really excited. He said Lien would probably come and Andrew Liu so It should be fun. My co-teacher for English club is really nice, her name is Beryl. She’s younger and she’s also brand new to the school. She really wants to collaborate and work together on projects and lessons for English club which I’m excited for. In a lot of my training they mentioned to not let the co-teacher take over or even give them more than a few responsibilities, but they also never mentioned you’d have about 18 classes and over 600 students to worry about, so I will take Beryl up on her offer. She also knew more about the requirements for the students than I ever knew. She said there’s a showcase at the end of the semester where we need to show some of their work and she said each kid has a portfolio to build up. I’m like..wow please keep telling me more, because I didn’t know any of this. Beryl invited me to her apartment some weekend for tea and I told her that would be fun. 

Since I got dropped off at work by Sam, I planned on taking the bus back to my apartment but Mark offered to drive me home. He said that he could show me a safer street to ride my bike on my way to school. I forgot to really pay attention to what streets he said. During our conversation, he asked if I’ve ever lived in another country and if my family wanted me to come out here. I told him they were a little worried but then knew it’d be a great experience so they told me they wanted me to. He said that after our interview, he was afraid I’d turn down the job offer, but everyone was excited I accepted. He probably sensed some hesitation. Once I got into my apartment, Sam told me to hurry and catch a bus to the Dewey offices because the restaurant would be around there. I took my sweet time showering and getting ready because I know how late everyone else would be. I googled the bus to get an idea of how long the trip would be  and it said about 30 minutes and I also remember Sam saying 3 weeks ago that it was 15 stops away from my apartment. Thank god I got on when I did. I was fortunate to have a seat but this bus got soooo packed, I was shocked that it could even accelerate. It reminded me of the Huskie Bus during the wintertime and how you would freeze your ass off waiting to go to class and if the Huskie Bus was too packed it would just zoom by you..then you would say, screw it I’m not going to class it’s too cold, and go back to bed..well at least that’s what I did. I counted the bus stops on my fingers which I’m glad I did because it was so crowded that there’s no way I’d be able to base where I’m getting off by looking out the window. My finger counting and keeping track of time was pretty accurate. The bus also started to empty out towards the end of the trip so I could see that bright beautiful green Starbucks sign that indicated where the Dewey offices were. 

Jim from orientation, Andrew, Adrien, and this guy Jeff who works with them, were all waiting by the building. Sam was already at the restaurant saving seats (shocker) I had to ride on Andrew’s motor bike which was so scary at first. He had a helmet for me and I was just like..terrified at first. He asked if I’ve ever ridden on a motor bike and I said I rode on my uncles motorcycle when I was real little, I think I was braver back then. The restaurant was really close though and it was cool looking. I guess it was a Japanese BBQ place and it was called “Goat Horn.” It was all you can eat for 2 hours and you would just keep marking more and more things off on the list and they would bring a ton of food out. I had a lot of sushi/strange seafood and then meat that you would cook on this little grill at your table. You had to take off your shoes before you stepped up onto the seats..like you had to walk on seats to get to your table. It was pretty good, about the same price or a little more than hot pot but I like hot pot better. It was also Jim’s birthday and he lives kind of far out from everyone so I’m sure it was good for him to get out and do something. Andrew Liu told me he likes my skin tone and I had to ask him something that I heard . A guy in our orientation group found out that the reason people cover themselves up completely in the hot sun is because the darker your skin, the more unintelligent people think you are (it must date back to dark skin indicating you have a hard labor job) but ladies seriously keep their skin covered and fair out here when it’s 90 degrees out! Long sleeves, pants, gloves, umbrella. I’ve seen it all. So I’m out here walking around in tank tops trying to get a good base and they’re wearing their best autumn attire. I asked Andrew if people look at me and think I’m an idiot or something because I have darker skin, he told me that this is a very very old belief, and the older generation may still follow it, but the younger generation doesn’t do this anymore. So people my age like tanning too? I dunno, I just don’t want to walk into a classroom and have people look at me and think, oh she must be a dumbass.

Sam took me to a stationary store after the restaurant so I could get some paper and then drove me home so I didn't need to take the bus back which was cool. His scooter driving scared me a little. I watched an episode of It's Always Sunny- The Dumpster Baby one and skyped with my mom before bed.