So since I politely mentioned to Sabrina that I'd help her out with the English Singing Competition, she stopped by my desk that day to give me the lyrics of the song so I could edit it..never thought I'd have to edit the song "You are my Sunshine.." So she's at my desk and she's asking if I could stop by any days during the week to hear them and I told her.."well I don't nap after lunch so I could stop by and help out then!" She was so excited about this and we planned on me coming in on Thursdays to listen to their singing. Next thing I know, Mark and coffee Joe are also standing by my desk along with Sabrina and they're all trying to sing the tune of this song and in total there's 4 people all singing, You are my Sunshine, during nap time in the office. And yes, I did have to sing because they wanted to make sure they had the right tune..So embarrassing! Later on the day, she gives me a sheet of paper with the student's names on it, the date of the competition, and all this other Chinese mumbo jumbo, and on top of the paper it says "Dear Diana, You're also named as the Director Teacher. The honor will be on you! Let's work together! -Sabrina" I'm like..wait..woah..director teacher what do you mean?? (I thought I was just going to listen to them a few times..) Turns out, along with Sabrina, I'm in charge of the English singing competition..I go and watch their practices and I'll be there for their performance on November 15th...You give people an inch, they take a mile. I thought it was strange that she did this after she asked me the previous day, "Diana, the fortune teller said you're stressed at work, is this true??" And I told her yes and that I'm very stressed because everyone has different expectations and it's a little overwhelming..no one communicates with me..I'm never included in the meetings, I didn't even know I had almost no classes last week due to midterms, I stay up until 3am creating presentations and lesson plans..and not even 24 hours later, she makes me co-director of a singing competition..and I have a frogman voice (well at least everyone in the school thinks something is very wrong with my voice.) This will be interesting to say the least..I'm just getting the full experience out here..
I got my front light fixed, it turns out it was a problem with the switch and not with the light, but he replaced the switch for me, 100NT! I also got my new black mat which is pretty :) makes it look a lot better! Next thing to change, the white back part. I need some paint to paint it black.
Wednesday, October 19th
I was excited for another week not having English club! I know it's bad to say, but some of those kids are so damn boring and don't like to do anything...Today there was a workshop for the Dewey foreigner teachers at the Dewey offices. I like getting to miss work to go hang out with the other foreigner teachers : ) I got to leave school at noon to go get some lunch and then the workshop started at 1:30. I decided to grab lunch by the bus stop which is down the street from me and realized that next to that big green hot pot place I live by, is a Thai restaurant! Yessssss. I was a happy camper. I got spicy basil chicken and the girl was so excited to have me! She brought out a free spring roll and my meal already came with a salad, the chicken, veggies, rice, and thai tea. My total was only 120NT. I'm in love. The basil chicken was soooo spicy, and I actually was running out of time so I had to get it go. The Dewey meeting was..interesting..I felt bad, the lady who was running the workshop didn't really have much of a plan..she would just write random English words on the board and how they have similar sounds to other English words..or if you add an E to an English word it makes it a different word with a different sound (kit and kite) and the whole time I'm thinking..."Um..ya..we know..we're the English speaking teachers.." She meant well though..the one interesting thing she mentioned was about why the students pronounce a lot of their words with an "a" at the end. "It's so good-a, I like-a, what-a" and she said that when they're taught the alphabet and the sounds of the letters at a young age, they say "F, fa fa fa, Efaaa." So basically that's what I got out of this two hour session.
A few of us wanted to grab some dinner and go to this big bookstore, Caves. So Jeff, Caron, Shija, Jim, Lien, James, and me all too the bus out to that area. We grabbed dinner at this restaurant that I've been wanting to try! Fingas! Amber and Sarah mentioned how good it is and they love it so I was realllll excited! It was a Western food restaurant, and guess what they had on the menu..a Reuben!! Ahhhh my favorite sandwich. San-ming-zhr in Chinese. That was on my list of foods to eat before I moved to Taiwan and I did get a great one at some restaurant by the outlet mall. I was drooling, my only complaint, it wasn't big enough. I could've eaten like..two of those san ming zhrs. Shija got a philly cheesesteak that looked awesome and Caron and James got a pasta, Lien got a turkey avocado club, Jim got quesadillas, and Jeff got a Reuben as well! There's my excellent waitressing memory ; )
Saturday, October 21st
After another day of cleaning and shopping and came home to find 3 students sitting in my garage. This time, instead of walking past them with a brief hello, I decided to stop and talk to them and got into further conversation about what exactly they were doing in my building studying every weekend or during random days. Do they have a test, is my landlord a good teacher, are you just studying English..blah blah blah, then, I noticed that they had a set of keys that looked identical to my set of keys, on their desk. I said, "hey do those keys open up these doors?" and they said yes. Then somehow we got into the topic of them not even living in Taichung. They travel here to take my landlords classes..(but really they just watch this computer in my garage with what looks like, my landlord's home videos of him teaching..) So I'm like, "ohhhh you're from out of town..so do you sleep here ever?" and they said yes that they sleep here once in a while. So I told them that I was a little freaked out because last week the doors were left wide open and I'm the only one living in the building and since the landlord has never once mentioned any one staying over, I was scared to hear showers running and foot steps on random nights. They understood and apologized for the doors being open. Later that night, I run into the one boy out of the 3 students, in the classroom when I was getting my snack, and he said "um excuse me, I'm living here tonight.." and I'm like.."living here?? or you're staying here for the night?" and he got all embarrassed about his mistake and said "oh sorry sorry, I'm sleeping here tonight. I need to wake up early and study." I thanked him for telling me.
Sunday, October 22nd
So this day was a prime example of my favorite phrase, "Never a Dull Day in Taiwan"..Even the seemingly boring daily task always has room for excitement or a strange occurrence. I already committed to going to a BBQ with Melody, the overly involved and in your face PTA mom (even Sabrina described her eyes as "very intense.") There was no backing out because she already had called and texted me numerous times throughout the week confirming my attendance. Even her daughter and niece (my 7th an d 8th grade students) mentioned our weekend plans. And when I didn't answer on Friday (because my prepay phone was out of minutes and trying to load minutes onto the phone for the first time was another difficult task to tag onto my list of "Simple things to do that probably won't be as easy as you think because you're in Taiwan") She got pretty upset. When I finally was able to contact Melody on Saturday morning, she said "Oh I was worried about you, I knew that YOU wouldn't be the type of person to NOT answer someone's phone calls and texts.." Ouch..ok definitely can't get out of this..can't wait for this BBQ. So she called that morning saying to meet outside of the buchebon that she runs, which is right by Yu Ying. It was brutally hot and she said to dress casual so I wore a casual dress and sandals. It's the best thing for this type of weather. I even asked my landlord's student, who was studying in the garage that morning, if my outfit was appropriate for a BBQ. His response.."Um..I think isss ok. I think iss good-a."
I met up with my two students at the cram school and Melody was there about 10 minutes later to pick us up and take us to the BBQ. Apparently this thing was being held in the mountains? At first she said it was in the suburbs..Maybe their suburbs are in the mountains? I'm assuming its at some person's house..like in their backyard. Nope. It was at this campsite at the top of a mountain. It was a large site where numerous families could rent out a little area for themselves and they had the stone grills in each section. Right away, the family started to grill those little pieces of pork patties and white slices of bread for pork sandwiches. This seems to be a popular bbq dish and I'm not too crazy about it. First off, I'm not crazy about the pork here, secondly..I don't like to put my grilled meat on to a slice of white bread..that's what families do when they're out of hotdog and hamburger buns..they don't purposely buy wonderbread slices for grilling. It just sticks to the back of my teeth and drives me nuts. But I graciously ate a few bites and then they start grilling an entire fish, bones and head and all, and when it's done, they all dig in with chopsticks. Literally, out of the 10 people there, about 5 at a time are picking at this fish. My students were so nice, they were picking pieces out for me and taking out the small invisible bones. I was like a little kid waiting for my food to be cut up. The fish was actually really good. They grilled it in a coating of salt and that seeped through into the meat. The eating took about an hour of the BBQ and I'm thinking, ok maybe two more hours here, tops. Mingling and more eating probably. That's not what this family had planned.
They planned full on songs and dance for this gathering. Melody originally told me that I need to stand up and teach everyone a dance..I didn't even tip toe around this suggestion..I flat out said "nope, I'm not doing that, I don't know any dances." She kept prodding me to dance for everyone (I'm making it sound like I'm a monkey.) and finally I told her, "I usually only dance when I have a few glasses of wine..I can't just..start dancing.." She loved this and said "OHhhh I wish we had wine for you!! We'll get you wine later!" I'm not sure why Melody insisted I even start the dance lesson because she clearly had a routine and a song planned out for everyone. She turned on the cd she brought along and started teaching everyone a dance to some song that sounded exactly like Mambo #5, but in Chinese. After the dancing, it was time for the songs..and not just any songs, religious songs. Chinese songs about Jesus. I don't mind all of these things in a church setting, but I'm not up for it at a campsite with strangers..and in a different language. The whole group did try their hardest to speak in English most of the time and sing an equal amount of English religious songs, but it's just uncomfortable. Originally when Melody was asking me to hang out the past few sundays, and I was busy, she was asking me to go to church with her and her family (I really was busy I swear.) After the songs and prayers, there was an "organized" game. Melody's nephew had a game planned for everyone and we attempted to play it for a good 15 minutes but no one was understanding the rules or..the point of the game all together. But parts of the game reminded me of my favorite drinking game in College, Zumie Zumie. Of course, they asked if I had any ideas for games and I said.."well..there is this one game..zumie zumie.." Everyone was given a number and we did the clapping and chant of zumie zumie and it worked out well. Everyone loved it! And it didn't even involve a case of Keystone lite! In fact, we omitted the drinking part all together. If you lost, you had to stand up and "introduce yourself" instead of taking a swig from your drink. No one really got the memo of the quick introduction part, the 4 people that stood up to talk ended up telling a 10 minute story about how they found God. Then they asked me to introduce myself and after hearing their stories I'm like..ok well mine's going to suck.."Um I'm Diana..I'm from Chicago..Everyone here is very nice and welcoming..I've been here 2 months..Thanks for having me!"
 |
| Teaching a Dance |
After the dancing, the singing, the praying, and the game playing. I assumed the bbq was coming to an end, especially since Melody knew I had to be home by 6 to work on my week's lessons. It wasn't over. We then had to walk over to the other end of this campsite which was a "grass sliding" hill. (Sledding on grass, I guess that's what people do when they don't have snow) and everyone kept asking me to try. Well I'm wearing this little sun dress thing..I'm not about to slide down this muddy grass hill. They must've asked me at least 20 times if I want to grass slide and at one point, Melody mentioned finding me pants so I could do grass sliding..(I don't even want to know how she was going to pull that off) I was like "Really, I don't want to grass slide, I'm ok, I'll take pictures. If I wanted to do, I'd tell you." So that is just what I did. Took pictures and videos. Mosquitoes were starting to bite like crazy and I was getting a little restless.
Then we ventured over to what I thought was the car to go home, but turns out it was the giant ropes course that we had to go through. There was a zip line and one of those log things that you had to balance on with a rope, and a wall to climb AND a tight rope mid air that was protected with rope netting, that we had to walk on...Did I mention I wore a dress and sandals..the zip line was fine with me, except the seat you sit in was made for an asian ass..so basically it was made for a 100 pound woman with no hips. I got stuck in it!! It bruised my hips no joke. Then you needed to climb up a wall, but you could opt out of the climbing part and take the stone steps that were the width of a popsicle stick. I did that. THEN was the log balancing where you hold on to ropes, that's when I really started to get pissed because I was accumulating about 20 mosquito bites at this point. With this part of the obstacle course you could walk around and go to the next thing, and Melody kept saying "oh don't you want to try don't you want to try.." and I was like..noo I'm in a dress...people could see under it if I got on that log.." Then was the tight rope. This part was ridiculous but it was at the point where I wanted to finish the course and get the hell outta there. There were two, a wobbly one, or a less wobbly one. I'm like..ok whatever I'll take the less wobbly one, but by the time I got on it, I was stuck behind Melody's sister and their friend, whom both were terrified of heights. It took them about 20 minutes to get across this thing. And yes, if you're afraid of heights, I'm sure its tough, but the thing had rope netting surrounding you to protect you. MY issue wasn't the heights, it was the massive spider webs that surrounded my head in the trees. If anyone knows my issue with spiders, you know my typical reaction is a mix between anxiety and queasiness. I don't even need to SEE one. The mere feeling of a spider web string stuck to my fingers makes me want to vomit..and I'm stuck between the two ladies that decide to stop in the middle of the tight rope because they're scared of heights..I just kept trying to encourage them with this desperate sound in my voice..."Commeee onnnn..you can do it...oh dear god please walk faster..please.." At one point I just started prodding and pushing ahead of me. The shoes I wore were not made for tight ropes. That was tough. I looked over at Melody and her husband on the wobbly tight rope, and she had taken OFF her shoes because she was wearing wedges. That must've been painful. We finally got to the end, everyone cheered, I was like..yayyy ok where's the car. Then they're like.. "oh no we need to go back to the grill to clean up and get our stuff.." Seriously.
 |
| My feet on the tight rope |
 |
| Melody and Her Husband |
 |
| The 3 Yu Ying Students. Grade 7 8 and 9 |
I re-mentioned my need to get home for my lesson plans for the week that needed to involve Halloween. Seems easy enough, but I still need to spend time on it. Melody's suggestion was to just teach the kids "trick or treat smell my feet.." (Good idea, now what to do with the other 40 minutes of class..) She said her family would be going out to dinner at a nice American style restaurant and they wanted me to come with and I really wasn't up for it..but I was hungry. I didn't eat enough pork and wonder bread sandwiches. She's like "no just come, it'll be paid for, it's a really nice place." So I gave in. We get to the place and it's called "Uncle George's." The name didn't sound promising but turns out it was a seafood and steak house. Uncle George of course was a Taiwanese man in his late 50's who runs the place. He greeted us and was very nice. I find out the relationship they have with him is they all go to the same church. I also find out the purpose of the dinner is to treat everyone in their church. There was about 25 church members at this dinner at 2 separate tables. I sat next to my student, Sueann, and Melody. Everyone there was friendly, but each person had to make a 5 minute speech about how they found God..again..I finally decided to pray..and it was "Dear God, please let this day end..please don't let them have me speak in front of everyone..please don't let this food involve fish heads...please have the waitress fill my abnormally large wine glass with a ton of wine.." Some of my prayers came true. The wine was unlimited, the day eventually ended at 10pm, and there weren't any fish heads, but plenty of crab legs to rip apart. That was actually my first time having crab legs. Those were good, the process was annoying and I don't like cracking shells open and I don't like how crabs look like spiders, but when you finally got some of that meat, it was delicious. There were about 10 courses that night. Most seafood, some salad, a soup, a STEAK!! (not even cooked, just seared on both sides. but delicious regardless.) And every time I took a sip of wine or water, it was refilled instantly. I did have to speak..of course..but I said my usual story. Everyone's so welcoming/ home away from home/thanks for having me/the end. Melody told me "Keep drinking wine! Get drunk, we will take you home! Don't worry about the lesson! You've had wine, will you start dancing now??" The day went from disaster to decent in a matter of an hour. If it weren't for that delicious meal, I'd be fuming.
 |
| Almost threw this up and spit it into my napkin. I tried. |
