Deck the hall with bows of holly--fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra

Although I didn't watch the 24 hour movie marathon of a Christmas story, I did find it necessary to use this particular quote..

I'm sorry, is this racist? I didn't even attempt to do Christmas Carols with the kids (mainly because they're junior high and too cool for that..) but if I did, I'm positive the outcome would be identical-- We did do plenty of other Christmas activities. They made Christmas cards, snowflakes, and the week of Christmas I had them ask each other "What would you like for Christmas?" It was fun to do lessons like this because I feel like schools in America have to be careful with what holiday activities they do now. Out here, I can't get fired for having my classes celebrate Christmas.

poor patrick..

Steven hanging snowflakes. Love this class!

Paper snow fight! Loved it!

December 20th

Tuesday was a workshop at a Dewey teacher's school that was pretty far away. Miranda was the co-teacher coming with so I followed her on my scooter. The demo was good, it had a few technology malfunctions but I like this teacher and I thought he did a good job of continuing the lesson smoothly. At the end of the demo, we all go back into the room and give our feedback, and every single time we have one of these things, Giles does the same shit. He randomly brings up some teaching issue and turns it around to center around his own problems and issues with the Taiwanese education system. The teachers up at the head of the room are speechless because they're like.."What is this guy talking about? How did we go from talking about how to cooperate with you co teacher, to the problems with the government ?" If he has such an issue with the corrupt school system, than why is he still in Taiwan? You've been here for 12 years..get over it ..or.. leave..After that, Miranda and I started to ride back to town for lunch and my scooter runs out of gas in the middle of a busy road. We had to hop on her scooter and fill up 2 water bottles full of gasoline at the gas station and my hands smelled like gasoline until I got to the restaurant in Taichung to wash them. We ate at this place, Naked Cafe. It was good..

Then, something strange happened, I got back to the school and still had one class left to teach, but I started to feel super dizzy, clammy, and queezy..Wenli noticed right away and I look at her and I was like.."umm, I think I have to go throw up?" In her upbeat yet calm voice, she goes, "Ok. yep. Let's go." and we went to the bathroom. She got me water and she rubbed this cooling stuff on my neck to cool me down because I was sweating profusely and then she went off to the class we were supposed to have together and I stayed on the bathroom floor throwing up into the toilet (the normal toilet) for an hour! Not sure what I would do if this was a squatter situation, I'd just run outside and do it there. So random! I didn't have any energy to get up though so when the class was over, she came right back to the bathroom to get me. We talked about either going back to a different doctor or just taking me home to rest and I said, I'll just go home. So we walk out to her car and a ton of students are cleaning outside because its the end of the day and it hits me again and next thing you know, I'm throwing up in the bushes in front of 50 of my students..so embarrassing. She took me home and I slept from 4:30-7:30 and probably could've kept sleeping. I couldn't really get myself out of bed to do anything and all I wanted was gingerale, gatorade, and my mom haha..no such luck out here. Shija offered to bring me something but she lives so far out and would have to take public transportation so I decided to call Sam. He didn't get back to me until 10 but he offered to bring me water, a drink similar to gatorade, and another drink he recommended and then I asked for Sprite and of course he's like "welll I don't think THAT is a good idea.." (Typical) so I was like.."please, it helps my stomach at home. Just some sips." and him and his brother dropped everything off and I reimbursed him and we set a time to head out to the doctor (the REAL doctor) the next morning.

I woke up to let Wenli know that I would be taking a sick day and seeing the doctor and she said of course, but to let her or Mark know about the next day because I had an assembly that Thursday morning. I went to the doctor with Sam but that was of course not an easy task because he drives me up a wall. Every little thing I said or did he'd have to question or counteract with a statement or just..One-up me. Sometimes you just want a friend to just nod their head, or sometimes you're just saying something that doesn't necessarily need a response. But he doesn't get that (like on facebook I write a status about it being cold here and he has to comment saying "NOW you believe me that Taiwan DOES get cold, eh !!?." (I started to write out this response to his ridiculous claim where apparently I said to him one day, "No, Sam, Taiwan NEVER get's cold!! I bet you one million dollars!!" but I just brushed it off.) I hate one-uppers..but I love the SNL one upper skit. So whenever I come across a real live one upper, I just think of the SNL skit and laugh to myself instead of getting angry.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2860855320839977330

This clinic was I guess..more normal than the other one, but it still didn't seem like a doctor's office setting. It looked like Central Dupage Hospital but stretched across 3 different buildings down the street. It's where we got our initial check up done, but you would go to one building and they're like, no no you need to go to building C section 4. We had to refer to this big map a few times. I was too sickly to try and give Sam crap about him not even "knowing" where building C section 4 was?? We get into one building and they take my name and information and tell us to go to a different section of the building. Then we get to this big waiting area with T.V.s and a bunch of doors, and the doors have an electronic number on the outside of each of them. We check in there and get our number, and sit outside door #3..and when the number on the door would change, a new person (a patient) would just walk right into it and walk right out 5 minutes later. Each door also had the name of a doctor on it, so I'm like..asking Sam all these questions like..wait so there's a doctor in every one of these doors? Just sitting in there?? Do they have a nurse? Why does that doctor look like he's 20?

Then I started feeling guilty for being there because I did feel much better than the day before. Prior to my appointment, I got dressed and ready just in case I decided to go to the Dewey workshop/Christmas lunch after the doctor, and there's all these like..seriously ill patients all around me with their face masks, walking in and out of numbered doors and they probably look at me and think.."look at that foreigner..she's not sick!" My ticket was called and I go into the doctor's office that is the size of my parents bathroom, and he's sitting at a desk in front of a computer and his nurse is sitting across from him in a seat and then I just take a seat right next to the both of them at the end of the desk and Sam awkwardly stands in the corner which probably wasn't necessary because the doctor spoke English. Looks like we're having a nice little meeting together. I tell him that I had stomach issues last week but a different kind of issue, and this week I threw up and had a fever blah blah blah, and he asked if I had any allergies, takes my temperature, says something in celsius and I'm like, I don't know what that means, and he's like "it's ok," then he orders blood work for me to make sure it's not a bacterial infection and he's like, "are you ok with that?" and I was like..yea..I guess..and he said, ok go get it done and come back here in 20-30 minutes for your results. So Sam and I ventured out to another section of a building which was a waiting area but this time it was windows of nurses taking peoples blood. It looked like one of those jail house scenes when the convicts get visitors and talk through windows, but again, you grabbed a number, waited a bit, then went on up to get blood taken...I never knew that so many people needed bloodwork at noon on a Wednesday..SO many people, that there's a need for us to draw numbers. So by the time we walked back to the other part of the building, our results were ready and the doctor actually came out to get us and said, "no infection, I'm giving you medicine to treat your discomfort, it's a virus." Then we go to the next section of the building and its the window where you pay for your visit and medication and then you grab your medicine. Grabbed a number first of course. My medicine and visit was 400 NT..$8. "Pricey" says Sam. Sam and I headed over to the Christmas party about an hour early which I wasn't happy about. He said he needed to make some stops and pick up the balloons so after almost killing us ten times driving down alleys which were the short cuts, we end up at this little party shop and I just chilled in the car. I wasn't too keen on moving. He's in this shop for 10 minutes and when he comes out..he's holding one measly santa balloon! I'm like.."Sam..where's the rest..?" and he says, "Well Deweys on a budget so we only got one balloon.." I just saved my breath.


The Dewey Christmas party was nice. Everyone brought a small gift to do the White Elephant exchange. I gave a green starbucks mug, it looked good for both genders. I got a red wine. We all met at a restaurant by the Dewey office at 2pm called "Sarah's Mom's."This place was actually Sam's cousins restaurant and the spoke perfect English. Didn't sound like he ever lived in Taiwan. He looked like a bigger scruffier version of Sam. He prepared western food for everyone which was nice but I didn't have much of an appetite and hadn't eat that day yet..but that was until they brought out the GRILLED CHEEESSEE! It was realll cheese and realll texas style toast and it was amazing. I only got one half because those suckers went quick. I've been dreaming about it ever since. Grilled Cheese might be my all time favorite snack. Whenever I was running late for work or coming home from something and hadn't eaten, my mom would always be like, "do you want me to make you a grilled cheese or something?" and although it sounds simple, they were always perfect. I'm going to eat 50 when I come home.

Happy Birthday, Jesus. (budget issues as well..)

the lone ranger

Christmas at Yu Ying Junior High

Thursday morning was the highly anticipated Christmas Assembly. After the Halloween assembly with costumes and spooky music and the Thanksgiving presentation with the live videos of my family eating thanksgiving dinner, the faculty was getting reallyyy excited about my Christmas assembly and would ask me all these questions about my ideas for it..pressure was on...But all I really had was, Mark was dressing as Santa and would come out at the end of the assembly and throw candy at all the students (but he did this last year so it was nothing creative on my part) and then Wenli and I would wear Reindeer ears..The actual assembly was pretty simple since I was substituting magazine lessons with Christmas and winter lessons the past 3 weeks, I think the kids had a good handle on the holiday. Mark ordered enough candy to throw to all of the students which was nice.

Me Mark and Anita

Wenli Me Mark YaoShin

Friday was a fun day at school! For a small gift for my co-teachers and people in the office, I made a Christmas C.D. and handed it out throughout the week so every class I had was playing Christmas music during our lesson. I was really surprised about the school and students actually celebrating Christmas. I think they had more Christmas spirit than I did! A bunch of students would stop into my office and hand me a little box of chocolates with a card signed by all of them, it was too cute. Some students were asking me if I was going back to America and I'm not sure if they meant for Christmas or for the Chinese New Year, but I told them, "oh no no, hen gway! very expensive!" I got a lot of nice small presents and it meant a lot. My co teacher Sylvie made me a really cute card that totally surprised me and I loved it.

Friday night Shija and I met up with Caroline and Venda at the Deluxe Brewhouse after our Chinese class. Caroline wanted to give us a few coats/sweaters she had for the cold weather. It was strange to decide on a place to meet for our little girls night..Caroline texted me saying, "well since nothings really open in Taichung, do you just want to meet at a Family Mart or a Savvy's?" I showed Shija the text and we were like..family mart?? like the convenient store? why would we meet there..so I texted her back asking.."Well..maybe not the family mart, what's Savvys" and she then replied saying, "7-11." Ok..no. Neither are ok. So I suggested a Tgi Fridays or a Chilis or something like that and Caroline was like "oh ok something like the Deluxe Brewhouse?" YES, that's more like it. Not sure what they had in mind with the whole convenient store girls night..We had a good time and shared two pitchers of beer. I had a big day the next day because I was heading out to Hsinchu for Amber and Sarah's Christmas party and for some odd reason, I committed to bringing green bean casserole..I don't have an oven, a toaster oven, or a microwave..but I said, "sure! I'll bring that." They offered their kitchen to anyone who needed it which is good. 

Christmas Eve in Taiwan is..a normal Saturday

Soo Christmas Eve definitely did not feel like Christmas Eve..and I didn't necessarily expect it to, but even though the city was decorated for Christmas, it was just a typical Saturday. The streets were packed, the mall was packed, and I just wanted to be in and out of Jason's market so I could find some green beans and cream of mushroom soup. No santas in the mall, no gift wrapping stations..just a normal crowded day at the mall. And even though every time I talk to my mom on skype she says the phrase, "you're not missing much over here.." ... I WAS missing our normal Christmas Eve..

It typically would go like this: Dad and Kristen would go get coffee early in the morning while I'm still in bed because I'm probably hungover and then I wake up an hour before we're supposed to be on the road but realize I still need to buy a last minute gift for mom or dad and somehow make it back in time, and then Nick and Allison would still be heading back from the city and then when we finally all gathered in the house at the same time, we would scramble to get out the door to go to Joliet and Mom and Dad would be rushing to go and trying to figure out who's riding in the car with them and Dad would attempt to leave the house in his Adidas track suit and me, mom, and Kristen would say, "you can't wear that!" and then he would change and we'd try to disperse into the two cars and then dad would go to the bathroom one more time and mom would get all annoyed and Kristen would say, "Dad you drank too much coffee!" and then I'd have to run into find my cell phone and 5 other things I should've remembered or something and Nick would bring a c.d. case full of ridiculous music like Mars Volta and attempt to play them the whole ride there and we'd all be hyper off of our Starbucks coffee and ready for a day and evening at Aunt Jolene's where we would then stuff ourselves with alcohol and food until 10pm. So as non-exciting as that sounds, I definitely did miss what was going on "over there."

A Cheers to me :) Thanks Cousin Michelle!

Chung Yo was pretty crazy but I got all packed and ready before I headed over to the market there. They had the green beans and the cream soups but, no french's fried onions!! That's the best parttt!! I called Amber and Sarah and they said just buy and onion and we'll fry it up at their place and I'm like.."yea sure.."(how the hell do you fry an onion..) Nick got all the good cooking genes from Mom, I think mine came from Dad..we both can make a great batch of cheese and crackers, sandwiches, toast or anything else that can be taken directly from the fridge and put onto your plate. Well I'm not giving myself any credit, I can make really good oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and banana bread. I just hate cleaning and baking makes a big mess. But I grabbed those ingredients and a bottle of wine and headed over to the train station. I actually had to carry a lot because we had a secret santa planned for the next morning and we had to bring a stocking and stocking stuffers for everyone's stockings. My train took only an hour and a half (that was the long train) and I got to read my book and once I hopped off the train I caught a cab, showed him my Chinese address for their place and it was a piece of cake. He asked me in chinese if I was sleeping at a friends house, it took him about 3 times repeating it for me to catch the jist of what he meant..I said Yes yes! Dui-a Dui-a, and then I tried to explain why I was going there and I said.."Christmas party! you know..Ho ho ho..umm..Santa? Um..Meiguoren Holiday??" and he said he didn't understand so for some reason I thought pulling out my reindeer ears to show him would just make things much more clear for him, but he looked at them and just nodded his head and gave this smile like..sureee whatever you say...he's probably thinking "what kind of sleepover is she attending..crazy Americans."


Amber and Sarah's place was decorated so nice! The dogs both had these cute sweaters on and the table was already getting set up with food. Their friend, Terry, who works in Thailand was in town visiting and she was very nice and outgoing and there were a few other people there that were super friendly, so even though Amber and Sarah were busy prepping, I always had someone to talk to. There was one lady there with her fiance who is from Taichung, and I'm friends with her on facebook thanks to Amber, but have never actually met her...but she's very interesting. She talks about sharks a lot and how we need to save them and said she has power points for me about sharks for my students so..we didn't necessarily have much in common..but still an interesting character at a party. Slowly more people started coming in and their place isn't huge but there was always room which was nice. I met this real nice guy, James, (he's gay..just my luck) who's been in Taiwan for 2 years and he also went to culinary school, that I hung out with for most of the night. He made one of the only non vegetarian dishes which was beef stroganoff and it was awesome. I felt bad because there was soo much left over but I think it was because 90% of the party was vegetarians. James helped me fry my onion..thank god he did it because I approached the skillet with some oil and my plan was just to throw slices onions in there and call it a day, but James said, no lets grab an egg, some milk, and flour, and cover the pan in oil and he sliced my onions the right way tossed them in a bowl and then threw them in the pan and just did it for me..but I'm the one who sprinkled them with salt and pepper... It turned out good, Amber and Sarah's oven is funny though. It's basically a bigger version of a toaster oven but it's common in Taiwan. They don't have the type of ovens we do. It worked just fine and my casserole turned out good and since my dish was vegetarian, it went super fast, which I was proud of. The shark lady loved it.

Guacamole! I was in heaven.

Mashed potatoes!

We did some Christmas activities like a snowflake contest which I was excited for because I was thinking I'd have an extra advantage in this contest being that I just taught my students how to make snowflakes the week before..but o boyy was I wrong. Put yourself in a room full of artsy vegetarians and you get snowflakes that look like they belong in a museum. There were different categories you could qualify for and mine wasn't cool enough, bad enough, or unique enough, to make it into any category..not even the "looks like a 3 year old made it" category.

Christmas trees with stars on top..

Really?? Roses and Leaves?? Come onnnn..

I don't even know where to begin with this one..

Andddd I'm offically in 20th place

Snowmen and Santas anyone?..Vote for meee

After we ate and did our snowflakes, we moved onto the stockings. Everyone was instructed to bring 15 stocking stuffers, but the party grew to about 45 people, so you could choose any 15 stockings to put your stuffers in. It was a really cool idea. I think it'd be good for our family to do so we all have something small to open on Christmas eve and no one's pressured to spend a lot of money or whatever. In my stocking I got: candy, a corona, a back scratcher, a mini liquor bottle, nail polish, a shark sticker (hmm..wonder who that's from) and some other fun little things. I brought some tiny "magic christmas trees" I don't really know what they were and it didn't help that the instructions were entirely in Chinese..but you sprinkled this packet of liquid on your little tree and it was supposed to grow overnight or something.

The night ended up being really fun! The wine was flowin and the music was fun and everyone there was enjoying themselves. I slept on an inflatable matress next to space heater (wow..that seems like a bad idea now that I've typed it out..) but Hsinchu is very very cold and windy, and Christmas Eve was no exception. I was freezinggg! Thank god I got some warm socks in my stocking that night..the liquor helped too. The next morning I wasn't feel spectacular but everyone woke up around the same time and started to make coffee and breakfast. Only about 8 people slept over so it wasn't overly crowded. The people who slept over were in the Secret Santa drawing for Christmas morning so we could all have a present to open. The girl I chose was Evelyn who is a good friend of Ambers and she's one of the first people I met out in Hsinchu so I was glad I picked someone I knew. I got her a green starbucks mug, a coat coin purse that had green detailing on it, and then a pretty scarf. I hope it was ok for her. Amber was my secret santa and I got this super warm turquoise scarf, this eyeshadow stick that is perfect for NYE, and these really pretty earrings. After we opened gifts I had to head back home so I could make it in time for Jeff and Caron's Christmas lunch/dinner. Evelyn was heading to the train station anyway to meet up with her friends from Italy..(how cool is that? I want friends from Italy..) She's pretty fluent in Chinese because she's been studying it for a while and she told me about this cool summer camp in Vermont where she learned Chinese. She also lived in China for a few years, not for teaching though, she's getting her doctorates in Archeology. So worldly..

Of course when I'm running late for things, the public transportation also likes to run late, so my train was 30 minutes late and I still needed to stop and pick up a small gift because Shija had reminded me that there was a gift exchange there too. I freshened up at home real quick and followed Jeff's verbal directions hoping that I don't mess them up and stopped and got some white wine and a coffee tumbler from Starbucks (that's just the place to buy gifts!) I showed up kind of late but there was just enough food left for me. Some turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cheesecake. It was good! Jim brought the Taiwanese lady he's now dating, Summer. Her and Dan's wife who's Taiwanese were teaching everyone how to play Mahjong. Seems complicated. They all left pretty quickly after I left but then again everyone was there way earlier than me. Shija and I stuck around to mingle with Jeff and Caron and it was good to have company on Christmas Day..it still didn't feel like Christmas and I wasn't the only one who felt that way. We all were on the same boat there.

That night was my gift opening night with my family. It was Christmas morning for them so it worked out perfectly. Except, somehow, even across the world, I'm still the first one waiting around to open the presents!! Hellooo I thought we discussed the time here! So I talked with Kristen, mom, and dad for a little and then they said, "ok we'll call you back later!" I'm thinking..but what about the presentttssss..In the mean time I skyped with Ashley and her mom which was nice. When my family was ready for the gifts they called me back and they put me on a dining room chair facing the Christmas tree, next to dad (it's not my usual spot on xmas morning, but it's ok) Nick and Allison showed up shortly after and Jeff was there also. I tried not to cry but..I swear it just hits you like a ton of bricks out of nowhere! My mom wrapped all of my gifts just like she normally does (only difference was I didn't have a chance to snoop through her closet beforehand this year, just kidding! I stopped doing that like ..4 years ago.) So I opened one at a time and they opened theirs as well. I got a lot of great things like I normally do and I think they liked their Taiwanese gifts but signing off with them was the hardest. I miss them a lot and I miss being at home on the weekend. It took me a while to fall asleep and was pretty upset and it didn't help knowing that I had to wake up for work the next day when everyone else was on their xmas break.

Christmas Morning via Skype (1am for me)