Today I took my scooter driver's license test--and passed half of it. The other half, the driving half, I failed.
It was kind of funny: 3 of us went to take our tests today. One person got it (Rachel), one person passed the written but not the driving (me), and one person didn't pass (Andrew). The irony of the situation, though, is that our experience on a scooter runs in the opposite direction: Andrew is basically a pro, I've practiced a fair amount, and Rachel had previously been on a scooter twice. Proof, to me, that the scooter test has very little to do with actual skill and more to do with common sense, ability to comprehend poorly-translated test questions, and ability to overcome nerves and LOOK UP NOT DOWN on the straight-line test.
Driver's license tests in Taiwan are WAY different than in America. First, you show up and hand over your ID and a photo of yourself; then you wait (just a few minutes, in our case) for your turn to take the written exam, which is in fact on a computer. If you pass that (required 85%; 40 questions), the computer displays a smiley face and the moderator gives you a driving test time (mine was 3:00, 40 minutes after I finished my test).
You are then welcome to join the milling dozens of scooters on the practice course, driving in endless circles on a course that looks--but isn't--identical to the actual test course. So that's what I did, join the mob practicing, and failed every run for the first 15 minutes or so, before occasionally getting it right. And then Rachel came out, triumphant from her test (she'd forgotten her ID earlier, and had to go back for it), and ready to practice as well.
At 3pm, a moderator rounded up all us unruly scooter-practicers and explained the course to us. And we discovered that, unlike the practice ring here everything had a sensor, beginning with a big bump at the start of the already-hard straight line test!
(Caveat to explain what the straight line test is: you get on your scooter and have to drive within two narrow lines, maybe a foot and a half apart, for a couple hundred feet, and must take 7 seconds or longer for the whole process, which means that you're going really slow. Which, as you may know if you've ever been on a bike, is really hard. And if your feet touch the ground, or if either tire touches the sensor on either side, you can't finish the driving test. You get one more shot, and if you fail again, you have to wait a week.)
So yeah, the moderator explained in Chinese (Fonda translated for us), and then Rachel went back to practice while I watched the lined-up examinees take their turns. Here's a video of one girl I watched who didn't quite make it, just to give you a frame of reference:
Yeah, she failed. And how do I know? First of all, if you make a mistake, a big flashing light and buzzer goes off to tell you (and the world) that you screwed up. Also, as you see at the end of the video, the moderator gives her her paperwork back. That is never good--it means sorry, good try, come back next week.
(If the previous video doesn't show up--it's been screwy lately--here's a more professional video of the standard Taiwanese scooter test):
I had a similar experience. Rachel and I went last (she went before me), to avoid pressure of people behind us, but even so I just couldn't make it past the straight line test, and that's at the beginning of the test. The rest is easy--stop at a rail road crossing, turn right, stop at a stop light, turn right again, stop at a pedestrian crossing, and you're done. Again it's no touching the lines, but they're farther apart and there's no time limit, so it's easy! I could have--and did in practice--easily pass that part. But the straight line hates me! The moderator was nice and gave me advice before my second time, and even gave me a third try--unheard-of!--but still I failed. I'll try again next week, or, if all else fails, just get a low-power scooter, which only requires the written exam.
In other news, I'm *actually* unpacked/reorganized/cleaned now! Just need to make a final Ikea/Carrefour run for a comforter, some returns, bed risers and actual sleeping pillows, and I'm set! Oh, and I need to install my new curtains. Pictures coming when it's done!
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Whiplash
Today I returned to the chaos that was our apartment in transition mode--Karina moved out, Analicia moved in, and I faced finishing unpacking amidst the piles of stuff I'd bought from Ikea minutes before I left for Taipei and home. And then, to top it all off, this evening our shower decided it would no longer be turned off.
So yeah, that was fun.
We kicked off the excitement today with helping Karina hurriedly shove things into whatever bags we could find--she hadn't really finished packing--and then carrying said items, in the rain, down to the waiting van. When we'd finished that, we moved on to Analicia's previous apartment, picking up her stuff and transporting it over to ours--itself a lengthy process--interspersed with determining what other items could be taken from the old apartment to ours and apartment C, and which came with it and had to stay. Then, after watching Esther and Karina drive away to their new apartment in the van--Esther was sitting in a desk chair trapped between a pile of stuff and a table in the back, since they ran out of room--we returned to our own place.
As a side note, it turns out that Esther and Karina will actually be living in the city! Hooray! They'll be in Zuoying, which is fantastic because it's on the edge of the city (so easy for them); but still inside it (so easy for us); and the biggest bonus of all is that it's RIGHT next to the HSR/train/MRT station! Which is great for them and for us--easy transport anywhere, inside or outside of the city. Makes visiting much easier. :)
But back to today--the rest of the day, Analicia was bustling back and forth between the living room where we'd set her stuff and her new room, which she was deep cleaning and rearranging. All this inspired/shamed me into finally delving into my own stuff a couple of hours later, and now, I'm proud to say, all my bags are unpacked. (Though I still have cleaning and a bit of rearranging to do, and yet another Ikea/Carrefour trip to make--partly for returns and partly for a few things I couldn't/didn't get last time I went, like a comforter and bed risers.)
So around 11pm, Analicia goes to take a shower. A few minutes later, I hear her calling my name, and then she appears in my doorway.
"So, this is kind of embarrassing, but how do you turn the shower off?"
It wouldn't turn off. Not for her, not for me, not for Brittany--the dang thing was STUCK! We called Fonda, but she didn't answer. We tried a few times, and finally got a hold of her on Facebook. Soon, our landlord, a handyman, and Samia (for protection and translation, Fonda said) showed up at our door.
Our landlord is great! We hadn't met him before tonight, but he speaks pretty good English, and he is upfront and energetic. He introduced himself: "My name is Michael; I'm the landlord--you pay me." While explaining to us that he and the handyman were speaking Taiwanese, he told us that Taiwanese is the most pure form of Chinese, and that if you read a poem from the Tang dynasty, you would be reading Taiwanese; he went on to tell us that, if we called 911, we would reach Mr. Cheng, the handyman. He's a real character.
So, while Michael regaled us with stories, advice, and a request for a list of our names and what we'd found in the apartment that needed fixing, Mr. Cheng quietly turned off the water to the shower. He and Michael showed me how to turn it off if we need to in the future, and he promised to come back tomorrow around 10am to fix it. Which is great--it means I HAVE to be up before then! Requirements help me to adjust to the jetlag whiplash I've been experiencing. (Seriously--I got in last night at 1:30ish and couldn't sleep; when I did, I slept till 2pm and was still tired. And I'm awake again now.)
So that was today! Some crazyness, some exhaustion, but also quite a bit of accomplishment. Maybe some day soon our apartment will actually look like we live in it, and aren't just in a constant state of transition...
So yeah, that was fun.
We kicked off the excitement today with helping Karina hurriedly shove things into whatever bags we could find--she hadn't really finished packing--and then carrying said items, in the rain, down to the waiting van. When we'd finished that, we moved on to Analicia's previous apartment, picking up her stuff and transporting it over to ours--itself a lengthy process--interspersed with determining what other items could be taken from the old apartment to ours and apartment C, and which came with it and had to stay. Then, after watching Esther and Karina drive away to their new apartment in the van--Esther was sitting in a desk chair trapped between a pile of stuff and a table in the back, since they ran out of room--we returned to our own place.
As a side note, it turns out that Esther and Karina will actually be living in the city! Hooray! They'll be in Zuoying, which is fantastic because it's on the edge of the city (so easy for them); but still inside it (so easy for us); and the biggest bonus of all is that it's RIGHT next to the HSR/train/MRT station! Which is great for them and for us--easy transport anywhere, inside or outside of the city. Makes visiting much easier. :)
But back to today--the rest of the day, Analicia was bustling back and forth between the living room where we'd set her stuff and her new room, which she was deep cleaning and rearranging. All this inspired/shamed me into finally delving into my own stuff a couple of hours later, and now, I'm proud to say, all my bags are unpacked. (Though I still have cleaning and a bit of rearranging to do, and yet another Ikea/Carrefour trip to make--partly for returns and partly for a few things I couldn't/didn't get last time I went, like a comforter and bed risers.)
So around 11pm, Analicia goes to take a shower. A few minutes later, I hear her calling my name, and then she appears in my doorway.
"So, this is kind of embarrassing, but how do you turn the shower off?"
It wouldn't turn off. Not for her, not for me, not for Brittany--the dang thing was STUCK! We called Fonda, but she didn't answer. We tried a few times, and finally got a hold of her on Facebook. Soon, our landlord, a handyman, and Samia (for protection and translation, Fonda said) showed up at our door.
Our landlord is great! We hadn't met him before tonight, but he speaks pretty good English, and he is upfront and energetic. He introduced himself: "My name is Michael; I'm the landlord--you pay me." While explaining to us that he and the handyman were speaking Taiwanese, he told us that Taiwanese is the most pure form of Chinese, and that if you read a poem from the Tang dynasty, you would be reading Taiwanese; he went on to tell us that, if we called 911, we would reach Mr. Cheng, the handyman. He's a real character.
So, while Michael regaled us with stories, advice, and a request for a list of our names and what we'd found in the apartment that needed fixing, Mr. Cheng quietly turned off the water to the shower. He and Michael showed me how to turn it off if we need to in the future, and he promised to come back tomorrow around 10am to fix it. Which is great--it means I HAVE to be up before then! Requirements help me to adjust to the jetlag whiplash I've been experiencing. (Seriously--I got in last night at 1:30ish and couldn't sleep; when I did, I slept till 2pm and was still tired. And I'm awake again now.)
So that was today! Some crazyness, some exhaustion, but also quite a bit of accomplishment. Maybe some day soon our apartment will actually look like we live in it, and aren't just in a constant state of transition...
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Alex and Melanie's Wedding
Still on my delayed-writing catch-up schedule, here I will finally write about the reason for all the timing oddities and delays: my brother got married on Saturday!
It was a beautiful wedding: simple but elegant in a way that most, if not all, weddings aim for. The main colors were light grey and red, which I was a bit skeptical of when I first heard about it, but I knew better than to doubt Melanie's impeccable taste: I have never seen anything but perfection in her artistic sensibilities (she's a graphic design major).
The actual process of getting to the wedding was surprisingly smooth, if draining. Both of my flights were on time, which was lovely. And, after our late-night/early-morning adventure in Taipei, I discovered that, given the right circumstances, I CAN in fact sleep on planes. When I'm not watching the in-flight movie or jostling my feet back and forth trying to keep them from falling asleep too, that is. I'm estimating that I got roughly 6 hours on the planes; add them to the 2 hours from Taipei and divide by 2 days, and it suddenly makes a ton of sense how exhausted I was when I finally reached the States!
My dear friend Lindsey met me at the airport and, like the saint that she is, took me immediately to get some coffee from Peet's. Great way to be welcomed back to the land where coffee, not tea, is the staple of daily life!
So the next few hours were spent getting ready for the wedding, with hair help from Lindsey and two of my fantastic cousins, Mollie and Julia. I was a bridesmaid, so I had to have hair that was up or pinned back, not an easy feat with chin-length hair, but Julia managed it! I don't know how I would have done it without their help.
This is true not only because I fail at hair, but because, while we were getting ready, it was late evening in Taiwan. By the time I arrived at the venue, it was way past midnight. During photos and before the ceremony was the worst--the hours no one is ever *really* awake for. But by the time the ceremony started, I was awake and ready to not trip as I walked down the aisle, and then to somehow guess an appropriate place to stand, since I was the first one in and hadn't been at rehearsal.The ceremony itself was wonderful; the pastor--Melanie's grandpa--had a wonderful message on marriage, and Melanie and Alex had written their own vows, which I may want to steal and re-use someday.
The reception was similarly wonderful, as I got to see so many people I haven't seen in years, eat delicious food, help decorate Alex and Melanie's car, and hang out with the wedding party/my brothers' friends from Oregon State. It was a great group which made me slightly regret not going there--the same thing happens every time I hang out with Alex and Scott's friends--but I'm still glad I went where I did for college.
So we saw them off, despite their efforts to sneak away, and then stood around in circles chatting. About 40 minutes later, the word begins circling: Alex and Melanie had forgotten to sign the marriage certificate; they were coming back to do that now. Well, every wedding needs a story!
The next day, my family drove me back up to PDX and I boarded a plane for Tokyo, then on to Taipei. From there I hopped a bus to the HSR station, after an interesting exchange with the attendant who spoke no English:
me: High Speed Rail?"
her: blank stare.
me: "Kaohsiung?" her: something I can't understand.
me: "Train?"
her: *points at something that looks like a schedule but is written only in Chinese*
me: *points at the giant sign before which reads, in English, "HSR Station."
She gives me a ticket and circles the price.
I thought everyone spoke English in Taipei! Apparently not.
More troubles ensued when I got back to Kaohsiung to discover that the MRT had stopped running and someone else had just taken the last taxi waiting by the train depot. After several people standing around took a stab at using their English with me, a nice man began translating and then went with me to flag down a cab. There were no cabs in sight. He offered to drive me home, along with his wife, but that prospect scared me (probably without cause--he seemed genuinely trustworthy, and helpfulness is a cultural norm here, from what I can tell), so he ran all over the intersection to get me a cab, then told the driver where to take me. So grateful for this man's help--I finally got back to my apartment and, after paying the driver much more than I'm sure was reasonable, went up to my apartment.
So now I'm back! And that, in a (very small) nutshell, was my weekend. Perhaps I'm on blogging schedule now?
It was a beautiful wedding: simple but elegant in a way that most, if not all, weddings aim for. The main colors were light grey and red, which I was a bit skeptical of when I first heard about it, but I knew better than to doubt Melanie's impeccable taste: I have never seen anything but perfection in her artistic sensibilities (she's a graphic design major).
The actual process of getting to the wedding was surprisingly smooth, if draining. Both of my flights were on time, which was lovely. And, after our late-night/early-morning adventure in Taipei, I discovered that, given the right circumstances, I CAN in fact sleep on planes. When I'm not watching the in-flight movie or jostling my feet back and forth trying to keep them from falling asleep too, that is. I'm estimating that I got roughly 6 hours on the planes; add them to the 2 hours from Taipei and divide by 2 days, and it suddenly makes a ton of sense how exhausted I was when I finally reached the States!
My dear friend Lindsey met me at the airport and, like the saint that she is, took me immediately to get some coffee from Peet's. Great way to be welcomed back to the land where coffee, not tea, is the staple of daily life!
So the next few hours were spent getting ready for the wedding, with hair help from Lindsey and two of my fantastic cousins, Mollie and Julia. I was a bridesmaid, so I had to have hair that was up or pinned back, not an easy feat with chin-length hair, but Julia managed it! I don't know how I would have done it without their help.
This is true not only because I fail at hair, but because, while we were getting ready, it was late evening in Taiwan. By the time I arrived at the venue, it was way past midnight. During photos and before the ceremony was the worst--the hours no one is ever *really* awake for. But by the time the ceremony started, I was awake and ready to not trip as I walked down the aisle, and then to somehow guess an appropriate place to stand, since I was the first one in and hadn't been at rehearsal.The ceremony itself was wonderful; the pastor--Melanie's grandpa--had a wonderful message on marriage, and Melanie and Alex had written their own vows, which I may want to steal and re-use someday.
The reception was similarly wonderful, as I got to see so many people I haven't seen in years, eat delicious food, help decorate Alex and Melanie's car, and hang out with the wedding party/my brothers' friends from Oregon State. It was a great group which made me slightly regret not going there--the same thing happens every time I hang out with Alex and Scott's friends--but I'm still glad I went where I did for college.
So we saw them off, despite their efforts to sneak away, and then stood around in circles chatting. About 40 minutes later, the word begins circling: Alex and Melanie had forgotten to sign the marriage certificate; they were coming back to do that now. Well, every wedding needs a story!
The next day, my family drove me back up to PDX and I boarded a plane for Tokyo, then on to Taipei. From there I hopped a bus to the HSR station, after an interesting exchange with the attendant who spoke no English:
me: High Speed Rail?"
her: blank stare.
me: "Kaohsiung?" her: something I can't understand.
me: "Train?"
her: *points at something that looks like a schedule but is written only in Chinese*
me: *points at the giant sign before which reads, in English, "HSR Station."
She gives me a ticket and circles the price.
I thought everyone spoke English in Taipei! Apparently not.
More troubles ensued when I got back to Kaohsiung to discover that the MRT had stopped running and someone else had just taken the last taxi waiting by the train depot. After several people standing around took a stab at using their English with me, a nice man began translating and then went with me to flag down a cab. There were no cabs in sight. He offered to drive me home, along with his wife, but that prospect scared me (probably without cause--he seemed genuinely trustworthy, and helpfulness is a cultural norm here, from what I can tell), so he ran all over the intersection to get me a cab, then told the driver where to take me. So grateful for this man's help--I finally got back to my apartment and, after paying the driver much more than I'm sure was reasonable, went up to my apartment.
So now I'm back! And that, in a (very small) nutshell, was my weekend. Perhaps I'm on blogging schedule now?
Monday, August 29, 2011
La Cucaracha
Pretend this was posted on August 26. The main events described in fact happened around 3am August 27, but that's neither here nor there: I didn't sleep that night, so it's still the 26th in my mind. Also, due to an all-around late night, combined with three days of different time zones, the day my blog is missing a post is the 26th. So, just bear with me. This is August 26.
As I mentioned briefly earlier, I spent this weekend getting to, preparing for, taking part in, and getting back from my brother Alex's wedding in the States. The first part of the journey took place on Friday, as (after a rather stressful Ikea trip and a visit to Karina's potential future apartment) Karina and I took High Speed Rail from Kaohsiung to Taipei, crossing the country from South to North in a dazzling hour and a half.
When we got there, we were met by Karina's friend Tom, who went to school with her and is now back in Taipei doing his year of mandatory military service. Then we went back to Tom's apartment--a great little studio the size of a private dorm room but much, much nicer--and basically just hung out for a while until Karina and Tom's other friend from college, Rosanna, met up with us.
The four of us hit up a night market--some, but not all, of which was still open at that point, since it was past midnight--and then went back to Tom's place. We then decided, essentially, not to sleep.
Which turned out to be a good thing, for herein begins the saga of the drama that night.
We found a cockroach. And I'm not talking about a little, guy; no, this cockroach was roughly half the size of my hand. And, as it turns out, neither Karina, Tom nor I can deal well with cockroaches. So our response was to stare it down for a long while, daring it to move from its hiding place behind the TV. Not all too effective for getting rid of him.
Eventually, Tom went down to 7-11 for bug spray. But even with the spray, it was a four-way dance of "Do you see him?" "He's under the support behind the TV." "Where are you seeing that? What do you see?" "I can see his antennae" "Are you sure it's not just the wiring?" "Yes, they just moved. Just spray in that little hole..." *the cockroach scurries to the other side of the TV* "Wait, he just moved again!"
And this little bugger was tough. We sprayed him behind the TV; we sprayed him behind the TV again; we sprayed him below the counter by the refrigerator where he hid next; we pulled out the refrigerator and sprayed him again. And again. And again. (And, of course, when I say 'we' in this, I really mean 'Tom'.) By the time his upside-down legs stopped moving (why oh WHY are cockroaches' leg so freakishly long?!?!) we had been at it for at least a half hour, and Tom's apartment was absolutely filled with spray, as if we were trying to exterminate ourselves in the process.
So we opened the window, turned on the fan, and evacuated the building.For an hour. At 2am.
We had fun; we grabbed drinks from the 7-11 and then hung out in a little park down the street, but we were all still jumpy; myself especially. Every little noise caught my full attention, in case we had another unwelcome visitor.
So we headed back to Tom's less-toxic apartment at around 3am, knowing full well that I would have to leave for the airport that morning by 6am at the latest. And we sprawled sideways across the bed and took a nap for the next day, since really, that was all we could have done at that point.
The next day Tom took me to the shuttle bus station and I set off for the States, sleep-deprived from the start.
So that was my Taipei adventure! I will need to go back sometime soon, when I don't have to catch a plane the next day and we don't find a cockroach and have to kill it and evacuate.
But it was fun for the first time. :)
As I mentioned briefly earlier, I spent this weekend getting to, preparing for, taking part in, and getting back from my brother Alex's wedding in the States. The first part of the journey took place on Friday, as (after a rather stressful Ikea trip and a visit to Karina's potential future apartment) Karina and I took High Speed Rail from Kaohsiung to Taipei, crossing the country from South to North in a dazzling hour and a half.
When we got there, we were met by Karina's friend Tom, who went to school with her and is now back in Taipei doing his year of mandatory military service. Then we went back to Tom's apartment--a great little studio the size of a private dorm room but much, much nicer--and basically just hung out for a while until Karina and Tom's other friend from college, Rosanna, met up with us.
The four of us hit up a night market--some, but not all, of which was still open at that point, since it was past midnight--and then went back to Tom's place. We then decided, essentially, not to sleep.
Which turned out to be a good thing, for herein begins the saga of the drama that night.
We found a cockroach. And I'm not talking about a little, guy; no, this cockroach was roughly half the size of my hand. And, as it turns out, neither Karina, Tom nor I can deal well with cockroaches. So our response was to stare it down for a long while, daring it to move from its hiding place behind the TV. Not all too effective for getting rid of him.
Eventually, Tom went down to 7-11 for bug spray. But even with the spray, it was a four-way dance of "Do you see him?" "He's under the support behind the TV." "Where are you seeing that? What do you see?" "I can see his antennae" "Are you sure it's not just the wiring?" "Yes, they just moved. Just spray in that little hole..." *the cockroach scurries to the other side of the TV* "Wait, he just moved again!"
And this little bugger was tough. We sprayed him behind the TV; we sprayed him behind the TV again; we sprayed him below the counter by the refrigerator where he hid next; we pulled out the refrigerator and sprayed him again. And again. And again. (And, of course, when I say 'we' in this, I really mean 'Tom'.) By the time his upside-down legs stopped moving (why oh WHY are cockroaches' leg so freakishly long?!?!) we had been at it for at least a half hour, and Tom's apartment was absolutely filled with spray, as if we were trying to exterminate ourselves in the process.
So we opened the window, turned on the fan, and evacuated the building.For an hour. At 2am.
We had fun; we grabbed drinks from the 7-11 and then hung out in a little park down the street, but we were all still jumpy; myself especially. Every little noise caught my full attention, in case we had another unwelcome visitor.
So we headed back to Tom's less-toxic apartment at around 3am, knowing full well that I would have to leave for the airport that morning by 6am at the latest. And we sprawled sideways across the bed and took a nap for the next day, since really, that was all we could have done at that point.
The next day Tom took me to the shuttle bus station and I set off for the States, sleep-deprived from the start.
So that was my Taipei adventure! I will need to go back sometime soon, when I don't have to catch a plane the next day and we don't find a cockroach and have to kill it and evacuate.
But it was fun for the first time. :)
Sunday, August 28, 2011
August 27
I lived August 27 twice. So, naturally, I blogged not at all. I spent my first August 27 flying from Taipei to Tokyo, and then Tokyo to Portland. I then began my second August 27, which began with Lindsey picking me up from the Portland airport and has just ended.
I will blog more about both of these days later. :)
I will blog more about both of these days later. :)
Saturday, August 27, 2011
En Route Home
Headed home for Alex's wedding!
In Taipei now, at Karina's friend Tom's. We just got back from a night market, where I finally had squid! Lots of great food. More later, hopefully!
In Taipei now, at Karina's friend Tom's. We just got back from a night market, where I finally had squid! Lots of great food. More later, hopefully!
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Obsessions
Another uneventful day--which is not altogether a bad thing! The only moment of productivity today came first thing in the morning when, at 9am, we met up to go get physicals for our drivers licenses at the local hospital. After that, it was a nap, then some studying for said license test (which we will now be taking next week, since we didn't today), then reading and TV-watching for the rest of the day. It was glorious.
But, all that to say, not much to blog about. So, instead of an update on my day, I'll use my favorite little content-building technique: a list. And I shall call this list...
Taiwanese Obsessions I've Noticed Thus Far
1. The people of Taiwan are obsessed with plastic. Plastic bags, plastic seals, plastic straws, plastic bottles--it's everywhere.
Anytime you order iced tea or juice here, you receive a plastic cup topped by a plastic seal which, together with a plastic-enshrined plastic straw, come nestled inside a plastic bag. Anytime you buy a beverage at 7-11--which you do daily, often in plastic bottles, and often water, thanks to the non-potable tap water--you receive a plastic straw. Today at McDonald's, I saw them put three paper bags full of food inside a larger plastic bag before giving it to the customer. From what I can tell, this phenomenon stems in part from the fact that most people commute via scooter, and the one storage capacity scooters always have (besides room in the seat) is a hook for bags. But still, this plastic obsession is odd when combined with....
2. Their obsession with recycling. I'm quite glad about this obsession, given #1 on this list, and the fact that until recently Kaohsiung was one of the most polluted cities in Southeast Asia, and the most polluted city in Taiwan. They used to say you could write calligraphy with the water from the Love River. This is, fortunately, no longer the case; now, the emphasis on recycling makes me feel like I'm back in Seattle, with many restaurants having multiple trash cans for different types of waste. It is a bit annoying, though, having to rinse and sort everything, including food waste, all the time--after lunch each day, we have a whole ordeal of scraping out our (cardboard) lunch boxes which we can never finish into one bag, then putting the boxes themselves in another bag, and putting our used napkins and disposable chopsticks into a third bag. Our plastic drink cups/bottles do, I think, go in a fourth bag after they are rinsed, but I've never quite been able to figure that part out.
3. Another thing I've not quite figured out is the Taiwanese obsession with receipts. You get a receipt with absolutely every purchase and, as I've mentioned with the whole drinks situation, you make a lot of small purchases. And each and every receipt you get is long and thin and about three times the size it needs to be to contain all the information. I know that, with 7-11 at least, they have a lottery based on your receipt numbers, but I haven't been able to figure out yet whether or not that system is universal, or how and when you find out if you've won. So I just throw mine away, but somehow they still seem to show up constantly clogging my wallet and falling out of my purse. It's obnoxious.
I know the point of this program is to spread cultural exchange, so I have the feeling my lists will proliferate with more little amusing quirks of Taiwanese culture in the coming months. But for now, I'll leave my list at this: two ways in which Taiwanese people use a lot of resources, and one way in which they deal with the leftovers.
But, all that to say, not much to blog about. So, instead of an update on my day, I'll use my favorite little content-building technique: a list. And I shall call this list...
Taiwanese Obsessions I've Noticed Thus Far
1. The people of Taiwan are obsessed with plastic. Plastic bags, plastic seals, plastic straws, plastic bottles--it's everywhere.
 |
| This is just a very small sampling of the bottles I've used since I got here--the ones I finished at home and been too lazy to take out to the recycling right away. Also worth noting is that I go through one of the large water bottles about once every two or three days. You do the math. |
2. Their obsession with recycling. I'm quite glad about this obsession, given #1 on this list, and the fact that until recently Kaohsiung was one of the most polluted cities in Southeast Asia, and the most polluted city in Taiwan. They used to say you could write calligraphy with the water from the Love River. This is, fortunately, no longer the case; now, the emphasis on recycling makes me feel like I'm back in Seattle, with many restaurants having multiple trash cans for different types of waste. It is a bit annoying, though, having to rinse and sort everything, including food waste, all the time--after lunch each day, we have a whole ordeal of scraping out our (cardboard) lunch boxes which we can never finish into one bag, then putting the boxes themselves in another bag, and putting our used napkins and disposable chopsticks into a third bag. Our plastic drink cups/bottles do, I think, go in a fourth bag after they are rinsed, but I've never quite been able to figure that part out.
3. Another thing I've not quite figured out is the Taiwanese obsession with receipts. You get a receipt with absolutely every purchase and, as I've mentioned with the whole drinks situation, you make a lot of small purchases. And each and every receipt you get is long and thin and about three times the size it needs to be to contain all the information. I know that, with 7-11 at least, they have a lottery based on your receipt numbers, but I haven't been able to figure out yet whether or not that system is universal, or how and when you find out if you've won. So I just throw mine away, but somehow they still seem to show up constantly clogging my wallet and falling out of my purse. It's obnoxious.
 |
| Again, a very small selection: those receipts collected after I found out there was a lottery and before I realized that I have no clue how that information can be of any use to me and began throwing them away again. |
Resolution and KTV
Today was the last day of orientation. Typing that is weird--it means that we are now all supposedly oriented, both to the country and to our jobs; next week, we become independent, functioning members of society again. Which is an odd concept, in large part because the biggest function of this month (how have I been here almost a month already?!) has been to show me how little I know and how little I can function here independently.
But here it comes at me, full-force, Taiwan without the training wheels! It really does feel that way: like I've been learning how to ride a bike, and now, just as I realize how complicated it all is and how little I understand it, my overenthusiastic teacher is pulling out all the stops.
Can I speak Chinese now? No; I can order coffee, tea, or juice alright, or point and say "我要 這個" ("Wo yao zhege"--I want this one), but that's about the extent of it. If I get flustered I inexplicably revert to Spanish. Can I navigate the city? Not really; I can take the MRT to whichever sector I want okay, but street directions? Impossible, thanks to the not-really-pinyin-pinyin-signs and my inability to read Chinese characters. Can I ride a scooter? I guess tomorrow will tell; we're taking our driver's license tests, but even if I get mine I don't have a scooter, and if I did, I don't really know how to handle traffic yet--all my experience is in a parking lot at San-Min. Can I teach? Well, I hope so, but really that is the one thing which requires training wheels-less practice to know for sure.
To top it off, Karina is pretty much definitely moving to a new apartment in the county. While I know she's going to love her new place and have a great experience, the selfish side of me is really really sad that she's leaving--she's a great friend, and I hate that we won't get to hang out every day now. I love spending time talking with her, and she has been a wonderful support to me on many levels in this last month, including graciously helping me with my language inabilities. She's just fantastic in general.
But Karina moving out brings me to the resolution part of this post: we are no longer in limbo; the drama has (essentially) ended. The Meinong league was cancelled today; Lydia will be re-placed in a school in the city. We can't even begin to fathom the stress and bureaucratic crap that Alex and Fonda had to go through to make this happen, but we are eternally grateful to them for doing it.
So today, after question-and-answer time, first just with our ETA group and Prof. Spring and Alex, and then with the larger group of LETs and Prof. Lee, we each sat down with out own schools and figured out when we're going to see them and meet everyone/observe classes. I thought we would be there all week, and some schools are doing it that way, but after impressing my openness to that idea on my LETS four or five times--and after a good 40 minute discussion on timing--it looks like I'll just be at my schools for one, maybe two days next week. Long day Thursday, beginning with meeting Maggie at the Formosa MRT station at 7:15am so she can show me how to get to the schools from there, then going to the first part of Han-Min's morning meeting to meet people, then going to the second part of Qing-Shan's morning meeting (same time) to meet people there, then lesson planning with Patty at Qing-Shan, class observation with Patty at Qing-Shan, then back to Han-Min to (hopefully) observe and lesson plan with both Maggie and Alison. If, as is very likely, we run out of time to do all that, I'll come back Friday.
After our scheduling meeting, we were free for the day; I didn't do much of note until the evening, when we went to check out a gym--really nice, but might do a different (more expensive and further away) branch because of its classes/facilities--then went to a WONDERFUL chocolate shop that gave us each TONS of truffle samples (including the best dark chocolate I have EVER tasted) and free tea--love it!--then went to KTV.
For the uninitiated, KTV is the Chinese/Taiwanese/Korean/Japanese/maybe other countries version of karaoke. Here, unlike in the US, where karaoke translates roughly to drunk strangers belting songs off-key to a roomful of strangers, karaoke takes place in a private room, with just your friends nearby. Which means drinking is no longer a necessity, and therefore the singing is, as a rule, dramatically better.
Tonight, our group consisted of myself, Rachel, Emily, Lydia, Samia, Karina, Tiffiany, and Andew; two of Karina's LETs, Lucy and Emily; Alex, Fonda, and Evelyn. It was a lot of fun, especially when we ended up in a long stretch of Avril Lavigne, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, and the Titanic theme song: great having all the female ETAs busting it out while Andrew got awkward.
Another wonderful moment--indeed probably the defining moment of the evening--was Karina's Beijing-opera-meets-Elvis impersonation. Unfortunately Blogger won't let me upload it for some reason, but just look up "Beijing opera" and imagine it superimposed on "I Can't Stop Falling in Love with You." It was pretty epic. Here it is!
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But here it comes at me, full-force, Taiwan without the training wheels! It really does feel that way: like I've been learning how to ride a bike, and now, just as I realize how complicated it all is and how little I understand it, my overenthusiastic teacher is pulling out all the stops.
Can I speak Chinese now? No; I can order coffee, tea, or juice alright, or point and say "我要 這個" ("Wo yao zhege"--I want this one), but that's about the extent of it. If I get flustered I inexplicably revert to Spanish. Can I navigate the city? Not really; I can take the MRT to whichever sector I want okay, but street directions? Impossible, thanks to the not-really-pinyin-pinyin-signs and my inability to read Chinese characters. Can I ride a scooter? I guess tomorrow will tell; we're taking our driver's license tests, but even if I get mine I don't have a scooter, and if I did, I don't really know how to handle traffic yet--all my experience is in a parking lot at San-Min. Can I teach? Well, I hope so, but really that is the one thing which requires training wheels-less practice to know for sure.
To top it off, Karina is pretty much definitely moving to a new apartment in the county. While I know she's going to love her new place and have a great experience, the selfish side of me is really really sad that she's leaving--she's a great friend, and I hate that we won't get to hang out every day now. I love spending time talking with her, and she has been a wonderful support to me on many levels in this last month, including graciously helping me with my language inabilities. She's just fantastic in general.
But Karina moving out brings me to the resolution part of this post: we are no longer in limbo; the drama has (essentially) ended. The Meinong league was cancelled today; Lydia will be re-placed in a school in the city. We can't even begin to fathom the stress and bureaucratic crap that Alex and Fonda had to go through to make this happen, but we are eternally grateful to them for doing it.
So today, after question-and-answer time, first just with our ETA group and Prof. Spring and Alex, and then with the larger group of LETs and Prof. Lee, we each sat down with out own schools and figured out when we're going to see them and meet everyone/observe classes. I thought we would be there all week, and some schools are doing it that way, but after impressing my openness to that idea on my LETS four or five times--and after a good 40 minute discussion on timing--it looks like I'll just be at my schools for one, maybe two days next week. Long day Thursday, beginning with meeting Maggie at the Formosa MRT station at 7:15am so she can show me how to get to the schools from there, then going to the first part of Han-Min's morning meeting to meet people, then going to the second part of Qing-Shan's morning meeting (same time) to meet people there, then lesson planning with Patty at Qing-Shan, class observation with Patty at Qing-Shan, then back to Han-Min to (hopefully) observe and lesson plan with both Maggie and Alison. If, as is very likely, we run out of time to do all that, I'll come back Friday.
After our scheduling meeting, we were free for the day; I didn't do much of note until the evening, when we went to check out a gym--really nice, but might do a different (more expensive and further away) branch because of its classes/facilities--then went to a WONDERFUL chocolate shop that gave us each TONS of truffle samples (including the best dark chocolate I have EVER tasted) and free tea--love it!--then went to KTV.
For the uninitiated, KTV is the Chinese/Taiwanese/Korean/Japanese/maybe other countries version of karaoke. Here, unlike in the US, where karaoke translates roughly to drunk strangers belting songs off-key to a roomful of strangers, karaoke takes place in a private room, with just your friends nearby. Which means drinking is no longer a necessity, and therefore the singing is, as a rule, dramatically better.
Tonight, our group consisted of myself, Rachel, Emily, Lydia, Samia, Karina, Tiffiany, and Andew; two of Karina's LETs, Lucy and Emily; Alex, Fonda, and Evelyn. It was a lot of fun, especially when we ended up in a long stretch of Avril Lavigne, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, and the Titanic theme song: great having all the female ETAs busting it out while Andrew got awkward.
Another wonderful moment--indeed probably the defining moment of the evening--was Karina's Beijing-opera-meets-Elvis impersonation. Unfortunately Blogger won't let me upload it for some reason, but just look up "Beijing opera" and imagine it superimposed on "I Can't Stop Falling in Love with You." It was pretty epic. Here it is!
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Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Training Wheels
Something tells me this every day thing is only going to get more difficult as the year wears on. So really, this post is mostly just a quick update on my mostly uneventful day.
We did more co-teaching today, and it went MUCH better than yesterday. My co-teacher, Patty, is pretty quiet one-on-one, but I discovered today that she absolutely blossoms in front of a group of kids! It was great! We started out with a little interactive dialogue about us riding bikes/scooters, and she took off "on her scooter" to pretend to ram into the front row of students! It got them laughing and engaged, which is NOT easy to do.
Our time management was a little better, too--we got through all the vocabulary several times, played a game, and learned and practiced our sentence patterns (How do you go to school? I go to school by ________.); though we didn't quite make it to our last two activities, due in part to a time-eating magnet malfunctioning, it was a massive improvement over yesterday.
And now our co-teaching practice is over! Later this week we visit our own schools; next week, school starts. Time to actually prove ourselves, not just practice on hand-selected summer camp kids who know everything already.
I got my schedule today for Han-Min and Qing-Shan; it looks pretty sweet. My longest day is Monday, 9:30-3:00; Tuesday I only work 9:30-noon; Wednesday I have flag raising at 8:00 (early, but at least only once a week!), then teach 9:30-noon; Thursday I start late and work 11-4, and Friday is 8:40-noon. I officially love a (part-time teaching assistant) teacher's schedule!
Tomorrow we have a later start at Sanmin, which is good since I'm pretty sure we don't have much to do. Like I said, we finished co-teaching; we also finished, in my mind, talking about co-teaching: each 20-minute class was followed by a 20-minute discussion time, and we had a big-group discussion each afternoon, too. I don't really know what else there is to say, but I guess we'll find out!
In other news, there's still some drama going on in the ranks...hopefully it will all be happily settled soon. Also, we're going to take our scooter driver's license tests this week. Also, I'm going to the States this weekend. Yeah, just for the weekend. So that should be interesting!
And that's it, for now!
We did more co-teaching today, and it went MUCH better than yesterday. My co-teacher, Patty, is pretty quiet one-on-one, but I discovered today that she absolutely blossoms in front of a group of kids! It was great! We started out with a little interactive dialogue about us riding bikes/scooters, and she took off "on her scooter" to pretend to ram into the front row of students! It got them laughing and engaged, which is NOT easy to do.
Our time management was a little better, too--we got through all the vocabulary several times, played a game, and learned and practiced our sentence patterns (How do you go to school? I go to school by ________.); though we didn't quite make it to our last two activities, due in part to a time-eating magnet malfunctioning, it was a massive improvement over yesterday.
And now our co-teaching practice is over! Later this week we visit our own schools; next week, school starts. Time to actually prove ourselves, not just practice on hand-selected summer camp kids who know everything already.
I got my schedule today for Han-Min and Qing-Shan; it looks pretty sweet. My longest day is Monday, 9:30-3:00; Tuesday I only work 9:30-noon; Wednesday I have flag raising at 8:00 (early, but at least only once a week!), then teach 9:30-noon; Thursday I start late and work 11-4, and Friday is 8:40-noon. I officially love a (part-time teaching assistant) teacher's schedule!
Tomorrow we have a later start at Sanmin, which is good since I'm pretty sure we don't have much to do. Like I said, we finished co-teaching; we also finished, in my mind, talking about co-teaching: each 20-minute class was followed by a 20-minute discussion time, and we had a big-group discussion each afternoon, too. I don't really know what else there is to say, but I guess we'll find out!
In other news, there's still some drama going on in the ranks...hopefully it will all be happily settled soon. Also, we're going to take our scooter driver's license tests this week. Also, I'm going to the States this weekend. Yeah, just for the weekend. So that should be interesting!
And that's it, for now!
Learning
Teaching, for me, is a mixed bag. On the one hand it comes naturally--what is there to complicate standing up before a group of kids and spouting off information?--but on the other hand it's a massive shot in the dark, something over which I have absolutely no control over, and the outcome of which may or may not be a direct result of what I do.
So I co-taught today. Maggie (one of my co-teachers from Hanmin) and I planned out a beautiful lesson on farm animals; I wrote up a story that incorporated the vocabulary--pig, goat, horse, cow, hen, duck; she printed and cut out pictures of each animal times 10 for learning sentence patterns (How many _____ are there? There is one _____. OR There are (#) ________s.); we set out a couple games and a couple exercises; we drew out the difficult words from my story on the board; we gathered the students. It looked to go great.
But it wasn't the right lesson.
Last week I taught a group of exuberant 4th graders; today, when we entered the room, we found a room full of stony-faced 6th graders. True, in Taiwan 6th grade is still primary school, but 6th graders are 6th graders across the globe and arbitrary educational divides: too cool for you, and definitely too cool for whatever you planned for them. You may pique their interest at first by being a foreigner, but good luck holding it once you start trying to teach them!
"What's my name?"
Last week, that question would rouse a huge roar in response: "TEACHER BEKAH!" This week, I could hear maybe three or four voices above the general murmur. To top it off, my 4th graders from last week were next door, and I could hear their excited screams throughout the day, and during my lesson itself. Several of them waved and said 'hi' to me in the hallway. But where were Vincent and Johnny and Victor and Tina and Coco when I needed them? Back in their own classroom, of course, enjoying themselves, while my new students sat in silent contemplation.
The contrast is enough to make me wish I was teaching lower grades, rather than the 5th- and 6th-graders I actually will be teaching.
But, despite my lesson's inability to excite the students, my story's too-complicated plotline and cast of characters, and our miscalculation of what we could do in our short (20 minute!) class period which resulted in our not even making it to the sentence patterns, let alone the most fun games, the day went pretty well.
We had story time in the morning, which I greatly enjoyed; I read them Bill Peet's "Zella, Zack and Zodiac," and the wonderful "My Life With the Wave," which they seemed to like, though the words were over their heads. And I enjoyed it! Here are some pictures Maggie took of story time:
Other key points of today...our kitchen/dining room area is clean! I can't even begin to take credit for it--Brittany and Rachel worked on it for hours while I was gone today, at scooter practice and then getting food. But I did at least manage to sweep and mop (by the old foot-and-rag-and-ammonia method--not the best in an ill-ventilated kitchen) the kitchen floor, and make the long journey down to the trash can with arm-fulls of stuff.
And that's about it! Hopefully tomorrow my learning will help my students' learning, and their enjoyment of the lesson, to improve.
So I co-taught today. Maggie (one of my co-teachers from Hanmin) and I planned out a beautiful lesson on farm animals; I wrote up a story that incorporated the vocabulary--pig, goat, horse, cow, hen, duck; she printed and cut out pictures of each animal times 10 for learning sentence patterns (How many _____ are there? There is one _____. OR There are (#) ________s.); we set out a couple games and a couple exercises; we drew out the difficult words from my story on the board; we gathered the students. It looked to go great.
But it wasn't the right lesson.
Last week I taught a group of exuberant 4th graders; today, when we entered the room, we found a room full of stony-faced 6th graders. True, in Taiwan 6th grade is still primary school, but 6th graders are 6th graders across the globe and arbitrary educational divides: too cool for you, and definitely too cool for whatever you planned for them. You may pique their interest at first by being a foreigner, but good luck holding it once you start trying to teach them!
"What's my name?"
Last week, that question would rouse a huge roar in response: "TEACHER BEKAH!" This week, I could hear maybe three or four voices above the general murmur. To top it off, my 4th graders from last week were next door, and I could hear their excited screams throughout the day, and during my lesson itself. Several of them waved and said 'hi' to me in the hallway. But where were Vincent and Johnny and Victor and Tina and Coco when I needed them? Back in their own classroom, of course, enjoying themselves, while my new students sat in silent contemplation.
The contrast is enough to make me wish I was teaching lower grades, rather than the 5th- and 6th-graders I actually will be teaching.
But, despite my lesson's inability to excite the students, my story's too-complicated plotline and cast of characters, and our miscalculation of what we could do in our short (20 minute!) class period which resulted in our not even making it to the sentence patterns, let alone the most fun games, the day went pretty well.
We had story time in the morning, which I greatly enjoyed; I read them Bill Peet's "Zella, Zack and Zodiac," and the wonderful "My Life With the Wave," which they seemed to like, though the words were over their heads. And I enjoyed it! Here are some pictures Maggie took of story time:
 |
| With some fun effects, of course :) |
 |
| ENTHUSIASM! Trying to pass it on... |
And that's about it! Hopefully tomorrow my learning will help my students' learning, and their enjoyment of the lesson, to improve.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Deep Cleaning
It has begun. My room is in chaos; there are dirty dishes piled up our sink and clean dishes scattered all over our dining room table; there are trash piles near every door. We're beginning to settle in, and in the process, there's a lot to be done.
I started unpacking hardcore today! My massive black trunk, which has heretofore sat, undisturbed, at the foot of my bed, is unpacked now, the duct tape removed and the case placed atop my newly-dusted wardrobe. So, too, my biggest rolling bag is unpacked, its contents split between the wardrobe and under the bed, the Kaohsiung destination tag ripped off and the bag resting upright where the black case was before.
I also began in what will be a multi-day rearranging effort: my wardrobe, which was on the same wall as my bed, leaving ample wasted space on the wall my door is in, has been shifted around the corner so that it sits next to the light switch, with a nice-sized space beside it which I hope to fill with a clothes rack for more hanging space--I'm quickly discovering that, with my hanging organizer in place, my wardrobe does not have enough room for my hanging clothes. And in this climate, of all climates, I want to give my clothes room to breathe.
As for the rest of the room, I haven't decided yet, though I did move the bedside table over so it's actually beside my bed. Planner that I am, I will probably bust out the measuring tape and graph paper before I start shoving all the furniture around.
The actual cleaning part of settling in in this apartment is disturbing. You wipe any surface in this house with a wet rag, and it comes away black. Today, when I moved my wardrobe, I discovered a scattering of gray cocoon-looking things all over my wall (they were soon gone and the whole area RAID-ed), and an inch-deep layer of dust built up on the moldings. GROSS!
Then there's the roaches, of course, which I haven't mentioned yet in this blog, mostly because so far my experiences of them have been pretty innocuous--tiny little guys who usually pop up on the bathroom floor or somewhere in the kitchen. On our first day, Rachel killed a giant one, but I didn't see it; today, though, Brittany found a big one in her bathroom and let loose a blood-curdling scream that pierced the whole apartment. Luckily, the one thing our predecessors did leave behind for us was roach spray and roach traps.
But it's coming along. My room will look much better once I make it to Ikea to get some more organizational stuff--right now I've run into the problem of not having anywhere to put the stuff I unload from my bags--but for now it's nice to have a little more floor space and a few cleaner walls. Could also use some homey touches. The rest still needs serious work; one of the previous tenants ripped a bulletin board off the wall, taking parts of the wall with it, and the walls themselves are visibly dirty. I mentioned both problems to Fonda; I'm hoping the landlord will agree to repaint. It's pretty nasty.
And that's about all that's been happening around here today! We had waffles for brunch. We pulled a stereotypical American moment and had Pizza Hut and soda for dinner in front of the TV. Now we're sitting around the house blogging, listening to music, Facebooking, cleaning...whatever. Pretty chill. Back to teaching tomorrow!
I started unpacking hardcore today! My massive black trunk, which has heretofore sat, undisturbed, at the foot of my bed, is unpacked now, the duct tape removed and the case placed atop my newly-dusted wardrobe. So, too, my biggest rolling bag is unpacked, its contents split between the wardrobe and under the bed, the Kaohsiung destination tag ripped off and the bag resting upright where the black case was before.
I also began in what will be a multi-day rearranging effort: my wardrobe, which was on the same wall as my bed, leaving ample wasted space on the wall my door is in, has been shifted around the corner so that it sits next to the light switch, with a nice-sized space beside it which I hope to fill with a clothes rack for more hanging space--I'm quickly discovering that, with my hanging organizer in place, my wardrobe does not have enough room for my hanging clothes. And in this climate, of all climates, I want to give my clothes room to breathe.
As for the rest of the room, I haven't decided yet, though I did move the bedside table over so it's actually beside my bed. Planner that I am, I will probably bust out the measuring tape and graph paper before I start shoving all the furniture around.
The actual cleaning part of settling in in this apartment is disturbing. You wipe any surface in this house with a wet rag, and it comes away black. Today, when I moved my wardrobe, I discovered a scattering of gray cocoon-looking things all over my wall (they were soon gone and the whole area RAID-ed), and an inch-deep layer of dust built up on the moldings. GROSS!
Then there's the roaches, of course, which I haven't mentioned yet in this blog, mostly because so far my experiences of them have been pretty innocuous--tiny little guys who usually pop up on the bathroom floor or somewhere in the kitchen. On our first day, Rachel killed a giant one, but I didn't see it; today, though, Brittany found a big one in her bathroom and let loose a blood-curdling scream that pierced the whole apartment. Luckily, the one thing our predecessors did leave behind for us was roach spray and roach traps.
But it's coming along. My room will look much better once I make it to Ikea to get some more organizational stuff--right now I've run into the problem of not having anywhere to put the stuff I unload from my bags--but for now it's nice to have a little more floor space and a few cleaner walls. Could also use some homey touches. The rest still needs serious work; one of the previous tenants ripped a bulletin board off the wall, taking parts of the wall with it, and the walls themselves are visibly dirty. I mentioned both problems to Fonda; I'm hoping the landlord will agree to repaint. It's pretty nasty.
And that's about all that's been happening around here today! We had waffles for brunch. We pulled a stereotypical American moment and had Pizza Hut and soda for dinner in front of the TV. Now we're sitting around the house blogging, listening to music, Facebooking, cleaning...whatever. Pretty chill. Back to teaching tomorrow!
Loving Taiwan
Today was glorious. It began at 11:30, first of all, which was a welcome change after this sleepless week. In fact, that's an apt description of this day as a whole: a welcome change after a sleepless week.
The morning/early afternoon was pretty chill, which was perfect: Karina and I met Brittany's co-teacher Sophie to pick up a book for her, then got lunch at a curry place down the street and browsed in the stationary/ "teacher" store next door. She got some pretty cool foam pointers--one's shaped like a pointing index finger, and the other is shaped like a fist. On paying for it, she immediately "punched" me, and I told her now we have two people to worry about in the house! (Brittany bought some slapping hand pointers a couple days ago, and now she loves to sneak up behind people and freak them out with them.)
Then, around 4:30, Samia, Lydia, Rachel, Karina, Emily and I met up with Evelyn, Fonda, Chialing and Andrew (who had all scootered/biked there) at the MRT station nearest the ferry to Cijin. We took the ferry (itself an adventure for Rachel, who had brought her own bike along and had to board with the scooters) and, once on the island, rented bikes for the rest of us (including Samia, who didn't know how to ride yet) and set off down the shoreline, armed with cameras and water bottles.
It was fantastic--we saw the sunset the whole way, and partway down the trail, we saw some stray puppies and stopped to play. (Don't worry, it's safe here--Taiwan has absolutely no rabies.) Here, for your viewing pleasure, are some of the sights from along the way.
When we got back, we were sweaty and it was dark, but we loved every second of it anyway.
We got back to the area around our apartment at 8:25, just in time to make it to our 8:30 dinner reservation at the Thai restaurant around the corner. We've been trying to go there for a few days now, but last time we tried, there were 9 parties in line in front of us. So, we figured, it had to be good.
And we weren't mistaken. We ordered 9 dishes for a table of 10, and we polished off every dish and were wishing we had more room in our stomachs so we could order more and keep eating. Hard to say what was best--the Phad Thai (usually don't like Phad Thai, but this was DELICIOUS), the melt-in-your-mouth coconut chicken curry, the uber fresh and delicious ginger fish (we stripped it to the skeleton and kept picking at scraps)--the list goes on. I will be going back there.
Then we went home and began deep-cleaning our kitchen. Time to start treating this place like we actually live here! It's nasty now, but hopefully soon our whole apartment will be clean and cozy.
This day was fantastic. I'm so glad to be living in Taiwan!
The morning/early afternoon was pretty chill, which was perfect: Karina and I met Brittany's co-teacher Sophie to pick up a book for her, then got lunch at a curry place down the street and browsed in the stationary/ "teacher" store next door. She got some pretty cool foam pointers--one's shaped like a pointing index finger, and the other is shaped like a fist. On paying for it, she immediately "punched" me, and I told her now we have two people to worry about in the house! (Brittany bought some slapping hand pointers a couple days ago, and now she loves to sneak up behind people and freak them out with them.)
Then, around 4:30, Samia, Lydia, Rachel, Karina, Emily and I met up with Evelyn, Fonda, Chialing and Andrew (who had all scootered/biked there) at the MRT station nearest the ferry to Cijin. We took the ferry (itself an adventure for Rachel, who had brought her own bike along and had to board with the scooters) and, once on the island, rented bikes for the rest of us (including Samia, who didn't know how to ride yet) and set off down the shoreline, armed with cameras and water bottles.
It was fantastic--we saw the sunset the whole way, and partway down the trail, we saw some stray puppies and stopped to play. (Don't worry, it's safe here--Taiwan has absolutely no rabies.) Here, for your viewing pleasure, are some of the sights from along the way.
When we got back, we were sweaty and it was dark, but we loved every second of it anyway.
We got back to the area around our apartment at 8:25, just in time to make it to our 8:30 dinner reservation at the Thai restaurant around the corner. We've been trying to go there for a few days now, but last time we tried, there were 9 parties in line in front of us. So, we figured, it had to be good.
And we weren't mistaken. We ordered 9 dishes for a table of 10, and we polished off every dish and were wishing we had more room in our stomachs so we could order more and keep eating. Hard to say what was best--the Phad Thai (usually don't like Phad Thai, but this was DELICIOUS), the melt-in-your-mouth coconut chicken curry, the uber fresh and delicious ginger fish (we stripped it to the skeleton and kept picking at scraps)--the list goes on. I will be going back there.
Then we went home and began deep-cleaning our kitchen. Time to start treating this place like we actually live here! It's nasty now, but hopefully soon our whole apartment will be clean and cozy.
This day was fantastic. I'm so glad to be living in Taiwan!
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Placed at last!
It's official: I've been placed in League G! I will work with three great LETs--Maggie, Alison, and Patty--at two schools, Qin-shan and Han-min. Here's a map for reference.
If you can't tell from the map, I'm in the city! Which is great! I am very excited to work with Maggie, Alison and Patty--their schools are very focused on the arts, which will be lots of fun for a writer like me; I'm sure I'll be putting together some epic Reader's Theater projects for them!
But the drama is far from over: both my dear friend and apartment-mate Karina, and the wonderful Lydia, were unexpectedly placed in the more remote schools, and housing arrangements, as well as a few other things, are still sticky.
We co-taught again today, and it was great! Tracy and I taught animals, which went REALLY well--I had written a story which we read to the kids twice, once with them listening to answer questions (What was the monkey's name? How many animals were there? What kinds?), and then once where they got to act out each animal as I said its name. Really fun; they loved it, and the race/vocabulary game we played later. Even Rebecca's daughter joined in! Here's the story.
Here's a video from yesterday of Andrew's co-teacher Rebecca leading the group in a game/exercise:
Also worth noting is that the kids in my (temporary) class were freaking adorable. Here, I have proof!
So there you have it! And now I'm EXHAUSTED and going to bed. It's been quite the week.
If you can't tell from the map, I'm in the city! Which is great! I am very excited to work with Maggie, Alison and Patty--their schools are very focused on the arts, which will be lots of fun for a writer like me; I'm sure I'll be putting together some epic Reader's Theater projects for them!
But the drama is far from over: both my dear friend and apartment-mate Karina, and the wonderful Lydia, were unexpectedly placed in the more remote schools, and housing arrangements, as well as a few other things, are still sticky.
We co-taught again today, and it was great! Tracy and I taught animals, which went REALLY well--I had written a story which we read to the kids twice, once with them listening to answer questions (What was the monkey's name? How many animals were there? What kinds?), and then once where they got to act out each animal as I said its name. Really fun; they loved it, and the race/vocabulary game we played later. Even Rebecca's daughter joined in! Here's the story.
Here's a video from yesterday of Andrew's co-teacher Rebecca leading the group in a game/exercise:
Also worth noting is that the kids in my (temporary) class were freaking adorable. Here, I have proof!
 |
| L-R: Julian, Max, Coco, Candy |
 |
| In line for pizza...some things are universal. :) |
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| Teacher, me, me! I know! Also, L-R seated: Candy, Coco, Tina, Jenny, Frannie, Judy, Victor. Sammie is on the floor. |
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| Twins in our class! The boys are Johnny and Victor; the girl (not a twin) is Teenie |
Friday, August 19, 2011
Culture Shock and Co-teaching
They told us, again and again, in fact, that it would come to this. At some point, they said, you will experience culture shock. I just didn't expect my first culture shock to come through our placement process.
We still don't know our schools.
What we've concluded is that we are being sacrificed to guanxi: the city-county merge happened in January; our county placements were the first project of a new head honcho; there's an election coming up in January. So, if there's a way, we're going out to county. Too many relationships would have to be broken to change it. Time to get used to the culture!
But we got to co-teach today! Since we didn't have our school assignments yet, we were all randomly assigned to a school league, and I was assigned to League C, with Hou-jing and Oil Refinery Elementary Schools. So today, I got to co-teach with Cecilia, who is absolutely amazing, and tomorrow I get to co-teach with Tracy, who is fantastic as well. There are 3 leagues in each classroom, so I was also working with Esther and Andrew, who were paired with Leagues A & B.
Our class was wonderful! We have sixteen 4th grade students, 8 boys and 8 girls, all of whom are energetic and adorable. I think my favorite part was our twin boys, Johnny and Vincent, who began the day refusing to participate and ended it with their hands shooting up with every new question: Teacher, I know, I know!
We began the day with the ETAs leading plenty of games, including a name game and hangman (Esther led), Volcano (Andrew lea), Rhythm and Bingo (I led), and Teacher Says (we all led). After that we each had 20 minute lessons which we delivered with one of our co-teachers. I went last (afternoon in the heat--yuck!); Esther and Priscilla began with a lesson on taste (sweet, sour, salty, bitter); then Andrew and Rebecca (LET) went with a lesson on things you do right now (ie watching TV, doing homework). They were all stupendous; quite intimidating to see how easily they both interacted with the kids. Andrew especially had a great report going with them; by the end of the day they had a nickname for him and everything.
Then it was my turn. Cecilia and I co-taught a lesson on emotions; we taught happy, sad, tired, and angry, and the sentence patterns "I am..." and "He/She is..." It went pretty well, I think--we got great feedback after--but it was hard for me to see how un-talkative the kids were when they weren't simply repeating after me or using their new sentence patterns. When, for instance, I would say things like, "you want to win, right?" I would get blank stares. Something to work on in my actual classroom.
I'm tired, so that's it for now. I co-teach again tomorrow--with a story I wrote today about animals--so maybe then I'll have more details!
We still don't know our schools.
What we've concluded is that we are being sacrificed to guanxi: the city-county merge happened in January; our county placements were the first project of a new head honcho; there's an election coming up in January. So, if there's a way, we're going out to county. Too many relationships would have to be broken to change it. Time to get used to the culture!
But we got to co-teach today! Since we didn't have our school assignments yet, we were all randomly assigned to a school league, and I was assigned to League C, with Hou-jing and Oil Refinery Elementary Schools. So today, I got to co-teach with Cecilia, who is absolutely amazing, and tomorrow I get to co-teach with Tracy, who is fantastic as well. There are 3 leagues in each classroom, so I was also working with Esther and Andrew, who were paired with Leagues A & B.
Our class was wonderful! We have sixteen 4th grade students, 8 boys and 8 girls, all of whom are energetic and adorable. I think my favorite part was our twin boys, Johnny and Vincent, who began the day refusing to participate and ended it with their hands shooting up with every new question: Teacher, I know, I know!
We began the day with the ETAs leading plenty of games, including a name game and hangman (Esther led), Volcano (Andrew lea), Rhythm and Bingo (I led), and Teacher Says (we all led). After that we each had 20 minute lessons which we delivered with one of our co-teachers. I went last (afternoon in the heat--yuck!); Esther and Priscilla began with a lesson on taste (sweet, sour, salty, bitter); then Andrew and Rebecca (LET) went with a lesson on things you do right now (ie watching TV, doing homework). They were all stupendous; quite intimidating to see how easily they both interacted with the kids. Andrew especially had a great report going with them; by the end of the day they had a nickname for him and everything.
Then it was my turn. Cecilia and I co-taught a lesson on emotions; we taught happy, sad, tired, and angry, and the sentence patterns "I am..." and "He/She is..." It went pretty well, I think--we got great feedback after--but it was hard for me to see how un-talkative the kids were when they weren't simply repeating after me or using their new sentence patterns. When, for instance, I would say things like, "you want to win, right?" I would get blank stares. Something to work on in my actual classroom.
I'm tired, so that's it for now. I co-teach again tomorrow--with a story I wrote today about animals--so maybe then I'll have more details!
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Survivor: Kaohsiung ETAs
Well, the rankings are in, on both sides. Tomorrow morning, we find out where we will be teaching. Today, those who were willing to volunteer for the county schools were placed; Steven will be teaching at Dashu, and Tiffiany will be teaching at Dashe.
That leaves 3 more county schools to be assigned to people who don't want to go there, and 7 city schools. Which means we now have a 30% chance of leaving the city, or less, depending on how well we have been at reading each other--because honestly, the entire ranking process has been like a high-stakes game of poker, or, more accurately, a reality TV show. So here's my confessional.
Who goes to Exile Island? Who is voting for which school? Which school is voting for them? If everyone loves League D, but everyone knows everyone loves League D, how many people will actually put League D as their number 1? Is it worth it? Side conversations trying to gauge others' interests joined with heated--but measured--group outbursts of emotion and fears.
It feels good that now we're just waiting, but now we're talking in clusters about who we think will go where--some people have very precise and reasoned theories about who will go where--and waiting anxiously for the moment of truth tomorrow morning. At least we were able to talk Alex into telling us in our own room, rather than in a big group like they did last year, and even today with Steven and Tiffiany. So now we'll have a moment to process whatever our news are, at least.
Alex and Fonda came to our apartment today to talk to Brittany, who is paired up temporarily for our co-teaching practice, with Aware. The bottom line, which Brittany relayed with plenty of wonderful color, is that he can't speak English at all. But, as we've been learning, Alex doesn't have the authority to kick schools out, and the higher-ups are ambivalent because of political pressures. Tomorrow, the woman in charge of the school selections will be there, and I think Alex will have her sit in on Brittany's co-teaching with Aware, so hopefully that will help. Hopefully.
Hope. It's all I can do, and I'm not even willing to grab onto the concept too firmly--the chance for disappointment is too big and too real. At least Alex and Fonda are working to do what they can for us--today they said that, if it really doesn't work after a month, we won't have to co-teach any more, and we'll just have fewer classes (at the functioning school), and freedom to do other English-language activities in the schools. Which is an improvement, but still scary.
So tomorrow, we find out. And then have to put a smile on our face, no matter what and go and co-teach with our randomly-assigned co-teachers from today. Incidentally, I love mine, but how much worse will that make it if I don't get to stay with them? We click, and we now have experience co-teaching together, but there's a possibility, no one knows how high, of tomorrow and Friday being the only days we co-teach. Today we sat together for an hour and a half and lesson-planned; tomorrow and Friday, we'll deliver those lesson plans to classrooms full of kids. It's a bonding experience; I don't see how it couldn't be, if you get along at all. But it may all be incidental.
I know it will work out, one way or another, and I'm doing my best to keep a positive outlook. I'm just hoping that won't hurt my chances of getting a school I like; while others have been extremely vocal in their criticisms of the county, I haven't been, in large part because I didn't need to be. But will I be assigned outside of my ability level because they think I'm less likely to raise a fuss? I hope not.
There it is again, that word, hope. I can't wait to see tomorrow if it's justified...
That leaves 3 more county schools to be assigned to people who don't want to go there, and 7 city schools. Which means we now have a 30% chance of leaving the city, or less, depending on how well we have been at reading each other--because honestly, the entire ranking process has been like a high-stakes game of poker, or, more accurately, a reality TV show. So here's my confessional.
Who goes to Exile Island? Who is voting for which school? Which school is voting for them? If everyone loves League D, but everyone knows everyone loves League D, how many people will actually put League D as their number 1? Is it worth it? Side conversations trying to gauge others' interests joined with heated--but measured--group outbursts of emotion and fears.
It feels good that now we're just waiting, but now we're talking in clusters about who we think will go where--some people have very precise and reasoned theories about who will go where--and waiting anxiously for the moment of truth tomorrow morning. At least we were able to talk Alex into telling us in our own room, rather than in a big group like they did last year, and even today with Steven and Tiffiany. So now we'll have a moment to process whatever our news are, at least.
Alex and Fonda came to our apartment today to talk to Brittany, who is paired up temporarily for our co-teaching practice, with Aware. The bottom line, which Brittany relayed with plenty of wonderful color, is that he can't speak English at all. But, as we've been learning, Alex doesn't have the authority to kick schools out, and the higher-ups are ambivalent because of political pressures. Tomorrow, the woman in charge of the school selections will be there, and I think Alex will have her sit in on Brittany's co-teaching with Aware, so hopefully that will help. Hopefully.
Hope. It's all I can do, and I'm not even willing to grab onto the concept too firmly--the chance for disappointment is too big and too real. At least Alex and Fonda are working to do what they can for us--today they said that, if it really doesn't work after a month, we won't have to co-teach any more, and we'll just have fewer classes (at the functioning school), and freedom to do other English-language activities in the schools. Which is an improvement, but still scary.
So tomorrow, we find out. And then have to put a smile on our face, no matter what and go and co-teach with our randomly-assigned co-teachers from today. Incidentally, I love mine, but how much worse will that make it if I don't get to stay with them? We click, and we now have experience co-teaching together, but there's a possibility, no one knows how high, of tomorrow and Friday being the only days we co-teach. Today we sat together for an hour and a half and lesson-planned; tomorrow and Friday, we'll deliver those lesson plans to classrooms full of kids. It's a bonding experience; I don't see how it couldn't be, if you get along at all. But it may all be incidental.
I know it will work out, one way or another, and I'm doing my best to keep a positive outlook. I'm just hoping that won't hurt my chances of getting a school I like; while others have been extremely vocal in their criticisms of the county, I haven't been, in large part because I didn't need to be. But will I be assigned outside of my ability level because they think I'm less likely to raise a fuss? I hope not.
There it is again, that word, hope. I can't wait to see tomorrow if it's justified...
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Trouble on the Eastern Front
I toyed with the idea of calling this post "Revolt," or "Mayhem." Karina suggested "Jury Duty." All are apt for describing the situation, and the day: we are having major issues with the county schools, and they go way beyond people just not wanting to go. Tensions abound.
Today we focused on co-teaching for most of the day; in the morning Professor Lee gave a presentation on what to do and what not to do in co-teaching (key point she made: IT IS ILLEGAL for ETAs to teach on their own in Taiwan--we're not certified!), and we watched a video the ETAs from a couple of years ago made called "The Art of Co-teaching," and discussed the best method in numerically assigned small groups.
But of course, the small groups weren't exactly impartial--we were supposed to number off, but somehow my group, group 4 of 12, ended up with 3 LETs, while another group had 6, and most had at least 4. Suspicious. When we snagged someone from the group of 6, it turned out she was from the same school as another LET in my group, and they took it upon themselves to turn our discussion, in part, into a time to pitch their school. They were very nice, but it felt a bit like I was being manipulated.
And oh, what a glorious segue that is into our number one concern with the LETs today: we felt, and in many cases were correct in feeling, like we were being lied to and manipulated.
As I mentioned before, several of the county schools yesterday sent school representatives, rather than the actual LETs like they were supposed to; yesterday, Alex made it a point to tell the group once again that they MUST send their LET to the orientation, as a requirement of their participation. So, today, all the same people showed up, but now they were magically transformed into LETs, when we asked. Beyond that, on probing several of them during our afternoon "speed dating" with all the schools, we discovered that some of the schools still hadn't sent anyone at all, and that a couple people couldn't speak English at all--one of the supposed English teachers could barely say his own English name, which was, incidentally, "Aware." Irony of ironies.
All of these shady practices made us, as ETAs, nervous. Leaving all thoughts about city versus county aside, these schools are lying about having LETs for us to teach with. When we get there, we know exactly what we will find: big joyous crowds come to welcome the English teacher, and an empty classroom set aside for us, and only us. Which is illegal.
And, even supposing that the "LETs" we met are there, we have too much of a language barrier to work together effectively! It would inevitably end up being either just them teaching the class in Mandarin, or just us teaching the class in English--which, again, is illegal. (You see, I told you that was a key point of the morning presentation.) And it's also ineffective! We are not (most of us) trained teachers; what we bring to the classroom is enthusiasm, an embodiment of why kids should care about English, and a native command of the language. What we do not bring is a knowledge of Mandarin good enough to manage a classroom, talk to administrators, and avoid miscommunications.
So, after the day was over, in our group meeting with Fonda, the ETAs essentially staged a verbal coup. Not against Fonda, not against Alex, not against anyone in Fulbright, but against the situation: we are terrified of it, and, I believe, justifiably so. We do not want to be sent to the county schools, only a couple of which actually have LETs so far, to discover that we are expected to do what we are not trained for and cannot legally do. We feel disrespected by the schools by their inability to prepare for our arrival and their total disregard for the hard-and-fast rules set down by the local government--we all went through a stringent screening to get to come here, and the city schools also took part in a major competition. But, due to political pressures, the same is not true of the county, and we don't feel that they are holding up their end of the bargain. In sum, we can't imagine a good situation coming from a partnership based in lies or, worse yet, from the absence of a partner.
So for now, we wait. We wait to see what the Education Bureau will do about those who break the rules; to see if they will enforce their own restrictions and fulfill our contracts to be assistant teachers. We wait to see if practicality will beat out political difficulties to benefit everyone involved.
I certainly hope so.
Today we focused on co-teaching for most of the day; in the morning Professor Lee gave a presentation on what to do and what not to do in co-teaching (key point she made: IT IS ILLEGAL for ETAs to teach on their own in Taiwan--we're not certified!), and we watched a video the ETAs from a couple of years ago made called "The Art of Co-teaching," and discussed the best method in numerically assigned small groups.
But of course, the small groups weren't exactly impartial--we were supposed to number off, but somehow my group, group 4 of 12, ended up with 3 LETs, while another group had 6, and most had at least 4. Suspicious. When we snagged someone from the group of 6, it turned out she was from the same school as another LET in my group, and they took it upon themselves to turn our discussion, in part, into a time to pitch their school. They were very nice, but it felt a bit like I was being manipulated.
And oh, what a glorious segue that is into our number one concern with the LETs today: we felt, and in many cases were correct in feeling, like we were being lied to and manipulated.
As I mentioned before, several of the county schools yesterday sent school representatives, rather than the actual LETs like they were supposed to; yesterday, Alex made it a point to tell the group once again that they MUST send their LET to the orientation, as a requirement of their participation. So, today, all the same people showed up, but now they were magically transformed into LETs, when we asked. Beyond that, on probing several of them during our afternoon "speed dating" with all the schools, we discovered that some of the schools still hadn't sent anyone at all, and that a couple people couldn't speak English at all--one of the supposed English teachers could barely say his own English name, which was, incidentally, "Aware." Irony of ironies.
All of these shady practices made us, as ETAs, nervous. Leaving all thoughts about city versus county aside, these schools are lying about having LETs for us to teach with. When we get there, we know exactly what we will find: big joyous crowds come to welcome the English teacher, and an empty classroom set aside for us, and only us. Which is illegal.
And, even supposing that the "LETs" we met are there, we have too much of a language barrier to work together effectively! It would inevitably end up being either just them teaching the class in Mandarin, or just us teaching the class in English--which, again, is illegal. (You see, I told you that was a key point of the morning presentation.) And it's also ineffective! We are not (most of us) trained teachers; what we bring to the classroom is enthusiasm, an embodiment of why kids should care about English, and a native command of the language. What we do not bring is a knowledge of Mandarin good enough to manage a classroom, talk to administrators, and avoid miscommunications.
So, after the day was over, in our group meeting with Fonda, the ETAs essentially staged a verbal coup. Not against Fonda, not against Alex, not against anyone in Fulbright, but against the situation: we are terrified of it, and, I believe, justifiably so. We do not want to be sent to the county schools, only a couple of which actually have LETs so far, to discover that we are expected to do what we are not trained for and cannot legally do. We feel disrespected by the schools by their inability to prepare for our arrival and their total disregard for the hard-and-fast rules set down by the local government--we all went through a stringent screening to get to come here, and the city schools also took part in a major competition. But, due to political pressures, the same is not true of the county, and we don't feel that they are holding up their end of the bargain. In sum, we can't imagine a good situation coming from a partnership based in lies or, worse yet, from the absence of a partner.
So for now, we wait. We wait to see what the Education Bureau will do about those who break the rules; to see if they will enforce their own restrictions and fulfill our contracts to be assistant teachers. We wait to see if practicality will beat out political difficulties to benefit everyone involved.
I certainly hope so.
Monday, August 15, 2011
First Impressions (and an "Aha" Moment)
Today we met all the LETs we will be working with from all the different schools around Kaohsiung. And that's all we did. To be honest, when I looked at our schedule and saw "ETAs & LETs PPT Self-introductions" marked down for the full day, I didn't think we could fill the day. But we did. And, surprise of surprises, the time went by really quickly; 12 leagues, 23 schools, 29 LETs, and 12 ETAs later, the day had evaporated into the heat waves coming off the sidewalk.
My first impression: these are great people. All of them.
My second impression: some of these great people may be a bit harder to work with than others, if for no other reason than that a few of them, though English teachers, struggle with the language themselves.
Also, those teachers from the outlying areas definitely know most people would rather be in the city, and will lobby hard to change your mind.
My presentation seemed to go well--I'd beefed it up a bit since we presented just to ourselves, as I discovered that several of my fellow ETAs have basically saved the world from utter destruction a couple times a year for the past ten years or so. So this version included my Spanish language skills, my experience in the playground program, my black belt in karate, my bass and piano playing, my acting, my Reader's Theater experience and willingness to write scripts (Reader's Theater is a BIG deal over here)--basically anything and everything I've done that might make me stand out in a room full of world travelers, Teach for America teachers, UNICEF Arizona founders, friends of congresswomen, and TESOL Master's recipients.
Competition in this group is stiff, let me tell you. I'm just glad we're doing this now, when we already like each other, or it could get brutal. In any case, Karina told me that they were really interested in what I had to say--more than anyone else's presentation, she said. I just hope that translates well for the rest of the process.
I spent the LET presentations taking copious notes on the presenters--not all of whom, we discovered later, were actually the LETs, like they were supposed to be (some were other school representatives,which was against the rules)--and, during the mingling time, did my best to be sociable and open and ask all the right questions and, for that matter, talk to the right people.
But it's stressful. At this point I think I know where I want to go, based on my interactions with the teachers and what they've told me about their schools. However, I have no idea who else of the ETAs may want the same schools as I do, or who of us the LETs would prefer. This makes the process intricately complicated--if ETA 1 puts my favorite school as their #1, too, and the LET at that school has ETA 1 rated above me, I lose out; if my second choice school is someone else's first choice and they match with an LET, I drop again, and so on. It's a complicated dance of trying to gauge ETA's and LET's interests and weigh them against my own: if I really want to be smart about this, I have to pick not just my favorite school, but a favorite school of mine that I don't think anyone else will put as their top choice.
But, given that there are only 7 city schools and at least 10 people vying for those spots (I overheard another ETA today saying she may vote county), it's almost unavoidable that we will overlap.
On the plus side, I genuinely like all of the teachers I met today. On the negative side, I'm afraid that ranking schools 'wrong' may result in me missing out on any chance in the city. Now's a time when I wish I were better at reading people. A big part of me also has this utopian fantasy that all the ETAs could get together and talk it over, and then compare notes with the LETs and come to some sort of mutually agreeable arrangement. But let's face it, that's a pipe dream.
So I'm playing it pretty close to the vest. Tomorrow we have more time to get to know the LETs--this time in a structured 'speed dating' format, rather than today's free-form talk-to-whom-you-will (or, as was often the case, whomever is available and/or most persistent in flagging you down), and tomorrow night we'll do the rating. We'll know where we're placed by Wednesday.
Here's an over-the-head shot of the LET and ETA meeting today--the camera misses quite a few people, too.
After the presentations were over, we (and by we I mean Andrew, Steven, Esther, Tiffiany and I--the usual crew always volunteering to do more scootering) did scooter practice, and I had a major "aha" moment. For whatever reason, today when I sat down on the scooter, something clicked and I was suddenly able to turn without feeling like I was going to fall over, and accelerate and stop on a dime. It was pretty cool, I have to say. Last time I sat on the scooter I was struggling with turning; now I can do figure eights. Gotta love it when muscle memory suddenly wakes up and says "Hey! The maneuvering on this thing is just like riding a bike!"
Which is not to say riding a scooter is as easy as riding a bike--that's what they've been trying to tell me since I've got here, and it's not true. Scooters are heavier, harder to balance, and harder to turn without going too far. But it is definitely the same type of skill set, and apparently today my body decided it was okay to tap into that wealth of old experiences and make it work.
So yeah, that's all for now...tomorrow I will master the art of the second impression, and hopefully solidify where I want to be, and where they'll have me!
My first impression: these are great people. All of them.
My second impression: some of these great people may be a bit harder to work with than others, if for no other reason than that a few of them, though English teachers, struggle with the language themselves.
Also, those teachers from the outlying areas definitely know most people would rather be in the city, and will lobby hard to change your mind.
My presentation seemed to go well--I'd beefed it up a bit since we presented just to ourselves, as I discovered that several of my fellow ETAs have basically saved the world from utter destruction a couple times a year for the past ten years or so. So this version included my Spanish language skills, my experience in the playground program, my black belt in karate, my bass and piano playing, my acting, my Reader's Theater experience and willingness to write scripts (Reader's Theater is a BIG deal over here)--basically anything and everything I've done that might make me stand out in a room full of world travelers, Teach for America teachers, UNICEF Arizona founders, friends of congresswomen, and TESOL Master's recipients.
Competition in this group is stiff, let me tell you. I'm just glad we're doing this now, when we already like each other, or it could get brutal. In any case, Karina told me that they were really interested in what I had to say--more than anyone else's presentation, she said. I just hope that translates well for the rest of the process.
I spent the LET presentations taking copious notes on the presenters--not all of whom, we discovered later, were actually the LETs, like they were supposed to be (some were other school representatives,which was against the rules)--and, during the mingling time, did my best to be sociable and open and ask all the right questions and, for that matter, talk to the right people.
But it's stressful. At this point I think I know where I want to go, based on my interactions with the teachers and what they've told me about their schools. However, I have no idea who else of the ETAs may want the same schools as I do, or who of us the LETs would prefer. This makes the process intricately complicated--if ETA 1 puts my favorite school as their #1, too, and the LET at that school has ETA 1 rated above me, I lose out; if my second choice school is someone else's first choice and they match with an LET, I drop again, and so on. It's a complicated dance of trying to gauge ETA's and LET's interests and weigh them against my own: if I really want to be smart about this, I have to pick not just my favorite school, but a favorite school of mine that I don't think anyone else will put as their top choice.
But, given that there are only 7 city schools and at least 10 people vying for those spots (I overheard another ETA today saying she may vote county), it's almost unavoidable that we will overlap.
On the plus side, I genuinely like all of the teachers I met today. On the negative side, I'm afraid that ranking schools 'wrong' may result in me missing out on any chance in the city. Now's a time when I wish I were better at reading people. A big part of me also has this utopian fantasy that all the ETAs could get together and talk it over, and then compare notes with the LETs and come to some sort of mutually agreeable arrangement. But let's face it, that's a pipe dream.
So I'm playing it pretty close to the vest. Tomorrow we have more time to get to know the LETs--this time in a structured 'speed dating' format, rather than today's free-form talk-to-whom-you-will (or, as was often the case, whomever is available and/or most persistent in flagging you down), and tomorrow night we'll do the rating. We'll know where we're placed by Wednesday.
Here's an over-the-head shot of the LET and ETA meeting today--the camera misses quite a few people, too.
After the presentations were over, we (and by we I mean Andrew, Steven, Esther, Tiffiany and I--the usual crew always volunteering to do more scootering) did scooter practice, and I had a major "aha" moment. For whatever reason, today when I sat down on the scooter, something clicked and I was suddenly able to turn without feeling like I was going to fall over, and accelerate and stop on a dime. It was pretty cool, I have to say. Last time I sat on the scooter I was struggling with turning; now I can do figure eights. Gotta love it when muscle memory suddenly wakes up and says "Hey! The maneuvering on this thing is just like riding a bike!"
Which is not to say riding a scooter is as easy as riding a bike--that's what they've been trying to tell me since I've got here, and it's not true. Scooters are heavier, harder to balance, and harder to turn without going too far. But it is definitely the same type of skill set, and apparently today my body decided it was okay to tap into that wealth of old experiences and make it work.
So yeah, that's all for now...tomorrow I will master the art of the second impression, and hopefully solidify where I want to be, and where they'll have me!
Who's Who in Kaohsiung
On special request, and since I did absolutely nothing today other than sit around and watch TV (and Skype with Lindsey for an hour an a half, which was wonderful), here's a brief run-down of the people I mention in my blog.
The Roommates
I currently live with Brittany, Rachel, and Karina, all of whom are other ETAs here in Kaohsiung. We choose schools tomorrow, so living arrangements may change, but I hope not--I love living with these ladies.
The Other ETAs
The other Fulbright ETAs here in Kaohsiung are Analicia, Andrew, Emily, Esther, Lydia, Samia, Steven, and Tiffiany. All wonderful people to hang out with. Right now we all live in the same apartment complex, but as I noted above, that will change soon.
Fulbright people
Fonda is our go-to person for just about everything; I think her official title is ETA Project Coordinator in Kaohsiung. She is absolutely amazing, and her patience with us is immense--I can't imagine having to take care of a fresh batch of full-grown infants every year until they get on their feet, but that is, essentially, her job description. Fonda plans everything and tells us what we're doing; sets up all the official stuff for ARCs, bank accounts, scooter licenses, rent and utility payment etc; provides scooters for us to practice on; checks up on us at home (and takes us to the hospital if we need it); and serves a general liaison for anything and everything that could go wrong. She also takes pictures all the time, which is fantastic.
Alex is the ETA Project Chief Coordinator; he lives and works in Taipei at the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange (aka Fulbright Taiwan), I believe, and comes down to visit us on special occasions. He's a great guy, really helpful and friendly, and widely-traveled, which makes for some really fun conversations.
Dr. Vocke is the Executive Director of the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange (Fulbright Taiwan) and he, like Alex, lives and works in Taipei and comes down to Kaohsiung when he's needed. Unlike Fonda and Alex, he's American, and he's been living in Taiwan for four or five years now. He's wonderful to talk to; he's part college professor (he used to be one; calls himself a recovering academic) and regulation stickler and part grandfatherly advice: the perfect combination.
Dr. Wu used to have Dr. Vocke's job; he's a Taiwanese Fulbrighter from a long time ago, and oversaw the Fulbright program in Taiwan for a very long time. He formerly studied and taught in the US, and he is willing to say whatever is on his mind. He's great.
Kaohsiung People in Education
Evelyn hangs out with us a lot; she's a total sweetheart and a friend of Fonda's, and she works at Sanmin as an English teacher . She's also a fantastic photographer and has a great smile. :)
Professor Spring teaches Education at National Kaohsiung Normal University; she is super athletic, independent, and fun to be around. She has been helping teach us the basics of teaching--she gave us a year-long course in theory in a single 3-hour session last week--and is helping set people up to play tennis and swim at NKNU. She's hilarious and free-spirited, and is one of the peoplehere in Kaohsiung who will help us with the teaching aspects.
Professor Lee also teaches Education at National Kaohsiung Normal University; she sometimes goes by "Triple L" because her full name is Lee-Lin Lee (I think? Or maybe Lin-Lee Lee?), and she is really sweet, helpful, and fun. She has been helping us with more classroom-oriented practices, and is great at being hands-on herself. She is our other resource for the teaching aspect of our grant.
Dr. Tsai is the Director General of Kaohsiung Education Bureau, the highest education authority in Kaohsiung. We have had the honor of meeting him twice so far.
Joanne, CJ, and Allen all work at Sanmin, and we have gotten to hang out with them a lot over the past few weeks. Joanne and Allen have gone on several of our outings with us (I rode in Joanne's car to dinner the other night, and she was great to talk to; she told us a lot about Ghost Month in Taiwan), and we get to see them every day in their office, which is right outside our conference room. CJ is the military presence at Sanmin; he speaks good English, has a great smile, and is a lot of fun to hang out with. He also lent us his scooter for the first day of scooter practice, which was great.
I'll add to this list as I think of more people; right now, it's late and I have to be up early tomorrow.
The Roommates
I currently live with Brittany, Rachel, and Karina, all of whom are other ETAs here in Kaohsiung. We choose schools tomorrow, so living arrangements may change, but I hope not--I love living with these ladies.
The Other ETAs
The other Fulbright ETAs here in Kaohsiung are Analicia, Andrew, Emily, Esther, Lydia, Samia, Steven, and Tiffiany. All wonderful people to hang out with. Right now we all live in the same apartment complex, but as I noted above, that will change soon.
Fulbright people
Fonda is our go-to person for just about everything; I think her official title is ETA Project Coordinator in Kaohsiung. She is absolutely amazing, and her patience with us is immense--I can't imagine having to take care of a fresh batch of full-grown infants every year until they get on their feet, but that is, essentially, her job description. Fonda plans everything and tells us what we're doing; sets up all the official stuff for ARCs, bank accounts, scooter licenses, rent and utility payment etc; provides scooters for us to practice on; checks up on us at home (and takes us to the hospital if we need it); and serves a general liaison for anything and everything that could go wrong. She also takes pictures all the time, which is fantastic.
Alex is the ETA Project Chief Coordinator; he lives and works in Taipei at the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange (aka Fulbright Taiwan), I believe, and comes down to visit us on special occasions. He's a great guy, really helpful and friendly, and widely-traveled, which makes for some really fun conversations.
Dr. Vocke is the Executive Director of the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange (Fulbright Taiwan) and he, like Alex, lives and works in Taipei and comes down to Kaohsiung when he's needed. Unlike Fonda and Alex, he's American, and he's been living in Taiwan for four or five years now. He's wonderful to talk to; he's part college professor (he used to be one; calls himself a recovering academic) and regulation stickler and part grandfatherly advice: the perfect combination.
Dr. Wu used to have Dr. Vocke's job; he's a Taiwanese Fulbrighter from a long time ago, and oversaw the Fulbright program in Taiwan for a very long time. He formerly studied and taught in the US, and he is willing to say whatever is on his mind. He's great.
Kaohsiung People in Education
Evelyn hangs out with us a lot; she's a total sweetheart and a friend of Fonda's, and she works at Sanmin as an English teacher . She's also a fantastic photographer and has a great smile. :)
Professor Spring teaches Education at National Kaohsiung Normal University; she is super athletic, independent, and fun to be around. She has been helping teach us the basics of teaching--she gave us a year-long course in theory in a single 3-hour session last week--and is helping set people up to play tennis and swim at NKNU. She's hilarious and free-spirited, and is one of the peoplehere in Kaohsiung who will help us with the teaching aspects.
Professor Lee also teaches Education at National Kaohsiung Normal University; she sometimes goes by "Triple L" because her full name is Lee-Lin Lee (I think? Or maybe Lin-Lee Lee?), and she is really sweet, helpful, and fun. She has been helping us with more classroom-oriented practices, and is great at being hands-on herself. She is our other resource for the teaching aspect of our grant.
Dr. Tsai is the Director General of Kaohsiung Education Bureau, the highest education authority in Kaohsiung. We have had the honor of meeting him twice so far.
Joanne, CJ, and Allen all work at Sanmin, and we have gotten to hang out with them a lot over the past few weeks. Joanne and Allen have gone on several of our outings with us (I rode in Joanne's car to dinner the other night, and she was great to talk to; she told us a lot about Ghost Month in Taiwan), and we get to see them every day in their office, which is right outside our conference room. CJ is the military presence at Sanmin; he speaks good English, has a great smile, and is a lot of fun to hang out with. He also lent us his scooter for the first day of scooter practice, which was great.
I'll add to this list as I think of more people; right now, it's late and I have to be up early tomorrow.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Meinong
We went to on more school visits today, to Dashe, Dashu, and to Meinong, where one ETA will be living alone.
First of all, it is ABSOLUTELY gorgeous out there. I mean really, really gorgeous. I still want to live in the city, but I wish I could visit once a month, or something...Check it out.
We had a lot of driving to do. First, we drove from our apartment in the center of the city to Dashe, on the outskirts of the city; then to Dashu, out in the countryside, next to the largest Buddhist temple in Taiwan; then to Meinong. I know I keep repeating it, but it is absolutely gorgeous out there--green mountains shrouded in mist, vibrant tropical flowers sprouting randomly from trees, water lilies floating on ponds, absolute silence--it was idyllic; definitely one of the most beautiful drives I've ever been on.
But I don't want to have to make it on a regular basis. Still, I think all of us who went lost a little of our heart there, and it will definitely make it easier on whomever ends up there. It seemed super homey and livable, and the people are all really nice and friendly. So this trip definitely helped.
Another major highlight of the day was getting to paint paper umbrellas at the paper umbrella festival in Meinong! Apparently, Meinong is world-famous for their paper umbrellas--check it out here.They were having an umbrella-painting competition while we were ther--check out the room full of submissions!
First of all, it is ABSOLUTELY gorgeous out there. I mean really, really gorgeous. I still want to live in the city, but I wish I could visit once a month, or something...Check it out.
 |
| In Meinong, at the paper umbrella festival! |
 |
| Looking around the school... |
 |
| ...yeah, it's beautiful |
But I don't want to have to make it on a regular basis. Still, I think all of us who went lost a little of our heart there, and it will definitely make it easier on whomever ends up there. It seemed super homey and livable, and the people are all really nice and friendly. So this trip definitely helped.
Another major highlight of the day was getting to paint paper umbrellas at the paper umbrella festival in Meinong! Apparently, Meinong is world-famous for their paper umbrellas--check it out here.They were having an umbrella-painting competition while we were ther--check out the room full of submissions!
Here's the one I painted. The characters are my name in Chinese, Baihe, (pronounced Bye-huh; it means "Lily" in Mandarin), which all the Meinong citizens loved!
...and Repeat
I've been sitting here for a few hours now, intermittently reading, Facebook purging, and debating what to write about for my daily blog post. After much deliberation, I have settled on a theme: repetition.
Today we did more workshops, had more discussions (today with former ETA Dale and the legendary Dr. Wu), heard Dr. Vocke's elevator speeches for the millionth time (he admitted this himself, and asked us how many times we had heard it; Andrew figured it to be six.); and, throughout it all, several undeniably catchy songs played and replayed themselves for my subconscious.
So, for your pleasure, I've decided to reproduce them here.
1.) The Elephant Song: I posted it on here yesterday, but I think it bears repeating--and my subconscious, apparently, agrees.
2.) Friday, by Rebecca Black: It's inevitable. It's that day of the week. Why, oh why, oh WHY does this song title have to be so commonly used in everyday speech?!
3.) Taiwanese Garbage Truck Song: they say it's Fur Elise, but calling it that doesn't even begin to give an idea of what you hear everyday, several times a day around here as the trucks traverse the city. (No standing garbage around here.) Bring out your trash!
After training, we went out to a delicious Western-style multi-course meal with Dr. Vocke, Dr. Tsai (sp? He's the Director of Board of Education), and pretty much everyone from the Fulbright staff. The meal was great, and elaborate--sparkling rose water, duck soup, duck salad with raspberry vinaigrette, sorbet to cleanse the palate, steak, milk tea, brownies, custard, and fruit--and the restaurant overlooked the Love River, which was gorgeous. So that whole experience was quite amazing, and as a bonus, we got to chat with Joanne, one of the Fulbright staffers, on the way to and way from the restaurant.
Here's mah fancy dessert--the color's a bit off, thanks to my inability to edit pictures well, but I thought it might be better than a dark image, which is what I had before I began meddling:
We're going to visit the loner school district tomorrow, so not much sleeping in for us. Should be beautiful at least, though, and hopefully annoying-song free.
Today we did more workshops, had more discussions (today with former ETA Dale and the legendary Dr. Wu), heard Dr. Vocke's elevator speeches for the millionth time (he admitted this himself, and asked us how many times we had heard it; Andrew figured it to be six.); and, throughout it all, several undeniably catchy songs played and replayed themselves for my subconscious.
So, for your pleasure, I've decided to reproduce them here.
1.) The Elephant Song: I posted it on here yesterday, but I think it bears repeating--and my subconscious, apparently, agrees.
2.) Friday, by Rebecca Black: It's inevitable. It's that day of the week. Why, oh why, oh WHY does this song title have to be so commonly used in everyday speech?!
3.) Taiwanese Garbage Truck Song: they say it's Fur Elise, but calling it that doesn't even begin to give an idea of what you hear everyday, several times a day around here as the trucks traverse the city. (No standing garbage around here.) Bring out your trash!
After training, we went out to a delicious Western-style multi-course meal with Dr. Vocke, Dr. Tsai (sp? He's the Director of Board of Education), and pretty much everyone from the Fulbright staff. The meal was great, and elaborate--sparkling rose water, duck soup, duck salad with raspberry vinaigrette, sorbet to cleanse the palate, steak, milk tea, brownies, custard, and fruit--and the restaurant overlooked the Love River, which was gorgeous. So that whole experience was quite amazing, and as a bonus, we got to chat with Joanne, one of the Fulbright staffers, on the way to and way from the restaurant.
Here's mah fancy dessert--the color's a bit off, thanks to my inability to edit pictures well, but I thought it might be better than a dark image, which is what I had before I began meddling:
We're going to visit the loner school district tomorrow, so not much sleeping in for us. Should be beautiful at least, though, and hopefully annoying-song free.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
The Elephant Song and Henny Penny
Just another day of Fulbright training. We did lots of mock lesson planning, and learned to teach around a theme/storybook. This process involved, for us, about an hour and a half talking about the children's story Henny Penny, involving us splitting into two groups and doing Reader's Theater, and being subjected to this man...
...for a good fifteen minutes, as he laboriously introduced all the characters, read the story, and broke randomly into song throughout. (And yes, that IS a man.)
We had some great practice with planning lessons around storybooks, and then around various holidays--my group had some pretty great ideas about April Fool's Day--and learned some games from a former LET, including an apparently-popular mafia-like game featuring, well, you can see...
We also got to watch the quite-wonderful Elephant Song!
On another note, scooter practice was a bit easier today; I think it helped being on the back of Joy's yesterday. It's easier to feel how you should be sitting to maneuver when you've been behind someone who actually knows how.
And now it's pouring rain, together with an enormous thunder-and-lightning storm while my roomies and I sit around watching TV/YouTube videos and messing around on our computers. So, you know, just another day in typhoon season.
...for a good fifteen minutes, as he laboriously introduced all the characters, read the story, and broke randomly into song throughout. (And yes, that IS a man.)
We had some great practice with planning lessons around storybooks, and then around various holidays--my group had some pretty great ideas about April Fool's Day--and learned some games from a former LET, including an apparently-popular mafia-like game featuring, well, you can see...
 | |
| Yes, that says "Bin Laden: I kill people everyday." |
On another note, scooter practice was a bit easier today; I think it helped being on the back of Joy's yesterday. It's easier to feel how you should be sitting to maneuver when you've been behind someone who actually knows how.
And now it's pouring rain, together with an enormous thunder-and-lightning storm while my roomies and I sit around watching TV/YouTube videos and messing around on our computers. So, you know, just another day in typhoon season.
Humility, Scooters, and Other Mysteries
One of the biggest things I've learned in Taiwan so far is just how humbling it is to be in a foreign country. You can't speak the language. You don't know the customs. You can't navigate by yourself. You become, in essence, an infant, taking once again those first wobbly steps toward self-sufficiency, and trusting in the mean time that those around you will keep you from harm. In short, you are entirely dependent on other people.
So, tonight I stepped out and put my life wholly in the hands of a stranger. Karina, who has lived abroad before, had connected to a local Kaohsiung resident who wanted a conversation partner; they met via a website for conversation partners and had never met in person. Until tonight, that is, when the friend, Carissa, offered to take Karina and I out to dinner. The restaurant she had in mind was too far for the MRT, she said, so she and her cousin, Joy, came on scooters to pick us up. So it was that, after saying hello, we were each handed a helmet and invited to sit behind these new friends, who then shot off into the night, with us behind them, clinging to the back railing. Where we were going was anybody's guess.
To be clear, we weren't stupid about it. We told several people what we were doing, and checked back with them once we got to our destination. But still, it was a complete leap of faith in my mind; a moment of absolute, infant-like trust that the person we were sitting behind would get us safely to the right destination. And they did. And it was AMAZING.
I don't think Carissa or Joy fully grasped just how much Karina and I just enjoyed being on the back of their scooters. We've been doing scooter practice in the parking lot behind Sanmin for two days now, so that I now feel comfortable starting the scooter moving and driving it slowly in circles (for the most part--right hand turns are hard! My theory is that it's because the throttle is also with your right hand; opposing motions to turn and keep moving), but putting around a little lot is ENTIRELY different from zipping through rush-hour traffic, easily looping around turns and zipping around buses while surrounded by other scooters doing the same thing. The whole thing reminded me of a school of minnows shooting past slow and stately whales, really--scooters are definitely the way to go around here.
Carissa and Joy took us to a fantastic little shop that served us fried chicken, fried egg, rice with veggies, and some sort of fish-tasting soup, which we thoroughly enjoyed while asking them about the schools they go to, the instruments they play, and other little chit-chatty topics. Occasionally Carissa wouldn't know a word and would switch to Chinese, which Karina was usually able to interpret, and somehow we managed a pretty good conversation.
Then we hopped back on the scooters (oh, the wonderful joy of cool(ish) night air rushing past!) and went to get milk tea from a vendor who, Carissa told us, has been in business for 68 years. This guy knew what he was doing, alright--probably the best milk tea I've had since I've been here, or ever, really!
From there it was a hop, skip, and a jump (by scooter, of course :) ) to the Love River, which is absolutely GORGEOUS at night, with lights festooned all along the walkway and the bridges so that they reflect off the water. We even took a little boat up and down the river; a tour guide explained all the sights, but I tuned him out (it was in Chinese, anyway) and just soaked it all in. Here are some pictures from that part of the night:
I really, really love this city. And I think that, after tonight, it may be hard to keep me off of scooters around here. But we'll see what coming days hold. In all likelihood, more time on the learning curve, trusting others to keep me afloat while I flounder in the humbling knowledge of my own ignorance.
So, tonight I stepped out and put my life wholly in the hands of a stranger. Karina, who has lived abroad before, had connected to a local Kaohsiung resident who wanted a conversation partner; they met via a website for conversation partners and had never met in person. Until tonight, that is, when the friend, Carissa, offered to take Karina and I out to dinner. The restaurant she had in mind was too far for the MRT, she said, so she and her cousin, Joy, came on scooters to pick us up. So it was that, after saying hello, we were each handed a helmet and invited to sit behind these new friends, who then shot off into the night, with us behind them, clinging to the back railing. Where we were going was anybody's guess.
To be clear, we weren't stupid about it. We told several people what we were doing, and checked back with them once we got to our destination. But still, it was a complete leap of faith in my mind; a moment of absolute, infant-like trust that the person we were sitting behind would get us safely to the right destination. And they did. And it was AMAZING.
I don't think Carissa or Joy fully grasped just how much Karina and I just enjoyed being on the back of their scooters. We've been doing scooter practice in the parking lot behind Sanmin for two days now, so that I now feel comfortable starting the scooter moving and driving it slowly in circles (for the most part--right hand turns are hard! My theory is that it's because the throttle is also with your right hand; opposing motions to turn and keep moving), but putting around a little lot is ENTIRELY different from zipping through rush-hour traffic, easily looping around turns and zipping around buses while surrounded by other scooters doing the same thing. The whole thing reminded me of a school of minnows shooting past slow and stately whales, really--scooters are definitely the way to go around here.
Carissa and Joy took us to a fantastic little shop that served us fried chicken, fried egg, rice with veggies, and some sort of fish-tasting soup, which we thoroughly enjoyed while asking them about the schools they go to, the instruments they play, and other little chit-chatty topics. Occasionally Carissa wouldn't know a word and would switch to Chinese, which Karina was usually able to interpret, and somehow we managed a pretty good conversation.
Then we hopped back on the scooters (oh, the wonderful joy of cool(ish) night air rushing past!) and went to get milk tea from a vendor who, Carissa told us, has been in business for 68 years. This guy knew what he was doing, alright--probably the best milk tea I've had since I've been here, or ever, really!
From there it was a hop, skip, and a jump (by scooter, of course :) ) to the Love River, which is absolutely GORGEOUS at night, with lights festooned all along the walkway and the bridges so that they reflect off the water. We even took a little boat up and down the river; a tour guide explained all the sights, but I tuned him out (it was in Chinese, anyway) and just soaked it all in. Here are some pictures from that part of the night:
 |
| We took a boat just like that one! |
I really, really love this city. And I think that, after tonight, it may be hard to keep me off of scooters around here. But we'll see what coming days hold. In all likelihood, more time on the learning curve, trusting others to keep me afloat while I flounder in the humbling knowledge of my own ignorance.
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