Variety Show

"AWWWW!"

My students don't bother restraining themselves, and their 6th grade cool masks slip down behind their actual love of playing games. And, more specifically, of winning them.

The girls break out in cheers as I pantomime a bomb blowing up, blasting away 5 of the boys' hard-earned points. This review game has gone swimmingly, with each class selecting different ones of my "secret boxes"--that is, my blank grid on the blackboard, supplemented by the handwritten key in my notebook--and the boys and girls have vied for the chance to try for the coveted 10 point spaces, which they must earn by, depending on the box, jumping on one foot or singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." It was pretty great.

Perhaps the best part about it was that it never got old--as Alison pointed out as we left our fourth class of the day, each class reacted to the game incredibly differently. They all liked it, but they also all played it vastly differently; even as my grid and Alison's questions stayed the same, the scores changed rapidly back and forth. In some classes, the teams were neck-and-neck, in others, there was what seemed to be an irreparable gap between the two, which was sometimes miraculously crossed in the last few seconds before the bell rang, as the entire boy team stood and sang "Rudolph," for instance. Considering that it was largely a game of chance, not skill, the variety was glorious to watch.

At home, I unconsciously carried on with the variety, conducting various searches online and on YouTube until I eventually hit upon a good place to listen to my new musical obsession, 五月天 (Mayday), whose music I had heard a few times before this weekend, when I caught the tail end of their performance at Taipei 101 and then proceeded to hear their music all night at KTV, thus prompting my obsession. So I sat in my room chatting with friends in Seattle, listening to Taiwanese music, researching said music, which required a fair amount of Chinese typing skills, and reading a book my Mom left for me when she was here. Later, I walked over to grab my camera and plate from Emily and Lydia, and then down to 7-11 to add minutes to my phone, and discovered that I had a belated Christmas present from my wonderful brother and sister-in-law, Alex and Melanie. (HUGE thank-you, I love it!) I posted pictures of my Christmas here, and my weekend celebrating in Taipei.

My day was mundane, perhaps, but the more I think about it, gloriously odd, and full of cultural and individual variety--all those things which make my life such fun to live these days.