The first part of today involved teaching American traditions to the kiddos; the second part involved whole-heartedly embracing Taiwanese traditions and injecting them with a bit of playful Americanness.
Our lesson today (and yesterday) was pretty simple and fun: an introduction to sports around the world. The book included bowling, badminton and dodgeball, but neglected to add soccer or American football. I quickly remedied that, and re-discovered that, no matter where they're from, boys love the idea of a sport that involves hitting each other and making the other person fall over.
Seriously. I played about a minute from this clip of the last Super Bowl, and at the end of many classes, both yesterday and today, I had boys trying to figure out where they could find more of this "football" craziness. To which all I can add is a Scott-themed "aMERica!"
After school, our apartment got together with Katy (an American teacher at Sanmin), Fonda, and Chialing to celebrate Rachel's birthday today in the most Taiwanese fashion ever: KTV.
And this was, hands down, the most fun I've ever had at KTV. The English songs available at this particular place were not particularly plentiful, and consisted primarily in popular songs from the 90s or earlier, but that led to fantastic, no-holds-barred singing contests of the Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, Avril Lavigne etc, plus songs like "Barbie Girl," amongst others.
Because, really, when you're doing KTV, you've already kissed your dignity goodbye; it's more fun if you take it all the way and go for flat-out ridiculous! Once Chialing and Fonda arrived, we incorporated some Taiwanese songs too, of course, leading to several rousing rounds of our old favorite 我的寶貝,
as well as several songs by 五月天(Mayday) and others that I recognized but can't yet sing. (To do list: learn to sing more Taiwanese songs for KTV purposes.)
It was a lovely way to spend the evening, and a lovely way to wish a happy birthday to the wonderful Rachel! By the time we ended, the whole group was belting out "My Heart Will Go On," confirming American stereotypes and thoroughly celebrating our past four hours in the best way possible.
So, in light of such a bi-cultural day, there's really only one way to end this post: to say Happy Birthday, Rachel, and 生日快樂,池蕊!
It's odd, but one of the strangest, yet strangest for not being strange things that has happened to me here is that I now routinely research and book travel arrangements. That has never been a part of my life before this year--I was always either just traveling along with my parents, or else a broke college student with no realistic travel plans in the works--but now it is. And, as a result of my being in another country, it has become quite a regular part of my existence.
Today, I completed three separate bookings, for both flights and hotel rooms for myself and a friend. Whenever I got to Taipei, I either arrange things or (more often, honestly) work things out with Karina, and pay her back. The same goes for other travel around Taiwan; it usually involves myself and friends getting together and figuring out what we want and can afford to do, and then doing it. Whenever people come visit me--my mom in December and, looking forward, my friend Lindsey in March, and my brother Alex and sister-in-law Melanie in April, it's me who does the background research and preliminary booking for everyone involved. If I make it to Japan and Australia before heading back to the States, like I hope to, all the planning and paying will, obviously, fall to me.
It's obvious. And that's odd. After my entire lifetime of not being able to make these calls, I suddenly can, must, and do, without giving it a second thought. I am suddenly capable of planning entire weekends, throwing fistfuls of money (okay, not fistfuls, I'm actually not rich, after all) down for a plane ticket and somewhere to stay, with scarcely a flinch. It's self-determination to the utmost. And I love it. And also hate it.
I just spent a good two or three hours searching through hotels to stay at in Phi Phi for when Karina and I visit later this month. And I have to say, finding the right balance of price, niceness, availability, and non-scathing reviews is tough. Much respect for all of you who do it with even more variables, like "good for kids," or "allows pets" thrown in. It's the ultimate in uncertainty, and combing through pages and pages of information about rooms, or flights for that matter, is simply no fun. Booking sucks.
What doesn't suck, of course, is the fun that booking makes possible. Which is why it's become a regular part of my adult life thus far.
Considering that I spent the first portion of my day doing very little at school (the result of a combination of my lingering sickness and the fact that, due to said sickness, Maggie had adapted to teaching this particular lesson plan solo), I must look to my post-school day for a subject today.
Except, wait, I did very little in that, too.
Essentially, I got my computer to play DVDs. Which, as it turns out, is much easier said than done. My computer is a netbook, which means it has no internal CD/DVD reader. No big deal, right? I'll just go buy one.
Step 1: You go to Carrefour. You'd seen DVD drives for sale in a Carrefour in Taitung, and assumed their merchandise would be fairly uniform. Nope.
Step 2: Call Fonda. Always the last word in solving problems. :)
Step 3: Go with Fonda and Brittany to get Brittany's iPod fixed (the screen broke this morning at 7:30am--go ahead, ask me how I know precisely when it broke, despite originally being asleep, haha).
Step 4: Go with Fonda to the electronics store and buy an external CD/DVD drive.
Story over, right? Well...no.
Step 5: Take several hours out of the process, so as to put together an incredibly involved Powerpoint of sports from around the world to teach to the 6th graders tomorrow. Promise yourself you won't even try to watch a movie until you're done. Stick to your promise, until...
Step 6: You get hungry and decide to make something resembling a casserole out of leftover cream of corn soup, rice, chicken, onions, carrots, and cheese. It turns out pretty well (hooray!), and you realize that you now have a chunk of free time in which no one would blame you for not trying to type while eating.
Step 7: Attempt to install new DVD drive and discover that neither of the two separate software packages that came with the drive have anything to do with just playing music. Try fiddling with various players, only to discover that Windows 7 Starter doesn't have the right drivers installed to decode DVDs. Go online to discover that, while Vista and XP have plenty of (often free) downloads to fix similar problems, Windows 7 just recommends upgrading to a higher version of Windows 7. The problem with that, of course, is that you have a netbook; there's a reason you only run Starter, and it's that there's not enough space for a crap-ton of programming!
Step 8: Play it safe and save current settings in case of a reboot.
Step 9: Begin downloading random crap from the Internet that says it will fix your problem. Some of it doesn't. Most of it doesn't. But then...
Step 10: One program works. You are happy and watch a movie.
Oh, and at some point, you finished the Powerpoint and sent it to your co-teacher and host mom. So it was a happy ending, with movies and casserole for all.
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.
It's a funny thing about blogging the morning after you've stayed up all night about the day before: you're pretty well assured that, a) you will have forgotten some of the key points of the day before, and b) you won't be alert enough to make anything new and interesting happen later in the day.
Also, c) your memory will be shot, with less than pleasant circumstances.
So, a!
We were on the news last night! While wandering around Taipei 101, Karina and I spotted a news anchor getting ready to do a live broadcast so, after briefly contemplating photo-bombing, we decided instead to wait off to the side and watch her do her report. She got the go-ahead but, a few sentences in, the camera swung around to show the crowd! AKA, us--the only ones cheering for the camera, as Karina mentioned later. I hadn't noticed, I was just too excited to be on TV.
And, speaking of photo-bombing, that was a massive theme with us. Karina, Brittany, and Rachel will be all over strangers' Facebook profiles soon, likely tagged as "random foreigner who stood behind us, smiling, for the entirety of the timed photo session." Because yes, they did that.
In our stroll to find a way home, we passed Sun Yat Set Memorial Hall, marking another Taipei landmark that I've "visited"! Also, both it and the road for almost the entirety of our walk was absolutely TRASHED. I feel for the poor city workers who must've stayed up all night making it presentable again...and seriously, at the memorial?? Disrespectful in the extreme.
Also, the rest of our day yesterday, since it actually didn't start at 7:30: Karina and I went to Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall to check out a carnival which had some sweet break dancing, then went to Tamsui, walked around a bit, had Starbucks at a 4-story store the line for which stretched out the door and down the street, and, of course, hit up an epic photobooth.
b!
Yeah...today, we checked out of our hostel and got on a train. For seven hours (gross!). End of story. Except that...
c!
My complete lack of a brain due to lack of sleep led me to forget my camera at the hostel. I discovered this, of course, not when we were eating right downstairs, and not before we got on the MRT, but after we'd traveled a good 6 or 7 stops to Taipei Main, left the MRT area, walked across the massive terminal to find food, ordered our food to take on the train with us, and only had 40 minutes before the train would leave. Fortunately, a couple phone calls to the hostel owner (thanks, Karina!), a load of panic, and a mass text later, Emily volunteered to stop by and pick it up for me (you're my hero!). And right around then, I realized that...
Due to my camera panic, I hadn't gotten the bagel sandwich I'd ordered and paid for to take on the train. Stupid one-track mind and unfortunately-timed remembering...
Let's recap: it's 12:35pm on January 1st, and I am just now sitting down to write my blog from December 31st. Why, you may ask? Well, it might have something to do with the fact that I got in from the New Years' festivities around 5 hours ago, and I do actually like to sleep on occasion. And it's pretty much official: I'll never be able to top this year's New Year's Eve.
Last night, Karina and I were debating whether we wanted to stay in our hostel and enjoy the view or go out and explore the *real* celebration five blocks away. We chose the latter.
...after we explored the roof, that is.
The door was unlocked, after all!
And that turned out to be the best decision EVER. We wandered over around 7:30pm, so, like 4 1/2 hours until the big event--and the place was practically deserted. Seriously. While places like NYC start packing 'em in--and, for that matter, start closing streets and sending out extra patrols--several days early, when we got there mere hours away it was less crowded than the 4th of July in Harrisburg, Oregon! More people total, of course, but spread out over a much larger space, and overall INFINITELY fewer people than we were imagining.
So, after, you know, traipsing within pretty good sight distance of all the headliner musicians performing next to City Hall (the only time we really had to pay attention to where we were walking, and that only for about 5 minutes), where we stayed for a couple of songs--including this one, which I've heard before and love but only knew as "O A" until just now, thanks to Karina, we made a brief stop at a massive bookstore. Where I found--wait for it--A MINT MOCHA!
Seriously, major discovery. In the States, mint mochas are my exclusive holiday drink; here, I have never seen one for sale, in any store, ever. Until yesterday when, conveniently, I was in need of a constant inflow of caffeine!
Hello, old friend...
Eventually, around 8 or 8:30, we settled down into a primo spot facing Taipei 101, where we bought a deck of cards from a hawker and waited for Brittany, Rachel, and Tom to show up to join us. Over the next couple of hours, we played cards and watched the spaces around us gradually fill up until, at around 11pm, when Rachel and I left for a bit and tried to come back, we were practically stepping on people and had people telling us there were no spots left, despite our reassurances that our friends were holding our spot.
A little behind our actual seats, which were maybe 3 blocks from the building itself
The crowd behind us.
And then came the fireworks. I'll let them speak for themselves:
(I can't get it to link to Rachel's video, which is much better than the one below--try clicking here)
It was fabulous. 202 seconds of explosions; it pretty much looked like the building itself should crumble into nothingness though, obviously, it didn't. I honestly can't imagine ever topping this New Year's celebration; even a trip to Times Square might not cut it. It was THAT wonderful.
Then we joined the several thousand people in the streets walking to the next-nearest MRT stop--they closed the closest for traffic purposes--and were treated to a city on the move through deserted streets for a good couple miles, I'd say. The streets weren't technically closed, I don't think, just practically: it's pretty hard to drive when your lane is pulsing with thousands of people walking.
We couldn't even SEE Taipei 101 at this point, which was at least one MRT stop away...
After walking past three separate MRT stops, all of which were so crowded we gave up immediately, we began the even more difficult process of hailing a cab--two actually, since Tom, Karina and I were headed to KTV, while Rachel and Brittany were headed out to their host's home in YanMingShan.
The latter seemed all but impossible. I have NEVER seen so many cabs with their lights off; even when one was available, they asked where you were going and turned down four out of every five requests and, considering how far out of the city Rachel and Brittany were aiming, they were turned down every time. After walking to YET ANOTHER stop and watching some foreigners get in a screaming match with a taxi driver (embarrassing for everyone, including us), we finally found a cab that would take Brittany and Rachel, and Tom, Karina and myself grabbed a second one to take us to KTV.
The rest of the night was spent at KTV, enjoying the "musical" stylings of Tom's amazing friends, and occasionally being coerced into joining. Since most of the songs were in Chinese, it usually wasn't an option, but I'd join in on the 1-in-6 characters I could recognize (我, 你, 天, 不, 大, 太, 的, etc), and whenever an English song came on the microphone was thrust into my hands, so I sang along to Coldplay, Lady Gaga, and Taylor Swift, too.
Next thing we knew, it was 6am, and our reserved time was up. We hopped a cab back to our hostel and collapsed around 6:45; the plan was to leave at noon so we wouldn't have to pay another day, but when I got up at 11:30 to shower, I discovered that it was self-serve check-out, so when Karina slept through her alarm I let her and came out to the main room to blog.
So that was our New Year's Eve! It more than filled in for the lack of celebration at Christmas by being the single most eventful New Year's Eve of my life--bar none, past or future.
