"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.
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Christmas in Kaohsiung (in which I heap praises on Skype)
Cookies. Skype. Cookies. Church. Cookies. Friends. Cookies. Skype.
That, in a nut shell, describes my Christmas today. I slept in--bizarre for Christmas--and then set about leisurely making Nanaimo bars, while intermittently hanging out with my roommates (who were, incidentally, watching Armageddon, which was the best thing we could find on TV) and Skyping for several hours with my family.
Around 4pm, I went to church, where I sang Christmas carols (the real classics) for the first time this season, and met three college students who had volunteered to come here over Christmas for a Winter break mission trip. At the end of the service, we had a candle-lit portion, which was wonderful since that's been an element of my Christmas tradition since time immemorial.
Then I came home, finished my cookies (who'd have thought that melting and spreading chocolate would be the most difficult part of the Nanaimo bar recipe???) and went to a little Christmas gathering with the other ETAs, and which turned out to be a more international Fulbright gathering, since Esther's fiance Marlie, an ETA in Korea, is in town, as is Lydia's friend Noah, who's a research scholar in Xi'an, China.There, I ate far too many sweets and laughed with some good friends.
Now I'm home, just having finished Skyping with my friend Anna as she is en route home to Spain, and awaiting midnight, when I can do "Christmas morning" with my family via Skype.
It's been an unconventional, yet fun day. And, thanks to Skype, I do at least get a "fly on the wall" perspective of the Christmassy goings-on at home. And that's something.
Also, in the vein of "unconventional Christmas," I give you perhaps the single least conventional Christmas song of all time. Good luck getting it out of your head for the rest of the year--but you won't regret it. :) Merry Christmas!
That, in a nut shell, describes my Christmas today. I slept in--bizarre for Christmas--and then set about leisurely making Nanaimo bars, while intermittently hanging out with my roommates (who were, incidentally, watching Armageddon, which was the best thing we could find on TV) and Skyping for several hours with my family.
Around 4pm, I went to church, where I sang Christmas carols (the real classics) for the first time this season, and met three college students who had volunteered to come here over Christmas for a Winter break mission trip. At the end of the service, we had a candle-lit portion, which was wonderful since that's been an element of my Christmas tradition since time immemorial.
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| First attempt: they're not pretty, but they taste good. :) |
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| Our spread, including Steven's sweet potato pie, mid slice |
Now I'm home, just having finished Skyping with my friend Anna as she is en route home to Spain, and awaiting midnight, when I can do "Christmas morning" with my family via Skype.
It's been an unconventional, yet fun day. And, thanks to Skype, I do at least get a "fly on the wall" perspective of the Christmassy goings-on at home. And that's something.
Also, in the vein of "unconventional Christmas," I give you perhaps the single least conventional Christmas song of all time. Good luck getting it out of your head for the rest of the year--but you won't regret it. :) Merry Christmas!
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Christmas Eve
This has been the most unconventional Christmas Eve of my life, bar none. But it was wonderful.
See, I slept in. Then went to Dream Mall with my lovely host sister Emily, finished my Christmas shopping, and went to go see Mission Impossible 4 (surprisingly good for a fourth installment).
And then my marvelous host parents Margaret and James came, and we had delicious beef noodles for dinner.
And then I was able to find all of the ingredients for Nanaimo bars--the culmination of a many-day search--at Carrefour and the baking store on the way home.
And then I got home and found Brittany and Chialing making preparations for our evening together with Rachel, Fonda, Chialing, Chialing's nephew and a friend. And now we're going to watch Sherlock Holmes 2.
Not what I would normally be doing on Christmas Eve. AT ALL. But still lots of fun. :)
See, I slept in. Then went to Dream Mall with my lovely host sister Emily, finished my Christmas shopping, and went to go see Mission Impossible 4 (surprisingly good for a fourth installment).
And then my marvelous host parents Margaret and James came, and we had delicious beef noodles for dinner.
And then I was able to find all of the ingredients for Nanaimo bars--the culmination of a many-day search--at Carrefour and the baking store on the way home.
And then I got home and found Brittany and Chialing making preparations for our evening together with Rachel, Fonda, Chialing, Chialing's nephew and a friend. And now we're going to watch Sherlock Holmes 2.
Not what I would normally be doing on Christmas Eve. AT ALL. But still lots of fun. :)
Melancholy Christmas
You know, it's amazing how many Christmas songs adopt a melancholy tone in wishing people 'Merry Christmas.' As I write this, even, I'm listening to Michael Buble sing "The Christmas Song" in a slow, almost mournful voice; moments ago, he was singing "I'll Be Home for Christmas," a song which I've all but sworn off this holiday season.
Even without it, though, I feel the melancholy of Christmas this year more than ever, my excited students and festive decorations notwithstanding. I've always loved Christmas, and I've always been a huge one for keeping traditions alive (just ask my mom and anyone else who's ever tried to change our family Christmas; they'll tell you that my cousin Mollie and I are an unstoppable force for tradition!), but even so I've always seen myself as a Christmas moderate in America. I've even been called a Grinch on occasion, usually due to my refusal to start celebrating Christmas (and this includes with music) before Thanksgiving.
Being in a country like Taiwan for the holiday puts this in perspective rather quickly, though. Our apartment building is the sole Christmas light-bedecked building in our entire neighborhood; I feel lucky this year that Christmas falls on a weekend, because if it didn't, I would spend the day teaching just like on any other day. Our apartment building had a Christmas party, but you could scarcely tell what it was celebrating: they were eating typical Taiwanese food, and though they began by blasting Christmas music, it soon turned into Taiwanese karaoke, and went on in that fashion for HOURS, with no crevice of the apartment building safe from the loud, off-key sounds.
Tomorrow (or, since it's almost 1am, today) is Christmas Eve, and I'm doing my best not to think too hard about that fact. I'll spend the first part of the day with my host sister, Emily, and the evening with my roommates. I think as long as I keep busy it should be okay...
But still melancholy. There's just no getting around that aspect of the season, when you're sitting in a foreign country with most of your friends and all of your family on a different continent, celebrating traditionally almost a full day later. I guess I'm just experiencing a different element of the season, but it's not one I would have necessarily sought out had I been home for Christmas.
Even without it, though, I feel the melancholy of Christmas this year more than ever, my excited students and festive decorations notwithstanding. I've always loved Christmas, and I've always been a huge one for keeping traditions alive (just ask my mom and anyone else who's ever tried to change our family Christmas; they'll tell you that my cousin Mollie and I are an unstoppable force for tradition!), but even so I've always seen myself as a Christmas moderate in America. I've even been called a Grinch on occasion, usually due to my refusal to start celebrating Christmas (and this includes with music) before Thanksgiving.
Being in a country like Taiwan for the holiday puts this in perspective rather quickly, though. Our apartment building is the sole Christmas light-bedecked building in our entire neighborhood; I feel lucky this year that Christmas falls on a weekend, because if it didn't, I would spend the day teaching just like on any other day. Our apartment building had a Christmas party, but you could scarcely tell what it was celebrating: they were eating typical Taiwanese food, and though they began by blasting Christmas music, it soon turned into Taiwanese karaoke, and went on in that fashion for HOURS, with no crevice of the apartment building safe from the loud, off-key sounds.
Tomorrow (or, since it's almost 1am, today) is Christmas Eve, and I'm doing my best not to think too hard about that fact. I'll spend the first part of the day with my host sister, Emily, and the evening with my roommates. I think as long as I keep busy it should be okay...
But still melancholy. There's just no getting around that aspect of the season, when you're sitting in a foreign country with most of your friends and all of your family on a different continent, celebrating traditionally almost a full day later. I guess I'm just experiencing a different element of the season, but it's not one I would have necessarily sought out had I been home for Christmas.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Strollin'
When I bought my scooter in September, it opened the world of Kaohsiung to me--and simultaneously shut it out. Whenever people here talk about scooters, one of the first things out of their mouths is "It's so convenient!"--and that's true. A little too true, really: scooters make it incredibly easy to go from point A to point B, without seeing any of the points in between.
I was reminded of this today, as I traversed Kaohsiung, scooter-less once more. My trip to school was longer and more complicated, true, but as I went I got to look around and see my fellow commuters, both Taiwanese and (gasp!) foreign, and remember that I lived in a community beyond that of annoying people who pull out in front of you without bothering to notice that you're even there. (Fun side note about scooters: YOU CAN SEE when people don't look.)
My trip back was even better. My lovely co-teacher, Patty, drove me to the department store near Central Park where the Western supermarket Jason's is located (Being in Jason's felt like HEAVEN, surrounded by American goodies and English signs!), and talking with her and being able to look around on the drive was great. I didn't find what I was looking for at Jason's (Graham crackers and instant vanilla pudding = fail, though they had six or seven varieties of Jell-O...), but I wasn't able to say no to a package of double fudge soft baked Pepperidge Farm cookies. Mmm...I'll be visiting again.
But quite apart from the food, going through the Christmas-bedecked department store down to the busy grocery store in the basement, and then walking the several blocks back to the MRT to go home, was great. It was absolutely glorious out, not too cold or too hot, and I enjoyed my stroll so much that, after I got home and had dinner, I went out again and went on a good 45 minute walk to the bank and to a local baking store (where, incidentally, I found some decent substitutes for Graham crackers and instant vanilla pudding in Digesta biscuits and custard powder).
It was on this walk, actually, that I realized that I rarely walk around my neighborhood any more. I have my established routes, to and from places I like, and that's about it.
But why? Again, I blame the scooter. Well, that, and my flat feet and months-long failure to remember to wear good shoes.
Hopefully, I'll have my scooter restored to me soon. But when I do, I hope to remember that Kaohsiung is larger than the few main streets I routinely traverse--and that the smaller streets are well worth being opened up with a quick stroll.
I was reminded of this today, as I traversed Kaohsiung, scooter-less once more. My trip to school was longer and more complicated, true, but as I went I got to look around and see my fellow commuters, both Taiwanese and (gasp!) foreign, and remember that I lived in a community beyond that of annoying people who pull out in front of you without bothering to notice that you're even there. (Fun side note about scooters: YOU CAN SEE when people don't look.)
My trip back was even better. My lovely co-teacher, Patty, drove me to the department store near Central Park where the Western supermarket Jason's is located (Being in Jason's felt like HEAVEN, surrounded by American goodies and English signs!), and talking with her and being able to look around on the drive was great. I didn't find what I was looking for at Jason's (Graham crackers and instant vanilla pudding = fail, though they had six or seven varieties of Jell-O...), but I wasn't able to say no to a package of double fudge soft baked Pepperidge Farm cookies. Mmm...I'll be visiting again.
But quite apart from the food, going through the Christmas-bedecked department store down to the busy grocery store in the basement, and then walking the several blocks back to the MRT to go home, was great. It was absolutely glorious out, not too cold or too hot, and I enjoyed my stroll so much that, after I got home and had dinner, I went out again and went on a good 45 minute walk to the bank and to a local baking store (where, incidentally, I found some decent substitutes for Graham crackers and instant vanilla pudding in Digesta biscuits and custard powder).
It was on this walk, actually, that I realized that I rarely walk around my neighborhood any more. I have my established routes, to and from places I like, and that's about it.
But why? Again, I blame the scooter. Well, that, and my flat feet and months-long failure to remember to wear good shoes.
Hopefully, I'll have my scooter restored to me soon. But when I do, I hope to remember that Kaohsiung is larger than the few main streets I routinely traverse--and that the smaller streets are well worth being opened up with a quick stroll.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Why Today Didn't Suck (though it could have)
I had a pretty good day, all things considered. And, by "all things," I mean my scooter breaking down on my drive home. Here's why:
1.) My scooter broke down on the way home, meaning I wasn't in any sort of a hurry and didn't have the panic of having to call my LETs and hope they picked up.
2.) It broke down next to the airport, meaning I just had to wheel it (an admittedly long way) into the parking lot, and I had a safe and easy-to-find place to park it, and then an easy access point to MRT to get me home.
3.) I had an amazing and relaxing (after the rowdy first period, that is) day at school. I taught my students vocabulary (donkey, camel, stable, manger, shepherds, wisemen, angel, gifts), told them the nativity story (no problem with teaching religious stories here!), which involved sentences like "The angel told the shepherds, 'Hey, there's a new baby down in Bethlehem, and he's God's son. You should go check it out!", and then watched Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, sans the nonessential parts, until the end of class, when I gave them all candy canes. Pretty wonderful teaching day for everyone--the kids loved it, too!
(and, for your viewing pleasure...)
4.) My dinner involved experimentation with whatever food I happened to have handy, and so turned into a light veggie pasta consisting of grape tomatoes, onions, green peppers, olive oil and spices. Quite yummy, and so pretty to look at!
5.) Fonda took care of my scooter problems, passing my keys off to a mechanic and informing me that I might have it back tomorrow. AND, if there's any day to be scooter-less, tomorrow's it: class doesn't start till 1:30pm, giving me plenty of time to tackle the lengthy and cumbersome MRT route.
So yeah. Not a bad day. :)
1.) My scooter broke down on the way home, meaning I wasn't in any sort of a hurry and didn't have the panic of having to call my LETs and hope they picked up.
2.) It broke down next to the airport, meaning I just had to wheel it (an admittedly long way) into the parking lot, and I had a safe and easy-to-find place to park it, and then an easy access point to MRT to get me home.
3.) I had an amazing and relaxing (after the rowdy first period, that is) day at school. I taught my students vocabulary (donkey, camel, stable, manger, shepherds, wisemen, angel, gifts), told them the nativity story (no problem with teaching religious stories here!), which involved sentences like "The angel told the shepherds, 'Hey, there's a new baby down in Bethlehem, and he's God's son. You should go check it out!", and then watched Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, sans the nonessential parts, until the end of class, when I gave them all candy canes. Pretty wonderful teaching day for everyone--the kids loved it, too!
(and, for your viewing pleasure...)
4.) My dinner involved experimentation with whatever food I happened to have handy, and so turned into a light veggie pasta consisting of grape tomatoes, onions, green peppers, olive oil and spices. Quite yummy, and so pretty to look at!
 |
| Hmm..less yellow in person... |
So yeah. Not a bad day. :)
Christmas carolling in the halls
我可以唱歌嗎?
Four adorably small Taiwanese faces look up at me expectantly, their little yellow stamp cards clutched in front of them.
"OK," I say. "Go ahead!"
Their eyes widen and fix on me as they focus the entirety of their 3rd grade attention on getting it right.
"You better watch out, you better not cry! You better not pout, I'm telling you why--Santa Claus is coming to town. He's making a list..."
I can't help but smile; by halfway through the song I'm mouthing the words along with them, then wondering if I shouldn't, since the point is for them to have memorized it for themselves. But really, it's impossible not to sing--their enthusiasm and concentration makes for contagious joy.
Today at Hanmin we had a special Christmas day. All of the grades took half of the day to rotate between different stations, and every student was issued that little yellow stamp card with the word SONG written on it and space for three teachers' stamps; if they filled it in before the end of the day, they got to put their ticket in a raffle drawing.
This made for a day in which roving packs of tiny carolers roamed the hallways, grabbing willing teachers and breaking into song on a moment's notice. It literally made my day.
All of the 5th and 6th graders had learned "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer," at my suggestion; the 3rd and 4th graders had learned "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," and the 1st and 2nd graders had learned "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." I got mostly awe-struck 3rd graders singing just the first line of their song (though there were some brave enough to do the whole thing), and towards the end I had a tiny 1st-or-2nd grade duo brave confronting the foreign English teacher to "Wish me a Merry Christmas." I was more than happy to give them my little blue Yang yang stamp in reward for their efforts.
By the last hour, I was racking my brain for all the Christmas songs I could replicate, making it through a fairly impressive repertoire and discovering that my strongest memory of the lyrics to "Oh Christmas Tree" are not actually to "Oh Christmas Tree," but to "Oh Big Green Tree," a parody version I learned for a church musical I was in back in middle school. Huh.
When I made it home, it had to be Christmastime THEN. So I turned on my Christmas lights in my room, grabbed a mug of hot chocolate, and watched the remainder of It's a Wonderful Life, then watched Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, (twice, so I could find start-and-stop points for my lesson tomorrow) and found a website offering Christmas music that I could listen to while reading--you guessed it--a Christmas book.
All in all, a pretty great way to spend the day, listening, singing, and just generally celebrating the celebration of Christ's birth! ...with Yang yang and Rudolph.
Four adorably small Taiwanese faces look up at me expectantly, their little yellow stamp cards clutched in front of them.
"OK," I say. "Go ahead!"
Their eyes widen and fix on me as they focus the entirety of their 3rd grade attention on getting it right.
"You better watch out, you better not cry! You better not pout, I'm telling you why--Santa Claus is coming to town. He's making a list..."
I can't help but smile; by halfway through the song I'm mouthing the words along with them, then wondering if I shouldn't, since the point is for them to have memorized it for themselves. But really, it's impossible not to sing--their enthusiasm and concentration makes for contagious joy.
Today at Hanmin we had a special Christmas day. All of the grades took half of the day to rotate between different stations, and every student was issued that little yellow stamp card with the word SONG written on it and space for three teachers' stamps; if they filled it in before the end of the day, they got to put their ticket in a raffle drawing.
This made for a day in which roving packs of tiny carolers roamed the hallways, grabbing willing teachers and breaking into song on a moment's notice. It literally made my day.
All of the 5th and 6th graders had learned "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer," at my suggestion; the 3rd and 4th graders had learned "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," and the 1st and 2nd graders had learned "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." I got mostly awe-struck 3rd graders singing just the first line of their song (though there were some brave enough to do the whole thing), and towards the end I had a tiny 1st-or-2nd grade duo brave confronting the foreign English teacher to "Wish me a Merry Christmas." I was more than happy to give them my little blue Yang yang stamp in reward for their efforts.
 |
| Good job! - Yang yang |
By the last hour, I was racking my brain for all the Christmas songs I could replicate, making it through a fairly impressive repertoire and discovering that my strongest memory of the lyrics to "Oh Christmas Tree" are not actually to "Oh Christmas Tree," but to "Oh Big Green Tree," a parody version I learned for a church musical I was in back in middle school. Huh.
When I made it home, it had to be Christmastime THEN. So I turned on my Christmas lights in my room, grabbed a mug of hot chocolate, and watched the remainder of It's a Wonderful Life, then watched Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, (twice, so I could find start-and-stop points for my lesson tomorrow) and found a website offering Christmas music that I could listen to while reading--you guessed it--a Christmas book.
All in all, a pretty great way to spend the day, listening, singing, and just generally celebrating the celebration of Christ's birth! ...with Yang yang and Rudolph.
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