Karina's at our apartment tonight--right now, she and Brittany are watching a horror movie in the living room, which bodes ill for my night's sleep, but oh well. This will be the last time Brittany, Karina, Rachel and I are in the same place in Taiwan at the same time. It's a fitting bookend to the year.
The time has come for ETA goodbyes. We said goodbye to Analicia Monday; Samia and Andrew are home; Lydia and Emily leave tomorrow; traveling schedules mean I've probably inadvertently said goodbye to Tiffiany, Steven, and Esther. Our little group is splitting up.
And I don't have time to talk about it. No eulogizing here, at least not now: it's 2am, and I actually have to get up at a decent hour. But I will say this: our group has been different from past groups, more individualistic, and sometimes frustrating, but I still feel like we've had an excellent bunch of people here, and a bunch I will be sad to no longer have as colleagues. It's been quite a year, and I'm sad to see it end.
Showing posts with label ETAs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ETAs. Show all posts
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
Slow Wheels Turning
Several things happened today, all pointing, slowly but surely, to the conclusion that my time here is almost done.
1.) I booked my SCUBA class for my trip Down Under. And, with that, I'm locked in: my vacation is coming, and soon! Great Barrier Reef, here I come. And afterwards...home. 29 days.
2.) I began making goodbye cards for my students. I've been putting this off, partly because I didn't want to sit for hours writing "Have a GREAT summer" on 535 slips of colored paper (120 in now and my hand is already killing me...); partly because the incessant rain these past few days have made me less than thrilled to venture out to buy said papers; and, mostly, because I don't want it to be time for that yet. Rachel was nice enough to buy some lollipops for me at Costco a while back--also for goodbye gifts--and I put them on my desk chair and rolled it under the desk so I wouldn't have to look at them. I don't think I'm quite ready for this...10 days.
3.) Tiffiany began packing. Yes, I know, this is not me, per se, but it's begun: ETAs are taking their stuff off their walls, sorting it, folding it, wrapping it, and putting it in bags and boxes to go home. The process has started, and there's no going back now. Soon I'll need to join. 10 days.
I miss home. I miss my friends and family. I miss my dog. I miss lasagna. But now that the wheels sending me home are in motion, I don't know if I'm ready for them to turn...
1.) I booked my SCUBA class for my trip Down Under. And, with that, I'm locked in: my vacation is coming, and soon! Great Barrier Reef, here I come. And afterwards...home. 29 days.
2.) I began making goodbye cards for my students. I've been putting this off, partly because I didn't want to sit for hours writing "Have a GREAT summer" on 535 slips of colored paper (120 in now and my hand is already killing me...); partly because the incessant rain these past few days have made me less than thrilled to venture out to buy said papers; and, mostly, because I don't want it to be time for that yet. Rachel was nice enough to buy some lollipops for me at Costco a while back--also for goodbye gifts--and I put them on my desk chair and rolled it under the desk so I wouldn't have to look at them. I don't think I'm quite ready for this...10 days.
3.) Tiffiany began packing. Yes, I know, this is not me, per se, but it's begun: ETAs are taking their stuff off their walls, sorting it, folding it, wrapping it, and putting it in bags and boxes to go home. The process has started, and there's no going back now. Soon I'll need to join. 10 days.
I miss home. I miss my friends and family. I miss my dog. I miss lasagna. But now that the wheels sending me home are in motion, I don't know if I'm ready for them to turn...
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Happy Sad Anniversary
One year ago today, I walked home from my last undergraduate final exam and opened my inbox to find the most important email of my life: the email announcing I had gotten the Fulbright. I was blown away.
Or, technically, what the letter said was that I should call Jonathan Akeley at my earliest convenience to discuss the status of my Fulbright grant; and, technically, what I was was frozen stiff, then spurred to frenetic energy as I dug through my drawers looking for older correspondence, and then frozen stiff again. But you get the picture.
I don't know if I've mentioned it on here before, but I was actually an alternate to come to Taiwan. That means that in April, when everyone else here was getting their life-changing letters, jumping up and down with joy and calling their friends and family to share the good news--and believe me, they all remember the precise moment they got their letters, we've compared notes--I got, instead, the deflating news that I had gone from "recommended candidate" to "alternate." That was all the information I was given--that I was an alternate, and that, if someone backed out or they got more funding, I might get to go. There was no mention of the likelihood of that happening; nor did they tell me whether I had a dozen people before me on the alternate list, or if I was the first.
As it happened, the latter. But the not-knowing that plagued my April-June was one of the biggest testings I've faced so far, and the pay-off was easily the best. One year later, I cannot fathom what my life would have been like if today had passed like any other, consigning me forever to the phantasmal status of alternate.
I suppose it's fitting, then, that today featured our unofficial LET-ETA Farewell Potluck. One year ago today, I learned that I would have the opportunity to come to Taiwan and meet and work with hundreds of wonderful people; today, I began to learn what it is to say goodbye to them.
The existence of the potluck, and the number of people who came, actually says a lot about our group. See, we had had an official farewell dinner planned for all the ETAs, LETs, and host families. Then it got cancelled, thanks to budget cuts. At our last Wednesday workshop, they gave us the microphones--and all anyone could talk about was how much we wanted a real goodbye, funded or not. So potluck it was!
And I'm so glad it was. For a strictly voluntary event on a weekend night, a huge number of people showed up--and, Taiwan being Taiwan, way more than enough food. I spent the night shifting around the room and chatting, and in addition to chilling with the other ETAs (which we've done surprisingly little of this year) and with Maggie, Alison and Patty (ALWAYS a pleasure), I got to catch up with several of the LETs, like Kiwi and Karen, with whom I'd loved to hang out back during orientation, but hadn't been able to see much of since then. And, of course, I ate myself sick.
I can't help but think how perfect the timing was that our potluck should be today, exactly one year after I found out I was coming here. What a perfect way to celebrate, and to remind myself of the possible outcome of a period of intense uncertainty--which, incidentally, is also what I'm dealing with right now in regards to the coming year.
Today ushers in a new year for me, one with many goodbyes to be made, but also many hellos which I don't know about yet. And, as sad as the goodbyes are, and will be, the best possible way to look at them is in light of the fact that they can be made--that I met all these wonderful people in the first place. Thank you all for a fantastic year, and thank you, Fulbright, for changing my life with a single email sent one year ago today.
Or, technically, what the letter said was that I should call Jonathan Akeley at my earliest convenience to discuss the status of my Fulbright grant; and, technically, what I was was frozen stiff, then spurred to frenetic energy as I dug through my drawers looking for older correspondence, and then frozen stiff again. But you get the picture.
I don't know if I've mentioned it on here before, but I was actually an alternate to come to Taiwan. That means that in April, when everyone else here was getting their life-changing letters, jumping up and down with joy and calling their friends and family to share the good news--and believe me, they all remember the precise moment they got their letters, we've compared notes--I got, instead, the deflating news that I had gone from "recommended candidate" to "alternate." That was all the information I was given--that I was an alternate, and that, if someone backed out or they got more funding, I might get to go. There was no mention of the likelihood of that happening; nor did they tell me whether I had a dozen people before me on the alternate list, or if I was the first.
As it happened, the latter. But the not-knowing that plagued my April-June was one of the biggest testings I've faced so far, and the pay-off was easily the best. One year later, I cannot fathom what my life would have been like if today had passed like any other, consigning me forever to the phantasmal status of alternate.
I suppose it's fitting, then, that today featured our unofficial LET-ETA Farewell Potluck. One year ago today, I learned that I would have the opportunity to come to Taiwan and meet and work with hundreds of wonderful people; today, I began to learn what it is to say goodbye to them.
The existence of the potluck, and the number of people who came, actually says a lot about our group. See, we had had an official farewell dinner planned for all the ETAs, LETs, and host families. Then it got cancelled, thanks to budget cuts. At our last Wednesday workshop, they gave us the microphones--and all anyone could talk about was how much we wanted a real goodbye, funded or not. So potluck it was!
And I'm so glad it was. For a strictly voluntary event on a weekend night, a huge number of people showed up--and, Taiwan being Taiwan, way more than enough food. I spent the night shifting around the room and chatting, and in addition to chilling with the other ETAs (which we've done surprisingly little of this year) and with Maggie, Alison and Patty (ALWAYS a pleasure), I got to catch up with several of the LETs, like Kiwi and Karen, with whom I'd loved to hang out back during orientation, but hadn't been able to see much of since then. And, of course, I ate myself sick.
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| Foooooooood |
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| Pictured: Patty succeeding in getting Analicia to try the duck blood rice. Brittany is still being persuaded. I held strong. |
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| Lovely people!...many of whom I didn't know were in the picture until I uploaded it. In a crowded room, pictures grow as soon as you start posing! |
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| I love these people so much! |
Today ushers in a new year for me, one with many goodbyes to be made, but also many hellos which I don't know about yet. And, as sad as the goodbyes are, and will be, the best possible way to look at them is in light of the fact that they can be made--that I met all these wonderful people in the first place. Thank you all for a fantastic year, and thank you, Fulbright, for changing my life with a single email sent one year ago today.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Reflections
I've been doing a lot of them lately, and I expect I'll be doing a lot more as my time here winds down. Some for Fulbright, some for myself; some big, some miniscule. Might as well get used to it. In any case, here are a few more.
Today was our last Fulbright workshop. For it, the new Director General of the Education Bureau turned up to present all of the ETAs and LETs with a Certificate of Appreciation, and to give the ETAs a faux-glass clear engraved award. Then we passed a microphone around praising each other (all well-deserved, truly, and at least 100 times over) for a bit. Then things devolved into what my brain kept telling me was best described as a s***storm. Honestly, I tried to think of better words for it to keep from writing that--but they're just not there.
See, our end-of-the-year banquet was unceremoniously cancelled last week. Everyone was disappointed, and disappointment soon turned into person after person saying the same thing--we need a time to hang out and say goodbye--and asking why we couldn't have it. And, while this might not be too bad if it were just a group of ETAs and LETs, it wasn't; rather, the group included the absolutely wonderful and sweet local Education Bureau--you know, those people who probably had to make this call, but without having any choice but to do so. It was awkward.
Eventually we quit complaining and pulled together a plan for something resembling a potluck--and why it took a good half hour to get to that conclusion, I'll never know--but the needlessly combative middle of the workshop was absurdly uncomfortable, though also in a way the "perfect" close to a year that began with such stress back in August. I'm sure the potluck will be fun, though.
On an entirely unrelated note, I've been thinking lately about NaNoWriMo. For those in the know, yes, I am aware we are nowhere near November; for those not in the know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it's an American-based community whose members devote themselves to completing a 50,000-word novel in the month of November.
I have never tried it; I've never considered that I would have time. I have friends who've done NaNoWriMo, and it's a lot of work; it's an understood thing among those who do that many people revert to copying song lyrics or other such text into their "novels" in order to keep up on the word count.
So what's my revelation on all this? Oh, only that I've essentially been doing a nonfiction version of NaNoWriMo for the past 10 months, that all. Seriously. In order to hit 50,000 words in a month, you have to write about 1,600 words a day--sound about like a blog post to you? OK, in all honesty I'm probably under 50,000 a month, but I bet I'm consistently hitting around 30,000, on average. Every. Single. Month. And, my occasionally pathetic asides aside, I have at least yet to resort to lyric copying!
So who knows, maybe this November I'll take up the fiction gauntlet for a bit. Can't be worse than finding material for a daily blog!
Today was our last Fulbright workshop. For it, the new Director General of the Education Bureau turned up to present all of the ETAs and LETs with a Certificate of Appreciation, and to give the ETAs a faux-glass clear engraved award. Then we passed a microphone around praising each other (all well-deserved, truly, and at least 100 times over) for a bit. Then things devolved into what my brain kept telling me was best described as a s***storm. Honestly, I tried to think of better words for it to keep from writing that--but they're just not there.
See, our end-of-the-year banquet was unceremoniously cancelled last week. Everyone was disappointed, and disappointment soon turned into person after person saying the same thing--we need a time to hang out and say goodbye--and asking why we couldn't have it. And, while this might not be too bad if it were just a group of ETAs and LETs, it wasn't; rather, the group included the absolutely wonderful and sweet local Education Bureau--you know, those people who probably had to make this call, but without having any choice but to do so. It was awkward.
Eventually we quit complaining and pulled together a plan for something resembling a potluck--and why it took a good half hour to get to that conclusion, I'll never know--but the needlessly combative middle of the workshop was absurdly uncomfortable, though also in a way the "perfect" close to a year that began with such stress back in August. I'm sure the potluck will be fun, though.
On an entirely unrelated note, I've been thinking lately about NaNoWriMo. For those in the know, yes, I am aware we are nowhere near November; for those not in the know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it's an American-based community whose members devote themselves to completing a 50,000-word novel in the month of November.
I have never tried it; I've never considered that I would have time. I have friends who've done NaNoWriMo, and it's a lot of work; it's an understood thing among those who do that many people revert to copying song lyrics or other such text into their "novels" in order to keep up on the word count.
So what's my revelation on all this? Oh, only that I've essentially been doing a nonfiction version of NaNoWriMo for the past 10 months, that all. Seriously. In order to hit 50,000 words in a month, you have to write about 1,600 words a day--sound about like a blog post to you? OK, in all honesty I'm probably under 50,000 a month, but I bet I'm consistently hitting around 30,000, on average. Every. Single. Month. And, my occasionally pathetic asides aside, I have at least yet to resort to lyric copying!
So who knows, maybe this November I'll take up the fiction gauntlet for a bit. Can't be worse than finding material for a daily blog!
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Farewell
Tonight was our last official Fulbright reception.
After school, I met Karina at the HSR station and--probably as a result of all the end-of-year writing I've been doing--found myself immersed in memories. The last time I stood here I was saying goodbye to Alex and Melanie; the first time we took this train we didn't know what was going on; the first time we came to Taipei Fonda guided us and it seemed so foreign; look at us now, all self-sufficient and calm...an oddly charged train trip.
In Taipei, we briefly relived my previous experience of getting lost looking for a hotel near Taipei Main, but Karina pulled us through after a quick check-in with a friendly shop-keeper and her son. We checked in (the same hotel we stayed at the first time!) and headed towards our reception.
I've got to be honest: receptions tend to be somewhat boring affairs. I've got to be honest: this one was NOT. We got to meet some of the Taiwanese Fulbright grantees to America for 2012-2013, and I discovered that two FLTAs (Foreign Language Teaching Assistants, or the equivalent of what we do, but in America) are going to Oregon! One will be at Lewis & Clark University, and the other will be at Pacific University. I had fun telling them about the great state they'll soon be heading towards.
Our table consisted in Karina, Analacia and I, plus three senior scholars, including Serge, a law professor who never fails to keep us laughing, and whom Karina and Brittany are often consulting with on their work in Taitung. We were soon all playing musical chairs, as Analicia, Brittany and Rachel shifted into and out of seats as they worked the room.
It's amazing to think that this is our last officially sanctioned trip to Taipei; it is also likely to be my last visit overall, since we've seen most of the city by now and it costs a lot to come here. Taipei has been a great part of my life for the last 10 months, and it's weird to think a weekend trip will soon no longer be a possibility.
So begin the "last"s...time to start saying goodbye to Fulbright.
After school, I met Karina at the HSR station and--probably as a result of all the end-of-year writing I've been doing--found myself immersed in memories. The last time I stood here I was saying goodbye to Alex and Melanie; the first time we took this train we didn't know what was going on; the first time we came to Taipei Fonda guided us and it seemed so foreign; look at us now, all self-sufficient and calm...an oddly charged train trip.
In Taipei, we briefly relived my previous experience of getting lost looking for a hotel near Taipei Main, but Karina pulled us through after a quick check-in with a friendly shop-keeper and her son. We checked in (the same hotel we stayed at the first time!) and headed towards our reception.
I've got to be honest: receptions tend to be somewhat boring affairs. I've got to be honest: this one was NOT. We got to meet some of the Taiwanese Fulbright grantees to America for 2012-2013, and I discovered that two FLTAs (Foreign Language Teaching Assistants, or the equivalent of what we do, but in America) are going to Oregon! One will be at Lewis & Clark University, and the other will be at Pacific University. I had fun telling them about the great state they'll soon be heading towards.
Our table consisted in Karina, Analacia and I, plus three senior scholars, including Serge, a law professor who never fails to keep us laughing, and whom Karina and Brittany are often consulting with on their work in Taitung. We were soon all playing musical chairs, as Analicia, Brittany and Rachel shifted into and out of seats as they worked the room.
It's amazing to think that this is our last officially sanctioned trip to Taipei; it is also likely to be my last visit overall, since we've seen most of the city by now and it costs a lot to come here. Taipei has been a great part of my life for the last 10 months, and it's weird to think a weekend trip will soon no longer be a possibility.
So begin the "last"s...time to start saying goodbye to Fulbright.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Coincidence
The representative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs caught me at the door.
"I just had to catch you," he said. "Qing-Shan--that was my school! Fifty years ago, that's where I went."
He shook my hand. "I congratulate you."
And with that, my day was made.
Our day of presentations ended up going from 1pm till after 10pm but, though long, it was anything but boring, as we heard about projects regarding everything from Shakespeare to bioethics; from portraiture and visual identity to architecture and astronomy and viola performance. It was fascinating to hear everything all the Fulbrighters are doing.
Of course, Kaohsiung ETAs presented last, when we were already running a good 45 minutes behind schedule; despite our best efforts to go quickly, we were an hour behind by the time we finished, and most people had clearly checked out mentally hours ago.
Which is what made the stop at the door so fantastic: not only had someone been paying attention to my presentation, he had liked it, and had had a personal connection to the school that few people I talk to have ever heard of. There's even the added possibility (which I asked him about, but he didn't know) that he attended back when they were in the old building which is now a factory which my 6th graders visited on a field trip a few months ago.
I love random circumstances like that. They make even 9 hour presentations quite lovely.
"I just had to catch you," he said. "Qing-Shan--that was my school! Fifty years ago, that's where I went."
He shook my hand. "I congratulate you."
And with that, my day was made.
Our day of presentations ended up going from 1pm till after 10pm but, though long, it was anything but boring, as we heard about projects regarding everything from Shakespeare to bioethics; from portraiture and visual identity to architecture and astronomy and viola performance. It was fascinating to hear everything all the Fulbrighters are doing.
Of course, Kaohsiung ETAs presented last, when we were already running a good 45 minutes behind schedule; despite our best efforts to go quickly, we were an hour behind by the time we finished, and most people had clearly checked out mentally hours ago.
Which is what made the stop at the door so fantastic: not only had someone been paying attention to my presentation, he had liked it, and had had a personal connection to the school that few people I talk to have ever heard of. There's even the added possibility (which I asked him about, but he didn't know) that he attended back when they were in the old building which is now a factory which my 6th graders visited on a field trip a few months ago.
I love random circumstances like that. They make even 9 hour presentations quite lovely.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Halfway
As of today, I am halfway through my time here in Kaohsiung. I didn't figure this out on my own; rather, fellow Taiwan ETA Elaine posted about it on her Facebook and made me do a double take.
She said: "Today marks the halfway point of my time in Taiwan. It's been an amazing 5 and a half months and I'm sure the next 5 and a half will be even better."
Wait, it's been 5 and a half months? And I only get 5 and a half more months here? Both of those statements seem impossible to me.
Did I really not know Fonda, or Maggie, or Alison, or Patty, or Fiona, or Chialing, or Tom, or any of my other Taiwanese friends before 5 months ago? Did I really not know Margaret, James, and Emily, or Bunny and Jenny? Did I really not know my students? Had I really only met Karina, and Rachel, and Brittany, and Analacia, and Tiffiany, Emily, Lydia, Samia, Esther, Andrew and Steven only once, at a conference? Had I really never driven a scooter, or taught an English class, or planned a trip to Taipei (or anywhere else, independently), or grown to love tea, or tried stinky tofu, or had a conversation in Mandarin?
Have I really not seen my family or US friends, or driven a car, or stepped foot in America for five months?
It seems unfathomable.
On the flip side, will I really only be in Taiwan for 5 and a half more months? Will I really just be a plain old American living in America, then, just another of the horde of college graduates looking for a real job? Will I really be able to call up or stop by my family's place, or hang out with American friends, at will? Will I really just slip back into my old routines, old activities, old mindsets, as if I'd never left?
I'm determined that that last one, at least, won't happen: my year as a Fulbright ETA in Taiwan will never be reduced to just a line on my resume that I have to explain to every potential employer for the rest of my life. Even now, there are aspects of my thought processes which are irrevocably changed for the better. But some of it is irresistible: I will leave Taiwan. I will no longer drive a scooter, and there will no longer be tea shops on every corner to cater to my craving for grapefruit green tea, or fresh milk tea, and of course a weekend trip to Taipei will be out of the question.
I will be overjoyed to return to all my American loved ones. But I can't even think about the people I'll leave behind yet. That's the hardest part about building multiple home bases across the world from each other: you never get to have everyone you love in the same place at the same time. I have 5 and a half more months with my loved ones here, and I refuse to confront how short a time that is until I absolutely have to.
Wow, this post has taken a turn toward the depressing. But halfway does also mean that I still have half of my time to spend here, and 5 and a half months is still a pretty long time to squeeze in as much of the amazingness of life here in Taiwan as possible. And I will certainly try. After all, I'm only halfway.
She said: "Today marks the halfway point of my time in Taiwan. It's been an amazing 5 and a half months and I'm sure the next 5 and a half will be even better."
Wait, it's been 5 and a half months? And I only get 5 and a half more months here? Both of those statements seem impossible to me.
Did I really not know Fonda, or Maggie, or Alison, or Patty, or Fiona, or Chialing, or Tom, or any of my other Taiwanese friends before 5 months ago? Did I really not know Margaret, James, and Emily, or Bunny and Jenny? Did I really not know my students? Had I really only met Karina, and Rachel, and Brittany, and Analacia, and Tiffiany, Emily, Lydia, Samia, Esther, Andrew and Steven only once, at a conference? Had I really never driven a scooter, or taught an English class, or planned a trip to Taipei (or anywhere else, independently), or grown to love tea, or tried stinky tofu, or had a conversation in Mandarin?
Have I really not seen my family or US friends, or driven a car, or stepped foot in America for five months?
It seems unfathomable.
On the flip side, will I really only be in Taiwan for 5 and a half more months? Will I really just be a plain old American living in America, then, just another of the horde of college graduates looking for a real job? Will I really be able to call up or stop by my family's place, or hang out with American friends, at will? Will I really just slip back into my old routines, old activities, old mindsets, as if I'd never left?
I'm determined that that last one, at least, won't happen: my year as a Fulbright ETA in Taiwan will never be reduced to just a line on my resume that I have to explain to every potential employer for the rest of my life. Even now, there are aspects of my thought processes which are irrevocably changed for the better. But some of it is irresistible: I will leave Taiwan. I will no longer drive a scooter, and there will no longer be tea shops on every corner to cater to my craving for grapefruit green tea, or fresh milk tea, and of course a weekend trip to Taipei will be out of the question.
I will be overjoyed to return to all my American loved ones. But I can't even think about the people I'll leave behind yet. That's the hardest part about building multiple home bases across the world from each other: you never get to have everyone you love in the same place at the same time. I have 5 and a half more months with my loved ones here, and I refuse to confront how short a time that is until I absolutely have to.
Wow, this post has taken a turn toward the depressing. But halfway does also mean that I still have half of my time to spend here, and 5 and a half months is still a pretty long time to squeeze in as much of the amazingness of life here in Taiwan as possible. And I will certainly try. After all, I'm only halfway.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
School's Out
Today was my last day of the semester, meaning I am now officially on break! This may seem odd to all of you who just finished Christmas break and are heading into your second quarter/semester/term but, as I've mentioned before, Christmas isn't the big deal here. Chinese New Year is.
So, in the weeks before and after the actual lunar new year, which this year falls on January 23rd, all the schools get time off. Quite a bit of time, actually: their last day is this coming Wednesday (I'll be at the Fulbright midyear conference), and school doesn't begin again until February 7th, giving the students--and us teachers--a solid three weeks in which to rolick and play and rest.
And I plan to take full advantage of it. First off, CNY break is pretty much the only time we Fulbrighters are okay-ed to leave the country, so Karina and I will be hitting Thailand for about a week, visiting my lovely friends Marissa and Melanie in Chiang Mai and checking out the beaches for a bit. Then there's been some speculation that we'll do a bit more exploring in Taiwan with Tom and Amanda, though nothing's set yet. And, of course, there's the inevitable conference, which will give us a glimpse of Xitou (溪頭).
Aside from that, I think I'll take the "break" thing as literally as possible without going dormant. Explore the parts of the city that I haven't seen at a leisurely pace. Eat at new restaurants. Hang out with my co-teachers, colleagues, host family, fellow ETAs and friends. Play Mahjiang. Visit wherever I'm invited. Rediscover the gym. Sleep. Basically, get in all the things I know I won't have time to do once school starts again, and hopefully form some better habits for myself to keep following once it does.
I'm so ready for this break. It's really quite amazing how exhausting it can be to live in another culture and to teach 5th and 6th graders. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it. But this break is good news--and for some reason, all I can think of is this song, inaccurate though it may be:
So, in the weeks before and after the actual lunar new year, which this year falls on January 23rd, all the schools get time off. Quite a bit of time, actually: their last day is this coming Wednesday (I'll be at the Fulbright midyear conference), and school doesn't begin again until February 7th, giving the students--and us teachers--a solid three weeks in which to rolick and play and rest.
And I plan to take full advantage of it. First off, CNY break is pretty much the only time we Fulbrighters are okay-ed to leave the country, so Karina and I will be hitting Thailand for about a week, visiting my lovely friends Marissa and Melanie in Chiang Mai and checking out the beaches for a bit. Then there's been some speculation that we'll do a bit more exploring in Taiwan with Tom and Amanda, though nothing's set yet. And, of course, there's the inevitable conference, which will give us a glimpse of Xitou (溪頭).
Aside from that, I think I'll take the "break" thing as literally as possible without going dormant. Explore the parts of the city that I haven't seen at a leisurely pace. Eat at new restaurants. Hang out with my co-teachers, colleagues, host family, fellow ETAs and friends. Play Mahjiang. Visit wherever I'm invited. Rediscover the gym. Sleep. Basically, get in all the things I know I won't have time to do once school starts again, and hopefully form some better habits for myself to keep following once it does.
I'm so ready for this break. It's really quite amazing how exhausting it can be to live in another culture and to teach 5th and 6th graders. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it. But this break is good news--and for some reason, all I can think of is this song, inaccurate though it may be:
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. :) |
 |
| 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!
Friday, November 25, 2011
Thanksgiving in Kaohsiung
Today wasn't Thanksgiving. It couldn't have been. I got up early, put on a t-shirt, skirt and sandals, bought an iced coffee, went to an RT competition (in which both of my schools competed), came home, took a nap, went to school again--oh, and then taught Thanksgiving, so I guess it must have been--but then I came home, went searching for turkey, and ended up eating steak at a Canadian restaurant.
And this is Thanksgiving? Really? You're serious? Huh. I didn't even consume any turkey.
I've already detailed many of my Thanksgiving teaching tactics; what I didn't mention is that, on Monday, after I finished my spiel about how the most important traditions of Thanksgiving are to eat a feast, spend time with family, and say what you are thankful for (spot the vocab words!), a student asked, through my co-teacher, "But, Teacher Bekah, why aren't YOU going home for Thanksgiving?"
...
It's times like these that I really wish someone had invented a teleportation device, already!
But they haven't and so my Thanksgiving was spent here, cheering on my students and taking a prohibited (and, as a result of its secrecy, terrible quality-ed) video of them, then describing what stuffing was to a class full of 6th graders, whose wrinkled faces at the idea of it cooking inside the turkey were priceless, not least of which because they closely mirrored my own face whenever I come into close contact with stinky tofu or pig intestines.
On my way into school today, I saw my commute friend Rob (he's an English teacher from New York who works across the street from my school; we met en route one day and we're perfecting the art of 40 second stoplight conversations), who was driving another English teacher, Debbie, and they informed me that they were spending Thanksgiving with a friend who had had the foresight to special order a turkey and plan a Thanksgiving dinner. They also told me that last year they had eaten turkey at a local American restaurant. They gave me the name, but I was on a scooter at a stop light--not exactly the time to write it down.
The search was on. A quick Google search for Western/American restaurants in Kaohsiung provided a decently long list--I'm going to need to keep exploring, I think--but only one which looked remotely like the name I thought they told me. I remembered that it was a pub & grill type place, and that it sounded like a last name.
My hypothesis? Foster Hewitt's.
I looked up directions, grabbed Analicia, who also didn't have dinner plans, and set off down one of Kaohsiung's busiest roads, down which apparently Foster Hewitt's lay. When we got there, one thing immediately struck me: a Canadian flag. Yep, it was Western all right, but decidedly Canadian; posters, hockey jerseys and other memorabilia from Ontario crowded the walls.
It was still a very nice place, but not exactly somewhere that would be serving turkey on American Thanksgiving.
Reconciled, I ordered a steak and fresh lime soda. Nothing even remotely related to Thanksgiving food, but at least it was high-quality Western food; in a lot of ways, it beat my back-up plan of a Subway turkey sandwich. And the bartender was Western, and it was oddly comforting to be able to be served by a native speaker of English, as weird as that sounds. At least a little something of home in a native accent.
My mom complained last week when I described how great the Thanksgiving dinner in Taipei was rather than talk about how much I miss her cooking. Well, last week wasn't Thanksgiving. Today was. And I do miss her cooking--hers, and Aunt Linda's, and Uncle Pat and Aunt Christy's, and Karen's, and Jillian's, and Diana's, and Rosa's, and Joshua's, and Heather's, and everyone else in my family who cooks's. I wish I were home, eating moist turkey and flavorful party potatoes and oddly delicious stuffing and the many, many pies. I wish I were hanging out with my family and watching the parade right now, feeling guilty about not being able to do more to help.
Because, as I told my kids, that's what Thanksgiving is about: eating a feast and spending time with family.
But there was a third thing: being thankful. And I am, of course, thankful first and foremost for my family. But I'm also thankful that I'm here. I love all my wonderful students, co-teachers, host family, fellow ETAs, and other friends here, and I am so thankful they're in my life, and that I have the opportunity to be in theirs. I'm thankful that I have been blessed with a Fulbright grant to Taiwan, which is itself the chance of a lifetime. I'm thankful that I even have this dilemma, that I have to want to be in two places at once, that I have two potential places to spend the holiday.
Because today was Thanksgiving, no matter how I spent it. And turkey, as it turns out, is optional.
And this is Thanksgiving? Really? You're serious? Huh. I didn't even consume any turkey.
I've already detailed many of my Thanksgiving teaching tactics; what I didn't mention is that, on Monday, after I finished my spiel about how the most important traditions of Thanksgiving are to eat a feast, spend time with family, and say what you are thankful for (spot the vocab words!), a student asked, through my co-teacher, "But, Teacher Bekah, why aren't YOU going home for Thanksgiving?"
...
It's times like these that I really wish someone had invented a teleportation device, already!
But they haven't and so my Thanksgiving was spent here, cheering on my students and taking a prohibited (and, as a result of its secrecy, terrible quality-ed) video of them, then describing what stuffing was to a class full of 6th graders, whose wrinkled faces at the idea of it cooking inside the turkey were priceless, not least of which because they closely mirrored my own face whenever I come into close contact with stinky tofu or pig intestines.
On my way into school today, I saw my commute friend Rob (he's an English teacher from New York who works across the street from my school; we met en route one day and we're perfecting the art of 40 second stoplight conversations), who was driving another English teacher, Debbie, and they informed me that they were spending Thanksgiving with a friend who had had the foresight to special order a turkey and plan a Thanksgiving dinner. They also told me that last year they had eaten turkey at a local American restaurant. They gave me the name, but I was on a scooter at a stop light--not exactly the time to write it down.
The search was on. A quick Google search for Western/American restaurants in Kaohsiung provided a decently long list--I'm going to need to keep exploring, I think--but only one which looked remotely like the name I thought they told me. I remembered that it was a pub & grill type place, and that it sounded like a last name.
My hypothesis? Foster Hewitt's.
I looked up directions, grabbed Analicia, who also didn't have dinner plans, and set off down one of Kaohsiung's busiest roads, down which apparently Foster Hewitt's lay. When we got there, one thing immediately struck me: a Canadian flag. Yep, it was Western all right, but decidedly Canadian; posters, hockey jerseys and other memorabilia from Ontario crowded the walls.
It was still a very nice place, but not exactly somewhere that would be serving turkey on American Thanksgiving.
Reconciled, I ordered a steak and fresh lime soda. Nothing even remotely related to Thanksgiving food, but at least it was high-quality Western food; in a lot of ways, it beat my back-up plan of a Subway turkey sandwich. And the bartender was Western, and it was oddly comforting to be able to be served by a native speaker of English, as weird as that sounds. At least a little something of home in a native accent.
 |
| Ah, Thanksgiving dinner. |
My mom complained last week when I described how great the Thanksgiving dinner in Taipei was rather than talk about how much I miss her cooking. Well, last week wasn't Thanksgiving. Today was. And I do miss her cooking--hers, and Aunt Linda's, and Uncle Pat and Aunt Christy's, and Karen's, and Jillian's, and Diana's, and Rosa's, and Joshua's, and Heather's, and everyone else in my family who cooks's. I wish I were home, eating moist turkey and flavorful party potatoes and oddly delicious stuffing and the many, many pies. I wish I were hanging out with my family and watching the parade right now, feeling guilty about not being able to do more to help.
Because, as I told my kids, that's what Thanksgiving is about: eating a feast and spending time with family.
But there was a third thing: being thankful. And I am, of course, thankful first and foremost for my family. But I'm also thankful that I'm here. I love all my wonderful students, co-teachers, host family, fellow ETAs, and other friends here, and I am so thankful they're in my life, and that I have the opportunity to be in theirs. I'm thankful that I have been blessed with a Fulbright grant to Taiwan, which is itself the chance of a lifetime. I'm thankful that I even have this dilemma, that I have to want to be in two places at once, that I have two potential places to spend the holiday.
Because today was Thanksgiving, no matter how I spent it. And turkey, as it turns out, is optional.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Technical difficulties
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. The food, the family, the contemplative mood--and, in my family at least, the desserts--are all great reminders of what makes life so special.
Which is why I was overjoyed that all of my LETs wanted me to teach the holiday at their schools. This is, according to other ETAs, a bit of a rarity; Thanksgiving is, after all, a uniquely American holiday (when celebrated at this time and for these reasons, anyway) with few real-world applications outside of the US. But then again, I am the resident American teacher, so it's my job to teach my culture, right?
So that's what I set out to do. I had had some ideas about how to do it last week while lesson-planning, which I enthusiastically shared with my LETs, and which they agreed to with few issues. It wasn't until Friday, as I sat on the train headed for Taipei, that I realized I had volunteered myself to create and teach the entire lesson by myself.
I went to work, and crafted a PowerPoint presentation in pretty Fall (well, American Fall, anyway) colors, including a brief account of the first Thanksgiving, discussion about when it is, and, most importantly, a description of Thanksgiving traditions and foods. I made myself drool as I uploaded photos of turkeys and stuffing and cranberry sauce and picked out our vocabulary words for the day--thankful, feast, turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie--wrote out instructions for hand turkeys, complete with a sentence pattern they were to write in the palm area ("I am thankful for______"), and found and linked to several YouTube videos.
But when I arrived at school today, I discovered that we had a problem. Several, in fact.
At Hanmin, we don't have an English classroom, and so go from home room to home room teaching English; only one or maybe two of these is equipped with a computer-overhead set-up. We knew this ahead of time, of course, and Alison had booked us for the audio-lingual room upstairs. But when I got to school, I discovered that my beautiful PowerPoint's formatting had been severely mangled in the transition from .pptx to .ppt and, what was worse, that the "audio-lingual room" was entirely lacking in the audio, thanks to a blown amplifier.
What followed was several periods of awkwardly silent YouTube clips drawn from disordered PowerPoints (I did my best to fix them over breaks), as I tried to explain what was going on:
"See, that's Squanto, and he's helping the children plant corn with fish to make it grow better...See, Lucy is telling Charlie Brown that football is a Thanksgiving tradition, so this time she won't yank the ball away...See, the Thanksgiving Day parade..."
To make matters worse, the large, echoey room's microphones were also not working, and I quickly discovered that, out from under the eyes of their home room teachers, the kids at Hanmin are much MUCH more prone to talking. By lunch time, my throat was beginning to ache.
Fortunately, though, just before lunchtime we scored another room with a projector, and this time one with functioning audio--but still no microphone, and this room was larger than the last. We finally rigged a mic to work for the last period of the day, but by that time there was no going back. My throat was irrevocably sore.
On the plus side, though, I think the kids enjoyed the presentation, for the most part, and I was able to teach them many things about Thanksgiving that even my LETs had not heard about, foods like candied yams and stuffing, and activities like Black Friday and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
I'm pretty sure that this clip was their favorite part of the whole day, though, so here it is for your enjoyment:
Snoopy is a big hit here; he was also their favorite part of the Macy's parade clip I showed them.
After classes, I took my malfunctioning throat home with me, a persistent technical difficulty from a day strewn with them. But it didn't matter much as I got to enjoy the wonderful company of Emily, Lydia, Fonda and Chialing on Chialing's birthday, sitting outside her shop, drinking tasty drinks and eating delicious food and ice cream with her homemade mulberry-cranberry-strawberry jam on top.
I can't think of a better way to end a day that was all about Thanksgiving than that: eating great food with great friends and reflecting on how great life is.
Which is why I was overjoyed that all of my LETs wanted me to teach the holiday at their schools. This is, according to other ETAs, a bit of a rarity; Thanksgiving is, after all, a uniquely American holiday (when celebrated at this time and for these reasons, anyway) with few real-world applications outside of the US. But then again, I am the resident American teacher, so it's my job to teach my culture, right?
So that's what I set out to do. I had had some ideas about how to do it last week while lesson-planning, which I enthusiastically shared with my LETs, and which they agreed to with few issues. It wasn't until Friday, as I sat on the train headed for Taipei, that I realized I had volunteered myself to create and teach the entire lesson by myself.
I went to work, and crafted a PowerPoint presentation in pretty Fall (well, American Fall, anyway) colors, including a brief account of the first Thanksgiving, discussion about when it is, and, most importantly, a description of Thanksgiving traditions and foods. I made myself drool as I uploaded photos of turkeys and stuffing and cranberry sauce and picked out our vocabulary words for the day--thankful, feast, turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie--wrote out instructions for hand turkeys, complete with a sentence pattern they were to write in the palm area ("I am thankful for______"), and found and linked to several YouTube videos.
But when I arrived at school today, I discovered that we had a problem. Several, in fact.
At Hanmin, we don't have an English classroom, and so go from home room to home room teaching English; only one or maybe two of these is equipped with a computer-overhead set-up. We knew this ahead of time, of course, and Alison had booked us for the audio-lingual room upstairs. But when I got to school, I discovered that my beautiful PowerPoint's formatting had been severely mangled in the transition from .pptx to .ppt and, what was worse, that the "audio-lingual room" was entirely lacking in the audio, thanks to a blown amplifier.
What followed was several periods of awkwardly silent YouTube clips drawn from disordered PowerPoints (I did my best to fix them over breaks), as I tried to explain what was going on:
"See, that's Squanto, and he's helping the children plant corn with fish to make it grow better...See, Lucy is telling Charlie Brown that football is a Thanksgiving tradition, so this time she won't yank the ball away...See, the Thanksgiving Day parade..."
To make matters worse, the large, echoey room's microphones were also not working, and I quickly discovered that, out from under the eyes of their home room teachers, the kids at Hanmin are much MUCH more prone to talking. By lunch time, my throat was beginning to ache.
Fortunately, though, just before lunchtime we scored another room with a projector, and this time one with functioning audio--but still no microphone, and this room was larger than the last. We finally rigged a mic to work for the last period of the day, but by that time there was no going back. My throat was irrevocably sore.
On the plus side, though, I think the kids enjoyed the presentation, for the most part, and I was able to teach them many things about Thanksgiving that even my LETs had not heard about, foods like candied yams and stuffing, and activities like Black Friday and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
I'm pretty sure that this clip was their favorite part of the whole day, though, so here it is for your enjoyment:
Snoopy is a big hit here; he was also their favorite part of the Macy's parade clip I showed them.
After classes, I took my malfunctioning throat home with me, a persistent technical difficulty from a day strewn with them. But it didn't matter much as I got to enjoy the wonderful company of Emily, Lydia, Fonda and Chialing on Chialing's birthday, sitting outside her shop, drinking tasty drinks and eating delicious food and ice cream with her homemade mulberry-cranberry-strawberry jam on top.
I can't think of a better way to end a day that was all about Thanksgiving than that: eating great food with great friends and reflecting on how great life is.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Kaohsiung in song
First of all, I'd just like to point out that this is my hundredth consecutive post on this blog. And, while the perfectionist in me would like to pour hours and hours of time into it so that it does not suck, I'm fairly certain that a) none of you really care; b) I've killed any chances of it being epic by simply mentioning that this is my 100th post; and c) I do actually care about getting some sleep tonight.
And not without reason: tomorrow, I will sing the American national anthem at a MLB game. Not alone, of course, and not in America, but STILL: tomorrow myself, 5 other Fulbrighters, and a group of high school students from the Kaohsiung American school will sing the American national anthem a the Taiwanese MLB All-Star Game.
So, yeah, we'll be on international TV.
Today, though, was just practice, which essentially entailed the group of us standing in the hot sun in the baseball stadium, waiting our turn to run-through the song a couple times. That, and taking jumping pictures.
But I'll have plenty to write about on that account tomorrow and Sunday, after we've actually done more than a run-through followed by a long speech by the mayor, who came for the performance.
So, to rewind a bit: this morning, my 5th and 6th graders had a field trip! And I, naturally, went with them. It was a short affair; we walked the five or so blocks to our destination, and the whole trip took about an hour and a half. But it was fun! We went to Qing-Shan's original building, which has since been converted into a government factory which manufactures clothes for Taiwanese soldiers.
We meandered around the old complex, the kids getting important tidbits of information from the Director of Academic Affairs, in Chinese, while I savored the scenery and absorbed the occasional paraphrase by Patty. The complex was actually quite picturesque.
When we went inside for the actual tour, I found myself wondering who would wear the clothes, and about the home lives of the workers--I had been told that a good number of my students' parents work here, and I wondered which ones they were? No way to tell--when they saw me trailing along at the tail end of the procession, their reactions were universally gasps and occasionally a proffered English phrase like "Hello!"
So that was our field trip.
Fast forwarding a bit, past the MLB practice, song came into my life a second time today, at Zhong Shan Da Shue's (中山大學) 13th annual "Singing Contest in Chinese & Taiwanese for the Foreign Students." In other words, glorified karaoke.
Here's how that went down: some people sucked. Like really, really sucked. The first guy to lead off was one of those, which I appreciated as a boost to everyone's confidence. Then there were a few people who were okay, and a few who were absolutely fantastic and need a record label to notice them now.
One group even dressed up in costume and did a comedic bit, which was pretty great.
And then there was us.
At the last second, Tiffiany had to leave because she had a bus to Kenting to catch for her birthday weekend (because sometimes life is just rough, you know?), and so our teacher recruited some of her other students, a group of French guys, to help us sing our song.
Yeah...that did not go so smoothly.
The thing is, they knew the chorus of the song, but that was about it. Not that we were too much better--we had our lyrics sheets in hand--but we had at least practiced it; knew what we were doing and had agreed weeks in advance to standing in front of a crowd and singing this particular song. (I blogged about it clear back in the beginning of October.)
So here's what ended up happening: the four of us who had prepared stood on one side of the stage, intermittently singing and laughing at ourselves, with a single microphone pointed, not at any of our mouths, but at a generalized point in the middle. I'm fairly certain no one could hear us.
On the other side of the stage stood the French guys, leading the crowd in clapping (clapping??? For Wode Bao Bei???) and chiming in whenever the chorus rolled around. And did I mention they had their own mike?
Fortunately, as I mentioned, we were still laughing. A few audience members laughed, too, which was more a relief than anything else. Because what else could we expect from that scenario? As Lydia said while we were leaving, in that sort of situation you have to be either completely amazing, or completely sucky and able to laugh at yourselves. I'd say we probably fell into the latter category.
Nonetheless, We'll be back out on the baseball field tomorrow, singing our hearts out for an international audience: proof that talent matters infinitely less than tenacity and happening to be one of the only Americans in Kaohsiung. And, as this 100th post attests, I have no talent but the talent of staying constant, whether to blogging, to being American, or to singing--poorly.
And not without reason: tomorrow, I will sing the American national anthem at a MLB game. Not alone, of course, and not in America, but STILL: tomorrow myself, 5 other Fulbrighters, and a group of high school students from the Kaohsiung American school will sing the American national anthem a the Taiwanese MLB All-Star Game.
So, yeah, we'll be on international TV.
Today, though, was just practice, which essentially entailed the group of us standing in the hot sun in the baseball stadium, waiting our turn to run-through the song a couple times. That, and taking jumping pictures.
 |
| Umm, I think we have a problem here... |
 |
| Love the facial expressions...and we're getting closer! |
 |
| Win! |
 |
| Annnd epic win! |
So, to rewind a bit: this morning, my 5th and 6th graders had a field trip! And I, naturally, went with them. It was a short affair; we walked the five or so blocks to our destination, and the whole trip took about an hour and a half. But it was fun! We went to Qing-Shan's original building, which has since been converted into a government factory which manufactures clothes for Taiwanese soldiers.
We meandered around the old complex, the kids getting important tidbits of information from the Director of Academic Affairs, in Chinese, while I savored the scenery and absorbed the occasional paraphrase by Patty. The complex was actually quite picturesque.
When we went inside for the actual tour, I found myself wondering who would wear the clothes, and about the home lives of the workers--I had been told that a good number of my students' parents work here, and I wondered which ones they were? No way to tell--when they saw me trailing along at the tail end of the procession, their reactions were universally gasps and occasionally a proffered English phrase like "Hello!"
 |
| Our procession. |
So that was our field trip.
Fast forwarding a bit, past the MLB practice, song came into my life a second time today, at Zhong Shan Da Shue's (中山大學) 13th annual "Singing Contest in Chinese & Taiwanese for the Foreign Students." In other words, glorified karaoke.
Here's how that went down: some people sucked. Like really, really sucked. The first guy to lead off was one of those, which I appreciated as a boost to everyone's confidence. Then there were a few people who were okay, and a few who were absolutely fantastic and need a record label to notice them now.
 |
| That would be this guy. He also needs to stop wearing v-neck shirts now, but I won't quibble. |
And then there was us.
At the last second, Tiffiany had to leave because she had a bus to Kenting to catch for her birthday weekend (because sometimes life is just rough, you know?), and so our teacher recruited some of her other students, a group of French guys, to help us sing our song.
Yeah...that did not go so smoothly.
The thing is, they knew the chorus of the song, but that was about it. Not that we were too much better--we had our lyrics sheets in hand--but we had at least practiced it; knew what we were doing and had agreed weeks in advance to standing in front of a crowd and singing this particular song. (I blogged about it clear back in the beginning of October.)
So here's what ended up happening: the four of us who had prepared stood on one side of the stage, intermittently singing and laughing at ourselves, with a single microphone pointed, not at any of our mouths, but at a generalized point in the middle. I'm fairly certain no one could hear us.
On the other side of the stage stood the French guys, leading the crowd in clapping (clapping??? For Wode Bao Bei???) and chiming in whenever the chorus rolled around. And did I mention they had their own mike?
Fortunately, as I mentioned, we were still laughing. A few audience members laughed, too, which was more a relief than anything else. Because what else could we expect from that scenario? As Lydia said while we were leaving, in that sort of situation you have to be either completely amazing, or completely sucky and able to laugh at yourselves. I'd say we probably fell into the latter category.
Nonetheless, We'll be back out on the baseball field tomorrow, singing our hearts out for an international audience: proof that talent matters infinitely less than tenacity and happening to be one of the only Americans in Kaohsiung. And, as this 100th post attests, I have no talent but the talent of staying constant, whether to blogging, to being American, or to singing--poorly.
Monday, October 31, 2011
A Few Firsts
The first first to which the title refers is my delaying a day and then actually following through on my promise to recount events from the day before. I'm well aware that I am horrible about this--my posts are riddled with promises for "more later," only to be followed with nothing, or perhaps a sentence or so summarizing the day before.
Not today! Today, due in part to the fact that I spent the first three quarters of the day doing absolutely nothing and in part to the fact that yesterday was absolutely amazing, I will actually give details where I promised details. So, there's that.
And now, firsts from yesterday and today!
As I mentioned yesterday, in the morning, I met up with my co-worker Fiona and co-teacher Maggie for a trip to the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Art, where we attended the Alphonse Mucha exhibit. Now I'll be honest, before Maggie and Fiona invited me to go see the exhibit with them, I had never heard of Alphonse Mucha. After a bit of online researching, though, I discovered that I had seen his work--and loved it.
Alphonse Mucha was a Czech artist in the Art Nouveau movement, and his works feature plenty of rich colors and patterns. They were often commissioned for advertising, either for plays or for products. Yet today, all these posters and ad placements are considered art--and with good reason. Many of his commissioned works (like the one above, which is technically an ad for a railway which ran to Monaco) stand alongside his bonafide art in beauty and craftsmanship.
I loved Alphonse Mucha; his work is beautiful and oddly intuitive. When I saw his precious stones series, for instance, I knew from looking at the first, unlabeled work that it was topaz, and that the next was ruby, then sapphire, then emerald. The placard came at the end, but it seemed redundant at that point--Mucha had so thoroughly and subtly revealed his subject (without depicting the actual stones, I might add) that any further explanation was unnecesary. I was also deeply gratified by the fact that, in each of his series, I was instantly drawn to the painting which most closely reflected myself in title--emerald (my birth stone) in the above series, for instance, and poetry (ie, writing) in his series on the four art forms.
Where is the first in all this, you may be asking? Well, my first time seeing many of Alphonse Mucha's works. Also my first time doing something outside of school with Maggie and Fiona, my first time scootering as far as Zuoying, my first time at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (which was GORGEOUS!) and, afterwards, my first time trying the lemon-and-sugar gel-and-bubble beverage Fiona bought me on the way home. Lots of great firsts!
Then, last night, my host family picked me up to take me to Japanese food. And it was fabulous! Lots of firsts there, too.
First time I ate sashimi (aka raw fish), and I greatly enjoyed the raw bits of tuna and salmon, dipped in soy sauce and wasabi. First time trying plum juice, which was interesting, slightly salty and anice-y, unlike any juice I'd ever had. Another first, but not for me: first time my host sister, Emily, tried sake. (She was not a fan.)
After dinner, my host family took me to their house for the first time--its a very pretty, five story townhouse not far from my daily commute, and we had a nice chat there, and discovered that Margaret, Emily and I all love Pride & Prejudice. :)
And then more firsts: we went to the Young Peoples' Shopping Center, where Emily showed me the photobooth phenomenon, which I participated in for the first time ever. It's great, by the way, and really brought me back a few years: you go into a photo booth, then have a time limit to choose different backgrounds and pose for pictures with a friend. Then, you go around the corner to another booth, this one with a touch screen and editing software, where you are once again timed as you and your friend add nice little finishing touches to your pictures. The end result is a bunch of little photo stickers, which I promptly attached to the front cover of my teaching notebook. Here are the (admittedly poor quality) pictures-of-pictures I took to show the world:
Not today! Today, due in part to the fact that I spent the first three quarters of the day doing absolutely nothing and in part to the fact that yesterday was absolutely amazing, I will actually give details where I promised details. So, there's that.
And now, firsts from yesterday and today!
As I mentioned yesterday, in the morning, I met up with my co-worker Fiona and co-teacher Maggie for a trip to the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Art, where we attended the Alphonse Mucha exhibit. Now I'll be honest, before Maggie and Fiona invited me to go see the exhibit with them, I had never heard of Alphonse Mucha. After a bit of online researching, though, I discovered that I had seen his work--and loved it.
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| One of my favorites of the pieces we saw yesterday |
I loved Alphonse Mucha; his work is beautiful and oddly intuitive. When I saw his precious stones series, for instance, I knew from looking at the first, unlabeled work that it was topaz, and that the next was ruby, then sapphire, then emerald. The placard came at the end, but it seemed redundant at that point--Mucha had so thoroughly and subtly revealed his subject (without depicting the actual stones, I might add) that any further explanation was unnecesary. I was also deeply gratified by the fact that, in each of his series, I was instantly drawn to the painting which most closely reflected myself in title--emerald (my birth stone) in the above series, for instance, and poetry (ie, writing) in his series on the four art forms.
Where is the first in all this, you may be asking? Well, my first time seeing many of Alphonse Mucha's works. Also my first time doing something outside of school with Maggie and Fiona, my first time scootering as far as Zuoying, my first time at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (which was GORGEOUS!) and, afterwards, my first time trying the lemon-and-sugar gel-and-bubble beverage Fiona bought me on the way home. Lots of great firsts!
Then, last night, my host family picked me up to take me to Japanese food. And it was fabulous! Lots of firsts there, too.
First time I ate sashimi (aka raw fish), and I greatly enjoyed the raw bits of tuna and salmon, dipped in soy sauce and wasabi. First time trying plum juice, which was interesting, slightly salty and anice-y, unlike any juice I'd ever had. Another first, but not for me: first time my host sister, Emily, tried sake. (She was not a fan.)
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| You can see the sashimi here, ready to be tasted, center stage! |
And then more firsts: we went to the Young Peoples' Shopping Center, where Emily showed me the photobooth phenomenon, which I participated in for the first time ever. It's great, by the way, and really brought me back a few years: you go into a photo booth, then have a time limit to choose different backgrounds and pose for pictures with a friend. Then, you go around the corner to another booth, this one with a touch screen and editing software, where you are once again timed as you and your friend add nice little finishing touches to your pictures. The end result is a bunch of little photo stickers, which I promptly attached to the front cover of my teaching notebook. Here are the (admittedly poor quality) pictures-of-pictures I took to show the world:
So that was my Saturday. What about the remaining one quarter of my day today which did not consist in doing nothing, you ask? That would be dedicated to the Halloween party thrown by Samia, Emily, and Lydia over in Apartment C. We had a nice little night of chili, bruschetta, green salad (my belated contribution, as I was unable to get the ingredients for my planned pasta salad due to my scooter's sudden decision that it needs oil NOW), and tamarind juice.
Plus, you know, another time to wear my pirate costume, bringing my tally thus far to five days; tomorrow, which actually IS Halloween, will make six out of the past seven days in which I was dressed as a pirate. I have to say, though, I think Lydia took the cake tonight for best costume: she came as "culture shock":
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| Her shirt reads "文化," (culture), and she's wearing an American flag sweater, Taiwanese acid-wash jeans, a bandana, and a cloth surgical mask...and lightning bolts. You know, for the "shock" part. :) Fonda's costume was fantastic too; you can't see the NY symbol on her shirt, though, since it's behind her cup...appropriate pair! |
Now, in the spirit of this being a post of "firsts," I should notice that I am writing it in an Internet Explorer window, since my Firefox is currently moving at the speed of slime, due likely to the amount of videos I've watched on it lately. But now, IE is starting to slow down, too. So that's all the firsts for today!
Which is a good thing anyway, since tomorrow brings yet another first: the first time in over a month I'll be taking the MRT to work, thanks to my scooter issues. So hopefully, tomorrow will also bring my first Taiwanese oil change.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Friday night
...is not all that exciting. After a week of Halloween festivities and teaching, when Friday rolls around all I really want to do is sit around, and read, and watch TV, and sleep.
This was called to my attention today with the arrival of Nick, a former Fulbrighter in China whom we met in Taipei, arriving at our apartment for the night. His arrival was the most eventful part of the day (closely rivaled by Skyping with my parents and brother, whom I hadn't seen in months); sitting around our kitchen table and chatting with him, Brittany and Rachel was the biggest social event I've experienced for a while.
Is that weird? Maybe. Is it the truth of my existence here? Yes.
I've mentioned it before, but my social life here is essentially nonexistent. My phone contains 22 names and phone numbers, 11 of whom are my fellow ETAs, 3 of whom are my LETs, 2 of whom are other Fulbright people, and 3 of whom are my host family. When you boil it down, that right there is my social circle: pretty tiny. And teaching is great, but it's tiring, and by the time I get home, I don't really feel like going out again.
It's times like these that I wish there weren't a time difference, so I could at least get in touch with my friends back home; Facebook and email only work up to a certain point, and then only if the friends check as often as I do, which is all but impossible. In truth, most of my friends have never been big Facebook users, a fact I simply forgot when there were other ways to get a hold of them, such as walking down the hallway or calling their cell.
The irony of my writing this post on this particular Friday night is that I do actually have plans tomorrow--an art exhibit with Maggie and another colleague, Fiona, in the morning, and dinner with my host family in the evening.
But right now it's Friday night, and all I want to do is sleep.
This was called to my attention today with the arrival of Nick, a former Fulbrighter in China whom we met in Taipei, arriving at our apartment for the night. His arrival was the most eventful part of the day (closely rivaled by Skyping with my parents and brother, whom I hadn't seen in months); sitting around our kitchen table and chatting with him, Brittany and Rachel was the biggest social event I've experienced for a while.
Is that weird? Maybe. Is it the truth of my existence here? Yes.
I've mentioned it before, but my social life here is essentially nonexistent. My phone contains 22 names and phone numbers, 11 of whom are my fellow ETAs, 3 of whom are my LETs, 2 of whom are other Fulbright people, and 3 of whom are my host family. When you boil it down, that right there is my social circle: pretty tiny. And teaching is great, but it's tiring, and by the time I get home, I don't really feel like going out again.
It's times like these that I wish there weren't a time difference, so I could at least get in touch with my friends back home; Facebook and email only work up to a certain point, and then only if the friends check as often as I do, which is all but impossible. In truth, most of my friends have never been big Facebook users, a fact I simply forgot when there were other ways to get a hold of them, such as walking down the hallway or calling their cell.
The irony of my writing this post on this particular Friday night is that I do actually have plans tomorrow--an art exhibit with Maggie and another colleague, Fiona, in the morning, and dinner with my host family in the evening.
But right now it's Friday night, and all I want to do is sleep.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Back to Normal
Dan and Danny left this morning sometime after I did, and I was instantly plunged back into my occasionally unrelenting (oxymoron, I know) schedule. And today was one of the unrelenting ones.
I've often meant to detail my schedule on here to give you a glimpse into my actual day-to-day life, and I suppose I have done that in snippets so far, but now let me just give you the timetable I follow every other Wednesday.
6:45am -- Wake up and get ready for the day, assuming I remembered to shower the night before (otherwise, the alarm is set for 6:20am)
7:20am -- Leave for Han-Min, on the expectation that it will take a good 10 or 15 minutes longer than a normal day, as I will have to fight through the morning rush all trying to get to Siaogang by 8am
7:50am -- Arrive at Han-Min, with any luck
8:00am -- Begin Morning English! I switch off teaching this with Alison and Maggie, and we teach 5 classes of a single grade every week; by the end of the semester, we will have seen every class once and we'll start over again. Today Maggie and I taught a new dialogue for our first "middle grade" group of 4th graders; first times always have a few bumps, but overall, it went pretty well.
8:30am -- Begin the awkward hour break before my next class, usually rendered un-awkward by a coffee/tea trip with Maggie and/or Alison. Today it went by really quickly, thanks to a few great conversations with both of them and the fact that we used the time to plan for our Halloween lesson plans. Going to be great, by the way!
9:30am -- First *real* class of the day; all adorable 5th graders with Maggie on Wednesdays.
12:00pm -- Lunch. My last class of the three I teach on Wednesdays bring me my lunch in the teachers' office, where I thank them in English and they, without fail, giggle a response and run away. Love it. :) Another highlight of lunch is always sitting and talking with Maggie, Alison, and Fiona, the other English teacher at Hanmin; our desks are close together and we just sit and chat and teach each other new vocabulary. It's fantastic.
12:30pm ish -- Lesson plan time! Alison and Maggie and I plan for next week
1:00/1:30pm -- Go home to pick stuff up if I have time (I did today); if not, straight to Sanmin for our massive LET-ETA-Fonda-Alex-Education Bureau people-Dr. Sun meeting!
2:00pm -- Here begins our meeting.
4:00pm (if we're lucky) -- Here ends our meeting. Nothing much of importance happens in between.
4:25pm -- We (ETAs) finish our post-meeting meeting with Fonda and Alex, and either quickly run home for stuff if there wasn't time before (this option would make us late) or run out for food at the local market and/or 7-11. Oh, the nutritious dinners we eat on Wednesdays...
5:10pm -- Chinese class begins. "Surprisingly," we make horrible students on these days...
7:10pm ish -- Chinese class ends.
7:40pm ish -- Rachel and I reach the gym (if we coordinated and have managed to conquer our exhaustion--which didn't happen today)
8:40pm ish -- Rachel and I head home, where I drop exhausted onto whatever flat surface I see first.
I know that, in writing this, I'm inviting comparisons from people who routinely work 14 hour days etc, and I have no answer for that. I'm just sharing my day.
I've often meant to detail my schedule on here to give you a glimpse into my actual day-to-day life, and I suppose I have done that in snippets so far, but now let me just give you the timetable I follow every other Wednesday.
6:45am -- Wake up and get ready for the day, assuming I remembered to shower the night before (otherwise, the alarm is set for 6:20am)
7:20am -- Leave for Han-Min, on the expectation that it will take a good 10 or 15 minutes longer than a normal day, as I will have to fight through the morning rush all trying to get to Siaogang by 8am
7:50am -- Arrive at Han-Min, with any luck
8:00am -- Begin Morning English! I switch off teaching this with Alison and Maggie, and we teach 5 classes of a single grade every week; by the end of the semester, we will have seen every class once and we'll start over again. Today Maggie and I taught a new dialogue for our first "middle grade" group of 4th graders; first times always have a few bumps, but overall, it went pretty well.
8:30am -- Begin the awkward hour break before my next class, usually rendered un-awkward by a coffee/tea trip with Maggie and/or Alison. Today it went by really quickly, thanks to a few great conversations with both of them and the fact that we used the time to plan for our Halloween lesson plans. Going to be great, by the way!
9:30am -- First *real* class of the day; all adorable 5th graders with Maggie on Wednesdays.
12:00pm -- Lunch. My last class of the three I teach on Wednesdays bring me my lunch in the teachers' office, where I thank them in English and they, without fail, giggle a response and run away. Love it. :) Another highlight of lunch is always sitting and talking with Maggie, Alison, and Fiona, the other English teacher at Hanmin; our desks are close together and we just sit and chat and teach each other new vocabulary. It's fantastic.
12:30pm ish -- Lesson plan time! Alison and Maggie and I plan for next week
1:00/1:30pm -- Go home to pick stuff up if I have time (I did today); if not, straight to Sanmin for our massive LET-ETA-Fonda-Alex-Education Bureau people-Dr. Sun meeting!
2:00pm -- Here begins our meeting.
4:00pm (if we're lucky) -- Here ends our meeting. Nothing much of importance happens in between.
4:25pm -- We (ETAs) finish our post-meeting meeting with Fonda and Alex, and either quickly run home for stuff if there wasn't time before (this option would make us late) or run out for food at the local market and/or 7-11. Oh, the nutritious dinners we eat on Wednesdays...
5:10pm -- Chinese class begins. "Surprisingly," we make horrible students on these days...
7:10pm ish -- Chinese class ends.
7:40pm ish -- Rachel and I reach the gym (if we coordinated and have managed to conquer our exhaustion--which didn't happen today)
8:40pm ish -- Rachel and I head home, where I drop exhausted onto whatever flat surface I see first.
I know that, in writing this, I'm inviting comparisons from people who routinely work 14 hour days etc, and I have no answer for that. I'm just sharing my day.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Double 10
I will never be able to do justice to the fantastic day I just finished living, and I won't even pretend to be able to do so when I begin writing at 11pm and have to work tomorrow morning. I just returned from the swankiest, largest gathering of highly influential people that I have ever attended, or am likely ever to attend.
Let's just take a second here to break it down.
The reception was held at the Taipei Guest House, an official building which looks to be on par for niceness with the White House, though on a much smaller scale. To get there, Karina, Rachel and I (and Tom, who hung out with us for the morning) took the MRT, but we left a full hour early for the 10 minute journey (you never know what holiday traffic could bring! Tom was an hour early to the 6:30am flag raising ceremony and still couldn't get close enough to see), and so got to join the swelling group of fancy-dressed foreigners drawing stares and unasked-for photos every thirty seconds or so. I haven't had that much attention since China!
The entrance is a massive arch guarded by security personnel and set off from another archway covering a road, which they had closed for the event, and decorated like so:
Inside, we walked a red carpet with other dignitaries as black cars guarded by police escorts and adorned with dual flags (one Taiwanese, one from whichever native country the inhabitants were) zoomed past to another entrance. The building itself was gorgeous,
and, once inside the actual door, we shook hands with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and his wife--our hosts for the evening. We crossed through the house and into the park behind (between two lines of waiters holding trays of drinks for you to choose from) to the sound of drums, and found the whole place to be swarming with people and filled with food, drinks, and waitstaff every few feet to take your empty dishes and/or glasses. On the pond, native drummers/dancers were performing; everywhere, people in absurdly high positions mingled, mixed, and sampled a plethora of food dishes, ranging from typical Taiwanese fare like bubble tea to Western food like a Haagen-Dazs ice cream station and foreign foods like a Thai station.
We spent most of the time just wandering, but once we realized the President had entered the building, we dropped our food (pretty much literally) and sprinted to join the throng. Karina and Ari (one of the Yilan ETAs) were by far the most successful of the group, jostling to the front and both shaking the President's hand (three times, in Ari's case) and getting photographic proof that they did; Rachel managed to be in front and shake his hand, too, and I was literally right behind her wondering if there was any way I could leverage my arm over her shoulder to shake his hand without it being obscenely awkward. Well, at least I got photos.
We actually lost Karina and Ari in the press to meet President Ma, and later found out that they'd made the very smart decision to ask Dr. Vocke who we should be on the lookout for in the crowd--and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus were both there; Ari got to meet Rumsfeld, apparently. But we did get to meet some cool people; Brittany got an invitation from a Fijian lady to come visit her in her country (yes please!), we talked for a while to the wife of the diplomat from Swaziland (who also invited Brittany to stay with her in Taipei), and I had a great conversation with a Taiwanese-American guy who works in immigration in California (at first I thought he said he worked at Universal, but must have been San Francisco or something...) and had a friend who was a professor at Oregon State. Small world!
In a very small nutshell, that was my evening. It was fantastic. However, it is now almost 2am, and I teach tomorrow, so I can't do much more on here. I'll be adding more pictures to the album I made for the weekend, though; here's the public link if you're interested.
Happy 100th anniversary, ROC/Taiwan!
Let's just take a second here to break it down.
The reception was held at the Taipei Guest House, an official building which looks to be on par for niceness with the White House, though on a much smaller scale. To get there, Karina, Rachel and I (and Tom, who hung out with us for the morning) took the MRT, but we left a full hour early for the 10 minute journey (you never know what holiday traffic could bring! Tom was an hour early to the 6:30am flag raising ceremony and still couldn't get close enough to see), and so got to join the swelling group of fancy-dressed foreigners drawing stares and unasked-for photos every thirty seconds or so. I haven't had that much attention since China!
The entrance is a massive arch guarded by security personnel and set off from another archway covering a road, which they had closed for the event, and decorated like so:
Inside, we walked a red carpet with other dignitaries as black cars guarded by police escorts and adorned with dual flags (one Taiwanese, one from whichever native country the inhabitants were) zoomed past to another entrance. The building itself was gorgeous,
We spent most of the time just wandering, but once we realized the President had entered the building, we dropped our food (pretty much literally) and sprinted to join the throng. Karina and Ari (one of the Yilan ETAs) were by far the most successful of the group, jostling to the front and both shaking the President's hand (three times, in Ari's case) and getting photographic proof that they did; Rachel managed to be in front and shake his hand, too, and I was literally right behind her wondering if there was any way I could leverage my arm over her shoulder to shake his hand without it being obscenely awkward. Well, at least I got photos.
We actually lost Karina and Ari in the press to meet President Ma, and later found out that they'd made the very smart decision to ask Dr. Vocke who we should be on the lookout for in the crowd--and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus were both there; Ari got to meet Rumsfeld, apparently. But we did get to meet some cool people; Brittany got an invitation from a Fijian lady to come visit her in her country (yes please!), we talked for a while to the wife of the diplomat from Swaziland (who also invited Brittany to stay with her in Taipei), and I had a great conversation with a Taiwanese-American guy who works in immigration in California (at first I thought he said he worked at Universal, but must have been San Francisco or something...) and had a friend who was a professor at Oregon State. Small world!
In a very small nutshell, that was my evening. It was fantastic. However, it is now almost 2am, and I teach tomorrow, so I can't do much more on here. I'll be adding more pictures to the album I made for the weekend, though; here's the public link if you're interested.
Happy 100th anniversary, ROC/Taiwan!
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!
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