Actually...

So, about that whole "real post" thing...yeah, that's not happening.

Why? Well, because mostly what happened today is I felt crummy. Woke up with some sort of virus--to be more specific, that something woke me up an hour before my alarm, bowepfiasdjfpokj--but was at least able to make it through the day, though I pretty closely resembled a pile of sludge for energy level.

I then came home, almost forgot about a Skype date with Lindsey, DIDN'T forget the Skype date with Lindsey, and then had the Skype date with Lindsey. Which was wonderful, of course.

I then fell into a semi-conscious state for several hours which ended with a phone call from Tiffiany asking if I was coming to Chinese class--which had started 20 minutes previous. Whoops. So apparently it's a memory-devouring virus? I don't know.

In any case, I've decided it'd be best to take a sick day tomorrow, which is somewhat of an odd coincidence given that Patty, who I would be teaching with, is also gone for the week, though for a decidedly more serious reason: the wind slammed a door into her face. Very painful, and I'm so glad she's taking some time to recover--she deserves a break! I hope she feels better soon!

By comparison, I should really not even be allowed to call myself "sick." Really, the English language should have another, less serious word for use. But it doesn't, and I'm certainly not feeling Shakespearean enough right now to come up with one for posterity. So, I feel "sick," but not nearly so bad as poor Patty.

Nonetheless, sleep can't hurt in making me feel better...

Quite the Day

For some reason, this Friday has felt exceptionally long; it had plenty in it to make it seem full, mostly in the good sense, but now, I'm so exhausted I don't really know how much I can write about it.

But write I will, if only because my sheets are in the dryer and I can't go to sleep yet until they're done, anyway.

I realized during my 5th grade classes at Cing-Shan today that I suggested--and we played--charades for three of my four lesson plans this week. It would seem that I'm getting unimaginative (Heaven forbid!), but at least the kids all liked it. And it's hard not to bring up charades for easy-to-act things like emotions, which we covered today. It's even more difficult, though, to differentiate between near-synonyms taught together: today we had "great," "excited," and "happy." No matter how you act it, those three pretty much look the same. As for the textbook activity--write the word next to the right picture--impossible.

Tomorrow is Patty's birthday, it turns out! The principal came into one of our later classes with a cake--I wish I had known before! Glad to have gotten to help celebrate a little, anyway--she is wonderful and I'm so glad to know her!

I stayed for lunch today at Cing-Shan for the first time since the observational week because today we started rehearsals for Readers Theater. Ah, how I miss theater: I realized it when our eight aspiring readers trouped in, and I was reminded of so many pre-rehearsal bonding moments with other groups of kids; I loved the camaraderie of being the select few. And I learned these select fews' names--a few to check off my massive class list of names to learn: Kiki, Sherry, Tin (like the French cartoon--he won't change it), Daisy, Alice, and...shoot, there were definitely 7 kids there; two more boys. Woops.

Anyway, rehearsal was fun--nostalgic for me on multiple levels, both remembering acting when I was younger and reading the story itself, which Patty adapted into script format from Bill Peet's wonderful The Spooky Tail of Prewitt the Peacock, which I read growing up, and lent to Patty. Our version is "The Spooky Crown of Hank the Cockatoo," and features a good deal more singing than the original, but I really like it. Some good vocabulary that got carried over from Prewitt. And I'm going to like doing RT! Even though it means staying long on my early Friday, it's the best of all worlds: I get to re-tap into my theatrical side, work to get pronunciation perfect (which I love) and work extra with the kids who already have a pretty wonderful grasp of the language for their age (read: probably the work of buqibans, but still...).

After school I ran out to Carrefour to get goodies for the BBQ that happened tonight at Tiffiany and Steven's apartment in Dashe--I tasked myself with drinks, chips and fruit, and Rachel chipped in on them. And in the process, I learned the right way to go grocery shopping on a scooter: with a backpack.

Fonda was nice enough to drive Rachel and I to the BBQ (others did a complicated MRT-to-bus-to-foot route), and we had a great night of hanging out with everyone--at final count, there were 14 of us, I believe: Tiffiany and Steven (of course), myself, Rachel, Analicia, Esther, Emily, and Lydia of the ETAs, then Fonda, and Evelyn and Rita (her co-worker we met at Dream Mall), Katy (new American English teacher at San-Min), and CJ (San-Min security) and his friend Bacon. We enjoyed such delicious fare as Steven's grilled fruit and Lydia's grilled salad, then snacked on all sorts of goodies and fruit until the main course, Steven and Tiffiany's fajitas, were served.

And oh, another important point of the night! Tiffiany and Steven share their apartment building with several of their students' families; also present tonight were Sylvia and her son, Yung-Yung, one of Tiffiany's students whose tenth birthday was today. And they hadn't had plans! So we sang to him and ate black forest cake. Happy Birthday, Yung-Yung!

Well, that's about it for now...have to be up early tomorrow. Goodnight world, it's been quite a day; happy birthday to Patty and Yung-Yung!

Distraction

Firefox has a (relatively--like 6 months or so) new feature in which you 'pin' certain web pages to the top of your window so that every time you open your browser, you see those web pages. Mine, for the last two months, have been Facebook, Gmail, and Blogger.

Then something misfired. My pages were missing. And, in re-adding them, I missed Blogger.

As a result, I keep forgetting to post until I'm about to go to sleep. Tonight, I actually got all the way ready for bed--PJs, teeth brushed, face washed, etc--before realizing I forgot to blog. And yet there's no worse excuse for destroying a thus-far daily habit for something as prosaic as 15 more minutes of sleep. So that's why my blog posts have been short lately, for those who've been asking (Mom).

And that's not been my only distraction. It's my cleaning week at the apartment, which has both been a distraction and has suffered from my other distraction, namely, my application to be a Marshall scholar next year.

The application is due in just over a week, and I still have so much to do! And, for most of this week, most of what I did was work on it, sporadically, and try to think of new ways to get my recommenders to respond to my pleas--while they're still on summer break and mostly away from their computers, if not busy with other work, and while I'm 15 hours ahead of them, meaning my waking hours are their sleeping hours and vice versa. Sigh.

At last it worked itself out, though; once I finish my parts, I WILL actually be able to submit. I wasn't sure there for a while, though...and the thought that it could all be for nothing does not exactly inspire an unrelenting work ethic!

In other news: quiet coyote.

So many years of camp experience miraculously confirmed today in my little class of 6th grade hellions--because, to be honest, there's really only the one class that's *really* hard to manage, and *really* full of stereotypical 6th graders. But, as it turns out, they can be ruled with a combination of quiet coyote and a smart board! They were captivated today, and easy as all get out to make be quiet! Night and day difference.

For the uninitiated, quiet coyote is quite simple. It involves holding your hand with your middle and ring fingers touching your thumb and your first and pinky fingers lifted up. The idea is that the kids do the motion (that part didn't catch on today, for some reason) and imitate the 'coyote'--ears up, mouth shut.

Like this, but sans the blond hair, since I'm in Taiwan. :)

And, at the genius suggestion of Patty, we added a "make noise" signal to precede the coyote--and which was, needless to say, insanely popular. The game was the last table to be quiet when I lifted up the coyote lost points. Points, of course, are all but meaningless, except for the kids themselves, but it worked! Amazing how easily kids--even middle schoolers--buy into this sort of thing. And I know I was no different! I wanted to win, even if there was nothing to win!

But let me tell you, on the other side, I'm so glad they do.

The other highlight of my day was a jaunt with Rachel over to Subway, which we discovered is like 6 blocks from our apartment. The plan was to buy a $2500NT gift card, which we could then deduct from our gym joining fee (it's an odd inter-company joining promotion; Subway and a bunch of other companies are participating), but apparently there's no such thing as a Subway gift card here. So I guess Rachel and I will have to indulge in some jewelry shopping. Oh darn.

Well, that was actually quite long, considering how tired I am and the fact that I have to be up in a little under 7 hours. Distracted yet again--from going to bed.