Three Continents, Still Running

Clothes fly about, flung from arm to arm to table to floor. A hat catches a gust of wind and flies off, and the air erupts in screaming.

"快點, 快點!"
"女生, 加油, 男生, 加油!"
"Hurry, hurry! What do you say?"

"Jack."
"What?"
"Jack."
"It's my jacket?"
"It's my jacket."
"Good! Now go back!"

The boy ran back towards the back of the classroom to disrobe so his next teammate could take his place. And so it went, cheering, changing, speaking, running.

It's a classic, really, the clothes relay race, and I've now played it on three continents: North America, obviously, South America (I led a VBS featuring this game at my aunt and uncle's orphanage in Bolivia when I was 16), and, now, Asia. I would have to say this game is one of the Great Universal Truths in the world, except, to make it more accurate, one of the Great Universal Funs. (Maybe less catchy, though.)

And, since our 5th graders at Qingshan are learning articles of clothing and personal pronouns, it was the perfect game to reinforce sentences like "It's my hat," or "It's my jacket"--which they had to say before running back to change.

As a bonus, it gave way to pictures like these:

And also videos like this (our first, leisurely attempt, including a hilariously showboat-y participant, Willy):

And this (a later version, more hectic and more fun--sorry for my poor videography, though):

There are more installments to this game I could show you, were it not for Youtube's notoriously slow uploads tonight--hour and a half for that second clip--which show Patty blocking the boys' path and some of my most vocal girls complaining (as they always do) that the game was somehow unfair. But you get the adorable point, don't you?

And now, I give you take 2 on yesterday's mystery, which I've decided probably deserves its own label. So here they are, today's T-sihtrs from Taiwan! (Yes, the spelling is intentional. Come on, people!)

If you can't read it, this says "Denim & Bump Monstar." I have no idea why.

This is Jesse. He is adorable. He also happens to be wearing a second Grany Bigrs shirt. No, he is not the student I wrote about yesterday, and no, he does not have the same shirt as the other boy--this is an entirely different shirt with an entirely different image, which is still labeled, quite clearly, "Grany Bigrs."

Variety Show

"AWWWW!"

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

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

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

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

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

My kids

Technically, I don't have any kids. I'm not a mom; I'm not even an aunt or anything. But over the last four or five years, I've taken care of, and cared deeply about, numerous kids and, as I've observed pretty much my whole life, seeing my mom in her role as a teacher, when you spend enough time and care enough about the kids you work with, you can't help but think of them as 'yours.'

So really, I've had quite a few kids. In the parks program, there was a whole posse of them, and I thought I got the whole 'my kids' thing. Then I started college and began nannying, and realized I had been wrong.

'My kids' in Seattle are Ian and Sam, who I watched grow up from ages 6 and 4 when I started college to 11 and 9 when I finished, and Sophia and Isabel, who I watched grow up from ages 9 and 7 to 13 and 11. Being involved in these kids lives was fantastic; I loved getting to hear about their most recent sports exploits, drive them to music practice, play with them on the playground, and generally just get to be a presence in their lives. Having the privilege to hang out with them always outweighed whatever else I had going on; we always had so much fun together, and I felt like a part of their families. Just thinking about them makes me smile. I love those kids a lot, and I really miss them this year.

And that's not to mention the kids I watched in Seattle for shorter periods of time, and who I also cared, and care, a lot about--Matthew and Kaitlin, Scotty and Erin, Allie and Gigi, Finn and Devin, Janie and Meg, Johanna and Philip. (Incidentally, two is undoubtedly the number of choice in Seattle!) They're all, in a way, 'my kids.'

Now I'm a teacher in Taiwan. And that, of course, comes with its own whole group of 'my kids,' on a whole different scale--550-some of them, now. And, like a parent, I want to show them off. Therefore, I give you--long-lost (eh, a few months old...) videos.

So...yes. This was, in fact, the longest, sappiest introduction of YouTube clips ever written. But it also all happens to be true. :)

This first clip is from when I was just observing, before I even began teaching; it's the kids doing phonics--and sounding like a room full of crickets in the mean time!

 

And, in this one, we were playing a game where I would say "'I'm going to the..." and they had to run to the right flashcard/item. At the end, the kids in the front row trick their classmate into going to the wrong item--hence the laughter. :)

Finally, here's the special class of dancers learning an English chant and attempting to keep a beat with various musical instruments--to a chant which, really, was never that rhythmic to begin with.

I love all my kids--hope you enjoy the little snippets of them that I can give you here!

Marathon day

I'll be honest, this is mostly a post just so I can continue to say I blog everyday. I'm exhausted. Today consisted of a long string of workshops on teaching theories and practical games and tips which, combined with the fact that I stayed up late last night reading and kept waking up this morning out of fear that my alarm wouldn't go off, means that I am now melted onto my couch. And, incidentally, stuck to it, courtesy of the constant heat-and-humidity combination here that turns my skin into glue. :)

This morning, I accidentally exacerbated that effect because, as I discovered, drinking hot coffee and drying your hair in a rush before going out to walk to the MRT is not the best way to lower your body temperature. It was fun, though, to know that we can now get ourselves to Sanmin unaided--nice little walk to and from the closest MRT stations, but definitely doable. Feels like I live here now!

We passed the morning with the wonderful Professor Spring, who taught us various teaching theories, with help from Tiffiany on a few. One odd effect of our prolonged 3-hour session indoors was that we actually got cold! By lunchtime, we were all clamoring for the heat and humidity, just to get away from the air conditioning.

And we did! After we ate, Karina, Samia, Lydia and I went out in search of fruit juice; after a long search down several streets, we finally found a little fruit stand that also had a blender, but no watermelon. So today, for the first time ever, I tried papaya! I really can't believe I hadn't tried it before--PAPAYA IS SO GOOD! The papaya milk (木瓜牛奶) I had at the stand was beyond delicious, and I got to listen as Samia read the peach labels to the owners, explaining which fruit was from the US and which wasn't, and explaining the "-ty" and "-teen" number endings in English. I love that I can pick up some words I hear in conversation now!

Next up was a long afternoon session on games, taught by a previous ETA and by two LETs, Sunny and Winnie. They were all GREAT, and I'm super excited about all the simple but wonderful games they taught us, but by the late afternoon my lack of sleep last night was not helping me to pay attention. 

After we finished, we started scooter practice! I was really excited, and was one of the first people on one, but I discovered it's not quite as easy as it looks. In fact, my first time on the scooter, I never made it further than a couple feet before stopping again.

Of course, it made it all the more difficult that, not five minutes after we went out there, the playing field in which we were practicing was invaded by school kids, cutting our viable space in half and making us all terrified that we would run into one of them. New drivers + kids used to playing around experienced drivers = BAD idea!

In any case, I blame my initial attempt partially on that; in addition, I tried starting with a turn, which didn't work well, and I tried to balance before the scooter was actually moving--bad idea. It never tipped, but it wasn't great. Fortunately, the second time around, when the kids left and Andrew showed me all the finer points of balance and getting started, it wasn't too hard. Of course, it remains to be seen if I'll ever be comfortable driving it in Taiwanese traffic!

Anyway, I'm tired and I've already written much more than I'd planned tonight. More later.