Chapter 22

Monday, October 16th

The parkas are out; I guess you could say it’s officially winter. Well, for the Taiwanese the parkas are out. I’m surviving on a light jacket. I love seeing the Taiwanese transition between summer to winter though. It’s as if they skipped fall. They went from short sleeves to full on coats with the fur. I must be missing something; I don’t think it’s not too terribly cold; however, it has been windy lately, which makes it seem colder.

Well, I may have to take my last statement back…not everyone is wearing parkas, just the scooterists. My kids on the other hand, are layering it up. They all were their pajamas under their clothes. One of my 2A’s (second graders) came to school wearing a bright pink turtle neck, a few shirts over that, and then her school uniform on top of it all. To refrain from buying a new jacket, I’ll probably start layering myself—so funny!

I went hiking with the moms this morning. You know, when I was in elementary, I remember seeing the mom groups walking around my neighborhood as I walked to the bus stop. I always thought it would be cool to be apart of one, I just didn’t know it’d be this soon, haha! The ladies are great though, and I enjoy their company. My camera is actually broken, so tomorrow their going to help me fix it. Us moms have got to stick together. Anyone have a wonderful camera they want to tell me about? I’m thinking of getting a Cannon.

Tuesday, October 17th

You just can’t call it a good week without going to Max and Vivian’s. We eat at that restaurant at least once a week. I mean, we can’t let our servers down. They absolutely depend on us! The food is soooo yummy. I hope I can recreate it when I get home!

I got a new student last week, Sean…I don’t think I’ve mentioned him. Anyway, his mother has been teaching him English, so he was tested, and landed a seat in my class. Only problem, he can’t speak English—it must be the American Accent he’s not used to. I feel that my class may be too advanced for him. I’ve tried to help him in any way that I can, but he just gives me blank stares. I found that the only reason he’s in my class is because of his age, he’s a bit older. Apparently his mom doesn’t care what class he’s really in, so I’m going to try and move him down a few levels and see how he does—give him a chance to learn the basics and foundation of speaking.

Alright, its affirmative, Sean’s moving into Hanna’s class. I had to deal with my first parent-parent-student interaction…yes, there was me, there was Sean’s mom, and then there was Samuel’s mom. Ey yi yi. The last couple classes Sean has been bullying Samuel by taking his things. To stop the two from fighting, I moved Sean, so they both sit across the room from one another. I guess the move wasn’t enough, because during break, Sean came and stepped on Samuel’s dinosaur box….that threw Samuel over the edge. Oh the second grade drama. After class, I came downstairs to see the two mothers bickering back and forth. It was all in Chinese of course, so I had no idea what was being said between them. I tried to hide in the teachers area, but Emily soon found me….I went to talk to the two parents, but only interjected a few words here and there because they were going at it, and again, I had no clue what was being said. Were they fighting? Were they talking as civil adults? I had no idea. Every once in awhile, they’d stop and ask me a question in English; I was fearful to answer in the wrong manner, so I kept my stance as unbiased as I could. I don’t necessarily enjoy dealing with these types of situations, especially when I’m not sure what my contributions will spur. At least for the time being, these boys will be separated.

Wednesday, October 18th

I finally dragged myself to the track tonight. It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve been running, and it has….I don’t know what my deal is; something about getting home around 9:15 pm and just wanting to relax. Heaven forbid I wake up early and go running; I can’t do that, haha! I do try to get up early, but so far, I’ve been very much unsuccessful.

Last week my older students (high school 7A’s) were complaining about this and that, so I gave them an assignment. Each day, throughout the following week, I asked them to write down three things they’re grateful for and why. ’21 Grateful Things’….sounds easy enough, right? JoAnna was the only one to hand in her assignment. Was the assignment really that hard? Oh come on….seeing how next week is the week of giving Thanks, I have decided to make my own list, and show my class that there are things to be grateful for in this life. Enough with the complaining! Three G’s a day, I will keep you posted!

Thursday, October 19th

Lately I’ve been doing some relay races in gym with the kids. I have all my students line up and touch the wall. I get them all pumped up and then I shout, ‘On your mark…get set...CHEESE’ or some absurd word, just to throw them off. The little ones start cracking up; they think it’s so funny. Well, I thought I was very clever when instead of saying ‘CHEESE,’ I said, ‘GGGGHHHHOOOOOST! ‘ Oh, I threw them all off. You should have heard their little giggles as I told them all to get back to the wall, I didn’t say GO! Scott has found this the funniest of all, so today, when we were doing races again, he comes up to me with his hands cupped around his mouth, ready to tell me some great secret, “Teacher, say GHOST!” “Okay,” I replied. He got so excited as he walked back to the wall to line up; his little eyes squinted up as he grinned and his dimples came out too. ‘On your mark, get set…..GGGGHHHHOOOOST!’ Scott just started rolling on the ground, and then he turned to me and said, “Thank you very much!” Kids, they get a kick out of the simplest things!

I almost hesitate to tell this, but I’m going to anyway. In my 2A class tonight, someone totally ripped one…it was awful! I couldn’t let this one stand by. We had to open the sliding door to the balcony, the other door to the stairs—it was just horrible! I turned to my class, gave them the look, but no one would fess up. We went on with class, but the smell was lingering….about five minutes later, Samuel asked to use the bathroom. Hum, ironic? Poor kid.

After work tonight, Sarah and I went and grabbed some dinner at the Waffle Shack and then headed to watch the new movie, 2012. The movie was great. We were probably the only ones scrunched in our chairs, covering our eyes when something horrible was going to happen, but both of us enjoyed it. The waffles on the other hand….well, they were a bit soggy, and covered…I mean COVERED with sweet mayonnaise and ketchup. I think we’ll stick with waffles and ice cream from here on out—no more salty waffles for us!

Friday, October 20th

We got a new SPE student today, and guess how old she is??? She’s three! Yes, just three years old. Just when I thought my other SPE chileans were little, she certainly threw out that notion. Her name is Wish and she is just the cutest thing ever! Tabbi, Sam, and I were all wondering how she’d do in our classes, being so young and all, but she definitely surprised us. She has a broader vocabulary them some of our brightest SPE students. In kitchen, I didn’t have to model any dialogue for her. We walked into class, she saw some bread and other goodies, and like any other small child, she looked at me and said, “I want some bread.” I was so taken back. No accent, nothing…I could understand her as though it were a clear, sunny day. WOW! Her mom says she watches lots of DVD’s. I hope she continues to come to school….I just don’t know about her joining my gym class…I’m deathly afraid she’s going to get taken out, and of course, because she is only three…if she sees any ball, she goes running after it like a wild woman.

I received an interesting journal entry from Alex, my 7A student, who might also happen to have ADD. Well, our relationship is getting better and I am enjoying having him in class. Alright, so I just have to share this entry. A little background, Alex hates his math class and he frequently tells me about his failed tests. Poor kid, he’s so smart, but he just can’t sit down to study. Anyhow, his journal entry is all about him getting help with his math from his father:
‘My dad is a drill sergeant. Every time my dad teaches me how to do a math problem, I end up asking, “why?” or “how?” Again, that’s why my butt is red and I stay up late every night, whimpering for mercy between my dad’s legs. This is also why I’m a wee bit short for a sixth grader my age. So I’ve learned something….’
I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. If you knew Alex, you’d probably do both, laugh….and then cry! Alex is such a descriptive writer that I enjoy reading his entries, but when I get entries such as these ones, I can’t help but feel bad for the little fella’.

Is it bad that this week I’ve been waiting for the weekend to come all too soon? Of course I love my kids, but I need a break, a weekend off!! What happens when I’m a mom and I need a break? Oh wait, there’s no such thing! What am I going to do? I sure hope it’s different with your own kids. Well, it is FRIDAY! Hanna wants some new glasses, so after work we strolled to a shop that can make eyeglasses, contacts, and the like. It’s fairly inexpensive, so Hanna’s getting the goods before we go back to America. I should do the same.

When we left the shop, we went and got some shrimp and curry dumplings. They were divine, but a bit unfilling, so after dumplings, we went and got some real food, ha. As we were walking down the street I heard this little voice yell, “Teacher Tanier!” I looked around for a moment, until I focused in on this little dude hanging out a car window; it was Jimmy! I ran over to him to give him a high five. He looked so different not being in his Chinese school uniform. He was decked out in some stylish clothing with a trendy little hat too—I love that little bugger. When we got back home, we plopped ourselves on Hanna’s bed, chatted for a bit, and watch ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic!’

Saturday, November 21st

Today was so nice and relaxing—I actually stayed home, unusual right? I slept in too; alright, that’s not very unusual, but I was also able to research some things for Lady Business and my Asian travels. I was glad to get some of that stuff out of the way. I then gave myself a facial, shaved my legs, and lounged a little more…it was wonderful.

Tonight the girls and I headed to Taichung to hit up the Fengjia Night Market with Torry and our other friend, Andre. Now, forgive me for telling this Tabbi, but it’s hilarious….As Tabbi and I were leaving our apartment, there were two guys chillin’ out by our bikes. We’ve seen them before, so they started talking to us with the little English they know—small chat really…where you going, what are you doing…the like. I started to walk my bike out of the enclosed bike area, and just outside of the gate, I stopped to say goodbye to the gents. In return, they told Tabbi and me to be careful.
Tabbi unfortunately, was pedaling right behind me and hadn’t noticed that I was at a stand still. When she turned around she had a split second to slam on her breaks. Thinking about it, I’m not sure whether she ran into me, but she sure went down, down to the ground. She completely fell over sideways. I couldn’t help myself from laughing. It was one of those moments when you’re watching, and you think the person will recover and catch themselves, but then they never do, and they keep falling and falling, until the only thing that catches them is the hard, cold concrete. The best part, right before she fell, the guys said, “Be careful!” They watched it all. I’m sure they were thinking how silly American’s can be. At least Tabbi didn’t get hurt—she was a very good sport…letting me laugh and all.

Back to the night market…we met Andre and Torry at the train station, and then we all drove to the market together. Andre is probably one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met; he sure keeps all of us laughing. On our ride to Fengjia, we told Andre that us girls were on a mission to shop….my money was definitely burning a hole in my pocket. Andre then looked at me and said, “Who’s going on a mission?” If you could hear his voice, you’d be laughing. Haha, we had to explain to him that we were looking to SPEND money, and assure him that none of us are planning to go on a mission anytime soon. We had our souvenirs in mind, and we wouldn’t be satisfied leaving the market until we had bought what we came for.

Well, it looks like our main souvenir was food! What? I know that’s not a souvenir, but that’s all we seemed to keep buying. Ha, it started with some baby mangoes…so yummy, and covered in sugar (the Asian’s were going sweet on us...weird?). The mangoes were great, but just an appetizer. We kept walking until we reached another great specialty, some hamburger treat (crusty, baked bread filled with meat and onions…fabulous). Well, you think that would have satisfied us, and while it was delicious, we were still on the hunt for more food. Hanna, Tabbi, Torry, and I invested in a little Papaya milk to hold us over—so creamy! …but again, our shopping did not end there. As we were walking, we saw some peeps with chocolate covered bananas and we just had to have one…they were frozen bananas, covered with your choice of peanuts or sprinkles, scrumptious! You’d think we’d be full by now, but then we spotted a food vendor selling Mexican Food—yes, he was for real. Oh my, none of us have had Mexican food for at least five months, so we all went crazy! We stopped in for some quesadillas and burritos. Once we gobbled down this spicy dish our mouths were left watering for something sweet, ice cream it was. Man, I’m making myself sick just writing about this…especially because that wasn’t the end of our food ‘shopping.’ Tabbi then saw some dragon soup dumplings that we couldn’t pass up, we’ve been searching for them. They’re dumplings filled with yummy soup, amazing! Before eating the dumpling, you have to suck all the soup out of it, they’re seriously delicious.

Alright, now I’m done….that was our extent of food for the evening. ***Side note: we didn’t eat all at once. We casually ate throughout the whole evening. Does that make it sound as though I’m less of a pig? Anyhow, doesn’t seem like we had time to shop for anything else right? Wrong. Fortunately we did have our eye on some other goods, and we found them too….all at good prices, but I can’t mention much more about the purchases because they are possible Christmas presents. Don’t let the anticipation kill you!

Sunday, November 22nd

Beautiful Sunday. We walked back to the train station from the church building again. Sunday walks are so fun, especially because we get to go through the park!

When we got back to Changhua we met our friend Julia who was in town for the weekend. She goes to school in Kaohsiung, so it’s not very often that we get to see her. She’s actually going to high school in Kaohsiung, but her family lives in Changhua. She’s lived on her own since she was 16 (she’s now 18). A lot of students do this alternate high school thing—leaving home at 16, scary! She’s such a good friend—she’s always helping us out with something or other. Seriously, what would I do without all my great Taiwanese friends, they’re wonderful!