Chapter 23...Happy Thanksgiving!

Monday, November 23rd

Five weeks and three days in counting until it’s backpacking time! Everyday I get more and more excited, but everyday, I get more and more stressed out…it’s crunch time and there’s a lot to do! I need to finish my December newsletters for my 2A and 7A classes (check), and then I need to write my January newsletters for the teacher who will be taking my place. I also have progress reports and student profiles….all of which needs to be completed on top of my regular work week of preparing lesson plans and teaching…YIKES. …and of course, I need to keep researching Asia to make sure I don’t land myself in an unwanted situation, as well as back my things and figure out where I’ll store them for the month I’ll be gone—long sigh. I can’t complain, but I have to admit that at this point, my focus has turned away from work and on to the ‘Lady Business Tour!’ Wahoo!

Well, I found out today that little SPE Scott will no longer be coming to Maryland. Apparently his grades in Chinese school have been slowly dropping…I guess he’s a little too interested in English. His mom said if he gets his grades up, he can have another stab at English school, but until then, he needs to focus on other things, like Chinese. Man, now I gotta find a new child to blog about…no more crop-dusting stories??? Dang. Well, there’s always Jimmy, but Scott’s his wing man, without Scott, I’m not sure he’s got anything, ha! I guess it’s a good thing I only have one month left of teaching.

Tuesday, November 24th

Another successful Lady Business meeting this evening; well, I can’t exactly track what we did for four hours around the kitchen table, but Tabbi and I can check one more thing off our list (we’re definitely list girls); we bought our flights to Hong Kong—we’re heading to China baby—SWEET!

Ah! The mosquitoes are out again! All of us were chilling in the kitchen this evening and I got bit seven times! Ouch; sweet blood? I don’t know what’s up. When I first arrived in Taiwan, the mosquitoes really loved me, then I didn’t notice them for awhile, now they’re back……we have one of those electric zappers, Hanna was swinging it around tonight, so I’m sure the little buggers just wanted revenge on us.

Wednesday, November 25th

We have three SPE groups of little ones, and it’s always interesting to me how different they are. Some kids are really driven by competition and rewards, while others are not; it’s the same with food. In kitchen today, we had oatmeal. Oh my goodness, it was as if I were pulling teeth trying to get group one and two to eat that oatmeal. I even enticed them with a little brown sugar, cinnamon, AND honey. They hated it. I love oatmeal, I totally don’t understand. I felt like a mom; I kept telling them, ‘Everyone needs to at least TRY the dish.” They weren’t having it…”three big bites,” I’d say. Not sure if that really works, but that’s what I remember from back in the day. I literally had to spoon feed Tim. He couldn’t bring himself to eat the mush. Group two, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of the oats…..they absolutely loved it…maybe it was all in my approach? I tried to mix things and make a yummy concoction, but those kids know healthy when they see it.

Thursday, November 26th

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! My Thanksgiving Day was actually spent teaching at the school. We don’t get any American Holidays off work, SAD! Even though we aren’t supposed to have parties, my kids and I had a relaxing day. I taught them all about the first Thanksgiving and the holiday itself. It was really fun…we even made little Turkeys; they turned out cute. Some fun facts—I’m sure everyone knows these things, but I didn’t: Sarah Josepha Hale was an American writer who is known as the mother of Thanksgiving, she campaigned for 17 years to make Thanksgiving a National Holiday; Thomas Jefferson did not want Thanksgiving to become a National Holiday; FDR pushed Thanksgiving Holiday up one week to extend the Christmas shopping period. I learned lots more, but those were the most interesting. Oh, one more thing….the pilgrims did not have potatoes at the first Thanksgiving, because they thought they were poisonous! Interesting.

After work, the girls and I decided we needed to do something to celebrate Thanksgiving, so we went to our favorite Indian restaurant for dinner…it was the closest food we could find to the big feast in America—wrong Indian, but it worked (don’t worry, we’re celebrating our ‘real’ Thanksgiving on Saturday).
It’s official…the Lady Business Tour now has TWO body guards: Joel Weston Glauser and Tyson Eugene Hafen. They will both be joining the ladies on their tour throughout Asia. Congratulations boys, you both made the cut—now don’t let us down!

Friday, November 27th

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA LOU…I LOVE YOU! Here’s to the BEST grandma, who means the world to me! I hope you have a FABULOUS day…love you and miss you! Missy T. p.s. you’re looking great!

Wow, things are really firing up over here with Swine Flu. I had two students gone this whole week with H1N1…everyone’s trying to keep it hush hush, even from me, because once word is out, the government will shut down the school for a few days and we’ll have to make it up on a weekend. Well, leave it to 11-year-olds to let the cat out of the bag. One of my students (whose brother is also in our class, and home, sick with the piggy) told another student, then that student told another, and that student told me…haha. Quite the chain reaction if you ask me. We were also missing quite a few SPE kids today, so us teachers decided to combine our three groups into two; the rugrats were a little crazy, but combining classes was nice because we got an hour break to do other work! YAY!

Our sister school in Feng Yuan has invited us to Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. We’ve divvied out assignments, so everyone is bringing a little of something. After work this evening, the Changhua group went to get their goodies! Tabbi made the trek all the way to Costco to find us some desserts for the big feast. We desperately wanted to get some pumpkin pies, but calling in advance only got us a, “Sorry, we don’t carry pies, but we do have cheesecake.” I guess it will have to do. Hanna and Sarah went to morning market to pick up some veggies, and Sammy got rolls and butter from the local Wal-Mart wannabe, Carrerfour. I, well….I just made sure all the assignments were fulfilled and that everything was distributed evenly.

So, we were all kind of bummed that we weren’t going to enjoy a slice of pumpkin pie on the one and only, Thanksgiving, but after looking in the fridge when Tabbi got back from Costco, to our surprise…..we had PUMPKIN PIES…two to be exact! THANK YOU TABBI. She sure endured a lot to get us those pies. After getting off the train, coming home from Costco, she had to carry two pies, a cheesecake, a big box of muffins (you know the ones I’m talking about), and some dressing…all on her little bike. Eh yi yi, talk about talent: Tabbi’s got talent! Don’t worry about the fact that she almost died twice, she made it home in one piece and so did the pies. Bless your soul Tip!

Saturday, November 28th

HAPPY THANKSGIVING…again! For real this time…well, for us teachers in Taiwan anyway. You know, it just hasn’t felt like the Holidays around here much; no family, no Christmas music, and no coats (I’m back to short sleeve shirts)…but today, today was the turning point.

We headed to Feng Yuan around 1:00 this afternoon to meet up with our dear friends who are teaching through ILP also. We brought Penny and Emily (our secretaries) along for the ride as well. They’ve never experienced Thanksgiving, so we wanted to introduce them to the funtivities and on-going feast. When we arrived, the cooking had already begun. The kitchen was full of Martha Stewart’s and Betty Crocker’s. I could smell the turkey cooking. People were chopping vegetables, boiling potatoes, and stirring graving…I was quickly reminded of home, as we were with our Taiwanese family. Tabbi jumped right on the tunes so we could start the day off right…we totally listened to Christmas music, YAY!

After the chopping, stirring, mixing, and tasting were complete, we rounded some folks up for a little Wii in the living room: tennis, baseball, bowling, boxing—it was a good time! Around 5:30, we started setting up our tables and chairs for the big feast that lay before us. To set the mood, we had Thanksgiving on the rooftop of FengYuan’s school and apartment. It was so cool! Sunny (Feng Yuan teacher) strung some Christmas lights, Sarah pulled out some speakers for music, Joseph grabbed some extra doors to make a table, yes...I said DOORS, to make a table (we laid the doors on storage boxes to make a big serving table), and then we used the, already, cement blocks on top of the roof as our dessert and drinks tables. We eventually had to resort to getting some lamps too, because the sun went down a little earlier than anticipated, or we ate a little later than anticipated…either way, lamps were in need because we couldn’t see.

Dinner was soooo yummy, and we had sooo much food. With nearly 25 people, we didn’t want to skimp on the feast, but I think we went a little overboard…leftovers for weeks….alright, maybe not that long, but we had a lot of yummy food: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, rolls, soup, egg rolls (Sunny’s family tradition), green bean casserole, macaroni casserole, pies, cakes, cookies….we had everything! Most everything was made from scratch too because it’s often hard to find something like ‘Stove Top Stuffing’ in your regular ole’ Taiwanese super market. We had a wonderful feast, but don’t worry grandma, your cooking is still divine, I especially missed my Dixie Salad!

At the dinner table, Lisa gave a beautiful toast with some Shirley temples, and then we kept up with Wendy’s family tradition of going around the table, each of us saying something we we’re thankful for. As we were eating, we had Penny (our Taiwanese secretary) try some pumpkin pie, a Thanksgiving tradition, right…a must have…well, Penny did not enjoy it one bit. She thought it was horrible! The face she gave after biting into that pie was priceless. I couldn’t stop laughing. We then had Emily give it a whirl, her only word, “interesting.” It’s amazing to me how different cultures become accustomed to certain foods. After dinner, we were all about to explode, but Sarah Spencer got the party started with some tunes. We mingled and had a little dance party—I even taught Penny how to shimmy. Oh my goodness, Penny shimmying was the funniest thing ever. I can’t even describe to you…I have videos, watch and enjoy! Wow…after shaking off all our food, we cleaned up shop, and went in for the night. We had one unforgettable Thanksgiving!

Sunday, November 29th

Tabs and I rode the bus to church with Lisa today (we spent the night at Feng Yuan). After church, Elder and Sister Greene invited some of us teachers to their home for another Thanksgiving meal. Again, amazing food…Sister Greene had prepared a veggie tray, fruit tray, chicken, potatoes, rolls, pumpkin bars, the works—she went all out. We had fun chatting around the coffee table and enjoying one another’s company.
It was interesting because as we were chatting, Sister Greene mentioned the four stages of moving to a foreign country, depicted to her by President Hoer: (1) Honeymoon Stage (2) Hostility (3) It is what it is (4) I’m home! I think I’ve gone through all but one of these stages. When I first arrived to Taiwan I was in awe. I traveled everywhere wanting to see everything I could (hum…I basically still do that, but I have slowed down a bit). Then after awhile, I did go through a slight frustration of not being able to speak the language or get around easily; thus, hostility (not enough to voice however). Now, I’m at the point of, ‘It is what it is’…I really like Taiwan, but I don’t think six months is enough time to call it home. Maybe if the circumstances were different (like having a set of wheels, cell phone, no language barrier, etc. etc…) then Taiwan would feel more like home; but when someone moves to a foreign country for just six months, it’s quite easy just to tell yourself your only traveling, and never really settle in…for us girls, we like to say we’re camping!