Christmas is here again...

Yippee, my Christmas Spirit has officially arrived. It started with my steal of a deal on that Cranberry sweater from Lands End. And for the month of October, monogramming was free. Now, I have fulfilled one of my great dreams in life, to have a sweater monogrammed with my initals. Isn't it Christmassy?

Then Ikea put out their Christmas decorations, and I loaded up. Then Starbucks announced yesterday that 'Christmas is here!' I agreed with a Cremee Brulee latte, a Christmas 'Joy' mug and a bag of decaf Christmas blend. Now, today's goal is to pack up my summer clothes, bring out my sweaters, and decorate my room for Christmas.

And it's a good thing my Christmas Spirit arrived because I've got to get some Christmas creativity to write those two scripts, too!

Happy Friday

I made it to Friday! This week, more so than most, I felt like I was just gritting my teeth and holding on all week. But, now I can breathe. Actually, I have a reward, Harry Potter premieres tonight in Taiwan, so I got tickets to the first showing. Geeky, yet the anticipation is half the fun.

This is Andy, one of the only grade 1 students who come to English corner to read books. Andy told me this week that he and his brother are going to Harry Potter, and I could conspiratorially lean over and whisper "Me too!" It was fun.

Assignment

Alright, I have a little assignment for this weekend. My supervisor very sweetly asked me if I would help with the junior high Christmas programme and I am quite happy to. I really enjoyed everything I did with both performances last Christmas, and as you remember - those two performances were more 'Christmas' to me than anything else.

Well, this year, I have a bigger job. She wants me to write the script. She gave me a script they used two years ago as a reference, and a list of the 6 Christmas songs the choir has prepared. My job? Write a script, using one or two foreign teachers and a bunch of grade 7s. Make it from the shepherd's point of view and include Mary and Joesph. The shepherd's can be somewhat, but not too funny. Total length: 1 hour.

I feel a bit like it's reinventing the wheel. So many churches all around the world do a Christmas concert every year, surely someone's thought of doing it from the shepherd's point of view before?!

I guess I'm wondering if anyone out there remembers ever going to any sort of play or concert that you think might help me. If so, I'd appreciate the name. There are so many Christmas scripts online, but I haven't find a very good site to sort through them.

That's my weekend chore. Oh, and I almost forgot, the other thing I need to do is re-write my Grade 7 girls' Midsummer's Night Dream script to make it about giving a gift to nature. Can you imagine!? Shakespeare would be quite surprised to see his play cut down to a 10 minute skit about being kind to the earth, performed by 12 year old girls in Taipei.

Mariachi

Can I just say that if I had the oppurtunity to meet whoever made up that awful "Mariachi - Mariachoo" I would be tempted to seriously hurt him or hurt. Kathleen said she thinks the song comes from Slovenia or something, so they're safe.

Do you know the song I'm talking about? It's all over the radio here. It was catchy the first two times I heard it. Then it just got really annoying and it's always stuck in my head.

They also have the song in the Chicken Little movie previews here, so all of my students like the song. Here's the worst case scenario:

I had grade 1 afterschool class, which is definatley the lowest point of my week. I have no energy or patience and I'm faced with a class of tired, psycho munckins. Yikes. So, one kid, Simon, is impishly cute, and quite smart, but he almost completely ignores me. He doesn't ever just fall in line with the other kids. So in class, on Tuesday, I was so tired, and whenever I looked at Simon he would sing "Mariachi!!" and give me a cute little smile. Cute the first time, not the thirtieth time! He would not stop. All the other kids had like 20 stars under their name, and Simon had none (he doesn't really care about stars). All he would ever say was "Mariachi." Oh, my goodness, I thought I would flip. I didn't. I found out that he liked to hand out paper, and so I gave him the job of handing out all my papers.


All that to say, in every single one of my classes this week, kids are singing "Mariachi, Mariachoo" and I'm ready to scream!

On a side note, I put up three more chapters of my story, but the font's screwed up again. I don't have time to fix it now, although I will put it on my to-do list this weekend. You might just want to wait until I fix it to read it, or you can just look at it like a code you have to decipher. (=

Flat Stanley goes to the movies

Kathleen took these pictures for her Flat Stanley project. This one is "Flat Jose" from Texas. And he's in front of Warner Villiage, the big movie theatre, where I will be watching Harry Potter this weekend!

Taipei 101

Flat Stanley in front of a cloudy Taipei 101.

Plastic food

This is Flat Stanley, in front of the very interesting plastic food. It's a nice idea, you can walk around the food court and see real representations of what food you can order. But on the other hand, it still seems a little creepy and weird.

Bad Writing Wins!

This quote came in my week 3 email from Nanowrimo. It was just what I needed to hear. See, last night I was treating myself to an entire Alice Munro short story, and getting so utterly depressed at her massive talent and my ugly wreck of a novel. But then I thought, if Alice Munro was 23 and she tried to write a 50,000 word novel in a month while working full time with three extra jobs and everything else, her book would be crap too. I don't think I quite believe it, but it's what I need to get me to keep writing when I feel like it's too silly.

"Abandon the quest for pretty sentences. Beautiful language is small-stakes writing. We're doing something epic here. We're aiming for completion. We're shooting for the dramatic arc, for the roar of the crowd, for the ticker-tape raining down on us in slow motion as we type our final sentence, run one last word count, and then close the book on a truly triumphant month. This is big. This is very big. And it's yours for the taking. But to get there, you need to give yourself permission to make messes. To write ungainly sentences and create absolutely atrocious dialogue. I know it hurts to leave ugly prose in your book. But you can polish everything to perfection next month."

Writing Genius

Well that nice lady at the bakery was certainly the inspiration I needed. At the end of our little "I write books" conversation, she squeezed my arm and said "Jiyo!" which means something like "Keep Going!" (When I did spinning classes, right at the end when we all felt like just taking it easy, the instructor would yell "Jiyo! Jiyo!")

And so yesterday afternoon and evening I spent over three hours writing and got over 6,000 words finished. So I'm back on schedule. I hadn't realized it, but last week when I was getting stressed out over all the change, I wasn't writing at all, so I had a lot of catching up to do.

Fun and exciting

I had such an interesting morning.

Body Combat made me laugh out loud - actually the instructor did. They are trying to train this guy to be a Body Combat instructor. I've gone to a few of his other classes, and he's a fine teacher. There's just no way he's cut out to be a Body Combat instructor. He's half my size, literally, and has the build of a dancer. He's very effeminate, and was indeed, wearing eye make-up to class. I could never tell which punch he was doing, it wasn't fighting, it was like he was creating a modern dance. I tried not to laugh too hard.

And then on my walk home I stopped at the french bakery for a cibatta. The cute sales lady in the black and white striped shirt and the beret (they don't seem worried about the cliche!) was very friendly. She noticed my little "I write books" Nanowrimo pin on my backpack and she was so excited. "You write books. Wow? What kind?" So on so forth. I tried to explain to her that I do write books, but that it's not quite what she was thinking. They're not good books!

Which leads me to my last exciting point. I just checked my email, and I have a very lengthy email from a lady in England. She had just moved to Charlbury and was searching blogs for "Charlbury." She came up with my last year's novel, Plucking Blackberries, because it was all in Charlbury. I'm not sure how much she read, but it seemed like a lot, because she made mention of a lot of different parts! Imagine that. It was just such a sweet email, and it's so surprising to me that people actually stop to read my writing.

Sunday's are writing days, so I should be able to finish up to chapter 10 today and maybe put it online. But don't hold your breath.

Introverts and Church don't mix

Umm, I found this link on Bobbie's Emerging Sideways blog, and thought it looked interesting.

I filled out the survey and found it quite enlighting. Everything I don't like about the church might really come down to the fact that I'm an introvert and most churches are designed by and for extroverts. Hmmm.

Take the Survey!

Too much change = bad thing

I can't believe how much has changed in the last week. We were all just going merrily along, loving working at Fu-Hsing, working hard, getting ready for Christmas.

Then, Kathleen we get the call from "the boss" and "the company." It affects Kathleen and means changes to my plan too. Then on Thursday we see a new foreigner at work.Dorcas introduces her as "the new teacher" and we all start to panic if we are "the old teacher." Actually, the person who was fired did have one week's notice. One weeks! To finish your work, pack up and move out of the apartment! And so, we had no inkling until Thursay, and then now, Saturday, one of our housemates is moving out, and a new one is moving in. TOO MUCH CHANGE. It's also stressful for me, because I feel the akward tension more than most.

So, after rethinking my long term life plan last month, this month I'm re-thinking my short term life plan. I've decided I like having a life plan, it helps me not to stress out about the future. But I've changed my life plans so many times, I guess what the plan in doesn't matter so much as the fact that I have a plan.

I wish I could tell you all my plan, but that would be tipping my hand. All in good time.

Rememberance Day

It's remembrance day. We three Canadians made little poppies out of construction paper to wear. We also put a sign on our office door: "Today is Remembrance Day. Tell a Miss Nickle what that means and get free candy!" No one took us up on it, and we had a lot of candy. Alas.

The only classes we have on Fridays are grade 1 classes, and it was indeed a challenge explaining remembrance day to them. For my weakest class, I ended up just saying that it was a day when everyone wears flowers and we remember peope who die. They understood that.

Up with Joy

here's to opening and upward...
and to yourself and up with joy and up with laughing.
e.e. cummings

I'm in the most wonderful place right now, where the future is open and the possibilities are endless. I can't really go into details, nothing's finalized. But I'll tell you everything when I can.

It doesn't at all effect my plans for next year. I'm still definitely applying to the Care Internship in London. That, I think, is my first choice, because it would be a good way to figure out if I really wanted to do relief and development before commiting to a Master's Programme. My other application is going to be to Acadia, for the BEd programme. Which I'll definitely get in to (they accept 250 students and the minimum GPA is 2.67. It's not being cocky to be sure that I'll get in!) and will happily attend starting in September, if I don't get into the Care program.

But from now until September, there is a world of possibility.

My new lamp

So, I've been very good about not buying things this fall, I don't need them and I won't have room to take them home. But when I saw this in the store, half price, I had to buy it.

It's a vase holding a candle, with peachy / pink beads, hung on a stand. It was half price, and it makes me very, very happy. Every night when I sit down in my comfy Ikea chair to write, I light the candle beside me and feel oh so peaceful.

Progress!

Yippee! I got back on track for my Nanowrimo novel today, and hit the 10,000 word mark. This week has been so busy, my room was a mess, and sadly it was my turn to clean the apartment. So I got up early this morning, and cleaned the living room and kitchen, then my room, had a shower, wrote for two hours, and took a nap. Quite productive.

Also, my kids are doing a great job with their stories too. I set 3 levels of goals for them: 1,000; 2,500; 5,000. This Satuday I had them all count how much they had written so far and try to select their goal. I was so proud, I had 3 boys and 4 girls decide to go all the way to 5,000. They are so energetic and creative. I'm inspired by them. The rest pretty much went for the other two goals, and I had a few slackers who decided on 250 words. I made charts for us to put stars on our goals and color in the bars as we achieved them. And I'm putting together the website of our classes writing soon. Also, I should have the first few chapters of my novel on tonight.

Taken after dinner on the outdoor paio of the local Indian restuarant.

We found ice!

Our house can be split into two categories: the cold weather people from Canada and Wisconsin, and the hot weather ones from Arizona and California. We cold weather people were thrilled to find the new ice skating rink in the brand new Taipei Municipal Dome. It was about $10 Can. to rent skates (only men's styles were available - felt like rollarblades) and skate for two hours. We didn't last the full two hours, but we had a lot of fun and plan on going back.

A little slice of Canada in Taipei

Thoreau quote

Jeanine Payer: Featured Artist at the Giving Tree Gallery: "'If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal--that is your success.' - Thoreau"

Pre-Pumpkin-Fiasco

Here's a group shot of us,
Haiwaiian clown (?), the phantom, scary old woman, butterfly, pumpkin and witch.

We're standing in just a small part of the wonderfully decorated English Corner. We don't have to do anything - mother's from the Parent's Association came in and did EVERYTHING. I suppose that's one of the real perks of private schools.

Also, notice the board behind us to the right - Kathy made that. It's called "A Colour of His Own" and it's our grade 1 students worksheets drawn from the Eric Caryle book. Kathy was very creative putting it all together - that's a pink spotted chameleon sitting on a pink spotted mushroom.

English Corner for Halloween

That's Kathy reading the story in another part of the English corner. This crowd of children is only part of the total group. Don't worry - she had a microphone.

Halloween Costumes

Kathy was a butterfly for halloween, she looked very nice.

I had a bit of a fiasco over my costume. I had decided to be a pumpkin, since I had bright orange fleece pants (heh- they were on sale!). So I bought an orange fleece pullover to match, and borrowed Amber's bright green baseball cap. I cut out brown Jack O'Lantern features and taped them on my back. It wasn't magnificant, but it was okay.

So, I showed up at work, ready to go. Everyone complimented my outfit, although someone thought I was Bob the Builder's helper. Anyway. Everything was fine until my co-teacher came into the office. She proceeded to pull out her costume. You may have guessed, a deluxe, inflatable pumpkin. She put it on, and pumped in the air. On pumpkin costume scales, I was about a 2 and she was a ten. Oddly enough, none of the Taiwanese teachers seemed to notice the problem. All my housemates felt compassionate, and Steph offered me the use of her skeleton mask.

And that is how my 2005 Halloween costume ended up being an orange skeleton.

Halloween English Corner

Kathy reading the story of Winnie the Witch in our English Corner, during story time. Our usual weekly attendence hovers around 5, but on our Halloween special day we had closer to 200. Free candy really draws them in.

The trip home

Watch out for the freaks sitting in the back of the bus!

My first blogskin

Bryce and Cami: Your Own Adventure
Did you look at my website for my novel? I designed it myself, my first such blog design. That's pretty labor intensive work, and if I had more time, there's a lot of things I'd like to fix. But now that I've done one, I'll know how to do one quicker next time. This one is visually busy and textured. Kathy is going to commission me to make her blog in December, which will be more zen simplicity with a frangipani, or swings.

Oh, and I don't really like that picture of the girls on there. They don't look like Bryce and Cami to me, better to leave it to the imagination. When I get a chance, I'll change it to something more abstract.

So, I stayed up and started my novel. Good thing, because todays a busy day with Grade 5's (sigh) and Grade 1 after school (double sigh). Then we have tickets to the Estonian Concert Choir this evening. Full day!

Joys of Teaching Shakespeare

I think I love teaching Shakespeare even more than I love teaching writing! Well, at least the comedies - I'm not planning on digging into Richard III anytime soon.

So my Midsummer Night's Dream unit with the Grade 7s is incredibly fun for me and for them. Our class this morning just flew by, we were laughing so much. Now it does really help that we're doing a rewritten version of the play, only 4 pages long and greatly simplified. But you still get the wonderful characters and humour. Last night I gathered up everyones Halloween leftover and put together a props bag, so that each character has it's distinctive feather mask, or tiara or hat. Then, when we start acting out the play, it will be easier to follow who are the girls and guys (since it's single gender classes). I have to stress the all-male Shakespearean actor troupe thing alot with my boys classes! Anyway, I'll try to take a picture when we get to the final performance stage.

14 hours to go! I'm not sure if I can stay up to midnight this year, I'm stuck in my sleep rut and I don't want to mess with it. We'll see how excited I feel. Everything's ready. I spent at least 12 hours this weekend redoing the website for my novel. You may or may not have noticed that it's different from the picture I posted Saturday. You'll have to check it out!

My Nanowrimo 2005 Novel Website

Here it is:

The home for my 2005 Nanowrimo Novel:

Your Own Adventure
*working title*

Soon to come, our writing club website. I'm still checking into the legalities, because some of my students are 12. That may be a problem. We'll see. But everything's set to go for my novel. Can you guess what my two main character's names are?

Final Check-List

I feel like it's Christmas Eve! I can hardly keep the smile off my face, I'm so excited about nanowrimo. Everything's coming together:

* Laptop computer
* new coffee filters, and illy ground coffee
* mondo mug
* small spiral bound notebook (with a small cartoon child in a bag of apples on the front)
* new pens, violet and hunter green
* comfy ikea lounge chair with cozy fleece blanket
* a working title (Your Own Adventure)
* Novel website, coming later this evening!

And perhaps the most exciting news. Yesterday, I noticed that nanowrimo has a new "Young Writers Program" designed for classrooms. And I had a sudden inspiration - do nanowrimo with my Writing Club! Four Saturday classes is a total of 8 hours. That's lots of time to write a story. Of course, the goal isn't going to be 50,000 words. They are 13 year olds with English as a second language.

So this morning in Saturday class, I introduced the idea. I felt like a used-car salesman trying to sell a clunker. None of the kids were quite as enthusiastic as I, but some of them seemed moderatly excited. I made new levels for them, 1,000, 2,500 and 5,000 words. I think that even if they just work on Saturdays in class, they should be able to hit 1,000 words. And the fact that we're all doing it together should be motivation.

So, stay tuned, I'll put the website up when I finish, hopefully later tonight.

Also, one last chance. Anyone out there up to the challenge and want some fun and excitment to brighten up November? I highly recommend it. And I want some friends to put on my Nanowrimo friends list. Let me know if you're going to try.

Useful Stuff

I've been having fun with my lessons this week, because I'm teaching the grades 6 and 7s about Shakespeare's quatros, and we've been making our own quatros, ie matchbooks.

They are loving it, and I just think it's funny that the one class from university that came the most in handy was that two week January class about book making. I use information I learned there all the time. Too bad Huntington got rid of J-term, I thought it was the most valuable part of the year. Well, I gave them my opinion!

Reconsidering the Life Plan

So a few weeks ago I checked for my final grade for my summer school classes. Before the page loaded, I mentioned to Kathy that if I couldn't get an A in that Gender and Development class I worked so hard in, I would have to seriously re-consider my life plan. The page loaded, and I had another A-. Three A-s! Not bad, but not good enough to get me one of those 15 spots. I mean, I suppose there's an itsy bitsy chance, but unlikely.

So I started re-considering. And do you know what I concluded? I think maybe I want to be a teacher. Like, a teacher in Canada kind of teacher. This may not seem like such a strech, considering my current occupation, but it came as quite a shock to me. It was never even remotely considering during my "what should I do with my life" decision making process in my senior year of college. I was always happy in my status as English major, never to be a teacher. But now, things are starting to look different.

I talked to my best friend from college and she thinks its a good idea. She wasn't as surprised at the option as I was, I guess its one of those things other people can see and you can't.

The more I let myself explore the option, the better it looked for a number of reasons. First, it fits the lifestyle I eventually want. I don't want to live in New York city and work at the UN. I do want to have a little country house near Halifax. There are no relief& development jobs in Nova Scotia, but an English teacher fits. Also, I'm a super-structured person. I love the idea of teaching year after year, perfecting my lesson plans and working within a structured schedule. The job is relatively secure, with good benefits, early retirement, etc. It not exactly lucrative, but I have no desire to be rich.

Finally, I just love teaching, I love going to work everyday. I love my students and I love sharing my love of Shakespeare and writing with them. I do realize that I have quite the wonderful set-up here, and teaching the advanced eager-beaver taiwanese teens is quite a different situation from trying to motivate low-level or badly behaved Canadian teens. However, its just so rewarding to make even a little difference, to be an influence. And I just love English, the literature, the language, the writing. I love learning. I would go be a student for the rest of my life if I could, maybe being a teacher is the second best thing!

So, right now I'm looking at teacher education programs. Unlike trying to get one of the 15 spots at Dalhouise, my prospects are pretty much guaranteed to get in. I'm thinking of going to school in Nova Scotia, because it would make it easier to get certified. My four choices are: Acadia, St. Francis Xavier, Mount St. Vincent, or Cape Breton. Anyone have any suggestions? Changing my life plan in two weeks makes me nervous, so I'd love any "go for it" or "are you sure?" I'd hate to get to the end of my life and feel like I didn't take a risk and reach my potential. But I'd also hate to feel like I tried to make a career that seemed important and monumental, when all I really wanted was a simple little life. PLease feel free to respond here or on the family site.

Cheap Lunch!

WEll, Kathleen and I were walking up a new street, trying to find a certain store (which we never found). Instead, we saw a restaurant called Ecco, which had Pizza*Pasta*Cafe on the side. We were hungry, the menu looked good, and we could tell it was brand new because it had tons of flowers outside. (In Taiwan, when someone opens a new business, everyone sends them flower arrangements for good luck, which are then displayed outside for a week or so of grand opening).

Well, once inside, we were handed two little tickets. We sat down, and our waiter came over to explain. It was their grand opening day and everyone's whole meal was 1 NT dollar (like 5 cents). So Kathleen and I had salad, garlic bread, pasta and pizza, drinks and dessert for the equivalant of a dime. Now thats a deal!

October in Taipei

I heard that October is supposed to be the best month for weather in Taipei. I think I might consider it the only non-horrible month. It was stiflingly hot up until the end of September, and pretty soon it will get drizzily and chilly. But for October, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, there's always a breeze, and the temperature stays between 24-27 in the daytime with no sight of rain. It made me wonder if a month of absolutely perfect weather makes up for 11 months of damp cold, massive rain, or unbearable heat. I don't think so, but that's not going to stop me from enjoying every last minute of October!

Guest Post by Kathleen

So Carole asked me to update her blog with one of my daily "Ohhh, how cute!" stories. I am constantly amazed at how much the kids notice and how much they admire their teachers. Julia, a very bright grade one student, came up to me this morning holding a pink plastic folder. She showed it to me like it was something special, so I "ooed and ahhed" appropriately. I asked a few questions to try to find out why she was showing it to me ("Is it new?" and "Where did you get it?") Julia fliped it over and proudly exclaimed "It's like yours!" You see, every class I bring flashcards in a plastic envelope with a button-tie closure. She had bought the same style folder... just to be like me!

Flamenco!

Last weekend we went to see a production of Carmen by the Spanish National Ballet. It was an enormous auditorium over by Taipei 101, and it was completely sold out, with good reason.

The flamenco dancing was fantastic, without too much "stomping." And the most surprising part was that all the music was live as well, with the Spanish band and opera singers. It was a lovely evening, so far our entertainment season has been way above expectations.

Clear Dancers

A more literal picture, I balanced my camera on the railing.

Watching

Kathy's flash free shot of me watching the dancers.

Taipei 101

This is the view of Taipei 101 on a lovely dusky evening. Taken five minutes after the next picture.

Taipei 101

Isn't that a stunning sky?! I didn't do any edits, this is exactly what it looked like one night at about 6 pm, and exactly what my camera took. I love pink sunsets.

Grading Purgatory

Alas, as the foreign teacher who has been at Fu-Hsing the longest, you would think I would be smarter than this. I am up to my ears in pen pal letters, interviews, and notebooks, and have more grading to do than I ever have. Yesterday and today are half days at school, which is usually cause for vacation, but instead I spent 8 hours sitting on the couch grading penpal letters yesterday and I will be doing the same today with notebooks. Alas. Well, at least I know that the pen pal letters mean something to the kids and it's better than just another test.

A Hotel School

This is something that one of Kathy's grade 9 boys wrote in answer to the assignment to design an ideal hotel. This is exactly as written, and I think it's cute!

If I could make the best hotel ever, it would be like a big school. I would make the bedroom be like a sleeping teacher and make it soft and worn. I'll make the food like the student's food, but I would put a lot of delicious food inside it. And I also would make a lot of toys and put them in a specil room let the children could play inside.

Happy Double Ten Day!

We have the day off work today because it's Taiwan's national day: Double Ten Day. This picture is from the ceremony at the school on Friday. It was quite the show.

So today is a day for relaxing, and waving a flag if you're Taiwanese and eating turkey and being thankful if you're Canadian.

So happy Double Ten Day and Happy Thanksgiving, and what the heck, Happy Columbus Day, too!

Double Ten Day

Some of my grade 6 boys in their very cute boy scout uniforms. They are holding the symbol for double ten day, because the cross is a ten, and two next to each other is double ten, October 10th, get it?

Sun Yat Sen?

I like the lines of this picture. More pictres of good old Chaing Kai Shek, or Sun Yat Sen?

Flag Wavers

They gave all the students little flags to wave. They seemed to think it was pretty fun. I like the little boy on the side who is very intent on having his flag the highest.

Flag Bearers

These are some of my grade 6 girls being flag bearers in their cute girl scout uniforms. They all look a bit surly - I don't think smiling is allowed!

Planning ahead is a good thing!

Alright, everything's planned. Whew- that was hard work. It paid off, though, I saved over $1000 Canadian by spending 4-5 hours searching the internet. Air India is dirt cheap, but tricky to book, because they only do paper tickets and they only mail them to the country of departure. But I finally found them at Travelocity.ca, which is now my new favorite travel site. Expedia.ca and Travel Cuts both had flights starting at $1500!

So, my Chinese New Year includes: Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, India, and Indonesia. WHOO-HOO! The Taj Mahal was on my must see before I die list, and I'd never find a $400 flight from Canada.

Now, with all my flights in hand, I can take my time looking into further travel arrangements, hotels, etc. Only three months to go.

Only three months to go!

This weekend I've spent hours upon hours doing travel planning for Chinese New Year. It's very time consuming, but it's the only way to go cheap-cheap. I'm still finalizing one country, but there's one thing I'm sure of:

I'm going to Bali and Lombok in Indonesia! I'm going to do a Geckos tour, because I don't want to just go lie on a beach by myself. You have to read the description of the tour - it sounds like paradise. I'm so excited.

Flowers

Are they real or fake? Well, they're sorta fake. They are made of felt! Now, I'm usually opposed to fake flowers, but these just made me smile. They're going to replace those ugly cheap tulips that I've put in my vase from Claire.

A bouquet

This is me with my bouquet of flowers outside of our office on the fifth floor of the junior high building.

Nanowrimo

Can I just say how happy I was to get my first Nanowrimo email this year! I went to the website, registered as a 2005 participant and got my new "participant image" for the sidebar. Exciting! I can't wait to start planning my novel. I have a few ideas I'm working on, and the rest of October to sketch out the plot.

Is anyone going to do it with me this year? It's a heck of a lot of fun. I suppose it's kind of like the experience of training for a marathon - extreme self-discipline for the ultimate payoff at the end. Except Nanowrimo does not involve exercise or cold mornings. It's more like curling up in a blanket with a coffee on a late Saturday morning. My kind of self-discipline!

So, if you want to check it out, start at their website: Nanowrimo. They have an introduction to what it is, and guidelines

Sunny Octobers

I miss Fall; leaves that crunch, the first scarf, and the apple cider. October in Taipei has it's own joys, though, every so often there's a warm breeze that makes the clear sunny sky seem magical. It's hard to believe that Monday is Thanksgiving - it's really hard to feel thanksgivingy when the weather is mid-summerish. However, we luckily have the day off, because it's October 10th, or Double Ten Day, the Taiwan National Day. So we're going to do a pseudo-potluck. One person gets the pumpkin pie from Starbucks, the other the real mashed potatoes from Chili's, and so on. It certainly doesn't beat cooking up the meal with Claire in the Meadows dorm kitchen, but it will be a memorable Taiwanese Canadian thanksgiving. And if the whole thing flops, there will always be American thanksgiving with our American friends!

Thanks for clicking the box, by the way. I've made a dollar in a day! This could get addictive. If anyone finds it annoying or if it slows down loading the page, let me know.

C.K.S.

Someday I mean to photograph Chaing Kai Shek memorial in earnest, because it is truly the most beautiful part of Taipei for me. I'd like to try some dramatic black and white shots with filters. But until I get around to it, here's a walking by, quick shot.

Coffeeshop

This is Kathleen's shot. She wanted to capture the Taiwan coffeeshop experience. Instead of using the coffee shop mainly as a source of caffination, here Starbucks and Ikari Coffees are full of people sitting. They might have ordered a caramel macchiato two hours ago, and that means they may then spend the rest of the afternoon sitting, doing homework, napping. I read an article about the growth of Starbucks in China, and how the Starbucks are used as an extension of people's homes, since they often lived in more cramped apartments. Interesting, eh?

A Saga of Contacts and Glasses

So, this summer I found out how many regulations there are in Canada about buying contacts. Without going into the details- even though I had a brand new perscription, I couldn't buy them.

So, I came to Taiwan, and wore out my last pair of contacts last week. Today I wore my glasses to school, and threw everyone for a loop. A little grade 1 boy asked me why I was wearing glasses, and I explained that my eyes hurt. Then I asked him if he thought they looked nice. "No, they look funny." I polled the whole class- across the board consensus: Ms. Carole's glasses look funny.

So, at lunch, I stopped by the glasses shop at the corner. Walked in, pointed to the brand of contacts I use at home, showed her my perscription, and walked out four minutes later! And, I paid under $40 for them, whereas in Canada they are about $140 at Wal-Mart. So take that Canadian regulations!

Chinese New Year

Last night, I booked the first part of my Chinese New Year vacation. It was a very hard decision, because our "company" is not giving any firm dates we are allowed to take vacation. As it was last year, we will only know about what days we will need to work winter camp one or two weeks in advance. That's no good for planning travel. Trying to get a cheap ticket two weeks before Chinese New Year is laughable! If you remember last February, I had a horrible time, was worked way too hard and ended up getting so throughly sick and exhausted I started the second semester at school desperately needing a vacation. All that to say, I knew I needed to just plan my travels, and worry about the 'company' later.

So, I booked my first flight from Taipei to Singapore. There's only one cheap company that does that route, Jet Star Asia, and the cheapest tickets sell out quickly. From Singapore there are lots of discount airlines flying everywhere. I'm thinking Australia and Bali, also maybe Fiji or New Zealand. Ironically, after I booked my flight I read about the bombings in Bali. Unlike most toursists, I think that's good news, all the hotels will have great sales to try to draw back business!

I'll let you know more when I decide where all I'm going. Should be soon - I've learned the value of planning ahead.

Happy B-Day!

Alright, it's Taipei Traveller's First Birthday! Exciting, eh?
Technically I think I started on October 2nd, but as blog author I hereby declare October 1st to by my blog birthday.
In a freakish coincidence, I just noticed on my blogger homepage that this is my 600th post. And my visitor count for total unique visitors is at 3,405 (meaning my mom only counts as one!)

So in honor of this momentous occasion, I thought about completely changing my blog look. However, I think continuity overrides creativity in this case. Instead, I'm putting my creative energies into designing a website for my next Nanowrimo novel, which starts in a month- I can't wait. So, Taipei Traveller will stick with the same look and the same name, probably until I leave Taipei and need to overhaul the whole thing. But I love my life so much right now, I can't see that happening anytime soon.

Chinese Opera

This was my favorite part of the Chinese Opera. Sadly, the only comparison I can think of making is to Mulan, which just represents my sadly Western-centered education. Anyway, the character in green was some sort of princess-warrior who was a very graceful, flexible and powerful performer. I wanted to go backstage afterwards and try to get a close-up of her face, but when I tried, they were already removing their makeup. It would have been a great shot, though. I'll just have to keep the memory.

Chinese Opera

These are the 'monkeys' and some sort of king? His headress has very, very long feathers on top, which added to the expressiveness of his character.

Lady in Lavendar

I used to think lavendar smelled like old ladies. I don't know at what point my opinions changed, but I do know that using all my new Italian lavendar bath products makes me feel so calm and relaxed. Wait, that's probably it. Once I started getting addicted to aromatherapy massage I started equating lavendar with pampering. There you go.

Oh, and I figured out which little grade 1 kid gave this to me (he wrote the card himself, all in Chinese). He's a cutie, who's quite good in class.

P.S. If you haven't seen the movie Ladies in Lavendar you most definitely should.

Teachers' Day

I've missed a few days, because the middle of the week is just so jammed full of stuff. This week, the main event was Teachers' Day, oh happy day!

On Wednesday, we went to a morning assembly, where Kathy and I, as new (less than 7 years) teachers presented bouquets to experienced (more than 30 years) teachers. Then the class leaders presented all of us with sunflowers on behalf of the students. The ceremony ended with an incredible Chinese Opera / Acrobatic performance. I took pictures and will put them up tommorrow. It was so intriguing, with choreographed fighting, tumbling, weird screechy music, and elaborate costumes. Sadly, only Kathy and I got to go, so all the other foreign teachers missed out on the experience.

Then the rest of the day was full of cute kids saying thank you and cards and gifts. It was so encouraging. After teachers' day I suddenly begin to think I could be a teacher for life! Amazing what positive reinforcement will do. I realized that all my previous jobs had no positive reinforcement, and it suprises me how much I love working in a supportive and encouraging environment. Of course, expensive chocolate, cookies, and Italian lavendar gift sets are wonderful to recieve, but I think the cards meant the most. They were from some of my students who are quieter in class, and who remind me so much of me at that age. It makes me very happy to think I can be a supportive, encouraging figure for them.

. Defining Teacher Moment

Tonight in afterschool class I made a kid cry. Andy, this cute little grade one boy who always comes up to hug my thighs before class, sobbing uncontrollable. Oh, the guilt!

It was entirely neccessary, but I'm just hoping he's not scarred for life. Earlier in the class, another boy, Handy, had hit the girl next to him, so I moved him up to the front to sit in a row by himself. Later, Andy hit the boy next to him, so I had to do the same thing, for consistency.

But Andy didn't want to go. I told him everyone was waiting for him, explained again why he had to move, and then started counting down 10 to 1. Around 6 his eyes started to get really red and I thought to myself "Oh no!" By 2 he moved, with the tears starting to fall. He sat at his new desk, put his head on his arms and bawled. He stopped after five minutes or so. Hopefully it was just wanting attention. I hope.

Earthquake Drill

Last week we had two classes cancelled so that the students could do an earthquake drill. It involved all the classes going down to the courtyard, and squishing into rows. They sat on the ground and put their school bags or backpacks over their heads. Ready! Bring on the earthquake. (=

Compagnie Maguy Marin

So, Kathleen and I took great enjoyment out of creating our very own Fall 2005 perfomance series. One thing I love about living in Taipei, I can't imagine it being an simpler to go to the theatre.


Every month there is a small booklet distributed that lists every theatre, dance, music performance of any sort, with an english description and prices. Then we take that booklet to the desk at the Eslite bookstore right across the street from the school, show them which performances we want, pick our seats, and get our tickets. Almost all the performances are at either the National Concert Hall or the National Theatre, which are conviniently right beside each other - a short bus or taxi ride from our apartment.

There is such incredible variety, I guess because Taipei is a key stop on the 'Asian' tours of all these different companies and performers. You can find a symphony performance or recital pretty much any night of the week. The tough part is choosing.

So, Kathy and I started our 'season' with the Compagnie Maguy Marin's performance of "Umwelt." We knew nothing about it, only the name, and the picture above, and that it was dance. So we bought tickets.

It was most certainly, the oddest performance I've ever been to. It only lasted one hour, no intermission, and it was the same thing the whole time.

There were a series of mirrors on the stage, that shook and made shaking metal noises. There were three electric guitars laying on stage, with a string 'playing' them as it wound from one bobbin to another. It was an hour of schreeching electic guitar noises, wind, and bending metal. The noise got to me, as it was supposed to, I guess.

Then, the dancers in different patterns and repitions would move around the mirrors, performing actions of daily life. For an hour. Then it was over. It was definitely more of a performance than dance. I read after that it was inspired by Samuel Beckett which made more sense, because it definitely reminded me of that kind of odd intentional meaninglessness.

The review in the Taipei Times said: "Considered one of France's most celebrated choreographers -- and certainly one of the most cerebral working today -- Marin's work is structured, intense and multi-layered, as the performers repeat scenes or motifs again and again as if they are trapped in some form of purgatory."

Anyway, we paid quite a bit for the priviledge of watching an hour of purgatory, and I left with a pounding headache because of the noise. However, after trying to pretend to be very intelligent and discuss it over coffee after, we decided it was worth the money, because it certainly made us think, which very few things do in our days of easy entertainment. Kathy is afraid that the days of singing and dancing are over, and that instead we are all going to have to deal with cerebral performances all the time. However, our next performance for the season is the Spanish Ballet's performance of Flamenco Carmen. So she should be okay!

Finally

At last, a true salad! This was almost comparable to a salad from Pete's.
It was Gorganzalo cheese, apple slices, candied walnuts, yellow peppers and raspberry vinagrette.

It was an expensive luxury, Kathleen and I went to the cutest little French Patisserie, which I believe is named Ille. We had the mushroom soup, the peach water, our main course and dessert and coffee with real warmed cream. It was a delicious meal, and made even better by the fact that we accidently got two desserts each! We didn't think dessert was included, so we both ordered on of the beautiful little cakes from the front display, only to recieve them and a few moments later a creme brulee each. Kathy wasn't sure she could do it, but I relished the challenge of a delicious French lunch with two desserts.

Playing Around

Kathy did not feel like participating in the family tradition of taking photographs while waiting in restaurants for food (ref. to Gilroy Family Site!). However, she did eventually agree on the condition that it be an artsy one. So a couple glow filters and an illustration later, my camera produced this shot.

Me at Ille

Cute

Well, I have no sleeping kittens to photograph (my favorite subjects). So I thought I'd substitute sleeping puppies, which are in greater supply. This is one of the principal's puppies, either Angel or Charlie, after the girls took them out to play hard.

Where does the week go?

Well, it feels like the end of the week. Friday's are only three Grade One classes in the morning, so Kathy and I mentally treat them like the weekend.

THe internet's broken at the apartment, and the school internet is refusing to post pictures. I'm tired of playing with it. Maybe tommorrow.

Did you know that I wake up every morning at 6:03 am? Isn't that odd. I set my alarm for 7:20, just in case one day my internal alarm shuts off. It's actually nice, though, I get to roll over and doze for 45 minutes or so - it feels just like a weekend. Then I get up, have a nice breakfast and read for a half an hour before I actually have to get ready. I could get used to this. It does require me going to bed really early, usually 9:30. Still, for this teacher stage of my life - it works.

The bell tower

The Fu-Hsing bell tower. Largest bell tower in Taiwan. (The only one I've seen, so I'm not sure how big of a deal that really is!) I really appreciate being at a private school that seems to be so well-run, and so supported by the parents.

On another note, today was a great day for penpals. I got Claire's envelope of pen pal letters from INdiana, and it's always so much fun to give out the first set of letters. I also got an email from a teacher in Merrilville, Indiana who wants to also be pen pals with my class. The reason is, I had to exclude one of my grade 6 classes from the pen pals. But then I realized that they were my best class and I didn't want them to miss out on the experience. So I started looking around on line for other advertisements, and found them a gifted grade 6 classroom to write to. So all 6 of my grade 6 and 7 classes have Indiana penpals (this means I only have to make one powerpoint- instead of, say, an INdiana powerpoint and an Ohio powerpoint).

I'm quite interested to see what the difference will be between the gifted students in Merrilville and the 'normal' students in Elletsville letters will be!

Fu-Hsing

Ahh. Such a pretty school. This is the new half, which is currently Grades k-5. The old half is grades 6-9, and our office. In the middle is the construction on the new, new building, which looks just like this one and should be finished in the next few months. Then the old building will be torn down, the junior high will change to the new building and the elemtary will go to the new-new building. They are then planning a third, identical building, which will eventually be a high school. It's a pretty giant undertaking, and it will be a very impressive series of identical buildings and walkways and belltowers when finished.

Photographers

We were on our way to lunch, but the sky was so blue we had to stop for pictures. I think people passing thought we were funny, standing in the street taking pictures of the bell tower.

Inadvisable

Whew, just finished another Grade One after school class.
Imagine a class of 17 little grade one kids, who have a vocabulary of about 100 English words.
They've been in school since 7:30 - they'll leave after 10 and 1/2 hours - so they're, shall we say, squirrely.
Now, try, in English, to convince these children to sit in a desk, quietly, without touching anything or talking or moving.
It's like the ultimate challenge. It definitely drives me crazy, but I have not snapped yet. I will not let them crack me! Only twenty some classes to go.

Mid-Autumn Festival

So, we didn't feel like the traditional b.b.q., pomelos and mooncakes. Greek food just sounded so much better! It was just like the Friendly Greek at home, and the owners were so friendly to us, they gave us all free dessert. Nothing says "happy mid-autumn festival" like Greek food!

Really Laughing

This is the one of us really laughing, after the owners brought out their dancing cow toy.