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.

Full Moon

This is the view from outide our apartment of the very bright moon behind the ever-changing colourful Taipei 101. Best I could do on night mode with no tripod.

Taipei 101 and Moon

What happens when you don't hold the camera still. (=

Happy Moon Festival!

Well, it's that time of year again - Mid-Autunm or Moon Festival. Last year we had a day off, this year it's a Sunday. Pooh. I felt like boycotting Moon Festival in protest. However, the moon was too bright, the night too magical, and heh, it's a holiday, a good time to celebrate!

So five of us went out for dinner. We stopped on the way to take pictures of the very bright moon behind a very rainbow Taipei 101. Our dinner was at this incredible little Greek restuarant. The owners were so sweet (they gave us all free dessert)! It was just like the Friendly Greek, and we all adore Greek food. We just kept saying "This is SO good."

So I'll put the photos up tommorrow.

One last thing - I was wondering if anyone can tell me whether the moon in North America is in the same stage as Taiwans? My mind does not comprehend that whole planet orbital thing. So look outside tonight, and let me know if the moon is the brightest its been all year. You could try to explain to me why, but I doubt I'd understand!

Not for the faint of heart...

Just for those of you who have no daily contact with disgusting insects, here is one of our friendly cockroaches. Well, he is the wrong side up - they do that when they die. And if you look closely, you'll notice he's lying in a pool of cockroach-killer spray. We find it's best to douse the cockroach fully in the spray just to be sure.

They are usally about 1-2 inches long, but it's those really long feeler thingys that get to me. Gives me the shivers!

A Weekend of Sorts

It's been a busy weekend, finishing up my Gender/Development paper. Pretty good, compared to my other papers, I believe. At least it's a lot more of my unique thoughts and a lot less of my overdependence on other author's quotes. (Kathy writes the same way I do. We realized it's because of the way we were taught to write research papers with ABeka. The whole reliance on notecards from high school transferred to our reliance on source quotes in university. Oh well, it got us good grades even if it didn't teach us to think for ourselves).

Yesterday was the first Saturday class. On the good news side, all of the wonderful students from last year signed up again this year. On the bad news side, all those students told their friends, so I went from 17 students last semester to 31 this semester. Still, I'll enjoy teaching the class, but it won't be as cohesive of a class. And I'm flattered that all my kids enjoy the class so much. THere's a sneaky little voice in the back of my head that says they like it because it's fun, we play games, and I don't yell at them in Chinese. Even if that is the case, that's not so bad.

A real post

I've realized that it's been a while since I've written a real post. Here goes.

Fu-Hsing remains, in my estimation, the best school in Taiwan! I've been so excited to get back to my classes and see all my students. I'm certainly lucky - I have mostly all the same students, so there's not too many names to learn. And I still have the top ten percent of the students, so classes are generally easy to run because almost all my students have a good grasp of English. I'm definitely a Junior High teacher at heart, grade 7 and 8s are my favorites. I'm getting into the swing of Grade 1, but it's a little bit too much like babysitting. Crowd control for 42 little munckins is not my forte. I've been roped into teaching a Grade 1 after-school class, which is insult to injury, because it comes at the end of a very long day of teaching. I'm starting my Grade 7-8 Saturday Club Writing Class this weekend, which I'm pumped about. That was by far my favorite class last year, and I'm so excited all the kids signed up for it again this year. I'm doing a bit of tutoring as well, trying to get all the extra income I can.

The apartment is wonderful, it's just like we chose to live together! Each night people bring their dinner home and we sit around the living room watching Friends DVDs and sharing the internet. No cockroaches since I put out the traps I bought in Canada. It's swell.

My life is pretty much limited to work and going back to the apartment. Oh, with trips to the gym in between. Last weekend, I bought enough food to spend the entire 48 hours at home - reading, lesson planning and writing my paper.

It's not a very exciting life, but it's very satisfying. Having such wonderful students almost tricks me into thinking I want to be a teacher long-term. Then I remember that I have the top 10 percent at one of the top schools in Taiwan, where parents push their kids and theres lots of overachievers. Somehow I think teaching in North America might turn out differently.

Garden View

I haven't had time to take any pictures in Taiwan yet, so I'm still going through my ones from this summer. This week is especially crazy - I'm trying to do all my curriculum and lesson planning in one go (yes, I had planned to do it this summer - but well, things change!), as well as finish my Gender and Development paper (I have a good chunck of it done - now it's mostly editing).

So this picture is of one of the beautiful statues in the Halifax Public Gardens. Aww.

Mount St. Vincent View

This was the view from the hill that Mt. St. Vincent University sits on. I had to climb the hill everynight to get from the bus stop to the dorm. It made me glad Huntington was on flat Indiana land. Anyway, this is the Halifax Container Port in the Bedford Basin, which would be what Mom and Dad would have a view of if they move to Bedford (a suburb of Halifax). One morning I was walking down the hill, and this huge container ship thingy was pulling it - called the "Kuala Lumpur Express." It reminded me of Chinese New Year, and I was once again amazed at how small the world is.

Pretty Taiwanese flowers

Too busy to blog - so why don't you just stop to enjoy the flowers.

Kathy

Last weekend, our school's principal Dr. Lee, invited all of us to a welcome dinner. The group pictures I put up a few days ago were taken inside Dr. Lee's apartment in the country. So we went to her apartment, then she took us to one of her favorite restaurants, called A Place. It was incredible, it looked just like it was taken from the Italian side and dropped in the field in Taoyuan. The food was incredible, Italian with a Taiwanese twist. A lovely treat.

"A Place"

The outdoor patio at "A Place."

Inside of "A Place"