These are the angels from my good class: Howard, Vivian, Vicky, Kevin and Yo-Yo. (seriously). This is only their dress rehersal, in the real thing, they won't be wearing their uniforms. 

Gary, in his Rudolph getup. 

There are six grade 2 classes, of 42 students each. They split into three groups: Santas, Rudolphs, and Angels. I teach the two angel classes, and one of the Reindeer (Their class names are 2Ai, 2Xin, and 2Yi - they're Chinese words for love, truth and bravery - or something like that.)  

Thanks to you!

Regarding my novel which I've almost completely forgotten about, I've meant for awhile to put a thank you on this site for the e-cards and cards from my parents, Aunt Dorie, and Kathy. I really appreciated your encouragement. And thanks to Jill and Mom who have started to give me some suggestions for editing, yes, I'm really serious about welcoming constructive criticism about any and all parts of the novel (well, you don't need to bother about spelling. I realize that there are lots of spelling mistakes, the product of typing as fast as I think - how else to get 50,000 words in a month? So the 'auto-correct' changed some words into other words, or I spelled the wrong word etc. But never fear, I have excellent spelling abilities - thanks to excessive attention to it in high schoool - and will be able to find those mistakes myself.) Any help on details or big pictures would be wonderful. Any characters I should cut? Any scenes just didn't make sense? Anything that wasn't a good builder to the storyline? The editing officially begins on January 1st!

In other news - I got invited to a brainstorming session at the company's office tonight, and got paid another $1000 NT (about $40)! I had a grand total of three constructive contributions, but I didn't feel totally useless and it was actually rather fun. Now it's off to bed before tommorrow's grand 2 hour dress rehersal. Alas. I'll take some pictures to prove to you the extend of this. Today my grade 2 'angel' class all tried on their wings - 42 kids in the class, and each set of wings cost about $9 CND - I saw the price tags. And the grade 1's are all renting their elaborate animal costumes. It's craziness. You'll just have to wait and see for yourself.

Christmas in 29 degree weather

Well, it’s been quite a week. Memories from Christmas’ past keep popping up. This morning in church the one and only carol we sang (pooh- I was so disappointed with Oasis - who wants to sing “I could sing of your love forever” on Dec. 19! No Christmas sermon, no advent, no nothing!) was Silent Night, and I realized I was singing the harmony part, and it brought tears to my eyes. Why? Well, last Christmas, Jamie and Claire taught me how to sing harmony using Silent Night (it’s still the only song I can do, though, I just don’t have the ear to pick out the right notes without following someone else). Anyway, it brought back warm memories of the three of us gathered around the rickety old piano bench in the middle of our little Ruth St. house. When it was happening, I remember having one of those ‘step-outside-the-moment’ times, and realizing that it was one of the best times of my life, and I would probably never again feel so safe, secure, carefree and settled. Luckily, I had the foresight to grab my camera, and the resulting picture is one of my favourites, even if it is a little yellow and blurry from the lack of flash.

Thank goodness we have pictures! I have all the Nova Scotia Christmas shots from the MyFamily album as my screensaver, and it also brings back wonderful memories of the real tree with the old decorations, the fireplace, scampering up and down the stairs ( a real treat for us apartment-raised kids) and the candle-light services at Southampton church.

Now, don’t get worried. I’m not all homesick and depressed. Unfortunately I’ve had very little time to think about my Christmas because of all the work for the Christmas performance at school. I’ve gotten lovely Christmas cards from Kathy, Christine, and two of my cute grade 6 students, and they are all arranged around my new flowers, the nativity, and my lovely smelling winter candle from Ikea. I was at Tesco this weekend, and I picked up some things for my stocking – just in case my gifts don’t make it from my family. We’re having a dinner with all the Foresight English teachers, which might be fun. There’s also a pot-luck open house at my church, but that sounds horrible – I hate having to go to things like that alone, it’s too much stress. I need a twin for such situations.

Finally, if you think of it, pray for me this week. I’m doing the Christmas story with all of my classes. (We did “Twas the Night Before Christmas” last week, just to give equal time to Santa and Jesus). I do have an incredible opportunity to be able to share about Jesus with the support of the administration of the school, and I’m really hoping that my rapport with the students will give me a basis for getting to present the Christmas story.

I've meant to go the flower market every weekend since I've been here, but today was the first time I actually got around to it. And it wasn't all that great. Mostly purple orchids, which I've gotton sick of because there are so many here. So I got these instead. The look like snapdragons, except they had really long stems. Maybe some overgrown Asian variety of snapdragon. We'll see if they last till Christmas. 

A little pre-Christmas treat. This was the cheapest fruit other than apples. I don't really like apples, and I love drinking passionfruit tea, so I figured it couldn't be that hard to make. Well, they are little hard purple/grey balls that you cut in half and scoop out the little black seeds covered in orange pulp. Actually really good once you get past the crunchiness. I'm going to make some custard now, and see how the two go together. 

Super Duper News

Some of the Taiwanese teachers invited Carolyn and I out to lunch today. This is only the second time this semester, they usually just eat lunch boxes in the office. So we were excited to get to enjoy time as 'friends'. We went to the swankiest little Italian place, called Le Leone Pasta, complete with a glassed in a kitchen, run by a real Italian guy. And the Carbonara was just like Italy. I was about to announce this to the group, when I realized I was the only person who had ever been to Europe and it was a good time to keep my mouth shut!

Anyway, the best thing to come out of the lunch was the news that Rachel, our 'boss' for our elementary school classes, wants Carolyn and I to work on a special project during the winter school session - which means we won't have to teach! See, winter school is two weeks, the same class all day. I was really not looking forward to it, having to make the curriculum and do it all day, etc. Now, Caroline and I will be working with Rachel and Phoebe to make a cd recording of all the dialogues and songs for the elementary school curriculum. THey are going to rent a studio, and we get to be the English voices! Fun, eh? And such a nice break from teaching. So that's from mid-January to the beginning of February, and then after that, I'll be going to Malaysia and Singapore.

So that's my good news for today. I needed it after the two hour rehersal for the elementary school Christmas performance this morning! I realized that I will always remember Christmas 2004 as the Fu-Hsing Christmas Performance. The poor teachers who do it year after year. It is only Fu-Hsing that does it, the administration prides itself in the reputation they have - they even sent out press releases about the performance! I just worry about my 6 little grade 5 shepherds getting their lines right, and me getting my three lines said clearly. Then otherwise, I get to enjoy the sight of 240 kids dancing in unison for each grade.

20, 21, and maybe 22?

I blame both my sister and cousin for inspiring me to join in the neverending quest to travel, aiming to have a visited more countries than years I am old. It was a concern when I was doing my travel planning for my Chinese New Year vacation (the one week break that is my only time off all year). So what did I decide?

Well, I found a great discount airline, and got a relatively cheap flight to...Singapore! Exciting, eh? Singapore is a city, an island, and a country! And it's only a bus ride away from Malaysia. So Singapore, Malaysia, and perhaps Brunei ( a tiny, oil-rich Muslim nation ruled by a Sultan, fun, eh?). So I'm back in full, all-consuming travel planning mode. In an odd coincidence, I will be leaving for Singapore on February 6th - exactly a year after Venice. Crazy, eh? I'm embracing it as something completely different but perhaps just as great!

Another note - my tutee and I were working on his application essay to go to high school in the US, and we worked at how many hours he is at school each week. 80! Can you imagine. I explained to him how I was homeschooled and spent about 20 hours a week 'in school'. I think he had trouble comprehending that.

One last thing - I had to teach my students a new word to describe the Christmas decorations at Fu Hsing. That word was 'overkill.' Which I define as "too much of a good thing." You really can't imagine the extent of the decorations. I'll have to take some pictures. I'll be more than ready for Christmas to be over - the whole massive Christmas performance sucks the joy. I've had to go early or have lunch meetings almost everyday - and I must have sang "Angels from the Realms of GLory" and "It's almost Christmastime" 50 times! Pictures to follow.

Busy as a Bumblebee!

A few weeks ago, my advanced English classes had a little introduction to animal comparisions. "Busy as a bee" was one of the examples. The one the students just couldn't get was why calling someone a dog was an insult. It took some explaining.

Anyway, it was a busy day - mostly because I didn't do all my 'get organized for the week' stuff I usually do on the weekends. But fortunatley, I got through my two grade 2 classes, two grade 5 classes, a lunchtime practice with the Grade 5 'shepherds' I am coaching for the Christmas performance, and then my grade 8 girls. After school I had an hour or so to watch Alias (I've found it's on every day after school - I'm filling in all the gaps, Kathy!) and look at some online airfares. I had just about decided on a $1,000 flight to Kota Kinabalu, in Borneo, Malaysia. But then, I just found the Cathay Pacific deal (see below) and I'm thinking that it makes more sense to do it next fall. We'll see, I have a few days to think about it.

Now, the great news. This evening I met up with Daphne, my pen pal from when I was 15ish. Some of you know that before I came to Taiwan I remembered that I used to have a penpal, and I looked through my old letters to find her address. Then I wrote to her, she emailed me, and we met for dinner tonight.

I was a little nervous, but we had a great time. She's 23, lives in Taipei, and is also an English teacher! We had such fun talking, a lovely 2 hour dinner, and plans to meet for a movie next week. She taught me how to say the equivalent of "Can I take this to go, please?" and I even used it on our waitress for practice. She looked at me like I was a bit crazy, but understood the basic gist.

Now I've just finished watching Strictly Ballroom (love it!) and I'm dreaming of an Asian travel spree. I've still got 20 things on my to-do list, but I've decided it's just time for bed. There's always tommorrow!

Daphne and I at Apple Cobo. 

Anyone fancy an Asian World Tour!?! I'm thinking of Kathy and Jill in particular, although there's no time like the present, Mom and Dad! Cathay Pacific has an AWESOME deal on their 21 day unlimited pass. It includes roundtrip from Toronto to Hong Kong, and then unlimited travel in 18 asian cities (including Taipei). I read ALL the small print, and you really just have to pay $1499 CND for the whole thing, plus departure taxes (around $20 per airport). And of course, hotels, but most of the asian cities have cheap hostels. Really, someone should take this opportunity of a lifetime! Just imagine... 

I'm back!

Well it wasn't the relaxing weekend I had envisioned. It was instead, a full on tour group excursion. We had all the minutes planned out for us, and we went from place to place, got off for 1/2 hour and got back on. Still, I was glad it worked out that way, I really got to see the parts of Eastern and Central Taiwan that I won't get to see again. Now I can say I've seen Taiwan, and not just Taipei.

Now I'm back in my apartment and I really want to go to sleep. So here's a few pictures. I'll put up more and a detailed explaination tommorrow. Now, I need to sleep, for I have a whole week of teaching ahead, and I've been running about all weekend.

This is me, Carolyn, and Jillian on top of one of the tallest mountains in Taiwan. No, we didn't climb, the bus just went back and forth, back and forth up the windy road. Anyway, this is a special 'farm' that we went to for an hour or two, to walk around and look at some sheep. Surpisingly unexciting, but it was fun once the clouds started rolling in - I felt like I was in Nepal again, up in the clouds and out of breath from the altitude. 

It was a two day, one night trip, and we stayed at this hotel and hot springs. It was very nice, we had a lovely dinner, a few hours boiling in the tubs (indoor with swimsuit and outdoor without), and then a very good night's sleep (thankfully!) 

It's me - enjoying the warm (but not hot) weather on a boat in Sun Moon Lake. It was a lovely cruise around the Lake, stopping at different spots. The weather made it perfect. 

As with every tour group, we had to stop at the tacky souvenier shops. And tacky was REALLY tacky! Goodness - but I did buy a bracelet, just to have something to remember sun moon lake.  

We ate lots and lots of 'real' Chinese food - which, in this case, includes sprinkles and dressing on bamboo shoots. We also ate all parts of the animal, intestine, brain, hoof, and heart. Yum, yum. Actually - I was really craving Mexican food! Oh, but I did try a new fruit, Persimmons. So delicious - up there in my top three favorite fruits! However, they seem to only grow in the South of Taiwan, so I won't be able to indulge often. 

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