祝賀您

祝賀您!

Gongshi!
Congratulations!

This weeks has been fun. We've done a bit of this:

We saw some of this:







We saw a bit of this, as well:







We did some of this:




And we did SIX WHOLE DAYS of this:

















And we did a bit of this, as well, of course:



Happy Chinese New Year, everyone. I don't think I'll need to eat until mid February.

I Can Be Eclectic, Too!

I love shopping. It doesn't really matter what kind of shopping it is; whether it be for food, furniture, clothing for me, or clothing for others, I just love shopping. And it's no different now that I'm living outside of the U.S. Shopping still makes me giddy, and can change my mood for the better at any time.

The other night, we went out to the middle of Feng Yuan and wandered around the open-air shops for a little bit. My uncle and aunt have always said that clothing is more expensive here than in the states, so I have been talking myself out of clothing shopping here, because it would be (more of) a waste of money. But, upon venturing out into the little independently owned shops and markets out on the street, I've come to the conclusion that my aunt and uncle are SO wrong. For the knock-off brand sweaters, the dime-a-dozen crossbody bags, and the blingy CZ jewelry at least, it's way cheaper than anywhere in the United States where I could get the same thing. And knock-offs are awesome. Who doesn't love a cheap trendy item?

One of the other things I was also interested to figure out was where fashion actually was in Taiwan. Asians are known for their rather eclectic sense of style, and Taiwan--from what I could see--was no different. And, after looking in a bunch of stores and corner shops, I've come to the conclusion that fashion here is exactly like fashion in America; only it's intensified almost to the point of tackiness. Amusing, not surprising.

Of course, that didn't stop me from buying this scarf:

Isn't it so borderline?? I love it. I want to wear it every day. And for $170 NT (about 5.60 American dollars), I could have easily bought two. But I suppressed the urge. So don't worry.

So now, after getting my first real paycheck in March (I have to get a work permit, and an ARC card in order to open a bank account, don't you know) I am happy to say that I have a bit of shopping to look forward to. Which is awesome, because remember my closet? Yeah. Enough said.

Next week starts the three week Chinese New Year celebration. Which means we have a week off of school, and our students have a whole three weeks off of their regular Chinese school. Boy, are they excited! And so are we! A week to explore! A week to do nothing! A week of red envelopes! A week of nothing but food! What could be better?

Are You Staring at Me Because I'm Foreign, or Because I'm Pretty?

This is my Downtime Day. (Hence the outfit.) I only have one class today, and it's at 6:50 tonight. I have stuff to do, you know: lesson planning, grocery shopping, movie downloading... but here I am.

It is winter here. It is NOT cold outside. Wood buildings do not exist here. Just concrete buildings. I live in a concrete building. The thing about concrete buildings is, they keep in the air--whether it's warm or cold, regardless of the temperature outside. Ergo, it's always cold inside. It doesn't help, of course, that the windows are ALWAYS open, NO MATTER WHAT. It's raining? The window's open. It's windy? The window's open. It's humid? The window's open. Fresh air, you know. It does you good. All the time.

Oh, and no central heating. Just. You know.

My favorite current thing to do: buy unfamiliar familiar things. Being true to my college days, I really really wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich the other day. I didn't have peanut butter, or jelly, so I went to a corner, out of the way store (my uncle was actually looking for shortening, which you can't really find here), and I happened upon original "product of Taiwan" peanut butter and jelly. They were both in cans--those metal things, you know, that refried beans come in. So I BOUGHT THEM. I was SO excited to try these unfamiliar familiar things. I seriously had to open the can of jam with a can opener, and was just so excited to have jam that eating it was more of a pleasure because I was EATING it, not because it was necessarily good.

Today, I finally had my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And, upon closer inspection, the peanut butter tastes rather like Reese's peanut butter from the cups (not that I'm complaining), and the jam is basically strawberry-ish, sugared jelly. My favorite.

But, I bought a can, so I'll be eating it, with a smile on my face, dangit.

Actually, I kind of want a pb&j for dinner, too.

Teaching: Life of Champions

(Isn't my kitchen AWESOME?)

First day of teaching: OVER.

Conclusions:

Fifth graders are AWESOME.

Second Graders will KILL ME.

I’d like to make it perfectly clear that I never wanted to teach second graders, and I’ve known since the beginning that young ‘uns wouldn’t be the best for me, but there it is. Thankfully, they’re my first class, so I can get them over and done with quickly. Not-so-luckily, I have them every day but Tuesday. Ah, well. Take the good with the bad, I suppose.

The fifth graders I can intimidate with enjoyable ease, so that makes teaching them rather a pleasure. But as I said: day one. We’ll see how I feel after day 7.

I have 6 kids in my second grade class, which is plenty to go around. They’re a handful, all wanting my attention at the same time, and throwing temper tantrums to the left, and sulking to the right. But, again I say: day one. A former teacher of theirs says that they get better with time. Boy, I sure hope so.

I had another little surprise today, after my two initial classes. One of the secretaries comes up to me, and says that one of my writing students had come to the school. My writing class isn’t until Friday, but she had come today, and was ready to be taught then and there. It was 6:55 in the evening, I had noodles in chopsticks halfway to my mouth when the secretary, Charlene, asks me if I would mind teaching this one writing student today instead of Friday. So, I took my noodles, ran around grabbing things I didn’t think I would need until Friday, and rushed downstairs to teach writing to this girl who had mistakenly turned up on Wednesday. Charlene assured me that it would be just on Wednesday, and then my student, Yenna, wouldn’t come on Friday this week to the original class. But, after two hours of one-on-one time, Charlene tells me that Yenna will indeed be joining the rest of the class on Friday as well. So I guess she’ll get the same lesson again on Friday. Poor girl. Ah, well. I love writing. It’s so cool.

So. First day of teaching? Done. Was it awesome? Totally. Will I like it for a year? Well, let’s hope.

I Hate Being a Newbie

I haven't been a Newbie in over four years doing ANYTHING, and I am not enjoying my careen back into humility.

Although going to the hospital in Feng Yuan was an experience of DMV-like efficiency (you take a numbered ticked and wait you turn to get your blood taken), it was the whole "having to follow someone around" thing that rubbed me wrong. Another teacher, with a 'I've-done-this-before' whoosh, led us all around the hospital: we got our blood taken, we (and when I say 'we', I mean JUST the women, mind you) stripped down to our waist to get ex-rayed (the men stayed clothed, naturally), and then we were sent down to the basement for weight and height and eye examination. I think I failed the eye examination, by the way. There are only so many instructions on taking an eye test that I can comprehend through miming alone.

It didn't even make me feel better, really, when the nurse told us, "You're all done, go home," that I managed to maneuver my way through the hallways of the questionably hygienic hospital by myself; I couldn't do it by myself the first time. How annoying.

I have to remind myself that I haven't even been here a week, and being a Newbie at something is just a fact of life. Get over it, Rayne. Apparently you're not as perfect as you think.

Yeah, whatever.

Really, the only eventful thing that happened over the weekend was the fantastic trip to the hospital. After a day full of training where we learned all about teaching English (which, actually, turns out is harder than it looks), the weekend was definitely something we were all looking forward to.

I spent my weekend bonding with my Taiwanese family, trying to be not as newbie-ish. I spent Saturday and Sunday with Gerald and Frances and the kids, watching Star Wars with Seth (awesome), and playing Uno with Angelica (something, I can safely say, I could happily never do again for the rest of my entire life). On saturday we got hot pot for lunch, which was probably the coolest thing I have ever done in my life. I had only seen hot pot on tv before *cough* Rurouni Kenshin! *cough*, and so I was super excited to try it out for myself. This was what I came up with:

Isn't it fantastic? They put your pot of chicken broth on your own person electric burner; you control how hot it gets. Then, you take your plate over to a buffet full of awesome raw things: rice noodles, snow peas, green beans, dumplings, eggs, cabbage, unidentified balls of meat, seaweed, brown tofu, some sort of skin-looking thing I refused to touch, strips of beef, shrimp... anything that could possibly be boiled in broth and eaten was at my disposal. The only saving grace I had--being the newbie that I am--was the fact that I come from a multicultural place, and foreign food totally doesn't scare me. So I was feeling pretty confident when I went around picking stuff out to put in my hot pot.

On the whole, it was a good experience; however, I think I can safely say now that I'm just going to stay away from meat I can't identify. I know, I know: rookie (NEWBIE) mistake, but as I said, I was brimming with cocky "trust me, I'm from Northern California" confidence. Still, my overall conclusion: Hot Pot = GOOD STUFF.

I really can't think of a better climax than that, so let's just call it a night, shall we?