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?