"I'm going to kill you!"

Ever since Kenny has lived with us, he meows a lot and pretty loudly too. It gets worse when no one is around and you know when you're home because you will hear him meow loudly inside the apartment. Drew is really his owner since our ex-coworker Daniel owned Kenny but left for the States and Drew decided to take care of Kenny. I like Kenny most of the time. He's pretty cute and adorable and besides the meowing, he's pretty mellow. BUT his meowing is driving me and my roommate crazy!

Drew left a couple of days ago to go back to the States and Korea and won't be back until Oct. 17. Yes, I know the exact date because I don't know how long Kenny will last lol Ever since he left, Kenny has been meowing much louder and more frequently if that was even possible! The past two nights he started to meow at 5am and keeps waking me and Cala up. I have no idea why..usually he meows if he hears someone wake up but I think this time he just meows because he want attention. I've been trying to pet him more but I think he misses Drew or because he's bored. When I leave the apartment I can hear him meow when I'm to the front door of the apartment which is 3 flights down. You can also hear him while you are walking up the stairs before you reach our door. Cala and I have told Kenny repeatedly many times that we will kill him lol For revenge today, he was trying to sleep in the afternoon and I would pet him to wake up. He actually liked it though since I was petting him. The picture above shows his innocence and cuteness but it's a coverup haha I don't know if Kenny will survive when Drew comes back..we shall see.

-Chihchat

Hangman voc.

Who knew that hangman can be so fun? For the students to learn and reinforce voc., I started to play hangman. It's boring if you just only have one word so I make up a phrase and surprisingly a lot of my students like the game. It really makes them think and I use harder words they don't know just to see if they can figure out the phrase. It's interesting though how intrigued they are. Sometimes they are so into it that when the bell rings, they don't even want to leave class. I tell them, okay..I will just tell you the answer and they always say "No!" lol It's crazy!

-Chihchat

No Internet >:(

My roommate Drew left yesterday to go back to the States and to Korea for 3 weeks. The internet stopped working midnight on Sunday night, technically Monday morning. Sometimes the internet isn't the greatest at the house and I thought it was acting up. Well Drew left and the internet didn't work the whole day yesterday. Cala and I thought it might have been Drew's computer since it's his wireless network but the lights on the modem were working and Drew went on vacation and we still had internet. But just the thought of not having internet for 3 weeks would have been awful.

So Cala and I were going crazy since we didn't have any internet. Cala even bought a Wi-Fi card yesterday and we had a chance to check our email/facebook lol Then today Cala has a Taiwanese tutor and the internet still wasn't working so we asked her tutor to call our internet company to see what was going on. I wrote on Drew's facebook wall to tell him about our dilemma only to find out that he played a practical joke and changed the name of the wireless network to something rather inappropriate lol Cala and I didn't figure it out at first since we saw the wireless network before but of course we didn't think to connect to it since it wasn't our network. UGH...we couldn't believe it. We also had to call her tutor to tell her not to call the internet company.

It's funny now but at the time we were so stressed out since we wanted to check our email and stuff. Oh well, revenge is sweet! lol On a lighter note, I started having one-on-one lessons yesterday to improve my Chinese with one of my Taiwanese coworkers. She's really nice and we're meeting 1 hour each week and she is helping me speak, write, and read Chinese. It's sometimes frustrating since I learned simplified characters and some of the words I can't read since I'm learning traditional but it's okay. It's a learning experience but she's really nice because she doesn't want me to pay her or anything. I told her we can do a language exchange but she said it's fine. So hopefully my Chinese will improve! I should maybe start writing English and Chinese blogs..hmm lol I will see..

-Chihchat

Yangming Mountain and BBQ

Today my aunt and uncle took me to Yangming Park to climb up some mountains (first picture above). We passed Beitou, known for its hot springs. We stopped to see the hot springs and then we saw a volcano and the smoke was still coming out of it which was pretty neat (second picture above). We first climbed up a mountain. I'm making it sound like it's no big deal but it's not as strenuous as you think. Then for lunch we had a small picnic, eating this sushi type looking food called fantuan. It comes with different types of meat and veggies in the inside but it's wrapped up in sticky rice and then covered with seaweed. We had two of those, a tea egg (egg cooked/soaked with brown sauce), and guavas. We were all surprisingly stuffed but also it was getting hotter outside and we were walking around. Then we went to see the main house of Chiang Kai-Shek. My aunt and I went on the tour while my uncle was sleeping. It was nice and it was interesting because toilets were uncommon in Taipei at the time Chiang Kai-Shek was alive and since he had a toilet at his house, it showed how luxurious his life was and how much money he had. It was just a plain toilet and him and his wife each had one but it was pretty cool.

Afterwards for dinner Drew and I ate BBQ with a couple of our coworkers (third picture above). It was really good and they gave you lemon sauce to dip the meat in. We had someone help us since we were newbies and the server wanted to make sure we knew what to do. It was funny because we told him he could go and he finally let us cook the food after he cooked the first three entres. Although I will admit, I was scared at first since the pit got really hot and there was a big flame near me lol

-Chihchat

Kojen reporter

For my class tonight, we were playing hangman and it was funny because I made them guess a phrase like wheel of fortune and one of their vocs. is "reporter." I wanted to make it harder since a lot of students were guessing the words so quickly so I used the phrase "Kojen reporter" and they got so stumped! Kojen is the school where I work at... lol

-Chihchat

Flying Boat

I know I keep talking about my Fri. night class but they are the best! I had them play this voc. game and they really liked it considering they are 13 and the game probably suits a 7 year old. It's called voc. ladder and they have to write the voc. word and if they win, then the word stays on the board and like a ladder, the next word is written on top of the other word, adding up from the previous word. They win by reaching the top. It was fun though and then I was introducing the voc. word "advertisement" and I asked them where can you find an advertisement? Some said on TV or in a newspaper and it was funny because one of the students said flying boat. At first I was like what? Then I knew what he was talking about. He meant a blimp! HAHAHA

A lot of the students didn't understand but I did and drew it. I don't know how I got flying boat with blimp but our minds definitely think alike! LOL

-Chihchat

調羹 vs.湯匙

The other day Drew and I went to 7-Eleven and I asked for a spoon in Chinese and I said 調羹-tiáo​gēng but the cashier didn't understand me and neither did Drew. Drew then told the cashier 湯匙-tāng​chí and he understood and gave us spoons. I figured it was because of my tones but Drew never heard of 調羹 and I never really heard of 湯匙. I went home later that night and found in Google translate that both words can be used for spoon. I thought there would be a difference but I couldn't find any.

Later today I went to my uncle's to eat dinner and I asked my cousin about it and she didn't realized the difference. She usually says 湯匙 and she thinks that it's more of the younger generation to use this word. We asked my aunt what she says and she said 調羹. She said that people that immigrated to Taiwan in the past use 調羹 which makes sense since my mom and dad always uses that word. My cousin also said that people back then would say chopsticks and spoon (筷子, 調羹) but when the westerners came, they would say fork 叉子 , spoon 湯匙, and knife 刀子. It's interesting because in one of the English-Chinese translation engines, 調羹 cannot be found unless you directly type the Chinese words. Then later tonight I was talking to my roommate about it and we were trying to figure out the difference but couldn't. It's interesting though because my cousin was laughing about it because she never thought about it before. I'm sure it just comes naturally to her like if we say "t-shirt" in the U.S. and some just say "shirt." There are a lot of different variations of a word but it's interesting that it happens more than you think.

-Chihchat

Mid-Autumn Festival aka Moon Festival

Today was Mid-Autumn Festival also known as Moon Festival. It was nice to have a day off and so I basically slept and ate all day lol This morning Cala and I went to do some quick errands and people were barbequing outside on the street. The food smelled so good! I also heard firecrackers going off later. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was on TV so I was really having an "Asian" day lol I ate some mooncakes that my aunt gave me but I didn't buy any outside since I had a lot at work yesterday and I'm mooncaked out lol They are pretty sweet and there are only so much I can eat without getting sick.

Tonight Drew and I went back to the restaurant that serves rice congee. It's called No Name restaurant and we took the MRT there and walked a couple of blocks. The restaurant is really nice since it's cheap and opens 24/7. We passed Da'an Park on the way there and I was excited since I wanted to go there but I didn't know exactly where it was. It's just a park but it's pretty big so I'm happy that I know where it's at so I can check out.

-Chihchat

Pre-Moon Festival

Today at work we had a Moon Festival celebration. When I went to work, two of my coworkers were wearing pomelo hats and my trainer wanted us to wear them while teaching which I did (picture above). We had a potluck of different kinds of food including different types of mooncakes (second above).

Then while I was going to the classroom my students were freaking out because there was a cockroach on the desk. It was a really nasty big cockroach and so I got a secretary to kill it but she freaked out too. So then Peter, one of my coworkers, was teaching next door to me and we got him to kill it. Before he killed it, the cockroach was scrambling across the room and all the students were shrieking. I ran into his room because I was freaking out and his students asked what was the matter and I said there was a cockroach and they started screaming too. It was pretty funny and I was wearing my pomelo hat so it was just a funny night lol

-Chihchat

Running in the rain

Today I just taught one class from 5-7 so after that I threw out the trash and went running. I usually run on a Monday but I was afraid I couldn't because of the rain. The typhoon just left but we are still getting storms. It was sprinkling a little bit while I was walking to the track but as I started running, it started to rain. I've ran on the track while it was raining but I was afraid since it was raining pretty bad that I would slip and fall. Luckily there was good traction and I continued running. It was really nice though because sometimes the weather is so humid that even though it's 8pm at night, it's still hot and running can be unbearable. Tonight it was great and although I was soaking wet, it was cool and felt great! lol

-Chihchat

Where is Typhoon Fanapi?

The typhoon arrived last night and there was a possibility that if it got really bad that we wouldn't have to go to work the next day. However in Taipei City we're not getting the full effects of it. Of course having a severe typhoon is not good but if the weather was bad, we could have had no work and that would have been nice. Today was a lazy day and my roommate and I were hoping that it would be semi-bad just so we don't have to work tomorrow lol The typhoon is called Typhoon Fanapi and the main area it's hitting is the central and southern part of Taiwan. Taipei is the northern part of Taiwan and right now outside it's really not bad at all. It's windy and occasionally it rains but that's about it. We will see though...it's still here but I guess I will wait until tomorrow to see if I have work tomorrow!

-Chihchat

Popcorn

To continue raving about 7-Eleven, another thing to add to its awesomeness is that you can buy popcorn there and they will pop it for you. Cala got popcorn there before and I haven't had popcorn since I arrived in Taipei. I love popcorn but they only have one kind and it's not the greatest but it's pretty cheap. It's $35 which is about $1 USD. It's also nice because you buy the bag there and they pop it for you and staple a napkin to the top and it forms a handle. I had my first bag tonight :)

-Chihchat

Students say the darndest things

Today I went to pay the utility bill at...7-Eleven!! 7-Eleven or any convenience store for that matter is really a convenience store. You can buy and get anything and you can pay off bills like utility and electricity bills. They have a printer there so you can print things off by using a USB. Convenience stores are awesome here lol

I really like my Fri. night class. I always talk about them a lot but that are an upper level class A-10 (Advanced level 10) and the highest in the children's department is A-13 and passed that is considered the adult department. One of the students Eric always messes up on his words and it's just way too funny sometimes. Tonight they had a quiz and some of their voc. words are "sweat" and "shake." The sentence is "I s____ a lot after I exercise." Eric is the first one done and he writes "shake." Since he got done quickly I asked him if he wanted to recheck his answers. I pointed at the sentence and he was like oo and starts laughing. I couldn't help but laugh too. Everyone was wondering what we were laughing about. I know it's really not that funny but I was just imagining someone exercising and then shaking afterwards lol

Then they had to do their reader in the book and we were actually reading a somber story about this person who died while he was hiking in Alaska because he ate a poisonous potato. Sounds interesting but their voc. word is poisonous so it makes sense that it was a poisonous potato..ok to me it makes sense lol Anyway I suggested to play the game popcorn where after they get done reading, they say popcorn and then call a student's name and then that person has to read. This time they wanted to do the popcorn game but instead of saying popcorn, they wanted to use random words like watermelon. Eric was reading and then he says neutrogena. One of the girl's name in my class is named Gina. Some of the students didn't get it but I did and some other students and we started laughing lol It was pretty clever to say neutroGENA.

Yes, my sense of humor is compared to that of a 11 year old lol

-Chihchat

Pomelo hats

This morning I grabbed the pomelos that I left for work and then went to the post office. I succeeded in mailing the things I wanted to mail! It took awhile but not as long as last time. It also didn't cost that much considering I did mail a lot of things to America. This lady behind me though was really angry because I was taking forever and after the guy figured out how much to mail my things, I then asked him how much stamps cost. He was a little irritated and I could tell he wanted me to leave because it took forever for him to get everything figured out and of course my Chinese was bad. I bought one stamp by accident so I need to go back there again. I talked to my aunt about it this evening and there is a post office near her work so I might just go there because I don't want to go back again to the post office near my house since I've been there twice already.

As I said in the previous blog, I haven't had a pomelo before and I brought them to my aunt's and uncle's house tonight. The inside part looks like an orange or grapefruit and it tastes a little sweet but also a little sour. Yesterday at work Drew and my coworkers were telling me that during Moon Festival (Mid-Autumn Festival), they peel the skin on the outside and wear it like a hat. I didn't believe them since they were teasing me beforehand and they know I'm really gullible but I guess it's true. Tonight my aunt and uncle cut the pomelo like a hat (picture above). It was pretty cool and we tried putting the pomelo hat on my aunt's and uncle's dog Rocky lol He was so scared and he hid.

Then later tonight I was walking home when I realized how there were so many scooters parked on the street. Scooters are extremely common and they are everywhere but I decided to take a picture of it since I haven't yet (picture above). Also, there is a typhoon that is coming towards Taiwan and the forecast says it will hit Sun. and Mon. Crazy! We have typhoon days so I won't have class on Mon. if it's really bad outside. I already have Sun. off so it doesn't matter. I'm a little nervous about the typhoon but also a little excited although I guess I remember now that I have experienced a typhoon when I was in Hong Kong with my family during one of our summer vacations. It's also interesting because typhoon season already passed so this typhoon is late.

-Chihchat

Lovely surprise!

Weds. are my busy days since I teach three classes from 1:30pm-8:30pm. It was my 10 min. break for one of my classes so I was going to go upstairs when I saw some two students from my K1 class that I teach on Saturday. I said hi to them then went upstairs to rest when the two boys that I just saw, Aaron and Johnny, came into the teacher lounge and gave me fruit for Moon Festival. They gave me two pomelos that taste like a grapefruit and it's green on the outside. I've never eaten them before.

Pomelos are what you traditionally eat on Moon Festival which is actually coming up next Tuesday so I will have a day off next week and get to eat mooncakes :) It was so sweet of them! I didn't have a chance to eat the pomelos and I accidentally left them in the refrigerator tonight but I will grab them tomorrow morning.

-Chihchat

Unnecessary stress at the post office

This afternoon I was planning on mailing some postcards and gifts to my friends at the post office. I left around 2pm and I worked at 5pm thinking I would have enough time to get everything done. I was planning on mailing seven gifts and some of them were heavier than others. I first had to ask a person where I could buy the boxes since when you first walk in you just see counters. The worker outside told me to go to counter 12. I went to counter 12 and I asked the guy what kind of sizes do the boxes come in. He showed me a couple but I asked for the smallest box since I'm mailing smaller things. He still showed me this box that was a tad bit bigger than I needed but I bought four of them anyway. I then asked another worker what kind of slip I should fill out since I'm mailing things to the U.S.

The guy was wondering why I was mailing so many things to the U.S. and that it's really expensive to mail things there. I said I know but it's okay. Then he was showing me two different ways of mailing things and I started filling out the forms and taping the boxes only to find out that I wouldn't have had enough money since I didn't bring too much with me. I asked the same guy how much it would cost and he was trying to help me but he was getting frustrated since he didn't understand why I was spending so much money but honestly I was only spending about $15 USD which is nothing compared to the U.S especially since I'm mailing overseas. Then he said he was really busy and that he couldn't help me anymore and I needed to go to another counter.

I went to another counter and the lady also asked me why I had such small things in a big box. I said it's because my Chinese is bad and the guy didn't understand what I was saying, it's okay! She said that next time I need to show him what I'm mailing and she was going on and on about how much money I could be saving and that I should have bought a big envelope instead of a box. I just wanted to mail two things and then there was more confusion since I didn't know if it had to be that specific person that I'm mailing to sign when they receive the gift or anyone. I didn't have it where the person had to sign it since I didn't want to deal with the hassle. Luckily I didn't need to spend more money mailing them out since I did waste money on buying boxes. I luckily returned one of the boxes since I didn't put tape on them but the others I had to keep. It wasn't a big deal using a box but they just didn't understand why I would be spending all this money.

Then I was going to buy the big envelopes but I was so frustrated with all the lecturing that I said nevermind and I will come back later. The lady wouldn't let me go and before I left she gave me custom slips so I know to use big envelopes instead of boxes and use a different form. I was holding up a line and a lady behind me was mad and I was at the post office until 3pm!! I had three boxes and my unsent items so instead of going straight to work I had to go back home to dump all my things off. I was so irritated.

Before work I wanted to get this scallion pancake that I actually made a lot when I was back in the U.S. 蔥抓餅. It's 蔥抓餅 and not 蔥油餅 (oil is replaced with the character that means grab) because the scallion pancakes are made by grabbing the pancake. Anyway it's my favorite Chinese food and you can add hot sauce, this type of green vegetable, and egg. The lady asked me if I wanted egg and I had to tell her three times that I did not want egg but I wanted the vegetable and hot sauce. I guess it just wasn't my day for people to understand what I was saying.

-Chihchat

1/4 Mark

Today is exactly three months since I've been in Taipei. It's going by so fast! :( It's only a 1/4 way in but I know six months will come up quickly. I'm getting really comfortable with teaching, living in Taipei, and I've been running a lot. There are two school tracks near my apartment and it helps that my roommates also like running. I run now 3x a week and about 3 miles per day. Sometimes I don't have time to run or I'm tired from teaching but for the most part I at least run 2x a week.

I lost weight and it could be because I'm exercising but I think it's mainly because I've stopped drinking pop. In America I drank coke like it was my life but now I drink tea and coffee. I drink coffee only when I teach (almost every day), drink tea regularly, and surprisingly I don't miss coke.

I lost 1 kg = 2.2 pounds so far and the last time I drank coke was a couple of weeks ago. The tea selection here is great and it's real tea, not Nestle or Arizona tea that is packed with sugar. You can add sugar or ice cream but even then, tea tastes like tea!

-Chihchat

Jiufen

Drew and I went to Jiufen this afternoon which is about an hour from Taipei City. We had to take the MRT subway to the train station, then take a train to Ruefang. When we arrive at Ruefang, we then take a bus to Jiufen. We had to wait 1 hr to take the train to Ruefang so it took awhile but we got there around late afternoon. Jiufen is a city in the mountains and it was insane how the bus driver can manuever the bus when the street is so narrow! We encountered a lot of nice people who would come to us and help us get our tickets or show us which bus to take!

We ate lots of good food including fresh taro balls (picture above), mochi, and this sticky green tea flavored rice cake filled with sweet red bean. I had grilled mushroom, seawood covered crackers, fish ball soup, and this awesome wrap that consisted of two cold taro mochi balls with crunchy peanut and cilantro. As weird as it sounds, it was delicious!

Jiufen is known for their fresh taro balls, yuyuan 芋圓, and it's a great place to buy souvenirs. It is also near the northeast coast of Taiwan next to Jilong (Keelung). We went at a good time to take pictures of the sunset (picture above). Drew and I bought a train ticket back at 10pm in case we didn't think we had enough time but we left Jiufen at 7pm and we can get on the train whatever time we wanted but there weren't anymore seats. So we either could wait 3 hrs or just stand on the train and we decided to stand. It was about a 45 min train ride but it wasn't too bad. I'm pretty tired but the trip was well-worth it :)

-Chihchat

1st real KTV experience

Today was one of my coworkers last day of work since she is moving to Canada. She is having a farewell KTV party tonight. KTV means karaoke, I hope there will be some American songs but of course I will try to sing some Chinese songs as well. I'm excited to go since it will be my first KTV experience but it's bitter sweet since I'm saying farewell to a great coworker and friend. We taught a class together since she is a CT (Chinese Teacher) and I teach our class on Wed. while she teaches on Sat. mornings. This morning I bought them all cookies to say goodbye to her. My students were pretty happy but of course it's because they got cookies.

Picture above is my coworkers singing karoke. It was really fun and I'm proud to say that I sang my first Chinese song in traditional characters from Jay Chou "Excuse", 周杰倫 , "藉口". We then ate kangji which is rice porridge and you eat it with meats and vegetables that you can order. (picture above) Yummy!

-Chihchat

Greek Gods and Goddesses

For my half-day class I created a monthly project where they have to write two paragraphs about their Gods/Goddesses that they chose and talk about sounds since they are learning about sounds in their book. Then they have to use at least 3 voc. words and draw their God/Goddess and the objects their God/Goddess would use to make sound. Of course they were like ugh just because I made them write and what not but actually it's turning into a great project!

They are half-way done and they wrote really good paragraphs. They are mostly good drawers and it's cute to have each person be a specific God/Goddess. I knew it would be a fun project just because they are able to draw but I think it's turning out better than I thought it would be since they are putting a lot of time into the picture. They were so enthralled with the project that it was time to go home and they didn't even want to leave. They kept coloring and drawing and one of my students kept asking if the sentence she was writing was correct. It was awesome! I'm excited to create another project for them to have next month :)

-Chihchat

Cat sleep, Picasso, Buddha fruit

This morning Kenny was sleeping and it was hilarious because while he was sleeping, he had his arms stretched out like superman but his body was twisted (picture above). Kenny is a crazy cat, that's all I'm going to say.

During the afternoon Blake and I went to Taipei Fine Arts Museum and saw the art exhibit taken from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We saw paintings and sculptures created by Picasso, Manet, Monet, Cézanne, and others. It was awesome and it reminded me of the States!

Tonight I had dinner at my uncle's place and I bought this fruit that looks like a Buddha's head. I heard it was good and I wanted to try it. It was pretty interesting! It wasn't sweet at first but when you keep eating it, it gets really sweet. You just open it and you can eat the insides although there is a pit in each piece so you have to carefully eat it. The picture I took of it looks gross but it's pretty good!

My uncle and aunt reminded me that today was 9/9/99, a very lucky day. Many people got married today and I actually saw a wedding today while I was walking to the museum. The reason why it's 1999 in Taiwan is because they count from the fall of the Qing Dynasty which was 1911. I actually didn't realize this until a couple of days ago when my students didn't understand how I was born in 1987 lol

-Chihchat

Grad school ambush, Amazing pho, Intense games

Last night I was emailing grad schools about what I should do to apply to both M.A. and Ph.D. programs for this year. So I realized that most of the schools I applied to and will apply to only accept M.A. applications and not Ph.D. unless you have your M.A. I was really surprised because last year I applied to Ph.D. programs and some of the schools I applied to didn't accept applicants who have their B.A's. Some do, but some don't. It makes me feel a tad bit better that maybe I didn't get rejected solely because of my application but on the other hand I feel stupid and that I wasted money on the application. Oh well.

Drew and I ate at a Vietnamese restaurant today for lunch. It was fabulous and the place had unlimited limes! LOL Last Wed. was pretty bad since my students were very naughty but today was a good day fortunately. Although I had to yell at them a lot, I don't think I'm intimidating. It's hard to keep a straight face and it's funny when they play the games. For most of the games you split the class into two teams and it's funny because we do a writing game and so I was quizzing on voc. and it was funny because when I call their numbers, they would just run to the board and how they react and run to the board is hilarious. Some students would just drop everything they have and run and some would just run so fast and hit the board lol Another kid in my other class who is about 8-9 years old would slide his shoes and just skid to the white board.

Then for my last class tonight we were playing memory and they were getting so into it that if they lost, they would just lie on the floor or just open their arms and go why?! lol Yeah, it sounds pretty intense. I tell them to be quiet but it's really hard not to laugh. I always laugh..it's bad. Obviously I'm still a new teacher and haven't quite got the idea of management control in the classroom lol

-Chihchat

Smart Kids

During the 10 min. break for one of my classes I saw one of my students write characters stroke by stroke and he was learning how to write 唱. I was surprised they were just learning that character since it's a common word meaning "sing." That's how they learn how to write characters and that's how I learned Chinese when I was 14 in California but I always complained about it. No wonder my Taiwanese teacher was so strict on me. I was extremely lazy compared to these students! I was really surprised when I saw my student do his homework during break and I asked him if it was hard and he said no. I mean, it makes sense to teach the students that way because you have to learn how to write the characters but I can't believe that they are learning Chinese while learning English. These kids are so smart and sadly pressured!

It's incredible how much time they spend at school. Tonight I was doing private tutoring with one student and I honestly think he was in school from 7am to 8:30pm. He was actually really behaved and I asked him if he was tired and he said no. He never complained and our lesson was for 2 1/2 hrs!

-Chihchat

Ghost Month

August is Ghost Month and to get rid of the bad spirits and ghosts, people burn incense, food, and money to the Gods. Throughout this month I have seen many businesses, food stands, and stores burn food and money outside to ensure they have good business. It seems like at least once a month stores and restaurants would burn things outside on the sidewalk. I don't remember exactly what day it was but one day it got really bad that when I was going to work the air smelled like a fire pit and there was ash flying everywhere.

My cousin and I went to Shilin night market this afternoon and we were going to get some mango shaved ice. While we were going to the stand, there was a huge ceremony of people sacrificing pigs, food, and money. Above are the pictures of the things being sacrificed. There were also a puppet show going on and people were burning incense and praying to the Gods. I'm not sure exactly if it still relates to Ghost month since it's Sept. now. It might just be a routinal thing.

-Chihchat

Hot and Sour Soup Combo

For lunch I went to a market near my apartment and there was this lady food vendor who recommended me to eat hot and sour noodle soup. There were many different combinations because I can also get hot and sour soup and hot and sour soup with dumplings in it. Yummy! I love hot and sour soup and I always order it in the U.S. and always try to find a good restaurant that serves hot and sour soup! The lady asked if I knew how to speak English and I said yes and I was surprised she didn't try speaking English but she was nice to continue speaking Chinese with me.

I go to this market a lot but I usually never know how to get home. I went by myself and finally I knew how to get there and not get lost! :) I'm proud of myself.

-Chihchat

Diarrhea as a verb

I worked all day today: 10-12, 2-4, 4-6, 6-7. I was grading the compositions of my advanced class and their writing topic was about an illness that they had since they were learning medical terminology. A good student of mine was talking about how she got food poisoning and she wrote "Diarrheaing made me weak." I knew exactly why she put diarrhea as a verb because it would make sense in Chinese and in English but I could't help but laugh. Then a couple of sentences later she said "Unfortunately I had diarrheaed all day long." It was just classic. She used it correctly though by putting in the right verb tenses but yes, diarrhea cannot be a verb.

Later tonight I tried chicken hearts for the first time. My coworker wanted to try something unique while we were at the Shida market so he bought some chicken heart and I think pig blood. I already had pig blood but the chicken heart wasn't too bad at all. I guess my face had an interesting reaction while I was eating it but as long as you don't think that you are eating a chicken heart, you're fine!

-Chihchat

The Stone Lady

Today was definitely a much better day than Wed. for sure! It started off a little crazy though because the classrooms got all switched up so I had no idea where to go for my class. We were walking everywhere but it was nice because I lost about 15 mins trying to get the classroom thing all situated and it was my naughty class so I was wasting time lol For my half-day class they are learning about sounds so I had the students make telephones today with cups and string. Some of the students in my class are naughty but for the most part it went really well. I was teaching my students how to tie string with the paper clips. They tried making telephones with long string and we would experiment by having someone on the third floor talk to someone on the second floor.

Then for my other class we were talking about cities and I was giving a history lesson because they needed to learn the English name for Deng Xiaoping lol We were talking about the cities that the students would like to visit and one of my students says "I would like to visit New York City because I want to see the stone lady." Everyone was cracking up. It was hilarious! They learned the word statue but yeah Statue of Liberty is too hard. Then one of my other students said she wanted to visit New York City and I interrupted her and said oh to join Eric and see the stone lady? lol

After work it was weird because Drew and I were walking home and we were ordering food. A lady was grilling meat outside the street and a piece of coal touched my foot which was ok but weird. Then while we were at 7-Eleven this lady nudged me while she was trying to throw the trash since I was in her way. We left 7-Eleven and my watch hit the watch of a man who was walking past me. When our watches hit, they made a sound but the guy didn't even flinch!

-Chihchat

Oh the good Taiwan life

Yesterday I had a busy day with teaching and I went out with Drew and a couple of coworkers. I woke up at 11am today feeling pretty lousy. I don't know why but I felt like I did something wrong. It's just because the day before was mentally exhausting. Anyway I got paid a couple of days ago and so it was nice to have money again. I'm not used to getting paid monthly..it's actually a good thing so I don't spend my money but I really have to budget well considering I haven't the past couple of months :/

This afternoon I went to do errands and it was just so nice not to work today and just enjoy my life in Taiwan lol I went back to the market where I had a conversation with the food stand lady who made good food when I just arrived. She remembered me and she thought I went back home to America. But she was nice and said my Chinese improved (too nice) and she said I should teach her English lol It was a great day because I didn't have to work and I just relaxed and remembered that I was in Taipei!

-Chihchat

Psychotic teaching day

I just picked up some more hours at work which is good but that also means my patience is wearing thin and unfortunately my students are becoming very naughty. I taught today from 1:30-8:30pm. It was intense for me since I usually don't teach that much in a day. I only had 3 classes but they were all very loud and crazy. I was a little apprehensive teaching my 1:30-4:00 class because even though I had them in my writing class, the ones that were in this half day class misbehaved a lot. Sadly they were actually okay compared to my other two classes.

My next class from 4-6 was awful because the boys were bullying each other and they got really angry with each other. Then my last class was insane. They just didn't listen at all and they didn't want to do anything. I also was tired and it was just unbearable dealing with them. They started Chinese school this week so I'm sure they are all just tired and overworked but I really hope Weds. won't be awful. I'm so glad I have Thurs. off!!

-Chihchat