A decorated fridge!
James and I have gotten a bit more adventurous in our weekday lunch dining now. Please note, we do not eat at the same vegan restaurant every single weekday anymore!!!! They probably really miss us when we aren't there... We tried a dumpling place near my school this week. They had an English menu so basically that's why we went there. The garden vegetable dumplings were amazing!!!!!! What's the cost of these tasty treats you might ask?! Six dumplings cost $1 USD!!!!! That's a good price for something so delicious.
MMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!
Last week, I had a few of my classes observed by a British manager from the Shane Headquarters in Taipei along with my Taiwanese manager who works directly with me at my school. I was excited to receive feedback from the British manager. He gave me some good pointers. Somehow he did not think the boys were wild in my class I call the "wild boys" class. Was he blind or does he see much wilder boys on a regular basis while observing classes?!
I went to dinner on Friday with my Taiwanese school manager last night. She said she was excited to have a girls' night with me :) She took me a fancy restaurant in Hsinchu. This reminded me of my meals working in corporate America. Haha. Anyway, she has been a manager at the school for 11 years so she had some great things to say about teaching in general. First, she said you will always have highs and lows in teaching. Her job, along with the rest of the support at the school, is to be sure the teachers never fall too low. Also, a teacher must make their own teaching style. They can observe other teachers for good ideas but they should not try to be like them. A teacher will become exhausted over time if they are not using their own personality and style in the classroom. She did not give me direct feedback on my actual teaching. She said she will do this around the 6 month mark. She insisted it would only confuse me to give me so many suggestions right now. I have to admit I was thankful for this! I think the feedback from the British manager is plenty to focus on for now.
That's a fancy salad! I think it might take flight soon.
These are the funny things she said about me personally! First, she always had a good feeling about me ever since she knew my star sign (I am assuming she means a Gemini). All of the other Gemini foreign teacher she has worked with have had kind spirits. I have never had someone refer to my star sign so seriously but I am glad it gave her high hopes for me! Then, she told me she was quite nervous about me working with the not-so-perfect children in the classroom. Most teachers come in with an authoritative, powerful, 'I am the great teacher and all the students must listen to me' attitude. She said I was so elegant! I don't know if it was my Southern charm that creates this elegance in me or maybe it's the many years and probably lots of money my parents spent on ballet lessons or perhaps this is the mysterious "casual elegance".... Anyway, she said I was handling the students pretty darn well for my elegant personality. She also said everyone that has observed me teach as well as the TA's all think it is apparent and obvious that I am teaching because I care about the individual students. I really do care about my students!!!! I think my students know that, too ;) As a side note, James and I have discussed regularly that in all the research we did about teaching English in Taiwan, we never read about anyone finding their job difficult. We both find this job quite difficult right now! Not that difficult and challenging is a bad thing, I am just saying....
James had a lovely 32nd birthday!!!!!!!!!!! He had to work in the morning (lame!!!!) but his school manager and TAs surprised him with a chocolate banana cake. That's one way to make a teacher happy about doing a Saturday morning Demonstration. One of the TAs also had two oversized birthday cards. The students signed the cards. There are the cutest notes and hand drawn pictures in the cards. James returned home to find a birthday hat, balloons and a new poncho for his scooter from his elegant wife. (I love having a cheap store right next to our apartment!) We enjoyed a very chill day. James picked the dumpling restaurant for his birthday lunch. Then, we ran a ton of errands and enjoyed a dinner at home after James took a nap. A full week of teaching will wear you out! So... James bought some new contacts. We walked into an optical store (which there is one on every block around here), James handed an employee a box of his contacts, the employee found the contacts, and we bought the contacts. This took about one minute!!!!!!!!!! A box of contacts (6 contacts) cost $13 USD. Wow. This was a ton easier than going to the eye doctor to get a prescription (even though you know your prescription has not changed...), dealing with insurance to get your contacts or glasses, and paying for vision insurance with every paycheck. Taiwan really does revolve around convenience and efficiency for living.
The crew at James' school. I am still jealous they don't wear shoes at his school!
James shamelessly giving his students lessons about his upcoming birthday. A few of his students brought him treats ;)
Birthday surprises from me!
James' birthday cards from his students.
If you can zoom in and read these, they are so cute and sweet. Teacha James is the best!
A panda at the Taipei zoo had a cub! It's all over the news here. The cub is the first panda ever born in Taiwan. Every time I see the cub, I can barely handle the cuteness!!!! James and I plan to go see the little panda at some point in the future. http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Blog/2013/08/14/Baby-Panda-born-at-Taipei-Zoo-meets-mom-for-the-first-time/2901376515325/#!/1/ The videos of the cub on the link are addictive...beware...you can't stop watching the cute panda!
AWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This week one of my school days ended with a pleasant surprise. A mother of one of my very shy, sweet female student brought some homemade pita-like bread (or maybe more like naan) to share with the teachers. As she offered me a bite, the mother stated the bread had no egg or dairy. I told her that's how I eat. She was so excited! She had never met a foreigner who didn't eat meat. Her whole family eats vegan for religious purposes (Buddhist). Well, it turned out that the bread was cooked by my student. The mother sent two pieces of bread home with me so I could share with James. It was delicious and still warm. My student cooks on a regular basis and wants to open her own restaurant one day. My student doesn't like to learn English since she has to speak in class. I hope she at least likes her teacher though! Anyway, the mother wants to introduce James and I to her favorite restaurants. Maybe one day we'll be invited over for a meal cooked by my student :)
James decided to use his birthday gift money to buy a book of very detailed maps around our area of Taiwan. Although the book is in Chinese, it is quite helpful to match road names to google maps to find trails. He picked out a trail in the neighboring mountains for a Sunday adventure. Well, we got to the trail. A group of Taiwanese men just walked off the trail. It turned out the trail was about 200m long. One of the guys spoke English quite well. He did not know what trail we were looking for.
We were determined to find the trail from this map!
As we started a trek back down the road to find the trail, we saw a bunch of people walking up a hill so we followed them. We ended up at a persimmon and lime orchard that included a family campground. The views were great!
I can't imagine having the job to individually bag each persimmon!
Limes
That's the campground below.
Look! It's a 32 year old!
Next, we followed a brown sign that included the Chinese character for "mountain." This was a must learn Chinese character for us! At some point while driving up the mountain, we decided to stop and park the scooter. We started hiking up the mountain. A guy stopped his car and asked us if we wanted a ride. Ha. We found out the cars were going to the "Café in the Clouds." For some reason we had to pay $7 USD per person to enter the gates. We decided to keep following the road up. After an hour of hiking up, this mysteriously appeared.
How random! We had not seen a car on the road for the last half hour. Unfortunately, we were in a cloud so we did not have much of a view. However, we found a random trail after that and enjoyed a few minutes on the dirt before turning around.
The last character means "mountain." Don't ask me about the rest of the characters though!
During our hike, we had a heart to heart conversation from a question James' mom asked him on his birthday. "Are you glad you moved to Taiwan?" Are we glad? Well...that's too difficult to answer. Do we regret coming to Taiwan? No. Living and teaching in Taiwan is definitely a character building experience. Are things easy here? No! Is literally everything challenging and forces you to be brave and face fears? Yes. Did we come here only dependent on God and each other? Yes. Are we having some incredible experiences enjoying the mountains and cold springs? Yes. So, we don't really have an answer to that loaded question!
After the hike, we found a lovely cold spring to rinse off in. Oddly we were cold! We found a thermometer that read 26 degrees Celsius. So, we were cold at 80 degrees Farenheit?! When we returned back to Hsinchu City, the thermometer read 39 degrees Celsius or almost 100 degrees Celsius. Wow!
Happy Birthday to James! I think he enjoyed the weekend and his many sweet birthday treats...like eating cake and coffee for breakfast :)
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