Week #2 - Survived and Thrived

You are locked in room with only a mattress, a piano, and a calendar.  You have to eat, drink and get out of the room.  How do you do this?

This is the lateral thinking puzzle I started my advanced high school student class with on Thursday night.  The class was absolutely incredible.  I could speak normal English and the students understood most everything!  After explaining what a mattress is, the students solved this puzzle.  Incredible!!!!  I wish this class could be mine but unfortunately this will be the only time I teach it.  Since I was speaking normally, I accidentally threw out a "y'all" and the class stopped.  Ha!  I'll give the answer to the puzzle in the next blog just to drive everyone crazy unless someone can post the answer before then :)  Also, I asked the students what day today is in America (this was on July 4th).  One student knew the answer, so I gave his team 100 points!

On Sunday evening, we rewarded ourselves with visiting Big City for finishing our lesson planning and chores.  It's a huge mall in downtown Hsinchu.  The place has 11 floors (If I remember correctly).  The three basement floors are a grocery store and an appliance place.  The other floors are themed.  You have a floor for electronics, clothes stores, hiking stores, food court, etc.  Then, the top floors are crazy!  There is a movie theater that includes IMAX and 3-D, a roller skating area, an ice skating rink, an arcade, a bowling alley, a World Gym with a pool, and probably more stuff I have already forgotten about.  You could spend a whole day and a lot of money at this mall!!!!

We started Chinese lessons this week.  My mouth hurts after class.  I've never tried to pronounce so many sounds so awkwardly!  We started with phonics and tones.  Overall, the class is great for a free class and the people are nice.  James and I thought after the first class most of the people in the class were at our beginner level.  However, most of the people in the class have actually lived in Taiwan for at least 1 year.  We were supposed to learn how to count to 5 in the second class.  Everyone else in the class could count to 100 except James and I.  I felt like such a dummy!  I know how my students feel that are placed in a class too high for their English level.  I feel their pain!  James is awesome at Chinese pronunciation unlike me.  I feel like I am speech therapy again like in my childhood.  We actually keep running into people from the class at our favorite vegan restaurant (where we eat lunch every weekday...no exaggeration) so we are getting to know a few people a bit better over delicious lunches.

On Tuesday, we drove the scooter out to the country to explore the 100 Year Old Hiking Trail.  It was a bit short since we refused to walk on the overgrown part of the trail but was enjoyable none the less.  I suppose after 100 years a trail might become overgrown.  We ended up doing hill repeats on the main climb to get an intense workout!

Are these bananas free on the trail?

The view from the top of the hill overlooking fields and Hsinchu City in the distance

The week of teaching was intense and busy but it went well.  Most days I was at the school for 8.5 to 9.5 hours.  My time at the school is very intense and fast paced.  I must admit I am enjoying that environment the majority of the time.  It sure beats sitting in a dark cubicle and staring at a computer screen all day!  I leave work exhausted and typically smiling rather than scrunched.  "Scrunched" is how James and I used to describe how we felt after sitting for a full day.  Basically you want to go run around to stretch your tight legs but instead you kind of want to lie down and you are a bit cranky.  I'm learning how to work better with the students that I am getting to know.  A few of the students are taking a more personal interest in me and asking where I am from, why I want to live in Taiwan, etc.  This makes me feel good :) Also this week I learned that I am not a lame teacher in the junior high class.  The junior high students are just lame.  I also learned junior high students like pictionary with vocabulary words.

James and I are enjoying repeating a few of our favorite things the students say to each other on a regular basis.  I constantly hear the following: : "Teacha (meaning Teacher in their accent) so hot", "Teacha not fair", "Teacha so hard".  By the way, my name is just Teacher.  Not Teacher Rachel but just Teacher.  Another good story is I was practicing blending with phonics in my younger class.  Two students threw a sticky ball on the whiteboard, each landing on a consonant.  They had to say the word out loud with "a" in the middle, mostly making non-existent words.  For example, "cah", "tam", "hap".  Well, I will think my letter choices out better next time.  The whole classroom had to say "dam" a few times.  I felt incredible awkward listening to a classroom of 1st graders say dam.  It makes for a good laugh now though!

Through teaching English, a Teacha will quickly learn if they have "filler" words while teaching.  Mine is "OK" and "Sooooo".  Once the students start repeating these after you, you realize you must break this bad habit quickly!

I was hoping to have the chance to teach Kindergarten at some point while I was here, however, I changed my mind thinking it would be annoying to use an incredibly limited vocabulary for the class.  Well, I shouldn't of changed my mind because next week I start teaching Phonics A for 3 days a week/4.5 hours total for 7 weeks.  The students know absolutely NO English.  I'll have to write some stories on how this class goes.  It's the opposite end of the spectrum from my high school class I had on Thursday.  From teaching at an established, large branch, I am receiving a much broader variety of ages and levels than most English teachers all within my first few weeks for that matter.  Apparently, the sense of accomplishment in experiencing the students learning at an early level is incredible.  I will look forward to that :)  James is actually helping me with my basic phonics.  I fear I will teach the children incorrectly since my English phonics is not the cream of the crop.  Thankfully, the student book for this class is American English and not British.  The British phonics are different so I would have to learn the differences before teaching.  I might dream about the alphabet song from listening to it so much over the next 7 weeks!!!!

I don't believe I have emphasized how incredible the TAs (Teacher Assistants) are at my school.  During summer camp, the teacher teaches a lesson for 1 hour.  The second hour we do a craft related to the lesson.  The TAs prepare the the craft and gather the supplies.  For our lesson on police officers, we made handcuffs out of aluminum foil!  The TAs also do the majority of the grading and administrative work.  They are also the "mean" ones that take care of discipline issues.  I am VERY thankful for that because I am not one to enforce discipline in the classroom unless absolutely necessary.

 James and I have noticed how differently we have been feeling about this foreign land recently.  James asked me yesterday, "Do you notice that everyone is Taiwanese anymore?"  I replied that I often forget I am not Taiwanese.  I don't feel like people stare at me anymore; but maybe it's because we don't cause a commotion everywhere we go now?  After being here for over one month, we are finally overcoming culture shock.  We had read to give it three months but I suppose our support for one another gave us the ability to adjust faster.  The food seems normal and we know what to eat now.  We know how to get from point A to point B (well at least the places we go regularly).  Doing dishes in the bathroom doesn't even seem odd anymore. It's a huge relief to be in this mental spot now!

I was VERY VERY VERY brave today and got a much needed haircut.  A Paul Mitchell salon opened a couple of shops down from our apartment.  I went in and had a good feeling about the place.  The stylist spoke no English so we went through some magazines and I picked out my hairstyle as well as made a lot of gestures.  She took about 20 minutes to thoroughly wash my hair and give me a real head message.  Then, she spent about one hour cutting and styling my hair while other employees brought me water, cookies and crackers.  Next time I will bring a book to read or some lessons to plan because the hairdresser and I have nothing to talk about :)  The haircut cost $16!  As always, you don't tip in Taiwan so that was the final cost.  I am pretty happy with the haircut.  It's a little bit shorter than I had wanted but it's such a relief to have my sticky, sweaty hair off my neck!

James took a few glamour shots of my new do

After the restful morning, James and I headed out to the Little Ding Dong Science Amusement Park in hopes to find the Little Ding Dong hiking trail.  Well, we found a trail that was great but it turned out it was the Lotus Temple Trail.  We have been told by others that often times you can find trails behind temples.  We did and we enjoyed the afternoon excursion.

My moped shot near the Lotus Temple.  The ocean is in the distance. 

There were fun obstacles on the trail

A random stage with hula-hoops. What is this place?!

A typical trail map we have learned to use...who really needs to know Chinese anyways?

Tomorrow we have hopes to explore the mountains again!

On another note, I want to think my dear friends JD and Lauren for loaning me the book "Redeeming Love" by Francine Rivers.  Although it kept me up later than normal finishing the book this week, it was well worth reading the powerful ending.  It's central theme is the redeeming love God has towards sinners.  It retells the story of Hosea in an 1850's setting.  I would highly recommend this book to others.  Although the beginning of the story is somewhat disturbing from describing some of the evil in this world, the end of the novel is incredible when good wins over evil and people are freed by God's love.

Random pictures:

Our typical weeknight dinner.  We normally don't arrive home from work until 9:30pm.  All the Rockwell approved restaurants are closed so we must make our own dinner creations.  Most of our "salads" include a pack of cold pre-cooked rice noodles, a variety of sprouts, a fun tofu (the store has quite the cheap tofu selection), cut fruit (mango is pictured here), frozen veggies (when available because these are harder to find), and peanuts when we have some at the house.  It's delicious, somewhat cheap, and filling!

James' new hot sauce to add to his ramen noodles...he needs to be careful with this stuff!

Who needs a mini-van when you could have a scooter?

再见 zài jiàn  - good bye!

Depends on the day

Today was a good day.  It is crazy how one class can completely define your opinion of how the day went.  

It has been a crazy two weeks since arriving home from training.  And I don't think any amount of training could prepare me for actually being in the classroom.  I think I am getting better each day, but it is not easy.  There have been more than a few days in the past 2 weeks where I really questioned our decision to come to Taiwan.  I thought a lot about the job I left back in Atlanta (why did I leave that job??).  I thought a lot about the people we left back in The States.  There were a few drives home where I really wanted to cry (ok, maybe there was a tear one of those days.  But only a really really small one!).  So there have been some very low points for me in these past two weeks.  But as we know, if there is a low point in a range of emotions there has to be a high point too.  I had some very very good days in these past two weeks.  More low points than high points, but the good days keep me hopeful.  I have to say, when I get to witness a group of 1st graders fully comprehend my teaching then be able to actually produce the language on their own - its pretty awesome.  I was able to share my experience & knowledge with someone else, and they were able to receive it!  Sweet!  

I have had to spend A LOT of time preparing for my lessons.  My first week of teaching I was scheduled for 29 hours of classes.  The classes are back-to-back-to-back so I've had to take all the books and materials home with me everyday to prepare for the next days lessons.  Frown.  Good thing I bought a backpack in Taipei!  That week I put in more like 60 hours of work.  It was stressful.  I have been told by every other teacher that it does get easier to lesson plan.  I shouldn't need to spend that much time getting ready after a month (or a few months) on the job.  I really really really look forward to the day that is true!  

Luckily my second week of teaching has been much lighter.  We have 'summer camp' for two weeks so some of the classes combine and some just break for a few weeks.  'Summer Camp' is misleading though.  It is nothing like the summer camp I remember from growing up.  This is still just English classes with different themes.  I would not have enjoyed this kind of summer camp when I was a kid...  But good for me to get an easier schedule for two weeks and learn how this teaching thing works.  

On another note - we got some wheels!  

  

There she is.  The Duke 125.  We bought her the Sunday before our first week of work.  What a game changer!  We thought we wanted to buy one of the slightly larger models, one with more of a second seat so travelling on the weekends could be more comfortable.  We were able to look at some and test drive one, but in the end we decided to just buy a cheaper one now and keep our eyes open for one of the larger models.  This one was really an impulsive decision actually.  After test driving a few and deciding to wait to buy, we went home.  After about an hour of being at home and realizing we really really really needed a scooter now, I called up an expat we met a few weeks ago who had a scooter for sale.  He was willing to drive it over at that moment so I told him I would buy it.  Purchased over the phone and delivered to my door - that works for me!  It is an older model and has been rebuilt probably a million times (I think most scooters have over here) but it came with a 1 year warranty from him and his mechanic and only cost $500 US.  Why were we waiting to buy???  It has served us well thus far.  And we can keep our eyes open for the larger touring model and grab one of those when the right opportunity presents itself.  I am sooooooo glad we bought this one when we did.  I don't HAVE to run to/from work anymore (but still will on occasion), we can easily get to church, different markets, new places to run and explore, etc.  Oh yeah, it is advisable to wear eye protection and a medical mask when riding.  The exhaust fumes on the road are horrible.  Don't I look like the invisible man?  

Learning how to ride on these roads has been fun though.  It was very intimidating at first, but after one day I got the hang of it.  It's crazy how it all works, cars and scooters just kind of flow to where there is space.  It is a very offensive / defensive style of driving.  Rarely do you see anyone driving really recklessly, but you need to always anticipate everybody will be swerving or veering across lines.  But it just works.  And there is a crazy left-turn rule for scooters only.  At major intersections a scooter has to turn right and wait in this painted box in the road, then go through the intersection once it turns green again.  So kind of a right-hand-turn to a u-turn to a straight-through the intersection maneuver instead of just a simple left-turn.  I don't get it, but I do it.  Here is a video of a typical scooter ride in the city:   http://youtu.be/bgf-_xKA5Bc?t=24s

Some of you knew I had given up sweets for an extended period of time back in The States.  I am here to report that is no longer.  I have been thoroughly enjoying all the new and wonderful treats, candies, bubble teas, and any other sugary deliciousness Taiwan has to offer.  Here is one I saw today that I will need to try soon.  Please note the text at the bottom of the package...doesn't that sound lovely?  ;-) 

One other thing I want to mention is that I think Rachel is very good at her job.  She works at a different school than me, but in our daily discussions of work I can hear how natural teaching children is for her.  I have been picking her brain on how to do things in the classroom (like incorporate learning in to games, for example) and she is full of great ideas that really help me out.  I ask where she gets these ideas and she usually says 'I just made it up during class'.  I think she is already a great teacher!  

Thrown into the deep end but still treading water...

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"  - Matthew 6: 25-27

This is what I kept repeating to myself all of last week...

Apparently most teachers start with slow schedules, maybe teaching 10 to 15 hours their first week.  You would not guess it from James and my stories.  This will only be my experience as James has promised to blog his own. 

I taught 22 hours last week.  Mind you, the 22 hours does not include lesson planning, breaks between classes, etc.  I covered all of the classes for a teacher who has been at the school for 4 or 5 years who has left on holiday to visit home.  

After a peaceful weekend of scooter shopping, church, Sunday lunch at an awesomely cheap college dining hall with new church friends, and catching up on sleep from our crazy week in Taipei, I felt ready to work.  I showed up when the school opened at noon, 2 hours before my first class started.  I sat down to lesson plan.  The 2 hours were disappearing rapidly and I had 3 classes to plan.  Every teacher and TA that walked in the room wanted to say hello and ask about my weekend.  I wanted everyone either ignore me or help me.  There was no time for chit-chat people!

Note:  At Shane English School, we are given exactly what to teach for each lesson of each class.  We have the 5 million different books used in each class (seriously I was so confused by all the different books for all the different levels and the 2 to 4 different books used within each class).  The flashcards are already created.  You just have to find them in the huge mess of binders in the teacher's room.  So, basically our job as teachers is to decide how to teach what needs to be taught for the day.  What approach do we take?  What games do we incorporate?  How do we make learning English fun after the students have been in school all day long?  We also have a Taiwanese TA in the classroom.  The TA does most of the grading.  She explains things like the homework to the students in Chinese either before of after the English teacher does his/her lesson.  

I walked up the 2 flights of stairs to my classroom with a lesson plan in hand.  I realized my heart was racing and not from the walk up the stairs.  I was about to enter my first class and had no idea what to expect!  What were the kids like?  What age were they going to be?  How would they react to me?  

Well, the class went ok.  They seemed pretty bored at times, but at least I got through what I needed to and no one misbehaved.  I learned one important lesson though: I can't just start talking to explain anything from what a word means, a grammar concept, or the rules of a game.  The whole classroom stops and stares at me with a blank, almost frightened expression.  It's like being in a classroom in America and the teacher starts explaining directions in Chinese!

The second class went MUCH better.  The students were lively and fun!  They seemed to like anything I had planned.  I was receiving so much joy watching them play the games and understanding the English I had just taught.  

I survived the third class.  They were so lazy with no energy.  Ohh well.  I did not let it bother me.  

At the end of the night, I realized that the day had been so busy I forgot about being hungry, thirsty, tired, using the bathroom, etc.  It was pretty intense having all these little eyes on you.  I had just directed classrooms for 5.5 hours.  The students do what I tell them to do - sometimes enthusiastically and other times not, but they did it.  Weird!

Afterwards, my manager sat down with me to talk about the day.  She was happy I was not crying.  Apparently, one of the male teachers had cried at the end of his first day.  One of the other male teachers in the room at that time said he waited until he got home to cry.  I still giggle about that.  I did not cry when I got home but James and I had a lot to talk about!

On Tuesday, I had a required morning training at our school.  If you get a bunch of teachers together that work until 9pm, they are not lively at 10am.  I now understand this one!  Lesson planning went much better.  I only had 2 classes.  I planned much faster and more organized.  I even had time to grab a sweet potato from Family Mart next door.  To my surprise, the class I was dreading went ok.  The students are around 13 to 14 years old.  There is one guy in the class that is quite a bit larger than me named Jimmy.  I got some "you are lame-o" looks but they seemed to enjoy my games.  I left the school that evening elated from the day!

By the way, everyone in Taiwan has an English name that they go by.  It makes it MUCH easier to memorize student's names.  

On Wednesday, I had the same 3 classes again as on Monday.  They went much better!  I am amazed at how happy it makes me to see the students having fun speaking English.  Jimmy even said hello to me!  I guess he was much more intimidating to me than I to him.  The TAs complimented me for how much better I did compared to Monday.  I was feeling pretty good about things.  

Another by the way, I have sooooooooo much respect for teachers that must make up every lesson from scratch.  It's a no wonder it is hard to have good teachers (which I have a few in my family and a few friends who are incredible).  With all the time you have to spend lesson planning and preparing, it would be much easier just to teach straight from the book.

Thursday started off awesome.  James I went exploring in the hills.  We went to a lake James had found earlier in the week heading towards the mountains.  We found a bridge a trail around the lake.  The lake looked so blue and perfect.  I really wanted to jump in it and swim around!  We made some new friends with 2 locals who were taking some pictures.  They took a few pictures of us.  As they were riding off on their scooters, one of them frantically hopped off his scooter and starting shaking a tree branch in the woods.  He had these 2 monster bugs called rhinoceros beetles!!!!!  He wanted to show them to us.  He spoke very limited English but I think we all bonded that morning :) 

View near the lake

Trail to go fishing on the lake

Runner's World shot on the bridge

Picture taken by new friends

Rhino Beetles (male and female) held by our new friend

Good thing the start to my day rocked.  My classes that were the same ones on Tuesday went terrible.  There was no energy in the class.  I could not take the lame-o, bored looks much longer.  Jimmy was removed from that class and taken to another class due to a personal scheduling conflict.  Another teacher told me that there is often an alpha student of the class that controls the mood each day.  I think he was my alpha student and the teenagers felt lost without him.  I could barely hold back the tears by the end of the class.  I was fighting so hard.  I managed to get out without crying.  When I went back to the teacher's room, the TAs gave me my schedule for next week.  I have 27 hours of classes!!!!  What?!!!  They start "summer camp classes" next week and added to my schedule.  I am also taking over a few classes of the teacher I am replacing.  I can't wait for the other teacher to return on July 22nd.  That day can not come soon enough. I felt so overwhelmed.  I talked to my mom on skype that night.  It added some relief.  She said there is no way to motivate teenagers :)  You can always count on mom to make you feel better even from 8,000 miles away!

Friday was the longest day yet.  I was at the school from noon to 9:20 pm.  I thought I was supposed to work less hours in Taiwan than my corporate America jobs?!  The day flew by.  My classes went well.  One of my classes that was new for me had much younger students.  They were probably 6 to 8 years old.  Explaining games is a challenge with the limited English they know!  All they really wanted me to do was throw a ball at them to pick the next student to speak English.  A bit odd but it worked.  None of my games worked so we kept resorting back to the ball game.  This class could be difficult later.  There are 2 TAs.  There are 20 students and only 5 of them are girls.  I have been told the boys are quite naughty but they are at least cute, too.  I finished the day with a Private Tutoring class.  The 17 year old girl speaks a lot of English and I really enjoyed the class.  In fact, we ran over the designated hour because we were chatting so much.  Typical girls! 

All of the experienced teachers keep telling us after a month or so, lesson planning becomes much easier and faster.  You learn the students in each class and know what they like and don't like.  I hope that month comes fast for me....  Of course my schedule will change again in 3 weeks after the teacher returns from vacation.  Then, it will change again at the end of August when school is back in session and there are no more summer classes and another teacher at my school leaves/is replaced....  Hopefully, it will be become easier and more second-nature soon!

This week James and I have seen a big turn in our regular schedules.  As most of you know we are typically early to bed and early to rise.  Well, not any more.  Every night we managed to get in the bed later.  It was so hard to wake up each morning.  7 am felt way too early.  9 am felt much better!  We aren't eating dinner until 10 pm so we aren't going asleep until midnight.  We would love to figure out a way to get in the bed earlier so we can wake up earlier to beat the horrendous summer heat but we have not found a solution yet...

The much needed weekend has been awesome.  We finally got into those mountains we have been looking at from our apartment window!!!  We rode a bus to Lion's Head Mountain on Saturday morning.  We hiked up the mountain into the jungle...well...kind of a jungle.  There are an endless amount of Buddhist temples on the hike.  Some are actually built into the mountains.  They all have a great view!  I wouldn't mind worshiping with a view like that!  

We are amazed by the never ending amount of food everywhere here.  We did not bother to bring any food with us for the day.  We bought mini-bananas at the top of a mountain for the same price we can get them at the market down the street from our apartment.  The food is not more expensive when there is a captive audience (with the one exception we have found at Kenting beach).  We held out for lunch to eat at the largest of the Buddhist temples.  We ate a Buddhist lunch and were served by monks!  The food was the same as what we have been eating everyday - brown rice, veggies and tofu.  We weren't sure how to pay because they did not ask for any money.  James tried to give them money and they accepted it.  We think it may have been by donation only....or perhaps we weren't even supposed to eat there...haha.  It was a very cool experience!  

Hiking up the path

View from the top

Massive spider.  Neither of us willing to stick a hand in the picture for the size comparison. 

Buddhist monk garden

Our new favorite lunch spot on a hike at the temple

Possibly the largest worm on earth.  Gross!

Hiking around the top

We're just so cute :)

Temple built into the mountain

View from the temple...we're taking baby steps to get into those big mountains.

Another temple in the green!

Always more stairs on these hikes...

The elephant ear plant (the the right) has some huge leaves. 

The seven star tree 

As soon as got on the bus to head home after a long day of exploring, we passed out!  We were so exhausted!!!!!!!

The luxury bus to Lion's Head Mountain.  1.5 hours each way, $3 USD roundtrip.  We watched a Bruce Lee movie while riding. 

We spent Sunday (today) doing a run at 18 peaks, church, lunch at the ridiculously cheap dining hall, blogging and .........lesson planning is yet to come.  I have to get ahead for next week.  I am a bit nervous.  But God takes care of the birds, so I should not worry about tomorrow.  That is my new motto with teaching and life in general.  I can't always be thinking to the classes for the next day.  I just need to do what I need to do today.  But, in this case I need to get ready for classes tomorrow because I won't have time at school to plan because James and I start Chinese lessons in the morning.  Finally!!!!!!  We need to know some Chinese very very very very badly.  I don't know how we have survived this long here. 

Lunch at the college dining hall - less than $2 and includes all you can eat brown rice, soup and tea.  James and I spent the meal discussing why it is significantly cheaper to eat out in Taiwan compared to cooking yourself.  We never came up with a firm answer.  By the way, I left here today more full than I've been since arriving in Taiwan I think!

I do have one fear of learning Chinese.  We have already starting speaking a somewhat broken English to everyone here except each other.  Between having to speak clearly, slowly, loudly and limited simple words in class and speaking to Taiwanese people with limited English skills, we are now speaking funny to native English speakers!  I've noticed that native English speakers that have lived here a while and know some Chinese seem to talk a bit funny themselves.  

Last thing, I want to give props to Buckhead Church.  Wow...how could any pastor speak to you directly as Andy Stanley, one of the best public speakers in America, or how could the music ever compare to basically attending a concert every week?  Although I like going to church here, it always makes me homesick for Buckhead Church and all the wonderful friends we had/still have there.  However, I am grateful that we have found a supportive group on the other side of the world. 

Random pictures - Here are some great pictures from our apartment rooftop on a clear day taken by photographer James.  

Grad School in a week

We have now completed our week of grad school for teaching so we're ready to become teachers on Monday.  Right?!

First of all, I cannot say enough how much we like Taipei.  It is truly the coolest city I have ever visited when all factors are included into the mix.  Too bad we were training all and did not have much time to visit the sights.

Picture of Taipei.  City in the forest and mountains with a river and coastline plus a population of 2.6 million...is that possible?

Our training was held at the headquarters for our school.  Our training session included 13 other teachers who will be teaching in various cities around Taiwan.  We had quite the mix of teachers.  The nationalities included American, British, South African, Canadian, Australian, and Irish.  A few of the teachers had taught in other countries included China, Siberia and Arabia.  It was a fun group of people with a lot of different personalities.  Two of the teachers will be in Hsinchu City at a different branch than us.

From going through training weeks with corporate America companies, I must say this was the best training I have been through for several reasons.

1.  All of the instructors were British.  We picked up on some new fun British words to start using including rubbish, nappy (diaper), brilliant (used like Americans use great), and just using "quite" more often.  Seriously, the instructors were all previous teachers who know work in HR.  They know how to capture an audience, present a lesson in an interesting manner, and keep their students involved.  The lessons were constructed much like how our classes will be.  We were constantly playing games, being called on, asked to volunteer to assist in the learning process, divided into competitive teams, etc.  For those of you who know about the teacher Ron Clark, I believe Ron would like the classrooms here!  The classes are active.  Everyone must pay attention at all times.  The students are driven and motivated by team points.  Somehow, teaching in these schools could remind me of my camp counseling days....
2.  I really felt like I was learning useful information that will be directly applied to my new job.  Although I have no great expectations that I will be a brilliant teacher in my first month (hopefully not too much longer than that), I feel prepared that I have learned a lot.  James and I agree that there were a few key points missing but overall a lot was covered.  You can tell that I had to stay involved and ready to respond at all times because there are NO doodles in my notes!  I have a doodling addiction as soon as a pen enters my hand in most cases...
3. We observed four classes in Taipei.  Although we had observed classes at our respective schools in Hsinchu, it was nice to see other teachers, too.  I got to observe a Kindy (Kindergarten) class.  It made me a bit sad I do not have any Kindy classes, but I am sure I will get over it :)  We also met another married couple who has been in Taipei teaching English for 9 months!  It was cool to met another married couple doing the same thing as us.
4.  One of the example lessons was conducted in Chinese.  Somehow, we were in a freak group of teachers who all already knew some Chinese.  James and I were so lost.  We know how a student would feel who could not understand what the heck was going on in English class.  We felt like total fools not knowing how to say our nationality and other country names.  However, in the end with a good lesson, we can say a few other countries and "I am American."  I actually got to use this at the market the other day to the cashier.  It was exciting to speak Chinese correctly!
5.  One reason why this training was not so brilliant, we sat at the students' desks from 9:45am to 8:30pm for two of the days and 9:45am to 4pm for the other three days.  Rubbish!

In the meantime we managed to see a little bit more of Taipei during our small amount of free-time.

Monday Run - Da'an Forest Park
This was a 10 minute run from our hostel.  The park is pretty big and full of trees with a dirt track around the exterior.

Tuesday Run - River Park
This park/path lines the river on both sides and was a 5 minute run from the hostel.  The river runs straight (or rather curvy) through Taipei.  I believe it is about 25 miles one way.  The path is for cyclists and pedestrians only!  Basically you see green on both sides of you, a river, city and mountains all at once.  Incredible!

Wednesday Run - Botanical Gardens
Gorgeous gardens about a 10 minute run from the hostel again.  Unfortunately, we were there too early to go into a lot of the gardens but nonetheless very cool.

Thursday Run - National Taiwan Normal University
Sorry...no pictures.  This was very close to our hostel and nothing too special.  Just a college campus with lots of trees and a track.

Friday Run - Back to the river going the opposite direction

On Thursday evening, we had a bit more time given we had completed our observations and our homework (writing our own lesson plan).  We rode the MRT south to the Taipei Zoo.  From there, we hopped straight on a gondola that took us over green mountains.  The ride lasted about 20 minutes and cost $2.66 US each way.  Not too shabby!  We tried to hike some of the trails at the top but unfortunately the sun was already starting to set.  That meant the bugs were coming out!!!!  The ride down was pretty awesome with the city and Taipei 101 lit up.  We will definitely go back there for a full day's trip of hiking and learning to make our own tea.  The spot is famous for making your own tea and apparently delicious.

View from the top with Taipei 101

Biggest snails ever!

Link to the gondola ride movie - http://youtu.be/QnwZVIzFDKs 

Other highlights of Taipei were:

• The hostel -  Thank you Eight Elephants hostel!  There were no cockroaches in our rooms!  We enjoyed flushing our toilet paper because they supposedly have piping made for that.  Either that or the staff doesn't like to take out stinky toilet paper.  They also had a filter drinking water faucet connected to the kitchen sink.  Finally it was simple and easy to drink water again.  Also, we enjoyed having a real kitchen for the first time since arriving in Taiwan.  We made our own dinner every night!  We also met a lot of neat people at the hostel.  I feel like we were at grandma's house getting spoiled all week. 
• The Vegetarian Restaurant by our school and hostel -  We did not have high hopes for this place but it exceeded our exceptions.  Steamed veggie dumplings rock our world!
• Public trashcans - There are no public trashcans in Hsinchu.  I do not know the reason for this.  However, there are trashcans in Taipei.  Maybe there are no trashcans in Hsinchu since there are no sidewalks to put them on.  Who was the city planner for this place?  :) 
• Foreigners are everywhere - Locals did not stare at me in Taipei.  They are used to seeing blonde, blue-eyed females.  They are also used to seeing women running!  We saw a couple of tough Taiwanese athletes.  By the way, today in Hsinchu a high school girl came up to James and I and asked to have her picture taken with us.  James was right, we are the celebrities now we were always meant to be.  I bet that picture is on facebook now :)
• Family Mart Sweet Potatoes - We learned that Family Mart, a convenient store similar to 711, sells baked Japanese sweet potatoes by weight.  Fortunately or possibly unfortunately, we have a Family Mart directly across the street from our apartment.  You literally take the potato off the coals in the cooker, put it in a bag, buy it, and eat it walking down the street.  So delicious!
• MRT - There is no need for a scooter of car in Taipei.  The MRT is incredible.  It can take you to the mountains north of Taipei, the mountains south of Taipei, the coast west of Taipei and everywhere in between.  The bus system is great too for reaching the spots beyond the MRT.  The MRT also has shopping malls at the stops.  Most stops also sell food and drink.  There is a food court at the main station. 
• The people are just as friendly and helpful - Even in the major world city, the people are just as friendly and helpful (and a lot of people speak English).  One local insisted on walking us to the train we needed to ride at the MRT even though we understood where to do.  He missed his train to do that!  Can you imagine someone doing that at Marta?! 
• Cooler weather - Although the weather was still extremely hot and humid, it rained for a short time everyday which kept the temperatures down.  Speaking of temperatures, we have heard that the weather is about to get a lot hotter and more humid for July and August.  For the first time in my life, I will be looking forward to the cooler weather in the fall. 

Upon returning to Hsinchu, we went to my school's Welcome and Farewell Teacher party at a local restaurant.  I had to make it back for my own party!  The staff at my school is pretty darn cool.  Good news for James...a second teacher will be at his school starting in August!!!!!!

Well, James is currently busting his brain cells doing lesson planning for his 4 back-to-back classes on Monday :(  I am literally subbing for all of a teacher's classes next week while he is on holiday.  We are both starting with heavy schedules (James a lot more so than me).  Pollyanna would say - More hours mean a bigger paycheck.  Just as we were starting to adjust to living in Taiwan, now we start a new career.  The challenges of moving to a new country are endless!  Starting in July, we will have summer classes for the next two months so the structure will be different.  Basically the goal of next week is survival.  That simple!

The University across the street from us is having beginner Chinese classes for 1.5 hours every Monday and Wednesday morning over the summer for less than $7/person.  Ready or not...the Rockwells will be learning Chinese!  Classes start in one week.

Our goals for the weekend are - scooter shopping, getting me a cell phone, James doing his lesson plans for Monday and church.  The Rockwells never stop....

Random picture of the post - James refilling our water bottles at the refill station.  It's quite the workout walking home with those jugs!

On an extremely sad note, we were faced with our first bad news from home.  I believe the hardest times for our homesickness at this point will be when something causing great sorrow or celebration happens at home and we are not there to be with the ones we love.  James' Auntie Laurie faced a painful battle with cancer over the last several months.  God took her to His kingdom on Friday evening and ended her suffering.  She was one of the sweetest people in the world.  She will be missed by many.