Christmas Concert 2011

Well, it's Friday morning. Which means the Christmas singing competition is already over. it was great, the kids were awesome and Archimedes House did really well! We are anxiously awaiting the results today, but in the mean time, here are some shots from the whole thing:

I'm Sorry! It's So Busy Here!

Ok, so I know I haven't posted in like over two weeks. I am terribly sorry about that. Really, I care about you all still, I do, but it has been so hectic and busy here. I haven't had a moment to sit and do this since the last one!

Where to even start? Well, let me first explain why it has been so busy here for us. Right before a major break, this one being our 16 day Christmas Holliday (yes!!!!), things go a little insane at our school. Everything that we have been putting off until "later" needs to be accomplished before we lose the kids to their parents again. So the "later" has become the "right now!" and we pack it all in. In the three weeks leading up to break (we are on the last and final week right now), I have had zero days off. don't be confused, I mean weekends too! Yikes.

So it all began with two weekends ago. I always teach on Saturday's so that's a day I don't get off every week like the normal teachers you all know. But two weekends ago I also worked on Sunday: my roommate and I took her World Religion class students up to Taipei for the day to go to a museum. It was a really cool experience and I loved the kids in her class, but it was still work on a Sunday for me.

Then last weekend I again taught on Saturday (a wicked cool Jeopardy SAT Math game that the kids totally got into. If you teach or just want to learn SAT Math, shoot me an email and I can hook you up!) and again, needed to be at school on Sunday. Every year we invite the Down Syndrome Society of Taichung to school for a concert and we generally donate money to them at that time. So we had that little party at that time. Again, fun to see the kids and listen to the singing, but it was working again on Sunday.

And finally we are on the home stretch. However, the light at the end of the tunnel seems dim right about now, even though it is Thursday of our last week. This week has been the most hectic of them all- I have been putting in 10-12 hour days each day this week and right now I'm at hour 5 of my epic 15 hour day. Ugh. At least today should be fun. Here's the schedule:

Thursday starts just like your average day. I teach all of my four classes, just like a normal old school day. Then after school, instead of having normal activity, we will all gather in our houses to practice for the singing competition tonight. At 6 the formal Christmas dinner will start where we get pineapple glazed ham and other treats. Finally at 7:30 the house Christmas carol singing competitions will begin. Since there are 8 houses and each house sings two songs, I think we will be here for a while tonight!

Lucky for us, tomorrow we only have a half day. So in 24 hours I will be done! After 18 consecutive days working, we will be free of all obligations and children until January 4th. Sigh....I can't wait! I promise to be better at posting, I'll even try to take some pictures tonight at the singing contest and post them tomorrow!

A little Late, but Happy Thanksgiving!

Ok, so I know I'm really late on this one, but I just got some pictures sent to me so I figured I'd write a blog post on it now anyway. Better late than never, right? Hmm, well here goes anyways.

Spending holiday's away from home and especially, away from your home country, is odd. You feel displaced, obviously a little sad, and sort of awkward. It's awkward on holiday's like Thanksgiving especially since it is an America specific one only; the Taiwanese have no idea what we're talking about when we bring it up and I don't blame them at all. So Thanksgiving can be a little rough when living abroad. For me, it is really the first time in the school year when I miss home with all the smells of a big Thanksgiving meal and the sounds of our incredibly loud family. It sort of reminds you how far away you are from the ones you love.

The nice thing about our school however, is that it is filled with teachers just like me. We are almost all from the Midwest so we all know the pangs of homesickness come Thanksgiving time. Thus, we band together and throw our own Thanksgiving feast! Now I must admit that it cannot compare to the wonderful food and festivities from home, but it isn't too bad for a few expats throwing together a potluck meal. I even made the stuffing this year, compliments of my Mom's recipe, and we had a big bird to carve from a local restaurant. There were cranberries and mashed potatoes, pumpkin and apple pie, and of course a fun time had by all. If I can't be home with my own family for the holiday's, I'm glad I at least have this adopted family to keep me company here. Happy holiday's everyone!

Deriving the Quadratic Formula

There are definitely moments when I look at myself and say, "wow, I am a dorky math teacher!" I like it, don't get me wrong, it's funny sometimes though.

Yesterday was one of those days. I was teaching my 10A students about completing the square to solve a quadratic function. The next thing we needed to learn was the quadratic formula; we all know it by the dorky song but I didn't really want to teach them that.

So I figured I'd take a more analytical approach. I figured it was a good group to do it with since they are all very quiet (I wouldn't get a lot of singing participation out of them to say the least) and very good at math.

So we started by completing the square on the general quadratic function: 0 = ax² + bx + c. Now I won't bore you with the process, but by completing the square (if some of you are curious about what I'm talking about, brush up on your math skills a bit!) with this general function, we derived the quadratic formula. That's right, instead of just making my students remember the quadratic formula, they now know where it comes from and why it exists! If that's not cool, I just don't know what is...ok, dorky math teacher again! Again, if your inner-dork is crying out for more math, this is a write-up of what was on my board yesterday and now in my students notes...so cool, I know :) Enjoy!

We Have New Furniture!

If you ready my last blog post, you know there was going to be a change in our apartment. It came last night at around 7 p.m. in the form of a big, ugly, very awkward Taiwanese version of a futon! Yay!

As much as I hate the fact that we got a random piece of furniture that in no way shape or form goes with the other couch and has a ver bizarre design, I love not having a broken couch in our apartment anymore. It may not be the perfect piece of furniture, but hey, it's new! And we went to Carefore last night right after it was delivered to get some pillows for it to make it more usable. All in all, I would call this a success for the apartment and even a mild victory for future house guests: it may not be super comfy, but it was described to us as a "sleeper couch." Again, more of a crappy futon type thing, but it will work. Yay, new couch!

A Taiwan Repairman

It is pretty standard in Taiwan that if something breaks, they can and will fix it instead of automatically replacing it. Scooters that would have been discarded years ago in other countries are still alive and, for the most part, running here. Chairs that are so broken they make odd popping and screeching noises when sat upon, are glued up and screwed back together to last another few months. It is impressive in a "reduce, reuses, recycle" sort of way, but very frustrating when you just want things to work sometimes.

Our couch at our apartment is a classic example of this. It started breaking at the beginning of the year and got progressively worse with each dinner party (people don't look where they are sitting when they have a full plate of enchiladas apparently) and finally got to a point where we couldn't use it anymore. I was pretty sure that it was ready for the dump, but when we called our landlord (our apartment is furnished by her) she told us she would send over a repairman. Fine, just fix it then; we just wanted a useable couch.

Little did we know how funny and productive it would be to have a Taiwanese repairman come to our apartment! I was home alone at the scheduled time and he managed to call our apartment phone which has NEVER rang before. I answered it with the classic Taiwan phone greeting "Wei" (pronounced "way") and a man on the other end started speaking in Chinese. I thought it was maybe the front door guard asking if I had a repairman coming, needing him checked in, so I just said "yes" in Chinese, but he kept speaking. I didn't know what to do at this point, so I just kept saying "what?" in Chinese. Eventually, I realized he couldn't get up the elevator because we need to scan our cards every time we go up or down for security purposes. So I went down and met him at the door. I had no idea what Asian man it would be, but I was pretty easy to spot being the only white woman in the lobby so he jumped right out at me and pointed to his hammer and other tools. Those were good enough credentials for me, so we went back up to the 10th floor.

After about 30 minutes of taking a hammer to our couch (it was really broken), I could tell he had given up hope. Total shocker! I thought he would have whipped out the tape and staple gun and sort of patch it back together before giving up like that, but sure enough he called our landlord and told her we needed a new one. What?! A new couch?! How could this be?!?! Then he kept saying something to us about 7, but we couldn't understand what he meant by that.

To our total shock, we got a knock on our door at 7 p.m. sharp. It wasn't a new couch, but it was the son-in-law of our landlady there to take the measurements for a new couch. This is going to be awesome! He said it is going to be delivered on maybe Wednesday of this week and we will have a new couch in our apartment! It will be like we're back in the States again- something breaks and you just get a new one. I don't think we'll know what to do with ourselves when it is delivered... a new couch, a new couch. Wow. This is going to be cool: I'll post a picture when it comes!

Forcing Students to Do Good

For any of you familiar with my school or at all familiar with the stories I tell, you know that the school I teach at is a very expensive private school here in Taiwan. It is the second most expensive school in the country and we generally teach students whose fathers own the factories that made the shoes you are wearing right now. Needless to say, our students generally lead very privileged lives.

So once a year, we like to force them to give back to the community just to prove a point I guess. We call it Common Good Day and it turns into a pseudo house competition. The basic idea is that each house (we have 8 "houses" in our school, just like Harry Potter) choses a charity or act of community service to do on the specific Saturday we set for this forced philanthropic work. Last year my house, Archimedes House, picked up garbage on the side of a mountain. I cannot even begin to explain to you how hot and totally pointless that was.

This year we decided we wanted to actually do something cool for Common Good Day. As a house we decided to put on a Coin Wars competition in the week leading up to the big Saturday. We set the rules a little differently than what I've done in the States but the same basic concept. Each house competes for the most points and you get points by collecting coins in your house jar and you can give negative points to other houses by adding paper money to theirs. Then to raise even more money, we decided to have a scooter and car wash for the teachers and other faculty at the school (see adorable pictures below).

To our complete amazement, both ideas were huge successes. In total, we raised almost $1400 in U.S. currency. We were so proud of our kids because they had everything to do with it: they were excited about it (completely different than last year), they took ownership in the activities (again, so polar opposite of last year) and had good attitudes on the actual day. I had no idea that they could wash a car so well! It was really great to see them work hard for something that was not directly benefiting them.

I think the best part about the day however, was deciding what to do with the money at the end. We went though a website called kiva.org that gives out micro-loans to people around the world that wouldn't otherwise qualify for them to help improve their lives. The cool thing about the website is that you can scroll through the people and chose who you want to donate to. All of our students in Archimedes House intently clicked through countless profiles for the better part of an hour decided exactly who they wanted to help. When they made their decisions they had reasons as to why they wanted to help the particular people that they chose and were really into it. It made me really proud of them- it's how community service is how to feel.

Stop Sitting in Your Desk, Get up and Draw It!

No one, myself included, has ever labeled me as a conventional teacher. I try as hard as possible to do things differently in my math classroom because I hate math lectures as much as any of my students do. Now of course sometimes they are necessary- it is statistically very unlikely that my students would be able to derive the quadratic formula without me simply lecturing on it. That said, with geometry you can do a lot of hands-on activities if you just think creatively.

I think that's the reason why I love teaching geometry so much because it is an entirely visual math. Not only do you look at pictures and diagrams with every problem, but you can really dive into visual aspects of real life with almost every chapter. Today was one of those days in geometry- it was so fun!

We just started chapter 6 which is all about similar polygons. Similarity is something that we see everyday in our lives (think blue prints, maps, etc.) but don't really notice all the time. So instead of speeding through the beginning of the chapter which just introduces the concepts, I decided to take an extra day to do some scale drawings in my class. Why continue to have my students sit in their desks when they could grab a tape measure and start drawing them to scale?

I watched all my students crawling on the floor and measuring all of the nooks and crannies of their terribly small Taiwanese desks. It was awesome to see students who normally sleep through first hour actively arguing with the student next to them as to whether the top of the desk was 41 cm. wide or 42 cm. I'm also a big fan of having them figure it out for themselves so I generally stay out of arguments like that: they finally settled on 41.5 cm. which I thought was an excellent compromise.

It's exciting as a teacher to see students use the math that we learn in class right in front of your eyes. It is also my firm belief that speeding through the book just to get to the end is a terrible way to teach students- what will they remember from that? It is my hope that even if my students remember almost none of the formulas I teach them this year, they will at least remember how to draw something to scale. I think that's more practical anyway.

Shrimp Fishing in Taiwan

There is a Taiwanese phenomenon where people gather around swimming pools stocked with shrimp and "fish" for them. You see these shrimp fishing places all over in Taiwan, and some people are crazy about it. In reality, I think it's just a good excuse to drink and hang out with your buddies while catching delicious crustaceans. Because in the end, you get to cook whatever you catch right there- score!

A lot of my coworkers and I have been very curious about shrimping (what we call the process of fishing for shrimp in these confined indoor pools) for a while now. So we enlisted the help of two of our amazing office secretaries to help us experience this truly Taiwanese tradition.

I cannot even describe to you how bizarre it is! We went to one that was pretty small so you sit around this swimming pool basically with a line in the water and wait for the shrimp at the bottom of the pool to nibble. Then you yank them out! True to form we did drink some beers and had some great conversations, so I would label it a success. We also managed to bring in quite the haul of shrimp to eat at the end of the night- I caught two myself! And most importantly, we got to spend some time with our lovely secretaries outside of school which was possibly the most fun part of it all.

I have obviously fished for actual fish before, but never a shrimp. I didn't really know if they would respond to my normal techniques!

Our secretaries/shrimp-fishing-guides for the night- Sindy and Elysa.

We worked hard for these shrimp, we deserved to roll them in salt and cook them on the spot!

The whole (motley) crew

Rainy Commute

There are clear advantages to living off-campus, I have written an extensive blog post on it even. However, when your only means of transportation is a scooter, things get a little hairy on rainy days...or I guess I should say wet.

I love my scooter, I do, but it lacks a roof and windows. My helmet is quite large and has a visor, but on days when it is really raining you get wet. I walk into my classroom and sort of shake like a dog on those days.

This week has been rainy every single day thus far. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I am keeping my fingers crossed for Friday as of right now, but listening to the constant pitter patter of rain outside at 5 p.m. on Thursday evening, I am not hopeful.

The only good thing about this is that I live in Taiwan and everyone has to deal with this issue. So the Taiwanese have come up with a brilliant solution: full body rain slickers that can cover a king sized bed if necessary. Now the picture you see is clearly not me, and unfortunately I don't have quite the Cadillac of rain covers like that, but it looks similar. Mine is big and baggy like that and goes down to my knees. I wear my backpack underneath so I look like a hunch back when I'm driving. It is really funny looking but I am never alone on the road wearing one!

Jolly Rancher Mania

It is no lie that candy in America is much higher in sugar than most of the rest of the world. Whenever I get any sort of candy made in Taiwan or other part of Asia, I can tell the difference right away. After living here for over a year now, I sort of like the less intense sweet taste- especially since eating some candy from the U.S. feels like it's melting your teeth as you consume it.

It is also a universal truth that all children love sugar. So all of our students are of course, no exception. They grew up eating the Asian candy that has a much lower sugar content (and probably lower levels of artificial dyes and sweeteners as well), so when they have American candy they sort of freak out a little bit.

I tend to have an almost constant supply of Jolly Ranchers in my classroom so I can win the teacher popularity test (thanks Mom for sending them in packages always!). There isn't actually a contest like that, but it is fun to bribe the kids with candy sometimes. And the students treat them like they are pure crack cocaine. It is funny but somewhat alarming at times.

Take today, for example. I accidentally mentioned to one 8th grade student that I would give her a Jolly Rancher if she visited me in my classroom and told me her favorite prime number. Before I knew it, there was a pack of children in my room yelling out numbers, not always prime, and just a constant demand of "We want candy!"

It was hilarious for the first five minutes and then I had to start getting brutal. Some of the older students couldn't simply tell me their favorite prime number for the goods, I made one of them tell me the four congruence theorems for triangles because I taught him geometry last year. I made another student solve an SAT math problem to get the sugary treat and simply made another say that math was their favorite subject. It was pretty fun even if it was sort of a loud headache for about ten minutes.

Although it gives me a good chuckle to watch them freak out over the candy, it does concern me somewhat. What are American candy companies putting into their products to make them so addictive and desirable? Can we get some of that for learning math?

New Tea and New Words

At lunch everyday, I try to spark up conversation that will involve all of my advisees. I have five kids and they all have their own interests and hobbies. So I tend to talk about myself and let them make comments/judgements- it works great!

Yesterday at lunch we were discussing tea. I was explaining my love of bubble tea and jasmine milk tea and really any other type of tea. Then they were telling me to try all of these other types of tea I should try. They suggested I try a chocolate milk tea with oatmeal in it. I thought it sounded strange and really gross, but I was curious, so I asked them how to say it in Chinese.

That was the moment I learned the coolest name in Chinese: Ke Ke Pow Pow! The best part about the name of this tea is that the "pow pow" at the end is said in the fourth tone which is down. You basically say "pow pow" like you're angry or perhaps shooting a toy gun. It is so fun! I went around school for the rest of the day asking kids if they likes that tea and for the most part, they just laughed at me.

To make things better, Vivi and ReRe, my two advisees in support of me trying Ke Ke Pow Pow, decided it was time for me to taste it. So last night when they were making a tea order for themselves and some other girls on campus, they ordered me one too. While sitting in the library on duty, I got to sip on some Ke Ke Pow Pow from 7-9 last night. I can't say that it is my favorite tea to drink, but I think it is my new favorite to say!

Oh No, I Didn't Mean to Offend!

There are times when I think to myself, "I am so cultured and sensitive to the feelings of other people!" and then there are times when I think "Wow, I sound like a racist right now!" Even living and working in Asia for over a year now, I still have quite a few of the second type of thoughts on a daily basis. I think that's sort of human nature, especially when you live in a culture so completely unlike your own. It is fairly normal to observe the differences you see and sometimes you react to things without thinking. Guilty as charged.

Yesterday I went to get a pedicure at a new place that I've never been to before. I had stopped in the day before to ask about price and appointment availability and talked to the owner/only employee (it was a super small place). She was really nice and even spoke quite a bit of English which always makes things easier.

When I walked in yesterday, I saw an Asian woman standing there so I dove right into this rant:

"Hi! I stopped in yesterday, you said you would maybe have time at 4 today? Is that still ok? I just need a pedicure..."

She sort of blankly looked at me, which of course made me nervous, so I kept going with more exaggerated arm flapping and pantomiming my words:

"It's ok if you don't have time, I live right around the corner so it's no big deal. Tomorrow? Some other time this week? Whenever, I can make it work..."

She must have realized what was going on at this point because she responded to my crazy ramblings in perfect English:

"Oh, ya I don't work here, I'm just another customer. Do you want me to call her? I think she's in the back."

I had no idea it was not the woman I had talked to the previous day! They were the same age approximately, same length hair, and I even thought their faces were very similar. I had made the classic "all Asians look the same" stereotype mistake in person and the woman (who didn't work at the nail place) looked mildly offended. There was literally nothing I could do to make the situation better. I felt really bad.

My nail salon racist moment is actually pretty funny because I am awesome at telling all of our students apart. I listen to some of the new teachers confusedly try to separate them in their minds and I silently mock them- how could they get Sam and Benson confused? They so clearly look different! And Angel and Tina? Really? They don't even look like they could be cousins!

Now I just have to eat my words. I guess a valuable lesson was learned: perhaps survey a room a little better before opening your mouth. Or maybe ask simple questions first, like "Are you the lady I talked to yesterday?" Oh, next time. Next time I'll try to make less of a fool of myself.

A Day at Taichung Port

Without any major trips planned for fall break, my roommate, Nichole, and I decided we would just do some small things around Taichung to celebrate the lack of teaching responsibilities. Yesterday we woke up and decided it would be a good day to check out Taichung Port. Neither of us had been there before but a few of our coworkers had and said it was nice.

At around noon we saddled up and took off on our scooters for the ocean. Taichung is inland about an hour so we had quite a drive ahead of us. Luckily, it was near impossible to mess up because we had to stay on Taichung Port Road the entire way out. And it was a beautiful day for a drive, so it was actually a great long scooter trip.

Once we got there, we realized that we were going to be stared at a lot throughout the day: we were the only white people in the entire port. I don't know why I was surprised by this. Taichung itself is not a huge tourist destination thus an obscure hours-drive-away attraction would logically have even less tourists which would normally bring the total to zero. We sort of stuck out. The good news is that Nichole and I are both fairly used to this by now, so we went about the port looking at the stalls and buying food like any normal Taiwanese people.

They had mounds and mounds of dried fish and squid and whatever else they caught in the ocean (seen above). You could buy live clams and mussels and shrimp (again, above). And of course you could buy seafood that was already cooked into something delicious, which is the option I went with.

My favorite discovery of the day was a stand of food that had absolutely no English on it. No numbers, no pictures, just Chinese characters. I normally stay away from these types of stalls, but I could see them assembling this sort of pocket of dough filled with almost all of God's sea creatures and then throwing it into a deep fryer. I had to try it. Without fail, it was amazing.

And of course, what would a trip to the port be without some squid on a stick? I couldn't pass it up!

After we had our fill of street food, Nichole and I explored a little more and discovered that they offered boat tours. Boat tours! I made it my life's mission to get us on one of those boats once I saw that, thus started a very funny and confusing process in which we made lots of Taiwanese friends.

We walked up to a ticket booth that had pictures of boats on it and some random numbers, but again, no English. So we just started holding up money and pointing to the two of us to try to get our point across. Soon enough, we had caused quite a ruckus because everyone wanted to help us get on that boat, even the random couple we accidentally budged in front of line.

After a confusing form that was all in Chinese and some more confusing conversations where we couldn't understand anything, a younger woman came over and started speaking English to us and told us the boat would leave in a few minutes but there was free fruit for us in the back. So we go check it out. They handed both of us a whole guava that had been crudely chopped and as soon as we had these piles of fruit in our hands, they were telling us it was time to go already. As you can see from the picture above, we were confused but laughing at the situation. Plus we got some free fruit out of it, so it was pretty awesome.

We were a little frazzled by this process but soon enough, we found ourselves in life jackets sitting on a Taiwanese sight-seeing boat in Taichung Port. Even though it is a shipping yard and really has no natural beauty, we still enjoyed our cruise around Taichung Port. All in all, it was a great Taiwanese Sunday!

Math Olympiads in Hong Kong

I was right, it was a whirlwind of a trip! I'll give you a quick rundown of our schedule in Hong Kong first: leave school on Friday at noon. Fly from Taichung to Hong Kong and land at around 4 p.m. There is a lady from the host school waiting to pick us up and we get on the shuttle train into the city. Another staff member greets us at the terminal and the kids leave for their homestays. I stick with the two ladies who picked me up and they take me to my hotel. Drinks, dinner, sleep. At 10 a.m. on Saturday I see my kids again (still alive! Whoo hoo!) and the competition starts. They work all day and I work all day grading the competition papers (yuck). At least there were cookies.

After the closing ceremonies, we pile back onto a bus and head to the airport. Get some noodles and some duty free shopping in, then board a plane at a little before 9 and land in Taichung at 10:20 or so. Parents are at the gate to pick everyone up and I go home! Whoa, was that an international trip or did I just blink and miss something?

Alright, that was exhausting just recapping all of that! In all actuality though, it was a really fun 36 hours in Hong Kong and we literally had no problems. There was one, maybe two, stressful moments, but nothing I couldn't handle. Which was a good thing seeing as how I was the only adult on the trip which made me nervous. Ok, so there was one moment when I freaked out a little bit.

I did get completely separated from them by customs because they had convinced me they didn't need an arrival card for Hong Kong since they were R.O.C. citizens. I believed them since most of them had been to Hong Kong before and just filled one out for myself. As soon as I was through customs, I look over to see the officer telling one of the kids that they need a card, and all of them panicked. I tried to help them, but I of course was already cleared through so I needed to keep walking. I was very anxious for the next five minutes, but sure enough they all figured it out and made it through. Thank goodness these kids are somewhat used to international travel!

As far as the math goes, it wasn't our best showing. Out of nine teams, we only took sixth. I was disappointed of course, and they were initially devastated, but I gave them my best teacher pep-talk: "there will always be that 'one' team who is going to beat you. It's sort of a fact of life, so all you can do is try your best and improve upon what you are capable of doing. I'm really proud of all of you! I don't care that we didn't get first! We had fun, right?"

So when that inevitably didn't work, I took them to Starbucks and there were finally smiles again. I think all in all, they had a great time and I really did too. It's not often that you can take a team of kids to a different country to compete in a math competition. By my standards, that's pretty cool!

The Eve of Departure

Tomorrow is D-Day....or should I say M-Day? M standing, of course, for mathematics.

After teaching for half a day, at noon I will board a bus with my four returning Math Olympiad students and head to the Taichung Airport. Destination: Hong Kong, where we will compete in the annual ACAMIS Maths Olympiad middle school competition. Last year we took 3rd place and this year, since I have all four kids coming back for a second year, I'm hoping we can do that if not better (keep your fingers crossed for us!).

At this time last year I was very amazed at the fact that I was solely in charge of four teenagers during international travel. I am still amazed by this fact. Although I consider myself to be a somewhat mature and responsible person and I learned a lot last year being a teacher in an international school, I still have only been responsible for myself throughout my entire life. Now at the age of 23, I am taking children to a different Asian country and I am the only adult in charge of their safety and well being. The only adult. Man it is weird to think of it that way.

The reality of the situation is, these kids are so good that I really don't have to worry. Last year the only problem I had was that they got a tiny bit annoying when I had spent 36 hours straight with them. Sure I left them standing in the middle of the Hong Kong International Airport terminal and told them to meet me at the gate at boarding time before speed walking away from them, but they were already in the secured area. I knew they would be fine! I'm pretty sure that is to be expected when you spend that much time with your middle school students.

This year I am expecting about the same. Especially since, just like last year, I am staying in a hotel while the children are staying with families from the host school in Hong Kong. This gives me a much needed break and then I'll be well rested and ready to go for the competition on Saturday. After a long day thinking about mathematics, the team and I will board a plane that night and head back to Taiwan.

It will be a whirlwind of a weekend but I'm really looking forward to it. You don't really get these types of opportunities teaching at a public school in Minnesota, so I'm trying to really take advantage of it. Just think, by this time tomorrow I will be sitting in Hong Kong- not too bad of a school trip, huh?!

Just Your Average High School Dance

Last night was the annual Halloween Costume Dance at our school. Although the students really enjoy it, for the obvious reason of they don't have study hall and they get to stay up later, I still feel as if the teachers enjoyed it more. While our students throw on some bizarre clothes and paint their faces a little, the teachers really commit to the characters of their costumes.

Last year I made the obvious choice of being a graphing calculator. This was an excellent choice because I was then able to dance like the sine graph all night and my fellow math nerd, Kate, would push my buttons and I could just yell out numbers. It was great. I still have the cardboard cutout hanging in my classroom and like to teach in it sometimes.

This year however, we decided to make more of an effort to tell a story with our costumes. The story we chose: the three blind mice and the butchers wife. An obvious choice since there are four of us girls that are good friends from last year, plus we figured the kids wouldn't get it so it would be funny.

True to form, the students thought we were the mice from Shrek because they have never heard the three blind mice nursery rhyme before. It was great to see them react to our butchers wife, Nichole, as well because they just thought she was crazy (we did make her carry around a fake butchers knife and three chopped-off mice tails complete with fake blood on them).

Us teachers led the Cupid Shuffle, did a little dance to "Bye Bye Bye" in the front of the auditorium, and managed to start a train or two. Like I mentioned before, I really think the teachers enjoyed it more than the students. Who doesn't love dressing up and dancing around like a high school kid again?!

KTV Madness

KTV, or the Taiwanese version of karaoke, is quite possibly the best idea for a Saturday to spend with friends. We all gathered (14 or 15 of us) at a local KTV near our apartment in celebration of Kate and Nichole's birthdays last night and had an amazing time. We did the same thing last year but somehow, this year was just much more epic!

If you read my weekend preview blog post before, you know that KTV is a much more enclosed karaoke experience. And for us loud, crazy American's, that is a very good thing. That way, we have our own room to yell out the lyrics to Boys to Men and Backstreet Boys. We all decided since it was such a success, we need to do it more than just once a year!

Teachers v. Students

Friday after school some of the faculty challenged the boys varsity volleyball team to a game. Although I hate to say it, the students won. Not without putting up a good fight though!

It was a ton of fun and a great way to wrap up my week:

My coworker Dan with the determination of some sort of vicious creature...and also the jumping ability of one!

The students weren't going easy on us either.

However we did have adorable score-keepers.

I set up some good balls when I was in front, even if my form is a little sloppy :)

I also had quite the serving streak (not to toot my own horn, but beep beep).

One of my favorite students, Johnson, going up for a block. Hey makes these faces when I teach him Algebra 2 as well!

We had a secret weapon, Kevin, who played for the mens club team at UWL. He is wicked good and was not going easy on the boys with his jump serve (let's just say I was glad I was not receiving them!).