Earthquake!...on the 10th Floor

It has been a miracle that this year there have been significantly less earthquakes than last year. Well, that miracle was shaken away on Sunday morning when our apartment building began to sway. Yes, you read that right, sway.

Earthquakes are scary enough to us Midwesterners because it is such a foreign and unnerving feeling. Last year they were scary; the building shakes and the contents of your shelfs start to rumble towards the edge. This year is oh-so-much worse living on the 10th floor of a high rise apartment complex. Now, I take comfort in thinking about how many regulations there must be on buildings as tall as ours (17 stories!), but I also worry that it could still fall. Obviously.

It is a very odd/terrifying sensation to realize that your entire apartment building is swaying back and forth because there is an earthquake. It sort of feels like when you go up into a tall fire-tower and it sways with the breeze. Except this is a huge concrete and steel structure...where you live. We checked later and it was actually a pretty big earthquake, 6.1 on the Richter Scale, but it was far away and deep in the earth. It still scared me enough to not want to experience any more while at home! Minnesota, when can I set my feet on your solid ground again???

The Joy's of Having a Mechanic Named Bruce

I am convinced that mechanics all over the world must all be alike. It takes a special type of person to get their hands dirty day after day and constantly fix machines that the rest of us try our bests to run into the ground. No matter the race, language, or time zone, a mechanic is a mechanic.

Which is exactly why I love my mechanic Bruce. First of all, his name is Bruce which is quite possibly the best mechanics name in all the land. Second, he is the stereotypical mechanic you would think of, but Asian. In a culture that is lacking in machoness, Bruce is all that is man. I know several male coworkers who love to go visit him just because they think he is a cool guy.

And most importantly, Bruce is a straight shooter and will not cheat you on parts or labor costs (since he doesn't charge anything labor, it would be pretty tough to!). I can go get my oil changed from Bruce (like I just did, hence the raving blog post you are reading) and he will tell me if my tires need to be changed or just pumped up with air. He will tell me I'm an idiot for waiting so long to get my oil changed and then he will tell me if I need to replace the brakes or not. Last time I did need to replace my brakes, and good old Bruce put in used ones to save me some money...which I hope is safe.

My favorite part about seeing Bruce for my oil change however, is the departure. I will generally smile and tell him thank you and all I get in response is a slight nod of the head and a somewhat dismissive hand wave. Mechanics are lovable, gruff characters. Even in Taiwan.

Volleyball Tournament Weekend

For the second year in a row, we have hosted the ACAMIS middle school volleyball tournament right here in Taichung. That was this weekend and since I had relatively nothing to do, I decided to drive on over and cheer for the kids. I teach quite a few of them and since it's a small school, I know almost all others.

The volleyball was fun to watch, but perhaps the best part about going there was our unexpected welcome. We walked into the gym while the girls team was warming up and the boys were sitting on the bleachers ready to watch them. One of them must have spotted us come in because they started waving and then when we waved back one of them jumped up, ran to meet us, and gave us high fives. And then the next one ran up, and the next one. We successively high-fived the entire middle school boys team and went to go sit down on the bleachers thinking they all ran past us because they had somewhere to be. Instead, they just filed back and returned to sit all around us. It was pretty adorable because they all jumped out of their seats solely because they were so excited to see us there, it really makes me glad I went!

"I Feel So Accomplished"

There are inevitably days in teaching when you curse the ground in your classroom and ask yourself "Why? Why did I go into education?!" Luckily, those are almost always offset by the really great days when students surprise you in the best ways. Today was one of the good days.

About a month and a half ago, we got a student in from L.A. He is Taiwanese born but lived in California for over 7 years; needless to say he is practically fluent in English which is awesome. Along with this great communication however, comes the American mindset of many students. Nick (that's what I'll call him on here) doesn't like math, and doesn't want to do it, and he will let you know this. Oh boy will he let you know. It is in stark contrast to his classmates who are generally good at math and sweet students overall.

I have been struggling with Nick ever since he came- he doesn't want to do any work and is a distraction to other students in class if he's awake (he sleeps lots in my class too). He feels like he shouldn't be in Geometry and should instead be in a lower class because he failed his last math class, Algebra 1. I don't blame him necessarily, but it's impossible with his schedule to put him in a lower class at our school. Consequently, he has been shutting down a lot in my class no matter what I do to try to engage him.

Today in Geometry was just another day, so I wasn't anticipating anything special. We were working on sine, cosine, and tangent and I split the students into partners to do some problems. To my great surprise, I noticed Nick hunched over his notebook working intently. This almost never happens, so I let him go and waited for him to finish. When he did, he looked up, raised his hand, and asked if I could check his work. When I told him it was 100% correct, his face lit up and said "Wow, I feel so accomplished!" He then proceeded to go around the class helping other students who didn't understand.

It was a pretty cool moment. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but it's a start to say the least.

Taipei City!

What I love most about being a normal adult again, I don't teach on Saturday's for the second half of the year, is that I get real weekends. Since I get two full days off, I took full advantage of it this weekend. A friend of mine and I hopped a bus bound for Taipei City!

Even though I have been here for a year and a half already, I still have not seen Taipei...at all. It is sad, I know, so I did something to change it. We left school right away on Friday and got to our hotel at about 8 that evening. Not much time for anything but a little BBQ and some Taiwan Beers. A good Friday night if you ask me!

Saturday we were up early and to the National Palace Museum by midmorning to beat the crowds. The National Palace Museum in Taipei has more original Chinese artifacts than the Beijing museum because a lot of it was smuggled out of the country for safe keeping when Mao took over in the early 1940's. So it's a really cool experience to have and we quite appropriately spent over 3 hours there. Time for a late lunch, rest time, and then dinner at a Mexican restaurant. A drink at a bar and then it was time for us dorky teachers to hit the sack.

Sunday we took a short MTR trip to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (Chiang Kai-shek was the first leader of Taiwan after they separated from China) which is very impressive. It didn't hurt that it was a beautiful day in February, so it was a good end to our weekend. A short bus ride back brings us back to reality, but it was a really great weekend away. And I finally got to see Taipei! A very nice Asian city, and a nice modern place in Taiwan...

Will I get My Keys Back?

We have been having problems in our bathroom recently with a leaky shower. So we called Daniel, the son-in-law of our landlord, who speaks awesome English and lives in the building next to ours. He came over a week ago maybe and took a look at it and decided he couldn't fix it. He arranged for us to have a handyman come and last night he finally did.

This was the same handyman I had try to fix our couch a while ago (see previous post on it...truly great) so I was glad to see him. Unfortunately, he couldn't fix it at the time either- he needed a new rubber washer before he could stop the leak. So Daniel suggested that I give him my keys and he would let the repairman in the next day around noon. "Well," I asked Daniel, "that sounds fine, but how am I going to get my keys back then?"

"Oh, I'll just leave them with the front desk workers for you to pick up" was his obvious response. However, I had flashbacks to the first time we tried to talk to them about our mailbox and why there was this weird colored thing on it, and it was a total and epic failure. He must have seen my face turn colors, because he assured me that he would leave a note or something. I have my doubts that this will work though. Unless his note says "There will be a crazy white girl who can't speak any Chinese needing to pick these up from you" I don't foresee this going well.

Everyone, keep your fingers crossed that I see my keys again!

Lantern Festival 2012

The Lantern Festival marks the end of the Chinese New Year celebration each year. You probably picture iconic images of beautiful lit orbs floating away in a skyline of orange (see more info here), but unfortunately that doesn't happen too much anymore. Now the Taiwanese simply celebrate with street food (yum!), bad live music, and lighted dragons (since it is the year of the dragon now). Fingers crossed though, I should be getting some more pictures of actual lanterns being set off from school tonight, but until then take a look at the modern celebration we partook in last night at a park downtown! Happy Lantern Festival everyone.

Just your standard street food stalls. This one has some pig's blood cake I think...

Year of the dragon!!!

Just a couple of white people enjoying this Asian tradition.

This Means War!!!

As my previous post mentioned, there are definitely benefits to teaching at a private international school. I rediscovered another one: how much fun you can have with coworkers and students. I realize, again, that there is fun to be had in American public schools as well, but things are just more relaxed here. Like I mentioned in my previous post, the student-teacher relationship is just different when you are a teacher at a boarding school.

So one of my coworkers, Dan, loves candy. I don't think you understood me just there, you probably read" My coworker Dan really enjoys to eat candy", but what I mean is that my coworker Dan literally loves candy. It is hilarious and also sometimes an issue.

Take for instance today: I was out of my classroom down the hall for two seconds before my cleaners came (each student cleans a designated classroom between 6th and 7th hour each day at our school). As I was walking back to my room, Dan comes scurrying out while laughing hysterically and I find my cleaners looking somewhat scared and definitely confused holding various cleaning tools. Concerned, I surveyed my room only to find my Jolly Rancher container open and missing some candy! Dan!!!!!!!!

As if that wasn't funny enough, he then proceeded to send his cleaner, 8th-grade Julia, down to my room with one of the empty wrappers and instructed her to tell me "Mr. K said it was delicious! Thank you!". What he didn't realize however, was that he started a war. I already have the perfect retaliation, but I am not allowed to discuss it here because he may have spies who read this blog.

I love teaching at a private international school! So much fun :)

My Students Feed Me

There are definitely perks to teaching in an international private school. One of those perks that I experience on a daily basis is the general kindness of all of our students. I realize that in public school, there are plenty of nice kids, but the student teacher relationship in America is significantly colder than here. In the States it is common to ask a teacher, "how was your weekend?" and it is equally as common for the teacher to respond with a simple "it was good! Ok, take out your books..."

Here, I have a much stronger connection with almost all of my students because, frankly, I have to. We are a boarding school so all of my students live here without any sort of parents involved. A lot of them are even alone on Parent's Day...which is twice a year. It's sort of sad when you think about it.

Lucky for me though, they sort of treat us teachers as their parents/mentors/older siblings I guess. They ask us how our weekend was and expect a real answer, so I have gotten in the habit of telling them the rundown of what I did on the weekend. They know when I clean, when I go shopping, and what my favorite restaurants are.

Another great thing about our teenage students is that they are always hungry. Thus, they always have food in class. I allow it in my classroom because I have a standing rule about eating: it's fine as long as you give Ms. Pint some. I have them trained so well that one of my students, Jason, just walked into my classroom and without even sitting down walked over to my desk and offered me a cracker. I'm starting to get nervous that the American school children won't share their candy with me when I return...