Yoga IS Dangerous!

It's no surprise that I am not the most graceful person ever. So me doing yoga is always a sight to see to say the least. Almost every pose I look absolutely ridiculous but I still try my best! I'm pretty sure the instructor thinks I'm somewhat of a lost cause.

Last night we had our weekly yoga class on Tuesday nights. I've been getting really close to getting into an actual headstand and last night I made some great progress. I can get one leg straight up in the air but when I go to put the second one up, I freak out and fall over. No big deal, I fall a lot in yoga.

Attempting side crow was more comical for me last night though. I was holding it, a very hard position if you ask me, for a full five seconds! That was, before I fell straight on my head. My skull hitting the mat made this sort of sic thudding sound and the whole class looked back at me and went "ooouch!" Classic moment for me in yoga!

Not quite what I looked like before my nose dive, but close!

Mast Minds Succeed yet Again

My after school activity is called Master Minds, and we think a lot and come up with masterful solutions to things. I'm always trying to come up with fun challenges for my kids to do and I think I hit the nail on the head with this last one:

build the tallest free standing structure you can with 5 sheets of computer paper and no glue or tape. Go!

Asian Haircut

Tonight was my first international haircut. I said "Some layers around the face and a little trim to cut off some of the slit ends."

I got the one-eye Asian school girl bang. Whatup.

World Math Day!

Today is World Math Day and my after school activity, Master Minds, was TOTALLY into it! Basically you compete against kids your age from across the globe in one minute games of simple arithmetic and see how many questions you can get correct. Not the most complex game I've ever heard of, but the kids loved it so Ms. Pint was happy!

The website chooses people at random to put you against (normally 2-4 kids at one time) and three different computers of our club got onto the same game here! What are the odds???

Jill was one of my Math Olympiads and has been playing this world math day site since I gave her login to her two weeks ago. She can get over 60 questions correct in 60 seconds. She is awesome.

I love being a Měiguó Rén (American)!

Living in Asia, I am painfully aware of how white I am at almost all times. When I'm teaching, I look across my classroom and see Asian faces staring back at me. When we drive on our scooters, there are always people staring from street corners and cars passing by. At the mall, the bank, the local grocery store, EVERYONE can see that we are different and we stick out.

Before coming here, I never really realized how much a person can stick out simply because of the color of their skin. It's probably a really good lesson in life to learn and would be great to see how some people might react to the same situation. But all sage wisdom aside, it totally rocks sometimes!

Today I went into a random little key shop to get my gate clicker fixed (yes we have a gate, we have to keep the children penned in somehow!). With my horrible Chenglish and a lot of pointing, I communicated what I wanted and it took the little man working there about 45 seconds to fix it. Then he smiled, handed it back to me, and waved goodbye. When I tried to pay him, he kept saying "no no no, Měiguó Rén, Xièxiè ....." and so on and so forth in other Chinese I couldn't understand. Basically, he was saying "No no no, you are an American! Thank you! blah blah blah"- something I'm hoping was complimentary at the end.

I love being an American living in Asia sometimes! You get your clicker fixed for free :)

I'm Ready for Family I Think....

Last night I had a dream. Nothing inspirational, but it did include both of my parents, my best friend from home, and several cousins at odd intervals playing supporting roles. The dream itself was very confusing because throughout the whole thing I think I hit several different continents while traveling on a bus and then ended in me watching a high school basketball game waiting out a blizzard outside. Now I'm no Freud, but I can interpret a little bit of it: I miss my family and friends. The bus, blizzard and basketball are all still confusing to me, but I understand why I was ferociously hugging my mother when she walked into the gym.

I still like what I'm doing in Taiwan and am happy living and working here, but I am starting to miss the people from home. I don't dwell too much upon it during the day, because realistically there is nothing to be done about it except skype with them more perhaps, but it is apparently manifesting in my thoughts at night.

My outlook on the family and friends situation would be much more bleak if it weren't for two things:

1. Nice spring weather is upon us in Taiwan. Yesterday we scootered around town and I was wearing my sunglasses, a t-shirt, and had my jeans rolled up. It was great and I forgot how much 75 and sunny can really make you happy.

2. Debbie and Virgil land in Taipei in 31 days. To say I'm excited is a terrible understatement.

I can imagine my weird family dreams will continue but at least I will be able to hug my mom in real life in a little over a month. With all of the things going on at school during that month, I think it will be here before I even have a chance to really think about it. Or at least while I'm awake.

Still Expanding!

Today during 7th hour, a student by the name of Chris walked into my class and said "Ms. Pint, I'm in your 7th hour class now too!" That's right, yesterday I added five new boys to my class and now there is a sixth; my class size has doubled in the last forty-eight hours.

Now this newest edition is not necessarily a bad one, but it will make me watch what I saw more: Chris is the only American student in the school. He is obviously fluent in English (which practically none of my students were before the addition of Chris) but what is more concerning is that he gets all of my semi-inappropriate comments and jokes in class that are completely lost on ESL students.

I guess this will be good practice for me for when I return to American schools: larger class sizes and not being able to really say "that's what she said" while teaching. Sad day.