Where did all the Motivation Go?

Today is Friday. It is my last prep period of the day before simply giving a test 7th hour to end my day/week. I have been productive all day so far and am completely planned for my Saturday classes tomorrow.

Needless to say, I currently find it literally impossible to even lift a pencil to my lesson plan book. Motivation is somewhat of a silly concept that doesn't apply to my mindset in any sense of the word right now. So let me procrastinate further by giving you a preview of my weekend!

This weekend should be epic by any means of measure. For one thing, we have been working for 12 days straight at this point (teaching Saturday classes will make it a lucky 13 days in a row) because of parents day last weekend. All of the teachers are dragging and in great need of a break. So tonight we have a little outing planned to downtown Taichung. It is the second weekend of the Taichung Jazz Festival in People's Park and a bunch of us are going to check it out. It should be a nice evening of music and friends outside in the beautiful weather Taiwan is experiencing right now.

Tomorrow I will teach only one session because my second session of Seniors are all taking the TOEFL exam (basic English proficiency exam that universities in the U.S. require for international students). Should be a pretty easy day of teaching and then I'm actually free until Monday at 8 a.m.!

To celebrate this real weekend, we are going to go to a KTV on Saturday night. KTV is the Taiwanese version of karaoke. I'm not entirely sure why it's called KTV but it's pretty funny because it's a little different than what you're probably visualizing. The Taiwanese are very reserved people when in public so the way a KTV is set up is like a hotel. You get a group of friends together and rent one KTV room for a few hours. Then you just sing in a room full of only your friends. It's not like the bad karaoke you see in bars in the States because you know all of the stupid people singing in a KTV- you are actually friends with them!

The best part about a KTV is that you can bring in your own food and beverage. So we will be enjoying some really classy 7-11 food (you know, like seaweed flavored Frito Lays) and Taiwan Beers while listening to the smooth sound of our coworkers/co-people try their hand at classic pop songs from the 90's. It should be great.

4:05 can't come soon enough! Look for pictures from this weekend in a few days!

Young Eagle

If you read my last blog post, you know that I am currently trying to learn the Chinese names of my advisees. Yesterday was no exception!

At lunch I practiced my three advisees names that I learned last week and took on the new challenge of learning Bill's Chinese name. It is a tough one too: Joung (pronounced like "rong") Show Ing. His tones aren't too bad, it is up, down, flat. So you basically say his last name like you're surprised to see him, the middle word like you're angry, and then the last word like you have no emotion in your voice. It gets a little confusing.

The best part about Bill's name is the meaning though. His name literally translates into something like "Young Eagle". I think it's pretty awesome because now we have two birds at our table: the Young Eagle and the Number One Finch :)

Chinese Names

Normally people are surprised when I tell them I teach students named Bill, Henry, John, Katy, and Wendy. I think people expect me to say weird, scary, hard to pronounce names for my Asian students. Then I like to tell people that I even teach a girl named Gwendeline (oh yeah, that's my favorite!).

In reality, they all DO have scary, confusing, hard to pronounce Chinese names. It's just that our students tend to pick English names once they enter American type schools with a bunch of foreigner teachers who can't pronounce any Chinese words. Generally they try to pick names that sound a little like their real names, but it doesn't always happen. Also, there is the occasional student who doesn't chose an English name: generally they are from Japan or Korea. I teach an Ayano, Ji Hoon, Song (Korean name), Chih Hao, and a Masami. All super fun to say compared to the other more American sounding names.

Recently, I decided I wanted to try to learn some of my students Chinese names however. I figure that I am living in Taiwan so I should at least call them by their real names! I started small by trying to learn my advisee's names. There are only five of them so I figured, how hard could it be? HARD! Chinese is so hard to pronounce I constantly rediscover!

I started with my advisee Vivi. Her Chinese name is Pan Wei Ting. You say the first word flat, like never changing the inflection in your voice, and both second sounds said with the second rising tone, like you're saying both words surprised. It's the tones in Chinese that make it so hard to learn!

Then I learned Henry's name: Chueh Yi (pronounced like a hard "e"). His name you say with the fourth, down, tone. You sort of have to act like you're angry to say the fourth tone- or at least I have to.

What's funny is that a;; of their names have meanings in Chinese, but not deep meanings like how you would imagine. Vivi's name literally means "hello, stop" and Henry's name is the exact same as "one" in counting in Chinese. His last name also means "finch" so I call him the Number One Finch now :)

I haven't learned all of my advisees' names yet, but I'm getting there. I like it because it's a fun thing to do at lunch and the kids really enjoy it- they can teach their teachers somethings too! They keep warning me that Rere's name is the hardest though, so I might have to work really hard on that one. I'm learning that one at lunch tomorrow so wish me luck!

Parents Day 2011

Last year for Parent's Day, I was freaking out a little bit. I had never had conferences with real parents before and I was only a first year teacher! What was also intimidating is that the parents of our students put their full trust in us to not only educate their children but to basically raise them too since we are a boarding school. I thought I was going to get yelled at when I told a parent their child was failing and I didn't know how to act around them!

This year, I was much more relaxed about parent's day at our school. If it was going to be anything like last year, it was going to be very easy. Thank god it lived up to my expectations! For two hours in the morning and another hour after lunch I sat in my room while parents filtered in with their kids. I told them exactly what was happening in class for their child and they normally said "Ok, thank you." No further questioning, no accusations like what I hear of some conferences in the States, just a simple check in on how their son/daughter is doing in math class.

On top of having easy conferences, the parents of my students this year came with gifts! One of my 9th grade students gave me chocolate and another student from that class came with a beautifully painted Taiwanese clay god to hang on my door for good luck. I also made one mom cry not because she was so upset, but because she was so happy: I apparently gave her daughter more confidence. How? I don't know, but then they took a family picture with me.

All in all it was a very good parent's day, but it has left me exhausted for the start of this week. It was an all day Sunday affair and if you read my frantic blog post from Saturday morning, you know that I was getting sick. Well luckily I think the Taoist god responded to my plea because I do not have strep. However, it is still your average common cold which means I'm just run-down a little.

Lack of energy from the cold and spending all weekend at work with students and parents have left me with little energy on this Monday. Luckily my lesson plans are all easy today so as long as no student is too loud, we shouldn't have any problems. Then it's bedtime for me at 8:45 tonight (I wish I was joking about that!).

Please God, Please Buddha, Please Taoist God, Please Don't Let Me Be Sick This Weekend!

Nobody likes to get sick. You feel crappy, you have no energy, and then there are the unsavory symptoms like sneezing and coughing and sometimes (gasp) a trip to the doctor for antibiotics if it's bad enough. I'm right there with you on that one, I hate being sick.

What I hate more than being sick though, is being sick at a time when you are too busy to get sick. This weekend is one of those times. I am on duty this weekend which means that after class today (Saturday) I will go with the kids to bowling activity, watch them bowl for a while, throw a couple of gutter balls perhaps, and then usher them all back onto the bus back to school. Rest for a few hours and then get them back on a bus to go to the night market from 6-10 tonight. Not too bad, just a long day.

The bad part is that tomorrow is not a normal Sunday: tomorrow is Parent's Day. A normal duty weekend I would have to show up at 1 and be in charge of children for a few hours. Tomorrow however, I need to be at school in nice formal dress at 9:30 and we are not going to leave until 4:30 or 5. Not to mention I need to have countless conferences with parents and be the face of the math department since I'm chair this year. And then I teach again on Monday.

This weekend is going to be a marathon to say the least. A marathon without the added evil of a soar throat which is exactly what I woke up with this morning. I am praying to whatever deity will listen to me right now to just make this a common cold or even better, maybe just a soar throat from over-use (I was yelling a lot last night because we played Cranium at the Family Mart).

What I'm most nervous about though, is strep. I got strep throat at exactly this time last year and I am having a mini panic attack as I type this that it is a creepy deja vu thing going on this year. This weekend is just not the time to get strep throat! I have no time to rest and I need to be presentable and personable tomorrow!

Ugh, please God, please Buddha, please Taoist god, please don't let this be strep!!! :( I'll keep you posted...

Milk Tea = Best Invention Ever

Asia is well known for their tea. The Western world gulps down coffee like the caffeine-shakes are going out of style but us Asians prefer the milder caffeinated beverage. I personally enjoy almost any type of tea: green, black (which the Taiwanese call "red" tea), Jasmine, you name it. What I enjoy more though, is combining tea with milk. Who ever did this first was a genius.

In Taiwan there is a surplus of two things: 7-11 convenience stores and tea shops. You can walk down any block in any city in Taiwan and run into both of these things (or if not a 7-11, at least a Family Mart or Hi Life which are basically the same thing- what you think of as gas station convenience stores in the U.S. minus the gas). Now these tea shops are not the dimly lit, smokey rooms you are probably imagining. They are like the Starbucks of Asia. They are awesome and that is a fact.

The Taiwanese have combined all sorts of teas with all sorts of delicious flavors and put them on ice. You can get Passion Fruit Tea, Ice Cream Milk Tea, Bubble Milk Tea (the topic of many raving blog posts of mine last year, it is like pure crack cocaine), Kumquat Juice and Green Tea, Green Tea with Lemon, Green Tea with Honey, ANYTHING! And funny enough, they are all amazing!

I have become recently obsessed with two new types of teas: Green Tea #8 and Green Milk Tea. The #8 Green Tea is exclusive to one particular tea shop named 50 Tea (they really like numbers apparently) and it is a mix of green tea with kumquat juice and sweet plum juice. Very refreshing and delicious.

Milk Green Tea is a mixture of milk (shocking I know) and Jasmine Green Tea. If you've never had Jasmine tea before, it sort of tastes like potpourri. It is an acquired taste I'm pretty sure and I have been busy acquiring it. Something about putting the flowery taste of the Jasmine and milk together and shaking it over ice is the most satisfying drinking experience I have had for a while. I crave it at odd hours of the day and I fear the day that I leave Taiwan for good because I think I may go through withdrawals!

For now, I shall enjoy my amazing iced tea concoctions and do so often :)

Grocery Store Run-In

When you are surrounded by Chinese all day, it is difficult to comprehend English when caught off-guard. This is the lesson Nichole and I learned today.

After teaching and attending the faculty meeting after school today, we traveled home via scooter and dropped off our bags at home. After a quick costume change, we were back out the door again to hit the grocery store for dinner supplies. We generally always walk to the closest grocery store which is about 3 short blocks down the street from us. I think thus far we have been the only white people in there on each visit.

Tonight I was standing next to Nichole seriously pondering which type of odd, leafy green to buy for our salad (we never can find spinach here), when there was gibberish coming from our left. We're pretty used to locals trying to talk to us in Chinese, and we've gotten pretty good at smiling and nodding and then saying "I don't know! Sorry!" in Chinese. But this woman wasn't speaking normal Chinese.

I looked over and literally blinked a few times before I realized it was a white woman talking to us. And that wasn't gibberish she was speaking, it was English! I think she had to repeat her initial greeting four or five times because we both just looked at her like a couple of deer in headlights.

I guess that when you aren't expecting to understand something, you simply won't. Even your own language can seem foreign when you are out of place somewhere.