Another day, another journal entry. Today was a much better day; though I didn’t get to bed as early I seemed to get more sleep, or at least more restful sleep. In the room that I have been sleeping in for the last month there is a desk and a bed and in the other room that is connected to mine there are two beds that are pushed together, the last several interns that have stayed in my apartment are couples and so it was their work at making a bed for them. Anyway I have been thinking about moving my mattress into the other room for quite awhile now but have never gotten to it, for some reason last night I decided to do it. After I had nosily moved my mattress (I kind of felt bad as I think that Natalie was trying to go to bed), I laid down in my “new” bed and read a couple of chapters of The Silver Chair (never read it before).
I woke up this morning and was a bit disorientated about where I was, but sadly recognized my alarm very much (I had been using my laptop in the other room but decided to plug in my cell phone and use it in the new room, besides the past month my cell phone had been my alarm for the past year and a half or so), and I was not very happy to hear it again. I hurriedly got ready for the day.
For my morning class we were going to be talking about wheels. I had a little book that showed different things that wheels do (turn, spin, go round and round, etc.), when we were done reading the book I had the kids go and search for different toys that have wheels (we do this a lot in class if you can’t tell :D) and then we counted all of the wheels that we had found (it was actually kind of funny as today is the 27th and we found 27 wheels-I didn’t bother to point that out to the kids as I didn’t really think that they would get it). When we had finished that we talked for a little bit about the different things that have wheels on them (we basically listed a whole bunch of different kinds of cars). My first group (the 4 year olds) is the only group that I got to teach during the first hour. Today we were supposed to be having a little performance come, they were supposed to get there at 9:20 and only take 20 minutes but they didn’t get there until nearly 9:35 (the teachers had told me not to start my next class as the people were supposed to be right there), so by the time we finished it was less than 5 minutes of the last group, Teacher Stephanie told me not to worry about it and that she would just take over with her Chinese class. Anyway about the performance, I am not sure how to explain it, it is really cool where they have these string things and a top like thing that they roll around on the string and throw into the air and then catch it again, it was really impressive and they worked great with the kids, keeping their attention the whole time. I guess they are part of a college theater group that is travelling around Taiwan and next Saturday night they are having an actual performance, Yuling asked Natalie and I if we would be interested in going—so I am really excited as we are, Yuling has put a paper out asking people who are interested in going to sign up as the more we have the cheaper we can get our tickets for. It was a really cool performance, even with having to keep several 3 year olds attention up front (for some reason all of the kids were on the other side except 3- 3 year olds, the ones that do not like to sit still) and I can’t wait until next Friday night!
When the performance was done I ran and put away my stuff and then ran upstairs. I was super excited as I had found a new background website for my blog through another friend’s blogs and I had picked a new one. I wanted to call and share it with Libbey as it looked a lot like a style that she would like, I didn’t feel particularly like telling her through an e-mail so I called her during my short break. (Note: if you haven’t noticed my new blog background, you really ought to, it is super cute :D) it was good to hear her voice, I talk to mom and Kyle every once in awhile but it is always nice to hear family voices.
For my middle class we were playing the game “I Spy,” it went a little differently than I had expected it to, but that is ok, it is learning as you. With the 3 year olds they were having a lot of time keeping their attention on one thing today, especially since we have a new boy… ok have to explain that. When we get a new student half of the time they do not have a English name and so we get to help pick their name, we make a list of names and that is given to the parents and then they decide which one they like, anyway my goal is to have the whole family named by students by the time that I am gone (;D), when I got here there was already a Eric and a Sam (boy) and so yesterday they asked me for name ideas I suggested Nathan (Yuling really liked that one) and a couple of others, but for some reason they came back today saying that they like the name Cupid (that was definitely not on my list of names). After talking today though Yuling is going to suggest that they pick a different name, as everyone knows the word stupid and they will tease him with “stupid, cupid,” (good thing that most people don’t know what cupid means over here). So I am hoping that tomorrow they will have chosen one of the names off of my list, I have not gotten to choose a name yet. Anyway back to my story about class, so the new boy was crying, the girl that started school last week was crying and I think that one other 3 year old was crying also (Teacher Stephanie told me that when school starts again we will have about 20-3 year olds, all new and probably will be crying at the very beginning- I do not know how productive any of our lessons will go), and so Teacher Stephanie was kind of distracted with them, I tried a really hard to get the others to pay attention to what was going on, I was able to do a little of “I spy a yellow chair, etc.” and the few that were paying attention would race towards one and would point at it. For the 4 year olds I did a little more, “I spy something red” and then they would try and guess what I was thinking about. 5 year olds were able to get a little more advance, I just said that I spy something and they would ask questions, the only problem was they would ask the same question like 10 times (about the same exact color or if it was something). It was ok though, at least they all kind of got the idea. I think though that on Friday during our teacher meeting I am going to ask about some suggestions about how to keep the kids attention when there is someone crying or another parent in the classroom as it has been a little hard the last week or so.
When we were finished with the middle class it was lunch time!! Today was spaghetti! It was kind of interesting spaghetti- the sauce was a little sweet and it was hard to get out the grated parmesan (which for those who know me is a bad thing as I love my grated parmesan on my spaghetti). Anyway the funny part, I was talking to one of the kids when I looked up at Sam (one of the 3 year olds) he had a huge sauce mustache (and beard I guess?), I started to laugh and wished that I had my camera because I then looked around me and noticed that all of the kids had sauce all over their faces- it was rather cute. Yuling told me that sometimes the kids are tired and that as they are eating they are falling over and so they can be quite messy eaters. Also another new and interesting fact that I learned, not only do the kids take naps but most of Taiwan does, she said that even the restaurants close down for several hours and the workers just go into the back room and take a nap- man I wish that they would do that in the US every day, I am a person that is totally big on naps! After lunch I came upstairs to work on my computer, Natalie was tutoring so I didn’t do much as I didn’t want to distract. About an hour before class was set to start I started searching for things to use for my afternoon class today, we were going to be talking about secretaries, it kind of disgusted me how much stuff was nasty about secretaries so I kind of gave up with trying to find anything and went downstairs to the office. I cut up some paper and then grabbed some random things and then sat down on one of the chairs to wait until it was time for class to start, it wasn’t long before I fell asleep on the chair—luckily baby Daniel woke up crying, as it woke me up too and I only had like 5 minutes before class was set to begin.
I was still kind of half asleep when I went to class and so I asked the kids if we could sing a song to help us wake up (when today it was really I that needed woken up—I have decided that it is a good idea and am going to continue starting each of my classes with a song-it helps the kids all be on the same page and lets the kids review the songs that we have learned), my class went pretty well, we talked a little bit about what secretaries do and their duties, we then we pretended to be secretaries by writing a letter. (Tomorrow we are learning about mailmen and so it comes into play then :D). It was kind of cute, we had a little extra time at the end of the period and so the kids asked if we could sing one of the songs that we had learned, so we did just that and sang a couple of songs. Natalie and I were talking about it, it always makes you feel good when the kids want to sing the songs that you taught them.
After class was over I hurried upstairs quickly and dropped my stuff off in my room and grabbed the bag with my mail in it and rushed downstairs and grabbed my bike and sped off towards the post office. I need not have stressed nor worried about it, I got to the post office with plenty of time was able to send off my letters (it only cost like $120NT- so a little over $3 to send 5 post cards and 2 envelopes with stuff inside- one with rocks even in it). I then went over to the grocery store (they are across the street from each other) and just kind of wandered around for awhile, not really knowing what I was there for or what I really wanted but the air was cool inside. After I finally grabbed a couple of things I went back outside, I was putting my stuff in my non-existent basket when all of a sudden I heard “Good-afternoon Teacher Beth,” it scared me at first but then I looked up and saw Natalie, she was headed towards the bakery. She reminded me that we had a tutoring job and then she headed towards the bakery and I came back to the apartment.
So tonight I officially did my first tutoring job! There are two brothers Mark and Bill, Natalie is taking one and I am taking the other. It was one of the easiest hours that I have ever had. I just listened to Mark read and corrected him on a word every once in a while and explained some words to him. It wasn’t too bad and I got paid $300NT for it. The minimum that we will get paid is $300NT per hour, for our groups we will get about $700NT for hour and a half—Yuling said that we are really lucky, most Taiwanese girls will earn $800NT for a whole day’s work. Anyway the tutoring wasn’t too bad.
Again I wish that someone would follow me around all the time with a camera, because if they did they would again have something worth taking pictures of. Tonight I went to the night market all by myself, that in of itself is a big thing but the even bigger part….I went in the dark!!! I have been a little afraid to go anywhere in the dark by myself but tonight I really wanted some fresh pineapple, coffin bread, and some fruit juice so I decided that it would be now or later that I would have to go, and might as well make it now, right? My bike ride went very well, no dogs tried to attack me, I didn’t get run off the road by any cars and I made it there and back without anyone having to give me instructions. I went straight to the night market where I walked around for a little bit and then got in the line for coffin bread. Every other time that I have gone to get coffin bread there has never been a line so it was kind of different. Normally I just go to the big sign on the back of the wall and point at which one I wanted, but tonight because there was a line the guy was walking down the line taking people’s orders, I tried to point up front at which one I wanted but he was a little confused, he walked away and went to talk to the owner, he grabbed something and started back towards me, the guy behind me said “he is bringing a English menu,” I had kind of figured that out but thought that it was nice that he told me. I was able to make my order and then we moved up in the line, while I was waiting for my food the guy behind me asked me if I liked this food and I was like yeah it is yummy, he then also asked me if I had chosen my drink (most places give free teas), but I explained to him that I don’t drink it- he said oh but I don’t think that he completely got it. I said thank you to both him and the lady and then walked away. I was excited to get some fruit juice as it has been awhile and mango juice was really starting to sound good, but when I walked by it was all closed up and it had a sign on it in Chinese, but I could understand that it said something about 8/27 and 8/28, oh well I guess that, that means I will just have to take another trip down there :D. I also wanted to get some fruit so as I headed back towards the apartment I stopped at the fruit stand, I grabbed some apples and some cut up pineapple! I came home and immediately jumped into my food (it smelt soooo yummy!), I have decided that I will try and try a different kind of coffin bread every time I go but because the line was really long and busy I just went with something that I have tried before.
Wow I can’t believe it, it is only 11:05 and I am actually caught up with my day! Sadly there are no pictures for tonight (my life is just too boring to have pictures for every day :D). So this is Betherd signing off!
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