Tomorrow, will be the first day of the last day of teaching in Taiwan.
I'm already looking back on pictures, and being really nostalgic/sentimental. This trip already I know has changed me and made me realize things about myself. I realize that teaching is something that I really, really enjoy. I kind of knew this from tutoring in high school and in college, but doing it on in an intense setting where it was my singular focus made me realize that I deeply enjoyed it. Hopefully I can combine this with something I already enjoy - medicine. lol. but it's something about teaching kids that is really rewarding; I'm not sure if I'll be encountering a lot of kids in academic medicine LOL.
Today, I slept a lot and finished "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" - a book that Akemi lent to me when we were waiting in the Seoul airport. It kind of brought me back to week 1, day 1 - when we all first met. Now our group of teachers is a really good group of friends. For dinner we went out to Taitung city (again, as that's the only thing we can do around here), ate delicious hotpot, ate fancy chocolate cake at a place that reminds of SD's extraordinary desserts, and walked around window-shopping for trinkets. We also attempted to bargain to buy a cell phone for Jeanette, but it didn't really work out, because the dealer was super-shady.
I think about California, both OC and SD, and think about what I would be doing right now if I were enjoying my "last real" summer in CA. I was missing all you peeps, and also reflecting on the slowly-ending trip here in Taiwan and missing this trip already too. I don't know why I'm being so sentimental - maybe because I'm listening to emo music while I'm writing this LOL.
Miss you all! Please randomly update me with your life. Like seriously, a random facebook post saying, "Today I scratched my left pinky toe." lol. maybe not that random, but you get the idea.
miss and love you
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
July 22nd: 10:05pm
"my breath is your breath....let me tell you one time"
Taiwan is the perfect place to exacerbate Bieber fever lol :D.
I love my kids! They make me laugh everyday. Today we taught them the "I gotta feeling" flashmob dance - took me back to Unolympics days where we taught orientees dances. I think I'm really going to miss these kids :(.
Today, one of the parents of the kids took us out to dinner - which was super nice :D. One of the older brothers tried to get me into a Taiwan Pijiu drinking contest LOL.
I love this little kid named Feng - he's like 9 years old, has HUGE buck teeth, extremely, extremely skinny, and is one of the smartest little guys I know. He reminds me of an old wise man. Today we were talking about the social conditions in Mexico, Costa Rica's economy, Chinese history, and American politics, liberals vs. conservatives. He's so awesome!!!!! He always has this furrowed brow like he's concentrating really hard (well, he is trying to practice English), and he tries to hold a serious conversation with us while his little guy friends punch him and lift him and try to get him to play games with them.
It's been raining on and off, and so there are these huge majestic clouds, and in the mornings and afternoons when the sun is angled, all shades of blue, purple, and red are in those clouds.
Taitung is beautiful.
Taiwan is the perfect place to exacerbate Bieber fever lol :D.
I love my kids! They make me laugh everyday. Today we taught them the "I gotta feeling" flashmob dance - took me back to Unolympics days where we taught orientees dances. I think I'm really going to miss these kids :(.
Today, one of the parents of the kids took us out to dinner - which was super nice :D. One of the older brothers tried to get me into a Taiwan Pijiu drinking contest LOL.
I love this little kid named Feng - he's like 9 years old, has HUGE buck teeth, extremely, extremely skinny, and is one of the smartest little guys I know. He reminds me of an old wise man. Today we were talking about the social conditions in Mexico, Costa Rica's economy, Chinese history, and American politics, liberals vs. conservatives. He's so awesome!!!!! He always has this furrowed brow like he's concentrating really hard (well, he is trying to practice English), and he tries to hold a serious conversation with us while his little guy friends punch him and lift him and try to get him to play games with them.
It's been raining on and off, and so there are these huge majestic clouds, and in the mornings and afternoons when the sun is angled, all shades of blue, purple, and red are in those clouds.
Taitung is beautiful.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Mass Update: I'm so sorry
So so so sorry I'm been MIA. This last week I was floored with the flu - with full list of symptoms as fever, nausea, achiness, dizziness, headache, body ache, neck pain, vomiting, diarrhea, and extreme fatigue. It was horrible :(. Not only was suffering from the flu, I lost a week of teaching with my students. I lost a lot weight too, and on Tuesday early morning I went to the hospital. I've never been to a hospital in a foreign country before. That was kind of interesting, but a little alarming. I realized they don't use gloves....lol. But they gave me an IV drip.
I'm feeling better right now, meaning all of my symptoms are gone (except diarrhea...lol), but I'm still really tired. Last Saturday, July 17th, I slept in until noon, ate lunch, slept until 4pm, drank some water, watched Friends from Chinese pirated sites, ate dinner, and am now planning to go to bed again lol.
Being sick in a foreign country sucks - it's made me a little homesick :(. But people here are really nice - the program staff have been super-supportive, they've been feeding me, and since there are a lot of medical students and doctors here volunteering with us, I've gotten a lot of good medical advice :D.
But sickness aside, in reference to last week, it was AMAZING!
I love my students so much. At first they were super-shy, but now they're opening up, maybe a little too much. They are actually rather difficult to discipline. Because I love my kids too much, let me tell you about all of them:
DORA- her English isn't that great. She looks a lot like Jennifer Tran at UCSD, for those of know her. She's kind of quiet and shy, but she smiles a lot.
WENDY- super, super quiet and serious. She hardly opens her mouth, but sometimes I catch her smiling and having fun, and then she looks at me, and becomes serious again. Her English isn't that great, but I hope she can open up to me as this goes on.
LIZ- I love Liz!!!! She's smiles all the time! She seems like the typical 15-year old Taiwanese girl. She loves Elmo (she draws Elmo all over the place, including my get-well card), she is obsessed with Justin Bieber (I caught her mouthing the lyrics to "One Time" one time), and she wraps her hair up in a towel like Princess Leia, who I tried to explain to her, but she didn't really get it. She works super hard!!! (which I love the most), copies down every new word she learns, laughs a lot, but when I explain vocabulary or grammar, she has this confused look on her face (I ask her, "do you have any questions?" in Chinese, but she always says no...). Anyways, I love Liz!!!!!!!!
KELLY- Kelly is UBER-CRAZY. Like UBER-status. She's very sarcastic, and has a crazy sense of humor. She's the life of the party for the girls. She can sometimes be mean to other students, especially a little boy named Yo-Yo, but she's so funny. Her English is pretty advanced.
ADAM- Very laid-back, intelligent, but kind of lazy. He really likes the NBA (he tried talking to me about the merits of Andrew Bynum, but it was fail for me. Xinwei could have carried a better conversation with this guy). His English is really good. He always smiles!!! :D He really likes The Fray and Daniel Powter, and was impressed when I said I liked "Look After You" too. I like him!
RUBY- SO FUNNY, but not in an intentional way like Kelly. She's kind of a thug - she always wears basketball shorts and tennis shoes, chills with the big guys in the class, BUT she's this TINY little Asian girl with a pony tail with glasses and big teeth. She's adorable. She has a heart of gold - she always is trying to help me with class logistics, makes fun of me sometimes, and always says "You win! ___ wins!" She's very competitive. I love her.
KEVIN - This huge guy that looks like a 25-year old, but has a heart of gold. I catch him trying to use English out of class, which is super-impressive. Recently, he's been really lazy and kind of having a bad attitude :(, but hopefully he shapes up. His English is very basic, but what counts is he tries (or at least he used to). He reminds me of a bear, but like a happy, friendly bear.
BOB - A pretty nice guy, but kind of lazy. He's really good friends with Kevin, but not as friendly with me. I think he's sort of a bad influence on Kevin a little bit, but whatevs. Still friendly.
JANE- A very smiley girl. She's inseparable with some of the girls, and is super-quiet. Out of nowhere though, she was like, really loud, "BRIAN, DO YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND?" I thought her English was really basic, so I was kind of shocked. But yeah, she smiles a lot, and laughs with the other girls, like Kelly.
JULIE - Very smart, but doesn't practice enough English-speaking. I can speak English at native-speed with her (normally in class, I talk SUPER-SLOWLY and VERY ENUNCIATED), and she understands (which is quite the feat), but she never really takes the initiative to speak English on her own with me. She helps a lot of her friends by translating. She smiles a lot.
SORA - I LOVE SORA SO MUCH! She's this dorky girl with square black glasses, she loves Linkin Park, she dresses in baggy clothes, looks totally emo, but she always shouts in this high-pitched, super-cute, squeaky voice. Her English is really good, but she's a little shy. She always yells out at me, "noooo!" because I pick on her a lot to answer my English questions. She's adorable :D.
JENNY - very androgynous. She wears purple contacts, has a red-hair-dyed mullet, and sometimes has attitude problems. But she's totally the cool kid. SHE KNOWS HOW TO BREAK DANCE, AND SHE PLAYS GUITAR SUPER-WELL, AND SHE LOVES LADY GAGA. lol. She kind of has attitude problems when we do class activities, but I find that she still does them; her English I think is better than she thinks. She makes fun of me a lot lol.
JENNIFER - This very tall, sweet-hearted; she's one of my two star students. Her English is above and beyond - and she works super-hard. :D <3
JUDY - This super-cute, adorable little girl with the biggest eyes I've seen (seriously, like an anime character). She and Jennifer are my two star students, not only with the best English, but one of the best work ethics too. I can never catch Judy without her dictionary right next to her, diligent taking notes of any words I say that she doesn't know. She's really sensitive and innocent - she-super sweet-hearted. For example, she started sobbing when I asked her if she was OK when she bumped her head during a game; she sobbed even harder when I told her she didn't have to do that day's homework if her head hurt. She later told me she was overwhelmed by my "nicencess." Lol. She's adorbs. <3
YO-YO- An 11-yeard old chubby know-it-all - sort of annoying and awkward, with the rest of the class kind of hating on him. He kind of reminds me of myself when I was young...lol. His English is advanced. He's really chubby lol :D. But he's really nice. One time for a homework assignment, he wrote that I was his "hero." hmmm....maybe he misunderstand "hero." lol....
AN - A very dark aboriginal girl from Orchid Island. She was only in my class for two weeks, when she was BFF with Liz. She smiles so much, it made my heart break. She really likes the Shaggy's song "It wasn't me." I'm really sad she left :(.
JEFF - Really close friends with An; also from Orchid Island. Kind of has an attitude problem, but his English is pretty good. He wasn't as friendly as An, but he's nice.
MICHAEL - This adorable, crazy 11-year old placed into my class level by mistake, but had to stay because he "loved me too much." It was weird lol. His English is terrible, and his work ethic isn't that great, but he really likes my class. He's SUPER CARING towards me, like genuinely probably the student that cares about me the most, and very polite, but I notice sometimes he causes trouble with other students. I have yet to figure out this crazy kid lol.
FANNY - This funny little chubby girl. She doesn't have too many friends in this class because she's younger. She's kind of quiet and awkward, but every once in a while I catch a precious laugh from her about something that I do.
THOMAS - A James Lintern look-alike. Just moved into my class this week - so far, he's really quiet. But he has a hair-flip just like James Lintern (just in case any of you know about Lintern).
Those are my kids!!!!!! I like them a lot, even though recently they've been causing me some discipline pains, lol.
**********
My team is really fun and crazy. The past week when I was sick, I really missed them, but now them I'm back, it's crazy times again. Jeanette and I co-teach our combined classes together, and I feel like we've gotten closer. Jocelyn NON-STOP makes fun of me, calls me "girl," but she's crazy loud and I call her out on it lol. Akemi laughs wayyyy too much LOL! and has a habit of interrupting people lol. Joanne is kind of quiet, but I feel like I've gotten to know her more than others because of random conversations we have. Agnes - major pain in the a** LOL. JK. She's "apparently" a threat to my masculinity because she's more "man" than I am. sigh.... anyways, she makes me laugh non-stop. Kim is our chosen Mom away from home - she keeps calling us her "cats," because we're hard to "herd."
ps. I lag a lot in Taiwan. I guess the same as in the US...or Guatemala....lol.
I'm starting to get sick of the food :(. I miss American food!!!!
This past weekend, I went paragliding!!!! It was really scary at first, but then once I took off, it was so calming, and the scenery stunning. But before that, it was endless morbid sarcasm LOL. Paragliding was a lot of fun.
Anyways, miss you all!!!! <3 <3 Please, please - random updates from anything, anywhere, anytime is appreciated. I will try to blog more consistently now :D.
pps. For our English camp closing ceremony, we're planning to start a secret "I gotta feeling" flash mob with our kids. Youtube "Oprah flash mob," and you'll see ;).
LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU ALL
<3 :(
I'm feeling better right now, meaning all of my symptoms are gone (except diarrhea...lol), but I'm still really tired. Last Saturday, July 17th, I slept in until noon, ate lunch, slept until 4pm, drank some water, watched Friends from Chinese pirated sites, ate dinner, and am now planning to go to bed again lol.
Being sick in a foreign country sucks - it's made me a little homesick :(. But people here are really nice - the program staff have been super-supportive, they've been feeding me, and since there are a lot of medical students and doctors here volunteering with us, I've gotten a lot of good medical advice :D.
But sickness aside, in reference to last week, it was AMAZING!
I love my students so much. At first they were super-shy, but now they're opening up, maybe a little too much. They are actually rather difficult to discipline. Because I love my kids too much, let me tell you about all of them:
DORA- her English isn't that great. She looks a lot like Jennifer Tran at UCSD, for those of know her. She's kind of quiet and shy, but she smiles a lot.
WENDY- super, super quiet and serious. She hardly opens her mouth, but sometimes I catch her smiling and having fun, and then she looks at me, and becomes serious again. Her English isn't that great, but I hope she can open up to me as this goes on.
LIZ- I love Liz!!!! She's smiles all the time! She seems like the typical 15-year old Taiwanese girl. She loves Elmo (she draws Elmo all over the place, including my get-well card), she is obsessed with Justin Bieber (I caught her mouthing the lyrics to "One Time" one time), and she wraps her hair up in a towel like Princess Leia, who I tried to explain to her, but she didn't really get it. She works super hard!!! (which I love the most), copies down every new word she learns, laughs a lot, but when I explain vocabulary or grammar, she has this confused look on her face (I ask her, "do you have any questions?" in Chinese, but she always says no...). Anyways, I love Liz!!!!!!!!
KELLY- Kelly is UBER-CRAZY. Like UBER-status. She's very sarcastic, and has a crazy sense of humor. She's the life of the party for the girls. She can sometimes be mean to other students, especially a little boy named Yo-Yo, but she's so funny. Her English is pretty advanced.
ADAM- Very laid-back, intelligent, but kind of lazy. He really likes the NBA (he tried talking to me about the merits of Andrew Bynum, but it was fail for me. Xinwei could have carried a better conversation with this guy). His English is really good. He always smiles!!! :D He really likes The Fray and Daniel Powter, and was impressed when I said I liked "Look After You" too. I like him!
RUBY- SO FUNNY, but not in an intentional way like Kelly. She's kind of a thug - she always wears basketball shorts and tennis shoes, chills with the big guys in the class, BUT she's this TINY little Asian girl with a pony tail with glasses and big teeth. She's adorable. She has a heart of gold - she always is trying to help me with class logistics, makes fun of me sometimes, and always says "You win! ___ wins!" She's very competitive. I love her.
KEVIN - This huge guy that looks like a 25-year old, but has a heart of gold. I catch him trying to use English out of class, which is super-impressive. Recently, he's been really lazy and kind of having a bad attitude :(, but hopefully he shapes up. His English is very basic, but what counts is he tries (or at least he used to). He reminds me of a bear, but like a happy, friendly bear.
BOB - A pretty nice guy, but kind of lazy. He's really good friends with Kevin, but not as friendly with me. I think he's sort of a bad influence on Kevin a little bit, but whatevs. Still friendly.
JANE- A very smiley girl. She's inseparable with some of the girls, and is super-quiet. Out of nowhere though, she was like, really loud, "BRIAN, DO YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND?" I thought her English was really basic, so I was kind of shocked. But yeah, she smiles a lot, and laughs with the other girls, like Kelly.
JULIE - Very smart, but doesn't practice enough English-speaking. I can speak English at native-speed with her (normally in class, I talk SUPER-SLOWLY and VERY ENUNCIATED), and she understands (which is quite the feat), but she never really takes the initiative to speak English on her own with me. She helps a lot of her friends by translating. She smiles a lot.
SORA - I LOVE SORA SO MUCH! She's this dorky girl with square black glasses, she loves Linkin Park, she dresses in baggy clothes, looks totally emo, but she always shouts in this high-pitched, super-cute, squeaky voice. Her English is really good, but she's a little shy. She always yells out at me, "noooo!" because I pick on her a lot to answer my English questions. She's adorable :D.
JENNY - very androgynous. She wears purple contacts, has a red-hair-dyed mullet, and sometimes has attitude problems. But she's totally the cool kid. SHE KNOWS HOW TO BREAK DANCE, AND SHE PLAYS GUITAR SUPER-WELL, AND SHE LOVES LADY GAGA. lol. She kind of has attitude problems when we do class activities, but I find that she still does them; her English I think is better than she thinks. She makes fun of me a lot lol.
JENNIFER - This very tall, sweet-hearted; she's one of my two star students. Her English is above and beyond - and she works super-hard. :D <3
JUDY - This super-cute, adorable little girl with the biggest eyes I've seen (seriously, like an anime character). She and Jennifer are my two star students, not only with the best English, but one of the best work ethics too. I can never catch Judy without her dictionary right next to her, diligent taking notes of any words I say that she doesn't know. She's really sensitive and innocent - she-super sweet-hearted. For example, she started sobbing when I asked her if she was OK when she bumped her head during a game; she sobbed even harder when I told her she didn't have to do that day's homework if her head hurt. She later told me she was overwhelmed by my "nicencess." Lol. She's adorbs. <3
YO-YO- An 11-yeard old chubby know-it-all - sort of annoying and awkward, with the rest of the class kind of hating on him. He kind of reminds me of myself when I was young...lol. His English is advanced. He's really chubby lol :D. But he's really nice. One time for a homework assignment, he wrote that I was his "hero." hmmm....maybe he misunderstand "hero." lol....
AN - A very dark aboriginal girl from Orchid Island. She was only in my class for two weeks, when she was BFF with Liz. She smiles so much, it made my heart break. She really likes the Shaggy's song "It wasn't me." I'm really sad she left :(.
JEFF - Really close friends with An; also from Orchid Island. Kind of has an attitude problem, but his English is pretty good. He wasn't as friendly as An, but he's nice.
MICHAEL - This adorable, crazy 11-year old placed into my class level by mistake, but had to stay because he "loved me too much." It was weird lol. His English is terrible, and his work ethic isn't that great, but he really likes my class. He's SUPER CARING towards me, like genuinely probably the student that cares about me the most, and very polite, but I notice sometimes he causes trouble with other students. I have yet to figure out this crazy kid lol.
FANNY - This funny little chubby girl. She doesn't have too many friends in this class because she's younger. She's kind of quiet and awkward, but every once in a while I catch a precious laugh from her about something that I do.
THOMAS - A James Lintern look-alike. Just moved into my class this week - so far, he's really quiet. But he has a hair-flip just like James Lintern (just in case any of you know about Lintern).
Those are my kids!!!!!! I like them a lot, even though recently they've been causing me some discipline pains, lol.
**********
My team is really fun and crazy. The past week when I was sick, I really missed them, but now them I'm back, it's crazy times again. Jeanette and I co-teach our combined classes together, and I feel like we've gotten closer. Jocelyn NON-STOP makes fun of me, calls me "girl," but she's crazy loud and I call her out on it lol. Akemi laughs wayyyy too much LOL! and has a habit of interrupting people lol. Joanne is kind of quiet, but I feel like I've gotten to know her more than others because of random conversations we have. Agnes - major pain in the a** LOL. JK. She's "apparently" a threat to my masculinity because she's more "man" than I am. sigh.... anyways, she makes me laugh non-stop. Kim is our chosen Mom away from home - she keeps calling us her "cats," because we're hard to "herd."
ps. I lag a lot in Taiwan. I guess the same as in the US...or Guatemala....lol.
I'm starting to get sick of the food :(. I miss American food!!!!
This past weekend, I went paragliding!!!! It was really scary at first, but then once I took off, it was so calming, and the scenery stunning. But before that, it was endless morbid sarcasm LOL. Paragliding was a lot of fun.
Anyways, miss you all!!!! <3 <3 Please, please - random updates from anything, anywhere, anytime is appreciated. I will try to blog more consistently now :D.
pps. For our English camp closing ceremony, we're planning to start a secret "I gotta feeling" flash mob with our kids. Youtube "Oprah flash mob," and you'll see ;).
LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU ALL
<3 :(
Saturday, July 3, 2010
July 4th: 5:59am. At Taitung University dorms. Am I living a dream?
Yesterday, at Incheon airport while waiting for our flight at 12:30pm:
We walked around to get lunch and buy some duty-free stuff. There was this nice Asian food court, where for about $6 USD I had noodles with black bean sauce and seafood, which I basically wolfed down in about two minutes, and was fatty and wanted more. So for about $5 I bought 6 plump pork dumplings and was super-satisfied/tried not to fall asleep in food coma.
We then ran into this Korean Cultural Kiosk, which was really cool. They had performances in traditional Korean gowns, and then gave us silk scrolls for us to paint Korean proverbs on. I kind of butchered mine, but it was still really cool that they had this outreach! Granted it was "above the iceberg" cultural stuff, but it was still fun.
We then boarded our plane to fly to Taipei, and it was a really relaxing flight. I listened to the Train album there (on-demand music!); I was super-excited to listen to it LOL. I also watched this kind of cheesy documentary on pyramids; do you ever get the feeling that channels like Discovery sometimes make documentaries that have extra special effects and sound effects to kind of exaggerate the "excitement" and "drama" factor?
First views of Taiwan from the airplane - tropical, balmy, beachy, white-capped waves, lush and green, tall buildings, a little dirty/hazy, but beautiful and a lot more balmy that I thought.
When we landed in Taipei, I spoke some Chinese with the customs lady. It was funny lol. I was talking in Chinese and she was responding in English - FAIL :D.
Ok, so for the next four hours or so, it was a little overwhelming - the hospitality that we received from the Alliance/Foundation, a entrepreneur-funded charity group that is hosting us and organizing ETA4's classroom presence. Just a little background info:
A major Taiwan charity/business exec named Stanley Yen, whose main business is in hotels, helped fund and publicize this. He is extremely well-connected in Taiwan and somewhat of a mini-celebrity (it was so funny - we driving around Taipei and talking about how famous Stanley is, and then all of the sudden we looked up and saw his face/name on a huge poster in a bookstore - he recently released a best-selling memoir. And on the domestic flight, we saw him shaking hands with politicians in the in-flight magazine!). Jeanette Low's dad was roommates with Stanley, and so that's how ETA4 got connected with Stanley.
Alliance representatives that we met - Emily, Pei-Ru, and this other cool guy that did WOOF farming but I forgot his name. They were all so super-nice.
They were so welcoming - my cheeks hurt so much from smiling so much. A whole entourage of Alliance representatives greeted us and ushered us in vans to the Landis Hotel - an expensive Taipei Art Deco hotel owned by Stanley Yen. They gave us Akemi, Kim, Jeanette, and me a free PENTHOUSE suite for us to "refresh" ourselves - pretty much just to take a shower. Everyone seemed to know who we were - even the custodial staff walking past our suite thanked us for "coming to teach English." They then whisked us away to a super-cool cafe where we had waffle desserts, sandwiches, and lattes on the house. Then it was to the airport for a first class domestic flight to Taitung. At the airport we met up with the rest of our ETA 4 team - Joanne, Jocelyn, and Agnes, who were here for at least a week in Taiwan chilling with their families.
The Alliance/Foundation/Stanley Yen's generosity was simply overwhelming. It made me 1) super-grateful that they appreciated our presence 2) a little guilty - I haven't even done anything yet, and they were treating us like VIP celebrities. It added up to a pressure that I was feeling that I had to be an amazing English teacher.
We got to Taitung and on the van ride to the university, I just lost consciousness basically. For the past 24-hours I had about three hours total of interrupted sleep, without even wanting to I just knocked out. We then arrrived at Taitung University and met even more VIPs, but unfortunately I was so dazed from my brief 20-minute bout of lost consciouness that I kind of don't really remember what was going on at this time = bad. LOL.
We put stuff up in our room, and then had a two-hour meeting with other volunteers working with us - medical students, arts students, and Taitung University students who are either supplementing our work, or working an an adjacent arts camp nearby. It was really nice meeting the other volunteers, but at this point I felt like half my brain had melted away and I needed 睡觉 zzzzzzzzz.
I had about four hours of sleep when jet lag woke up at 5am. And here I am. LOL.
So far, Taiwan has been incredible - the people, the island, the culture, the volunteering spirit. 我爱台湾！！！！ ;)
Miss you all.
LOVE
We walked around to get lunch and buy some duty-free stuff. There was this nice Asian food court, where for about $6 USD I had noodles with black bean sauce and seafood, which I basically wolfed down in about two minutes, and was fatty and wanted more. So for about $5 I bought 6 plump pork dumplings and was super-satisfied/tried not to fall asleep in food coma.
We then ran into this Korean Cultural Kiosk, which was really cool. They had performances in traditional Korean gowns, and then gave us silk scrolls for us to paint Korean proverbs on. I kind of butchered mine, but it was still really cool that they had this outreach! Granted it was "above the iceberg" cultural stuff, but it was still fun.
We then boarded our plane to fly to Taipei, and it was a really relaxing flight. I listened to the Train album there (on-demand music!); I was super-excited to listen to it LOL. I also watched this kind of cheesy documentary on pyramids; do you ever get the feeling that channels like Discovery sometimes make documentaries that have extra special effects and sound effects to kind of exaggerate the "excitement" and "drama" factor?
First views of Taiwan from the airplane - tropical, balmy, beachy, white-capped waves, lush and green, tall buildings, a little dirty/hazy, but beautiful and a lot more balmy that I thought.
When we landed in Taipei, I spoke some Chinese with the customs lady. It was funny lol. I was talking in Chinese and she was responding in English - FAIL :D.
Ok, so for the next four hours or so, it was a little overwhelming - the hospitality that we received from the Alliance/Foundation, a entrepreneur-funded charity group that is hosting us and organizing ETA4's classroom presence. Just a little background info:
A major Taiwan charity/business exec named Stanley Yen, whose main business is in hotels, helped fund and publicize this. He is extremely well-connected in Taiwan and somewhat of a mini-celebrity (it was so funny - we driving around Taipei and talking about how famous Stanley is, and then all of the sudden we looked up and saw his face/name on a huge poster in a bookstore - he recently released a best-selling memoir. And on the domestic flight, we saw him shaking hands with politicians in the in-flight magazine!). Jeanette Low's dad was roommates with Stanley, and so that's how ETA4 got connected with Stanley.
Alliance representatives that we met - Emily, Pei-Ru, and this other cool guy that did WOOF farming but I forgot his name. They were all so super-nice.
They were so welcoming - my cheeks hurt so much from smiling so much. A whole entourage of Alliance representatives greeted us and ushered us in vans to the Landis Hotel - an expensive Taipei Art Deco hotel owned by Stanley Yen. They gave us Akemi, Kim, Jeanette, and me a free PENTHOUSE suite for us to "refresh" ourselves - pretty much just to take a shower. Everyone seemed to know who we were - even the custodial staff walking past our suite thanked us for "coming to teach English." They then whisked us away to a super-cool cafe where we had waffle desserts, sandwiches, and lattes on the house. Then it was to the airport for a first class domestic flight to Taitung. At the airport we met up with the rest of our ETA 4 team - Joanne, Jocelyn, and Agnes, who were here for at least a week in Taiwan chilling with their families.
The Alliance/Foundation/Stanley Yen's generosity was simply overwhelming. It made me 1) super-grateful that they appreciated our presence 2) a little guilty - I haven't even done anything yet, and they were treating us like VIP celebrities. It added up to a pressure that I was feeling that I had to be an amazing English teacher.
We got to Taitung and on the van ride to the university, I just lost consciousness basically. For the past 24-hours I had about three hours total of interrupted sleep, without even wanting to I just knocked out. We then arrrived at Taitung University and met even more VIPs, but unfortunately I was so dazed from my brief 20-minute bout of lost consciouness that I kind of don't really remember what was going on at this time = bad. LOL.
We put stuff up in our room, and then had a two-hour meeting with other volunteers working with us - medical students, arts students, and Taitung University students who are either supplementing our work, or working an an adjacent arts camp nearby. It was really nice meeting the other volunteers, but at this point I felt like half my brain had melted away and I needed 睡觉 zzzzzzzzz.
I had about four hours of sleep when jet lag woke up at 5am. And here I am. LOL.
So far, Taiwan has been incredible - the people, the island, the culture, the volunteering spirit. 我爱台湾！！！！ ;)
Miss you all.
LOVE
Friday, July 2, 2010
July 3rd: 5:30am, Seoul, Incheon Int'l Airport
12-hours of death later, I'm in Seoul.
I think the worst of my humanity comes out when I'm on a 10-hr+ international flight. An old guy next to me who insisted on sitting window (even though my seat said window, which I gave to him, b/c you know, he's "elderly" right?), kept on FARTING and pushing my elbow off the elbow rest. For about twelve hours I was plotting his death. This was part-rational retaliation, part-delirious malice induced by lack of sleep and economy-class claustrophobia. The funniest part was when I was glaring at him imagining a world of horror for him, he suddenly woke up from his fart-filled dreams and looked at me, while I was severe death-glaring at him. He looked surprised at my expression. Death to old men like him.
I had bimbibap for "dinner" (at LA time midnight) and a cheesy omelette at 2am Seoul time. Both were ok - I anticipate not much consumption of food for the next 12-hours of travel to get to Taitung, Taiwan.
Incheon Airport is so beautiful and calm. It's glossy, sleek, glittery, kept spotless, and people walk calmy, quietly. Polar opposite to LAX.
My group seems really cool. There's only four of us who flew out of LAX yesterday/last night - Akemi, a sophomore from Norcal, Jeanette (our sort-of "site leader") who took Chinese with me (and graduated already with me), and Kim, a teacher from Pennsylvania who volunteered with ETA4 in Vietnam last year and is accompanying us as a "curriculum advisor." While we were waiting to board, Akemi taught us how to play cribbage, which is a really fun strategy board game that is super-complicated but once you get the hang of it, it's fun!
*ps. On a creeper note, while we were waiting at the gate, we saw this father with two half-asian toddlers, and he was speaking GERMAN to them, and they were super-adorbs and speaking German back. It was cool. I don't know why.
For some reason now, I don't feel too tired, even though I've only slept three hours last night. It's becoming more and more real what's ahead of me - I feel like there this great expectation out there for us to be really good teachers, but I kind of feel underprepared. After writing this, I'm going to try look at the curriculum guide and kind of plan my first day.
Miss you all. Random facebook posts, emails, comments, about random stuff happening to you is greatly appreciated.
Love!
ps. Random: as I type this, there's a super loud flute solo sounding like something out of the LOTR shire BLASTING out of the ceiling airport speakers. I think it's meant to set a calm aura, but people are looking confused. ;D
I think the worst of my humanity comes out when I'm on a 10-hr+ international flight. An old guy next to me who insisted on sitting window (even though my seat said window, which I gave to him, b/c you know, he's "elderly" right?), kept on FARTING and pushing my elbow off the elbow rest. For about twelve hours I was plotting his death. This was part-rational retaliation, part-delirious malice induced by lack of sleep and economy-class claustrophobia. The funniest part was when I was glaring at him imagining a world of horror for him, he suddenly woke up from his fart-filled dreams and looked at me, while I was severe death-glaring at him. He looked surprised at my expression. Death to old men like him.
I had bimbibap for "dinner" (at LA time midnight) and a cheesy omelette at 2am Seoul time. Both were ok - I anticipate not much consumption of food for the next 12-hours of travel to get to Taitung, Taiwan.
Incheon Airport is so beautiful and calm. It's glossy, sleek, glittery, kept spotless, and people walk calmy, quietly. Polar opposite to LAX.
My group seems really cool. There's only four of us who flew out of LAX yesterday/last night - Akemi, a sophomore from Norcal, Jeanette (our sort-of "site leader") who took Chinese with me (and graduated already with me), and Kim, a teacher from Pennsylvania who volunteered with ETA4 in Vietnam last year and is accompanying us as a "curriculum advisor." While we were waiting to board, Akemi taught us how to play cribbage, which is a really fun strategy board game that is super-complicated but once you get the hang of it, it's fun!
*ps. On a creeper note, while we were waiting at the gate, we saw this father with two half-asian toddlers, and he was speaking GERMAN to them, and they were super-adorbs and speaking German back. It was cool. I don't know why.
For some reason now, I don't feel too tired, even though I've only slept three hours last night. It's becoming more and more real what's ahead of me - I feel like there this great expectation out there for us to be really good teachers, but I kind of feel underprepared. After writing this, I'm going to try look at the curriculum guide and kind of plan my first day.
Miss you all. Random facebook posts, emails, comments, about random stuff happening to you is greatly appreciated.
Love!
ps. Random: as I type this, there's a super loud flute solo sounding like something out of the LOTR shire BLASTING out of the ceiling airport speakers. I think it's meant to set a calm aura, but people are looking confused. ;D
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