real post on its way soon

I'm exhausted today I was up at 7 and yesterday I was up a bit after 5. This weekend has been amazing. There are photos that need to be posted and whatever but I can't do it now.

I spent Sunday morning becoming better acquainted with the mountains and am completely smitten with the roads around the mountain areas.

Sunday night I was completely embraced by the family of a random girl I met in Jhushan last week.

Today I went and visited my orphanage again and got to know the worker better and had two babies fall asleep in my arms...(not together).

Work is busy, new project etc.

That's it for now, real post when I'm coherent....

Road Trip 1: Sitou

Ok so today was my first real venture out into greater Taiwan and I decided to go to Sitou. One because it was highly recommended and 2 because I knew the general way to get there and 3 it isn't very far from JhuShan. So David and I set off this afternoon and all is going well. Except that due to communication problems we didn't actual leave JhuShan til about 2.30pm as it gets dark just before 6 here now that didn't give us a lot of time. We drove to Lugu which is the town I biked to last weekend and then went on towards Sitou. At first I was interested in checking out some awesome waterfalls but we missed the turn off so went right on to the end where we hit a national park.

Due to our lateness of departure etc we really didn't have more than an hour and a bit worth of sunlight left so we decided to give the national park a miss for the day and headed back down to try and find the road to the waterfalls.

After driving up and down a few times trying to find the turn off to the falls we stopped and asked in a tea store where we found a guy who spoke English. David was interested in seeing the tea plantations which were just beyond the falls so we asked about the road. At first everyone was saying it's too late which we took as meaning it's closed but really they were just saying that it is getting dark and thus not worth it. At first we didn't really understand but the guy explained that the road to the waterfall and tea plantation isn't like the main road it is narrow and poorly marked.....errrr ok but he did manage to explain exactly where the turn off was that we missed and we went on our way.

Now let me explain til that point we were driving on normal roads, 2-4 lane well surfaced roads. That ceased once we found the turn off for the waterfalls which looked more like a lane or driveway than a road.

The road was so beyond explaination. It was crazy...yet also amazingly exhilerating to drive. It was definately narrow quite often it narrowed to a point where they was about enough room for 1 1/2 cars....of course this is a two way road. Fortunately due to the time and the day we didn't encounter much traffic. So there we were winding out way around this beautiful mountain side on this little road trying to find some waterfalls. The road turned often and winded back on itself so much it was amazing. Top Gear would have a field day on these roads. So anyway with a bit of luck we followed the signage (Often chinese only) and made it to the lookout point for where I believe the waterfall is meant to be. We went passed that and saw some of the tea plantations and then doubled back and tried to actual see the waterfall.

There was a lone sign that pointed to clearing which held two paths. Both paths looked well dodgy. By that stage dusk was starting to settle and I took one look at the paths and the spiders that clung to the trees overhanging and surrounding the paths and decided I really didn't care to see the waterfall....The odd thing is though we couldn't even here the running water of a waterfall so honestly I dunno if we were even in the right spot though all the signs told us we were.

Anyway on the way back the light faded and so on went the headlights and thus began an amazing trip winding through this insanely narrow road not entirely sure if we were actually going the right way (although there were very few choices); trying to head back to civilisation.

David told me later he wondered if we were going to be sleeping on the mountain that night because quite honestly the lack of signage and whatever made it insane to navigate however it was all good we hit familiar landmarks and made it back to JhuShan around 6ish.

The weird thing is on the tourist map (which amazingly enough was in English) the road is quite defined...there was no idication the road was going to be insanely narrow and all twisty and turny, right on the mountain edge.

So that was it we drove around didn't see a whole lot of touristy things though the view from the roads we were on was amazing in themselves so it wasn't a waste...plus it taught me a valuable lesson about the deceptiveness of these stupid tourist maps.

Defintely going to need a decent road book before doing any serious exploring...I mean today was meant to be an easy leisurely drive somewhere close to home and half of the way was going on semi familiar territory.

So that was the first road trip. The national park did look beautiful though, we'll definitely have to check that out another day.

Huey (the car...yes it is named) performed amazingly, it doesn't have a lot of power up hills but that's not a huge surprise but for what it is I'm very happy...of course the cd player didn't seem to want to work which is an issue that I will have to deal with but otherwise I have no complaints.

Beep Beep. Beep Beep, Yeah

Jade has a car. Jade has a shiny red car yay! Yes my car is red.

So after tossing up options and generally feeling completely in over my head with this whole finding a car thing I finally tracked down Brian my local music provider and all round saviour who in a matter of minutes had found me a promising specimen and set up a morning inspection for the next day.

So he drove me meet his mechanic friend who he has bought all his cars from and who his family uses etc and they show me this great little ford festiva. It has a few bangs but in Taiwan that's standard. Then he lets me take it for a test drive. It took a while for me to figure things out as I've never driven a car in Taiwan before. The whole left hand drive thing was weird. I kept putting on my windscreen wipers when I was trying to signal heh. Still the car ran great.

The guy offered to throw in all the paperwork fees and insurance for under my car budget so I went for it. After a couple of quick trips to the DMV the car was mine and I managed to navigate the signs back to school. I also now have a funky stamp with the chinese equivalent of my name which is well cool.

So without further ado here are some photos of my baby





Now I just have to name it...

So all in all an eventful day. Unfortunately I have a school thing all day Sunday so no road trip this weekend....but next weekend is filled with possibilities.

all in a days work

So today was a really pleasant day weather wise. I decided yesterday that I wanted to try riding to Sitou if it was nice so I jumped my bike and headed for the mountains. Sitou is meant to be stunningly beautiful, maybe more so than Sun Moon Lake. It is also in the mountains which meant I had to struggle up the mountain on my bike which really isn't ideal for mountain riding. I made it to Lugu which is stunning in itself with spectacular mountainside views of the county. Lugu is about 1/2 way between JhuShan and Sitou and I realised that while I could have made it to Sitou I wouldn't have had any energy left to explore so I gave Sitou up for another day and just enjoyed the little mountainous town of Lugu.

No real luck on the car front but it's ok it's still early days.

I finally got around to baking cookies today. I decided to do anzac cookies though I don't think I've ever made them before. The results were not perfect. They thinned and spread more than I was expecting so the first batch of four (which is all my oven could handle at one time) burnt. After that they got better but the truth is they are still stupidly thin and they don't taste right. I think it is the ingredient substitutes I had to make, the brown sugar that I used didn't taste as I was expecting and using honey instead of golden syrup didn't really work either. Still the kids at school are sure to eat them and once my body's sugar level goes down I'll try a cookie that isn't actually burnt and see how that tastes.

All that aside there isn't a whole lot going on.

I'll get around to posting pictures eventually, I have some from the Halloween thing we did at school and some from today including photos of my poor baking attempts.

But now I'm tired, it's been a long day.

Oh I found a great little spring near by that I could totally swim in. It's at the bottom of the mountains and it runs for ages. I know people fish in there and I saw a frog there as well. Plus I don't have to wear a stupid little cap like I do at the swimming pool. Seriously what is so terrible about letting people have their hair in water....

Anyway I've done the exercise thing and the domestic thing today so now it's time to unwind with a movie or two before going to bed.

ni sure zhongwen ma?

Apparently my Chinese is on the up especially my writing...though I can't read what I write lol.

Today I managed to finally sort out my Taiwanese drivers permit so once again I can legally drive in Taiwan.

Now all I need to do is find a car.....err yeah let the fun begin. Actually I've seen a few that sound and look promising one is even here in JhuShan, although I've not taken it for a test drive so I have no idea how the engine is...but it looks to be in good condition.

Basically when it comes to car hunting I'm in over my head, firstly what I know about cars themselves could fit in the palm of my hands....secondly my inability to speak or understand most Chinese makes an already challenging task damn difficult. But I'm putting out feelers, trying to get as much advice as possible, I know people who know people so hopefully somewhere along the line I can find a car that won't leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere.

I'm amazed at how fast time is moving. I mean it's almost December which means it is practically Christmas and then New Year and then Chinese New Year and before I know it it'll be Easter....

The weather is getting colder. My boss just rang to see if I wanted a blanket as it is the coldest night here in a while, I'm wearing a nice big jumper and I'm quite cosy. I like the cold..although it's not so fun when my hot water refuses to work and I'm forced to have a cold shower....still easier to get warmer when it's cold than colder when it's hot.

oh and if you don't know what the title says then the answer is no :D

(the title is Jade pingyen for do you speak Chinese?)

The answer

wo busure zhongwen. (I don't speak Chinese)

and so endth the lesson.

Legal

So it's been almost a month since I posted here, I just got preoccupied and sidetracked in various orders.

So here's a breakdown:
My paperwork is through, I'm officially allowed to stay til the end of August 2009, then I'm gonna get kicked out.

School is fine, things are jsut routine, weeks go by quite fast. I really only have 1 sometimes 2 classes a week that take any significant prep time.

I need to work on my classroom management but the truth is I'm hesitant to do that because it changes the energy of my classes. I mean yes a lot of my classes are noisier than they are with their chinese teachers and I know it's just cause I'm the foreign teacher. As soon as a chinese teacher walks into my class they shut up...but then they turn to zombies. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground. It's either they are noisy and whatever but I can get really reactions from them or they switch to being almost insanely quiet but turn to robots.

My weekly grammar class for the other teachers is by far my most challenging intellectially and preparation wise. But I learn a heap of theoretical grammar during the prep for that class. I literally prepare in the morning, learning the stuff as I compile the lesson and then walk into school and teach what I've just learnt. Maybe not the best way to do it but eh.

My internet is back and this time it is officially mine which is nice. I had to go out and buy a bunch of blank dvds just cause my hard drives are running out of room. I could have bought another hard drive but dvds seemed easier.

My Chinese ability is slowly on the up, I am better at understanding conversations that go on around me although my vocab is still pitifully small. I'm starting to figure out sentences. In some ways Chinese is easier to learn to speak than English although I think maybe English is easier to learn to read.

This weekend is being spent in JhuShan. David is coming down to enjoy some 'country' living. I found a great botanical garden about 5 minutes from my apartment last weekend which is cool which I'm looking forward to showing him as he's more of a nature freak than I am, how he survives in Taichung is beyond me.

So that's pretty much it from me for the time being.

Oh last week I went ten pin bowling for the second or third time in my life. It was comical. I started out guttering every ball but managed to come back and even win the second game. Game playing is big over here, like arcade games and stuff. Night markets are full of both adults and children playing such games and there are quite a few game places around even in JhuShan.

Actually last weekend was impressive, I'm getting much better at navigating Taichung and JhuShan. I haven't been lost in a few weeks. Which means I probably should explore further out.

Holy smoke batman is that a plane I see

hmm so tomorrow is D-day for my visa. The paperwork has been processing for over a month. I was assured by pretty much everyone it would be easy to get a residence visa within the 60 days I had with the visitor visa. Apparently not that easy.

So ok the paperwork was slow, we got a newbie who slowed everything down and went by the book 110% of the time. This my resident visa application was yet to be filed.

I informed Amy and Bryan last week of the impending expiration and in all fairness to them they did the best they could. So today Amy drove me into Nantou to the nearest immigration office to see if we could either get an extention or just start the paperwork for my arc/visa.....apparently not. ARGH?!!?!

My visa runs out tomorrow (Friday). Fortunately we have a plan b (which doesn't include me having to go out and come back in). Instead of going to immigration which is limited in its ability tomorrow I hit Foriegn affairs office in Taichung with all my paperwork including a piece of paper acknowledging my paperwork is actually being processed. Amy and Brian seem optimistic about this working.

If that doesn't work the next time I write will be from Hong Kong. Amy has however volunteered to come with me to Hong Kong which I thought was an extremely friendly gesture. She made a joke about it being a great excuse for her to go shopping something she hasn't been able to do since her son was born but still it's definitely above and beyond.

So aside from the fact that I may have to leave the country tomorrow things have been going quite well. Amy seems happy with my performance which is good. While some of my classes are still rowdy I'm getting a groove going.

I got paid the other day, I've never held so many bills with 1000 printed on them...of course they were in NT which isn't quite the same as dollars but still impressive wad of cash.

I need to figure out how tax works here which could be interesting.

I have at least a day's worth of new Taiwanese music I've yet to listen to.

More misadventures in and out of JhuShan Town

So once again I decided to forgo the lure of bigger cities to spend this weekend in JhuShan. I got a very romaticized idea of riding into the mountains early Sunday morning to watch the sunrise. The plan was to go to bed early Saturday night and then get up at 2.30 and jump on a bike and start the journey topside. There were a few hitches, firstly the whole going to bed early thing didn't take. I was in bed around 8pm, but after an hour of tossing and turning I decided to get up and muck around for a bit longer. I finally crawled back into bed at 12.30...still early by my standards but cosidering the early start not nearly early enough. The second problem was that I wasn't sure how to get back to the path I discovered last week, however it turns out my navigation skills are better than I thought and I found it quite quickly. I left on schedule and everything was going great actually it was going too good. I got higher a lot faster than I expected although my body cried for rest and quite a few parts of the ascent was done pushing the bike as the gradient was too steep for my sleep deprived body.

I ended up resting in a spot for about 30 minutes. It wasn't a particularly beautiful spot plus it was still very much night so there wasn't much to see anyway. For a while it was quite nice...then my arachnophobia got the better of me and the idea of sitting in a forest type area for another 2 or so hours waiting for the sun to rise became a lot less appealing. I started moving up again but the woods got denser and the street lights became more spaced out. Finally the sighting of a snake made me doubt my ability to stay there for too long and I decided that the sunrise would be just as nice down near my apartment. The descent was a lot quicker than the ascent. Stupidly quick in fact despite the fact I spent half the time using my brakes just to slow down a bit. While the bike was more of a liability on the way up I was glad of it on the way down. After making it back to the main road I enjoyed the quiet of the night and decided to keep exploring (though this time I stuck to flatter roads).

I ended up riding south out of JhuShan and even made it into a different county (Yunlin county) I also got chased by two dogs not once but twice. I spent a good hour or so just riding around. Just after 5 I got back to the 'welcome to JhuShan' sign and decided to stop there to watch the sunrise. Unfortunately the cloud cover was such that there really wasn't much of a sunrise (good thing I didn't stay in the mountains I would have been totally annoyed). I decided to grab some breakfast on my way home. JhuShan started coming alive just before 6am.

After about 30 minutes of watching people start their day I headed to McDonalds in search of a mcmuffin only to be side tracked by their hot cakes. Now normally I am anti-McDs but in Taiwan it is totally different. Firstly there is a lot of oil in most Taiwan food so McD's in not necessarily the uber-unhealthy choice as it is in Australia. Also they have pictures of their food which makes it easy to order food without having to speak chinese. Plus this was my first time in a McDs in Taiwan so I don't feel so bad. Their hot cakes were great and for some reason they serve them with sausage as well....odd but nice seperated. They also gave me an English newspaper to read while I was eating.

So anyway I finally made it back to the apartment and was too wired to sleep so I ended up watching the 2nd US presidential election debate, which put me in a nice coma so I headed to bed for an hours nap.

I had nothing planned for the afternoon so I just grabbed the guitar and was strumming away when my phone went off. It was a number I wasn't familiar with but with nothing to lose I answered it.

It turned out to be the sister of one of my students who is going to be sitting her GEPT next Saturday and was looking for someone to help her practice. As I had nothing better to do I helped her out via phone and then went to meet up...amazingly enough she chose McDs as the meetup lol twice in one day!

The girl was good, her sentence problem is a problem and I have doubts about her ability to pass although hopefully she will get through. I've arranged to meet her as many times this week as possible and we're also gonna use her brother as a gopher to do written work.

I'm excited to have a project outside of school, I hear often of foreign teachers getting approached to do tutoring work but due to the fact I look local I didn't really expect to be given that chance.

So yeah it's been an interesting day.

Hijinks in JhuShan

So I ended up spending my weekend in JhuShan however I didn't stay cooped up all day. After spending a good couple of hours catching up on news and stuff Sunday morning I decided I'd had enough of being inside and I wanted to go for a swim. I heard thunder in the distance but as I knew there was no typhoon this week I figured I'd risk it, after all Melbourne has thunderstorms too so it couldn't be that bad...right.

So I went downstairs and there was a few spits, grabbed my bike a few more, made it out the gate it started to drizzle, about 10 metres from there the rain droplets got bigger, by the time I was a block away I my entire front was soaked and as I was passing a long shelter I decided to just stop there and wait it out. Yes I could have just admitted defeat and gone home but dammit I didn't want to. Unfortunate the thunderstorm was still not overhead. So I waited. It seems the Gods were bring the pool to me. Yes the irony wasn't lost on me and at one stage I wondered how crazy I would seem if I just stripped down to my bathing suit and rode around....I fought that urge however.

Next to the shelter I was standing under was a supermarket, unfortunately the shelter didn't go straight to the supermarket leaving a short but significant run needed if I wanted to take shelter in the supermarket instead. I opted to stay with my shelter. The rain got heavier and heavier to the point where it was just a huge blanket of water, the wind was slight at first, just enough to help the droplets form little clusters as they travelled down the street. I took my ipod out at one stage and it just randomly selected some india song by the John Butler Trio. The moment was almost perfect, the beauty and movement of the rain blended perfectly with the stylings of JBT. Then the rain became torrential. The wind picked up and small plants got blown over and the shelter become less sheltering as the wind blew the falling rain somewhat horizontally. My ipod went away as I found myself getting wetter and wetter despite being under shelter.

Eventually the rain slowed down enough for me to escape that shelter and make for a different shelter (this time an electrical/computer store) where I waited out the storm in the warmth and comfort of the store.

After the storm passed my desire to go swimming was just not there. So instead I decided to just ride around exploring non-central JhuShan. I found myself heading towards the mountains. The area was beautiful (I have no pictures because i didn't venture out with my camera that day). I started on an uphill ascent, nothing too steep. After a while my body was hurting, I wasn't expecting to be doing any major riding that day so I didn't bring any water. I decided to head back towards town and try again another day when I was more prepared. Thankfully the ride back was all downhill (although it made me realise if I do go riding there again I'm gonna need a helmet as the downhill speed can get crazy). So then I just travelled around more, I found a cycleway but it was flooded from the recent storm. Then I came across the main street which lead back into central JhuShan. It was quite cool. I think the mountains will make a great day or so riding at least, I can't wait to try them again.

Today I got inspired to do some baking. The inspiration has passed but not before I hit the shops in search of what I needed. The idea I had was Anzac biscuits...simple right. Apparently not so. Trying to find the ingredients was a challenge. While most things are cheaper here than at home there are things that are a lot more expensive. Things such as honey, butter and most of all cheese are just things that you can get (sort of) but the quality and price are well less than desirable. The cheese they have here is the processed cheese slices crap and for that you have to shell out at least $8AUD. Gormet cheese just doesn't exist here. Butter is slightly better although just as expensive.

So after getting most of the ingredients I needed I headed home only to realised I'd forgotten to find the rolled oats. So much for cooking. Not that it matters as the likelihood of me attempting to cook anything tonight was slim to none anyway as it is nightmarket night and after missing out last week due to the typhoon I'm definitely going and getting me a steak tonight.

Ok almost garbage time, gotta run.

Sometimes fate throws you a bone

So my schedule got changed again today, my first junior high class got moved from Tuesday to Friday. The same day as my level 9 class. Unfortunately the two classes clash for a 1/2 hour and as Amy and I take both of them that is a big problem. The solution I have my JH class for an hour and my level 9 class for only 1/2 an hour. While Amy does a 1.5 hours slog with the level 9ers and then goes on to JH. Wahoo.

Today in my level 9 class I caught the kids passing around a note. It was mostly in Chinese so I wasn't able to read it but there was the name of the former teacher on it and by the reaction I got when I took it off the kids it wasn't a very nice note. I told them to behave or I'd show it to Amy. That shut them up. I'm curious what it said but at the end of the class I gave it back to the kids with a short lecture about respecting people whether they are here or not. I felt very official doing it.

My one on one with Rory got delayed as he wasn't around when we were meant to have the lesson but he showed up eventually and all was good. He's a good kid and quite bright. I know his dad was spying on us, I caught him a couple of times when we were doing role plays which involved one of us going outside the door.

As a teacher I do some very unorthadox stuff and I'm pretty sure if the other teachers knew I'd at least get told to tone things down if not stop them all together. I figure if I can get the kids to use English I don't really care how it gets done. So I've introduced dodgeball and baseball and various other games into the classroom with quite some success. I've promised my second junior high kids we could work out some basketball thing next class. Still dunno how I'm gonna do it but it will get done.

My junior high classes are two classes I quite like despite the fact they are two of my biggest classes. I let them do their homework in my class for the first 20 or so minutes while the play an obligatory boring as hell dialog cd. This is something that would definately be frowned upon but the truth is the kids get a stupid amount of homework. I refuse to add to it and if I can help them lessen the amount they have to do at home I'm gonna.

To be honest while there are some things that still puzzle me about my job and my school I feel quite fortunate. I've heard horror stories about the treatment of some foreign teachers and the truth is while I'm not best friends with the teachers I work with I do respect them as teachers and as people and I get along with them no problem. I rarely get critism and when I do it is very gentle and constructive which I appreciate the most. I know there are still many things I need to learn as a teacher but hopefully they will come with time and experience and a hell of a lot of trial and error!

Highs and Lows and Inbetweens

So overall today was actually not so bad. Yes I dragged myself out of bed at stupid o'clock. Yes the Taichung meeting was almost all in Chinese however this time instead of sitting through the whole thing I sat through 1 hour. After I was convinced things weren't gonna change I left with Amy's blessing. Amazingly enough she actually sat in on this lecture which isn't something she's done before. The lecturer was actually very sweet however as I was the only foreign teacher stupid enough to attend she really had no choice but to focus on the masses which in this case were the native Chinese teachers. She did apologise for this and I really don't blame her.

So then I wandered a bit around Taichung, it was an area that I'm not familiar with so I didn't wander far, then I just sat around and read and stole some random person's internet to look up grammar points.

Back at school my schedule got altered so I now have 4 classes on Thursdays and as things stand only 1 class Friday (my lowest level got moved to Thursday). Again not a bad thing and as it turns out I'm likely to have 3 hours eventually Friday so whatever I can handle only having one class on Friday especially when that class is my Level 9 terrors from Hell ;) Ok not that bad they're mostly good kids just combined they make me want to strangle them occassionally.

It also turns out that grammar thing on Tuesdays may not be as bad as I thought. So that's cool. Apparently next week it's back to relying on the patterns guide book. Easy.

I did say I'd work more on setting up the projector for powerpoint tomorrow but as I really have nothing else to do I don't mind.

So that's it,there's a new episode of Fringe calling my name.

Oh yeah I dunno what to do this weekend. Technically this is my Taichung weekend but I just don't know if I feel like doing that especially as I've only just got over a cold and thus I don't think I should go to the orphanage for at least another week just to be really safe.

I may jsut go on an extended bike ride around JhuShan and hope I don't get lost....or maybe jump a bus to somewhere other than Taichung. I know there is more to Taiwan than Taichung and JhuShan.

Anyway that's still two days away. Right now Fringe and bed.

Wanted: One backbone

Ok ok so I said the last teachers meeting in Taichung would be my last....but apparently it won't be. I finally got around to discussing this with Amy today and she freaking used reverse psyche on me. I was given my out and I guilted myself into agreeing once more to get up at stupid o'clock to attend another teachers meeting which will probably be in Chinese. I was however given a compromise, in that if I don't understand what's going on I'm welcome to just leave and spend my time walking around Taichung....why I wasn't told this earlier I dunno. So I guess that won't be so bad.

Today was pretty standard, although I did spend the first hour trying to set up the projector which was actually quite easy. This means powerpoint presentations are not only possible but probably expected from time to time.

One thing I have to give Amy credit for is that she is willing to spend the money to get what is needed. Or even what is desired. She isn't stingy which is a good thing.

Aniga's last day was yesterday so today was our first day without her. Winnie her replacement is actually doing better than I expected, she's picking things up fast.

Ok this is gonna be short as I have a 7am start tomorrow. Which sucks as I've become a total night owl and usually have trouble getting myself out of bed before 9.30 these days.

The sacrifices I make.

Here comes the Grammar Nazi

Ok let me just say that this job is pretty cushy. I mean yes it is sometimes hard to keep the kids interested and it is often boring to sit around doing nothing for a good portion of the day. But on the other hand a lot of the classes require only basic english knowledge and a lot of the lessons write themselves.

So with the new teacher's arrival I was asked to start teaching the two novice teachers things like basic patterns and pronouciation etc. That was fine, we followed the books the structures were easy....today it got turned up a notch or 10. Now I'm to teach all the teachers for 1 hours a week and this time we're doing intermediate grammar...err crap.

Ok let me just tell you my grammar theory is well not great...ok it's borderline horrible. Today I survived by bullshiting and doing basic things but now it seems as this is going to be a regular thing I'm gonna have to start learning proper grammar. Ok so it's not the end of the world, it will do me good to learn this stuff and yes it will probably make me a better teacher....it will also mean that I will have to spend a good portion of my free time at school preparing for this 1 stupid hour a week.

Today we went though verb tenses. Of course without a grammar book I couldn't even name the stupid tenses and of course I left my grammar books at home so I was teaching from Amy's which wasn't particularly great for me.

As far as teaching English to the Taiwanese there are many challenges faced. The first being that the Chinese don't have an alphabet so even to start with that is a major hurdle to overcome.

The one that I face most commonly is the fact the Chinese language doesn't do past tense. They also don't do the whole hers his etc at least they don't have different words for it. At the present many of my levels are dealing with past tense. I'm actually good at past tense so that's cool.

The differences don't stop there. But anyway back to this teaching the teachers thing. I also put my foot in it and mentioned that I had a lot of grammar stuff on computer. This translated to Amy as I want to teach using powerpoint....so now I need to figure out how to set up the projector etc and also prepare powerpoint presentations. Yes yes foot meet mouth.

So now I'm going to skulk off and learn me some grammar...or watch a movie (hey my next teacher class isn't for a week I have heaps of time....)

I've been warned there's another meeting in Taichung this Thursday (so much for once a month), I'm gonna try and get out of it, hell at this stage I may not even be expected to go...at least I hope that is the case!

Another Week Another Typhoon

So Taiwan was hit by yet another typhoon this weekend. It actually felt bigger than the last one. Needless to say I didn't do a whole lot this weekend. I did get to catch up on my movie watching. I made it though: The Snow Angel (good but depressing), The Stone Angel (kinda dull but some parts were good), Graduation (eh), Meet Bill (quite good) and Superbad (not quite as bad as I was expecting but not overly good). I also watched the first 3 episodes of a new tv show called Fringe which was well impressive. It's being pegged as a new X-files...you know before it started sucking. The lead woman is an Aussie.

So yeah the week kinda flew by which I guess is good. Sunday was Teacher's Day here, dunno what that really means except that some of my students wrote me little notes etc which was sweet.

Because I spend so much time in the office doing basically nothing I have lots of time to chat with students outside of class. Sometimes we listen to music, sometimes I help them with homework other times we just play games. Two students in particular I spend a lot of time with. One is Sophia, she's in my Oral GEPT class and is one of the smartest and most dedicated students I have. We were discussing her schedule the other day and quite frankly I could never do it. Sometimes they stay at school til like 9.30 at night after starting at 9 in the morning or 8 or something stupid like that.

I will never understand the huge push for education that goes on here. Education is important but it isn't the end all and be all. Teachers like to give homework and tests here as well. A good memory is a prerequisite in all kids here it seems. I would have so failed if I was a student here.

The other student is Winston, he's basically my main source for learning Chinese here. He says I'm a bad student and it's totally true, I always forget the words he tells me. But then he isn't a saint of a student either, he reminds me a lot of myself as a student.

I got taken to a really nice Italian cafe last week. The pasta was the best I've had here. I just wish I weren't allergic to some of the seafood here because it is so stupidly fresh and cheap here. Although they serve mussel like things with green shells which seemed odd to me. After some experimentation I think I'm actually slightly allergic to the prawns here which I don't undersand cause I don't have that issue in Australia. It's quite depressing as I've become quite fond of prawns. Now I only eat seafood when I know I don't have to teach for at least a day that way if I do have an allergic reaction I have a day to get over it.

The weather seems to have calmed down slightly for the time being but it's still raining and slightly windy. The water comes in through the window a bit, I've got towels wrapped up next to the window sill soaking up as much of the wetness as possible. I considered moving the laptop far away from the window but I really dunno where to move it so for now it stays and I just hope the window doesn't break or something and let all the water in.

I managed to do my washing again this weekend. It's becoming a tradition to do my washing in a typhoon. I even bought more coat hangers so now there are no clothes in my suitcase and the only clothes laying around the place are drying after being dragged from the washing machine. I'm quite impressed. Yet it still looks kinda messy here. Eh, it's my weekend.

3 strikes and I'm out

So last night I was all set to hit the hay when my virus protector went kaput so I decided to reboot and then when that didn't work I did the whole turn off thing thinking i would just turn it back on it would be fine and I'd go to bed....err except my laptop had been running for well I dunno how many days straight and I think it may have effected the power switch connection. So I turned it off and pushed the button to turn it back on and nada ARGH. This was 12.30 (still a reasonable hour) so after trying a few more times I decide I just need to let it cool down and then I'll try it again in the morning...but of course I can't sleep so at 1.30 I try it again for like the 13th time and then decide it's time to operate of course I don't have the tools so after a few futile attempts I give up and hit the button again with no real hope only to have it spring to life.

I dunno if it is totally fixed or if the glitch is still there and I'm not keen to find out either. Of course the virus protector was still not working so I then had to repair that so instead of a reasonable hour to sleep I went to sleep just before 3 only to have to wake up again 4 hours later.

So once again I trek into Taichung to attend what I thought was teacher training. err no it's just a talk. So I rock into the room and head straight to the lecturer like a good little student to talk to her about my inability to speak any Chinese. To which I'm informed that as this is a lecture there will be NO English...NONE WTF!?!?!

So I sign and resign myself to the back of the room which is where Aniga said I should go so I could do my inattentive thing. Except Chloe took pity and came to sit with me which I thought was really sweet and much more than the other 'teachers' did. So we moved closer to the front as she is a much better student than I am and I felt bad. When the lecture started Chloe when out of her way to help translate the main points for me so I wasn't totally lost. Of course her English ability isn't great so she could only give me basics but I still really appreciated it.

That being said I was still pretty lost for the most of it. I did get to write a message to my cell...err like my innerself on a balloon (which later became a punching bag for the kids at my school much to the horror of the other teachers who seemed to be much more attached to their balloons.)

Towards the end there was an activity so I thought I'd take the time to go up to the lecturer as Amy had suggested the last time and try and suss out what the hell the talk was about. err yeah no. I really don't think this lecturer had a great grasp on English. So I went up and I'm like 'I don't really get what I'm meant to be doing..." and she takes my hand and pats it and is like 'it's ok it's ok' and then she hugs me and sends me back to my seat....so much for that idea.

But hey I tried. Ok could have probably tried a little harder but really I don't think I care. Yes I would like to be given ideas for improving my teaching but if I can't understand them then what is the use.

Unfortunately Amy wasn't around when I got back and she was actually quite sick when she did rock up so I didn't have the heart to talk to her about pulling out of the training from now on. I guess that talk will wait till tomorrow.

So while I was writing that I saw not 1 but 2 freaking spiders, one was a smallish daddy longlegs one the other was bigger. So after a slight freak out I kill the small one and then go after the big one which is climbing up the curtain, only to have it fall under my freaking laptop. But I killed it so yay me.

I'm so tired.

Today I started introducing English music to the office dunno how well it went but Amy still seems cool with it so I guess it's not a bad thing. I need to work to censor more of the stuff. I did an initial run through with bands that are obviously gonna have swears but I didn't get them all.

I had a kid ask me today what a vagina was talk about awkward. They were my junior high class so I just said that it's a body part and told him to leave it at that.

Oh after the training session we went to 'little italy cafe' in Taichung and had pasta. It was actually quite decent. Unfortunately while many dishes sounded great they also contained mixed seafood and as I've had slight reactions to at least 2 types of seafood here I figured I'd have to stay clear of that considering I had to head back to school and teach. So I had the creamy chicken mushroom spaghetti which was great.

Ok I'm sure there is more but it can wait cause I'm too tired to write more.

Once more into the fray

So there are interesting things afoot at my school. I rocked up on Tuesday to find a new local teacher, Winnie, among the mix. She's actually very nice although her english ability isn't overly great and her pronounciation could be a lot better. I spent 1 hour Tuesday working on pronouciation with her and Chloe.

The reason for the new full time teacher is that Aniga one of the other local teachers is leaving. I'm quite sad about that because I think that given enough time Aniga and I could have been quite good friends. I guess that is just how things go.

So yeah my timetable is changing classes are merging I really have no idea what is going on but I rock up everyday and just teach what I can.

I talked to Amy about the possibility of me playing English music in the office and she was quite enthusiastic about it so starting tomorrow I'm going to educate everyone on the grandness of Australian Music yay and other music....

So Anna told me this afternoon that there is another teacher meeting in Taichung tomorrow and so stupid me I asked Amy about it and she looked surprised and was like "yes, are you coming with us..." which makes me think that I may have got out of it if I'd just kept my stupid mouth closed...of course it may have be meant in a different way but I doubt it. So tomorrow morning I have to be at the school at 7.40 in time to get to Taichung where I'm sure I will sit through 4 hours of English teaching training in Chinese. This time I'm going to make an effort though to get the trainers to talk English. At least if it doesn't work I can say I really really tried. I feel I owe it to Amy to at least do that and tomorrow's lesson is on how to be a better teacher which is something I could stand to learn a few things about.

Unfortunately tomorrow's meeting means I can't go swimming in the morning like I was thinking of doing although honestly the chance of it happening even if I didn't have the meeting was probably only like 30%.

I was going to write a whole thing on the challenges faced by an English teacher teaching in Taiwan but I guess that will wait for another time as I have an early start tomorrow and well yeah my body doesn't do early anymore.

I actually made an effort to clean my apartment today....it looks better than before but it still looks messy I keep forgetting to invest in more coathangers. I have a few but not enough and so I use that as an excuse not to hang anything up heh.

YouTube is fast becoming a favourite site for me. I don't bother with the amatuer stuff that bores me I don't like watching average joes singing my favourite songs off key nor do I like the jackass inspired crap. I do however like finding tv programs that I've not heard of. I've also been using it to watch ESL teaching videos which while not overly helpful aren't too bad.

Solo in Taichung

So today I decided to wander into Taichung and as things turned out I spent the whole day navigating the busy streets of Taichung alone which was actually quite fun. I'm definitely getting a better idea of how to get everywhere. Of course I haven't really mastered the city buses so it involves much walking but I kinda like that because it means I get to visit the little stores I stumble across along the way which is something I wouldn't get to do on a bus.

So I went to Chung Yo a big department store I'd visited once before and gave up on after 6 levels of clothes clothes and more clothes. But this time I'd done my research and went straight to level 10 home of Eslite bookstore a huge bookstore chain in Taiwan and also home to many Vitas Lu singles and also books in English...well ok not that many but still some books in English. The place was pretty cool although it was actually walking to Chung Yo where I made a great discovery.

The discovery being a second hand bookstore on the same street but further up. While many books were in Chinese they had a small section dedicated to english literature. And there were many classics there, I found ithard to walk away empty handed but at that stage I'd yet to see what Eslite held and was wary to buy anything. But the second hand bookstore will be somewhere I will visit again. I think I'll have to limit how much money I bring on trips to Taichung from now on! While eslite had modern literature such as Kite Runner and PS I Love You the SH bookstore had such classics as the portrait of dorian grey and my favourite Little Women as well as not so classics such as Grisham's The Client.

After buying all the Vitas Lu stuff I could find and also exploring the top levels of Chung Yo department store I wandered back and stumbled across a huge market which was packed with heaps of funky little side stalls and food stalls. Having already hit my puffie store I wasn't really interested in food though so I kept wandering.

I also stumbled upon a pet store with cats and dogs. The conditions they are kept in is quite disgusting, at least they weren't crammed in but they have nothing but wire surrounding them even on the bottom of their cages. One puppy was chewing it's water dish. I've been tossing up getting some sort of pet after my paperwork comes through. I'm not talking cat or dog as that would be cruel given the hours I work and the size of my apartment. But a fish or a bird is viable. There are birds for sale everywhere here...how many of them are sold as pets and how many as food I'm not sure. I'd love to get a duck but 1 I don't think my apartment is suited for a duck and 2 I'm pretty sure all ducks sold are designed to be food and I'd hate to pay for one and watch it get slaughted in front of me in some warped translation problem. They do have smaller birds though such as canaries etc I dunno it's just an idea.

I ended up hitting the guitar store again and grabbing some stuff I needed and made some fanboys who saw my label.

After wandering around all day I was tempted to catch a movie however the only movie I was remotely interested in seeing was x-files 2 and that didn't start for another hour so I skipped that and went in search of food. I was going to check out this food court I stumbled across last time however this time it didn't look so appitizing and the fact people were smoking all around turned me off even more so I kept wandering. I ended up at a "pizza" stand where I ordered my 2nd pasta dish since arriving. It actually wasn't horrible although I doubt I'll be rushing back again.

After all the excitement I headed home.

If it is nice tomorrow I will head to the swimming pool and do a few laps. Aside from that I think tomorrow will be a lazy day, I have a heap of movies that are just asking to be watched, not to mention the entire 2nd season of Dexter.

Just another Saturday night

So I had my last two GEPT classes today at least for this round. Next weekend they have their tests. I'm not sure how many of them will succeed.

All in all my classes today weren't bad. My first class Saturday morning is level 6 they are quite bright but being early Saturday morning I'm not at my perkiest nor are the kids so quite often the class suffers from lack of energy and lack of prep on my part (I tend to get the lesson plan late on Friday night just before leaving around 9.30 pm and I have a 9am start Saturday and the class starts at 10 so needless to say that class often isn't as fun as other classes.) Today was the exception. I find different classes like different things. In this case they wanted to try and get the sticky ball to stick to the top most of the whiteboard wall instead of trying to hit the target I'd drawn out. So instead of fighting it I went with it assigning different points to different parts of the wall and the kids loved it. There was probably more participation and learning going on than in past classes.

My next class is Level 7 and while they are quite bright their ability to elicit information that isn't read and copy isn't anywhere near as good as it should be. Which I guess shows while there memory is good their comprehension isn't nearly as good.

My GEPT oral class got moved from the usual 4.30-5.30 slot to 1.30-2.30 which was fine by me as it means I could actually leave on time (in theory in practice I actually left later than usual). I've said it before and I'll say it again I really love that class and I'm sorry to see it end. This time round it was just a major review. I feel quite confident in their ability to pass the oral section of their test.

My next class is book 5 and it's not too bad. Their major problem is using things in context, once again while their memory is good their comprehension is borderline. I think that just has to do with the amount of drilling and memorising they are expected to do.

Here it seems as long as a kid can pass the test it doesn't seem overly important whether they actually understand what it is they are doing. Of course it is my job to try and force context on them in the 1 hour a week I spend with each class.

That being said I do like the class, it also contains my boss' son who while he can be slightly rowdy at times he's a decent kid at heart. I've also seen the pressure put on him by his parents to do well so I am always happy to let him use my class to blow off some steam. The same goes for all the kids. Education is stupidly important here. It's not just important to get a good education it is important to be the best. Competition is a way of life here and while I take advantage of it in my classrooms I honestly don't know if I agree with the idea of pushing kids to always be the best.

My final class of the day was my GEPT vocab class. With the huge amount of stuff I have to go through with them I honestly don't get the chance to play games with them which really sucks as they are a bright bunch for the most part.

So that was my Saturday as a teacher.

Away from school the air con in my apartment apparently got damaged in the typhoon so today Alan asked for my keys so the maintainence man could fix it. Of course my apartment was a mess with clothes thrown around the place and various other things but eh I can live with it they can live with seeing it. So anyway that all got done and I got my keys back and everything was good. I finished school got some dinner, went and treated myself to an icecream, got to my apartment and turned my lock only to discover it was still locked. The thing is I have two locks and one of my locks has two mechanisms. One of the mechanisms I've never used as when I was first shown the apartment Alan had trouble unlocking it when he triggered it so I never bothered. Until today. So there I was icecream in hand after a long week fiddling with my lock cursing my luck. After 5 minutes I was fed up and decided to go downstairs to get the security guard to unlock my building. Now while my Lonely Planet phrasebook has served me well it doesn't seem to have the word unlock in it at all. So I rang my boss and asked if she could as the guard in Chinese to go and open my door. The guard looked quite puzzled when I thrust the phone towards him but in the end he came willingly. Even he had difficulty with it and for a few minutes I thought i may have to call Amy back again and tell her she needed to come fix my lock but finally the lock opened. Yay for the security guard. Of course then he tried explaining in Chinese what I needed to do, none of which I understood obviously but still I am extremely grateful to him.

So that was my big adventure. Tonight I think I'll snuggle in and watch a movie or two and tomorrow I'll head to Taichung as I don't think I can stand spending another full weekend in JhuShan (as lovely as it is I need retail therapy).

The highs and lows of friday

So my cold finally broke over night and while it is still around I don't feel quite so lousy. Today was my quiet day, I only had 2 classes. Ironically one is my lowest class and probably one of my favourite to teach. There are only 4 students and they are quite young (6 or 7ish). The class is only 2 weeks old so they are still learning their abcs and everything else. I love making them as active as possible. Being a small class I can have them all participating in a running game without too much carnage. The other class is probably the one I have the most trouble with and also as far as levels go they are one of my highest. Today I actually broke through and got their participation...my methodology however was slightly unorthadox and would probably be frowned upon by the other teachers.

Essentially after throwing a sticky ball at a whiteboard target failed to get their enthusiasm I offered myself up as a target with a very soft ball. Thus any correct answer resulted in a chance to hit me with the ball and get points. This may not be the most responsible teaching method around but after the results I saw today I really don't care. Even battleship failed to get a decent response.

While today was my quietest day tomorrow is my busiest yet again my oral GEPT class is one I really look forward to despite the fact it means I stay at least 30 minutes later than I'm meant to. Once again the class is small only 5 students. There is no prep necessary as the lesson plan is tight but the conversation level is quite high.

Fridays I always visit a certain street vendor for dinner. She is very friendly and while a lot of what we say is lost in translation she tries hard to speak English and I flex my Chinese vocab whenever possible. The food is great although there are things on her stand I've learnt to avoid such as stinky tofu and what I think is a form of kimchi (South Korean dish of spicy cabbage).

Tomorrow night I will hit the resturant near Brian's store and get a seafood noodle soup (seriously good and it's a steal at just under $4AU with unlimited drinks and sauces included. You'd never find that in Australia.)

Now all I need to do is get through tomorrow....and ditch this stupid cold.

Not Leaving on A Jet Plane

So I haven't actually checked my flight since arriving in this crazy country but I'm pretty sure there is a flight in the air now headed for Australia that I was booked to fly on. Needless to say I'm not on it. In all fairness though I never had any intention of being on it it was a throw away ticket so I wouldn't get turned away after I landed in Taiwan.

This kinda means now that everything is invested in getting my ARC in the next month. I got told it would get done in time but I think it will be a close call.

To say there isn't a small part of me that wishes I was on that plane headed home would be a lie, as much as I like it here I know that when my year is up I'm not going to be renewing that contract.

The cold is still lingering. I spent a good portion of this morning with Google translator trying to navigate a chinese bookstore website in order to find some music I want. After about an hour of translating I figured it'd just be easier to do the whole thing with Brian or someone from school next to me as a computer program can only translate so well.

Show me the money

Still sick, although I did find a great drink store that sold fresh drinks and had both an english and chinese menu. They have a great lemon juice and honey drink so I sipped on that during the day.

I got paid for my first 2 weeks training today, not a lot but to be honest that figure was never really discussed anyway so it was more than I could have got. Plus it was cash in hand so I don't have to worry bout setting up a bank account yet....not that I could anyway as I have no paperwork

Classes were pretty good today. I played battleship in like 3 of my 4 classes lol I keep expecting someone to get sick of it but so far it's holding strong.

I found my little man who makes puffie like things in JhuShan tonight. Not as good as those in Taichung but still it's a minute bike ride versus a 60 minute bus ride heh

Their version of 2 minute noodles here is much better than the Maggi variety back home although I miss the other kind...and I'm totally blanking on the name. Amazingly enough I can't seem to find the oriental flavour though lol

Still tossing up whether to stay in JhuShan or go to Taichung this weekend. If this cold clears up I think I'll head to Taichung for a day, I really want to see if I can find more Vitas Lu albums.

Part of one of my classes tomorrow involves getting the kids to fill in a workbook which has both English and Chinese...of course in order for me to make sure they do it correctly I need to know the answers which means I need to at least recognise the chinese translation so guess what I'm doing tonight lol It's only level 2 so it's not too bad. I will have one of the chinese teachers look over my book tomorrow to make sure I've answered it correctly before I go to class though.

Anyway I have noodles to cook and homework to do.

Another week begins

In two days time my return ticket home will be forfeited, in a way it feels I've been here longer than a month. I think I've got a cold my nose won't stop running and my head feels slightly congested. I'm not overly surprised one of the girls at work had a cold last week, add to that the dramatic change in climate due to the typhoon and well it's a perfect mix for a cold.

Saying that I couldn't sleep last night so around midnight I said to hell with it and went for a jog. Now I've not jogged in Taiwan and before that well lets just say it's been a while since I was capable of running 10km. Still the school near me has a proper running track and the weather was perfect for jogging so I felt confident I could do a couple of laps...er no. Just over half way round I had to slow to a walk and get my breath back. It was only my 5th time round that I managed to make it through an entire lap without walking part of the way. Talk about out of shape. Although now I think about it it may have been the cold affecting my breathing....at least I'm willing to put part of the blame on that.

Either way I will have to start getting into a jogging routine as there is no gym here and while there is a pool I'm too lazy to go in the mornings and it's too late when I finish work. So I will have to satisfy myself with the running track.

I'm tossing up extending my travel insurance for the duration of my stay. It is set to expire in a few days and while I won't sign with the same company there are other companies out there that have decent deals for reasonable prices. While the health insurance is said to be excellent and cheap over here as soon as the health card comes through I still think travel insurance may not be a bad idea.

Today I have 3 classes one of which will take some time preparing just to try and make it fun, the other 2 basically write themselves.

I don't know whether to head into Taichung next weekend or not, I guess I will play it by ear...after all that's a whole working week away.

Oh last night I managed to find the Monday Night Markets all by myself, I was so proud (it wasn't hard I just followed the fireworks and then the mass of people). After walking around for a bit I bumped into my boss and her family and some other people I work with. The polite thing to do would have been to hang around with them but I didn't really feel like it so I kept doing my own thing. I found a stand that made great lemonade. Unfortunately I couldn't find any puffies though.

I still can't find the musical instrument store here in JhuShan and I managed to break my capo the other day. I really need another one, but more importantly I need to get a tuner. I think I'm going to have to ask someone again where the hell it is as 'near the school' just doesn't cut it. There are like 6 schools in JhuShan, not counting language schools.

Typhoon 1 Jade 0

So it seems I underestimated the typhoon my last post or at least I had figured it was over when really it was yet to start. Sunday it pelted with rain all day...I mean all day. I decided to do laundry as my internet went down quite early and I was housebound due to the typhoon. Unfortunately my washing machine is on the balcony...still can't complain at least I have one and don't have to use a laundromat. So I had to put a raincoat on just to open the balcony door and quickly try and stuff my clothes into the washing machine. It was actually quite amusing, I'm glad there was no one on the street to see me.

The rain and wind persisted last night as well and while there seems to be a slight break now I don't think it's going to last (in fact as we speak the rain has started up again). I guess I may be housebound again today.

I did catch up on my movie watching yesterday. I ended up watching "The life before here eyes' which I really enjoyed, sure it was actually easy to see where it was going and it got tedious in some parts but I loved the way they told it. It's about a woman who was in a Columbine like massacre which killed her best friend. 15 years on she's happily married with a kid but her past still haunts her. It's apparently based on a book which I think I will have to hunt down.

I then watched The Last King of Scotland, the first part was actually a lot lighter than I expected, it was nice to see Gillian Anderson in something other than X-Files. The second half was the serious part I was actually expecting the whole movie to be. All in all it was ok, the fact the main character had trouble keeping his thing in his pants got a bit tedious though.

Lastly I watched Freedom Writers, yet another based on a true story inspirational teaching movie but I actually really liked it, it was much better than Dangerous Minds and I'm a fan of Hilary Swank anyway.

So that was my Sunday. Sitting around watching the rain pelt the windows and trying to fill in the hours. I have a feeling if the rain doesn't stop that is how today will be as well. I think the novelty of these typhoons will get old very fast. In fact it may already have.

Anyway that's pretty much all I have for now. I don't feel like doing any teaching stuff today, it's my weekend there will be no work done on my weekend! Well at least until tonight.

Jade 1 Typhoon 0

So the typhoon didn't really hit JhuShan, I mean there was rain and a lot of it but that was the extent of it, the wind really more than a breeze. Although I saw on the news that in other places the damage was a lot more severe.

Today's classes were pretty easy, one of them got cancelled as none of the students wanted to go out in the 'typhoon'. I think my GEPT classes are coming to an end at the end of this month which is a shame as I'm actually kinda liking them....well the oral one at least the vocab one there is just too much stuff to get through that I really can't play games it's straight drill then cd work which kinda sucks but it's easy for me to prepare.

After work Amy invited me to her husband's parents place for a barbecue which I jumped at the opportunity for as they are so revered here. It was actually pretty cool the food was great although it seems maybe I'm allergic to more than clams as I once again had a slight swelling of the lip this time I think maybe from the shrimp.

The thing that interested me the most though was the size of the barbeque they were cooking on. I'm used to the barbies in OZ which is the bigger the better, here though the bbqs were well nothing more than like portable grills. Itsy bitsy little things that we might take camping...actually some people take bigger things camping than these bbqs.

I had a moon cake...a proper one which was a little like mince pies except I'm pretty sure there was some actual meat in it...still it wasn't horrible, although I prefer the other festive desserts better.

So now I have experienced a typhoon and a moon festival bbq..quite an achievement I think.

Typhoon

So I've heard there's a good possibility of a typhoon hitting today. For some reason David who is about 40 minutes away gets the day off because of it while I still have to go to work meh. Still it doesn't look too bad outside I mean it just looks like a normal dreary day, hell the trees are barely moving.

I'm quite excited at the prospect of experiencing a typhoon. At least the sun won't blind me today.

I don't get though how Nantou and Taichung can have the same risk probability of getting hit and yet I still have to go to work and David gets to well...actually if I weren't going to work 1 I wouldn't get paid and 2 I wouldn't have anything to do. So maybe going to work is a good idea.

Anyway I need to go get ready.

1 step forwards 2 steps backwards

Today I had to get up at 7 am to go attend teacher training in Taichung. I thought it was going to be better than the last time 1 because there
was another foreign teacher there and 2 because a lot more of the
booklet was in English unfortunately the booklet was pretty much the
majority of the English there.

After getting up at stupid o'clock to attend this stupid thing I
was totally frustrated and so just tuned out actually I started
drawing and making paper aeroplanes and generally being a bad student
lol towards the end I was playing tetris on my phone :/

Afterwards my boss accused me of not concentrating...which is true and
I just told her it was mostly in Chinese. I know this makes me sound
whingy and whatever but seriously I don't think she gets how freaking
frustrating it is. She asked me why I didn't ask the lecturer
afterwards about the lesson and to be honest I just hadn't thought of
it...well that's the first thing the reason I gave her was that the
class was over 3 hours long and there is no way I could get in 5
minutes anything close to what the lecturer was talking about, my
other reason is that they are teaching freaking english teachers to
teach English I really don't get why it has to be taught in Chinese.

My boss was unhappy which I felt bad for. She made the point that she
pays for the training and we don't have to pay anything so I should
make more of an effort which I guess is a fair point. It's
frustrating though cause I have a feeling if I knew everything that
was being said it would actually help me be a better
teacher....unfortunately for that to happen I'd need a class that
actually spoke English and I don't think that will happen.

I know I should have made more of an effort but seriously you try sitting still for over 3 hours while people yammer on in a language you totally don't know and then see just how willing you are to go and ask questions about the lesson.

I didn't get to talk to the other foreign teacher which was
disappointing, I really wanted to go up and say thank god you are here
now I'm not the only one who has no clue what I'm doing. But I guess
I got shy. Plus the teachers he came with were much better at
explaining things to him than the teachers at my school who basically
didn't help me with jack and then expected me to help them with the
activities when I had no clue what was going on. Please don't get the wrong idea the people I work with are really nice people, they are just reserved I guess. The foreign guy probably would have been confused anyway if I'd gone up to him as I still look like I belong. Maybe that's why everyone just expects me to understand. At least one of the test papers was in English so I answered that the other was in chinese so I wrote my name with a giant capitalised I DON'T READ CHINESE! under it, obnoxious yes but as I said I was frustrated...and cold the room was extremely airconditioned and I only had a tshirt on.

All in all today could have gone better. Still my classes went ok today and Battleship is going down a treat. I went to a store and bought some soft balls and speakers for tomorrows Level 9 class in hopes of turning around from last weeks nightmare class. While I was there I saw the motherload of fireworks. They are all so cheap. I'm going back tomorrow to stock up...it's totally legal here!

This weekend is a big holiday and I have nothing planned. I did get given moon cakes today though which are meant to be well nice so I guess I will be eating cake.

I found more Vitas Lu albums unfortunately the site is in Chinese and the stores are all in Taipei. I can google translate but it doesn't let me sign up or check out when it is translated and amazingly enough I don't read chinese so I can't navigate it without translating it with google...talk about catch 22. I'm still determined to get the cds though. I may have to go bother Brian.

Oh I watched street kings..not really impressed. It actually would have worked as a spoof cop movie ala scream unfortunately it was totally serious...oh well.

The internet has been sketchy lately, hopefully it will be here in the morning.

Almost Legal

So my health check came through and apart from having abnormal skin (tattoos) I got a full pass. Thus the mammoth mound of paperwork began. Now I understand why Amy was hesitant to start anything before hand. Firstly we are both inexperienced with the forms. The office girl started only 2 weeks before me so she had never done the paperwork needed thus Amy and I had to slog through it. Actually any part that wasn't in Chinese I had to do.

Tonight I actually saw my contract for the first time and it was in English so no need for a hissy fit there. Everything seems above board which is a relief. The only thing that could have been better is she considered my employment started from Sep 1 so my contract doesn't end until August 31. meh but still a few extra days won't hurt me and hopefully my arc will be for a year so I will still have time afterwards to do a little bit of travelling in Taiwan before moving on.

During the conversation Amy asked what my plans were after the year...I told her I had trouble knowing what tomorrow holds let alone a year from now...which isn't really a lie. The fact I'm almost certain it doesn't involve Melody School is something I kept to myself.

I have to attend a meeting in Taichung tomorrow morning at 9 am which means a 7am start here MEH. Of course once again I got told late this afternoon and actually it was by a fellow teacher not Amy.

Yesterday I was dragged out of my class to interview a potential new part time teacher. Why I was interviewing I have no idea, I guess to test fluency. As far as I was concerned her fluency was good. It probably could have been better but I was impressed, although I think I marked her too leniently (I gave her a 9/10...she was standing right behind me when Amy was asking).

I had some strange Chinese guy knock on my door today and he was saying stuff in Chinese to me. Eventually he left but he did keep trying to see into my room. I wish I knew what he wanted.

My pilfered internet has been down for a couple of days hence the nonposting. It sucks when it is down but I'm coping better now than I would have before.

I watched Speed Racer the other night and was actually kinda impressed. Yes it got bad reviews but really I think for what it is it's pretty awesome and honestly I don't think anyone could have done it better. Yes it was predictable and yes the visual was quite odd but it was based on an anime tv show so the visuals were quite apt (imho).

I also watched Harold and Kumar 2 that I was less than thrilled with, it had it's moments but really if I had to choose between the 2 movies Speed Racer would win hands down. Next on my viewing list is Street Kings.

Ok like I said early start tomorrow so I must go try and get some sleep.

Taichung again

So once again I headed to Taichung this weekend. I was in the mood for some retail therapy. I was also in the mood for buffalo wings. I experienced my first shopping mall after arriving early in Taichung. It was stupidly crowded and reminded me more of a market than a shopping centre. There were also movies playing, so at least I know where to go when I want to see a movie. David and I met up and ended up taking the long way to Taichung Park home of a huge goat family (statue). The park was nice despite being within walking distance of Central Taichung the park was very serene. There was a huge bunch of kids doing something I'm still not sure what there was much screaming, jumping and laughing. After that we dawdled around and found a huge shopping mall. All it sold was clothes, jewellry and more clothes. Very disappointing. We did manage to find a music store on the way to TGI Fridays and I found the cd of the chinese singer I like (although I already had that cd but still).

TGI Friday's was a great experience. David says they were American prices and admittedly it was the first meal I'd payed over $500 nt for but really that wasn't much considering the amount of food I had. I ordered a full plate of buffalo wings and a bowl of fries and a milkshake. The waiting staff there was awesome most spoke English and spent alot of time around our table teaching us (well mostly David) various Chinese words. When we left every single waitress there came to say goodbye and one came running and asked when we were coming back and said that if we came at certain times she would be able to help us with our Chinese which was really friendly of her.

We then dawdled back towards the train station finding King Wang's Bakery on the way.

This morning I was meant to meet up with a social worker (YiChen) from my old home to take me on a visit. Unfortunately I decided to first go get some travellers cheques cashed which was fine and then proceeded to walk away in the wrong direction. After a while of walking I asked in my broken way which way the train station was and got pointed in the direction I was walking...so I kept going. It was about 20 minutes later that I realised my mistake. By then I was due to meet YiChen so I called her up and she managed to come find me and take me to the home.

Daniel A Poling's Babies Home is a lot bigger than I first imagined. The staff there was amazing, all very friendly. Many of the kids I saw today were special needs and unable to go to school. I also saw some of the little babies (1-2 years old) who were adorable. One girl loved playing with my watch. Cameras weren't allowed in with the babies but they were welcomed everywhere else.

One volunteer there studied in America and has travelled a lot of the world. She lives in Taipei and comes and volunteers a few days a week. She offered to be my guide in Taipei whenever I make it there. Everyone was very accomodating and said I was welcome to come back any time.

They gave me lunch and we discussed my family and what I'm doing in Taiwan I showed them the old photos I had of the Home and they told me my chinese name meant "beautiful piano". All in all it was a very special few hours and I look forward to visiting again soon.

I then got dropped back at the bus stop and decided that I wanted to explore more. I wandered around places I'd not yet been to and stumbled upon a musical instrument store. The guy spoke English and gave me a decent deal on a basic guitar so I took it.

While I was waiting for my bus two people came around with key rings trying to raise money. I gave the 100 NT and they were so grateful it was embarrassing. I think they spent a good minutes saying thankyou. Today I got off the bus in an area I actually knew which was nice.

I missed the garbage trucks and was slightly peeved as I haven't thrown out any rubbish since being here so I was going to go try and follow the trucks and dump the stuff when I stumbled upon a load of rubbish in the stairwell. I honestly don't know if it's allowed to be there but as I don't know where the main rubbish bin in for my apartment building I followed suite and dumped my rubbish there.

All in all I think this weekened went well and apparently my health check is back so the paperwork can commence tomorrow hopefully. yay I will eventually be legal.

Yay for the weekend

So after a late finish last night I wandered in at 9am today feeling well tired. My schedule was still up in the air and quite frankly I was just ready for the weekend to start. I wasn't sure how my first class would go as I kinda sucked last week (although in all fairness I didn't know I was going to teach it until literally 5 minutes before it began). This week I got the response I was after so I was well happy. My list of games is ever expanding and I'm worried at how fast I go through them. I went straight from that into another class which was also not too bad. Technically this class wasn't on my scedule but it was given to me anyway so I did it. I was meant to do a 1 on 1 for 1.5 hours but that never happened thankfully. I then had another relatively straightforward class then I had my two GEPT classes. The second GEPT class is challenging in that I'm often a walking theasurus trying to explain words they don't know using words they do. The first is just challenging because it is big and we have a lot to go through so very few games get played.

I decided to try again at ordering food. This time I slightly cheated and went to the same place Brian took me to so I knew what I wanted I just wasn't sure how to say it. I ordered the seafood noodle hot pot. For around $3AUD I get this great hot meal with a fair bit of seafood in it plus drinks are included. Honestly I think I'm going to have to go there more often. This time I avoided the clams.

This weekend will be spent in Taichung. I'm looking forward to hanging out in Taichung and I'm really hoping to find a decent music store. I'm even considering finding a musical instrument store. David wants to check out the art museum. There is a TGI Fridays in Taichung too so I may have to check that out (Buffalo wings here I come bwhahaha).

I've been expanding my Chinese music collection thanks to the generous person supplying my internet and a great LJ site dedicated to Taiwanese music.

My favourite Taiwanese performer so far has to be Vitas Lu or 盧廣仲 (Lu Guang Zhong). He has a very acoustic pop feel.

For those who are interested here is one of his video clips.

My goal now is to see him play live during my stay here. He's so geeky but I love it.

I need sleep. I was so tired before and now I'm totally re-energised.

I can now count in Chinese heh I made my students teach me and I'm also learning one handed juggling (with two balls).

And now I have two days of r'n'r. Yay for weekends. Sucks to be a native teacher as all the other teachers at my school have only 1 day off. I couldn't live with only 1 day off. I could really go for 3 days off but I guess that's pushing it.

Tomorrow's gonna suck

Today should have been easy, I only had 2 classes, unfortunately 1 of them I crashed and burned in. It's a level 9 class so tehy are older and more advanced than most of my classes. For level 7 up I try and get them to speak English only. I figure by that stage they have a basic grasp on English.

This class I just could not get to stop speaking Chinese. They basically just wanted to throw the sticky balls as hard as they can at one another.

It's frustrating because at that level they have a decent understanding so the possibilities of what I could do with them are endless but if I can't get them to at least respect me I'm dead in the water.

I was talking to one of the students after class an tried to find out what I need to do to get the kids involved. I got some ideas but whether they are practical or not is a whole other matter.

Tomorrow my schedule is still up in the air. All I know is I have a hell of a lot of classes as it stands. I also have two things scheduled at the same time..how that works I dunno. I tried to get information from Amy about what my timeline was but she gave me some info about one of my classes and then said she'd have to find out about the other thing and then left not to be seen again before I headed home.

This is something that really, really bugs me. As a teacher they expect me to give these mindblowing classes yet Amy in particular doesn't really give me any prep information unless I pry it from her. Maybe if I had more experience I could do a great class without prep but I'm still new and so it helps if I can have time to design games or think of new fun ways of teaching the material. Meh screw it.

One more day and then I have two days off, yay.

You can totally buy fireworks in the supermarket here. Bwhahahaha You can also buy air pellet guns in quite a few random stores, they are shaped like various popular guns there are even ones shaped like semi machine guns, it's bizarre.

I dig the fireworks thing though. It explains why I hear so many fireworks. They are also stupidly cheap heh.

JhuShan Night market

Tonight after work Amy took all the teachers to the JhuShan night market which is literally minutes away. It wasn't as busy as the Taichung Night Markets but it was still really interesting to watch.

There she ordered many seafood dishes for us to eat and she also tried to get us to drink the Taiwanese beer (which she didn't consider alcoholic). The beer was served in Foster mugs. I don't know if it was Fosters and I honestly can't remember what that tastes like. This beer did taste slightly sweeter than the stuff back home. I had a few sips to be polite.

The food was great although my lip decided to swell up, I'm guessing it was the clams as most of the other stuff I've had before whereas I honestly can't remember the last time I had clams...if I have ever had clams.

It's finally starting to go back down now, hopefully it will be ok for tomorrow.

Today I had a lot of fun teaching. I try and keep the classroom energised which means often making a fool of myself (something I'm quite good at doing). Sometimes I get them a bit too energised. I got told at least one of todays classes may have been too noisy. While it's ok with Amy if the student goes home and says to the parent it was too noisy we could have problems. So I guess once again I'm going to need to tone it down.

Today one of my students almost got her head stuck in her desk. Amazingly enough not the class I got told was too noisy. Needless to say my classroom management skills could do with some improvement.

I went to the bank today to see if I could cash some travellers cheques. I tried this particular bank because it had 'foreign exchange' signs out front. That to me suggests they change foreign currency...such as travellers cheques. Err no, apparently I will need to go to Nantou to do that. It's not really important I still have enough money and my 2 visas which I've yet to use I just thought while I had the time I'd give it a shot. Maybe I'll cash some in Taichung on Monday.

This weekend will be spent in Taichung. Sunday I'm gonna meet up with David and I guess we'll just wander around. I still want to find some chinese music and I think he's interested in finding a Chinese school. Monday I've arranged a visit with the Taichung orphanage I once called home. I'm really looking forward to that.

The weather has actually been mild the past 2 days. We've even had thunderstorms. It still doesn't get below 18 but still it's nice to not be dying in the heat. Whether this 'cool' change stays is another story.

Anyway I need to go get some sleep and read my book.

Bypass

Apart from my teaching books I bought only one English book with me. It wasn't a desert island book it wasn't even one I'd read even a line from. It was a book I bought for a few bucks at a used book sale. The book was called Bypass:The story of a road by Michael McGirr. I was meant to use it for reading material on the plane but never did in fact it has been sitting unused for the past 2 weeks until Monday night I happened to notice it and started reading.

I think bringing that book was one of the best decisions I made. It's an Australian book not just about Australia but written in a very Australian way. Most of the humour would be lost on a non-Aussie. It is a story about the Hume Highway. It's techincally non-fiction however it's not the dry nonfiction you mostly get. It follows the decision of an overweight, 40 something to cycle the entire hume highway (from Sydney to Melbourne) on a cheap bike. But it also weaves in the development of the road and many little stories about people and places that have been affected by this road.

Each chapter starts with a bumper sticker slogan.

I'm rationing my reading so I can savour it as much as possible. Afterwards I think I'm going to force it upon various people here just because it is so great.

I've been re-engergised and today I walk into my classes with a heap of new game options thanks to the WWW.

I tried VoIP busters today and loved it. Free calls to landlines in Australia nothing better! I can also call American landline and mobiles and a heap of other places for free so yeah I may just start calling random people for the hell of it. At least then my English won't get rusty!

Ok gotta go eat and then teach.....bring on the weekend. Only 3 more days and the rest of today til my next weekend heh

Ｃｏｉｎｃｉｄｅｎｃｅｓ？

Monday 1st SeptemberSo I was doing my first lot of washing which seems to have gone quite well when I hear my phone telling me I’ve got a message. It was from an unknown Taiwanese number saying good luck for the first day (a new term started today). I knew it was probably for the teacher before me but I decided to respond anyway and long story short it was from a South African couple who have been teaching English here for almost 6 years and they offered to take me out for lunch and to show me the town.

Obviously I jumped at the chance. Corbi and Druce (I think that’s what the guy’s name was) were awesome. They were ultra friendly and picked me up out front of the apartment and took me to a restaurant that served Western style food. I had spaghetti carbonara which wasn’t bad. As you can imagine after 6 years here they were a wealth of information. I didn’t focus on teaching although hopefully I will see them around and ask them then a bit about it. They told me about Rachel the old foreign teacher for the school I’m at as I was really curious about her. From conversations I’ve had with Amy I’ve had my suspicions that all wasn’t well between the two and I wasn’t far off. I won’t go into details but from Corbi I discovered that Rachel is still kicking around JhuShan with her boyfriend except she’s working at a different school in Dali (close by town).

It turns out Corbi and Druce are interested in migrating to Australia in a couple of years time so I was as much a wealth of information for them on Australia as they were for me. All in all it was great. They took me home via the main street where they pointed out various places that have people who can speak English including a doctor and a food store. It was all very cool and they told me how to get to the swimming pool which is slightly out of the town centre but very easy to find.
After our meeting I decided to go and try and find the pool which was easy to find. I didn’t end up going swimming but it is nice to know where it is.
Apparently there is a big night market tonight although I forgot to find out where. There is also one on Thursday nights however Monday is bigger.

While out I went to check out the internet café which wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined although people are allowed to smoke in there which isn’t great but it is well air conditioned and whatever so it’s not too bad. While wandering home from the café I stumbled across a store that sold things that looked similar to puffies so I ordered some and they were great. Slightly less batter and different fillings but still I’ll have to try and find that guy again cause I managed to finish them before I’d made it home. He even gave me extra ones I think. So it seems I’ve had quite a productive weekend. Now if only I could find the motivation to go listen to my Chinese language tape or go plan lessons…oh well I don’t start til 2 tomorrow heaps of time for both things.

I have another load of washing on I should probably go invest in an iron but I’ll see if I can make do without first. At least the clothes dry quickly.

Sunday 31 August
Last night I was in internet heaven unfortunately it was not to last and while I can still get wifi signals in my room I’m unable to attain an IP address and thus it seems once again it is back to wandering JhuShan with my little eee trying to find something that will let me connect.

It wasn’t all in vain though as David rang last night while I still had a working connection and we decided he should come visit JhuShan for a day so we could do the tourist thing together. So with the internet going I was able to email him the characters of the town and landmarks he should watch out for while on the bus as he’s never been to JhuShan.

We decided Sun Moon Lake was the place to be and David decided to flex his Mandarin skills by asking the local cop shop for directions. Unfortunately we had no idea what the cops were saying and so with our tails between our legs we wandered off to see Brian in the hopes he could direct us to a bus there. He did better than that and soon we were in his car with him and his daughter navigating us to Sun Moon Lake. The spot was beautiful although a lot further away than I initially thought. After taking in the place by foot and saying farewell and thanks to Brian and his daughter who headed back to JhuShan we put on our sea legs and hoped a boat for a tour around the lake.

The tour was amazing and there were many a picture taken. My favourite place was this street market which sold some awesome taro ice cream (at least I’m assuming it was taro). David over indulged in some local crackers and got a huge stomach ache. They reminded me of prawn crackers at least the texture, he had no idea what prawn crackers were which fascinated me more. They were more peppery apparently but I only had a nibble.

There was also this temple at the top of a hill which was awesome.

We spent time discussing everything from music to poetry. He started singing Waltzing Matilda and I told him that song creeped me out because ultimately it is extremely dark. He looked puzzled so I told him that essentially it’s about a vagrant that chooses to drown himself rather than get arrested for stealing a sheep. He agreed and stopped singing it; however it did spark a huge conversation about various accents and slangs etc.

Once the boat ride was over we decided it was time to start heading for home. Thus beginning an rather interesting task of trying to figure out how to do that. Initially we were planning to head back to JhuShan however after finding someone who spoke English we discovered that wouldn’t be as straightforward as I’d imagined and would include getting off in a place neither of us knew and trying to find a connecting bus/train whatever to get us back to JhuShan. We did however manage to find the bus stop easily and sitting there was a bus that went directly to Taichung. We decided the less risky way was for both of us to hop a bus to Taichung and from there I would hop a bus to JhuShan and David would make his way back to Taiping.

This time I stayed on the bus til we made it to Central JhuShan although I still got off in an unfamiliar spot and thus am still not sure where to hop a bus should I want to go to Taichung but eh I’m getting much better in navigating JhuShan and it wasn’t long before I was back on familiar territory. Aimed with the knowledge of how to say noodle I was going to brave ordering from one of the many food stores however I ended up chickening out and instead headed to the supermarket where I got a ready to heat meal which wasn’t bad. Tomorrow I will try my hand at ordering from a store.

Photos of today will be uploaded once I have resized them etc. All in all I feel like today was a mild success unfortunately the puffy store was closed by the time my bus stopped in Taichung…I guess I’ll have to get twice as many next time. Mmmm puffies.

Tomorrow I have to do washing….the washing machine is all in Chinese so that is going to be interesting. I also need to prepare my lessons for Tuesday and try and find another wifi hotspot. I can’t wait for the day that my paperwork comes through so I can finally go get an internet connection all for my own.

I really need to learn Mandarin and while I have a lot of resources at the end of a teaching day the last thing I feel like doing is sitting down and listening to cds with Mandarin on them….unless it’s music orientated, maybe someone should make a learn Mandarin in song cd, I may almost have a chance there. If only Sugarland would start singing songs in Mandarin.

I realised talking to David today that I’ve not really heard any News since leaving Australia. I mean the only newspaper in English here is the Taipei Times which focuses obviously on Taiwan and even then I always forget to go grab one….not that I’m overly concerned with the going ons in Taipei.

I go on a lot about internet and there is a very good reason for it…and not just because I’m a junkie although that does factor in a bit….essentially the internet allows me to feel connected to the world, it pulls me out of the isolation that comes from living in a place where almost no-one speaks English. If I were to do this all over again I’d have learnt a hell of a lot more Mandarin before heading here or I would have sacrificed the total immersion experience and found a job in a major city ie Taipei or Taichung. I can’t help wondering if my English ability will suffer from lack of use here. I’m tempted to go to the senior school near by and try to find people interested in improving their English by helping me navigate this weird little town but then I think that would just make me look creepy and desperate….and no one wants to befriend a creepy desperate person. Too bad I can’t just stumble upon the other foreign teachers here I’m sure they’d be a wealth of information. Maybe someday.

EDIT that was written last night today I got contacted by another foreign teacher based in JhuShan and we're meeting for lunch....I'll explain more later but talk about freaky.

Second Week continued

As I've had trouble getting that wifi hotspot I have been keeping an offline journal. If you are interested here was the rest of the week in review.

Wednesday 27th August 2008
I taught 5 lessons today each at 1 hour a pop. I’ve never taught 5 hours in one day. Fortunately the classes kinda wrote themselves and I was given a basic lesson outline by the other native teacher for each class so lesson planning wasn’t too bad. My voice however was another story. I tend to shout a lot in class not as in get angry just shout to be heard. So by the start of lesson 5 my voice was faltering, but the middle I was spluttering out words and by the end my throat was raw. I also discovered today that Amy and her family have actually gone to Taipei….this was never mentioned to me, not that it matters much but it is nice to know.

So far I have one class tomorrow. Whether I will get more later I dunno, I can totally live with 1 class.

Thursday 28th August 2008
I borrowed a bike from work yesterday. So today I left for work an hour early and rode around exploring more of the town. It really is a lot bigger than I imagined. I stumbled across the visitor centre and thought it would be a great opportunity to learn what is around…I figured they should be able to speak a little English. I figured wrong. Once again I spent a good couple of minutes trying to explain that I was just interested in a map of the town. I pulled out the phrasebook and just pointed at various words. In the end I got a few maps and some brochures about places of interest. Very little of it is in English.

I ended up teaching 3 classes, they were pretty easy for the most part some actually too easy I got through the material too fast. I’m still not really sure what I’m meant to be doing in the office when I’m not teaching or preparing lessons. The other teachers and always doing stuff and I just sort of sit around, occasionally I’ll help an individual student with their work but mostly I just sit around doodling and waiting for the next class. I’m sure there is more I’m meant to do but as I still don’t think I’m getting paid for office hours I’m not about to create more work for myself. So instead I sit around using the teaching books in reverse to teach myself how to write Chinese characters.

After work today I went back to the music store to try and get some more music. I got to talking with the owner, Brian who is just a wealth of information. He’s also a wealth of language as he speaks Mandarin, Taiwanese, Japanese, French and English. I also met one of his daughters. One of his friends came along and he invited me to go eat with them. I wasn’t really hungry as I’ve yet to really experience much Taiwanese food (as I don’t know what to order) I decided to tag. The food was delicious. As I couldn’t read the menu Brian ordered for me and I ended up with a kind of seafood soup. Very tasty but very filling. Brian told me that there is a Canadian girl around this area who also teaches English. I’ll have to keep an eye out for her as I would love to know how another foreign teacher deals with the huge language barrier.

After all that Brian didn’t have the cd I was after however we exchanged numbers. He told me I should take some kind of tour this weekend. The brochures have some great places that look really interesting so maybe I will have to try and check at least 1 out. I have between today and Saturday to try and decipher the map and figure out which attraction to go see. Unfortunately while there are times when my wifi connects in the apartment there is also a lot of down time. So once again I’m writing this not know when it will actually be posted.

Oh I found another temple today. Actually I stumbled upon it the other day and didn’t have a camera so today while I was riding around I found it again and this time managed to photograph it. Apparently it is quite historical. It even has signs in English. I also stumbled upon what looked like a Christian church. At least if I ever want to save my soul I’ll have lots of choice as to where to start.

Friday 29th August
Not much to report. I had 3 classes today, one was preparation for the GPAs or something along that line it is a major English test composed of reading writing and oral. I was helping with the oral component. Essentially there are 3 parts of this component. Firstly they need to listen and repeat. Then they have 1 minute to read about 7 sentences before saying them aloud. Then they have 7 or 8 questions they need to hear and answer orally. There were 5 students in the class all teenagers.

The other classes were pretty easy although one got a bit out of control. It’s hard because I need to keep the kids energized and excited but I can’t let them get out of control. I know there is a balance just sometimes I am damned if I can find it.

I have a 9am start tomorrow after a 10 pm finish tonight. Needless to say the most I’m doing tonight is going to the supermarket to stock up on bread and milk. Not the most exciting but eh.

The wifi connection I used in my house seems to have gone poof, at least for the most part the signal is too weak to hold if it manages to find it at all so once again I’m back to square one until my paperwork comes through. I have Sunday and Monday off and no idea what to do. I’m going to try and borrow a bike so at least I can explore more of the town. One teacher lives nearby so maybe I could meet up with her on Sunday but we’ll see. I don’t like imposing myself on others although when I get desperate I do.

At this stage I see myself spending every other weekend in Taichung just because at least there I know someone who wants to hang out with me. Also apparently people in JhuShan speak mostly Taiwanese which is different to Mandarin where as in Taichung the majority of people speak Mandarin or at least more than in JhuShan so if I want to learn Mandarin it’s probably better I spend some time in Taichung.

I got told today that I need to smile more in class and not be so serious. I also need to slow down even more. Honestly if I slowed down even more I think I’d be a tortoise but eh. I told them my concerns or my limitations and they seemed to accept them as valid, unfortunately I forgot to mention my severe lack of access to new teaching material due to the fact I’m not allowed to access the internet which honestly was always my saving grace when doing my practice teaching back home. There’s only so much I can get from the few books I brought with me. Next time I’ll have to bring that up.

Other than that everything is fine. I’m much better at navigating around town (although I’m still careful to note different landmarks in case I need to retrace my footsteps). I even have a map of the town…..of course it is all in Chinese but eh it’s a start.

Anyway I need to go shower before indulging in my new fascination….Grey’s Anatomy (in all fairness it’s the only English speaking show I know that broadcasts here free to air apart from the English teaching shows which I can only watch so many of).

Saturday 30th August
Today I got told my 'training' was about to finish and come next week I would have my own schedule. It doesn't seem much different to my past schedule only this time I at least know in advance when I'm teaching which is a nice change. Hopefully that also means I can have more time to prepare my classes. In theory at least that is how it will work.
I taught 4 classes today with the teachers Taiwanese teachers sitting in for some parts. They went ok, not brilliant but ok. One of the classes was GEPT prep again although this time it was vocab and listening. The class was also a lot bigger with about 20 students in total.
I have now claimed a bicycle as my own. Amy wanted me to borrow the scooter for the weekend instead but I'm still not confident enough on the roads to use a scooter.
After finding a wifi hotspot earlier in the week and losing it I've been sulking so today after work I wandered around the room with the laptop trying to find the hotspot again. It turns out it is on the window ledge so that is where I sit now. I actually really like this spot it is a perfect reading spot as I can look out onto the street below, and now it is a perfect computer spot heh. Hopefully this time it won't disappear.

I still don't know what I'm going to do with myself for 2 days in Jhushan but I'm sure I'll come up with something.

Oh if you are interested my teaching schedule from now on looks like this: (although it may alter depending on how everything works)

Tuesday: (Office hours 2-9.30pm) Teaching hours: 5.30pm - 6.30 pm; 7pm-8pm; 8pm-9pm
Wednesday (Office hours 1-9pm) Teaching hours: 2-3pm, 4-5pm, 6.30-7.30pm; 8-9pm
Thursday (OH 2-9.30pm) TH: 4-5; 5.30-6.30; 7-8pm
Friday (OH 2-9.30pm) TH: 5-6pm, 6.10-7.10pm
Saturday (OH 9am-5pm) TH 10-11; 11-12.30; 1.30-2.30; 2.30-3.30; 3.30-4.30pm

I think I’m likely to die after Saturday.

Saturday mornings are the hardest as I have a late finish the night before and an early start.