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.