My New Obsession
Being here in Taiwan, one is constantly bombarded by various novelty items. Classics include T-shirts with messages in English that don't actually make any sense (ie: "Concert Party Go Boys" or "Handmade Natural Rome Low Birth Weight Body Warmen"
[yes, that's real]), signs to put in public restrooms reminding people to flush (nothing gets that point across quite like a talking piece of poo), and of course brand-name items including Love Milk and Blackman Toothpaste.
Of these novelties, I have recently become slightly obsessed with the current promotion run through local 7-11 stores. Every time one makes a purchase over $77 NTD (slightly more than $2 USD), s/he receives a
Doraemon 
Rainbow World Tour magnet. The things are pretty darn precious. Each one has Doraemon (who is the "cat-like robo" pictured at left) dressed in the stereotypical attire of a particular country with some type of country-specific monument in the background. There are 36 different magnets (but only 35 different countries- Taiwan is represented twice), and I presently have 21 of them on my refrigerator. Oh yes.
I told my students about my new found love for the magnets (I'm drawn to every 7-11 I pass, which means that every 100 feet there's a temptation to go buy water, tea, and Coke Light in sufficient quantities to reach $77 NTD), and now I've got an extra 150 people on the lookout for me. So fabulous. In fact, I just received 5 more. Can't wait to get home to put them on the fridge!
Big Fat Boring Update
Hello, all-
Sorry I've not been a very good poster of blogs. The wonder of VOIP has me talking on internet phone during times when I would typically be posting. That and the fact that I'm sort of in a routine here equal the fact that most of what I have to say is similar to what I've said before.
My circadian rhythms are pretty much on track with those of everyone else on this side of the planet. Here's an idea of my daily routine:
7:00-ish am- wake up, get ready for class, check e-mail (time permitting)
8:00-ish am- leave for school and/or to go pick up something for breakfast; go by the international office to make last minute plans for class and any necessary copies for the day
9:00 am- first class begins
11:50 am- morning session ends; go to international office to meet up with my friends for lunch
1:00-ish pm- after lunch, go back and hang out in international office; plan, visit, or just have an after-lunch sweet
1:30 pm- afternoon classes begin
4:20 pm- afternoon classes end
4:25 pm- hang out and decompress in international office; find out everyone's plans (or lack thereof) for the evening
5:00 pm- drop stuff at the flat; maybe go out, maybe go down to Monica, Amy, and Greg's place; more decompression
10:00-ish pm- usually back at the flat by this time; preparations for bed
11:00-ish pm- bedtime
Yeah, pretty boring.
Yesterday was an excellent day... my lesson went really well and my classes were talking a lot, I mentioned during one of my classes that the external hard drive I'd just recently purchased wasn't working correctly and suddenly 4 guys were on that thing like a professional pit crew. By the time classes were over, it was working beautifully and one of my students offered to take it home, partition it so that it is like 3 drives (E: for photos, F: for music, and G: for other), and format it. So delicious.
Afterward, another student offered to take me around to sample some local delicacies (ie: beef noodles and delicious mango ice), which was great fun and delicious. It was nice crusing the town with a local.
Pretty much otherwise, life has a bit of a normal-ish aspect to it. Normal-ish because it's slightly routine, but far far away from home. I promise to post more... well, next time. :-)
The Miss List
So, I've been here in Taipei about 2 weeks now. There are some things that I'm really starting to miss. Here's a brief list of some of those, in no particular order:
- salad
- white meat chicken
- a reliable supply of toilet paper in public restrooms
- not having to get one's toilet paper (if it's available) before using said restroom
- Austin
- free Starbucks coffee... it's way expensive to have to pay for that stuff
- my people
- the freedom to be able call my people whenever from wherever
- Murphy
- multiple pillows and sleeping in a comfy bed
- Diet Dr. Pepper
- Granola bars... oddly enough.
- SALSA
Yeah, so otherwise, things are pretty much cruising along. I teach 6 hours a day, so it's sort of like my former normal life in a new country. My students are good- no real behavior issues or anything, but sometimes, getting them to talk is near impossible. Crazy after all those years in middle school, where it's pretty much the opposite.
Well, I've gotta get rolling. It's a school night after all. But as of tomorrow, I'm 1/3 of the way through.
Street Food
Watch the video The making of a pork, ground peanut, cilantro, and puffy bread "sandwich" at a street vendor near the NTUST campus.
Don't Know What You've Got 'Til It's Gone
Case in point- I am sitting in class right now while my students are working on their assignment today and reviewing for tomorrow's quiz. The air conditioning has gone out in our classroom. It is 9:47 am and I am sweating like a
whore in church, uh, like somebody really sweaty. It's about 33 degrees Celsius in the room. Anybody know what that is in Farenheit? I do- REALLY HOT. Yuck.
So, enjoy your a/c today. Embrace it. Tell it how you feel about it. Never let it go, because when it's gone, you'll be miserable.
First Weekend in Taipei
It's been a couple of days since my last post, during which time I have been extremely busy! Teaching in and of itself is exhausting. Travelling in and of itself can also be exhausting. The combination of the two pretty much means that I will be completely drained until getting on the plane bound for LA on August 19.
On Friday night, our group of 6 Texans went out all together, in part to celebrate Dan's birthday, and in part to celebrate making it through the first week. We headed up to Shilin to the area where there is a very popular nightmarket. These suckers are crazy- it's like an outdoor discount mall with food vendors selling things you wouldn't typically even fathom eating (a chicken has claws... why waste them when you can fry them up!) mixed together with a carnival. Seriously, all the senses are at their peak at a nightmarket. Especially when walking past the Stinky Tofu stand (they swear it tastes good, but we all had to literally hold our breath just walking past).
We first had dinner at a place where no one spoke any English. It was interesting, hilarious, and slightly embarrasing. I had my Lonely Planet: Taiwan with me, so we were at least able to show our waiter the food list, where he identified 3 things they served at the restaurant. We then chose from those 3, except for Dan who, in a spirited mood, attempted to ask if they had shrimp in broken Chinese. He got the "Do you have" part right, but then accidentally pointed to "shrine" in his phrase book, to which the waiter's response was a vehement NO (or "Mei o, mei o, mei o!"). After having our iced beers and various foods, we cruised the nightmarket for a while, where I purchased a new, improved umbrella (the one I brought from home got taken, but this new one is FAN-tastic and only cost $100 NTD [about $3 USD]).
Saturday, we trekked up to the National Palace Museum. Upon exiting the MRT, we were a little confused about which bus to get on. This extremely nice lady approached us, aking if we neede help. We told her where we were going, and she said, "Oh, it's very far. You'll need to take the bus. I'll find out which one." She runs over to the bus stop, sees that the bus we need has just closed its doors and taken off, RUNS after the bus, pounding on the doors, tells everyone on board where we are headed, and sends us on our merry way. It was great. When we got near the stop, everyone was like, "Here, here, it's here!" going so far as to come up from the back of the bus to tap Amy on the shoulder, ensuring we arrived at our destination. They were so cute and everyone bid us goodbye as we got off. So great. I love helpful people. Please, wherever you are, help a foreigner today.
After the museum, we spent a lot of time in the beautiful water gardens near the palace. IT was so relaxing and gorgeous. There are lots of pictures posted on my Kodak Gallery page. E-mail me if you didn't receive the link. Afterwards, we visited 2 temples (the Confucius Temple and Bao-An Temple), during which time it began to rain quite substantially. We went to dinner at a great place, where they had Engligh menus, the waitress spoke English, and we got on abundance of delicious food and drink for $15 (total! For 3 of us!).
I know we overextended ourselves Saturday because upon returning, I intended to go do laundry, but instead thought I'd take a brief rest. That rest turned into 9 hours of sleep (on the board bed... the couch cushions have done the trick. That and wearing myself absolutely ragged during the day).
Sunday I spent the day on my own. I probably walked 10 miles, which included visits to the Flower Market, the Jade Market, the port town of Danshui (on the northern coast on the Taiwan Strait), and some shopping on Roosevelt Rd. It was a nice day, and fun to explore on my own, but I was beat by the time I got back in. I had to soak my feet in the tub for quite some time.
Not much
Well, not much is happening today. It is VERY rainy... it has been raining since last night and is sort of depressing. Pretty much everyone is just watching and waiting to see if we will get a school cancellation courtesy of Typhoon Bilis. Regardless, we will likely have rain through the entire weekend. Blah.
We Texans are all very tired from all this teaching. My teaching chops aren't what they used to be; it is like starting a new school year after having a VERY long summer off. Six hours a day is killing me softly... I'm trying to to think about doing it 5 days in a row next week. This has only been 3 and we were all dragging today!
I did fall on my butt in front of all sorts of folks this morning in the rain. I had just eaten breakfast over on the campus of the National Taiwan University (across the street from NTUST- check out
Google Earth and you can see the compound that I loosely call home for the present). So, I was all geared up with my backpack on, my rain poncho over the backpack (after toting that clear poncho of yours all over the world for the past 3 or 4 years, Mom, it is finally getting some use!), my umbrella in my right hand, and my Nalgene bottle in my left hand. I was wearing my Teva sandals because my foot has been sore from walking too much too quickly in shoes not designed for that purpose. As you may know, the Tevas are great, but can get quite slickery. It happened so quickly-- I stepped up from the street onto a bricked sidewalk, my right foot slid out from underneath me, and before I knew what happened I was on my butt in a big puddle. My Nalgene bottle literally flew across the street (good thing it's unbreakable!) and my umbrella turned itself inside-out. Yeah, it was quite impressive.
I picked myself up as quickly as I could. Anything not covered by the poncho (aka my dark brown pants) was soaked to the skin. Other than that, and a slightly more hurty foot, it was mostly just a case of injured pride.
Right now I'm holed up in the International Office, where I'm awaiting the arrival of my Domino's Pizza delivery in my jeans and Texas Tech t-shirt. So cozy. However, as soon as it gets here, I'll have to trek back over to the flat [it's actually faculty housing we're staying in- 3 bed/2 bath apartments. My roommate, Anita, is from Canada. Since we have an extra room, she snagged the extra pillow the first night, and I grabbed the duvet the 2nd] with pizza in hand. I am sans Tevas now, back to the new travelling Clarks, so I should hopefully have a little more traction. The pizza's here now. I'm soooooooo happy!! Gotta go!
Videoblog Madness!!
Here for your viewing pleasure are some snippets from my day yesterday. The first,
Taichi, features Dan and Monica in the background.
The second,
Oops!, is just funny (you have to turn your head sideways to take it all in).
The third,
Chiang Kai-Shek, is a lovely perspective of one of the sites we visited here in Taipei. Enjoy!
Jet Lag Recovery Group
Hello, everyone. Greetings from the lovely Taiwan.
I am feeling much better now that I've finally slept through the night. I realize I was sounding a bit like a spoiled American before (which I'm not totally denying), but things are on the up-and-up.
To begin, I pulled the cushions off 1 of the chairs in the living area of mine and Anita's flat and one off a chair in Amy, Monica, and Greg's flat and put them on top of the board-bed, underneath the sheet. Now I really only have a space that is about one and 1/2 feet wide for sleeping, and it's not exactly even, but it feels so much better. It's still no Tempur-Pedic. I'll take a picture later today.
Yesterday was the first day of classes. I'm teaching 6 classes a day with 25 students in each (it's like middle school all over again, but without disciplinary problems). Fortunately, I only have to plan one lesson a day and teach it 6 times. My students are very bright and range in age from 17-43. Their English seems quite good. We are building rapport, and so far I really enjoy them.
Yesterday was also a day of adventurous foods. Because I woke up so early, I took a walk around the neighborhood near the university in search of some breakfast. I hadn't eaten dinner the night before due to an overage of napping and blogging, so I was pretty starving. I tried to go to a bakery Craig had showed us that is one of his favorites, but it wasn't opened. Even Starbucks wasn't open at 6:45am. Dang them. Anyhow, I wound up finding a little tiny stand with a line in front where 2 ladies were hashing out dumplings. People were stopping their cars to purchase the delightful treats, so I figured it couldn't be that bad. Plus, it was CHEAP and I was about to gnaw my arm off. I got 2 big dumplings, one filled with something like spinach and garlic, the other with cabbage and a pork or chicken-like meat, plus a milk tea for roughly $1. It was great.
Then came lunch, where a lady from the International Office (who really was trying to be helpful) helped me order food at the student center... it was the first (but not the last time, I'm sure) meal that I looked at and decided right off that I couldn't eat it. It was an udon soup with floating pieces of something that looked like chicken neck, complete with skin and bones. I dumped it (it had only cost me $2, so I didn't feel too bad about it) and had some more dumplings, a Snickers bar, and Coke Light instead.
Amy and I went out for adventures after class in the evening to see the beautiful Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Palace and the National Theatre. It was great to get out and do some sightseeing... it was much more of what I imagined Taiwan would look like (I've been spending most of the time here on what I like to call "the compound" [aka: the campus] that is quite different from the city center). We went to dinner afterwards, where the thing I thought to be curry tofu turned out to be soft silky tofu in some sort of yello egg-yolk sauce. Not very great. However, we did have a delicious fresh-mango-over-ice-with-mango-sorbet for dessert at a place called Ice Monster, and that was divine.
I'm going to post some photos on ofoto today (excuse me, kodakgallery.com). I'll send you a link to those soon.
Love to all!
So proud of me
OK, you should definitely read the blog prior to this one if you're actually interested in what's going on here, but I'd just like to brag for a second that I've figured out this videoblogging thing. So, if you'd like a pseudo-first hand snippet from my first night here, please
click here to watch the video. Then you can tell me how cool I am.
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down...
Ni hao (that means hello... I now know maybe 4 phrases in Chinese) and greetings from the land of unexpected thunderstorms.
Today was the first full day of my experience here in Taipei, and it may prove to be exactly that. To say the least, it will be an interesting adventure.
I woke up bright and early at 5:15am ready for whatever the day would bring. The entire group (all of whom had gotten here from 2 to 5 days before I did) was surprised to see me up and alive in the International Office this morning. They had assumed I'd sleep through the day. The thing is, my body thought it was Sunday afternoon, so there was no sleeping to be done.
Anyhow, my suite-mate, Anita from Canada, and I walked to Starbucks to begin the day. Although I was literally POURING sweat by the time we got there (the humidity here is vicious), I still ordered a hot doppio macchiato. BTW- the partner discount card doesn't work here and they don't open 'til 7:30. Lucky kids.
After returning back to the International Office, Robert paraded us around, making introductions to the students we'll begin teaching tomorrow morning about our "expertise," how we were "specially selected" to be here, etc. My friend Monica and I exchanged furtive glances and surpressed giggles when he told the room that she was quite well known at the University of Texas for her research endeavors. Apparently I am a great scholar with many specialities [I don't think he knows about my terrific door-painting skills or the greatness of my extra-foamy cappuccinos, so I'm not really sure to what he was referring]. By far the greatest quote of the morning (addressed to the students) was:
You have all been selected very carefully [for this program] through a random process.
I had to laugh out loud at that one.
After the first dog and pony show, we had some free time. I walked around the nearby area with Amy (from my FLE program at UT) and Craig (from Enlgand, but lives in Taiwan) who are the other folks besides me teaching the intermediate students. I named us Team Intermediate. Sounds imposing, huh?
We found a place to buy towels, went to the grocery store to buy cleaning supplies (yeah, there's a lot of griping I could do about this, but maybe I'll wait until later. Let's just say that my sink and tub are white now, versus the brown they were before. I'm sure there'll be bigger fish to fry... uh, complain about... later), and then went to lunch. It was a nice outing, lunch was good (although mine was so spicy that I had to stop and literally take a breather for a few minutes in the middle- the waitress didn't bring our drinks until AFTER our meals were gone), and it was nice to visit with Craig about what it's like to teach in Taiwan. During lunch, it began to pour rain outside, and it continued to get heavier (while we waited on our tea to get to us). By the time we left, it was an outright downpour (none of us had thought to bring our umbrellas, naturally), and I found myself running drenched through the streets of Taiwan, laughing at the top of my capacity, grateful I'd work the brown skirt instead of the white one today.
The afternoon was another orientation/introduction session with students, then some "planning" time with our teaching cohorts. I got really tired around 3:30pm (2:30am CDT), and finally made it back to my flat for a nap around 4:30. I was planning on going to dinner with Amy and Jacques (not Cousteau), but slept through their knocking on the door. I visited some with Greg and Monica for a while before deciding to catch this blog up, shower (I figured out how to turn on the gas so we have hot water now), and hit the
board bed.
Please e-mail me what's happening with you back home! I love you and miss you (and am trying to figure out how to post videos on-line)! Talk to you soon!
