Mid-September Already? Where Did the Time Go?

September 14, 2010
7:35 PM
Yilan Apartment

Okay, so I was looking at the blog the other day and realized, that it was mid-September and I haven't posted since August. Part of the reason is that I've been busy. The last time I updated was when I was moving into my apartment in Yilan City. The next Monday we started teaching classes, and the Monday after that, Chinese classes added into the mix. I've now started my third week of teaching...Okay, so I'll do a bit of a recap.

The first week of teaching went well. I was eased into my responsibilities over the course of the week. I introduced myself to the fourth grade on Wednesday and Friday--Thursday we lesson planned at the English Village. About halfway through the week our refrigerator died (we now have another one in perfect working order, for which I am enormously grateful). We had a family dinner at Xue Shan K on Saturday night--spaghetti and meatballs. Sunday, I made an effort to go hiking in Nanao. I tried. I really tried. We walked to the train station and took the train to Nanao. From there it was a 15 or 20 minute walk to the trail we were taking. The trail started out as stairs going straight up the side of the little mountain. The pace was pretty fast and my legs were cramping in the first five minutes. I should have stretched. I gave it another 5 minutes or so and the trail kept going up steeply, all stairs, and the pace was still too hard on my body. I recognized this as a good time to turn back before getting any deeper in, and I did. I had to stop and rest several times on the way back to the train station--my legs felt like jelly and I was sure they were going to go out from under me. I made it back safe and sound.

The second week of teaching started, and I went into it full-fledged. On Monday I did Weekly English with the whole school, and Story Time with the second grade. Story Time was a little chaotic. I didn't have my time budgeted well and with the first two classes...I finished the story and an intro about myself in a total of 40 minutes. I should have had my PowerPoint and additional activities enough to cover 40 minutes for each class...not 40 minutes combined. And since I didn't think about listening for a bell...it was at the end of the first period when I realize I'd already done the work of two periods. I went back to the office to wait out the time until my third class was supposed to start. The third and fourth class went a little better--I improved and got more comfortable as I went on, though I'm still not entirely sure if it's even possible to stretch Rosie's Walk out to 40 minutes. Monday night was my first class at Fo Guang University with Jill and Andrew. The class is pretty much being taught entirely in Chinese and with traditional instead of simplified characters. I definitely was irked by both of these things to start off with, but the truth is, the traditional characters aren't that much more difficult than the simplified since I already know the simplified. I think if I was starting from scratch, it'd be another story. The fact that the class being taught entirely in Chinese made my head spin a little with incomprehension as forgotten words tried to fight their way to the surface of my brain probably tells me just how much I need this class right now. I acknowledge that I need it and am looking forward to the improvements I know will come in my listening and speaking abilities in Mandarin.

Tuesday and Wednesday went pretty well in the classroom, and I successfully navigated my way to school on my bicycle. If you know me well enough, you know this is a big accomplishment given my usual sense of balance. Thursday we finished lesson planning for English Village before heading out for Taipei for the Fulbright Orientation. Yes, I know, we just finished a month of orientation. But that was only orientation for the ETAs. This was orientation for all the Taiwan Fulbright Grantees--the 16 Yilan ETAs, the 12 Gaoshiung ETAs, and about 20 research grantees. We spent two days getting to know each other and meeting a few members of AIT (the American Institute in Taiwan). Thursday night, Jill and I met up with a friend of mine from last summer in Taiwan, Nicole, and we went to the Shilin night market. Friday night we had dinner at the Taipei World Trade Center Club and got to meet a lot of members of AIT and get to know the other grantees better. We got a special tour on Saturday of the National Palace Museum with a doson, who gave us a lot of background information on the pieces we looked at. I definitely plan to go back to the museum and spend more time there.

By Saturday night, I was burned out with Taipei overload and was ready to go home to Yilan, and I took it easy until classes resumed this week.

Monday I gave Rosie's Walk another try with the first graders. This time it went better--I had my lesson up to about 30 minutes. Maybe by the time I teach the last two classes on the book next Monday I'll have it up to the full 40. Today the newspaper English I presented at the faculty meeting was from articles about the United State's reaction to the 9th anniversary of 9/11. I can't believe it's been nine years. It's not that it feels like it was a long time ago, or that recent. It's just that, nine years sounds like a long time. I know I'm not the same person I was 9 years ago--I'm not the same person I was 5 years ago. But to think that 8th grade was that long ago--almost a decade--mind boggles me. That's nearly half my life.

On a lighter note, while reading at lunch today (yes, my usual lunch hour pass time), I found another note from home. Thank you to my favorite Sarah. We've got our first teachers' workshop tomorrow afternoon, and our first real day at English Village on Thursday.

I'll try not to go so long between updates again--my goal was at minimum to do one once a week. Sometimes my mood isn't really favorable for writing, and sometimes I don't have time. I'm also planning on trying to get pictures put up on Photobucket this weekend all labeled and everything.