Recap

I’m guilty again. I haven’t been blogging on a regular basis. In fact, it’s been weeks. So shall I recap the highlights? If only I could remember what they are…
Alright, so we left off in the narrative with me at mid-September. It’s not the beginning of October, and I’ve been here for 9 weeks, and I’ve been teaching for a full six weeks. Let’s break it down.

The week of September 13:

(Pretty much covered in my last post, not a lot went on other than a trip to the Traditional Market, which was admittedly a lot of fun.)

Weekend:

Typhoon Fanapi hit in the early hours of Sunday morning. Though it knocked out power most of the day in Nanao, Yilan was fine (minus the fact that I know how goo from the typhoon tape on my windows that I have to figure out how to remove). I have to say—I applauded the fact that the Seven-Eleven in Nanao stayed open during the typhoon, even without power, operating by flashlights, calculators, and handwritten receipts according to a reliable witness (Jenny! <3) They even had a number so you could call and make sure they were opened before venturing out into the weather. How would we get along without Seven?

I passed the typhoon sitting pretty comfortably in my room, reading, on the computer, and watching movies, venturing out once or twice to Seven. The night when the typhoon was raging the hardest, I did have a heck of time trying to sleep. The way the wind was whistling reminded me of screaming children—not a pleasant thought for invading a girl’s sleep.

The week of September 20:

I’d say I had two big highlights this week. The first was in regards to teaching. I managed to finally fill the entire class properly with a structured lesson on Monday during my story time. It has taken practice, but I feel like I’m getting there. Of course, this was my third week of teaching Rosie’s Walk…you’d like to hope I could manage it after three weeks. Even so, it was a first and I’m glad I was able to get there.

We had Wednesday off from school for the Moon Festival. The Moon Festival is the celebration of the autumn equinox. The celebration is accompanied by a never-ending parade of Pomellos (a big, citrusy fruit), and moon cakes (highly unhealthy deliciousness). I used the day off to head down to Nanao with Courtney with the intention of checking out the hot springs there before moving on to the second part of the usual Moon Festival festivities—a barbeque with family and friends. What we didn’t know before going up to the hot springs though, was that the Hot Springs had been closed down for the typhoon and hadn’t reopened yet. Oh well—we wandered around the area and took a look at some of the gorgeous Nanao scenery. There were some really pretty butterflies, and the river that runs through the area reminded me of the Kern River at the particular point we were at.

The other highlight of my week was the Moon Festival barbeque I went to at one of the LET’s houses (Jodi, from Dali). I went with several other ETAs and I’m glad I went out and didn’t give in to my natural desire to stay home alone. Jodi’s family picked us up at the train station and brought us to their home. We walked to the local temple. I have to say, the temple was breathtaking—my favorite part was the carving on the ceiling. I wish pictures could do it justice. There were a lot of people there, and they were setting up for a community raffle.

Back at the house for the barbeque, there were fried noodles waiting for us, courtesy of Jodi’s mom (absolutely delicious, like everything else we had that night). There were fresh clams and shrimp (and I mean really fresh…the clams were still snapping away in their bowl and the shrimp came from her aunt’s farm). A Moon Festival celebration seems to largely involve barbeque, beer, friends, family, moon cakes and pomellos. Minus the moon cakes and pomellos…it could be a Fourth of July back home. BBQ at home and in Taiwan have some similarities and some differences.

Barbequing in Taiwan isn’t done at a big stand up grill—you work on a little hibachi (or several little hibachis). At first I remember thinking it was a little strange that all the earliest things off the grill were put on pieces of bread and handed out to eat. Then again—holding a hot dog or hamburger patty with your bare hands would be uncomfortable…we wrap them in bread at home (buns, bread…same thing, right?). Later things coming off the grill mostly went on sticks—another handy way to keep from being burned. There was so much food…there was beef, lamb, chicken, pork, potatoes, clams, shrimp…done in combinations I certainly wouldn’t have thought of. Have you ever seen a mushroom wrapped in bacon and bell pepper on the barbeque at home? The whole night was one of laughing, talking, good food, and good fun.

Weekend:

With 10/10 day rapidly approaching, a lot of us realized that we lacked any suitable clothing for meeting heads of state. Several groups of ETAs made their way into Taipei that day. I went in by myself, opting for sleeping in a little. I have to say, the Eslite book store at the Taipei City Hall MRT stop/bus station was amazing. There are a few floors of books, several floors of random awesome stuff, and a food court in the basement. And if I didn’t mention it…there’s a cheese shop selling blocks of real cheese. A note: you cannot buy a block of cheddar in Yilan City anywhere that I’ve looked. And I’m hankering to make mac and cheese, even though it won’t be as good as Aunt Barb’s. Anyway, Eslite is a phenomenal place.

But I was on a mission—somewhere out there was a dress with my name on it. A lot of the guys had gone to get fitted for suits—I knew a custom dress was an option if I didn’t find anything that fit. After two hours of wandering around a fairly major mall not far from the station, I was beginning to wonder if maybe I should have gone to the tailor and got fitted for something after all. My biggest problem was that I didn’t know what I was looking for beyond—something that fit, was knee-length, and looked nice enough to meet the President of Taiwan in. Guys’ clothes are so much simpler…a suit is a suit.

I met up with Jill and we went to the Shilin Night Market (士林夜市), figuring on poking around and having something good to eat before going home. The Shilin Night Market is massive. You could be lost in it for days and not see everything. We had admittedly gotten off on the wrong stop, entirely my fault. I forgot that for Shilin Night Market, you don’t want to get off at the Shilin stop—you want to get off at the stop before it, Jiantan. It took us a bit of time to get to the Night Market coming from the wrong stop, but we managed, and coming in that way, we went past some stores that we might not have seen otherwise. Working our way towards the main food part of the Night Market for 小吃 (small eats), we found a dress shop. There were long dresses that looked like bridesmaid dresses, and some cocktail dresses. We went in…food could wait a few more minutes. I found the purple dress that had caught my eye on the mannequin at the front and the shop owner told me it wasn’t going to fit when I asked about trying it on. I was a little dejected—it’s not the first time I’ve heard that in this country and it won’t be the last. The last time I had heard it, it was followed by being told that nothing in the store was going to fit me. I was expecting the same rejection this time, but it didn’t come. The woman looked at me, and pulled out another dress, same color, different fabric and cut, and held it out for me. She picked up several more as possibilities.
To cut a long story shorter…I walked out with a dress that night when I had given up on the possibility of finding one at all that day.

The week of September 27:

This week went amazingly well. My highlight this week was Tuesday, when my Yvonne told me that the teacher in 2D (I think it was 2D…it might have been 2B) came up to her and complimented me on how much my teaching had improved. She hadn’t seen me in the classroom since the second week of school, my first day doing story time. Monday I had story time with the second grade again and everything seemed to fall into place. I read Go Away, Big Green Monster. My energy level was up, we went over all the necessary vocabulary, covering colors, parts of the face, adjectives... We read the book together and finished with worksheets I created, which seemed to be at just the right level for the students. It was such a nice feeling to know that not only was I feeling better about my teaching, but that somebody else had seen an improvement and noticed it and bothered to mention it.
The whole rest of the week seemed to go pretty smoothly too. I remember getting to the weekend and feeling like everything had gone right this week.

Weekend:

I chilled and it was good. What else needs be said? Seemed like the perfect way to cap off a great week.

The week of October 3:

It’s October? When the heck did that happen? Oh right…Well other than battling a cold, the week is going alright—let’s see what it has in store for me.