Monthly Archives: October 2008

Happy Halloween

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I finished the entire series of Friends last night. Jud got me the entire set as a graduation gift, and I started from the very beginning about a week before I left for Taiwan. Averaging about 2-3 episodes a day, I watched the series finale last night. It was a bit sad, due to the ending and the fact that this has been a part of me since August. It got to the point where I was talking about Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Ross, Joey, and Chandler as if they were real people. It’s probably a good thing that I’ve stopped, and now I can get out more.

I’m now being referred to as 阿姨 A-Yi (Aunt), instead of 姊姊 Jie-Jie (older sister) by women with toddlers and babies. It kinda hurts because it makes me feel really old. I call my mom’s friends A-Yi because they’re around her age. So, when mothers refer to me as A-Yi to their toddlers and younger, it’s like saying I’m around their age and should be having children of my own soon or something. Weird.

One of my second-graders has chicken pox. I haven’t heard about that disease since the 90′s. Anyways, today is Halloween, and since I have to work all day so I didn’t get to celebrate it much. However, I let my second-graders have English Activity Day and make masks out of paper plates.

From left to right: Ivy, Brenda (not looking at the camera), Ann, Riley
Ann, who would not let me take a picture of her hid behind her fabulous mask

Ivy and RileyRiley and I (Don’t you love the little goatee on his mask?)

And this is James, who drives me crazy with his daydreaming and the not-paying-attention

Plugs for My Mother

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Here is a fabulous and hilarious new link sent to me by Joanh who runs the amazing site, A Hungry Girl’s Guide to Taipei:

My Mom is a Fob

Mymomisafob.com is about those Asian mothers…who leave desperate voicemails asking us to “please pick up phone? hello? are you there?”… Started by Serena and Teresa Wu in October 2008, MMIAF has become the place to find solace in the fact that thousands of moms out there are as painfully nosy, unintentionally hilarious, and endearingly fobby as yours is.
- excerpt from the ABOUT section

I can totally see my own mother saying/writing half the things on that site. And it makes me miss her that much more.

I’ll Show Them

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Fun Fact: All the time here is in military time. Man, I’ll never get away from doing math constantly.

My second graders have been getting wilder and wilder. I’ve now employed the counting-to-3 method when they are running around and being wild. I also made everyone copy a story out of their textbook today because they were being really bad. It was quiet bliss for five minutes. Then I felt really bad and gave in and let them play Wheel of Fortune for the rest of class.

The other day, I was eating a bag of skittles before my 5th grade class. It got too sweet, so I gave the rest to John to share with the other kids in the class. John assumed that I was giving them the rest because I was scared of getting fat. The next day, I had a bag of dark M&Ms (which, by the way, are really good), and John saw me with them and said, “Teacher, give that to me or you will be fat.” Great, how thoughtful.

I tutor for these relatives of mine on Tuesdays, and Jennifer goes on Thursdays. We usually show up around 7pm, eat dinner, and then start the two-hour session. Anyways, last week’s chapter was on adjectives and describing people. So when Jennifer tutored last time, she asked them to describe me. They described me as fat. And then, today during dinner, they asked me if I wanted more rice when I was done with my bowl, and I replied, no thanks, I’m full. And the dad said, “Oh, is it because you’re afraid of getting fat?”

Ok, seriously? WHY the constant barrage of fat comments? And it’s not like people are subtle here or anything. If there’s something wrong with you, they will let you know there is something wrong. It doesn’t matter if they don’t even know you. They’ll just say it to you in passing. “Hi, nice to meet you. Oh my, you have a lot of acne.” “Hello, how are you? Gee, aren’t you a bit chubby.”

But I swear, the next person to even mention something about my perfectly normal weight and size to me will fully realize that hell hath no fury like this woman who’s seriously had enough with the fat comments.

Politics and BBQ

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We went to the Miniature Art Museum yesterday. On the bus ride there, we see a huge parade, blocking off half of the city, of people carrying banners, flags, and giant protest signs.

The flags say, “Yes! Taiwan, No! China” With my super observation skills, I deducted it was a big protest against using products from China due to the recent food scares. Here’s the real story. Apparently, some of the Taiwanese people are not happy about the current president encouraging relations between the two countries. The feud between Taiwan and China will always go on. It seems like you can’t get away from political drama wherever you go. Every country has their own problems.

As for my one and only political declaration: Go OBAMA!


I’ve already sent in my absentee ballot, so I’ve done my patriotic duty abroad. If I can do it from Taiwan, then you can go vote on November 4th if you’re in the U.S. Please make the country a place I can proudly and confidently return to next August.

After the trip to the tiny museum of tiny things with our new friend, Andrew, we had all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ which was amazing. You pay $399 for a two-hour limit of all the meat, vegetables, ice cream, and sodas you want. It’s going on the list of things to eat when we’re starving and have lots of dinner time to kill. We also met another Andrew, Andrew’s roommate; Alberto, a freshmen studying in Taiwan from El Salvador (I finally got the chance to practice/remember some of my Spanish!); and Steven, a sophomore in college from Thailand. It was totally international night last night.