9 to 5

I’ve been waking up at 7:30 now because I have morning tutoring classes from 9:30-12:30. They are a couple of high school students from Canada who are back for their summer vacations. I’ve been experiencing the 9-5 (ish) workday (except my hours are a bit longer) and, suffice to say, I’m not thrilled. It’s going to be really hard when I go back to a regular day job.

Because I’ve been up so early, I’m a bit cranky when I get to my afternoon classes. With all the talking, they drive me up the wall so I’ve been assigning work after work. With my second graders, it’s usually funner things like making posters or booklets. However, with my fifth graders, I’m merciless, and I make them do sentences. Right now, they’re stuck on singular and plural possessive nouns and still need help with subjects and predicates, so I’m adding extra work along with our curriculum. I’m a perfectionist, so I demand perfection from my students. Ok, maybe not perfection, but at least a basic understanding.

There are good days and bad days with teaching, like any other job. But when you’re having a bad day working in an office, you don’t get something like this shyly sneaked into your bag and a whisper to “Read it at home, ok, Teacher?”

Week in Pictures

After the past two weeks of constant rain, this was a rare time when the sun finally came out accompanied by some nice fluffy clouds.

Waiting in my empty classroom for classes to start.

Riding on the back of Michael’s cool orange scooter.

Trying to find a spot in the scooter parking lot at the Guang Hua Digital Plaza so I could go buy an external hard drive.

My first time setting foot in Da-An Park since I’ve been in Taipei. I’ve forgotten what green looked like.

Due to a random number generator, the winner of the giveaway was Eric! (And no, you cannot give up your vote to Jen because she’s my roommate.) So if you’ll email me your mailing address, I’ll send a package full of these goodies to you. :)

Sharing is Caring

Dude, makeup. If you enjoyed that, there’s a lot more where this came from.

“You out clubbing, I just made carmel delight!” Taylor Swift is a badass. What more is there to say?

I don’t even know these people, but it made me tear up. Be warned, people. (Thanks for sharing, Eric.)

carol + bryan’s // stillmotion special edition sde // NY from StillMotion on Vimeo.

I can’t wait for Kevin and Zhou’s wedding. Swine flu and all, nothing can stop me from flying across the country to see all of my favorite people.

Superheroes

I was doing a lesson with my junior high kids (ages 12-13) about superheroes. The lesson was Stan Lee and how he created Spiderman. So I asked them about what other superheroes they knew, and they gave me Superman, Ironman, and Batman (which all happen to recent blockbuster hits).

And that’s it. No more. I barely squeaked out X-men from them, and they couldn’t even specify characters beyond that. They just sat there with blank looks on their faces.

I guess their superheroes are a bit different than the ones I grew up with.

Instead of Captain America and whatnot, they grew up watching this kid, Crayon Shin Chan, and a blue thing called Doraemon.

After the discussion, I had them make up their own superhero and draw comics about an adventure that their superhero would have. I was watching a girl draw a globe, and I was wondering why did hers look so funny. Did she draw it wrong? Then I realized that all the globes and maps that I’ve ever seen were centered around North America and hers had a giant land mass off to the side that was China and then smack dab in the middle was Taiwan. Things like that, even the littlest things, are still like a splash of cold water. Even though I may proclaim myself as Taiwanese, but the way the wheels turn in our heads are still not the same.

The world is round after all, but Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.

GIVEAWAY

Fruit on a tropical island is to die for. Mangoes, guavas, lychees, cherry plums (or what I like to call plerries), peaches, pineapples, watermelons.. oh goodness.

And they make them all into Hi-Chew flavors too. If you have not experienced a Hi-Chew, I suggest you go buy one now at the closest Asian supermarket you can find. And you thought Starbursts were good.

Brother of mine, guess what you’re getting in the mail soon. :)


In fact, here is an opportunity to WIN and collect them all. As my first giveaway and an opportunity to hear some feedback/ways to improve, if you leave me a comment in the form of a positive criticism, suggestion, or encouragement, etc. about this blog by Sunday, June 21, then by random drawing, I will send the winner a package filled with these yummy goodies as a thank-you.

If this goes well, this could be the first of many Asian-goodies-giveaways to come.