English Easy Go

English Easy Go.  That's the name of the annual contest.  What does English Easy Go mean?  I don't know.  I think it's kind of ironic to have a meaningless English title for an English speech and reading contest, but irony is not valued in Eastern cultures.

The contest was kind of a bust.  We got to the school hosting it at about 7:45, and didn't leave until about 3:30.  We got our kids signed in, and we sat down to wait, chatting with the kids, giving them pointers and trying to calm their nerves.  They called the first round away to a prep room, and we waited...  It took about an hour for me to figure out we were not allowed to watch the performances.  So we had to sit in this big DMV-style waiting room all day long, while our kids were taken away in groups of six or eight to perform inside secret rooms for a panel of judges.  I felt seriously ripped off!  We prepped the kids for a month, and didn't even get the pay off of watching them perform.  Boo.  I saw videos from last year, and it was in an auditorium with people watching.  Diane said the school hosting this year was inexperienced, and everyone else there was angry about the setup.

We will know the results of the contest on Monday.

Meet Team Luodong Guoxiao.

Miss Su grooming Michelle.  Michelle is nine.  Her father is American, he mother Taiwanese, but Mandarin is her first language.  Speech team.  By no means our best speaker, but she's sure to gain major cuteness points.

The most fashionable member of Team Luodong, Jennifer, sporting some Harajuku style.  A sixth grader and solid reader.

Canadian-born Beau, with his mother.  Great pronunciation, limited vocabulary.  Reader.

Diane, Su, and Michelle, after her speech.

On our lunch break, Su, Diane, Michelle and I went to a nearby park in Luodong.  It's the site of a former train station and lumber mill, and a large lake.  There's a famous mountain called Taiping Mountain (Taipingshan) southwest of Yilan, and it apparently has a lot of huge trees, although many were cut and transported to Luodong by train.  Each of these giant public sculptures is carved from a single, solid piece of wood.  I thought it was neat.

This is our secret weapon-- Justin.  He's a brilliant, dedicated fifth grader, who improves his English not through cram school but through listening to recordings and reading library materials.  Oh, and he does a little song and dance as part of his speech.  By the way, all the speeches had to be about the kids' summer vacations.

Justin and Allen.  Allen can seem annoying, and he often goofs off during practice, but he's actually listening.  Ultimately a good kid and strong speaker.

Here Justin is getting some last-minute tips from his big sis and me.

Team Luodong, expanded.  Left to right: Shirley, part-time English teacher; Diane and Su; Tristan, homeroom teacher of a couple of the kids; Alex, a fifth (?) grade speaker with a good work ethic and a heart of gold; front and center is Josh, a fourth grade speaker with a good understanding of English but a lackluster storytelling style.  The others are parents, and Justin's sister, and me.  One day I'm going to start learning people's real Chinese names, I promise.

V is for Victory.  Justin, me, Allen.

I saw the mother and daughter from my host family at the contest.  The girl was giving a speech.  They invited me to dinner, and I accepted.  Took a little nap when I got home, and didn't really want to go out.  It was kind of a long day and put me in a bad mood.  But I'm glad I went.  I think I really like the family.  We went to a place near my apartment, and the food was good.  I had a hot pot.  Walked back, sat around a while and went to bed.

Today was a pretty good day

I think the good outweighed the bad, today.  It was misty on the way to school-- another typhoon.  It nailed the Philippines, but spared us.

Today I had three first grades.  One was good, the other two were totally bratty.  I think it's a combination of the weather and the fact that it's a Friday.  I also had one fourth grade, and they were pretty good.  After lunch, I had to teach a 90 minute class to other teachers in my school.  On Fridays, all kids except sixth (and maybe fifth?) graders go home after lunch.  This allows for staff development, workshops, etc.  So I'm required to do this class, at least once every two weeks.  Today was the first, and I had no idea what there English ability would be like or how many would show up (it's totally optional for them).  Only four came, but I think that's because it was announced only on Tuesday this week, and there seems to be a lot going on right now.  Four showed up, and their English was pretty good.  I could carry on a conversation with two of them, and the others are too shy to tell, but I think they can understand most of what I say, if I don't speak very quickly.  Basically, we just sat around a table and talked most of the time.  I'm glad I didn't have to stand up and lecture.  It's much more nerve-racking with adults.  With kids, you can just play games and sing songs and make faces and they love you, but adults are not so easily amused, and not so open.  I introduced myself, and they asked lots of questions, and then they introduced themselves, and I asked questions.  Then I gave a questionnaire, and between that and the intros, I established that they're all pretty adequate speakers.  It seems they mostly want conversation, because they know English but rarely are in a context to use it.  So I can just keep this informal, conversational format for the future, which is great for me!

This left one period in the day for me to rush back to help Diane and Su coach the kids for the speech contest. (By the way, yeah-- it's Su, not Sue.  Because her Chinese last name is Su, so she chose Su as her English name...)  I'm not sure if I've mentioned it yet, but there's a countywide English contest tomorrow for elementary students.  It's all voluntary, but we have some great kids.  There's a reading contest, where the kids are given stories to read aloud on the spot, and a speech contest, where the kids have prepared speeches.  Luodong's a big school, so we have a big pool, but I think our kids are especially strong.  We have five doing speeches and I think another six reading stories.  They started working on this the first week of school.  So along with the other English teachers, I've been busting my butt on this everyday.  I haven't had any planning periods, because the kids have been coming to the office for practice.  They even come in during my lunch period, which is a bummer, because a lot of teachers actually put their heads down and take a nap after they eat.  I think all the hard work has paid off, and I'm quite proud of the kids!  I think we're going to bring home gold tomorrow.

So in spite of some bratty kids, today at school was good because my adult class went well and I got to meet four teachers there, and I'm happy with the contest kids.  I'm starting to take a lot of pride in the school, and I'm feeling like I'm a part of it, not just a visiting outsider.

In the morning, I have to be at school at 7:20 (!) so I can meet the Diane and Su and the kids, and we're gonna haul off to Yilan for the contest.  I'll be there until about 4:30.  So it's longer than even a regular school day!  Yikes!  I think I get a day off, or at least a half day, because this counts as work.

After school, I had to dash off to Yilan to meet up with some of the others and caravan to a dinner tonight, because I didn't know the way.  Next weekend is a Chinese holiday called Moon Festival (aka Mid-Autumn Festival), where families get together and eat a big meal.  It's a "wistful" holiday, because it's a time for people to think of home, even if they can't be there.  So it's kind of nostalgic.  Appropriate for us foreigners!  In honor of this, we celebrated today by meeting our "host families."  The program staff found 12 Yilan families, and paired each of us with a family.  We don't live with them or anything, but they are just a local family for us to spend some time with if we can, and they are supposed to be available to help us if we need local expertise or something.  I was afraid this would be horribly awkward or at least lame, but it was neither.  My family is very nice and I think I'll like them.  The mother is a junior high English teacher (score!) and her husband is an Elementary principal.  He only arrived at the very end, so I just met him briefly.  They have a son who is 15, and a daughter, 12.  They all speak English fairly well, especially the mother.  The kids are really sweet and funny.  There's a photo of them below.  They live about 20 minutes away, but they also have an apartment in my building that they use some weekends, because the kids go to cram school just a block or two away.  They offered to take me for a tour around parts of Yilan county sometime.  Diane came to the dinner, too, which was great!  Here's a photo of her singing a karaoke song, in Chinese, of course.  She's great fun.  I'm really lucky to have such a laid-back co-teacher.

Lay off me-- I'm starving!

Nothing much to post, but I just had to share these photos.  This little boy is in one of my first grade classes, and he's always stuffing something in his mouth.  It's not even first period, so it's not like he's just eating breakfast.  I have him during second period and every time he's pigging out in class, with crumbs and food smeared all over his face and down his chest.  I don't know why he's not fat.

So anyway, today I decided to snap a shot of him.  I feel a little guilty, but we're actually allowed to take photos at just about any moment in class, as we're supposed to be documenting our teaching experience.  As you see anyway, he couldn't care less.

Do you like "sea food?"

Who, me?

Water, photos, schedule

Taiwan is mostly made of water. Surrounded by oceans, filled with hot springs, rivers, waterfalls, and when the humidity isn't 80%, it's just because it's actually raining. I'm learning to cope.

But I digress!

So this is what my schedule looks like for now.

School is Mon-Fri, 7:50-4pm. Otherwise:

Monday:

• Every other Monday, ETA teacher training mtg/workshop in Yilan (20 mins north), 1:30-4:30 pm. I get out of school for these, but it consumes my planning periods.
• Parent & child class at my elementary school, 6:30-8:30pm. This class is intended to teach kids, and teach the parents how to teach their own kids English. This class is over after Halloween.
  

Tuesday:

• Yoga. At my school, 4:30-6pm. The yoga teacher comes to the school, and it's free (?) or discounted for teachers.

Wednesday:

• Every other Wednesday, teacher training workshops in Yilan, 1:30-4:30pm. So one week it's on Monday, the next it's on Wednesday.
• Chinese class, Yilan, 6-9 pm.

Thursday:

• Yoga. School, 4:30-6 pm.
• Parent & child class. School, 6:30-8:30 pm.

Friday. I think I'm free after school on Fridays. Knock on wood. No set schedule for weekends, though there are various commitments popping up.

Last week was pretty standard. Friday I stayed close to home. Saturday, Anne drove us (me, Zach, Irene, Joel) to Jaoshi, a town north of Luodong about 30 mins. We went hiking at a mountain just outside the town. It was an easy hike, with mostly gravel paths. 1 hr. Lots of waterfalls, and lots of people. Nice and fun, though. Soon I want to do some serious hiking. Here are pics.

If you got it, flaunt it.

After that, we met Luke, Julianna, and Sienna at a hot springs spa in Jaoshi. The place was really cool. There are many in Jaoshi. It's on the ground level of a hotel, and you pay $200NT ($6US) to enter. Then you change into your swim clothes and wander around. The springs are really just big pools and tubs filled with hot spring water. There are a couple of big main pools, with different kinds of jets and showers all around the edges. Like stations. You stand in one station, hit the button on the side, and massively powerful jets shoot up from the floor of the pool and massage your feet. Then you move to the next station, where jets massage your legs... You keep going-- lower back, upper back, neck & shoulders. There are big shower heads in different patterns... my favorite just drops a big heavy blade of water across your shoulders, which feels great!
Around these big pools are smaller tiled tubs, big enough for probably 10 people. There are different scents/ingredients in each one. Rose, aloe, coffee, saki, lavender, sulphur, herbs, and even milk. And there are dry saunas, which make you want to pass out, and steam rooms, where they pump out really hot scented steam. I tried a forest scented room, and an herbal room, but my favorite was peppermint. I was (and still am) battling a nastly little cold, so I couldn't smell everything perfectly, but the minty steam opened me up.
Then we had hot pots for dinner, followed by birthday cake. Hooray.

Sunday at noon I hopped on my motorcycle and headed north toward a couple of beaches. Just as I got to Jaoshi, it clouded over quite suddenly and started raining hard, so I pulled over, put my poncho on, and decided to head back to Luodong. I was fortunate to outrace the rain most of the way. Did a little shopping. The camera I want is way overpriced here, so I'm going to eventually buy it online from the US and have it shipped here.

Called a friend via Skype on Sunday, and called my mom that night. It was nice finally talking to people I know for a little while.

While I'm a lot busier now, and probably won't blog as much as I did in August, I'm going to try to get into a regular pattern here. Stay tuned.

Oh, and other photos, long overdue.

English is fun! A bulletin board I was enlisted to create last week.

"Haaawwwwch..." Kids at school.

A temple in Da Fu we stopped at last weekend. These things are really not as impressive as they were at first... I'm growing immune.

Waterfall/river in Nan Ao, from two weeks ago when Luke and I visited Sienna.

Luke made some local friends.

Sienna's teacher dorm. Quite nice!

Views of the Pacific from Hwy 9 on Taiwan's east coast, just south of Nan Fang Ao.

One of my 4th grade classes.

Rainy day at school.