First Aid 101

For some of my classes this week I had to teach simple first aid things to do incase a fellow student would get a cut or sprain or something.  I used Gretchen's puppet called "Teacher Ducky" for my examples, so he had a hell of a time.

Taipei 101

Last weekend, Melanie, Natalie, Gretchen and I went to Taipei 101 because none of them had been in the observatory part.  It was a partly cloudy day, but still tons of fun.

 

We were able to go to the outdoor observatory, so this is the very very top of the building.

 

Me, Natalie, Melanie, and Gretchen

In the background is the giant wind damper in the middle of the building to help during typhoons and earthquakes.  As far as I know it's the only one that is open to the public.  They started these "Damper babies" and they're all over the place.

 

A poster on the wall

 

We're so excited!!

 

 

Gretchen's pretending to look out at the view, while I am actually looking at the view haha

 

She grew so big!

 

Delicious ice cream on the 89th floor.

 

Inside on the 5th floor.

Cookie time!!

Gretchen invited some teachers over to do some baking.  It was a very exciting evening.

Snacks first

 

Teacher Gretchen goes into action teaching them how to bake

 

They want pictures of EVERYTHING!

 

Fiona's first time using a egg beater.

Everyone wants a turn

Nobody wanted to use the egg beater, so Eva whisked by hand

 

Chocolate chip cookies almost ready!

 

Alisa kept sneaking cookies to eat.

 

Albee

 

Yum yum!

 

She really didn't want to have her picture taken :)

Balloon Fun

One of my students gave me a balloon animal dog to take home.  It had been sitting on the table for a few days and started shrinking in size.  I was playing with it one day when part of it came apart, so I told Gretchen to pop it because I hate balloons. 

Attempt number one:

And attempt number two:

Finally it was destroyed :)

I wear my sunglasses at night

The Butterflies - and you can see Andrew's head in the bottom, his broke and he started freaking out for me to fix them.

Eason

Rich and Ninnie

Kimmy

Sandra

Bill

Jimmy

Josh

I smell Spiffy!

And that's no lie!! I had to go downtown yesterday (Thursday) to get some things for an art project and I saw a little area with perfumes. Some of the normal beauty stores I go to never seem to have much for perfume, so I was excited to see this section because I like to smell good (and they had testers so that's always fun!). Anyways, as I'm browsing, I noticed a pretty purply one, and since I do fancy purple, I took a closer look. It was called "Spiffy Perfume". Now, close friends of mine might remember a time that 'spiffy' was a common part of my vocabulary, about the same time as 'dude' and probably others. So on seeing a perfume named for a favorite word of mine, I got even more excited and had to buy it right away. Besides, who wouldn't want to smell spiffy??

Pregnant Toddlers???

Last Wednesday was our monthly birthday party at school. The theme this month was, of course, Mother's Day. It involved a dancing contest to our Mother's Day song and the awards for Best English and Best Manners for each class. My kids won the dancing contest (I gave them a good pep talk before the party!) and we also won Super Class!! I was so excited because 1) this is our first time every winning it and 2) if you win it three times in one year you get to go to McDonalds....I have 4 months left, so I'm not sure it'll happen with me, but I'm still very proud.

Now, the interesting part of the event was that the kids brought a shirt or dress of their mom's and right before the party, put it on, and then balloons were placed under the clothing to give the appearance of being pregnant, or "being a mommy" I guess. One of my kids, Eden, did not like this idea, refused, and then when Phoebe was trying to convince him to do it, he started bawling. He definately is not ready for kids of his own! It was funny, amusing, and kind of strange, so there's plenty of pictures.

Dora - balloon was a bit to high

Ken

Emily

Gavin - the pregnant Ninja

Rain

Karen - our newest Gorilla, still getting used to us

Polly
Selina

Jasper

Vicky

Toddlers singing Mother's Day song

Goodbye.....for awhile

Due to current issues with my laptop...such as a constant buzzing that causes it to freeze occasionally and random crashes....it is going on a much needed vacation. Tomorrow it will travel as fast and saftely as possible to Nebraska so that it can be taken to the Best Buy it was purchased at, along with a 3 year warranty, so that the Geek Squad can due their magic and then Mom can return it to me. It will be severly missed on it's vacation, but it will be well worth it if problems can be solved. I will have access to e-mail and my blog at work, but will probably only check it minimally, and I have access to Gretchen's laptop which I'm sure I will use on occasion, but more likely when she is not around so I don't bug her too much to be using it. The positive side of all this, despite it hopefully being fixed so no more problems occur, is that having limited computer access causes me to be more productive. Yesterday, I wrote about 8 letters to people and I've started cleaning my room, so a few weeks without my baby and I should have a lot done!

Bye for now!

PS. For those of you who may have heard things, or are just wondering, I will be staying in Taiwan until August at least, and then probably staying another year, but going to a different school, or even finding a job not teaching related. Finishing out my contract is definate, staying on for another year is an unoffical yes. Knowing how indecisive I am, I'm guessing these statements could change another dozen times in the next few months, but for now I'm happy with my decisions.