Gorilla time - again :D

Monday Gorilla's had to have a vision check, so I brought along my trusty camera again and had tons of fun!

Selina - a rare picture with her smiling and looking at the camera

Jenna

Rain

Dora

Emily

Ken

Patty

Selina - being silly but her hair turned out cool

Gavin - extremely happy for some reason

Eden

I turned on my video function a few times and got some cool stuff.

Video 1: The kids don't realize it's a video so they keep making poses thinking I'm taking pictures

Video 2: Jasper has now realized that it is video so he makes faces and lots of weird noises

Vidoe 3: We do sing the normal ABC's this is just the phonetic version where you say the letter, then the phonetic sound and example.

D D D duh duh duh D duh Dog
We got distracted and skipped E
F F F fff fff fff F fff Frog
G G G guh guh guh G guh Gorilla
H H H huh huh huh H huh Horse


Now you notice the pause and somehow they jumped back to E or something, I'm not even sure, gotta love them for trying though. And we did make it to Z by the time we got back to school.

A Chinese Wedding

One of my co-teachers, Irene, had a party last weekend (4.20) and I was invited!  It wasn't actually her wedding, it was more of an engagement party.  Usually a Chinese wedding, at least from what I've been told, is more private and low-key.  The engagement party is more like the reception, only it's before they're actually married.  Either way it was tons of fun and Irene was beautiful.

Irene and me, you can go into her dressing room for pictures before she comes out.

 

Irene and Alida, this is dress number 1.

Connie, Melody, Leon, Alida, Phoebe, and me

There was lots of seafood, this was still moving though so I didn't try it!

All the Chinese teachers got together for a picture

Dress number 2 - hey Dad, can I have a "Chinese wedding" ;)

 

Saying goodbye to guests, they offered candy and cigarettes...?

Gift bag from the party, every guest got one.  Includes a cake and candies.

Farewell Jason

One of the foreign teachers, Jason, finished his contract at Uncle Sam a week ago. Right about now he should be in Thailand I believe, for a bit of a vacation, but he will be returning to Taiwan and teach another year at a school in Taipei. We had a farewell dinner in Sanxia on Wednesday night (4.16) and on the Friday he left (4.18) all of his students came to say goodbye.

Table Talk

We got back from the health check and has some time to waste, so some how we decide to take pictures under the table :)

Emily

Trying to get a picture of Ken, but Emily loves the camera

Rain

Jasper

Polly

Jenna

Patty

Rain

Emily (Megan, this one's for you!!)

Emily, get out of the way! Sorta got Ken in there that time!

Jasper had to get one more picture.

My class

GORILLA TIME!!!

I talk to much, time for some pictures!  We had to go on a health check, so I took my new camera to try it out.  See for yourself:

Dora, T. Phoebe, Ken

Jenna and Polly

Patty and Jasper

Rain and Emily

Ken, being a ninja

Selina and T. Phoebe (so far all pictures have been taken on a moving bus)

Patty, Dora, Ken, and Emily waiting patiently

Ken Ken the ninja

Rain, Emily, Jenna

Polly, Jasper, Patty

Dora

Jasper

Jenna - Jasper was upset this wasn't a picture of him

He LOVES to have his picture taken

Jenna, Emily and Jasper

Getting ready to go back to school.

Crying on the job.....?

I'm fairly certain I have the flu, I've been home since 1:30 and it's Friday, I didn't go into work at all yesterday and I left a half hour early on Wednesday. It's not fun, I'm never eating Doritos again (don't ask), and I know the details of my bathroom very well. I tried really hard to make it through the whole day today, but I couldn't do it, and when I asked to leave I had to fill out a request form and when I went to give it to someone they were discussing who was going to fill in which classes. Now, one thing to know is when Chinese people discuss things, they sometimes get very loud, almost like arguing even though they're not. I walked into this, in my sick, I'm going to faint or puke, emotional state, and started to feel really really bad for causing such a hard time, and I started to cry. Thursday I stayed home sick and found out another foreign teacher did too, plus one other teacher's contract was up last week, so he's gone and Gretchen is in Australia for the week, so we are very very short staffed, so Thursday I cried to my mom about it. I'm very emotional, I get it from my mother (sorry Mom) and this is the second time I've cried at this job.

The first time was when I was being critiqued over my teaching and I had a huge migraine. The problem is I'm more critical of myself than anyone else, combined with being told everything I'm doing wrong and my head pounding for everyone to shut up, it was really bad. Then when I started crying they started the "don't take it personal" speech, when really, it is personal. At least for me, my job has always been personal. I love teaching, I love these kids, the idea of leaving all my "babies" in 2 months is enough to make me cry.

My only concern is if my crying at work makes me appear to be sad and pathetic, or just emotionally involved. And if it's a good or bad thing. Talking to mom, she explained that she was glad I appear so concerned about being sick and missing work, and actually caring. Which helped to hear, and reminded me of one thing my dad said to me once that I'll never forget "I'd rather you care too much than not enough" So I hope when I get way to emotional, people realize I'm not crazy and unstable, and just that I try my hardest to do my best.

Bags aren't cheap

Occasionally I'm able to read the Wayne Stater online, I was very pleased they finally got full papers available online, good way to keep me updated.  It was interesting to read an article, "Hopeful extinction of the 'urban tumbleweed'" talking about Pac N Save offering "green bags" that people are supposed to reuse so they don't have to keep getting paper or plastic bags just to waste.  I always found it to be an interesting concept.  Here in Taiwan, bags are usually not free.  At grocery stores and convenience stores, bags usually cost 1-3NT (about 0.03-0.10USD), which doesn't seem like much, so I usually pay it.  You usually have to specifically ask for a bag, but a lot of times people bring their own bags with them to the stores.  I have gotten in the habit of taking my bookbag and an extra bag when grocery shopping.  Although we do have a collection of plastic bags in our home, they do get reused, a good habit I think everyone should have.  Another habit I will hopefully bring home with me.