Belated Holiday Wishes

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

Here are some of my students' letters to Santa:

Le premier verre est aussi amer que la vie

Every week, I give a 5 - 10 minute presentation to my co-workers at Guting Elementary School. In the beginning, I assumed that it would be best to make presentations about the United States. I talked about the places I knew well: New Orleans and Illinois, as well as cultural practices like Halloween. However, I noticed that my co-workers were never incredibly interested (most faculty members use morning meeting to finish grading before classes start) and one of my co-teachers commented that they had already been exposed to most of what I talked about by previous Fulbrighters.

So much for originality. I decided to do a presentation on France. I talked about Lyon, about the roses in my grandmother's garden, and about food. I brought some crepes to share with them, which worked miracles in getting their attention.

In continuing with this trend, I put together a presentation on Niger today. As I was flipping through information on the internet to confirm the things I'd picked up on from my mom and our trip to Niger in 2006, I found a saying that I remember hearing from our Tuareg guide when we were drinking tea and eating grapefruits in the desert:

Le premier verre est aussi amer que la vie,
le deuxième est aussi fort que l'amour,
le troisième est aussi doux que la mort.
 

(The first glass is as bitter as life,
the second glass is as strong as love,
the third glass is as gentle as death).

Each glass refers to the change in taste of the tea over the course of drinking three cups. At first, it struck me as a little strange to be an American talking about Niger to a bunch of Taiwanese. However, these places and people are not as disconnected as they first seem. After a little more research, I realized the tea used by the Tuareg is gunpowder tea - also known as zhu cha (珠茶)! It's mainly grown in Zhejiang Province but there is also a variant grown in Taiwan. Goes to show there are connections everywhere.

Thursday Link Roll

Never mind a big, long boring post. Here are some shiny links.

Took the Myers-Briggs personality type test online...apparently I'm the Scientist. Some of it is right, but some a bit off. Or so I think.

There's an interesting article on PopAnthro about consumerism amongst anti-materialistic backpackers. Find it here.

I really want to make these. Yum. It will happen.

Something to keep in mind, I guess: 15 Ways 20-Somethings Ruin Their Twenties.

My dad sent me this article how standardized tests are failing to accurately measure a school's performance. So called "failing schools" are actually doing better than these tests would indicate.

I had big plans for the weekend. Hot pot with my coworkers. Then Taipei plans. Costco. Macho Tacos. This place that has good cheese. Maybe the zoo. Instead, I have this to look forward to:

 

A Day in the Life of a Gu Ting Teacher: Mice and an Earthquake Drill

So...been a while. Got a lot to catch up on - my 22nd birthday, a Fulbright orientation event in Taipei, passing the scooter test, and just general life. But...I'll do that later. Today is today.

I got to school seven minutes late today. My valid excuse: the scooter is broken and the taxi service people kept hanging up on me...rude. So I had to call a bunch of people and get a hold of a native Chinese speaker: our coordinator, Kelly, my savior. This is is the only time I've been late - I'm usually half an hour early - but of course, it's a Tuesday and being late was not really the best course of action. On Tuesdays I have to present the weekly English phrase to the entire student body. Generally speaking, I stand sweating in the sun with a microphone while I get 200+ kids to repeat a few sentences and my co-teacher Stacia explains them (in those moments, I really miss the air conditioned auditorium where my high school's assemblies were held).

Honestly, while it's occurring, I'm a bit skeptical of how useful this activity is - I can hardly focus on the task at hand because of 1). the heat, 2) the sun blazing into my eyes and 3). the immense crowd of kids. However, all throughout the day, I hear kids using the sentences - correctly. So...I guess it works and I just need to suck it up for the time being. Today's sentence was "Are you okay?" and "Yes, thank you," or "No." Stacia had a student with a broken arm so we could properly demonstrate this. Poor boy had to say no.

Today, I had three classes with the 4th graders and Stacia. We normally have two breaks in between these classes, but today, instead, was an earthquake drill. The drill started and suddenly kids were putting on their little hats and diving underneath their desks. Stacia motioned towards the lights, indicating I should turn them off and get under one of the desks. A minute later, and the kids were lining up outside and heading towards a field, away from the buildings.

Then, during the second break, there were mice. Cute adorable little mice.

Visiting Prospective Schools

We started visiting schools today. We eventually have to choose which school we'd prefer to teach at and (hopefully) get placed there for the year. Two of the schools we visited were here in Yilan and the other two were fairly far away, in Nanao county. The two schools in Nanao had aboriginal students, some of whom performed a song and dance for us: