Pharisaical Folly

I have one student who seems perpetually doomed, or blessed, depending upon how you look at it, to fall asleep in my class every single day. The poor little guy then has his chair taken from him by the secretaries and is forced to stand for the remainder of class in a feeble attempt to keep him awake and paying attention. Someone definitely needs to do something like that to me...and quickly...before the parents catch wind of their child's teacher snoozing away their $2,000 per semester education. I try to sneak the AC on, but I'm always getting caught and scolded because the school rules say that only if the temperature is above 82.4 degrees fahrenheit may the air be turned on. I swear that it has been at least 82.3 every single sweaty day this week. I think dozing off is my natural defense mechanism against drowning in my own perspiration. I will definitely try to lighten up on my nearly narcoleptic child, though, after experiencing first hand just how difficult it is to stay awake sometimes.

What's your favorite sleeping in school experience?

p.s. vicki...I did some research and it is in fact, 'cheer up sleepy jean.' Maybe subconsciously I was singing it the other way to try to enliven my lethargic self.

Karaoke Crush

KTV. Its an acronym that stands for Komplete Total Vantastic (at least that's what it means to me now after our Friday night extravaganza). I actually have no idea what KTV stands for, but its karaoke at its finest. We paid about 7 bucks to have all you can eat yummy Asian food and all you can sing songs for 3 hours! A screamin' deal if you ask me, which you didn't but I'll tell you anyway...it was a screamin' deal. Consequently I have had many bizarre songs in my head the last two days. I desperately long to dislodge many of them from my brain, but some of them won't leave. Here are the songs (not in order of appearance in my mind): 1. Can't fight the Moonlight...Probably one of my least favorite songs of the night, but every time I wake up I find myself standing on top of my bed holding my alarm clock as a microphone and shouting, "Its a magical feeling, so right, it will steal your heart tonight!" Leann Rimes never sounded worse. 2. Daydream Believer...This is a pleasant one and I plan on singing it to my students who inevitably fall asleep every single time we try to read in class..."Wake up sleepy Jean!" 3. Fergalicious (chief I thought of you on this one) Doing karaoke during the rapping sections of this song made me feel so gangster and a little scandolous as I sang about putting boys on 'rock, rock.' 4. Obladi, Oblada by the Beatles. I think I will make this my mantra for teaching from now on. 5. Can You Feel the Love Tonight...This one reminded me of my first real crush from 6th grade. Her name was Ulelia Gonzalez. The serendipitous nature of our relationship had us placed directly across from each other during choir class as we rehearsed this song. I remember staring at her the whole time I was singing my heart out. It was always awkward when we made eye contact, though. I love how songs can bring back so many memories and create completely new ones. Tonight for example, we were all jamming out on guitars, singing Blind Melon's 'No Rain.' It was magical. What's your favorite Karaoke song?

Friends of FengYuan

This is part of my Taiwanese family, Lillian on my right and Hu ma ma (that's what I call her---Hu is her last name). Lillian is going to Austria in a few days and I've been teaching her German as she teaches me Chinese. Once she leaves, her dad, Thomas and I will continue the language exchange...minus the German...in other words, I'll be teaching him English. We biked 18 miles (a ways for me) on this day and had a nice lunch. They've been extremely kind to me and have helped a lot with the transition to life here. It is also with them that I first tried pigs' ear.* Guten Appetit!

This is Vivian. She also celebrated the Lantern Festival with us. We ate oyster omelets together this week and she beat me at arcade basketball. Man, that ticked me off! I scored over three hundred points. My performance was Jordan-esque, or so I thought. Does anyone remember when Dennis Rodman played for the Bulls, by the way? I had a laughing attack a while back while thinking about 'the Worm.' Last I heard, he married himself shortly after kicking a camera man in the crotch. Just a side note. We also played the Asian version of Guitar Hero. They had these huge traditional drums that we banged on to drumming music. It was a blast and of course---she whooped on me there, too.


(From left to right) Holly, Derrick, me, Molly, and Jaimie...friends and fellow teachers. We celebrated the lantern festival by lighting candles, putting them in the lanterns, walking to a park, and burning the lanterns. Sometimes lanterns are released into the air with wishes written on them in hopes that the gods will read them and grant the wishes. What did I wish for? Greater arcade abilities, of course.





I thought it was interesting that this huge Christian church was in the middle of a college campus. I think I remember my friend saying it was over 100 years old...maybe.

This one's for all y'all back at the farm. My friend showed me the university dairy. I think they had about 50 cows or so. Happy cows come from California? Yeah right! Happy cows come from Taiwan (and the Hess Dairy). Most of their dairy products are shipped from New Zealand, actually, which makes them relatively expensive and so, although I will probably be nixed from the will for admitting this, I decided to try soy milk...and I liked it...sorry Dad...I still love you!

*I also tried pig intestines last night for the first time and they tasted like bacon.

A bad haircut and a stiff neck

The beautiful woman to my right is Gloria, a dear friend who shares in my love of outdoor activities. Its quite nice that she's also my co-worker so I get to see her frequently. We've had some good times this week traveling to various doctors and taking hikes. This is a photo taken on a mountain just outside of the city of Feng Yuan where I live. If I am feeling really ambitious (which has happened once since I've been here) I can ride my bike from home to the beginning of the hiking trails, hike to the top and ride back all in about 45 minutes. Its nice that a natural getaway is not too far out of reach.

Gloria's daughter, Vivian is one of Derrick's (my roommate) students. She, like Gloria is a very outgoing and vivacious soul. I have gotten to know Vivian pretty well, too because she's interested in learning Spanish. Anywho, yesterday as I was indulging in a combination haircut, massage, and shampoo (done all at the same place by the same person for the price you would pay for just a haircut in America---cool,eh?) Vivian waltzed in and asked me if I wanted to go play baseball. I was wondering how she knew I was there, when Derrick walked in and said, "Yeah, she just called the school and said Gloria told her that we were looking to do some exercise, so do you want to go?" I was stoked until she said they were leaving at 1:50 and I looked down to read my watch...1:45. I had only finished the massage and shampoo portion of my treatment. How was this going to work? Well, in severely broken Chinese, I told the lady, "I have a beautiful face, so it doesn't matter what my hair looks like." I think she took me and the others around her literally as we urged her to just hurry and finish. We were looking for speed, not precision. What did we get? Speed, not precision. Sure, my hair looks great when I comb it forward and disguise the jagged length discrepancies, but when I wish to wear it in my preffered spiked style, the discrepancies are painfully apparent. In the lady's defense, when I was asked what I wanted my hair to look like (at least I think that's what she was asking) I turned to a picture of Brad Pitt and gave her the thumbs up sign. I didn't really pay attention to what his hair looked like, but assumed that having the same haircut as Brad Pitt would somehow automatically double my good-looking points, not taking into account the fact that Hollywood's styles are rarely, if ever, truly desirable.

Massage, shampoo, haircut (some of them were cut and some were not)---check. We rushed out the door excited to get to the baseball. We met up with 3 of Vivian's friends and after a short train ride we arrived at the 'field' which turned out to be an arcade with batting cages and a pitching simulator. It felt good to spank a few homers a la Barry Bonds. Exercise?---highly unlikely. More fun than a barrel of monkeys? Definitely. Worth the expense of slaughtered hair? Certainly.

Did I mention that Vivian is one of Derrick's students? He and I continuously cracked up about the whole situation. Two male teachers, both in their mid twenties going out for a full day of arcades, shopping and dinner with a seventeen year old female student and her three seventeen year old female friends? It may sound a bit creepy to you, but it was done with Gloria's complete consent. It was a wonderful time...and if I'm honest, I think my neck is sore from all of the twisting during batting practice. I got my exercise after all.

This sign was in the penguin exhibit. Has anyone been studying the effects of Hubbub on penguins and can enlighten me as to why it is specifically harmful to them? Do other animals have a higher tolerance for Hubbub? Why haven't these penguins evolved to deal with Hubbub? What exactly is Hubbub? Please post your answers with links to any useful information. Thank you for your assistance.