Claustrophobia, Anyone?

Molly and I (along with the camera man, Princess Victoria) visited this ant hill after our oyster harvest. Night markets are extremely popular in Taiwan. I really like the small-scale ones we have in Fengyuan, but Taichung's night markets are a little too chaotic for me to become a regular visitor. Once in a while, they're fun to visit, though.

Oh, The Oyster Harvest

Have you ever harvested oysters? Apparently, it's an extremely popular activity at Gao Mei wetlands. I was fascinated by the various techniques people were using to gather the tasty treat. I wandered from person to person chatting with them about what they were doing, how many oysters they had and secretly hoped that one of them would invite me to join in the fun. A betel nut chewing buddy extended the long awaited invitation and put me to work. Within a span of 2 minutes I had gathered up a half dozen oysters and was feeling pretty perky. So, I decided to celebrate with some squid on a stick.

Cindysaurus

Lately, Cindy has been my prime source of entertainment in my Basic Reading class. She makes the most unique sounds every time I even act like I'm about to touch her. It's when I actually do that she starts ramming my butt like it's mating season in the Rocky Mountains where she’s a sheep and my butt is the head of a competing male. Cindy is the top student in her whole Chinese class and she does really well in my English class, too. An outside observer would have extreme difficulty believing this story, however, because all they would see is Cindy headbutting anything and everything in sight. Most of the time, it's my rear end, but her targets have also included: the wall, my shinbones (my least favorite), desks, chairs, other students, my head, the whiteboard, the door, etc.

Her behavior began to concern me a while back (and my shins were getting bruised) so I asked the secretaries if they didn't think Cindy was a bit strange. Gloria told me, "Yeah, she's very strange. When she was in kindergarten, she wouldn't talk to anyone. She just pretended to be a dinosaur all day long. She would try to eat people and attack them. Carrie (one of the other secretaries) was so scared by her that she didn't want her to come to school anymore." I guess that says it.

Mr. Danger, Mr. Danger!!

Cinco de Mayo!!

That's Spanish for, "Man, I love guacamole and I sure wish Taiwan had some avocados." For those of you who are unaware, Cinco de Mayo is an essential holiday in Taiwan. It all began when a few days ago (on May 5th), a whole bunch of Mexicans (about 13) arrived here in Taiwan to give us the pig flu. We were so excited that we decided to celebrate and speak some Spanish.





P.S. The kids have no idea that I was teaching them Spanish that day and not English. 'Yo quiero Taco Bell' never sounded so good as it did coming out of those Taiwanese toddlers' lips!

Julia Goolia

I know one is not to play favorites as a teacher, but one is also not encouraged to: hit students with bamboo sticks, fall asleep in class, speak Chinese with students, allow students to use four letter words (hey, it's good English practice, right?), or give students breaks that are over half as long as the total class period, but it happens.

Reasons that Julia is my favorite:

1. She's probably the only student I teach that I haven't caught with her finger buried up her nostril to the second knuckle. I'm sometimes extremely apprehensive about giving kids high fives and being left with a little present on my palm, but not with Julia.

Ok, maybe that's the solitary reason.

No, wait. I think I like her because she giggles at my mere presence. She is very easily amused by me for some reason. The other teachers often talk about her crying sporadically during class, but I have never heard her do anything except snicker, snort, shriek, split her sides, chuckle, chortle, cachinnate, guffaw, roll in the aisles, die laughing, be in stitches, and titter.

Feeding Ray

Remember how Ray was so so so so so so hun hun hun hun hungry? So hungry, in fact, that he ate my arm fur? Well, we finally fed Ray some real food at the:

Ray's Mom wanted to tell me thank you for donating parts of my body to Ray's diet, so we went out for a nice dinner. Who would've thought I'd be eating German food and drinking Malzbier in Taiwan? German music sparkled in the background throughout the evening and as we left, the waitress told us "Dankeschoen." I always feel so strange when my mission life is resurrected in obscure restaurants in Taiwan. It happens more than you'd think. Like, once.

This one's for my shrimp-loving mother and grandmother. Yumm

By Taiwan standards, this restaurant was extremely expensive and classy. My meal cost about fifteen U.S. bones. Contrast that with my last night's meal of delicious bean noodles, veggies, and meat that cost me less than one dollar and you get some idea of just how elegant this place was attempting to be. That's why the bendy plastic straws surprised me. They actually made a valid effort to classify (as in, add class to...sorry, but I have no concept of speaking good English anymore after spending all day with persons who have no clue what English is) them, though. They were tied into various shapes and knots as they floated in our sparkling fruit tea desserts. Ray hooked everyone's together and tried drinking from this gigantic thing. What a funny guy! Weren't/aren't bendy straws such a great blessing?