First Day of School!!

First day. Breathe deeply. Smile. Learn names. Pretty fun, pretty tiring. My first class is filled with 20 or so 8yr old children who go to school all day without enough time to play - end result: just bouncing in their seats, talking all the time, not terribly interested in English grammar.... fun anyways though! :) Most challenging task - keeping their attention. *note to self - must learn games that I can play with grammar patterns* So far so good. Second class of two - older, maybe 12 or 13. Most challenging task - keeping them from breaking the walls. They seem to pay attention in class, but breaktime, whoa. I adopted a hands-off, do what you like during break time... but I may have to watch them at least to make sure the aforementioned walls stay intact, as well as most of the important body parts. That's it for school. I suppose I must learn some discipline or somethin'. Ahh the position of authority brings such responsibility.
Mmmm so the garbage trucks here - there are no trash cans that go on the side of the road, nor dumpsters to collect your trash. The garbage trucks go around all day playing music really loudy and everyone runs out of their buildings with their trash.... pretty interesting, but that song - totally gets stuck in your head. Our building is a bit more advanced - we've got something like a dumpster that the apartment people keep track of. Remember R the right shoot is for recycling.
First totally ridiculous thing I've seen - a woman in our apartment complex goes outside everyday to 'walk' her cute little pomeranian dog... in a shopping basket. Only she's walking, not the dog - who's on a pillow in a cart. Pretty cute I must say, but ridiculous nonetheless.

Dinner and the Night Market

Mmm three posts for one day - should've planned or something, but that's no fun is it?!
Another group dinner out - good times. This time I got to meet Jesse and her kids (Kyle and... the other one - oops!), Jesse being a good friend of Tasha's who's teaching her Chinese. So we went to a restaurant that was really close - about a minute from my apartment. It's called the Grand Tree Tea and Coffee, and sitting right there on the menu in the midst of gibberish about all sorts of meat and vegetables and all manner of Chinese is (drumroll please) *waffles and fruit* - as soon as I saw it, nothing I could have desired more. It comes out, just glorious. Light, cake batter, with kiwis, orange slices, apple slices, whipped cream, ice cream, and chocolate syrup. Just heaven. People were envious and Jesse's second kid actually was inspired to get his own. Glorious I tell you.
After the luscious dinner, time for shopping! Sarah and I decided to go check out the Night Market. Just a total mix of anything and everything you want. It's crazy. They have fruit (always food everywhere, silly street vendors), as mentioned, tons of unnameable foods, shoes, clothes, animals, birds, video games, carnival games, tons more shoes and clothes, knickknacks of all sorts, watches and clocks, spices and teas, fortune tellers, anything and everything. Someplace I'll be sure to return to :)
Also, just as a side note - there's music here all the time. Mostly american pop music too. A little techno throw in as well. Never really having lived in a real city before, it hasn't been such a huge distraction, generally the music was only in stores... but here it's just everywhere!! And of course I really like it - so if they weren't looking at me enough for being a whitey, I also get the looks because I can't control the rhythm! :) like they know me though right? good times.
later.

Patience, young grasshopper

.. and self-control! I must learn not to try to get everything all at once. Lugging home all those groceries wore me out completely. I have to remember that I can always go back, no need to stock up with tons of food (mother..). Truly, carrying all that stuff home was nearly impossible. Plus, if I really want something, all I have to do is run downstairs and get it. There's a convenience store or 7-11 literally every 30 ft or so (metric conversion for the citizens of every other country - ~ 10 meters). It's good for me to pop up and down - prevents me from getting too lazy. Bleh. I do miss reading names and ingredients though... I have no idea what I'm really eating and if it's really bad for me or not. Whatever. Maybe it's a good experience for me too. Everyone else seems to be happy with my expanding diet - I'm sure this will help that too.
Also Chinese, I need to start learning and I'm fairly impatient, but it's such a daunting task!! I know about 5 phrases and can forget them at any time - i want, thank you, i dont have, big bum, i dont want, do you speak english. I do seem to be surviving without it though (a good thing) but it doesn't change that I'd like to have some clue as to what's going on.
Anywho, I'll rest from my grocery trek; I think everyone's going out to the night market later - we'll see.
~allie

Survivin' the first week!

Woo hoo! Great fun talking on little headsets. Hopefully it'll be a fun habit for me :) Anywho.. where was I? Ah yes. So Friday - up early and at work man! Very productive etc. Syllabi, handouts, lesson plans, class procedure, curriculum, on and on. I also went downstairs with Heather to exchange some money. Another pastry and some tea for lunch. Sarah's hair is dyed blond and her roots are starting to show - but we're having a hard time finding any blond hair color over here... I finally broke down and used the school's weird-ass bathroom. *Exchange your indoor slippers for the bathroom slippers, go into a little stall and squat. I just don't know.. am I facing the right direction? because there seems to be a sort of form/style to the 'toilets' - they aren't just a hole in the ground and seem to have a back and front... I just don't know which is which.*
So we stayed late friday to get all of this school stuff done because the new semester starts on Monday and Heather was nice and ordered us pizza. Oh these crazy asians. They put corn and peas in their pizza, just as natural to them as sauce. Totally gross.
After work - yay - we went to 'Jake's Place' , a bar catering to foreigners with all manner of fried foods. Good stuff but their fryer was broken. Gary earned tons of points with me for loving Matt Stone and Trey Parker (if you don't know who they are do yourself a favor and google them), hating Bush, and getting me french bread from a bakery :) He is 31 though and I did have to discuss politics with a little Catholic princess who is obviously conservative and made all sorts of disclaimers in her arguments like ' it might sound like I'm arguing for this but I'm not..' *roll the eyes* (sorry Mandy). She's cool though. All in all a very lovely evening and then I came home and tried fun yummy asian ice cream with slush and frozen ice stuff - strawberry and peach were both in there somewhere. And then I stayed up far too late with my little headset talking over the internet :D So I didn't know when to get up or anything but oh well. I was gonna try to get up in time to call mums and pops (love y'all) but it didn't happen. Lazed about all day. I wasn't awake for the fruit market trip. We watched Napoleon Dynamite and a Simpsons episode (with the elephant - anyone? anyone?).
Later Tasha was in the living room with Fight Club and her book studying Chinese. They went out with Mandy and her husband Brian for Thai food, but I passed and went shopping! Yay! That's right ~foreign country, huge store, so much to browse through, so much to buy! Total I guess I soent about US 35 but it was absolutely worth it. I keep forgetting to buy lots of stuff - though one day I'll get it all I hope - I've promised myself anyhow. Tons of food and snacks, slippers (because I will my whole existence in them apparently) that have Pooh on them - oh so cute, hangers, a box for clothes, aaannnnnnnd a super-duper cool quality KiKi and CoCo magenta watch with a confused/sad girl that rotates. It's totally spiffy I tell ya - you'll def get a picture of it too! My first real asian something that I bought to keep.

Special Note to The Man

I swear my chopstick skills are getting worse each time I use them. And I'd like to send a special thank you to Larry for being such a tofu fanatic - the main reason I haven't totally panicked when going out to eat. Sad to say though, I haven't really encountered the 'tofu pretending to be meat' but only the soft tofu with difficult to manage chopstick qualities (easier if you just spear the cube) :)

Workin' and stuff

Oops! I passed out there for a couple of days so I'll get you back on track now.
So the day after the dinner Sarah and I went to the school at about 10:30. We waited for awhile and were introduced to most of the staff and then Heather showed us around the labyrinth of class procedure, schedules, books, syllabi, and curriculum folders. Then I spent the day looking for handouts for the science class and being fairly confused. Later on, I went to the staff meeting, got the things I was supposed to do - more handouts and two syllabi - and gathered my books for the semester. Afterwards, I'm shamed to say, I went home, snacked because I love it, and went to bed at 7 pm - crashed rather - and remained fairly asleep until 5 am. Oh, the way Canadians say 'about' - just precious. So yeah, slept awhile (10 hours), woke up and did some school work (organizing and searching), then took another nap, showered and went to school. This time I took my own laptop but Simon (the fun all-around handyman/chauffeur) couldnt set it up until after lunch because of my security :) Did my syllabi, searched and searched for handouts. Main problems being - no sheets simple enough for 6 yr olds with a foreign language, complete lack of handouts online, Tony's ridiculous curriculum, and probably my searching skills. Anywho Tasha talked to Heather so we wont have to gather all the handouts on Friday, just the first week or two ( Friday because the new semester starts Monday and we're prepping - we dont work weekends). yah.. and so after that - out to eat as per usual - to the Japanese Grill this time. Oh, ridiculous this culture! But it was quite a pleasant experience. I had two types of tofu with two different sauces and levels of spiciness, an omelet with the requisite green stuff in it (some peas in there too perhaps?), very good, ate myself some bean sprouts, and silliest of all ~french fries with cheese. I dont know how this quite came about but I think Gary did it with a convoluted explanation of my eating habits. But glory, glory. Very good, lots of food, gag reflex lessening slowly slowly and cheap. Heh, I think a huge problem the day before was no lunch and then conking out. Today I went and got my lunch at the 7-11 - grape juice and a garlicy pastry. Heather's going to take me to the/a bank tomorrow yay and we're also doing pictures for ... something - advertisement, leaflet, brochure, website, whatever. Plus - and boohoo - I think we're supposed to wear sleeves to work - at the very least to pictures tomorrow. People are askin' about the blog - I'm gonna have to put this up soon. Maybe this weekend. Anywho, I seem to be fairly schedule glorious. I guess I'll read and drift off to sleep. :) Night

Musings of the Day

Hmm - laundry. It seems we have a washer but Tasha swears there isnt a dryer anywhere to be found and we hang our clothes on the second balcony ( 2 balconies btw - lovely)
Oh goody Sarah seems really nice and I just had some sort of cookie/cracker that was salty and sweet. Just delish :)
Wireless internet connection set up by yours truly ;)
Hee Hee oh WAY excited! Giddy in fact, wtf?
Heather was really sweet and said I was 'Taiwanese size' and that I could find anything I wanted to wear ~ including lots of shoes :)
dragonfruit? ~very nice and oh so pretty
Heh guess what made the trip with me? some brown brown packing paper from the original packaging of my suitcases.
Wow. the couches here really are um pink
I don't seem to be having any allergy trouble yet. Huzzah!
Back to the giddiness - it's halfway gone, i'm tired - but a plausible explanation - perhaps it's because not only am I getting away with an idea that could have been a major mistake and idiotic, but I'm also getting kudos for it ~ everyone's proud of me and they love my 'spirit of adventure'
I was about to conk out at 2 but I knew it would screw up my time change so I held out. Sarah got home around 3 and we went shopping at TESCO to keep me awake :). We're really gonna get along just dandy. Tasha's really nice too but I havent really connected to her yet... she's pretty intimidating to me. She comes from an incredibly rough town and while her stories of it are entertaining, I know I wouldnt be able to survive there. I'm just very impressed and obviously very sheltered, but she's the first person I've met that's been stabbed.
Anyway, Sarah has made it clear that she wants to spend some time cooking at home ~ so I count that a plus because when she's home I'll probably be home too, eating normal food - yay!

TESCO was a mauch farther two blocks than I had imagined and it's dangerous to be a pedestrian, but it adds a sense of danger and excitement every time you step out the door :)

Mmm. On to dinner. Oh dear. I thought it would be smaller so I could get a chance to explain a little but there were tons of people there! 8 people rather. I tried though damnit! I guess that's why I'm upset. If they knew me, they'd know I took a rather large step forward with Chinese food but they were disappointed in me :( I ate ridiculously spicy soy cubes, some vegetable covered in sweet and sour stuff, some weird bread-like thingy with green stuff in it, and two to three fingers of rice, bittermelon, and the dessert of watermelon and grapes. It was quite a lot of food for me, all of it new except for dessert, yet Heather offered to take me to TESCO when we were finished because she felt like she hadnt fed me. sigh. And when we got home the giros were like - yeah, you'll do fine, you just cant go out to eat... anyway, all this talk of food, time for my midnight snack.

more! more!

indeed!

and more!

yeah - i can only do five at a time.

more?

yes! more!

.. and even more

ooh yay! pretty pretty

... and more

yay! the abundance!

Pictures!

I know they're supposed to be interspersed brilliantly with the text, but... you're lucky you're getting my pictures at all ;)
my room, apartment, balcony, some of my courtyard, and random ones of Sarah - she doesn't like her picture taken

Gettin' Aquainted

Heather is so friendly!(the boss) She hugged me when she first saw me! After reading those books on Taiwanese culture and not touching and not publicly etc etc it was the last thing I expected. But she really is just so nice and emphasized again the 'land of convenience'. The TESCO is open 24 hours and 2 blocks from my apartment. She wants to teach us Mandarin so the parents can speak to us.
Another new teacher, Sarah, just arrived Thursday and starts observing tomorrow. So my new roommates are Tasha and Sarah. They seem awfully nice and friendly. Plus Tasha does the Canadian 'hey?' at the end of sentences!! It's pretty awesome. I can get anything I really want - TESCO bakery, 7-11, even McDonalds, but Tasha seems to hate t'he kitchen and declares she never eats at home, and Heather already wants to take me out to dinner. For those that dont know - umm I dont eat meat, or vegetables, no hot liquids, baked fruit etc etc, some might call me picky, others fully attack with an obsessive compulsive accusation, whatever, it just happened. However, something else my adorable books taught me, it's rude to refuse food and a cultural faux pas - their way of saying hello and asking how you are translates to 'have you eaten yet?'. sigh. Well, I certainly can't eat it all. I guess I'll just try to do what the book says - sample everything and praise it - and hope this tactic will cover the fact that the amount of food I've eaten is minimal. Not eating meat will get me out of loads of trouble I can tell right now - but get me into so much more. But who knows? Maybe they'll understand and think 'silly foreigner'. And really, if this is my onlyproblem, I think I'm doing damn well.
I need to unpack and go buy things, try out my laptop connection. All the travel has exhausted me. My room is quite cute and lovely - I'm sure my stuff will change that :)

Travel - oh the joys

Mmm - a comment to start - this will be a journal-like blog to start out (ive never had a blog before) but eventually I hope to parse it down into fun adventure stories or such or whatever you're supposed to put on blogs (read: as I get lazier). So yeah, long boring personal thoughts for awhile. Pictures to come I promise I promise, my batteries are charging as I type! Mkay boys and girls, drugs are bad, journal to begin.
Out to a great start! I got through security with only minor obstructions. They did have to confiscate my nail scissors (far too sharp!) from my carry-on. Mums and Pops are only a teary as far as I can tell - not too bad. However, they did steal my pen! How rude! Geez. I'm gonna miss them. Sitting at the airport gate, a little bit of reality is starting to creep in. But. oh. so. tired.
Right, plus my watch battery was dead this morning - absolutely timeless.
Anywho, besides making me want to play and transform fluffly cloud shapes, the first two stops/flights were uneventful. San Francisco now ~whew. Super big airport, long way to walk, hella confusing terminals. Security again - they looked through my bag again and unpacked it this time. They let me keep the rest of my nail kit and my super-blunt emergency sewing kit scissors. However, they might not let me keep my bag :(. I don't know particularly who would be in charge of telling me no at this point but I assume I'll know when we start boarding if I'm good to go or not. Otherwise, I lose 'face', my bag gets taken, I pay 89 bucks if I ever want to see it again, and my emergency on-hand supplies are no longer um on hand.
These bags are so heavy. blah. My hands shake from the strain. But, you know, so far so good - nothing unduly stressing. I'm leaving my territory now - Oh God- wish me luck! I'm totally confounded as to why in the entire international terminal there is no food. Sigh. And I'm definitely not going back through security (though they'd remember me). Snack time. The nervousness perhaps might be here. Help!
Ok I was nervous there for a moment but ya know, it was ok only an hour or so later :). I was ironically totally distracted by the guy sitting next to me. He was from Southern India going to Taiwan to give technical presentations for his software company. Ridiculously long name ..Venkat ---- (vinght- quatre) Ramadiala---... who knows, it doesn't fit on his passport or anything anyway. Fun fun fun and awfully helpful. My flight got in early which was good ~ so very very long on the plane. bleh. My diet is increasing exponentially though - ridiculous. I had rice crackers and some pretty gross seaweed and some cracked peas for a snack. Later I ate the weird purple vegetable in my salad. Still later (13 hr flight), I had noodles that had (again) peas in the mix and other random green things. As always, I can only eat so much odd food before gagging or tiring of it. My chopstick skills are less than stellar but somewhat functional - especially since I don't eat anything! :)
I was stopped by disease control and they took my temperature in my ear three times ~ fun. My temperature was a little high and a man told me that I should drink more water. Nod and smile. Nod and smile through customs. Indian guy helped me get my luggage and I took advantage of the free carts provided. We finally wound our way around to where everyone had signs, waiting to pick people up. I didn'y get a name card :( but Heather (my boss) was just arriving when I entered the area and I spotted her. To conclude travel, she drove me to my apartment along route 2. End of the travels.
*Are you excited about my blog yet?

Let's get it started

Hallo Hallo. Welcome to my blog. It's brand new and shiny and created for this special time in my life when I decided, fairly randomly, to leave the US and go teach English in Taiwan for a year. I got a job over the internet and here I am, in late August, making my very own foray into a world and culture I know so very little about.