Week #1: Standing out a bit...

It is the first Saturday after having started work, and I have been woken up by the sound of very loud, incessant drumming outside, which is accompanied by what sounds like a lot of people chanting. It turns out there is a temple across the street from our apartment building, and apparently Saturdays are their day of worship, as there are several tents in the square in front of the temple and it's pretty obvious that the sounds are coming from there. Not the greatest of wake up calls, but I had wanted a good chunk of time to write about this week anyways, so I'm not too devastated.

After spending the first five days here in Taiwan living in a temporary apartment equipped with a bathroom, bed, tv, and a mini-fridge (think: college dorm room), we have finally moved into our permanent apartment. The couple whom we've replaced worked up until the day we started and thus didn't move out until our actual start date, which was Wednesday. Although the two of them were very informative about the myriad of details that come with our jobs, Sara and I have been incredibly overwhelmed all week. Each of us teach several different skill levels and ages throughout each day, with very little time in between to gather materials (aka different reading, writing, vocab, and spelling books per class). We've both ended up working several additional hours every day just due to attempting to plan out each of our individual classes. Our schedules are as follows:

Sara:

9:30-11:30 - Elephant Class (the youngest students)

Dave:

11:30-12 - Elephant Class (I get to read a very easy mini-book with them and then play games)

Lunch/Lesson Planning

S&D:

2-5 - ESL classes (ages ranging from 1st to 4th grade levels)

S&D:

5:05-6:05 - Pre-teen classes who go to regular Chinese school during the day

Dinner break

D:

6:40-8:40 - Generally teenagers who are continuing English education after regular school (read: not very excited about still being in school at this time of day)

Needless to say, this has been a bit of a crash course in teaching for both of us, but we got through it relatively unscathed and having learned a number of fun games (including several very fun card games). Many of the classes and students are very fun, easily engaged, and excited to learn, but as with any class, there are a few that are not happy to be at school and have been pushed through the system without truly processing the information and are in levels above their actually abilities. That being said, I will never jump to conclusions about a teacher's abilities again. I hereby send out an unheard apology to all teachers who seemed to have gotten flustered and easily frustrated by any of the classes I've been in in my life.

Enough about school. We are apparently not only receiving a crash course in teaching, but in Asian culture and navigating this entirely new world. Let me start by saying that the driving here is absolutely crazy. Nearly everyone has scooters, and although for the most part traffic lights are obeyed, most other rules that we're used to are apparently nonexistent. I don't know if it's our city in particular or a Taiwan thing, but it is far from being a pedestrian friendly city. We have every intention of joining the masses on scooters as soon as we get our first paycheck, if for nothing more than to avoid having to shimmy along parked cars and scooters to avoid being blown past (I may be exaggerating here a bit, but in actuality there aren't many sidewalks). When someone wants to park, they simply squeeze into any open area. Double parking is apparently a non-issue, and people regularly pull right up to the many little food and tea stands and order from their scooter. I've seen what looks like parking tickets on peoples cars, but for the most part it doesn't seem to be that much a deterrent.

The rumors that eating out is significantly less expensive than buying your own food at the grocery stores is true, although about 1 in 10 restaurants have English menus or good enough pictures to convey what we want, so we've had to stick to a few places we've already found. Like with jumping on the scooter bandwagon, we have every intention of learning some functional Chinese as quickly as possible to help deal with this. The people have been every bit as warm and inviting as we had heard, and even without knowing a lick of Chinese (aside from hello and thank you), we have managed a few successful interactions when necessary. We've tried some very interesting food so far, as well as having vastly improved our chopstick skills. Among our food sampling has been: fully BBQed/steamed fish (head and everything), hot-pots (a bit like a fondue, with tons of veggies, fish, rice, tofu, and what we concluded was breaded fish testicle - NOTE: WAS NOT EATEN)

Also spotted along the way have been several octopi, squid, frogs (with the heads removed), egg crepes, waffle sandwiches, and eggs being served with just about anything to make the meal a *breakfast*. We've both tried to adopt very open minds to trying stuff, although I don't see myself going for any testicles or headless frogs any time in the foreseeable future.

Our first week here has been overwhelming, exciting, odd, shocking, and enjoyable all at the same time, and we're both thrilled to see where the next year here will take us. For more pictures, feel free to check out my facebook page, including some great ones of Chia-Yi Park, which is just a ten minute walk from our apartment!I look forward to any feedback about our adventures! I will end on a bit of a fun video of our trip last weekend to the park (at the bottom of the page).