新年快乐!
(Xin nian kuai le = Happy New Year!)
And so we begin yet another year. Once again, I must apologize for our absence from the
blogosphere. As I believe too many of us know, it is exceedingly easy to become caught up in the
day to day patterns we establish for ourselves, and lose sight of even the best set intentions (aka
writing frequently). The last two months have been, as we expected, thrilling, exhausting, and
incredibly fast-moving. We were sad to watch the messages pop up without end on Facebook
talking of the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year activities carrying on despite our absence.
Regardless of how egocentric you are (such as myself), once you've removed yourself from the
middle of things I've found that things continue to move along in quite the same manner as they
did before you left. Perhaps it is this that keeps me wanting to be in the thick of it all, in order to
not miss a thing. Nonetheless, I find myself quite grateful for the advances in global connectivity
in recent years. Without Skype and nearly daily updates to everyones' whereabouts and various
goings on, I very much doubt I would've handled the holidays
quite as well as I did.
In the last two months, we've continued to cultivate the eager young, spongy minds of the
children we teach. For anyone who has had the *cough cough* pleasure of teaching elementary
and junior high students, I hope you picked up on the sarcasm there. For those of you who
haven't, please know I'm kidding. Both Sara and I have truly enjoyed many of the connections
we've established with our students. Sara has developed a very fun and now disciplined
environment for her youngest class, and in doing so has been able to enjoy the teaching part
a lot more. As many of you also heard, she had quite the heroic episode just before Christmas as
well! For all of the details you'll have to schedule a personal retelling by Sara "Superteacher"
Ness herself, but I will summarize as best as I can.
One of the little boys (the boy in the yellow striped shirt) in Sara's Elephant class seemed to
be unresponsive and choking not long after their morning snack. Sara proceeded to try the
Heimlich and finger swipe to clear his airway, both of which were unsuccessful. She sent the
Chinese teacher to get help and began doing mouth to mouth with the little boy. On the third or
fourth attempt, she managed to get some air through (he was clenching his teeth, which will be
explained shortly), and he began to come around and threw up the remainder of the contents of
his stomach and begin to cry. Soon after, the ambulance arrived and he was carted off the
hospital. To make a semi-long story short, the doctors determined that his brain functions differently
than most people and he may be prone to seizures. Anyway you look at it, everyone is very grateful
to Sara, who in turn is very happy to have taken a Safe Sitter course when she was a young girl
quite some time ago.
One of the things that has helped significantly with our homesickness this holiday season
has been the fact that our school really loves to celebrate all of the various holidays that we
would back home. Thanksgiving was a blast, where Sara got to read the Thanksgiving story to all
of the kids and their parents (with a translator), and I got to cut the turkey(s) for the big feast. It was
quite a spread, including everything from turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, to sushi rolls and
traditional Taiwanese soups. We also celebrated again the following day with a more traditional
a thanksgiving with our fellow foreign coworkers. It seems like no time passed before it was again
time for another celebration, this time Christmas. We spent the month following Thanksgiving
practicing routines with each of our classes (the younger classes had to wear costumes and sing
songs, while the older classes got to do skits). The day finally came around and everything went
smoothly, and this time I got be Santa (see Facebook for documentation!). It was a lot of fun, and it
was great to see how much fun these kids got to have while experiencing something Sara and I
remember so fondly. It was something else being swarmed by children while trying my best to
sound like good ol' Saint Nick. It took a few weeks for kids to stop telling me that they knew I was
Santa and have me deny it. I insist that I was in the bathroom the whole time.
Our actual Christmas day was a pleasant one, made particularly special by the arrival of a
care package from Sara's mom the night before. The package contained essentials that we had
requested such as deodorant (they take it off the shelves after the weather cools down here...
crazy, I know), feminine products, etc. However, Sara's mama had been thoughtful enough to
wrap them all into separate gift boxes, allowing us to have a fairly substantial looking stash under
our tree Christmas morning! Along with that unexpected surprise, we had the pleasure of talking
face-to-face with our families throughout the day, which I once again have to emphasize, makes
the distance between us seem much smaller. New Years Eve was also another adventure for us.
Instead of spending $100+ a person to get into a bar in the big city, as we have the last few years
(I'm not knocking it, just stating the fact that it was much different this year), we bought a bottle of
champagne and rode our scooter to a sports arena in Chiayi with a few coworkers to see the NYE
show and fireworks. The fireworks were among the best, if not the best, either of us have ever seen.
I suppose you would expect something special considering this is pretty much where fireworks
are produced. I don't know if I've mentioned this in previous posts, but these people friggin' LOVE
fireworks. For the first few months we were here, there were fireworks literally every day. And I
mean every day. They love it! Apparently no reason is necessary! They don't even wait for it to get
dark. I suppose there must just be an overabundance of fireworks here, and they feel the need to
do away with some. Anywho, I digress. New Years Eve was a blast, and we had a chance to hang
out with a few Taiwanese coworkers for the first time. It's a lot of fun getting a chance to communicate
with them, especially considering they are as excited to reciprocate and practice their English as
we are to practice our Chinese. After the fireworks were done and people started clearing the stadium,
I had probably four groups of young Taiwanese people ask to take pictures with me. It was a bit
strange but hey, why not let the public get what the public wants, right? I'm still looking into
purchasing some basketball jerseys and pretending to be an NBA star.
Unfortunately our New Year started out on a bit of a down note. Boo boo woke up feeling pretty
craptastic, and it quickly spiraled down into fricking terrible town. She had a nasty tummy ache, body
aches, the chills, and fatigue. The worst part was that neither of us had more than three drinks the
night before. It got bad enough that I insisted we see a doctor, and as we don't know much Chinese
(or any doctors here), we packed up and headed to the hospital. Once we got there, we were fortunate
yet again that a little English is known by a majority of people we encounter, and got Sara hooked up
to an IV drip and seen by a doctor quickly. After several hours, some broken communication with the
staff, a pee test, some blood work, and x-rays, we were told Sara had a case of the stomach flu (along
with an unpleasant case of shingles). We got a handful of medications and headed home. Today (all
that fun stuff occurred yesterday), Sara woke up feeling much better, and we've been resting up all
day. Looking to kick of the New Year officially tomorrow (hopefully on the right foot) with the start of a
new semester at school!
So, feeling the need to end on an inspirational or fun note, given that this in my first blog of a new year,
let's see what I can do:
After having made it to the hospital and successfully communicated what was going on with her,
we were waiting to be sent to see a doctor. It wasn't until we were about to go that Sara finally ralphed.
And as I crouched next to her, rubbing her back and trying to get the nurses attention, I couldn't help
but smile. All Sara had eaten that day was apple cinnamon oatmeal. It was the most pleasant smelling
vomit I had ever had the chance to enjoy!
It is with this that will leave you, oh our faithful readers. And a stern reminder to always remember on
your rough days:
The vomit could always smell worse.
Happy New Years. We miss you all!
