Happy Days
Taiwan Fact: They use a different way to tally than hash marks. It still repeats after 5, but the 5 marks end up look like this: 正, which is the character for "correct". The first three marks make 下, which means "down".
I'm feeling pretty awesome at the moment, and not just because I'm playing hooky for the first time in a year. The breeze has been breathing relief into these still-hot days, the buses show up just when I want them, solid school lunches... Ok, the real deal is that I'm done with parent teacher conferences and things with Jordan progress. Plus I'm starting to be able to kind of interact with people in Chinese (on an utterly rudimentary level). I've also gained ten pounds since I've been here, but my pants are (even) looser. Exercise!
The Saturday proceeding my last entry included Jennie's birthday/mustache/fake eyelash party. It was a huge pain to get things going because my roommates are slow as fuck, and decided waited for Jeff and a lady friend, and then waited for Bryn, his roommate and roommate's girlfriend. It was a lethargic, lumbering cadre of drunks. On the way we bumped into some Roxy regulars with the same destination, so the ten of us arrived and doubled the size of the party. After an hour or so the size had increased by another 50%. (12. If four people left, how many would remain at Jennie's party? a) 8 b) 57 c) 26 d) all of the above) It, as you'd expect, rocked.
The "Errol Flynn"... sort of. Alyson put some of her mascara in it.
Jeff and I were just about the only dudes sporting the real deal.
"Now that's a lucky lady."
Most people wore a fake or went under the sharpie. My snuggle buddy Deanna was there but sort of gave me the cold shoulder as she hit on a dude, but he was one of the elite with a legit 'tache, so he's ok by me. To make myself feel better I flirted with Alyson and texted Jordan. That actually lead to a third date with Jordan the following day- yay!
I took her to Mei's Tea Bar, a really great café/restaurant Klaire once took me to. We ate and split two pots of tea, I've never had so much to drink on dates as the second and third with Jordan and it wasn't even alcohol! However, afterwards we went back to my place and consumed a drug of a different stripe and watched Futurama and giggled.
On Monday Chad observed me and took two and a half pages of notes on what I need to work on. I mixed up the schedule a little bit and shortened the classes 'cause we were going to chat about it for half an hour of the time. It was a little humbling, but I took it in stride and I've been working on implementing his suggestions. He had praise also and it sounded like other people had more problems in their classrooms. The following day I was not psyched. I got there pretty early. There wasn't a ton for me to plan since I was going to basically repeat the previous day's schedule, except I was going to do more shit that would get the kids moving around. I went into the empty classroom with my shit and the kids came in from the bathroom. No parents yet, but I was supposed to run the class like normal, so I just got rolling. I knew the parents were going to affect the kids' behavior, but it was hard to guess in what way. I'd told them several times in advance what was going down. I'm not sure if it was the pressure of the parents or T-Julia yelling at them before I got there, but they were all awesome. Well, Claire was good, not awesome, haha. The parents filed in as we were beginning our morning rituals and even Emma remembered to speak loudly and clearly. We read a story. Then we learned a new four letter word: love, to add to our pile of flashcards and then played a game with our freshly expanded pile. I was planning on doing a spelling text after that but realized that would be a mess and just played the game a bit longer. Then we sang some songs where we showed off the sweet dance moves we'd come up with- I used to feel awkward dancing just in front of the kids, now I was busting out in front of basically a group of peers whom I'd never met (just like in a club! except I don't usually do shit like flapping like a bumblebee or scooting around on my ass at clubs). Then we did some MPM, which is math and no one can tell me what it stands for. I mistakenly told a bunch of kids to try again on something they'd done right because I miscounted, which was awkward, but I was pretty happy that that was the worst that happened. Then I went off with my co-teacher, the Chinese manager lady person (Chad's the manager, I'm not sure what Antonia's title is), and the parents. I talked about what we were working on it class, Julia translated. I talked about my goals for the class, Julia translated. Then I went around and talked to each parent/pair about their student specifically. The intended schedule was not completely known to me, but I believe that I was supposed to do that for like 15 minutes, then take questions for 15 minutes. I did that shit for closer to an hour. By the end no one had any questions because I was so thorough and they knew I was so kickass. Or they were hungry. The second half of the day the kids were kind of shits. But I didn't care too much because they're never actually very bad and they'd kicked ass that morning.
That evening I had my mind on Jordan, but thought I'd wait at least one more day in hopes that she'd contact me instead of me always having to initiate. As I thought these things, idly fingering my phone, it buzzed. My heart jumped even as I immediately reminded myself it would be highly coincidental if it were her. It was an invite to come hang out with her and friends. That is a step. I didn't discover until I'd actually met up with her that we were going to play Scrabble. I wasn't feeling terribly ambitious and Scrabble sounded like about the most perfect thing to do in the world. We went to this really lovely little restaurant/café/bar and met a big group of foreigners already hovering above a couple of Scrabble boards. I was going to participate in an Americans versus British match. I came out of the box with 'midget', followed by such awesome words as 'bonsai' (triple word!), 'fledge' and the wrongly disputed 'pinner' (I changed it to 'ripen' so they'd quit bitching, but I wouldn't let them have 'darer' later on). Anyway, we lost by 2 points and that extra 'n' would have given us 3 points... Also, I blame my teammate :-) But Jordan paid for my beer and gave me a kiss afterwards even though I didn't walk her all the way home. Reciprocity is attractive!
On Wednesday I used my half-day off to take a three hour nap. As I'd threatened the night before, I called Jordan and she invited me over. We smoked some hash and watched Arrested Development when it dawned on me Ron Howard (narrator) and Henry Winkler (Barry Zuckerkorn) were both from Happy Days! Then we headed to Roxy as we both had groups of friends to meet there. Now, I hadn't really talked to Judy over the weekend, so Jordan went from being another girl I'd had one date with to being a girl I'd been on three dates with and we'd introduced each other to each other's friends etc. She, of course, was there. Also Klaire. And a jillion other people I know. I said "hi" all around and avoided most of the potential awkwardnesses. My friend Kelly wanted someone to dance with her to Linkin Park and when I refused she asked if I didn't like them and I asked if she knew what "abysmal" meant.
In a move that turned out to maybe not be so smart, I encouraged Ben and Jeff to pay her some attention so mine would be less conspicuously absent. She's cute, fun and attention-worthy, and they both like her. Apparently this caused a bit of a stir because everyone knew that I'd gone out with Judy (ONCE ffs) and then my friend is dancing with her!? I was unaware of this at the time and after drinking too much, smoking too much, and staying too late I went home with Jordan and got some snuggles. However, I've yet to get to be a little spoon in this country! Come on!
When I woke up it took colossal will to leave that lovely warm place and stumble into the bleary morning, smelling of everything from the previous night. But there was another conference today for another class and I was gonna teach Chad's class with mine for part of the morning, plus it's about $100 I'd miss out on. I was also a little scared of jumping the shark (a phrase I recently learned, referring to that Happy Days episode where the Fonz jumped the shark on water-skies, which means veering too far from one's original appeal in an attempt to grab extra attention) and wearing out my welcome. Today I was a little tired and a little smelly at work, but it was a good day. I've been getting a whole lot of love from my kids lately.
Her mom was hot, btw.
I had the kids write up spells for our unit on Halloween and Fantasy.
Joey made a spell to turn someone into a butterfly, but she was too fast so I asked her to draw more. So she added a spell that turned 9 into eight, which is deep.
I'd written the word "eight" on the board for Joey and Vivian, who's attention extends exactly the length of her arm, accidentally made the totally awesome spell that turns someone into "eight".
Claire's turned a big person with small arms into a small person with big arms?
After I got all these spells I got out my magic wand and turned everyone into things for a little bit.
Then I skipped Chinese class 'cause I was supposed to do a homeworky thing, plus I hadn't brought my books to study during my commute, plus I was exhausted, plus I had to write this friggin' entry, right!?
Andy was complaining about his air-headed co-worker who says "happy days" ad nauseam in lieu of maybe "good" or "splendid"? And I secretly liked how it sounded.
I'm feeling pretty awesome at the moment, and not just because I'm playing hooky for the first time in a year. The breeze has been breathing relief into these still-hot days, the buses show up just when I want them, solid school lunches... Ok, the real deal is that I'm done with parent teacher conferences and things with Jordan progress. Plus I'm starting to be able to kind of interact with people in Chinese (on an utterly rudimentary level). I've also gained ten pounds since I've been here, but my pants are (even) looser. Exercise!
The Saturday proceeding my last entry included Jennie's birthday/mustache/fake eyelash party. It was a huge pain to get things going because my roommates are slow as fuck, and decided waited for Jeff and a lady friend, and then waited for Bryn, his roommate and roommate's girlfriend. It was a lethargic, lumbering cadre of drunks. On the way we bumped into some Roxy regulars with the same destination, so the ten of us arrived and doubled the size of the party. After an hour or so the size had increased by another 50%. (12. If four people left, how many would remain at Jennie's party? a) 8 b) 57 c) 26 d) all of the above) It, as you'd expect, rocked.
The "Errol Flynn"... sort of. Alyson put some of her mascara in it.
Jeff and I were just about the only dudes sporting the real deal.
"Now that's a lucky lady."
Most people wore a fake or went under the sharpie. My snuggle buddy Deanna was there but sort of gave me the cold shoulder as she hit on a dude, but he was one of the elite with a legit 'tache, so he's ok by me. To make myself feel better I flirted with Alyson and texted Jordan. That actually lead to a third date with Jordan the following day- yay!
I took her to Mei's Tea Bar, a really great café/restaurant Klaire once took me to. We ate and split two pots of tea, I've never had so much to drink on dates as the second and third with Jordan and it wasn't even alcohol! However, afterwards we went back to my place and consumed a drug of a different stripe and watched Futurama and giggled.
On Monday Chad observed me and took two and a half pages of notes on what I need to work on. I mixed up the schedule a little bit and shortened the classes 'cause we were going to chat about it for half an hour of the time. It was a little humbling, but I took it in stride and I've been working on implementing his suggestions. He had praise also and it sounded like other people had more problems in their classrooms. The following day I was not psyched. I got there pretty early. There wasn't a ton for me to plan since I was going to basically repeat the previous day's schedule, except I was going to do more shit that would get the kids moving around. I went into the empty classroom with my shit and the kids came in from the bathroom. No parents yet, but I was supposed to run the class like normal, so I just got rolling. I knew the parents were going to affect the kids' behavior, but it was hard to guess in what way. I'd told them several times in advance what was going down. I'm not sure if it was the pressure of the parents or T-Julia yelling at them before I got there, but they were all awesome. Well, Claire was good, not awesome, haha. The parents filed in as we were beginning our morning rituals and even Emma remembered to speak loudly and clearly. We read a story. Then we learned a new four letter word: love, to add to our pile of flashcards and then played a game with our freshly expanded pile. I was planning on doing a spelling text after that but realized that would be a mess and just played the game a bit longer. Then we sang some songs where we showed off the sweet dance moves we'd come up with- I used to feel awkward dancing just in front of the kids, now I was busting out in front of basically a group of peers whom I'd never met (just like in a club! except I don't usually do shit like flapping like a bumblebee or scooting around on my ass at clubs). Then we did some MPM, which is math and no one can tell me what it stands for. I mistakenly told a bunch of kids to try again on something they'd done right because I miscounted, which was awkward, but I was pretty happy that that was the worst that happened. Then I went off with my co-teacher, the Chinese manager lady person (Chad's the manager, I'm not sure what Antonia's title is), and the parents. I talked about what we were working on it class, Julia translated. I talked about my goals for the class, Julia translated. Then I went around and talked to each parent/pair about their student specifically. The intended schedule was not completely known to me, but I believe that I was supposed to do that for like 15 minutes, then take questions for 15 minutes. I did that shit for closer to an hour. By the end no one had any questions because I was so thorough and they knew I was so kickass. Or they were hungry. The second half of the day the kids were kind of shits. But I didn't care too much because they're never actually very bad and they'd kicked ass that morning.
That evening I had my mind on Jordan, but thought I'd wait at least one more day in hopes that she'd contact me instead of me always having to initiate. As I thought these things, idly fingering my phone, it buzzed. My heart jumped even as I immediately reminded myself it would be highly coincidental if it were her. It was an invite to come hang out with her and friends. That is a step. I didn't discover until I'd actually met up with her that we were going to play Scrabble. I wasn't feeling terribly ambitious and Scrabble sounded like about the most perfect thing to do in the world. We went to this really lovely little restaurant/café/bar and met a big group of foreigners already hovering above a couple of Scrabble boards. I was going to participate in an Americans versus British match. I came out of the box with 'midget', followed by such awesome words as 'bonsai' (triple word!), 'fledge' and the wrongly disputed 'pinner' (I changed it to 'ripen' so they'd quit bitching, but I wouldn't let them have 'darer' later on). Anyway, we lost by 2 points and that extra 'n' would have given us 3 points... Also, I blame my teammate :-) But Jordan paid for my beer and gave me a kiss afterwards even though I didn't walk her all the way home. Reciprocity is attractive!
On Wednesday I used my half-day off to take a three hour nap. As I'd threatened the night before, I called Jordan and she invited me over. We smoked some hash and watched Arrested Development when it dawned on me Ron Howard (narrator) and Henry Winkler (Barry Zuckerkorn) were both from Happy Days! Then we headed to Roxy as we both had groups of friends to meet there. Now, I hadn't really talked to Judy over the weekend, so Jordan went from being another girl I'd had one date with to being a girl I'd been on three dates with and we'd introduced each other to each other's friends etc. She, of course, was there. Also Klaire. And a jillion other people I know. I said "hi" all around and avoided most of the potential awkwardnesses. My friend Kelly wanted someone to dance with her to Linkin Park and when I refused she asked if I didn't like them and I asked if she knew what "abysmal" meant.
In a move that turned out to maybe not be so smart, I encouraged Ben and Jeff to pay her some attention so mine would be less conspicuously absent. She's cute, fun and attention-worthy, and they both like her. Apparently this caused a bit of a stir because everyone knew that I'd gone out with Judy (ONCE ffs) and then my friend is dancing with her!? I was unaware of this at the time and after drinking too much, smoking too much, and staying too late I went home with Jordan and got some snuggles. However, I've yet to get to be a little spoon in this country! Come on!
When I woke up it took colossal will to leave that lovely warm place and stumble into the bleary morning, smelling of everything from the previous night. But there was another conference today for another class and I was gonna teach Chad's class with mine for part of the morning, plus it's about $100 I'd miss out on. I was also a little scared of jumping the shark (a phrase I recently learned, referring to that Happy Days episode where the Fonz jumped the shark on water-skies, which means veering too far from one's original appeal in an attempt to grab extra attention) and wearing out my welcome. Today I was a little tired and a little smelly at work, but it was a good day. I've been getting a whole lot of love from my kids lately.
Her mom was hot, btw.
I had the kids write up spells for our unit on Halloween and Fantasy.
Joey made a spell to turn someone into a butterfly, but she was too fast so I asked her to draw more. So she added a spell that turned 9 into eight, which is deep.
I'd written the word "eight" on the board for Joey and Vivian, who's attention extends exactly the length of her arm, accidentally made the totally awesome spell that turns someone into "eight".
Claire's turned a big person with small arms into a small person with big arms?
After I got all these spells I got out my magic wand and turned everyone into things for a little bit.
Then I skipped Chinese class 'cause I was supposed to do a homeworky thing, plus I hadn't brought my books to study during my commute, plus I was exhausted, plus I had to write this friggin' entry, right!?
Andy was complaining about his air-headed co-worker who says "happy days" ad nauseam in lieu of maybe "good" or "splendid"? And I secretly liked how it sounded.