Parents! and the Tale of Teacher Fox
Taiwan Fact: No birds on the bus!
Let me tell you a story backwards style like that episode of Seinfeld where they go to Inda and it turns out Kramer hit FDR with a snowball. This starts out with (ends up with) teacher Fox, a guy who is, at the moment he is relating his story to Kiah and me, selling us marijuana. He is losing his apartment, job and is taking medicine to fight an infection around the metal pin sticking out of his thumb. He's been to the hospital more than a dozen times this year and has had his job for more than six years and his apartment for nearly as long.
The week before, teacher Sarah had given me a tip that this guy, our co-worker was going to see his "guy" if we wanted to put in an order. So he asks me about the amount etc., albeit discretely, at school. I got a 15 second warning from Chad not to conduct business on school property and if it's discovered that it had anything to do with drugs we'd both be fired immediately. He got an hour meeting after school with both Chad and Antionia.
A week before that, Fox had one pin removed from his thumb, but he had fallen on the other and bent it and caused the wound to become infected. Sarah (who has her finger on the pulse of the school) said that someone had accused Fox of sexual harassment. He had also been told his landlord is selling the apartment and their lease would be cancelled.
Eight months ago, Fox was tickling Claire from my Elephant class and she fell on his hand, bending his thumb.
And, he made sure to include, year ago, his much-younger girlfriend left him.
Jordan's mom came and it was fun! The two of them went to Kending despite typhoon Parma (Ohio?) idled, like a van whose destination is being reconsidered, over the ocean between the skid marks it left on the Philippines and us, dumping rain over both the whole time. The beaches were closed, but the spa and restaurants were both open and vacant. My bed hasn't seen me so much in almost a year!
As promised, she was cooler than Jordan and (therefore?) myself. I'd heard stories like how she became the tequila queen at an Okie bar, and being blindfolded for two weeks straight (part of a training I seem to remember), which are thoroughly badass things. I didn't realize that by cool, Jordan meant her mom's musical tastes and experiences are unassailable. She has seen Janis Joplin, Donovon, The Kinks, Hendrix, David Fucking Bowie... She was also lots of fun to talk to. I hope she liked me! She also treated us to a traditional Taiwanese play.
Complete with dance-fighting and a monkey king.
I also went to a barbecue with my language exchange partner. I mostly talked with a couple of other foreigners there, but one girl quizzed me in Chinese. She was asking why I came all the way to Taiwan and got an American girlfriend and when I showed her a picture of Jordan she said "Ooohh..."
The week after Jordan's mommy came was my PTA, which stands for Parent Teacher Association but, in Taiwan, means open house or parents come to school and everyone is uncomfortable time. Thankfully, at my school they are supposed to see roughly what we do every day. At Kiah's school, it is a rehearsed dramatization of a lesson. At Jordan's school, it's that plus they have to go back that evening for a performance from kids who have been at school for 12 hours by that point. I was still very nervous, especially after Chad observed my class and it went really poorly. We also had to do it out on the running track which is normally the play area, because 40 people won't fit in our classroom, even if some of them are adorable-sized. But it went fine.
One of my kids started level 1 last year, but her parents took her out after a few months. This year, she got put in my class with the same kids who had been going to school for the entire meantime. So she is way behind and I've been teaching her for an extra half an hour after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For two Mondays I subbed a class for Sarah while her mother was visiting. I am getting pretty rich, rich enough to move back to America at the end of the semester, Lunar New Year.
We've been talking about it more and more, and Jordan and I have made rough plans for departing Taiwan. She wanted to leave at Christmas and go to Thailand (Michelle!) together before going to America. I didn't feel like I could leave my school mid-semester, but I was really unhappy with the idea of being here for two months without her. It took me a long time to think of a possible solution, which was simply asking her to stay longer. I was genuinely surprised, not to mention relieved when she agreed. So now our plan is to go to Hong Kong for a few days at Christmas, then Thailand for a couple of weeks in February before going to America. She wants to visit Ben when she gets back to get a sense of closure. This makes me very nervous. She also wants to see other friends and family before we (ideally) move somewhere together. I think we're going to take a month, two weeks to see everyone on our own, then I would go to Oklahoma for a week, and bring her back to Iowa for another week. Then off to..... somewhere in North America that has seasons. I want to find a job at a natural history museum maybe?
Hey, Sean, draw us a house!
Did Escher design that house? It looks like Ouroborus with tape worms.
Let me tell you a story backwards style like that episode of Seinfeld where they go to Inda and it turns out Kramer hit FDR with a snowball. This starts out with (ends up with) teacher Fox, a guy who is, at the moment he is relating his story to Kiah and me, selling us marijuana. He is losing his apartment, job and is taking medicine to fight an infection around the metal pin sticking out of his thumb. He's been to the hospital more than a dozen times this year and has had his job for more than six years and his apartment for nearly as long.
The week before, teacher Sarah had given me a tip that this guy, our co-worker was going to see his "guy" if we wanted to put in an order. So he asks me about the amount etc., albeit discretely, at school. I got a 15 second warning from Chad not to conduct business on school property and if it's discovered that it had anything to do with drugs we'd both be fired immediately. He got an hour meeting after school with both Chad and Antionia.
A week before that, Fox had one pin removed from his thumb, but he had fallen on the other and bent it and caused the wound to become infected. Sarah (who has her finger on the pulse of the school) said that someone had accused Fox of sexual harassment. He had also been told his landlord is selling the apartment and their lease would be cancelled.
Eight months ago, Fox was tickling Claire from my Elephant class and she fell on his hand, bending his thumb.
And, he made sure to include, year ago, his much-younger girlfriend left him.
Jordan's mom came and it was fun! The two of them went to Kending despite typhoon Parma (Ohio?) idled, like a van whose destination is being reconsidered, over the ocean between the skid marks it left on the Philippines and us, dumping rain over both the whole time. The beaches were closed, but the spa and restaurants were both open and vacant. My bed hasn't seen me so much in almost a year!
As promised, she was cooler than Jordan and (therefore?) myself. I'd heard stories like how she became the tequila queen at an Okie bar, and being blindfolded for two weeks straight (part of a training I seem to remember), which are thoroughly badass things. I didn't realize that by cool, Jordan meant her mom's musical tastes and experiences are unassailable. She has seen Janis Joplin, Donovon, The Kinks, Hendrix, David Fucking Bowie... She was also lots of fun to talk to. I hope she liked me! She also treated us to a traditional Taiwanese play.
Complete with dance-fighting and a monkey king.
I also went to a barbecue with my language exchange partner. I mostly talked with a couple of other foreigners there, but one girl quizzed me in Chinese. She was asking why I came all the way to Taiwan and got an American girlfriend and when I showed her a picture of Jordan she said "Ooohh..."
The week after Jordan's mommy came was my PTA, which stands for Parent Teacher Association but, in Taiwan, means open house or parents come to school and everyone is uncomfortable time. Thankfully, at my school they are supposed to see roughly what we do every day. At Kiah's school, it is a rehearsed dramatization of a lesson. At Jordan's school, it's that plus they have to go back that evening for a performance from kids who have been at school for 12 hours by that point. I was still very nervous, especially after Chad observed my class and it went really poorly. We also had to do it out on the running track which is normally the play area, because 40 people won't fit in our classroom, even if some of them are adorable-sized. But it went fine.
One of my kids started level 1 last year, but her parents took her out after a few months. This year, she got put in my class with the same kids who had been going to school for the entire meantime. So she is way behind and I've been teaching her for an extra half an hour after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For two Mondays I subbed a class for Sarah while her mother was visiting. I am getting pretty rich, rich enough to move back to America at the end of the semester, Lunar New Year.
We've been talking about it more and more, and Jordan and I have made rough plans for departing Taiwan. She wanted to leave at Christmas and go to Thailand (Michelle!) together before going to America. I didn't feel like I could leave my school mid-semester, but I was really unhappy with the idea of being here for two months without her. It took me a long time to think of a possible solution, which was simply asking her to stay longer. I was genuinely surprised, not to mention relieved when she agreed. So now our plan is to go to Hong Kong for a few days at Christmas, then Thailand for a couple of weeks in February before going to America. She wants to visit Ben when she gets back to get a sense of closure. This makes me very nervous. She also wants to see other friends and family before we (ideally) move somewhere together. I think we're going to take a month, two weeks to see everyone on our own, then I would go to Oklahoma for a week, and bring her back to Iowa for another week. Then off to..... somewhere in North America that has seasons. I want to find a job at a natural history museum maybe?
Hey, Sean, draw us a house!
Did Escher design that house? It looks like Ouroborus with tape worms.