Birthdays

There happened to be about 5 billion birthday celebrations in October and actually November too! Here are some pics and comments on a few of them!


On October 22nd we celebrated my roommate Katrina's 25th birthday, or her 'quarter life crisis' as she fondly called it :) About 25 of us went to a really good Italian restaurant on a Wednesday night. Afterwards we went next store to the local sketchy bar/club where every Wednesday from 10pm - 12am is SALSA NIGHT!! It was a blast.


On Oct 24 we celebrated Augusto's birthday ...
latino style!
Saturday November 8th we celebrated Andrea, Laura, Ramiro and Damian's birthdays at a Mexican Restaurant in Jhong li. We had great food, drink and music the whole night! It was also a special occasion because my roommates and I were all together for the first time in awhile (Katrina, Patrick and I) :)

New edition to my family!

Some of you might know that I recently welcomed a new edition to my family! Isn't she a beaut!


Panda, Brad and Patrick, master bike people, graciously agreed to help me pick her out and bring her home safely :)


I got a great price for her due to us unknowingly bargaining ... it mostly had to do with Panda and Patrick talking about the bike in English thinking that they couldn't understand, when they did and then drove down the price :)


Since I bought her oh so long ago (I'd say at the end of September-ish) ... I have an exciting update ... I still drive her to and from school and a bit on the weekend. We've developed a strong bond! :)

Wednesdays

I'm sure I have never really explained my school schedule. It's pretty cool. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Fridays are block scheduling. The students take eight classes, so we see them twice a week for class. One of our distinctive features is Wednesday. We have Choice period (8 - 9:15 am) where students choose what they want to study, plan the whole class themselves and also plan how they will be measured on how well they reach their goals of the class. We then have Academic Time (9:30 - 11:40am) where teachers can sign up to have a class for more time. For example, in Language Arts 8 we are doing a Spoken Word poetry project. We sign up to have the class on a Wed too (on top of regularly scheduled class time) so that we have more time for the project. Then, after lunch we have Activity Period. The past three months we have been alternating community service and wellness activities (like rock climbing, swimming ...). I've been involved with the Animal Shelter community service project.



Every other week I go with some Institute II students (9th and 10th graders) to an animal shelter about 20 minutes away from school. The first time was absolutely chaotic and wonderful. We walked into a loud and smelly room full of caged dogs and were told to grab one and spend the next three hours walking them around (there is a beautiful beach close by). So we did :)
It was a really hot day and after a bit the puppies (and humans) got tired and decided to take a break.

Art Opening in Taipei

Wow, it's been awhile since I have updated my blog! So ... fasten your seat belt, get ready for all the awesome updates!
September 19th a bunch of my colleagues and I went to an Art Opening in Taipei. One of the parents at school gave us tickets to go and be apart of it. The exhibit was at the National Museum of History, which is absolutely exquisite (see picture above!). The opening was magnificent, there were many people, lots of free food and drink and entertainment. The entertainment was culturally a bit confusing for us because the full band played songs ranging from 'Memories' to crazy disco. But hey, it was nice to get to soak it all in with my colleagues.

The artist of the new exhibit was Chu Teh-Chun, a well-known contemporary Chinese artist who did much of his training in France. The exhibit was called, "88 Retrospective." Guess how old he is?!? I really enjoyed his work, especially the colors.

Typhoon during Moon Festival!

This past weekend I experienced two new things ... a typhoon and Moon Festival. The typhoon hit Taipei (in the north) and the eastern coast pretty hard. Hsinchu is on the northwestern coast and was still affected. I decided to participate in Moon Festival festivities (which included a bbq) and so I defied the weather announcers and went to Taipei with a friend, Mick, who is a very skilled driver and knew the roads well. Mick is Taiwanese and ... he lived in Argentina for 6 years (and the US too) so he speaks great Spanish and English!

We went and had a bbq at Mick's friend's house which is on the middle of a mountain that sounds like 'yummy' (I think it's like Yangming?!?). Apparently the mountain is pretty famous ... has lots of rich people living on it. We had the bbq on the 4th floor of Singer's house ... it was open and the typhoon was going on right in front of us!!
The food was SOOOOO delicious. I ate so much I seriously thought I was going to burst. Here is some squid ... I had never seen it be grilled before ... and so I preceded to flip out when the tentacles starting moving (which apparently is just them contracting ...).
Here I am eating the squid. Man, I'm getting hungry just looking at the picture! Singer is in light blue ... he lives at the house with his wife, his parents, his sister and her boyfriend.
Singer's mom reads palms. She was amazing. She knew a lot of stuff about me just through examining my palm!! And she couldn't have known it before because we couldn't really talk due to the language barrier. Mick kindly translated the reading for me. It was really interesting because it was done with a Taiwanese spin ... she kept quoting Confucius and her suggestions had to do with upholding traditional Taiwanese values like 'saving face' and the importance of being part of a community, not too independent. I learned too that if someone reads your hand it is important to give them something in exchange, no matter how much or how little. This concept exists in Ecuador too ... the give and take.
So, yes, the car did break down. Too much water got in the engine. This is Mick sucking out the water with the straws! Well, here he's just posing for the picture, but he really did suck out the water and spit it on the ground! Kinda gross, but it got the job done! We were able to get back to Hsinchu just fine :)

Professional Development vs What I REALLY am doing

I just realized that in my Professional Development entry I had said that I would be teaching Spanish 2, Spanish 3, ESL/Language Arts 11/12 and co-teaching ESL/Science 7. As it turns out, I am not doing any of that!! I am teaching a combined Spanish 2 and 3, and co-teaching ESL/Language Arts 7 and 8 with Mr. Laffin and ESL/Language Arts 9 with Ms. Galland!! It's amazing to me how important it is to stay flexible and go with the flow, and also how hard it can be when you are trying to plan and prepare! I am now starting to get in the swing of things. On top of class hours I am a 9th grade adviser (Patrick and I are their go-to people if they need anything), co-leader of the ESL department and trying to deal with our language related issues at school, and the CARE facilitator (basically the one to set up meetings about the well-being of students in order to come up and implement a plan of action).

We have our first Open House Wednesday, September 17th for parents to see what their students are doing at school. I'm nervous and excited to get to meet the parents!! Will keep everyone posted as to how it goes :)

Camp Taiwan

Hi everyone! Here are some pictures from my latest adventure to Camp Taiwan with HIS (Hsinchu International School ... the high school where I teach!). We got the opportunity to spend three days and two nights at Camp Taiwan, which is located a bit north of Taipei. Camp Taiwan is in the mountains and has a strong team building focus through environmentally friendly activities (like exploring nature by going on hikes, rock climbing, zip-line, giant swing, cooperative games, stream exploration, learning about Taiwanese aboriginals ...).

We left for Camp Taiwan Wednesday, September 10th early in the morning. A little about how HIS is structured ... we divide the students into three different Institutes, each made up of two grades. So, Institute I is grades 7 and 8, Institute II is grades 9 and 10 and Institute III is grades 11 and 12. The teachers are all divided into advisories by grade. Patrick (my roommate and also one of the Math teachers) and I are the advisors for grade 9. We basically are the ones responsible for the overall well-being ... checking in with them to see how they are doing in all aspects of their lives. There are 11 students and really, they are great kids. Here are four of our students on the bus getting ready to head to camp.

Since I am an advisor for grade 9, I am part of Institute II. This year Institute II got to explore and learn about Taiwanese aboriginal culture. This was a really unique opportunity because we got to learn about it from people who are not only part of an aboriginal tribe, but also practice and teach about their aboriginal traditions. Here we learned how to sew and make headdresses and bracelets.

After participating in the sewing activity we got the chance to sit and reflect on what we learned. We each got a packet with more information about different aboriginal tribes in Taiwan. We got to put in perspective how long it took us to just decorate the headdresses and bracelets, versus having to make and gather everything from scratch, as is done in some aboriginal tribes (like making the clay beads, gathering shells, weaving and dying the fabric ... etc).

We learned an aboriginal dance. We had a lot of fun learning it. It was danced in a giant circle and at one point we all cross arms and do a step motion in sync with each other that takes us around the room. We performed the dance for Institutes I and III the last night we were there.

We played Aboriginal Olympics! Here students were trying to spear the ball of fabric with tall bamboo poles. The story goes that long ago this was how marriage was decided. A woman would through up a 'ball' (which in the olden days was actually the head of an enemy, she through it up by the hair) and which ever man would spear it with their bamboo pole would win her hand in marriage. After playing this game for about a half hour, most of our students where getting married at least 6 times!!!

Tsung-Yi Lee's Wedding!!

Yesterday, Saturday September 6th, I went to Tsung-Yi's wedding in Taipei. Tsung-Yi is a really good friend and colleague of Aspen, who is my friend from the University of Minnesota. Tsung-Yi (and another friend, C.K.) were the ones who helped get me situated the first couple of days. Tsung-Yi's wife is Ya-Shu, she is really nice. I took the bus to Taipei (the 'p' is actually more pronounced like a 'b') and then taxied to Taibei County Hall, where the banquet was. They do the civil ceremony on a different day (not sure if they already did it), but this was the banquet where they invited about 150-200 guests! I was told that this was not a traditional wedding (although there were some traditional parts, like the guests brought money in red envelopes and the married couple gave them 'blessed wedding cookies' to show their gratitude). At the banquet they started out with a procession, the bride wearing a beautiful white gown (pic #1). Then they walked up front to the stage and some important people in their lives gave speeches (one of whom was the dean of their Sociology department ... who happened to be the parent of one of my students, Max!! Max was there too and I was formally introduced to Max's dad, the dean). Then they cut the cake, which seemed to be the final signal that now they were married.

I sat at the table with C.K. and his girlfriend (I'm embarrassed to say that I know her name starts with 'Ru' but, I don't know how it ends) (picture #4). This was the table that all of Tsung-Yi's Sociology colleagues (they are all doctorate students) were sitting at. I was sitting next to Albert, who spoke English really well and even knew where Minnesota was! (He had done three years of summer school research at the University of Chicago). Another friend had lived and studied in New York for the past seven years and was back in Taiwan to do some research for his thesis. He also spoke English really well. We ate A LOT of really good food. It was served family style on a lazy susan (pic #3). There was: salmon wrapped asparagus, crab, jelly fish, scallops, chicken, ham, whole fish, lamb, oysters, really good pork, vegetables I couldn't name (and no one else knew how to translate), watermelon, guava, juice and wine. I'm sure there are dishes I forgot to mention!

During the banquet Ya-Shu and Tsung-Yi sang a Chinese love song to each other ... Ya-Shu had at this point changed her outfit to a beautiful red gown (pic #2). It was funny for me that they sang this particular song because a few days at school during lunch two of my 8th grade students, Ariel and Jean, were singing this song softly. I was sitting with Panda and asked them if they would sing the song for us. They were embarrassed so we made them a deal ... Panda and I would sing first, and then they would sing afterwards. Panda and I managed to belt out 'You are my sunshine' and got lots of funny looks from the students around us. Ariel and Jean were laughing so hard that they were wiping away tears from their eyes, probably because of how beautiful it sounded :) Then they sang the song for us. It turns out that it was the same Chinese love song that was sung at the wedding!!! C.K. was laughing when they were singing and kept telling me that this was definitely not done at most weddings!! After they finished singing Tsung-Yi professed his love for Ya-Shu by getting down on one knee with a huge bouquet of flowers. Apparently, after the conversation was translated, Ya-Shu responded that she didn't believe him!! Haha, the mood of the banquet was really fun and uplifting. Then they started handing out roses from the bouquet to all of the men in the room. At the end they had the men give the roses to a woman that was special to them. Yes, I got two roses ... one from C.K. and the other from Albert, both of whom have girlfriends! :)

Then the last event was the tossing of the bride's flowers. She came out all decked in a beautiful blue gown. They asked all the single ladies to go up and catch the bouquet. I think it was a mixture of not wanted to ask if I have a boyfriend and not wanting to embarrass me by having me go up in front of everyone, but no one pushed me to go up (which I was thankful for). They did start chanting the name of someone else seated at my table though! She did end up going up. I was glad too because the woman who caught the flowers had to say something into the mic ... not sure what ... maybe her blessing to the couple? Then the event was over ... I would say it lasted a couple of hours.

Albert was going back to Hsinchu too so we took the bus back together. On our way back we saw high school hip hop dancing groups in the underground metro stations (their regular hang out, which is smart because there is a lot of space, plugs for their radios and it is air conditioned!!) (pic #5) I asked Albert if I could join one of the groups and after laughing he told me that high schoolers are too shy, but that I should see if I could join at the college level :) We also saw a magician performing a card trick and then trying to sell the trick to people.

Rock Climbing!

Last Friday, August 29th, I went rock climbing with some of my closest friends at HIS (Panda, science teacher, Brad, her husband and now Elementary ESL teacher, and Patrick, my roommate and the Math teacher). The kicker is that we biked to the climbing gym (it took us about an hour to go from school, to Panda's house, to the gym ... the gym isn't in the city we live in, it's in Jubei) ... THEN, we climbed for an hour-ish, and finally we biked back home!! Needless to say I was pretty exercised out when I got home :) I had a blast ...

The first picture is me climbing and Brad (with the help of Patrick) belaying. I think the pic looks cool because there were two big posters of climbers on the wall, so it looks like I'm climbing with two other people! The next pic is Panda and I ... all sweaty and awesome :) The last pic is Patrick, who I swear is a monkey, bouldering ... where you don't have a harness, you just climb sideways, upside down etc. Granted, Patrick has been climbing now for many years ...

Logistics

I am going to keep posting new pics at the end of the slideshow that is at the lower right hand side of the screen. So, watch it to see if there are new pics!! Also, if you double click on the slideshow it will take you to where I have made comments on each pictures. Plus I think you can enlarge the pictures too.

First week of Professional Development

Hey all!

First, thanks to those who commented on my last blog! Feel free to hit the 'comment' button at the bottom of my posts and add your two cents :) I'm still trying to figure out how to respond to your comments ... oh, my roommate Patrick just said that I can just leave a comment too, so it can be like a dialog ... sounds good.

Let's see, lots has happened since my first entry. I have now officially been here for 3 WEEKS!! Wow, how time flies. Since the first post I have participated in 'new teacher orientation,' which really consisted of the veteran teachers pointing out cool places to get basic needs met in Hsinchu and Taipei. It was pretty helpful. Plus it gave the new teachers a time to bond :)

Starting Monday August 18th we began Professional Development. It consisted of meeting the veteran teachers, learning about the HIS (Hsinchu Int'l School) structure and our individual roles, and lots of philosophizing and reading! It was mentally draining, but invigorating at the same time. I feel like I walked into a great teaching / learning community that matches who I am (seeks to integrate different methods other than just traditional styles to really achieve deep understanding of the material and really life as a whole). There are going to be MANY challenges this year, some foreseen (for example, this is the FIRST year with a graduating class ... which means lots of pressure to make sure our students transition successfully to the next phase, thus building credibility for our school) and some that I am sure will just pop up.

I will be teaching Spanish 2, Spanish 3, ESL Language Arts 11/12 and CO-TEACHING ESL / Science 7. We are exploring new ESL models to better meet our student's needs. Basically just about 95% of the students are receiving instruction in a language other than their first language. English proficiency varies greatly. Also, most of the students hope to transition to universities / colleges in the US after graduation. We are going to try co-teaching this semester to see how it works for us. I'm excited to have admin and teacher support to try something new out!

I have really enjoyed getting to know the rest of the staff. Overall we're an intense group of people coming from really interesting backgrounds. The first couple of days we showed slide shows to present ourselves. I learned that Seth Laffin (Humanities / Language Arts teacher) has a family slogan for their family run car dealership: Stop cryin and start LAFFIN! This motto fits Seth perfectly, he's probably one of the most upbeat people I have met to date. I learned that Andrea Smith goes by the name Panda. In fact, when she was in High School they fought the admin to have Panda Smith be the name she used :) That sounds like the Panda I know! I'm really pumped too because I am going to be co-teaching Science 7 with Panda. She has two years experience co-teaching! Plus she's been one of the staff that I have gotten to really know and enjoy spending time with.

Let's see, I am now biking around Hsinchu!! I know how to get to and from school ... other than that ... not so much, but hey, it will come!! I am planning on getting a scooter at some time, but I'm holding off for a couple of reasons ... 1) $ and 2) because I know that when I get a scooter I will be tempted to use it all the time instead of getting exercise biking.

Oh, if you have skype (which everyone should open a free account) please add me as a contact: emarose6. I am using skype to keep in contact with everyone. It is free when you make calls from computer to computer. Plus it's cool because if you get a camera than we can see each other when we talk! Yesterday I got to skype with my baby brother Connor. It was really cool because my family had just re-arranged the whole house and he took his computer around with the camera and gave me a tour!!! I also got to give him a tour of my place in Taiwan ... since we're on the 9th floor of a 19th floor building he got a pretty cool view of the city from my balcony!!! So please, let's skype so I can show YOU around Hsinchu, Taiwan!!! :)

That's all for now!! Love and miss you all!

Alissa

First Days in Taiwan

Hi everyone! I can't believe I'm actually here in Taiwan! Well, I've got the pictures to prove it :) So, I finally found some time to start up a blog ... here it goes!

I made it safe and sound to Taiwan Monday August 4th. There were no real snafus, except getting picked up an hour after I arrived. Really it was no big deal ... I actually got there at a strategic time because some famous guy who works in the Taiwanese government came in about 20 minutes after me. There was a big show with about 20 reporters and cameras chasing after him trying to get an interview. There was one guy that looked like he was causing a ruckus because he was yelling things at the reporters and cameras. Since I don't speak Mandarin YET, I really have no idea what he was ranting about. I arrived after the 12 hour flight at 6:30am Taiwanese time. Needless to say I really was exhausted.

Lee and C.K. (Catherine and Aspen's friends) met up with me at National Tsing Hua University (their school, they are both Ph.D students in Sociology). I stayed at the guest house there for a couple of days until I found an apartment. Lee and C.K. were INSTRUMENTAL in helping me find a place. They took me all over town to about 8 different places. In the end I ended up choosing to live with Katrina and Patrick. Katrina is from Taiwan and is currently a Mandarin and English teacher. She just recently graduated in Civil Engineering. Patrick is from Quebec, Canada. His first language is French. He actually is my colleague at Hsinchu International School, he teaches Math. Both really are great people and I'm looking forward to getting to know them better as the time goes on.

Today I got the keys for MY classroom!! How exciting :) I'm actually writing my first blog from here! Also, today I got to meet some of the other new teachers. It's kinda funny, but just about all of us are from not only the U.S., but the Midwest too!!

That's all for now folks :)