doublewong's Xanga

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 07:51:29 GMT

Today, I was about to go set up my classroom when someone tells me that we would be in different classes just for today. They needed our classrooms for testing. Okay... I said fine... so I had to rearrange some of the stuff which required the things I had in my classroom to do and tried to roll with it.

hen I returned to my classroom in the afternoon, EVERYTHING was taken down... all my children's work, all the group projects, all the posters ... all taken down , not to mention no where to be found. I can't even begin to describe how frustrating this is. The classroom just began to feel like it belonged to our small group.... and they went and took it down without asking...

The kids were in a speech contest today. They were so scared. One little girl forgot one of her lines and checked her notecard for it, and her groupmate yelled at her until she cried. It was pretty terrible. They take things way too seriously here.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:09:09 GMT

It's day 5 I think, in Taiwan. I've been doing a lot of lesson planning, buying stuff, exploring and eating snacks off the streets. My roommate is from Stanford and is a recent grad from the edu program there. I learned that I don't know very much about English. There are two 19 yo undergraduates from Stanford who are serving as counselors. They are engineering-majors I think. One of them make very nice worksheets. Today, we had an afternoon off and we went karaoke. I was pleasantly surprised to see that them two were willing to and knew the lyrics to many hits from the 90s. They said, they had older brothers my age. After we week, we have already started running out of things in Taiwan. We said Karaoke was too expensive and went downstairs then looking at each other blankly for 30 seconds, thinking of something to do, Alex suggested we karaoke. We quickly agreed and went back upstairs.

My classes are going ok. The kids seem to be having a lot of fun doing the projects and practicing their speaking. They have us these book that teach reading comprehension though, (like finding the setting and the main character) which is not all that useful for teaching English learners. The kids really seem to like me, I wonder how mean their teachers are at their regular school. The other day I taught a class which I thought bombed... but the kids wrote in their journals that they had a good time... it seems they have very low standards.

It's only been a week and sometimes I feel pretty settled in. I have a closet, my favorite eats, my own bed, a little sink... not to mention knowledge of the best places to pee around town. Sometimes, when I'm up in the middle of the night lesson-planning, I forget that I have a life somewhere else. Everyone here has someone who they are contacting, calling, writing, emailing... I don't know what to write when I try. I think maybe I don't know how to travel. I picked up a tourist guide-book today at the subway, maybe that will help for the day I have free (where I'll see Alice!) Oh yah, there was dry lightning one day during the sunset it was a beautiful lightshow against the fluffy clouds.

I'll be catching the plane back on the 21st, be back in SF around noon. The post cards I'm sending out is of a place I haven't been yet, though will go to after camp. I hear it's really pretty. Sun Moon Lake?

Friday, July 04, 2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:56:30 GMT

Hey Happy 4th of July. Woot. I'm sorry I missed all the American patriotism and more importantly BBQ's in the Americas.

However, since it was an exciting time I bought fireworks. We were going to buy the kind flew into the air but we wimped out.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:47:15 GMT

"Do you have a fork?" My aunt asks as they hand me a slice of tiramisu. My uncle replies, "She has no fork to use" and everyone starts laughing.

My aunt explains it's really just an emphasizer, like no use but with the F word, though instead of the F word you use fork... but its actually probably just as bad. This makes sense to me so I nod.

Then my uncle says, "no no no" and he switches to English. "It is when you have a pen is not functioning" I gave a puzzled look and my aunt starts to frown. She says in Chinese, "Stupid, you'll teach her all wrong" I ask in Chinese, why would you call a pen a fork? and why would that make it a curse word. I almost see the lightbulb go on over my uncle's head. He repeats, "its like fork is pen is and it's not function" and with that he takes the fork and sticks it near his crotch. His sister smacks him upside the head. "It just means useless impolitely"

We had hotpot that night. I decided I would at least try all the gross looking stuff. Pancreas and kidneys and liver. Yuck. Anyways, it definitely wasn't deliciously enough that I'd go seeking it out. For sure.

Yikes from the HK

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 21:24:04 GMT

So I’m sitting in my room reading about Max, the dark angel, when my dad brings a mid-thirties lady in. He says, my daughter has a stuffy noise, can you cure her? Turns out this was one of my dad’s fung shiu students and she also has studied acupuncture. She carries little needles with her. I typically would’ve said no, but since this was someone paying my dad, I had to say yes to save him face .

So I put down my book and let this lady poke at my insides with needles. It is sort of strange having your nerves be prodded at, it sort of feels tingly and numb and affects other parts of your body. Also, shoots small painful stabs up your arm. When she’s fucking with my nerves, she says, you feel that? That’s the acupuncture working. Ok ok. Fine. I’ll let you do this.

She keeps sticking her finger next to my nostril to feel for air flow. 20 minutes of prodding, she asks, does this help, you can you breath a little better? I answer no. She says, of course you can breathe better, I can feel the air flow now. I of course, am just as stuffed as before. “How’s your arm?” she asks, “Do you feel it OIOIOI?” I had no idea what she was talking about and I told her so, so she pokes harder. It makes me flinch and I curse. She seems satisfied and does the same to my other arm. Around then, I’m starting to feel very uncomfortable, I don’t like being touched this much, and especially not having my insides poked at. I think about the best way to tell her to leave me alone, should I just say it works and leave? Softly, she speaks, “You have a good figure”
“What?” Not really asking her to repeat herself, more so shortening what I really wanted to say.
“You are lucky. What you have? D cups?” I pretend not to understand Chinese, had her take out the needles and I left the house.

Now, that was a little strange, but really just an example with the people's preoccupation with looks. I'm walking down the mall and I hear a family say, "Wow, look at how fat that man is" and start pointing. POINTING. The man isn't even a foreigner, he can understand everything they are saying. I can't believe what jerks they were being.

I watched the TV for a couple minutes in China, during this soap opera, the same 4 commercials played. Two of them were for weight loss where they show a girl who is quite pretty but much too normal sized (maybe a 7 or 8) get made fun of until she takes medicine and becomes a size 2. The other two commercials for bust enhancement. They are not all that subtle about it either. The lady goes from an A cup to be C cup and suddenly becomes happy and her boyfriend stops looking at other people.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:33:30 GMT

Dear Debra,

Thank you for coming to Taiwan to teach English for our summer camp. Originally, we organize three sessions for this camp. Now, we modify the program and reserve only one session, which starts from July 6 and ends up on July 17. The number of students is approximately 60. Your schedule will be the same except that it will be finished almost one month earlier.

We suggest you to revise the itenerary of your flight schedule, i.e., the date from Taipei to SF. You have the option to stay in Taiwan for more days at your expense or depart Taiwan after the tour we plan for you. All the package will be the same, including stipends, one tour, airplane ticket, accomodation cost and so on.

We are looking forward to seeing you in Taipei and wish you have a pleasant stay in Taipei.

Best wishes.

Dar-Yeh

Okay... now what? Do I go home early? Do I come back to HK? Anyone want to come vacation with me for a a week or two? Singapore? Taiwan? Thailand? China? I am not sure what I'm going to do after July 17th. I could just fly home, but it seems like such a waste of a free flight ticket. My dad wants me to fly into China so I can dispel my US instilled misconceptions about China.

The other year, when my brother and I went to Hong Kong, I thought that I had received the greatest bit of fatherly advice I’d ever get from my father. How to fold my underwear neatly. Well, today during lunch, my father gets very serious and leans over, “If you were not my daughter,” he said to me in Chinese, “I wouldn’t even bother telling you this. This is not America, when you use the toilet, it is very dirty, you have to wipe it down a little bit before you pee.”

A little kid who my dad apparently used to teach Kung Fu to came up to visit with his mother. He was looking at a picture of my family during Keith's graduation and was trying to guess which I was. He points and says, "at first I thought this one but there's no way because you are not that fat." Wow. Then, after lunch I got back and there are people in one room playing mah jong and in another singing Chinese opera karaoke. The mah jong players look at me and say, "This is your daughter, you said she was fat." Now what the hell do you say to that?

When I take over China

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:45:28 GMT

If by some twist of fate, I become the dictator of China, the first thing I would do is eliminate and I mean eliminate all of these:

I cannot even begin to describe what a terrible idea they are. I held it in for so long so I could avoid using these stupid things. And that one is even pretty clean. Most of them have piss all over the floor, you can't really do this without slipping off your pants, which means taking off your damned shoes, which means risking stepping into puddles of people's piss. And its not that people want to piss all over the floor but women are not really equipped to aim their stream.

I just spent the first two days of my vacation in China. We picked Lychee from trees and listened to people pitching their products. Then we went to Macau, the Las Vegas of the East. I watched people gambling but couldn't figure out some of the games.

My artwork was posted online!

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 19:08:46 GMT

Sweet. I'm glad my art is being appreciated ;)

http://www.svmoms.com/2008/06/pandamonium.html
(check out my play-dough figures)

and there's me hard at work in the background: http://thekroliks.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/06/14/p6130094.jpg

So I've been desperately looking to make some money before I leave for Hong Kong and Taiwan. I found an ad online

Staff Needed for Kung Fu Panda Event

I figured why not? At 20 an hour, even after driving to Palo Alto and back, I still make 90 bucks or so. And, I figured, if I was lucky, I might've been able to see Harm afterwards. So I go there. The lady who is supposed to meet us is not quite at the event. We work about 5 hours, unpacking, making goodie bags and then the kids start showing up. We take a seat the crafts table and I decided to start making things with play dough. I made a panda and a snake and a monster. Kids start coming over and playing too. I have to say, most of the children were very polite and very willing to share. Except one little girl. The people invited were Silican Valley Mom Bloggers. No kidding. And their blogs are not half bad, I just went to check them out. When I was done, I ran over to the food section to get a plate of the leftovers before they packed up. The chef/cook there was fantastic and very nice. Then, the boss ladies handed me a bunch of cash. I was glad to know that I was paid so much an hour playing with clay. Then... I spent 60 dollars on gas. :0/

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:50:07 GMT

Today, I was in Santa Cruz with my sisters and Hayley and suddenly a black bird attacked my head. Apparently, I walked too close to its nest. We also visited an open house worth over 2 million dollars. The guy who was showing it around knew we were not looking to buy, but was nice to us none the less.

I was displaying my computer on the TV for movie watching purposes and all my fonts and display settings got all messed up. I have no idea how to fix it. So very annoying.

Taiwan trip is coming up and I want to be really excited. Whenever my children go on trips, I ask them if they are excited and they say yes. I have never really been excited about traveling before so I suppose this isn't new. But I just feel anxious to be leaving for so long and I already miss Harm.

The textbook we are supposed to teach from was supposed to get here about a week ago. :0/ This program continues to be extremely disorganized.

Hehe my little sister just said over the phone, "i know, next year we'll be the 8th graders" I don't quite remember it being such a big deal, cause now one year seems a lot like the last.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Fri, 30 May 2008 22:50:44 GMT

I was just thinking about how much more I feel like I have been enjoying myself and enjoying the children and I started sobbing uncontrollably. Then... at that precise moment, Peter walks in. He must think I'm deranged.

So today, during sharing Ty says, "Well, I forgot to bring something to share, but I have my mealworm, it died, so it turned really black and hard and it smells funny." At this point, he begins to take out his worm from the jar and smells it, "ugh, it's smells so bad. I name him 'StarFox' and if anyone wants to give StarFox a proper burial since I live in an apartment then I'll let you take him home."

Dana writes in her story. Emma said, "I'm bored, can we go take a walk in the dark forest?" I started laughing but I don't think she thought it was funny.

One boy told me that when his mom got out of jail she gave him this necklace, but it won't fit over his head. He was trying really hard to fit this rosary, I thought about and tried to explain to him, but I didn't do a good job. Another kid came by and said, "Oh! I know what those are, they are African head-dresses, they wear them on their heads like you are doing but the little thing in front gets nailed to their face like this" and he arranges the cross across his nose. He seemed much more satisfied with that explanation than the real one, so I let it go.

I do feel like I am enjoying myself and the kids a lot more. And that is good.