7 Layers of Hell

The seven layers of hell. This was quite the experience. I would compare this to it is a small world. Me, Sarah and Megan went to experience the seven layers of hell. Apparently if you are a bad person you will be tortured and killed by others. Here we are entering the first layer of hell. As you can see I am embracing it while Sarah is a little skittish. I was excited because Megan was telling us what she has heard about this place. She served a mission here so she said that it was something that was suppose to be entertaining. As we entered the Temple that was turned into a ride things had sensors so all the sudden a Asian would turn to you and scary sounds would play. At first it was quite comical. But the farther we got the more disturbing and scary it was. I was not liking it. Towards the end if a real Asian would of jumped out I would have smacked them in the face. After the Its a Small World After all Asian Style. We headed back towards my scooter and we noticed a man placing his dog on his motorcycle. I was so amazed that he had a shirt on and that this Asian man was helping him straddle the cycle. I found this really odd and stopped an stared. One thing I have learned from a friend is that there are times that it is perfectly okay to stare. Like when you wont see something like this again. The man gets on and proceeds to put on sun glasses on. I was laughing so hard. I kept thinking only in Asia. I mean those UV rays are pretty intense here. Or his futures so bright that he has to wear shades. Oh and I don't want to go to Asian Hell mainly because you end up bare chested hanging out with pigs and sometimes ending up blue. I wonder how that works.

Pull It Together!

So today I was teaching SPE's to Minnie and Ella. We were in kitchen making some delicious eye ball soup (which consists of sprite and peeled grapes). Minnie says to me teacher can I see you cry? I said no you may not see me cry because if I start crying I don't know if I can stop. Minnie and Ella just kept saying okay okay come on do it. Apparently they get kicks out of seeing adults cry. They also requested that I bring back the crazy hair. I said girls I am not going to cry today. (Ella is on the left Minnie is on the right) Minnie said then will you show us sad face? Of coarse I caved in and did sad face with a little lip quiver. These girls are probably the most entertaining part of my day. Sometimes they are very serious and since it is just the two girls in one class. The girls are about 6 going on 30. The key to teaching at this school is to out entertain your students. We occasionally have some fighting going on between the girls. I always say to the girls now lets pull it together ladies. They immediately stop fighting fold their arms and line up. Now lets sing over the river!

Glass Factory

On Sunday Sarah, Leslie and I went on a home visit. We started out the home visit with playing the Wii. There is nothing like being surrounded by little Asian children and adults cheering you on while trying to do your best dance moves. There is nothing more funny and humiliating at the same time. So we eventually headed for the glass factory. The mom was so hilarious she is quite a bargain shopper. You can also tell that she desperately needs to hang out with some females. She has two very rambunctious boys and a husband that was falling asleep every two seconds. Usually during home visits I try to spend time with the students but I could tell she just needed to talk my ear off. So we are at the glass museum which is a factory. It was pretty cool to see exactly what you could do with glass. At the end of the tour you get to walk on broken glass. Which most of the Asians didn't even flinch. Me on the other hand has very sensitive feet. At the end of the trail of glass we were rewarded with nothing other than a green bean ice pop. Yeah you heard me right. I have never really liked green beans I always tried to get out of eating them at dinner. I come to Taiwan and they are serving them as popsicles as a dessert. Now that is sick. Of coarse like a good little sport. I said thank you and tried my best to finish the green little pop. I thought to myself maybe that is why Asians are so skinny they think that green beans are dessert. I guess they haven't heard of my friends Ben and Jerry. Anyways we then had pork steamed buns then some stinky tofu to end the evening. Oh and did I mention throughout the home visit I was getting squished by two Asian boys. They definitely are heavier than they look.

The Children Have Gone Wild! Well I Guess More Like The Teacher

Well at the school that I am working at every year they have what is called spectacular. This is where the children sing and do plays for their parents while speaking English the whole entire time. I have been working with my class trying to teach them some acting skills. I mean people have told me that I am a good actress and that I give some great facial expressions.
The other day I got a comment from one of my students saying teacher you make interesting faces. We have been working hard in class and on our play so I decided to take my students to McDonald's. Just so everyone is aware. I strongly dislike going to McDonald's but if it motivates my students to do well I am willing to go. So we went and I think this is probably the happiest I have seen my students. My students are just as crazy as I am. One of my students just kept taking pictures of me and I finally had to say to stop and to eat their food. I just don't understand why children love McDonald's so much. Maybe I would enjoy Taiwanese McDonald's more if they had the all white meat chicken nuggets.So every Friday we go to the park to practice our stuff. This park is usually packed with people. While we walk to the park which is about three blocks away from the school. The kids just complain about how far it is. When we are walking to the park I usually get a lot of Hello's from people. One boy told me teacher do you know him. I said no. Well teacher you should not talk to strangers. Practicing performing in a park is just a great idea to get the children used to performing in front of a crowd.
Also I am getting them used to being embarrassed. I was talking to my students and a little Taiwanese child came running towards us and he made eye contact with me and made an abrupt stop. The funny thing was is that my students said teacher do not move you could scare the child. I said should I say BOO? Teacher do not scare. Practicing at the park in front of large crowds is always a good idea. Mainly it is because I am preparing these children for real life embarrassment. Like remember we had to practice that dumb play in English in front of everyone.
While I was teaching my students how to be dramatic. They said teacher people are staring at us. Why are they staring at us? I said it well it is because I am white. I don't know if you noticed. I kind of stick out (as you can see in the photos of me and my students). I then proceeded to ask should I sing and dance for everyone? I quickly turn around and start doing a little clogging like back in my American clogger days. Some of my students said teacher no! It was quite funny I love embarrassing my students mainly due to the fact of who do I have to impress.

Holiday

This week was the Dragon boat festival. Which means holiday. So pretty much I spent a lot of money on unnecessary things. I went to Tainan and did some sight seeing and we tried to make it back to Lukang for the Dragon Boat Festival. I should probably not be allowed to leave my apartment because when we were headed back to Lukang I asked for a ticket to Changhua. Which I miss pronounced and we ended up going farther south when we wanted to go north. I strongly dislike trying to speak Chinese. Mainly because it is very difficult and my mouth doesn't move that way. While trying to get to Lukang we were waiting in line to catch the bus and this little girl came up to us. This is the second time I have seen this little girl. She comes up to me and just is talking a mile a minute in Chinese of coarse like I am fluent in it. The funny thing is I acted like I knew how to speak Chinese and I was actually attempting the language with her. So I am wearing a silk dress so of coarse this little girl is all over me. The funny thing is before moving to Taiwan this might have alarmed me but now it doesn't even phase me. The girl just keeps talking to me. I totally act like I know exactly what she is talking about. She then gets into the squat position and look at me legs then looks under my dress. By the way there are about 30 Asians watching and I hear a bunch of girls giggling. I also did the shoulder shrug like well I am sure it is not like she hasn't seen it before. I also said Whoa girl there are not snacks under there. She keeps talking and then says bye bye. I got a lot of laughs from the people in line. We then finally made it to Lukang. We missed the boat races but everyone said that I did not miss much. Then on Saturday me Sarah and Leslie headed back down to Tainan to do some more sight seeing and do go dancing. Tainan is a way cute city. It has the oldest temple in Taiwan and it is a college town so there are a lot of college students and foreigners. Oh and awesome food. Who doesn't like shrimp wrapped bacon!