Homesick for Taiwan

I've been missing Taiwan this week. My cute students, the simplistic life-style of an English teacher, the people, the food...

Yeah, pretty much all of it.

I posted as much on FB, and one of my former students wondered if that meant I was coming back. So sweet! But, no. Not at this time.

While I was there in 2008 the film Cape No. 7 was released. It became so popular that it was hard to escape it's effects. It wasn't the most amazing film that I'd ever seen--I had some issues with the main characters--but it captured much of the Taiwanese spirit and culture. For that reason, I love it.

I remember coming to class one day and telling my students that I'd seen it. They then burst into song (I'm sooo not kidding). Each of them started belting out the song shown below. It was an amazing memory, of my wonderful time in a country I love.

Please enjoy.

Letters from Taiwan

I received such a pleasant surprise in the mail last week--an actual piece of mail. And from Taiwan at that! I've been home from Taiwan for a little over a year and a half, and had thought my students had all but forgotten me. But to my delight, they definitely haven't!

Madline (on the right) was in my fifth grade class that I had twice. She is now in Junior High, which is super intense (I'm so glad I went to school in the States. It's pretty cut-throat from what she tells me). A couple of other students from that class have added me as friends on Facebook (Frank and Nancy (on the left)), and it's been so nice to keep in touch with them all--to know how life is treating them after Berhan.

I think I probably drive people crazy with how much I still talk about my time in Taiwan (I really do--just ask any of my friends). It doesn't help that I know I can get cute Asian stationary and a place in Seattle that makes dong gwa milks. I would move back in a heart beat if I didn't know that I need to stay in the States for a while. But I do hope I get to visit sometime in the next couple of years...right after I go back to the Czech Republic!

I guess I can satisfy myself with the fact that Madline is still writing her pen-pal that I set her up with, and that they've become great friends. One of the things I really wanted for my students.

This is just another reminder that my heart is in teaching, and that I need seriously focus on grad programs and Teach for America!

Wo ai Taiwan!

Am I homesick, or is it just nostalgia?

It's hard for me to believe that I've been back from Taiwan for almost 9 months! Nine months I tell you! Insanity is what that is.

I feel like I'm messing up my routine being here in the States this time of year. The past two years I was living it up in Feng Yuan with my adorable students and amazing friends, July through December. This will be the first year in 2 that I'll be home for the holidays, enjoy fall weather, American football, snow, and the like. But, then there are many things I'm missing like night markets, the beach, typhoon days, hiking in the jungle, my adorable students, and amazing friends. And who could forget my scooter!?

Anyhow, this youtube video is going viral among my Taiwan crowd, and it perfectly sums up the Taiwanese experience. If you weren't able to picture it before from my previous posts, this is Taiwan. All of it. Seriously. They hit it all. Even the reactions to stinky tofu (which were quite different from my own, by the way).

Wo ai Taiwan!

Into the Archives...

So, my good friend Connie, posted an amazingly awesome video of our time in Taiwan, and it reminded me that I still needed to post this beaut of a vid.

Date:                The last day of school
Class:               MK
Song:               Sorry, Sorry by the one and only Super Junior
Dance moves:  Classic

Old friends and squid fried rice...

Have you ever had those shared experiences that instantly bond you to others?
My stint in Taiwan was one of those experiences.
And Jacob is one of those friends.

Imagine how stoked I was to find that he was in DC when I moved out here. Of course we had to get together to reminisce of the good ol' days in Taiwan:

Like this time when we zipped to Costco and bought Lindsay a birthday cake.

 Jake was decked out in his proper Taiwanese attire.

Or like Earthquake Preparedness Day.

Or our first jaunt to a fruit market (and Jacob with his military hairstyle).

Jacob and his mad Chinese skills were always appreciated when we went on group trips,

 like this one to Kenting. We met some incredibly cool co-eds from Taichung. 

Mala Sun! At Sun Moon Lake.

Great memories with great friends. And now we get to add this one to the list--the making of authentic squid/seafood fried rice!

Here's to great friends and great memories!

Letters from Taiwan

Yesterday I got a letter.
A real letter.
From Taiwan.
And...it made my day.

I had forgotten that I'd even given my students my mailing address, but lo and behold, Miss Madline sent me a real live letter. Well, maybe not live.

And like Marcel's madeleine, this letter triggered a whole slough of memories. Who wouldn't like that?

So I thought I'd make a list commemorating the greatest memories I have of Taiwan that I can think of at this moment in time. And this is in no meaningful order whatsoever.

• playing basketball in the rain and getting huge blood blisters on my feet
• my first kiss
• teaching my students how to play baseball and American football (the latter was hilarious)
• hikes with Gloria
• talks with Fenny
• our unofficial book club
• Temple trips to Taipei, including hot chocolate and fried dumpling runs
• my many scooter mishaps
• classroom pranks
• being pranked
• Secret Santa
• school dances
• pinatas
• making horcata with left-over rice
• bingshas from Hello Kitty
• dong gwa neo nais (I'm craving these like none other!)
• Thanksgiving on the roof
• naked speedo man
• the bike trail
• "training" for a 10 k that I never did run (in my defense, my knee started to hurt to much to really run on it)
• cute little Taiwanese kids in their cute little clothes doing peace signs for pictures
• strawberry milks!!!!
• the rivers
• mosquitos (yuck)
• Captain Recycling

And that's about all for now. It's funny how feelings toward a place can change after a while. This time last year, I was in a really bad spot and thought I'd made a humongous mistake coming back to the States. This time around I feel at peace with my decision to return State-side. I still miss my students and my friends, but it's not the same kind of agonizing pain that I felt before. I'm so glad I was able to go back to Taiwan and spend more time with the people that I love and leave on a satisfactory note.

And....

....I'm especially grateful that I taught my fifth graders how to write letters because now I get to reap the rewards!

Here's to Taiwan and all its goodness!

It's so cute, I couldn't not post it!

So this is a holler back to my days in Taiwan. I've already done a post of the Christmas dances that we had, but here's a video of the practices. My students are just too cute!

.

I HEART Taiwan...

I spoke today in Church. It was on gratitude. And I liked it.

Is it weird that I like to give talks?

In any case,  I really enjoyed doing research on gratitude. So many fabulous talks have been given by multiple General Authorities on this very topic. Yesterday morning I printed off 7 or 8 of them ("them" being talks given by General Authorities) to take with me on my train ride up to Taipei. It was bliss. Remember how back in the day I wrote about my fifth graders, and how I was going to do a gratitude experiment with them? Well, I never got to it (nor do I think they were terribly interested in it). But, I have been keeping a gratitude journal myself, even though I've stopped posting it on my blog. Anyhow, with Thanksgiving this week, I've decided to do the list again...right here...on this here blog.

So really, today I just wanted to write about all the wonderful things I love about Taiwan. Seriously, I really do love it here. And because there are so many things, this blog with now take the form of a list. I apologize ahead of time, but there may be pictures (joy)!

• A bicycle is my main mode of transport. I love riding bikes! Maybe it's because I've always lived close to a bike trail. Or because my brother and I used to pretend to BMX in our back yard. Or maybe it's because my parents both like to bike. My dad taught me to ride a bike, and I still remember the day. I fell over many times, but I finally pedaled a good distance in good ol' Peter Kirk Park. My favorite bike memory was the time mon pere and I got stuck in a hail storm on the way over to my elementary school (let it be known that I also love hail storms). We rode through the hail to the covered basketball courts, and then I think we played State Tag when the storm subsided.
• I live 10 minutes away from the jungle, by bike. No joke. It's pretty fabulous even though I'm not too great about actually going on hikes and such in the fabulous jungle. But I love looking at the lush leaves and vines and being reminded that I live on a tropical island.
• Exotic fruit is the norm.If I really wanted to, I could eat a star fruit, dragon fruit, passion fruit, or any other kind of fruit every day of the week. You could too, if you wanted to pay exorbitant prices, but it doesn't cost me or the Taiwanese an arm and a leg.
• Scooters. They are fabulous. They are fast and zippy,have great gas mileage (I pay 3 bucks to fill 'er up) and don't take up much room at all. And drivers in Taiwan know how to ride with scooters and motorcycles on the roadway, so I'm less likely to die than I would be if I drove said scooter in America.
• Primary.  My calling at Church is to teach Primary. I absolutely love it. I was a bit hesitant at first, but honestly, how could you resist these adorable kids? 

 Ok, so maybe not the best picture, but I haven't got any others. 

And yes, there are about even numbers of kids

and adults in Primary. Those little rascals!

• Sushi is cheap. I mean dirt cheap. I mean so cheap, that I'm too cheap to buy it when I'm in the States. And it's good sushi. My roommate, Connie, and I have now established Sushi Tuesdays so we can have as much of the sushi love as we possibly can before we return to the land of overpricedness. 
•  Taiwanese fashion. Enough said. (I just realized, with shame, that I don't have any good documentation of Taiwanese fashion. Will get on it). 
• The Taiwanese. To be frank, they are amazing! I don't think I've met people from anther country that have been so warm and welcoming, and not to mention helpful. (and I have lived in both France and the Czech Republic). Wherever I go in the country, rest assured I can ask anyone for help, and they'll do their best to help me. For example, one Saturday my friends and I were going up to Taipei on the train. We weren't sure which side of the platform we should be on, so we asked a woman standing next to us. She told us that we were on the correct side and that our train is just a bit late. We thanked her, and then she walked away. Then like 15 minutes later when the train actually came she walked back to where we were to make sure we knew that it was our train. So sweet! And that isn't the first time nor will it be the last. And she was a complete stranger! I'm completely in debt to my dear Taiwanese friends who do so much for me. When they come visit the States, they'll be treated like queens! 
  

I'm sure there's a ton more, but I can't think of any else at the moment. But, there's always tomorrow (and perhaps more pictures)!

Taipei--a picture post

A couple of weekends ago I went up to Taipei with some friends to celebrate Wendy's birthday. The places we hit up--The Taipei Zoo,  a huge Ferris Wheel, and of course, Taipei 101 (still the tallest building in the world).

As in most places in Taiwan, the  zoo is no exception with it's obession with poo. There was an entire wall of poo art, and each bathroom had it's own cutesy poo motif. And this was an adorable girl that we saw all over the zoo.

 Yes, that's a piece of poo that we posed in. Isn't it fabulous?

The giraffes were my favorite. I found them so happy, and strangley elegant. They made me happy. And who can resist an elephant bum and a cool totem pole? The elephants danced, which is something I'd never seen before.

 

 After fun at the zoo, and after escaping a rain storm, we took the MRT to this cool ferris wheel. It was much like the eye of London, but of Taipei.

  We had the chance to ride in an all glass car, but we would have had to wait over an hour for it. We decided against the wait and had a blast. The ride took 20 minutes to complete, and it was so fun to see Taipei from that angle.

The fabulous night ended with a trip to Taipei 101, to the English bookstore--Page One, and dessert at Chili's. It was awesome, and the first time that I felt well satisified with seeing what I wanted of Taipei. And of course, none of my pictures do any of it justice.

Here's to Taipei, and it's wonderfulness. 

I couldn't sleep last night...

The month of October is just barely a week old, and so many exciting things have already happened. This past weekend I spent time up in Taipei (which I'll blog about later), and tomorrow I'm headed to down south to the beautiful beach town of Kenting, home to the lovely Taiwanese film Cape No. 7 (ok, so maybe the movie wasn't so great, but the soundtrack is awesome and it brings me some sweet nostalgia). As a result, I haven't been able to sleep much this week due to the excitement/stress of planning a trip for 10 people. But what can I say...who could resist this loveliness:

Went to bed at 1am last night and woke up at 3:19, finding that my dear roommate Lisa had fallen asleep while on her computer with the light on. I got out of bed and turned out the light. Then about 6am my mind decided to wake up and started racing. I've come to recognize this as stress, and decided that I should make a 'to do' list for everything I wanted to get done this morning before class at 1:30pm:

• read scriptures
• exercise
• do lesson plans
• go to the post office
• call Lex
• buy ice cream for my first graders
• buy conditioner/lotion for my trip
• download conference onto my iPod
• transfer money to my American account 
• take out the garbage (it's my turn this week)
• pack
• figure out snacks for the train ride tomorrow
• print of hostel info
• and CLEAN!

Hopefully I'll be able to get more of it done!

Wish me luck! And here's to wonderful vacations and lovely weather (it's cooled off a bit, at last!)!

Barbecue--Taiwan Style

Yesterday, the other teachers and I were invited to a barbecue at one of the secretary's orchards. It was full of food, fishing, and an amazing sunset. Here are some pics from the great day!

 {The really cool home-made basketball hoop that the kids absolutely adored.}

 {The view from Sue's. That's the bike trail bridge in the distance, though it's not so far away. About a ten minute walk to be exact.}

{Gerald, my boss, playing with all of the kids. They were going crazy!!!}

Fishing

 They had a concrete fish pond stocked with over 200 fish. And, I caught one...yeah, I'm pretty amazing.

 {Brian, Erin, Sunny, Wendy, Connie, and Lisa fishing.}

 {Kelly holding one of the unlucky fellas. Don't you just love her 

Abercrombie shirt? The secretaries were having a contest to see who could look 

the most like a foreigner (aka American). I think Kelly won.}

 {Lindsay and Angelica checking out the scene.}

{One of the fish we caught...}

{... and after.}

 The Sunset

Connie, Wendy and I decided to wander on down to the river to watch the sunset. It was absolutely beautiful. It seems to happen that every time I somewhat go hiking I always wear the worst kind of foot wear possible. So this time I decided to ditch my flipflops before they broke.

 

It was a fun time to try out new camera shots and just reflect on the beauty of this island. And who knew all this beauty was only a ten minute car ride from the school? I seriously gotta get out more. One last final picture:

 Koala's mom is one of the secretaries, so he was there with his two little twin brothers. Can you say adorable? Koala was having a blast being a kid in a kid-appropriate area. It was so much fun seeing him let loose and that it was ok for him to do it. He was going wild on the bikes, and I seriously thought he was going to kill himself a few times. 

Here's to wonderful food, friends, and of course, Taiwan!

Recipe for Happiness

Most everyone I know wants to be happy, as opposed to miserable. But it's one thing to be happy on the surface, and quite another to be truly happy. I want to be truly happy, but sometimes this object of desire slips away and hides in the shadows of my life.

I do admit that I have a tendency to be what I like to call melancholy. My mom (bless her) reminds me to stop worrying about things and enjoy life. So I've finally taken her advice and these past couple of months I've been more deliberately (my new favorite word) finding ways to be happy--beyond the surface.

My fabulous friend Sarah let me borrow this book called Authentic Happiness. It's been pretty insightful thus far. One thing that I learned , and have learned many times before but always seem to forget, is that one way that people can become happy is by listing all the things that they are grateful for. In the past I've kept gratitude journals, and they really do work. As I've focused on all the good positive things in my life, I don't seem to notice the not-so-happy things.

I've started a new goal to write down 5 things a day that I'm grateful for.

As I've been doing this, I thought that I could do this with my fifth graders. Asia is known for its high suicide levels, probably from the intense academic, social, and work pressures. My fifth graders are pre-teens and are going to be in the thick of things before they realize it. I had them take the Gratitude Test, and found that they all scored in the bottom 1/4 of all those tested. I told them we are going to do an experiment. For the next three weeks, I'm having them write down 5 things that they are grateful for as well. At the end of the three weeks we're all going to take the test again and see if we score any higher. It should be pretty interesting. And I'm quite excited to see what will happen.

Also, as a result, I've decided to start listing my things on this here blog. That way I'll be more likely to keep to it. So here goes:

5 things that I'm grateful for

1. That I'm here in Taiwan teaching these adorable kids:
2. That I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the knowledge that it brings to me of who I am, and why I am here, and where I will be going once my life here on earth is over. And most importantly, that my family can be together forever. That's pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

3. My stellar friends that listen to my various ramblings, random thoughts, and my deepest darkest secrets. :)

{My good friend (and former roommate) Emma and I eating some gyoza that we made}

{Me and my good friend Heather at her cookout in Georgetown}{My Bothell Stake friends. We kinda all grew up together. Dallas, Nikki, Ashlee, Ilene and Me!}{Great friends and roommates Kristen and Lex}{Kelly and Scott. Roommate and family friend. Need I say more?}{Miss Kate}{Me and Kellyn. We are soooo domestic!}

{Rachel love. Life is always a kooky adventure with her!}

{Emma and Kevin. I love these guys! Some of the greatest friends ever!}

{Me and Lexie Lou at the Bon Fire of Awesomeness I. She's pretty much amazing!}

{Ze Boyz. My outstanding guy friends prior to my mission. Corey offered to beat up anyone who broke my heart}

{Blurry picture, but I love it all the same. Me and Miss Larkin and her husband Cody at my quarter century bash.}

{Miss Ilene, Lex, Steph, and Kel at my graduation dinner. Lovely ladies.}

{Me and Pat talking music. Oh glorious!}

{Rocking with the ladies. Me, Connie, Megs, and Erin. Great friends and roommies in Taiwan.}

{Me and Russia--friend and confidante.}

They've all been a great help to me especially over the past 8 months.

4. My family (Of course!)

{Linds, Mom, and I.}

{Mom and Dad}

{My bro, Mikey.}

5. The sun. I know that might be a small thing after church, friends, and family, but honestly, I do so much better in sunny climates. I love Seattle with all my heart, but the winters are almost too dark, cold, and dreary.

Well, that's all. A marathon of a blog. Hopefully the next ones won't be so long. :)