Training Week Status: Complete

Here I am again, back in Changhua, after an exhausting yet encouraging week in Taiwan's capital: Taipei.  I left on Monday (at 6am) and traveled 3.5 hours by bus (which was longer than expected) to begin a week of Shane School training with a group of 16 other fresh-faced foreign teachers.  In 5 days of training we learned how to plan-for and format all of our lessons, began observations of classrooms, and got a chance to bond as a group (but there will be more to come about the social aspects of Taiwan once we get through the business-related information.
Shane English Schools are one of the only Taiwanese schools which requires all of their teachers to be college graduates and to have obtained a teaching certification (TESOL, TEFL, CERTA, etc.) (I obtained my TESOL in a certificate program associated with my linguistics major).  The benefit of this requirement is that all teachers come into this school with an idea of how to teach, how people learn, classroom management, etc.  This means that the majority of training week did not need to focus on what this information is, but rather how to apply it to our classrooms, which was a nice way to prevent training from becoming overwhelmingly boring.  The majority of training was spent pretending we were any variety of ages from 6-13 and playing games (to help establish ideas for maintaining interest from the students during class).
NOTE: Education is a priority in many Asian countries.  I work in a cram school, which is not the equivalent of a public/private school system (all students attend a public or private school during the daytime) but rather an extracurricular school which focuses on specific subjects (in my case, the specific subject is English).  Cram schools typically begin in the afternoons (except on Saturdays when they can begin in the mornings due to the lack of public/private school on that day), which causes a typical child's day to look like this: wake up early for public/private school, go to cram school (possibly multiple cram schools for multiple subjects), stay up late doing homework for all schools, do it all again.
Taipei is similar to many other capital cities in the world, it has large buildings, lots of neon lights, and any foreigner could get by with only knowing English.

This is from the streets of Ximending and is known as the (movie) theater district of Taipei. This is an area with a lot of movies, restaurants, and shopping.

As with most cities in Asia, the streets come alive at night with neon signs. 

The majority of my time in Taipei was spent doing school-related things, however I did get to have a few nights on the town.  On Tuesday night a few of us teachers went to the restaurant Modern Toilet which is located on the streets of Ximending (though, it is a chain-restaurant, so it is located in other places as well).  Modern Toilet is, as it sounds, a toilet (well, technically 'bathroom')-themed restaurant which uses shower heads as wall decorations, bathtubs/sinks for tables, and toilet seats for chairs.  The most entertaining aspect of this restaurant was the bathroom shaped plates/bowl which included using toilets for hot-pot bowls, urinals for cups (which you can keep), squat-toilets for ice cream dishes, and poop-shaped heat-retaining covers.  The whole experience was very original.  Also, on an ironic note, the restaurant Modern Toilet does not feature a 'modern toilet' in the bathroom, but rather uses a squatter-toilet (yet the sink is toilet shaped...).

Several of the Shane teachers enjoying our delicious, bathroom-themed dinner. 

On Wednesday I got a chance to visit Taipei 101 which was the tallest building in the world from 2004-2010 (the title was then stolen by Dubai).  The bottom 5 levels of Taipei 101 are home to one of the fanciest malls I have ever entered, with all the stores I could never afford to shop in.  For 450NT (about $15) you can travel to the top levels of the building via the world-record-holding fastest elevators (1010 meters per second).  This building has held several other titles including largest countdown clock for new years (Taipei is the equivalent of New York City here) and largest sundial (the building casts its shadow on the surrounded city in an accurate manner).

Taipei 101 in the evening

A welcome sign which features one of the mascots of Taipei 101: the damper baby. 

This ingenious sphere is Taipei 101's damper.  Because Taiwan is prone to severe weather including typhoons and earthquakes, a tall building like this needed a defense mechanism against falling over.  This 728 ton pendulum sways which offsets the push of the wind against the building.

The big city is behind me now, and I'm back in the quaint city of Changhua.  One of the best things about being back here is getting to know the people.  Because the majority of the foreign teachers have arrived within the last 1-2 years, everyone remembers what it is like to be the new-person and everyone works hard to make the new-person feel included.  Yesterday I spent the afternoon at a local park with 10+ foreign teachers and Taiwanese TA's.  We had a picnic with various fruits, vegetables, variations of tofu, and sushi, and spent hours playing Frisbee games.  It was so much fun getting to know people this was.  I followed that up by tagging along with one of my co-teachers from Shane Homei to a color-themed party.  This was one of the most incredibly planned parties I have ever been to.  Everyone (30+ people) wore outfits entirely of any one color (due to lack of forewarning, my color was white), the floor was entirely covered in colored foam puzzle-piece mats, the walls were rainbow-colored in strips of paper, the ceilings were rainbow-striped with helium balloons, and the music was color-themed.  It was remarkable.  The party finished up at the LA Lounge (a local bar/dance club) where we were waltzing and line dancing until 5am.  It was a great welcome to the city.

I could not imagine a better introduction to this country, this is such a wonderful experience.

The beginning

Two days ago I arrived half-way across the world, in Taiwan, a move which has been both thoroughly planned for years and 'spontaneously' achieved in months.  I've been planning on going abroad to teach English since before I started college, spent my time in college earning my TESOL certificate (among other degrees), and now I've arrived at the culmination of these plans, and I must say, nothing could have prepared me for this.

Let's start with a basic update of my adventure thus far.  I applied to teach English in Taiwan in May of this year and received several job opportunities throughout the following months.  I settled on teaching for the Shane English Schools in late June/early July and had approximately a 1.5 months to complete my reference checks, sign my contracts, apply for my travel Visa (which arrived the day before I left), move out of Milwaukee (which, was an emotionally-wrecking experience), shop, pack, and say all of my 'good-byes'.  Needless to say, I've been busy.

Tuesday, August 14th, 2012: The start of the biggest adventure of my life (thus far).  That was the day I departed Minneapolis, and by 5am on August 16th I had arrived here, in Taiwan.  Note: by the looks of it on a calendar I was in transit for 2 days, however, the flight (according to the pilot) only took about 11 hours (from San Francisco to Taipei), the rest of the time can be attributed to time zone changes.  The flight was not as bad as anticipated, I slept through the majority of it, (I was awake for only 2 hours of it).

After waiting over an hours (because my flight was incredibly early) I was picked up by a mini-bus (cab) and brought Changhua, the city where I live, but not the city where I teach (I teach in the town of Homei, which is about a 15 minutes bus ride away).  I tooled around the city all day on the back of a moped driven by one of the TA's from my school, Sophy.


In my first day I toured about 7 apartments, and settled down in a comfortable little place in Changhua.

This is the outside of my apartment.

My rent is 6200NT, which is about $200 a month and includes this lovely furnished apartment with a desk/chair, dresser, western-style double bed, TV and cable, a fridge and my own bathroom.

This is my private bathroom.  As you can see, it is a little different than an American bathroom because the shower is right next to the toilet.  While showering I have to consciously not soak the entire room (I also need to be conscious not to use up all of my hot water).

I've experienced such a range of emotions over the last few days.  Leaving was not too emotionally taxing, probably because I over did my sadness upon leaving Wisconsin, and at the time of departure I was too overwhelmingly excited to be sad.  It was somewhere after my nap during the international part of my flight that I started to have anxiety about the whole choice (interesting timing if you ask me), but I think that was mainly caused by the fact that the awful plane food was messing with my stomach.  While touring the city and looking for apartments I started to wonder how I really felt about being here, and whether I could survive a year out here, and then I got to the Shane School in Homei (the school I will be teaching at) and suddenly everything was 10x better.  I was greeted at the door with hugs from several of the school's TA's who were excited to see me, and three co-teachers who have been nothing but wonderful since the moment I met them.  That was the moment when I realized how thankful I am for this opportunity.

Cultural note: yesterday was the beginning of ghost month here is Taiwan.  During this time it is believed that a portal between life and after-life is opened and ghosts are free to roam the island.  As an offering to the ghosts, "ghost money" is burnt.  It has been interesting seeing the fires in the streets for this ceremony.

I look forward to many more updates in the near future, but for now it is time to enjoy another wonderful (though incredibly rainy) day.