And That Was the Day I Discovered Time Travel

All of the major events of this week center around one focal point, the start of my 2-week contract break and my first trip to the US in a year.  I have just experienced, in terms of hours, the longest day of my life.  Where the average day consists of 24 hours, August 25th, 2013 has already consisted of 35 hours (with 2 more hours to go until it is complete).  Flying really is an amazing process, isn't it?  By crossing enough time zones across the globe, I could have extended my day even further (though I would have overshot the US and been thoroughly disappointed).
Not counting the part of my day which consisted of lying in bed anticipating waking up, rather than sleeping, my day began with my alarm clock waking me up at 5am to shower, grab a taxi, and get to Taoyuan airport for my 9:10 departure (I must say, while I am known for my extreme lack of punctuality most of the time, I am always good at arriving at airports early).
I only had one layover, so just shy of 3 hours after departure (around 1:45pm) I had completed leg-one of my journey and had arrived in Tokyo, Japan.  Here I had a two-hour break, free of the confined spaces offered on airplanes (which I spent doing schoolwork...some vacation, eh?) then boarded for my 5:50 departure to Minneapolis, Minnesota.
My overall flight to the US took approximately 11 hours, which is actually a shorter flight than I had remembered, as well as a shorter time than people would have predicted.  Don't get me wrong, 11 hours is still the bulk of your day, but spent with sleep and movies, the time didn't drag at all.
So then, 11 hours later (but 1 hour prior to my arrival in Japan if you consider the time zones, I arrived in the Twin Cities).  I haven't fully processed being home yet, maybe because it is only a short visit home, or maybe because I have only seen my family since my arrival.  What I know right now is that, I am happy to be here, I am exhausted, and everyone around me speaks English, which is just strange after a year abroad.
My first 'adventure' after arriving in the US was what I am now titling 'The Great Exchange Debacle'.   I forgot to exchange my foreign currency for US dollars when I arrived at the airport (even though I told myself repeatedly not to), so after arriving home from the airport, my mother and I turned around and headed back downtown to obtain money.  On the way I realized I had forgotten my ID, which made it impossible to complete the exchange, so, after waiting in line, then unsuccessfully completing the transaction, I returned to the car and sent my mother to exchange the money for me (since she had an ID).  No more than 5 minutes after sending her inside (in a country where I had no cell phone, so the possibility of mobile communication wasn't an option), I found my passport along side my chair.  So, it appears that the majority of my exchange debacle could have been prevented with a little more awareness of my surroundings.
The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent at a reunion with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins from both sides of the family.  It was great to see everyone again.  I don't look forward to how quickly this trip is going to fly by.

My family and I in the backyard (I'm sitting, I'm not really that much shorter than everyone...well, yes I am)

Some of the girl cousins, showing off how to smile

These good-looking people are my grandparents (mom's side)

One-Year Taiwan-niversary

As of this Friday, I have been living in Taiwan for 1 year.  Second only to college, this has been the longest adventure of my life in terms physical time, but the days, weeks, months, they have all flown by.  I have seen some amazing places, met some wonderful people, started learning (a difficult, but) beautiful language, but I stand by the decision I made 6-months ago, 1 year is not enough time here!
Saturday was dedicated to the celebration of this achievement with what started as an anniversary and inadvertently morphed into a birthday party...ready for the story? While at our dinner restaurant I was given a sparkly purple party hat and a Hawaiian lei to wear (which of course, I wore gladly).  My accessories caught the eye of the wait-staff who asked our table if it was my birthday, and, despite my initial response "uhh, not exactly", the table continued to insist that it was my birthday and that presenting me with a birthday song and the cake (which we had brought) was an excellent idea.  So, the lights dimmed, the waiters lined up, at the table adorned over-sized bow headbands and serenaded me.  Realizing that we were too full to eat the cake, we boxed it up, and so the tradition of singing 'Happy Birthday'  became part of every stage of the evening.  We followed up dinner with bowling where the front desk clerk was the lucky singer asked to serenade me, and finally we ended up in KTV where there was no 'Happy Birthday' song on the karaoke playlist, so the next best thing was sung: 'Happy New Year'.

The Taiwan-ni-birthday celebration, part 1: dinner

The Taiwan-ni-birthday celebration, part 2: bowling

The Taiwan-ni-birthday celebration, part 3: KTV

I make it sounds like my whole week was crammed into this weekend, but really, I had a good seven days.  My main school project this week was a tribute to my theatrical past as I held auditions for my the Autumn Showcase my school will be hosting in October.  For the show we planned on having 8 students co-host various portions of the show, and I had 14 students audition for me! What an overwhelming feeling to have so many children want to show-off their English abilities (especially remembering how small my school is).  The auditions were designed by me and included a self-introduction, a script-read, a question/answer interview, and a free-response section.  My favorite section of the audition was the free-response section where each student had to listen to me sing then compliment my performance (which is something they will need to do in the showcase), can I just say, it was fun having my students be so nice!  I should also note, on the feel-good side of things, the manager from one of the other schools in my chain came to observe the auditions, and she complimented me on the professionalism of the audition process and my singing voice.
I've kept you posted on my Tuesday theme-lessons all summer, and this week was my final summer lesson: making board games.  I was really proud of this idea because it isn't something I drew on from my childhood, it was a new experience for me as well as the children.  I was lying in bed last weekend thinking about what sort of craft I could do, when suddenly it dawned on me how easily designed board games are, and therefore how easy they would be to recreate. From there, it wasn't hard to work out my lesson plan.  So, on Tuesday my students were divided into two groups, and half of them created their own version of Chutes (snakes) and Ladders, and the other being a version of Candy Land.  In an unofficial class poll, the students said that making games and playing the games was equally fun, which I will take as a sign of another successful lesson.
Last, but not least, I wanted to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day.  What? You thought Valentine's Day was in February? I recall commenting on the strange timing of this holiday last year, but this year I have learned some extra facts.  Chinese Valentine's Day is also called the Qixi festival, and occurs on the 7th day of the 7th month of the lunar calendar.  The holiday originated, not based on the traditional stories of Saint Valentine, but instead on the Chinese myth of a weaver and a cowherd.  As the story goes, there were two lovers, a weaver girl named Zhinu and a cowherd boy named Niulang.  Their love was forbidden, so they were punished by being banished to opposite sizes of the Silver River, but once a year, on the 7th day of the 7th month, magpies would form a bridge between the lovers which allowed them to walk to each other.  Traditionally it is meant to be a more religious holiday with prayers and offerings from the young girls asking for wisdom and dexterity as well as wishing for a good and loving husband, however most of the couples that I witnessed celebrating the holiday did so in a western-traditional style, with gifts or flowers.  We'd better hide this news from Hallmark or they'll start marketing the holiday twice in the states as well!

Speaking of Winners...

As you may recall, my most recent post referred to my winning streak, but now I would like to share news about some other winners.  Yesterday was the Shane speech contest, where students from schools around the country gathered in Kaohsiung to compete.  Contestants were judged on accuracy of speech (in terms of how well it followed their submitted scripts), fluency (and articulation of words), physicality (gestures and facial reactions), and pronunciation (including natural cadence).  Each Contestant competed against other speakers in their same grade in public school (rather than those who were their same level in the Shane system).  Of the seven contestants my school sent into the competition, four of them took 3rd place in their respective age groups.  I'm a very proud coach right now!
In other news, my singing tendencies are rubbing off on my students.  Well, that may be because I have trained them to do so, but 'shhh'.  For a while now we have been teaching the CEI07 and CEI12 classes the song 'Under the Sea' from 'The Little Mermaid', and this week they had performances every day.  Most of the performances were outside of the school for the parents, but on Tuesday we took them on an outing to McDonald's where we sang for the customers (and showed off our English skills when ordering food).

I made a little poster for our performance, and if I'm being honest, I'm pretty proud of it!  I drew and painted each of the animals.

Back in Wisconsin I was fond of Quiz Night at one of the local bars.  For a while I attended the quiz every week, and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed that tradition.  This week, we recreated this past time in our own take on a 'pub quiz', except rather than a pub, it was hosted in a house.  Each member of the group wrote their own 10-question round for the quiz based on one of their areas of interest (no surprise, my category was 'theater/musicals', and they were quizmaster for that round.  Three teams of four competed for bragging rights and a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne, but I am sad to announce, my team did not win these rights, as we came in 2nd place (losing by only 1 point).  On an interesting side-note about pub quizzes, have you ever realized how terribly boring the concept sounds when you try to explain it through a language barrier?  When describing the quiz to our Taiwanese friends we explained that we 'took a test for fun', and really, who does that?
On a cultural note, this week I explored the Taiwanese take on one of the great American past times: baseball.  For most of my childhood I was not a sports fan, but my five years in Wisconsin gave me a not only a knowledge about baseball, but also a love of attending games, which meant that when I was invited to attend a Taiwanese baseball game I jumped on the opportunity.  Saturday evening I attended a game in the Taichung stadium between the Lions and the Elephants.  While the team I went to cheer on (the Brother Elephants) may have lost by a depressing margin (0-5), it was still an enjoyable experience, and I got to learn some fun Chinese cheers.

These are 'cheersticks' - which are occasionally seen in American sporting events, but carried by almost everyone at a Taiwanese baseball game.

The professional baseball teams in Taiwan compete in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL).  The league currently has 4 teams: The Brother Elephants (Taipei), the Lamingo Monkeys (Taoyuan), the EDA Rhinos (Kaohsiung), and the 7-11 Lions (Tainan).  The CPBL has been operating since 1989, and has been the only professional league in Taiwan since 2003.  A baseball season in Taiwan spans from March-October, and concludes with play-offs which last until early November.  The winning team from the CPBL goes on to represent Taiwan in the Asia Series against China, Japan, South Korea, and Australia (and from there, it appears the title is most often taken Japan).

It's not a baseball game without some form of hot dog, right?

Winner!

I'm a winner! With every purchase I have made over the past year I have received a receipt which made me eligible for the country's receipt lottery, and every two months I check my receipts and throw them all in the recycling because they are all losers, but not this month! This month I am the proud owner of two winning receipts, awarding me with a total of 400NTD.  Now, before you go thinking that is an exceptional amount of money, I'll tell you that it converts to just shy of $14 US, but it is free money, so I'll take it!
I really enjoyed my work week this week,particularly because I have been enjoying my side-project of preparing students for next weekend's speech contest.  For the past few months, all of the schools have been helping some of their best students to write and rehearse English speeches, and teaching them how to naturally integrate cadence, intonation, and gesture to their performances.  I am proud to say that my school has prepared 7 students for the competition (last year we sent only 2 students, which shows we are increasing the number of competent and confident speakers), 4 of which came from my classes, so I'm feeling pretty proud of my 'babies' right now.  I spent a few days this week holding 'mock competitions' with the students, where they had to perform their speech in front of their fellow contestants, the school manager, and myself as their judges.  The students are all doing very well (much better than I would have done at their age, I would have been too shy to consider speaking alone in front of a crowd like that).  We have one more week of rehearsals, then their big day will be on Saturday, so with them all luck!
Most of my weekend was very laid-back and relaxing, which I find is increasingly something I need in a weekend.  Most of Saturday was spent either lounging around in my apartment, or lounging around on my scooter in Lukang.  I took a leisurely ride to the ancient street in Lukang to do some souvenir shopping.  In as much detail as I can provide (without spoiling any possible surprises for the souvenir recipients), all I can really say is that I observed merchandise that was being displayed by various vendors, and when I saw items which I enjoyed, I exchanged money with the shop-clerks in order to take them home (quite an eventful day, I know).  
Today we took a minor scooter trip to Taiping (which is near Taichung).  This is an area I have been to several times before, because this is one of the nicest (and closest) areas to find waterfalls.  The first time I went to these waterfalls everyone in the group go injured because the path was steep, slippery, and all-around unsafe, the second time I went we found an area down stream but we couldn't see any waterfalls from there, but today, we drove maybe 2 minutes further than I had ever gone before, and managed to drive right up to a waterfall. There were some great pools for swimming in, some good climbing rocks, and beautiful scenery all around us.

A waterfall in the Taiping District of Taichung