Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Classes have started...
And I'm very tired. I was surprised how much teaching kids takes out of you. Explaining animals is lots of fun when the effort involves making animal noises and guestures. I felt pretty stupid, but the kids were happy. Thats what matters, right?

I need to talk about the wedding first, because I said I would, but then got lazy and decided to do other things than write about it in my journal. Namely sleeping.

It was a very beautiful event, although many of the traditions are quite different from what I am accustomed to in Canada. For one, this, like the one previous that I'd been to in Taiwan, had a stipper present. Now, I've heard of strippers at other events that surround weddings; like stag parties and the like; but never *at* a wedding, where the entire family was present.

What surprises me more about this, is how little anyone there cares about such. It's just a girl dancing on a pole. It's perfectly suitable for a wedding.

I'm still confused, but I'm just going to be quiet about it now.

I was a bit bitter about the entire thing. I went, because I was kind of expected to, as I am Yiyi's guest and I usually go wherever she goes. On the other hand, I'm also *extremely* overemotional, and the entire thing made me very very sad. Not even for good reasons. It was just difficult for me to be at a wedding when I'm so far from my fiance.

I blame my overemotional tendancies squarely on my Mother. Mom, I love you, but we're both whiners, and it's just not healthy.

Anyway.. I didn't actually meet the bride, but the stripper did move right past my table. I think I was the only one impressed by that, though. From the pictures I saw, the bride is a beautiful woman. Though my expierience at this wedding was probably a bit different from everyone elses', I was happy to have seen it, and gone. It was one of those events of my life I'll never forget, even if I was pretty whiny when I got home afterwards.

The week or so after that has gone by pretty quickly. I've been spending a lot of time hanging out at the Cram school with Yiyi's sister, Even. Even's a pretty interesting girl. She's trying to be a Vegetarian in Taiwan, which is near impossible, and she's sticking to it. I'd certainly follow the same route if I wasn't someone's houseguest. She's very funny, and has done a lot of travelling. I like hanging out with her.

I was trying to find something on a map the other day, when Yiyi found me and asked me what I was doing. There is no map in our cram school of anything besides America, so I was on the internet looking for a good one to find where my Dad was. When I told her I was looking for Oman, she thought I was crazy.

This led to me showing her how to read a world map. I'm still a bit surprised by this, but I found out that most Taiwanese people only learn about Chinese Geography in school. Meaning, most of them can't read a map at all. I showed her where Russia, Canada, America, England Australia etc were. Even Japan she wasn't too sure. I can't even imagine not knowing how to read a world map, but I guess this is really common here. I feel kinda smart for paying attention in Geography class now, since I'm not even sure if my students have known what the heck I was talking about when I drew a flag on the board and told them I was from Canada.

If they can't read a map they might not recognise the flag. Our school teaches American english, so I need to make sure they know I'm Canadian. I know how irrational that sounds, but it's important to me. I'm not an American. I really don't wanna be one. (No offence! I like being a canuk! I love beavers!)

Since the news on television is completely screened here, I'm finally free of propeganda culture that the US government dishes out to the world. (example: Bush: That lil' Arab boy said bad things about GOD, so it's fine that they shot 'im. I'm lowerin tazes!)

My thoughtless and obviously stupid comment shows how much I know about whats going on right now.

Luke's informed me that an American citizen was reporting via the internet some things that were going on in Baghdad and Falleuja. I don't know all the details. His name is Joe Carr, though, and when the American government found out, they bombed the hospital. Now they refuse to give back power because 'The terrorists might use it.' The result of this is that the disease rate in Falleuja is sky high, but the hospitals have no clean rooms or supplies to help these people. The US won't let the Red Cross into the city to help anyone, so it's really bad and a lot of people are dying.

This is all I've heard so far, though. It's kinda nice not to see Bush on television all the time, but sometimes I wonder whats going on.

If anyone has any other news of things going on back home, please let me know. I can't seem to find anything regarding this online at all, and I don't know anything else about whats going on back home. I have nothing against the States, but seriously, not everyone who's a terrorist is Arab, not every Arab is a terrorist, and there's really no excuse to bomb a hospital. Thats the stupidest response I can think of.

Changing the subject abruptly.. I took a lot of night photos today, so they're up in my blog now. I'm horrible with the camera, though, and most of them are shaky or out of focus. I don't know how to fix that.

I've found my classes to be much easier than they were when I started. Adults are easy to teach. Kids are not. This is opposite to what I originally thought. It's a surprise to me, too, but thinking of games for EVERYTHING becomes very very trying after some time, and very tiresome. Taiwanese kids are rewarded for behaving at school with prizes, so I need to give points which they can collect to cash in random objects at the front entrance of the school.

I find this practice to be very bizarre and unusual. In effect, we're bribing them to be quiet and pay attention, which they should be doing anyway. This is common here, so my confusion on this is very funny to my collegues, but I'm sure people from home will understand why I find this odd.

I'm required to name all my students. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this yet. This is a requirement of mine. I need to give all my students English names.

So, in other words, I have no idea what their Taiwanese names are. Only the English names they either come up with, or I give them. And it needs to be something easy to pronounce, so any suggestions to give them cool names like 'Spartacus' or 'Moon Unit' will be ignored.

I find the practice of naming anything difficult. When I write stories, I sometimes spend the afternoon brainstorming different names. Yiyi has agreed to simply have them choose their own names. I think it would be easier just to use their real names, but this is out of the question. I don't know what to think of it.

I'll be going to Hong Kong to renew my visa soon, with Even. I was only able to get a 2 month one before.

This one has a possible length of six months. I don't think the Chinese government likes foreigners very much. They certainly work hard to make us leave.

In any case, photos will be taken of this trip, although I have no idea when it will be.

In closing, thanks for signing my guestbook. XD

Goodnight,

Christine
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