教課 － Teaching

The end of a long week brings another blog entry to you all, fresh off the presses! I say long week because it was, in fact, a looooonnnggg week, chock full of teaching. That's right, after observing the class I took over on Friday last week, the director decided that more training wasn't really in the works for me, and I got thrown in the mix.

Mostly, I'm happy about this. It means I'll get paid a lot more than if I were only observing classes, and I get to meet a lot of the students I'll be teaching in the near future, but I'm not gonna lie, it was stressful. They say the best way to learn something is to dive right in, but I've always found that I do better with thorough instruction to go off of, then I can make changes where I feel necessary down the road. No such luck this time. But on the plus side, I do know what's going on now, and most of the classes I taught were review classes to prepare for quizzes and tests coming up.

For the most part, all the students I've taught have been very well behaved and bright. However, there are a few troublemakers who've had me cringing by the end of a two or three hour session. Apparently, ADD and ADHD is a very common problem among students here, particularly the boys, and it tends to manifest itself during classroom hours with shouting, jumping around, hitting, and mouthing off. It'd been a little difficult to maintain a good classroom environment and keep those few kids under control at the same time. The funny thing is though, a lot of the time these students are actually quite smart. Once you get them in their seats and under control, they tend to be very good readers, and they know the answers to questions. It's just a matter of getting them to participate without just taking the easy way out: "I don't know."

Alright, now for a recap of my week outside of class. Last Saturday, I spent the day with Chris and Debby, two of my friends from the UW. After a delicious dinner, we headed out with a group of other Kojen teachers to a KTV or karaoke bar. We got a private room for a group, and spent the next few hours singing and rocking out to the greatest songs of the nineties and early 2000s (which were the only ones they had to offer in English). I also got a chance to figure out the local metro system, which is amazing (I'm sure all you WISPIRGers who are following will appreciate my love of public transit, haha), and the busses are pretty good too, although a little confusing at first.

I spent the rest of the week working during the day, and grading papers and tests at night. I've only had a chance to look at one apartment so far, which was basically a small room with a bed and an adjoining bathroom. I'm gonna hold out for something a little better I think...

I'll leave you all with a list of a few things I didn't expect to find over here in Taiwan:

1) 7-11 Convenience Stores: There is at least one 7-11 every other block here (I pass three of them on my walk to work, which only takes about 10 minutes). They're basically the everything mart of Taiwan. You can buy food, booze, toiletries, and phone cards. You can take money out of your bank account, pick up labeled trash bags for the daily garbage, recycling, and compost pickup, and buy phone cards. Strangest of all, this is where you pay all of your utility bills, anything from gas and electric to cable and internet. The 7-11 company must be making a mint off of this island.

2) Recycling and Composting: Like I said, there's a daily garbage service in Taipei. Trucks come along at roughly the same time every day playing Beethoven's "Fur Elise", sort of like an ice cream truck. They stop briefly in each neighborhood and you have a few minutes to bring out your labeled trash bags (which you bought from your local 7-11) and load them on the truck. There are different sections for actual trash, plastic/metal/glass, and cardboard and paper products. There are even restaurants on the street that have separate sections for cardboard trays, wooden chopsticks, and any food waste to compost. In a lot of ways, Taiwan has some distance to go environmentally, but sounds like they've got us beat for trash pickup so far.

3) Cockroaches in my room: Ok, not the most pleasant note to finish on, but there ya go. The other night I was going to sleep, and I hear a rustling sound in the corner of my room. At first I ignored it, then it got louder so I flipped on the lights. Two gigantic cockroaches scuttled away from one of my plastic zip-lock bags on the floor and started running all over the room, looking for the way out. FInally, one chose to hide out under my bed, the other under my dresser. I was sicked out. I have decided that I am not a fan of cockroaches. In fact, I've never even seen one before now, and that's with three years as a janitor in the dorms under my belt. I finally figured out they were burrowing their way up from a drain in the kitchen. I need to find a new place ASAP!

Alright, that's all folks! Look for more to come soon. Highlights may include: a) my new apartment, b) pictures if I get a camera, and c) figuring out a Taiwanese cell phone.