just some reflecting...goodbye, formosa!

I can't believe our time in Taiwan is really over! I remember getting off the airplane on the first day and seeing the modern skyscrapers nearby and thinking, "I will be fine!" Then, as we neared Qizhang, where Alaina and I live, it began to sink in that it really would be very different, and I started to wonder, "Can I really make it for seven weeks?" Then, arriving at Harriet's house and thinking, "These people are so nice! We will be fine!" Then later going to school and wondering, "How will I survive?" Clearly, I was experiencing some intense culture shock during those first few days, and this scenario is only one example of the ups and downs we faced throughout our time here.

I think one of the hardest things about coming home will be trying to explain the reality of this experience. Some people will say, "Oh, that sounds horrible! Aren't you glad to be back?" Others will comment, "Wow! What a wonderful trip! You saw some great things!" But neither one of these reactions can accurately reflect my time in Taiwan.  I think I was disappointed at first because so often, study abroad is glorified and made out to be this wonderful, fantastical vacation where the student spends a few hours a day in class and the rest of the time is spent having life-altering experiences. So, when that wasn't my experience, at least at first, I couldn't help but be disappointed. However, as time went on, the value of the experience became clearer in other ways. I can't even begin to explain how much I have grown personally and professionally from my time in Taiwan.

To name a few, personally, I have learned what it feels like to be completely in the minority, unable to communicate, and of both the  scrutiny and fame that come with it. I now know what it feels like to be completely stripped of cultural identity, and the need to rely on nothing but  yourself and your own personality and skill set. I have had to build on my strengths and strengthen my weaknesses in order to "make it" and leave a good impression with the people we have met here.

I have gained professionally in several ways. First of all, I can share my experiences with my students, and hopefully help them gain a more global perspective. Our principal has made us feel valued and welcome by saying, "feel free to come back anytime. You are always welcome to apply." I am fairly positive I will not return to Asia to be a teacher again, it's just not for me, for long-term. However, I was able to take part in an entirely different education system and evaluate it first hand. I saw different cultural values and how they play into the schooling here. I saw good, and I saw bad, just like I would see in the United States as an outsider looking in. It's hard to separate my cultural values and experiences from my opinions, so I can never be totally free of cultural bias, something I have struggled with the whole time. But, I have gained a unique perspective that will hopefully stay with me into my teaching career. I feel like my educational philosophy is much clearer to me now, as is my teaching style. I had to abandon many strategies that I love while acquiring habits that I would normally find to be negative practices. Again, without my culture to lean on, I could see very clearly what defined me as a teacher, and what worked and what didn't. I feel so much more confident in terms of classroom management and differentiation, and these are just two areas where what I have learned will filter back into my teaching in the United States.

So, while the teaching was often VERY challenging, as were certain aspects of the culture, I am one hundred percent satisfied with the experience. While I definitely did some wonderful things and saw amazing sites, as you all know from following the blog and seeing a few pictures here or there, that really is only the surface. I think more people need to realize that isn't all that study abroad is about. If I could advise the next person to come and teach here, or travel anywhere really, I would make sure to tell them that while the sightseeing and experiences are important, the growing and learning is just as valuable.

I have been trying to reflect the entire time I've been in Taiwan, but I am sure there is still much to process. I have grown to really love some of the people here and will miss them...and miss many things about Taiwan, really! Just to name a few:

1. fresh fruit from the market stands on our way home from school, always reasonably priced and from local farmers
2. juice that tastes so fresh and natural-apple, peach, orange mmmmm......
3. homemade dumplings from the shop near where we live
4. serene bus rides up and down the mountain to and from school, each morning and afternoon
5. the anonymity of the city as I travel the crowded sidewalks and busy MRT stations of Taipei
6. the sound of the garbage truck playing Fur Elise and watching all of my neighbors gather for their weekly gossip session 
7. the suspense of wondering what our little host dog, Deng Deng, has gotten into durning the school day
8. the millionaire sensation I get when I slap a thousand dollars down on the counter to pay for some green tea, and get $980 back
9. the freedom I feel knowing I can travel across the country without a car; the ease and convenience of public transportation
10. friendly hellos from strangers on the street, eager to practice their English skills
11. pearl milk tea, obtained on our weekly trips to the Carrefour department store
12. sharing a hot pot and good conversation around the table
13. the satisfaction of purchasing a $150 NT pair of shoes, to realize I spent $5 US
14. freshly baked croissants from the corner bakery as we await the school bus
15. the sound of the rain on the rooftop that lulls me to sleep every night, and is still present each morning

Who knows, maybe some day I will come back and experience them again!

For now, our flight leaves Thursday morning at 9:25 am Taiwan time (Wednesday night 8:25 pm USA) and gets in Thursday at 2:40 pm USA time. We will be flying Taipei to Japan, Japan to Detroit, Detroit to Cleveland. I am SO eager to get home for the holidays that the already-long flight might feel like an eternity, but I"ll hope for the best.

Lastly, thank you all so much for your support during my time in Taiwan! Whether it was just reading my blog, emailing, or sending a card, I sincerely appreciated it and could not have done it on my own. So many times I felt pretty down only to find some inspiring words of encouragement in my inbox or mailbox. So thank you for helping me stay on top of things and eventually beat the culture shock! I am so thankful for a wonderful and supporting network of family and friends and cannot wait to share my pictures and stories and finally catch up with many of you face-to-face!

Last Weekend in Taipei, Apple Pies & Goodbyes!

So I'm really down to the last few days now! On Saturday, Alaina and I visited the National Palace Museum. It is located in Taipei, so we rode the metro. We first went through the "Garden of Peace and Benevolence," and we were feeling PRETTY peaceful knowing we didn't have any work left. Slowly, we were slipping into vacation mode and since we've seen almost all the "must sees" we could go at a leisurely pace, and so we stopped inside a little cafe to have some coffee and a snack before heading to the museum. The museum is huge and the building itself is beautiful. There are two main exhibits that visitors can see at any given time, and you pay to enter separately. Alaina and I decided to see the Song Dynasty exhibit since that was more culturally relevant than the Ancient Greece exhibit. It was interesting for me to see all the jade and bronze and the progression of years in terms of dynasties because I JUST taught Ancient China to my seventh graders in Ohio before coming to Taiwan. I really wanted to take some pictures for them, but was unable to.

After the Palace Museum, we met Harriet at the Shilin night market. We had been once before, but we were not brave enough to try anything, and that was unacceptable to Harriet. So, off we went, winding through the crowds until we had obtained a pig's blood cake on a stick and an oyster omelet. We sat down to share, and I really liked the pig's blood cake! I had thought it was so-so mixed into soup, but this time it was on a stick (pig's blood and rice mixture) then coated with peanuts and fresh cilantro. Maybe it was the cilantro that I loved so much, but I liked it! The oyster omelet was pretty good, too. Only later did we find out that some foreign teachers have never tried the pig's blood! And here we are trying everything, lining up because we think it's some mandatory right of passage! We still haven't tried the stinky tofu, but supposedly tonight is the time for that. Then, we did a little shopping, this time bargaining much more than we had on previous trips.

Sunday morning, we decided to check out our local day market, something we had been meaning to do for quite awhile but hadn't done yet. So, off we went and found great deals and were quite amused. Somewhat reminded me of the West Side Market in Cleveland...only Taiwanese style, of course! Alaina and I both bought some leggings for $1 each, and they were good quality, too! The best sale items in terms of clothes, etc. are scarves, shoes, and leggings. They are extremely popular and you can get them dirt cheap everywhere.

After the market, we met our friend from Switzerland at the MRT on Sunday to go to Danshui, the old fishing village that our professor strongly recommended. Again, not at all what we pictured! We expected a serene little town, but even these old streets have been turned into somewhat of a night market scene. Food stands, games, and activities lined the sidewalks as we made our way through swarms of people. One funny little incident that occurred was a little elderly Taiwanese lady came up behind Alaina while we were walking and hit her in the back, then jabbed her in the side, pretty hard, then kept speed walking, turning around and glaring at us, even after she was a good twenty or thirty feet ahead. We are still unsure what we did to offend her....very strange! Anyways, we ended up taking a boat ride across the river to the old fisherman's wharf. Again, crowded with people, although less populated than before. We walked around for quite awhile just enjoying the nice night and I feeling REALLY in vacation mode, I had a grape champagne ice cream cone, the first real ice cream (non-soft serve) we have had in Taiwan, so delicious as we walked the boardwalk! Then, we took our places among all the others to watch the sunset, when rather quickly a giant cloud came out of nowhere and blocked the whole sky! We had heard so much about the Danshui sunset but ended up not seeing any of it, completely blocked!! Kind of a bummer, but we asked Iris to go back and take pictures for us sometime! She's here until June.

We had the day off school on Monday, so we traveled to Yanmingshan Mountain. It was quite the journey. We should have learned by now that even what we anticipate being quick always turns into a larger ordeal. We rode the MRT, then connected to a city bus, which we took to the top of the mountain. Then, we needed to wait for another bus, a shuttle, to take us around the mountain. Of course, the schedule was only printed in Chinese and we had to wait awhile until a nice Chinese couple came along and was able to help us find the destinations we were interested in seeing. However, just as with Taroko Gorge, the maps were well marked by the destinations were not. We had no idea when we were supposed to get off the shuttle, so when some people hopped off, so did we! Not where we wanted to end up, and the trail we were intersted in was blocked by 4 vicious dogs who kept barking at us and chasing us. I wasn't about to get bit in the middle of nowhere on top of an isolated mountain! There are stray dogs EVERYWHERE, but we have never seen them bark or be aggressive before, very uncharacteristic so it freaked us out! We walked a bit then found another trail going down into the mountains. It was a lovely hike, deep down into the mountainside. We felt like we were in the jungle surrounded by all the sounds and greenery. It was funny because there was some fall foliage, which is not common in Taiwan, so it was marked on the trail as a point of interest! We wound through natural growing bamboo, which was very neat, since our last bamboo trail was rather disappointing. I was terrified of getting eaten alive by some monkeys, but Alaina didn't seem too concerned. Anyhow, we survived, and finally found a bus again and hopped on. We ended up riding up, around, and finally down the mountain. It turned out to be a blessing because there was so much to see!

Our farewell dinner at the school was on Monday night. The principal, teachers, our supervisor, and several administrators gathered at a fancy Chinese restaurant for dinner. We shared several courses that were on a rotating disk in the middle of the table. I liked almost everything, so either the meal was excellent, or the food is growing on me?! What a lovely way to end our internship, but it wasn't over yet....

Today we are at school for a final day! Last Friday, we had given our "bus lady" a small gift to show our appreciation. She rides the bus, accompanying students to and from school. She doesn't speak English, so we wrote out a thank you card and then had Harriet translate the message. She was so appreciative, and today, when we got on the bus, she had a gift for us! She said, "for you!" and gave us some Taiwanese cookies. So very nice of her! It was just so neat because I feel like we've grown to know her on the long rides up and down the mountain each day, although we have had zero verbal communication. I just think that is really neat.

 Alaina and I spent the morning baking apple pie from scratch in the home economics room. The home ec teacher helped us find the necessary utensils, and we had luckily been able to purchase all of the necessary ingredients. We made three pies to share with teachers and staff as a "thank you." We served the Principal and Superintendant and their staff members, our entire office, and many of our teacher friends. They LOVED the pie, and many people came back for seconds. Harriet had picked up some vanilla ice cream, which made it even better!

My favorite part of the whole day was when my mentor teacher handed me a stack of cards and notes from my grade eight students! It turned out that they had asked her to take some time to write me a note to say thank you and goodbye, and they were really sad about it yesterday! Wow, I did not expect that! Their notes were adorable; several students drew a giant blue eye and wrote, "Your eyes are so beautiful!" haha...that really left an impression on them! But it made me feel good to know that they appreciated my efforts of trying to plan enjoyable yet meaningful learning activities, or at least that they enjoyed my teaching. A very nice ending to my time here. Many students also asked for my email address today to correspond....so different than in America!

Only a couple hours left then our time here at KCBS is done! Tonight, we will go to Carrefour, the department store, to have pearl milk tea one last time and pick up a few things to bring home with us. Tomorrow, we will pack, shop, and maybe squeeze one last little adventure in before taking off. We have dinner reservations for Wednesday night with Harriet at our favorite little hot pot restaurant. So delicious!

My Birthday in Taiwan & Last Day Teaching

What an eventful birthday! Definitely unique and one that I will remember forever! It started off with a lovely Skype conversation with the family, then heading to school for my LAST DAY of teaching! In retrospect, I cannot believe it is over already! It seemed so tedious but now it's just a blur! Anyways, I had my final observation first period. I was very worried because this is the final day of assessment week for the students in their Chinese courses. In other words, working hard for me on my last day here when they were already burned out would be a challenge, so I was worried! However, needlessly so! My students were wonderful and participated and asked great questions.

When I told the students it was my last day here, three of my four blocks were very sad and told me they would miss me, etc....the "challenging" class, however, had less nice things to say. I am sort of glad I couldn't make out the Chinese. Sort of a dissapointment, but I can only do so much if they are not willing to meet me halfway. Anyhow, I took pictures of each of my classes at the end of the period. Whereas this would be a big deal in the US and require a plethora of paperwork, taking pictures of students and classrooms is ok in Taiwan. Also, many students asked for my email address and facebook information. In the US, I would never, EVER consider being facebook friends with a student, it's a big "no no" for teachers, in my opinion. However, in Taiwan it is culturally acceptable and all of my collegues are friends with the students on facebook. So I ended up giving my contact information to a few students who wanted to send me emails, etc...good English practice for them, at least!

At lunchtime, someone came to my desk and said, "The principal wants to see you!" So Alaina and I were escorted downstairs, where we were met by many people saying "Happy Birthday!" Everyone was speaking in Chinese and I was SO confused...I didn't even know half the people and thought it was strange they would be having a birthday celebration of this calibur for me. Finally, I spotted the cake with a "65" candle and realized it was also the superintendant's birthday!  Before long, I was being coaxed iutno a picture with the superintendant and also another teacher whose birthday was today! They had these very, VERY long Taiwanese noodles and pig's feet in bowls. It is a traditional Taiwanese birthday meal, and the noodles represent longevity, so you're not allowed to bite them. Since my chopstick skills are still very bad, I was once again embarassed to eat a difficult meal in front of twenty plus people. But I'm getting used to it now! A very fun celebration!

After finishing up our teaching day, my mentor teacher told me she needed to meet with me in the teacher's lounge, so down we went, and sat there for about ten minutes until another teacher came and told us we were wanted in my supervisor's office. My mentor's mistake...she had the wrong location! So up we went and there were many of the teachers with a BEAUTIFUL birthday cake! I will definitely miss the sweets in Taiwan, because they are much LESS sweet, but have more different pieces and parts, which I enjoy.

Then, tonight, Harriet and Alaina planned a lovely birthday dinner at Grazie Cafe, a nice italian restaurant down the street! Several teachers and administrators from the school joined us, and it was so much fun! Harriet brought Dan-Dan, the dog...and another lady brought her two adorable toddlers. Between the three of them, we were easily entertained for a few hours!


All in all, it was a wonderful birthday! I am reminded once again of the wonderful people I have met while in Taiwan, and even though I am SO ready to come home, I will miss them!

Hump Day of the Last Week of Teaching

Well, only two more days of teaching left now! Today was an "easy day" since my mentor wanted me to show a movie to my grade eight students since they are mid-exam week. They watched "Mean Girls" since it semi-relates to bullying. It's so funny because I would NEVER want to (or be allowed to) show that movie to even a high school class in the United States. It made me feel a little funny, but the rules as far as that type of thing goes are much less strict. Similarly, teachers can take pictures of the students here without any questions asked. When I had to tape a lesson in the US, each student needed to fill out a form and have it signed by their parents, then I needed to rearrange the classroom to assure that those students were not in the video. Also, I had a student ask if we could be facebook friends yesterday. That freaked me out, because I would NEVER think of "friending" one of my students from the USA. I deliberated and tried to avoid it, telling him, "Maybe once I'm back in America," even though it made me feel SO uncomfortable. Very different, as many teachers here are "friends" with their students. I never really realized how ingrained within me the American standards of professionalism had become until now! Showing the video was somewhat comical, though, to see how the students' reactions were so different than in America. They laughed at totally different things than American students would find humorous, and their reactions were hilarious!

Also, I forgot to mention that I got a package in the mail at the beginning of this week!  My mentor teacher from home sent me "Happy Thanksgiving" cards made by each of my students from home! It was such a nice surprise and very inspiring after a lonnng and difficult few days. Some of them were hilarious, giving me advice on how to deal with my students here, Thankgiving jokes/stories...others were just sweet, and some students drew me a Thanksgiving meal or a big, juicy hamburger, haha, little do they know that WAS our Thanksgiving feast! The perfect way to start the week! And I will say, opening them here I was able to see the huge contrast between my groups of students here and in the US. The differences in maturity level, student-teacher rapport, and artistic ability were pretty noticeable!

I will teach tomorrow and Friday as well. Alaina and I just updated our Bucket List to see what we have left to do, and there are still several things! Since we are already well over our 60 days and our role at the school is winding down, our supervisor agreed to let us take off one or two days next week to do some last minute sightseeing, such as go to the Flora Expo, National Palace Museum, visit a mountain with hot springs, etc....So, our only school obligation for  next week is to bake the teachers some heavily-requested apple pies in the home-ec room!