N: School Starts!

Teaching started on Wednesday!  The Sunday day before, we went to church.  The closest English branch is in Taichung and it is lovely.  It's small, but the branch Presidency is great!  Our Branch President is from Hawaii and he is really nice.  His name is President Baclayon.  Gerald, Berhan's Principal, is in the presidency and also Brother Miller, who is here with his wife, attending school.  Kaitlyn got a calling right away!  She's in the primary presidency!  Woo hoo!  I got my calling yesterday.  I was nervous... I was prepared to accept whatever calling I was called to, but I hoped it was not nursery... Don't get me wrong, I love the little kids!  There are two little girls, and they are really cute, but I didn't want to give up Gospel Doctrine and Relief Society for 6 months to babysit... I filled in today because they didn't have a nursery person yet and it was just fine, but I was bummed that I had to miss the rest of church!  Anyways, I got called to teach Relief Society!  Perfect!  I love teaching!  We had break the fast today and it was delicious!  I signed up to bring food, but I had limited time and resources, so I bought some pasta and made home made alfredo sauce!  I was so proud that it didn't turn out terribly.  While we were outside, we discovered something: there is a restaurant called Marijuana right across the street from the church building!  Hahaha we thought it was pretty comical (and also determined to eat there one day).

Complete with Marijuana leaves.

11 Taiwan things I'm getting used to:
Number 1, bug bites!  They are just becoming a way of  life!! Right now, I have 6 on my face, 2 on my hands, a couple on my feet, legs and one on my arm. 
Number 2, there is no toilet paper.  Like, anywhere.  There are these little packs of tissue paper that we use, but it's rare to find a public bathroom (that's not in Costco or something) with toilet paper.  You have to carry around your own.  And DON'T even get me started on the squatter toilets...
Number 3, no one owns a clothes dryer.  We hang everything up.  It was a little unfortunate for me when I got here and found that my cat had decided to make one of my shirts his own and made all my stuff smell really bad.  I had to do SO much laundry and all my clothes took up all the space on our little porch thing for 24 hours. 
Number 4, all of my advertisements online are Chinese.
Number 5, fireworks go off all the time, randomly during the night!  I have no idea what they are ever celebrating, but do they know how to do it!
Number 6, I'm stared at wherever I go.  Sometimes it is kind of ridiculous!  Random people will ask to take pictures with me on the street. One guy had such little English that he just pointed to him and me had said, "please?".  It took me a second to figure out what he was talking about...
Number 7, traffic is cray cray!  Almost everyone drives a scooter, and no one follows traffic rules. 
Number 8, I think Taiwan has a trash can deficit.  There are no trash cans out on the streets.  You have to go in a store or just keep it with you.  They have really strict rules about trash (even more strict than traffic rules).  We have to separate trash into plastic, recyclables, food (they feed it to pigs, apparently), and other trash.
Number 9, you have to bring your own bags to the store.  They will charge you if you want your groceries bagged.
Number 10, the lack of some of my favorite American things!  Pam, paper towels (and toilet paper), Target, cheap shampoo (pretty much everything that is not American is super cheap, except shampoo!!  I spent, like, $12 USD total for shampoo and conditioner), people who understand me without playing charades, Pandora, good places to run, good air to run in, brown rice, dairy, feeling literate...
Number 11, so many cool Taiwan things!  Night markets, cheap and fresh, delicious food and fruit, bingsha's, fresh squeezed orange juice, really friendly people, a money system that makes sense, absolutely beautiful scenery (there is so much green!  Both orchards and untamed green) and so much else that I will have to drag out in all my other posts and pictures :)

So, the day before school started, we trained and prepared.  Kaitlyn and I were nervous just because we didn't know what to expect!  It is so new and you can only prepare so much and then you just take the dive.  The first day was... okay.  It was hard, not in the I can't do this kind of way, but in the I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing kind of way.  My first class was KE (normally, the first hour is 5-6 year olds, and the second hour is 2-4 year olds, but that day we switched it around so we could go to the hospital and get our physicals.  So Kaitlyn and I taught the 2-4 year olds- we have that class together).  They are ADORABLE!!  There is one boy named Willie who knows more English than a lot of us realize.  He has a Filipino mom, who speaks to him in English.  They think he is autistic, which makes sense because he is all over the place!  But he is so smart!  Smart enough to do the exact opposite of what we ask.  We read a story about Clifford, the big, red dog.  Every time we said, dog, he would say, "cat!  Meeyow!!"  It was hilarious.  He's a character and although he's a handful, he makes class really interesting.  There is another boy named Kristofer, who is the son of one of the secretaries, Peggy, at the school.  He has to be the most adorable Asian baby I have ever seen!!!  I think he is 3.  There are just some of the cutest kids in that class and I love teaching them.

I LOVE this shirt! Made sure 

it was my 1st day shirt.

Kaitlyn's phonics video!

After we taught KE, Peggy took Kaitlyn, Kylie, Sunny and me to the hospital for our physical/check up thing.  The first thing they did was take our blood.  Okay, I have never had my blood taken.  I tried once!  I really wanted to give blood last year but I couldn't because of my low hemoglobin levels.  So, I was a little nervous, but only about the needle.  They didn't even take us into a special room or anything.  We walked in the Hospital and at what looked like check in desks, right in the lobby, they sat me down and a dude put a mask on and motioned to my sleeves, telling me to roll them up.  I looked back for Kaitlyn or someone, but everyone was preoccupied, so I rolled up my left sleeve and watched him prep.  Because he didn't speak much English he just did it.  No conversation, no, "okay I'm going to stick you now", no nothing.  I closed my eyes when he went in for it, but to my surprise, it didn't feel bad at all!  I got so confident that I looked at him sucking my blood into the vial.  Aaaaaaand then I turned away because it was a bit too much...  I don't know what it is, but I can look at blood and guts on anyone else and stay calm but on myself, I get a little freaked out.  Well, I stood up, proud of myself!  I started walking over to find Kaitlyn, but I felt so dizzy that I had to sit down.  I started to feel tingling and warmth on the back of my neck.  Ohhhhhh no, I thought.  I remember that feeling.  I fainted once before when I was in High School.  We were singing the Hallelujah Chorus in a show and I hadn't eaten or had any water.  It felt like that.  I saw Sunny and said as calmly as possible, "hey, Sunny.  I just wanted to let you know that I'm feeling a little light headed and I think I might pass out."  She raised her eyebrows at me and said, "put your head between your knees?  Do you want water?"  She was so sweet.  I said, "yeah, that might be good, thanks!"  I was starting to feel a little bit better when Peggy told us to follow her.  I guess we were in a hurry, but I wasn't ready to stand up.  I paused and thought about telling them I wasn't ready to stand up, but I opened my mouth and nothing came out.  It was so busy and they were in such a hurry that I just stood up and started to follow them.  I can do it, I thought.  No biggie.  I'll just go slowly.  Well, standing up alone made my head spin and there came the warmth and tingling.  It spread down my back and down my legs as I walked.  Oh, no, I thought, it's coming!  Then my vision started to fade.  I held on as hard as I could, but it was just no use.  It kept getting black and I could barely feel my legs.  I tried to tell everyone I was going to faint, but I'm not sure what actually came out of my mouth.  All I remember was saying, "sorry!".  I felt my knees give way, and then it was black.  I didn't hit my head on the ground because there were people really close to me and with whatever I said plus trying to hold myself upright for as long as possible, I guess it was enough for someone to catch me.  Gosh, I felt so bad!  I remember saying multiple times, "man, my body is such a wimp!".  I almost fainted again when I had to get an X-ray.  THAT was scary.  They put me on a platform and hold onto these metal bars.  If it wasn't bad enough that I felt the tingling and felt like I was fading, the platform started to raise up!  And THEN, the lady told me to hold my breath!  I closed my eyes and gripped onto the bars and held my breath.  I don't know what happened to me, but I don't really remember what happened after that.  I finally got to sit down for a while and they got me some water and a snickers and I felt a lot better.  Yeah, my body is a wimp.


So there was my hospital incident in way too much detail.  Well, we went back to school and taught the rest of the day! I taught AK, which is the 7 and 8 year olds.  It was good.  I am in charge of PE and snack.  It is pretty high energy because it's the fun activity part and it's hard for them all to sit still and listen at times, but they are such cute kids :).  Then I had 6th grade.  Oh boy.  They are a handful.  There are 13 kids, one of the biggest classes at Berhan, and they are crazy.  Well, not all of them.  There are those couple rowdy ones that rile some of the other ones up and make it crazy.  I want to be a fun teacher and do fun things, but I cant if they don't let me get through the lessons!  The first day, we didn't get through a lot of material because I was telling them all the rules and stuff and of course they were trying to see how far they could push me.  One kid, Adam, decided it would be really funny to make inappropriate jokes all through my lesson.  Finally,  I got right in front of his desk and said, "I know why you are laughing.  I was in 6th grade too and I know why you are laughing.  It is not appropriate for school and I will not tolerate it.  I will send you out to a secretary if you make any more of those comments or jokes."  (p.s. almost all of the secretaries are also teachers and discipline like Chinese teachers.  That's right, yelling and bamboo sticks.)  I haven't had any problems with it since!  But Adam really is a great kid, and smart, he's just...loud.  He's actually one of triplets who are all in my class.  His brother is Hank, and his sister is Krista and they look nothing alike!  But I have seen really similar personality traits.  All of my kids are good and know so much!  I have to squeeze it out of them, thought, that's the trick.  After a crazy Wednesday, the Lord blessed me with an AWESOME Friday!  We got through almost all of my planned material and had time to play human knot.  I was so proud!  The girls and boys are so afraid of physical contact it's funny.  It took me 5 or 10 minutes to get them in a close circle, and then another 10 minutes to get them to hold someone's hand across the circle.  But we finally got it and it was great!  I even played some American music, like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift.  They got a kick out of it!  It was great.

We have the greatest thing here at the school, and that is the roof.  It is the best place to pump up music and dance and just mess around!  It's a lovely way to wind down.  If I lived in this place in America, where I wasn't working, I would string the place with colored lights and put in some furniture and have parties up there.  It's the best!  We've taken some fun pictures just being crazy.  Also, guess what?!  There are 2 guitars!!  I'm so excited! I was afraid that I'd have to go 6 months without playing.  Now I can sleep happy  :)

Just messin around

Rain!

...unless I wake up with a swollen face...  Yeah, so here is my last story for this post.  On Saturday, I woke up and my eye didn't feel right.  I couldn't really open it, but I thought it was because maybe I didn't wash off my makeup and my mascara clumped or something.  Nope, I looked in the mirror and my eye was completely swollen.  It was the scariest thing!  I iced it for 15 minutes before I called Gerald and told him I didn't know if I could go to my tutoring appointment.  He arranged for one of the secretaries, Amy, to take me to the hospital.  I was all alone for the first hour I was awake (I woke up a little earlier than everyone else to prepare and shower and such), so by the time the secretaries got to the school, I wasn't freaking out anymore.  That was good because everyone of them that I showed my eye to were horrified and said in broken English, "Ah! You want...hospital?"  I just smiled, and said, "yeah, that might be best".  If I heard those reactions at 7:30 when I woke up, I would be freaking out hard core.  So, Amy took me to the eye doctor.  I was so glad we didn't have to go to the hospital.  We popped in and popped out!  He said there was nothing wrong with my eye, but my skin around my eye.  So he gave me some cream and it helped the swelling go down really fast (and of course, it was super cheap, like $8).  I've been putting it on at night with some gauze and the morning before I head out.  It's magic, I swear!  I will wake up with a little swelling and 30 minutes after I put on the ointment, it's totally gone.  So, I am happy to announce that my eyes are now symmetrical.

Normal sized eye thanks to the magic Asian ointment