Nancy's Last Day of Teaching

For Nancy's last day of teaching, she decided that it would be a good idea to get only 4 hours of sleep. Well, it's not like she really thought that it would be a good idea, but she did choose to go sing karaoke at 1:30 am. But it's not like she went alone. Nope, I was right there beside her. Nancy really wanted to sing karaoke in Taiwan before leaving and we were supposed to go with some University students, but I guess they were too scared to really hang out with us, so Ronald said that he would take us (remember? Ronald is our friend that owns the juice stand). I thought that he was joking, but after I ditched Nancy so that I could get into bed, the phone rings and Nancy is telling me that we can either go sing karaoke that night or tomorrow (meaning today). I decided that it would be okay to go at 1:30am this morning instead of Saturday morning because Saturday we're going to Taipei, and even though our train isn't until the evening, I don't want to be staying out all night because we will be staying up Saturday night for sure. I had a massive headache so I figured that I would just pop an Excedrin. That way I could get rid of the headache and had a boost of energy to keep me awake.

Go figure that the one night that Nancy and I decided to go gallivanting at 1:30 am is the same night that the 5 year olds are spending the night at the preschool and so Yuling is sleeping/on guard in her office. We tried to be so quiet, but she heard us anyways. We were already out the gate, but Yuling came out and Nancy waved to her as we left. Um, it was pretty much hilarious. I'm 20 years old, almost 21, and I'm sneaking out of my house. We go to the juice stand and freaking Ronald isn't even done closing yet. I started off way not excited to be going because it was so late and it's kind of lame that only 3 of us are going. So, for him not to be ready did not better my mood at all. We have to wait for a half hour for him to close. Oh yeah, I was not happy. We finally make it over there and as we're crossing the street I realize that it's Thursday morning and I started to highly doubt that too many people would be singing karaoke, so that made me less thrilled about our plans. But wait, it gets better. It turns out that Thursday at 2:30am is a very popular time to sing and so the whole place was full and we couldn't even go.

After racking our brains to figure out something to do that would make it worth sneaking out of our house at 1:30am worth it we finally decided to go play pool. They have these buildings filled with computers that are open all day and night where some pretty sad people spend their life playing computer games. In the back of that sad sad place, there were two pool tables. Um, strike like 33 against this night! We played for less then an hour and I was not enjoying myself. I kept on looking at my clock and realizing that this entertainment was not the hastle of me being out so late when I have to teach 3, 4, and 5 year olds starting at 9am, and I could hardly breathe because the smell of cigarette smoke was terrible. Nancy can have fun in any situation, but I was super bitter about the night and so I had pretty much no fun at all. There were times where I would laugh at something funny, but most of the night I was just thinking about how I should have been sleeping.

Luckily when we came back home Yuling didn't hear us, or she just decided not to come out front and check on us, so we were able to get upstairs without the embarrassment of getting caught sneaking back in.

The lack of sleep didn't really affect me for my lessons, they were as good or bad as they were going to be regardless of how much sleep I got. I was able to use my sock puppet, Marvin the Manatee, today when I was teaching about underwater sea animals. Marvin went over the best with the 5 years olds. They were pretty impressed with themselves that they were able to figure out that it wasn't really my friend, but that it was something put on my arm, but at the end of the lesson Big David said, "Marvin, you are so cute." Marvin went over and gave Big David a kiss on the cheek to say thank you and the whole class said, "So cute, so cute, Marvin, I think you are so cute." They all wanted a kiss from the sock puppet, it was adorable. The 3 year olds were the funniest though, a couple of them realized that it was a puppet and not real and so for the rest of the class, they were watching to make sure that it really was my lips moving and not Marvin's.

At lunch time I went to Yuling's office and had her help me finish translating the itinerary for the trip. Unfortunately, there wasn't a time schedule and so I still don't know when to meet the group (well, I know when to meet them in the airport, but not for the rest of the trip), but I'm really really going to Thailand this week.

After school I tutored, then I cleaned, then I dinked around on the internet, I couldn't do a Chinese lesson because the DVD didn't work, but I got some scripture reading in. But mostly I was cleaning, oh, and a little packing.

I think that Nancy and I are planning to go out tonight, but just to go and get some of the famous dumplings one more time before she leaves, I don't think we'll do anything much more then that.

And this is going to be my last blog for a while. I go to Taipei tomorrow, spend the night there, then I'm in Thailand for 5 days, and then I'm in Taipei for 4 days. Wow, yeah, it'll be fun trying to catch up on that time when I get back :o)