Happy 4th

So even though the 4th of July is not celebrated in Taiwan, it most definitely was celebrated today. I taught them about the importance of the 4th of July and about the flag so in the morning we did a color search for the colors red, white, and blue. In the afternoon I taught a science lesson about fireworks and we watched clips of firework shows from all over the world (all but one of the clips were for New Year's, not the 4th, but I warned them about that so it's okay). Then in the afternoon I taught about watermelon and showed them my watermelon basket and then they made their own watermelon basket out of play dough. I'm pretty sure that they enjoyed all of it. Especially since the room was colorfully decorated and I passed out candy in the middle class.

And to go out of order... I went for a run with Natalie. She told me that she wants to try to catch a cockroach. I was scared that she was one of those weirdos who is apposed to killing bugs because they are living creatures too. When she asked if they were hard to catch I thought if she found one in her room that she would catch it and put it outside. I was fully ready to call her an idiot and let her know that what is outside will definitely come back in again. Good thing I help off on that comment because it turns out that she's a weirdo for a totally different reason. Apparently she wants to catch a nasty bug and send it to her friend who's on a mission in Mexico. I guess he sent her some nasty critter so she has to send on back? I don't quite know. Anyway, I told her that I knew the perfect bug that she could catch, but I'd tell her about it later. I told her this right after we had run under two large spiders. She asked if I knew where to find one of these bugs. I laughed (way harder on the inside then on the outside) and told her I was positive of where we could find some.

At lunch I spent my time making play dough for the afternoon lesson and then we had a teacher meeting. I want to witness one of Natalie's lessons because the Chinese teachers didn't have anything to tell her. Maybe I was just a terrible teacher at the beginning.... let's all go with no on that one, okay? Oh well, I didn't get ragged on in this meeting so I don't mind if they didn't rag on anyone else either.

After class I had to clean up all of my decorations. Kristy came in and asked me why I was taking them down. I told her that tomorrow is not the 4th of July, so I have to take down the decorations. But, thinking about it now, the school has Christmas decorations up everywhere so why not leave these up too? Oh well, it's too late now, they're already down.

Because it's the 4th of July, Luke and Kaylene talked to some of the people at Hualien University and they organized a group to get together and have a bar-b-que and fireworks at the beach. They left with Natalie right after class. I had tutoring at 7pm and so I couldn't go. I am a little bit disappointed in not being able to go, but on the other hand, it is kind of nice to have some quiet time. Natalie has a lot of questions and I'm not quite patient enough to want to answer all of them. Plus, with this being the first week back teaching after almost a week and a half off, I'm pretty warn out. (I know I would have had the energy to go if I had the chance, but I'm trying to make myself feel better about missing it, okay?)

But I'm glad that I got to go to the Chou's house tonight. Nancy loved tutoring them and so I asked Yuling if I could take over. I know why Nancy loves them. They are so nice. As soon as I got there the oldest daughter offered me some lemonade that her mom had just made fresh. And after tutoring the mom had dinner waiting for me at the table. The kids are adorable and so the 1 hour and 45 minutes session (split between 3 kids) goes by pretty quick. Mmmm... the mom not only fed me, but she sent me home with some organic grapes. They taste like the ones that I picked two Septembers ago when I lived in Arcadia. For the life of me I can't remember the name of the crazy girl that was my roommate and went foraging for fruit with me. Anyway the grapes we picked tasted like grape flavored candy. It sounds retarded but if you think about it, grape flavored candy really does not have the flavor of regular grapes, the candy is much stronger and sweeter. That's what these grapes taste like.

I got home from tutoring and the other three roomies aren't back yet. It's not really worth the bike ride to go try and see if I can make it out in time to see some fireworks. Plus, I still have 2 scripts to memorize by tomorrow at 6:30am and I haven't even really looked at either of them yet. Dang shoot. But honestly- to give them to me on Thursday afternoon knowing that I teach all day long, can they really expect that much out of my performance tomorrow? The answer is yes, and don't worry, I will have it worked out by tomorrow, which is why I should probably stop now.