Death of the Dinosaurs

So on my run today, it was bitter sweet... Natalie didn't come again, this time she just didn't wake up (well, I saw she was awake, but not getting ready, that's why it was okay to leave her) and I can't decide if it's okay that she never comes or if it's eventually going to get boring running by myself. That's not the real bitter sweet though, this is. I did the Sun Trail run today in 20 minutes. I wasn't even pushing the pace or anything, I thought I was going pretty leisurely because I was sore from yesterday's run. So, way to go that I cut the 30 minute run down to 20, but sad story because that means the trail I've been running every morning to get into shape isn't really all that helpful because it's really not all that far. I'm sure hoping that the phrase "something is better then nothing" applies to my run, but I guess I'll have to extend it from now on.

Yuling wasn't at school today because she had her baby. I wonder if it's okay if I go over and visit her sometime within the next month. Remember, she can't leave her room so I would have to go over. I'll give it at least a week, and then I'll ask Steffanie what she thinks.

My lessons were super mediocre today. I taught about computers and we sent Nancy an e-mail during class. When Teacher Josh left I did a lesson on mail carriers and so we wrote him a letter. This morning as I was thinking about what to teach about computers, I realized that we could send Nancy an e-mail. I love when lessons work out like that. And, the computer lesson was a lot less dull then I thought it would be so that's a plus.

The second lesson was on tying knots. But, I looked at a copy of the lesson plan with both Natalie's and my lessons on it and it turns out that Natalie taught knot tying on Tuesday or something like that. So I had to try and teach new things about knots, she had already taught them the basics, like how to tie a simple knot. Luckily my brain works way off in left field and so I was able to improvise. I tied five different knots into string and rubber tubing to show that you don't just need string to tie knots (I would have tied more things but we didn't have anything off hand in the storage room). The 5 year olds loved it when I showed them that I could even tie my hair in a knot and all the girls wanted me to tie their hair. So I did, I had some definite time to kill. The 3 and 4 year olds loved that I had a balloon that I needed to tie in a knot to keep the air in. In both classes I ended by telling them that we can tie humans in a knot and we played the get to know you came where you grab hands and get all tangled up and then have to work to get unraveled. The 5 year olds were terrible at the game and so I had little hope in the 3 and 4 year olds but it turns out that the 3 and 4 year olds rock at that game. Way to be!

Whatever we had for lunch today was not good. There was something really bitter in it and it was not my favorite thing. But it was still free lunch and so of course I ate it. After eating I went upstairs and decided I would take a little nap. Well, my little nap turned into an hour and a half nap and I woke up 25 minutes before class. Good thing I already had all my information found.

And it's a good thing that we combined classes in the beginning to show a clip of the movie "Dinosaurs" and that we had to finish digging out the fossils we had made yesterday because I could not have taught a 45 minute lesson on the death of dinosaurs. I had asked Yuling to get a bucket of dirt/dust so that I could throw a big rock into it and show how the dust goes into the air. Well, I definitely understand that she was preoccupied and forgot, but that meant that I was going to have to teach the whole time and didn't have my demonstration, didn't have a craft, and didn't have a game (granted, I'm sure I could have invented a game super quick). So between the movie and finishing the fossils, I only had to teach for 15 minutes. Okay, I had 15 minutes worth of information, so that worked.

After school I tutored Kristy and her book had TERRIBLE English. I guess the true point in her progression right now is that she is able to read, and not necessarily understand and so I didn't bother to point everything out to her, but I sat there with a confused look on my face wondering how this book got published. For one thing, they spelled "forest", 'orest' they just plain old left off the 'f' and there were so many other things wrong that it's not even funny (although it is a little bit funny).

Then I worked on and finished my evaluations for the week so now my lesson planning and my evaluations are done :o) Then I went online and got the last pictures off of the website. So now all the pictures I wanted from Thailand are on my computer and even have captions on them so I can recall what was going on in the picture and where we were. I have not as of yet gotten them put together to put online, but I am so much closer then I was a week or so ago when I first set out to get my pictures.

I tutored the Chou family tonight and they fed me, so that was great. All the little boy wants to do is play games, but then he gets mad that I always win. I was going to try to lose sometimes, but he tells me that I always win and when I said, "well, I might get one wrong" he told me no. The little girl can't read and she memorized this one line from somewhere and she always wants to say "they will go to the train station" Where that came from, I have NO idea, but she always wants to read that, even where there are no trains in the story. The oldest girl reads articles and wants me to help her define the larger words. Sometimes it's really hard to figure out how to explain words. Take "added" for example... "with no experience and the added fact that she was a woman...." Okay, I finally figured out how to explain it, but it was hard to articulate it at first, it's added!

On my bike ride home it struck me how awesome it is that I'm in Taiwan right now. I guess that having someone here who doesn't think that life here is simple and easy and natural has made me look at it again. I still think it's so natural to be here right now, but I looked up at the mountains with the house lights running up the side (my favorite view) and thought about how cool it was that I live here and how funny it is that I feel so comfortable just riding my bike around Taiwan at night. Ahhhh.... I love it!