Ugh, I hate auto-save. I had something really nice typed here, but I accidentally deleted it, and auto-save saved this post. I'll just write something else then .__.
It's been about a month--maybe more--since I came back home from Taiwan, and even longer since I've left Chulu. Unbelievably, there are still lots of memories running around in my mind, so I'm just going to write it all down here. More for my own benefit, since I'm all bipolar and whatnot and I'll probably feel really sad every ten seconds.
Initial Decisions.
God, I can't say how much I initially regretted my decision to go to Chulu this summer, since it meant my missing TAF '10. If you know me, you know that I'm incredibly attached to TAF, and I was pretty much devastated when I found out I wouldn't make it home in time.
But at the same time, there was a kind of relief that I felt when I signed up to participate in this program. I feel like I'm a lot better at being around strangers than people I've known for years, so this program was a way for me to just let go. Oh, and I wanted to get my senior pictures done in Taiwan and buy cheap clothes. I guess that's kind of selfish of me, but I'm not going to deny it. Like, I like charity work (most of it), but I'm not going to lie and say I went to Taiwan to be selfless.
Still, I felt soo much regret just like, sitting in my stomach as the planes took off.
Firsts.
When I first got to the Taipei train station to meet up with the group, I felt so horribly awkward, it's not even funny. I just kind of stood on the sidelines and watched everyone else talk, since they'd already met each other before I met up with them. The train ride was a little better--Jeff had a stack of cards with him, so we all kind of broke the ice with BS, Big 2, and all those other games. oh, and Jeffrylin almost got left behind, because we had so much luggage to carry onto the train between the 9 of us haha. that also broke the ice a little. I also learned how to play euchre...because it's supposedly THE Michigan thing to do..or whatever.
so after the 7 hour train ride, we arrived in Taidong, and it was so effing hot and humid, it was kind of disgusting. This nice pastor came to pick us up and take us to Chulu, which is the little rural town we were going to teach English. We had dinner in the conference room next to the church, and I met one of my first students, Sandy--except at first I didn't know she would be my student. she's so cute :)
So we all divided into groups for teaching the elementary kids: Lisa and Jeffrylin got the oldest kids (5th grade I think?), Jeff and Mr. Tai got the next oldest, Austin and Nicole got the next oldest, and then Evan and I got the youngest. I don't know what grade they were in..I can't count. some were 9 years old and some were 6 years old, so I dunno. they could've been lying about their age anyway. and then for middle school, it was me and Evan with Class A; Jeff, Austin, and Nicole with Class B, and Lisa and Jeffrylin with Class C.
We get kicked out of the conference room at around 10ish, so we're all in mine and Lisa's room trying to decide what to teach the kids when we all see this giant moth flying around. We all freak out and Evan decides to chuck a water bottle at it I think, and it dies. On my bed. And then he can't pick it up with a Kleenex so the moth guts get everywhere. And of course I'm just kind of freaking out so he puts MY pillow over the guts. and who sleeps on a pillow with moth guts on it? Not me. So thank you Evan, I had to sleep on the edge of my bed for 2 weeks.
The next day was our first day of school with the kids. I don't remember much except giving each kid an English name--except Sandy and Tim. Those two were so smart and cute and awesome but then they got moved up to Lisa and Jeffrylin's class because they were too smart. Sad face :(
Evan also accidentally gave the same name to two kids because he forgot what one of them was called. so we had two Williams in our class. Which is okay, because we never really had to call them by their English names anyway, hah.
and after elementary school, we had lunch, and then we had to walk to the middle school. In 1:00 sunlight. it was so freaking hot I wanted to die. There was this kind of assembly thing where the middle school's principal introduced us to the kids, and it felt so awkward 'cause they were all staring at us.
I also can't remember much about what happened at middle school besides assigning names to those who didn't already have English names. it took so much time I think that's all we did anyway. one of the kids named himself Lady Gaga hahha. he was kind of an ass the first day--him and Willy. I went back to the inn kind of dreading teaching middle school.
I don't remember exactly what happened that day after middle school, just that we had dinner somewhere, and planned for the next day's lesson plan.
Week 1 at school...
Teaching the kids got a lot easier--both elementary school and middle school. Lady Gaga was still being annoying during class, but Evan says it's because he wanted my attention. It was somewhat flattering but frustrating at the same time because he would never shut up talking. and then he started corrupting Rock and Jacket (or DJ...I never really figured out what his English name is) who were pretty good kids at first. But Willy got a lot nicer after we used his desk for the overhead projector and he had to move away from Lady Gaga. Kevin joined our class on the second day and he was almost as annoying as Lady Gaga, but he got nicer as time went on. I think the middle school kids warmed up to us more after the first couple days..especially when we started bringing our laptops to class--probably because it gave us stuff to talk to them about other than school stuff.
Michael also had a bunch of temper tantrums in class throughout the week. Actually, all the kids except Shy William and Kim were always arguing during class and yelling what I think were bad words at each other. Michael at one point told me to go die, which was kind of sad, but he told me later that he was just kidding. The elementary kids started calling me and Evan Mommy and Daddy and asking for piggyback rides and playing hide-and-seek. When they play hide-and-seek it's soo cute because they ALWAYS hide in the same places but they're still so entertained by it.
After School! (Week One)
We went into the city (Taidong) on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday after class (I think?) to get our glamour shots/senior pictures taken. The guys were supposed to go first but since none of them thought about bringing their own clothes, Lisa, Nicole, and I went first. I guess mine turned out pretty good, but they didn't burn the fixed pictures onto the CD that they gave me, so now I have to fix them all myself .__.
On Wednesday, the guys took their pictures and we (the girls) chose ours. It's kind of funny how our picture-choosing process took longer than it took for the guys to take their pictures and to choose theirs. oh, the irony. but we lost some time helping the guys choose their outfits. Evan almost took some pictures in his "shui ku" or pajamas, and the stylist people had Jeffrylin try on this shiny suit thing, which was entertaining but wouldn't have made good pictures.
and obviously, the guys chose their pictures on Thursday. it took them like, a half hour. so since it took so little time, we went to some kind of beach place and ate sausage and rice balls. and then we went to this nice restaurant where I had legit bubble tea for the first time since arriving in Taidong woohoo :)
Another day (I think Wednesday?), we went to this sort of vegetable garden place--kind of like Hakone in Japan. Evan and I took a million fail pictures of goldfish eating fish food, but only because we thought it would be cool to macro a fish jumping out of water..which didn't really happen. they just kind of flop all over each other to get the food.
So while we were taking fail pictures, everyone else went in to eat huo guo, and I swear to God everything looked the same. There were like 20 bins of leaves with different names and nobody could tell what the differences were.
I think later that night (or maybe it was another night), it started raining really, really hard and we were all kind of freaked out. But thennn, Jeff and Jeffry decided to run through it to see who was faster. it was so ridiculous :P
anyways, mine and Lisa's room became like the place where everyone gathered at night to play cards and watch TV and eat and stuff, and probably because the door was opening and closing all the time, we got a lot of flies in our room. Lisa got a funny video of Jeffrylin and Evan trying to kill a couple of flies. They were throwing water bottles everywhere (Evan chucked a water bottle at my foot once) and at one point, Evan picked up the fan and tried to corner a fly--it was such a BaiChi moment it was so funny.
So because of the flies and working on lesson plans and grading tests, the four of us (Lisa, Jeffrylin, Evan, and I) were always up pretty late. I think Wednesday or Thursday night, a family took the empty room at the inn and I think the parents were drunk because their kid (at least, we thought it was their kid) was wandering around trying to open people's doors at like 1 in the morning. the door to mine and Lisa's room wasn't locked, so we saw the doorknob turn and the door open a little bit and we all like, freaked out. Apparently Evan and Jeffrylin's door wasn't locked either, so we think the kid got into their room, but nothing super important was stolen, so that's good. That night though, Mrs. Chou heard all the doors opening and closing and thought it was us, so she came to check on us. We told her about the kid and she told us how this sometimes happens in rural areas like Chulu. She said how some kids' parents are always drunk and passed out on the floor, and the kids don't want to risk waking them up because they'll get beat, so they just go hungry and wander around on the streets at night. Some of them actually signed up for the summer school program because the school can provide a meal for them at least. Some of the others didn't even have parents at home because the parents ran off and left them with their grandparents. I think this really made me realize how lucky I am to have everything I have, like a good family, a house to live in, food to eat everyday. Up until now I've never really comprehended that I've taken so many things for granted that a lot of these kids might never have in their entire lives.
Slipping and Falling Craziness.
On a lighter note, Friday was a pretty crazy day. The night before, Evan and I decided we wanted to teach the elementary kids numbers, and that war (the card game, not the actual thing) would be a good way to do it. But that morning, Evan spilled milk tea on the floor, so we were late to elementary school since we had to clean it up. Since we were in such a hurry, I just went in my flip flops instead of my sneakers. Turns out we forgot to bring the cards we were gonna use for war, and Lisa and Jeffrylin forgot some teaching material too, so Jeffrylin runs back to the inn to get it. But he forgets to bring the cards, so I'm just like okay I'll go get it this time. Lisa and Jeffrylin's classroom was on the second floor, and Mary and Jessica wanted to go with me to get the keys for my room (each room only had one key, so Lisa kept the key for us). So I'm walking down the hallway and there's puddles everywhere because it rained the night before, and I think Jessica almost slips, but she's holding my hand so she doesn't fall, but right after that, I fall, because my flip flops don't have the grippy things on the bottom. I guess I smacked my head on the floor pretty hard too, because it hurt like hell and the school nurse said it was all red. I just sat in the nurse's office for the last half of class because my head was throbbing and Mrs. Chou needed to make sure that I didn't barf or anything, because that would mean something bad happened to my brain.
and of course my parents freaked when they found out and now my ENTIRE family knows that I smacked my head on the ground, because they all keep asking me about it. hm. ._.
Green Island.
After the big Friday fiasco, we went to Green Island for the weekend. this nice tour guide guy--he told us to call him Xiao Pang (English translation is roughly Little Fatty)--came to pick us up in Chulu to go to the harbor.
The boat ride to the island was horrible. there were people barfing all around me and it was smelly and it made my breakfast come up a little. Nicole and Lisa got pretty sick also--both of them barfed twice. The three of us were feeling pretty bad when we got to Green Island, so we just kindof passed out in the visitor center before lunch. not that we could really eat anything.
After lunch we checked into our hotel--the Lu Shan Ho Tel. haha. girls in one room and guys in another. we got a shitty room while the guys got a nice one. there was a random rusty drinking fountain in the corner and there was a missing ceiling tile in the bathroom and the bathroom itself was just scary. the beds were really hard too, so we all woke up Sunday morning with sore backs :(
That afternoon, Lisa and I went shopping around for dresses and things, and then we went snorkeling in the ocean. basically, I hated it. everyone had to wear those stupid scuba suits and it was like, a million degrees inside the suit and it was horrible. and then there's those stupid masks where you can't breathe out of your nose. like wtf, I'd like to breathe the way I want to. and then the annoying scuba guy kept mocking me when I freaking CHOKED ON WATER. asshole.
so yeah, Lisa and I were pretty miserable the entire time, so we were pretty happy to be done and just go to dinner. We all went to this barbeque place for dinner. It was one of those all-you-can-eat sort of places, so people were all doing that dick thing where one person from the group hogs the refrigerator while other people hand them empty plates. It took pretty much a million years to get our food, and then a beetle decided to fall in the cooking dish, which was kind of funny but kind of scary at the same time because we were all like wtf just fell out of the sky. I thought Austin and Nicole threw something at us haha. then Jeff picks it up with chopsticks and just like tosses it behind him, and guess where it lands? on some guy's leg. poor guy...
oh, and Jeff ate chicken butt.
After dinner, we walked allll the way back to our hotel, and we just sat around playing cards and watching Wolverine until 11ish, when Xiao Pang came to pick us up to take us to a hot spring. it was an interesting drive, we had to go to some place on the other side of the island, so we had to drive through and around some mountains. the hot springs were kind of disappointing--probably because there were just so many people around and that it was salt water.
the hot springs weren't totally useless I guess..since my bathroom was so creepy, I got to take a nice (not really) shower there. so at least I was semi-clean for the night.
Like I said earlier, we woke up the next morning really really sore, because the beds were ridiculous and horrible :( So after a nice and painful morning of forcing the guys to once again wait for us, we went touring around the Island. We saw the big jail that all the really bad guys go to, a shrine (or maybe it was a temple?), a temple (where I got like, 5 bug bites within 2 seconds. sad face), a former prisoner/inmate place, a memorial, and some landscape (a rock that looks like a puppy and Sleeping Beauty, etc). We also drove by the island's only gas station multiple times.. yay! After the tour, Xiao Pang gave us all these cute jingly key chains :) Mine will be on my keys shortly. and then we went back to the beach, and played with rocks! and then we had to get on the boat :(
The boat ride back wasn't as bad as the last time--no one around me barfed, as far as I remember, though I did feel a little sick anyway. But that's okay, because Jeff, Austin, Jeffrylin and I ended up playing euchre in the back room. And we also saw a bunch of flying fish. it's kind of cute how excited Asians get when we see flying fish xD
We got back to the mainland around 5 PM, and it was exhausting. At this point, I don't really remember what we did that night. Probably just ate a buffet dinner, watched some TV, and played cards.
Part Two coming soon...ish.
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