A turkey and a turtle

"When the turtle wears a hat, Yilan people say it will rain.  This method has proven incredibly accurate over the years, as whenever the turtle wears at hat, rain soon falls on the Lanyang plains."

This past Thursday was Thanksgiving.  I have much to be thankful for.  I spent the day working with 7 of my besties and a very complacent group of Luodong 5th graders at English Village, which was followed by a feast of food court sushi and KFC -- deep-fried, non-MSG chicken being the closest we can get to turkey in Yilan.

The holiday wasn't a total bust, though, as Fulbright threw us not one but TWO Thanksgiving feasts in the week leading up to the official glutton day.  The first party was hosted by the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT, aka the "not embassy") at a few diplomats' apartment complex in Taipei.  They served us an incredible traditional Thanksgiving buffet, complete with turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin pie and pecan pie.  So wonderful.

A few days later, on Thanksgiving eve, Fulbright threw us yet another Thanksgiving feast here in Yilan.  After partaking in a traditional Taiwanese tea ceremony, we went to a traditional Taiwanese restaurant for another 10-course meal (quite the norm here, apparently) that was also wonderful, filling, and full of the freshest local specialties.

Today, we attacked another feast of fresh-from-the-docks seafood.  Parker's LET (Local Taiwanese English teacher) Sherri invited us along on one of the season's last tours of Turtle Island, off the coast of Yilan.  It took us about 40 minutes to reach the island by boat and then another 20 minutes to circumnavigate the entire island before disembarking.

The northern tip of Turtle Island houses a giant underwater sulphuric hot spring -- one of only 4 in the entire world.  The hot spring water is bright bright blue especially as compared to the deep blue of the rest of the sea, ridiculously hot and also wreaks of bad eggs.

The light blue hot spring water meets the sea

Turtle Island is also home to a pretty cool military base that's mostly comprised of tunnels and secret hide-outs carved into the island.  It was all a little too "Shutter Island"-y for me, though.

Creepy lookout base

Creepy dock

Creepy tunnel, creepy boys

I was trying to lessen the creepiness...

Pretty unsuccessful.  This tunnel's still pretty creepy.

Creepy spiky ceiling!

Thankfully, I wasn't ditched at the Island in true "Shutter Island" insanity fashion.  After exploring the military base (note: military bases are not conducive to much exploration.  Our "guide" Sherri got in trouble for not watching us close enough after we wandered off), we headed back to shore and were greeted by another 10 course seafood meal, which was more than enough food for the 13 of us Turtle Island adventurers. 

Thanksgiving

I made this little video in honor of Turkey Day in Taiwan.  It's pretty silly -- filled with wonderful people and lots of fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2twEVEUsiw

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!!!

I'm in Miami, trick

As much as I hate to mentally associate Snooki with the education of young and impressionable children, I'm excited to say that I have officially accepted an offer with Teach for America (TFA) as an elementary school teacher in Miami, Florida!  I was originally assigned to Atlanta but encountered a major summer scheduling problem after a week of frantic emailing and early morning phone calls, I was reassigned to Miami-Dade. I'm disappointed to lose my placement in Atlanta, I'm getting used to the idea of spending my Saturday mornings lounging on the beach...While Miami-Dade wasn't at the top of my list, it definitely wasn't anywhere near the bottom and, most importantly, I'll be teaching elementary school!  Love me them little ones.

Having the next two years of my life semi-planned is a huge relief.  Now I can relax and focus on life here!

A.I.T. (the "not embassy") hosted a big Thanksgiving dinner party on Friday for all the American diplomats and Fulbright crew living in Taiwan.  The food was, as always, incredible and it was great to see the whole Fulbright group again.  Another Yilan ETA dinner has been organized for this Wednesday night at a traditional Taiwanese food restaurant in town -- meaning no turkey but 10 courses!

A bunch of us took advantage of being in Taipei and went to see Harry Potter 7 in a real theater and IT WAS AWESOME!!! It was especially awesome because Yilan's only got a crappy 4-screen movie theater with sound that's always just a liiittle off, so seeing it in a nice theater made it seem really super impressive (rather than just regular super impressive).

The rumors are true: things mold here.  Not just food, but clothes, shoes, other things... If mold can grow on it, it will.  To counter the mold attack (so far my only casualty has been my backpack, although my purple heels were almost fatally wounded last week) I bought a bunch of little dehumidifiers and some anti-fungus laundry detergent.  I also bought a new backpack which made me realize how crappy my old backpack actually was, silver lining much?

Trick or treat!

Dear Blog,

Sorry I’ve abandoned you.  Please take me back.

Maria



My life in Taiwan has definitely settled into a rhythm - work, tutor, study, sleep.  In between, of course, there’s lots of good eating, talking and cultural exchanging.

Despite my awesome wolf costume ("I am NOT a husky, I'm a wolf!"), my kids weren’t as excited about Halloween as I would’ve hoped seeing as I was feeding them straight-up sugar while talking about zombies.  We watched the Nightmare Before Christmas, ate candy, and learned the three most important Halloween-related words of all-time: TRICK OR TREAT (which is now shouted in my classroom whenever my kids catch me sneak eating the left-over Halloween candy... not that happens very often or anything....).

Lately, I’ve been teaching a lot of storytelling classes -- 40 minute self-contained lessons that I create based on an English language storybook.  I LOVE storytelling classes, I try to make them as fun as possible to encourage the kids’ interest in English.  While I can usually avoid using Chinese while teaching my 6th grade classes, speaking the language really comes in handy when teaching the younger grades.  We draw pictures, act like animals, and use homemade paper telescopes to “Look left! Look right! Look at the sky!  Look at the ground! Look ALL around!”

Since finishing our pen pal project, my 6th grade English club students and I are starting work on our next big objective: Gu Ting TV!  We’re going to be conducting interviews with students and faculty on such intriguing topics as “What’s your name?” and “What color is it?”  It should be fun.  So far, the only worthwhile moment I’ve managed to capture on video is my student, Ting, accidentally tipping over a desk:

There's also this gem of an audition:

The weather has been unusually amazing here these past couple days -- meaning, IT’S NOT RAINING (like it is now. damnit).  Scootering an hour each day in the pouring rain really makes one appreciate 1. anytime that it isn’t raining, and 2. scootering anytime that it isn’t raining.  I am now the proud owner of an Yilan rainjacket -- a full-length GIANT raincoat with an unintentionally 80’s color scheme.  As you can imagine, I look pretty awesome when I scooter.

Typhoon Megi brushed by Yilan a few weekends ago (http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/10/22/typhoon-megi-taiwan-china.html), spurring a 3-day typhoon weekend of flooding, rock slides and general destruction.  While Yilan City incurred some flooding, it was the surrounding farmlands and southern townships that got hit the hardest.  Safe and dry in our apartment, we didn’t realize the extent of the damage until worried calls began coming in from the states - apparently, Yilan had made American news headlines.  

Although the rain was gone by Saturday, many local Yilaners had been evacuated and many were displaced after losing their homes.  The creepiest news to emerge in Megi’s aftermath: an entire tour bus went missing somewhere along the coastal highway and the only clue to its fate was an arm that was later found on the side of the road. AHHHH!!!!!  On a less creepy note, the Yilan ETA crew are luckily all safe and sound.

The rain’s been reminding me a lot of the good ol’ Pacific Northwest.  I’ve been living almost entirely off cereal for 2 weeks by choice.  Yes, I think there is a problem with this.  No, I am not worried.  See what 3 months of rice can do to you?  On especially rainy days (aka every other day), I find myself longing for a good cold microbrew and a hot cup of real coffee.  Ah, all that is good in the PNW.

I’ve been distracted lately with thoughts beyond Taiwan, mainly, “What the F am I going to do after Fulbright ends in June???”

And... I’ve almost arrived at an answer: I will hopefully be moving to Atlanta, GA as an elementary school teacher and Teach for America 2011 corps member!  Even though I’m SUPER EXCITED about my TFA placement in Atlanta, I haven’t been able to officially accept the position due to scheduling conflicts.  So there’s still a pretty big chance I’ll be re-assigned to a new region , but until then, my heart belongs to the ATL.