Bon Hiver

1. Winter
2. Second grade
3. Holidays

1.

Winter has arrived in Yilan.

Every single adult I spoke with yesterday informed me that, "Tomorrow the weather will change."  I found myself constantly reassuring others that yes, I do own a sweater and yes, it also gets cold in America.

That was yesterday.  Today is definitely colder than yesterday (+1 for the weather bureau) and winter jackets have made their grand seasonal entrance.

And I should mention that by "winter," I mean that the temperature has fallen to a dangerous low of ... ... ... 61 degrees.

While I'm a little disappointed in myself for abandoning the Pacific Northwest tradition of donning shorts as soon as the thermometer hits 60, even I have to admit that it feels really freaking cold out.

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2.

Today, I helped the 2nd graders make Christmas trees using hand cut-outs (think: green Thanksgiving hand turkey dog-pile that sort of resembles a tree).  It was pretty awesome and involved a lot of messy, messy glue.

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3.

Lately, Stacia and I have been discussing the differences between the American and Taiwanese education systems which has been incredibly interesting as the Taiwanese system is modeled after the American system, but is very different.  

A more detailed blog entry for this topic is in the works, but one noticeably major difference is the holiday schedule -- also known as Taiwan's lack of any vacation-warranting holidays that fall before February.  That's right: the semester goes straight from August 31 until January 20.  No Thanksgiving.  No Veteran's Day.  No Columbus Day.  No Christmas.  No New Year's.  No in-service days.  Imagine it.