end of class one

so my first tl (english) class has officially ended.  the kids have moved on, i've made my money, and everything's great.  i meant to get  picture of everyone, but totally forgot for a few days and then it was too late =(

classes are going really well, sat is done on monday and they took their final diagnostics today.  i already got the grades back, there was at least a 200 point improvement for all but one student, most kids were up in the 300 range and i think my biggest improvement was almost 500. i think those are above average results, that's exciting. other than that, business as usual. they haven't told me what my schedule is looking like for the next month, if i cared about planning ahead that would really bother me, it means you have to save a lot of money because who knows how much you'll be making during the next pay period.  that should change if/when i become a regular employee.

i bought lots of things for my apartment, like a quilt, some art, throw pillows and blankets, etc.  i also bought things to make my own art because i wanted a big decoration to hang up on my wall downstairs, but that's expensive so i bought some cardboard, ikea fabric, and spray paint. how hard can art be, i majored in science.

in related news, i went to ikea! i've gotten over my whole "i want everything from ikea" kick, and have moved on to just wanting to live *in* ikea. they have food, places to sleep, fancy bathrooms, what else would i need?  work is only like a 15 minutes walk away too! it's a foolproof plan really.

other weird news: so i hadn't gone to the gym for a while. i walked past it a few days ago, and it was gutted. like nothing inside, walls torn down, even the stairs were gone, how does that even happed? turns out they moved a block closer to where i work, so that's nice.  they expanded their third floor facilities apparently. smart move, should save a lot on rent.  i should take pictures of that place one of these days.

i also think i'll upload pictures of my place soon, i rearranged all the furniture and like it more now.  i'll try to get on that this weekend if more exciting things don't happen. if they do though, i'll just write about those. win-win!

work: week 2

work is going so smoothly now! everything’s been getting easier and easier as the class builds a little bit of camaraderie and I figure out a teaching system that works for me. I’ve been on top of preparing my lessons, grading things and pretending I’m a real teacher! it’s been a really nice job so far, and everything’s going smoothly. I teach two classes this month, and we’ll see what happens in august. it’s also unclear what’s happening with the full time employment thing, but hey, I have a working visa and maybe an arc (alien resident card) soon, so that’s progress!

also, I just saw harry potter, it came out on the 14th here, so I got to see it like a day before everyone in america in addition to the 12 hour time lag they have. take that die hard fans. made a status, profile picture, and uploaded a photo album just to rub it in.  I’m not a jerk that often, but when I am it just feels so satisfying =p

my apartment is great, work is good, life is progressing nicely. people at work are cool too! making some friends, trying to be nice to people who will still be here when summer ends, potential long term friends.

I guess I’ll leave you with some harry potter pictures!

first day of teaching

alright, so here’s what’s up.

training: during sat training, I will flatter myself and say I was one of the best teachers who wasn’t already employed by tpr. we had a few people who were already trained in mkat or toefl or lsat or whatever, and they were all really comfortable in front of a classroom and did a really good job presenting material.  outside of those 2 people, I think I was the best of the nine, which I was totally happy with. when tl training (targeted learning, aka teaching english) started, people were more comfortable, and the lines started blurring. then on day 3 of training, I got a case of the nerves and didn’t prepare as well as I should have, and gave a sub-average teachback to the class. the trainer, who was scary, and my boss like 3 levels up, was brutally honest about how it wasn’t up to my usual standard.  that naturally made me more nervous the next day, so that one wasn’t great either. finally, I told myself to chill out, I knew how to do this, and things started to get better. I ended up getting ranked 5th in tl training, and put 3rd in line for a tl level a (which mean they’re already pretty good at english). I was a backup teacher, which means right now they didn’t have enough students enrolled to give me a class, but on that last weekend they were hoping enough might signup. I would come monday morning, sit around, and teach if they needed me.  so I might get one class (sat), might get two (sat and tl). two classes get you paid twice as much, and I want that.

I show up monday, and they were so close to the limit it wasn’t even funny. I end up getting a class with 7 kids in it. it’s usually like 15.  so now I have a tl class, and it’s really small! I spend more time getting to know my kids, personalizing the class, and have fewer essays to grade! this is perfect! 

so class monday didn’t go the smoothest, I didn’t have to do sat because they al took a diagnostic instead of learning, but tl I did teach, and I was a little nervous, but it went okay. the kids were really shy, nobody wanted to talk to each other or me, it was basically me talking for three hours.  after the first day though, they warmed up and got into it, mostly after I started telling embarrassing stories, which I have like a million of.  so tl is going great!

sat classes on tuesday I just felt terrible about, I was nervous, I had the second smartest or smartest group, and all class I kept getting looks like, “what, you’re teaching us this?” they’re good at math, and don’t buy into the tricks and tips I’m teaching, which I don’t really blame them for, I didn’t either at first.  things went better yesterday (wednesday), and I’m hoping today will go even smoother. just a matter of me getting more comfortable. 

apartment, job and nicole

oh man it’s been 13 days, shame on me, this job is the biggest time suck I’ve ever seen.

okay so I moved in to the new apartment. it’s waaay bigger than I need, but really nice. the walls got painted light green/honeydew when I wasn’t looking, which I’m not crazy about, but adjusting/ to.  I’ve made a couple trips to carrefour (asian wal-mart) with some friends who helped me carry things (including nicole who has been a wonderful guest and is looking over my shoulder right now).  the basic necessities have been bought and soon will come the decorating when my schedule permits.

the job is fun, but really busy.  so far it’s been pretty rewarding. training is going well and I’m waiting for my first class (next monday).  the co-workers are fun and I officially have friends so that’s really nice.

finally, nicole tegge has come to visit me, which has just been a blast so far and she’s not even reading over my shoulder anymore.  I’m at work for a solid chunk of the day but she has another friend from her ra days who lives in taipei like 10 minutes away from my apartment and he’s showing her the sites, which is great. she’s having a really good time so far, she claims. I guess I believe her. 

so life is going on, it’s good, still having fun, love the apartment, the job should hopefully keep being good, really glad nicole’s visiting, life is great.

omg my life

awesome things just keep happening. i don't even deserve this, life is too good.  there are starving kids in africa who need this luck.

i officially am signed up for my apartment.  it is mine.  all mine.  paint still to be decided, and the move in date keeps shifting around based on the painting times. at first they were gonna paint it, then i was gonna paint it, then i got a call today saying they'd hire someone to paint it. i'm totes fine with that as long as i still get to pick the color, gonna email my landlady maggie and make sure of that tonight.

but that's all humdrum, everyday lucky. let's talk about people flying across the world to hang out with me. i will flatter myself and say that i am 100% of the reason people come here. it has nothing to do with the fact that i am in an exotic super cool country and some people may or may not have scholarships to study here. basically it's all me.  but who cares about reasons, people are coming here!  nicole tegge, my super great ex-resident from the ra days, who has since gone on to her own amazing ra career, is coming for a week staring in a mere nine days. it is going to be only the best times, there will be housewarming parties, re-exploring all the best parts of taiwan, and awesome adventures. god willing i have a place to live by then lol.  could not be more excited.

in fact, the only event that could possibly rival this for excitement is if chris dosch (awesome kid from my major i regret not getting to know 3 years earlier), eric patterson (kid i met at a conference which was one of the best weekends ever), and some other guy (chris's friend who i'm sure is awesome) were coming.  what's that, they just booked tickets and will be here in november for nine days? hell yes. make no mistake, that is going to be an epic week.

other than that, just life as usual, found a great little bar with free pool and darts right near work, took a bunch of tpr kids out there, had a blast. today was happy hour all day, so that was nice too.  fun couple hours.  i can't even handle my life right now, all i do is exciting things when i'm not taking standardized tests. which actually takes up a lot of my time haha.  oh well, totally worth it. this is a really rewarding job, it's nice to be try out working hard. and i made friends with the work hard group who hangs out after work to do more work and be a little study group, that's new for me and actually surprisingly efficient.  if only i had done this in college lol

apartment update

okay, so i didn't get to sign the papers for my place yet, but it seems like she's not waiting to give it to someone else. she's just not in a huge hurry because the place has to get painted before i can move in and why bother rushing?

everything i see now, i'm keep wondering if i could use it to decorate my place. like i'll be in restaurants and see a bamboo wall art thing, or some really cool lights, whatever.  i was really excited about how my dorm finally ended up looking at the end of senior year. i didn't take a picture of it, but it was just classy as hell. i want this place to look even better.  (joey, maybe i'll make another table lol)

i'm going over color schemes, looking at cool lights i can make myself, thinking about making my own art (how hard could it be lol), so many things. gill, who deserves a post in his own right, he's a really interesting guy, says he'll give me/sell me cheap his projector, so i could set up like a really sweet thing that could play video off my computer, which just seems like such a good idea considering it's not like i can watch tv anyway lol. i could watch archer all the time! i'm so excited to have my own place is really the moral here.

i don't know if i mentioned earlier, but a girl named nicole, one of my old residents and then a fellow ra and a friend, got a scholarship to study in a university in southern taiwan. she's coming a week earlier than her program starts and she'll be staying with me! i'm super psyched about it, i am planning so many options for things to do. i've found good restaurants, i'm buying extra towels and things, whatever i can do now when i still don't have a place to live. she comes in 12 days, so hopefully i move in pretty quickly.  i might be helping paint because i don't know how long this process will take if it's just her. we can talk about it when we're signing contracts. i'm gonna have to bring one of my new tpr (the princeton review) friends as a translator.  it's really embarrassing, everyone who just got here speaks better chinese than me, either they're an abc (american born chinese, apparently it's a big acronym here, hope it's not offensive? i heard other people using it. what if it's one of those things where they can use it but not me?) or like double majored in chinese and something else.  it's a good reason to work harder at it i guess lol.

i take back the april fools’ thing

so does everyone remember the april fools’ day post where i lied about finding a super great job and an apartment that cost maybe a little more than I wanted to spend but it was amazing and I was super glad I got it?

well all that actually happened so just ignore that whole joke thing.

I’m a week into my job, and it’s exactly what I wanted, it’s structured, challenging, it demands everyone’s focus and best effort, and it pays really well. also I’m good at it. apparently I’m a fun and engaging teacher, and I just need to make sure I prep my boardwork and express the main points of the page clearly, which is an easy fix. the fundamentals are all there, or so I’m told. I recorded myself and thought it looked pretty good, and the feedback from other teachers and the instructors is positive.

and bonus, i buckled down when the job started and looked at apartments farther away than I originally wanted (at ice’s suggestion), and found that if you looked in a certain area (ice’s suggestion), everything was 5000 NT a month (almost $200) less than they would where I had been looking before!

bad things: 1)  it’s about 12000 nt ($400) per month, which was close to the upper end of what I wanted to spend, but really, assuming i actually get enough hours and then get full time employment at the end of the summer, it’s well within my means. it’ll hopefully be about a sixth of my salary every month, which should give me a lot of savings. maybe enough to make a quick tour of southeast asia at the end of my trip, and even live the dream and do the kung-fu-school-in-the-mountains-of-china thing. 2) it’s not really the clean, sleek, western looking place I originally wanted. you can tell it’s been lived in. little things, like baby mickey mouse stickers all over the bathroom walls. things like that. I assume I can get those down.  3) it’s like 7 mrt stops away from my job, which means it’s about an 18 minute train ride to work. original goal was walking distance.

good things: 1) it’s huge. when you first walk in, you see just a huge room with couches and a nice little tv, a fridge, some tables, and a mini kitchen.  that huge room is 12 ping, a ping is a measure that’s the size of 2 tatami mats, or 6’x6’. most of the other places I looked at were like 7 ping  which leads to 2) there’s a second floor! there’s a whole separate bedroom in my loft. 3) it’s getting painted whatever color I want! I’m trying to come up with a nice color scheme now, but it’s tricky because I don’t know what color the new furniture they’re giving me is going to be. 4) when I walk out my door, I see the mrt station. it is literally 20 yards away and there’s no street light between me and it. I’m 30 seconds away from a train at any time.  5) it’s near lots of really really cheap food places. admittedly they’re all traditional chinese places, but hey that’ll just get me used to the cuisine I came here for.

so anyway, here's my new place (it better be my new place, we’re supposed to be signing papers on sunday).

tpr day one

so i started my job today! the day was basically training and by training i mean we actually take the sat class and at the end of each lesson we ask questions about how to teach. it seems like tpr has a vision of an ideal teacher and everyone is supposed to mold themselves into it. not a lot of freedom, but i guess that makes sense, they’ve got to provide a consistent experience for the hundreds of kids coming through. teacher is lisa, she’s peppy and nice, and does a good job of keeping you awake by asking questions literally every 15 seconds.  “never say what you can ask,” rule one. right now i’m planning the teachback i have for tomorrow, which means she gave everyone 2 lessons out of the 3 we learned today and you make a lesson plan. gotta plan the whole thing but you only end up teaching like 1/4 of each section and you don’t know which section, no shortcuts.  I figure i write down the boardwork I want to do, study that and then I’ll always know what I’m supposed to be talking about without having to check out a book, at least during the teachback tomorrow, during class who cares. this is where they judge my ability and decide how many classes I get, which will deeply impact my standard of living and if i save a ton of money or next to nothing.  gotta impress tomorrow, no pressure.

also tomorrow: we initiate project: social.

new permanent friends?

job starts in two days! thought i’d try meeting some of the people before the job starts, get a jump start on the social scene, so i stole everyone’s email from a message the boss sent out and set up a dinner/drinks thing with the other trainees that were already here.  a few people came out, we got some japanese food and went out walking and wandered into a club later, it was a really fun night.  i was a little disappointed at the turnout, but the people that came were really nice and probably more fun than the average tpr folk since they all responded and came out.  then again, a near-anonymous email inviting people out is kind of a weird thing to get, so hey, can’t blame em for not coming. 

still psyched about the job, hope everyone’s as cool as the people i already met.

new friends again

so there were some kids who came to the hostel a little while ago and we hung out for a few days. quick summary of what happened:

went out to what must be the only alternative gothy bar in the city. it was amazing, imagine you took hot topic, put in alcohol, and then made everyone inside asian and gave them anime hair. after that was a karaoke bar where you had to do it in public, luckily it was mostly empty and no one actually cared.  I sang cake. and was backup for alanis morisette.  it’s hilarious watching people. try to sing the cake cover of I will survive when they’re used to the gloria gaynor version, if you don’t know what I mean try singing along with this. not easy right?

so the people were really cool. jess, matt, yu-shin, and kaylee. spent more time with matt and jess, but everyone was super nice and fun to hang with. later adventures include going to a real hot spring, all you can eat hot pot (yu-shin is like a 100 pound tiny girl but damn, she can put it away, she had like 3 times as much as me), a loungy bar place, and finally just walked around the city for a bit.  they’re gone now, but that was a really enjoyable diversion.  nice to have something fun before the job starts.

5 days ahhhhh so excited.