At it again

It may be hard to start anew, but we often forget the lessons of the past and are thus allowed to move forward with more rewarding mistakes. I am "at it again" writing this blog, which begins in in December because I accidently erased it. I am "at it again" living abroad because I I erased from my memory the continous miscommunication and confusion of it. Luckly you can sit back in the comforts of your native language and culture and enjoy my adventures, hopefully with a laugh or snicker.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Hot calm afternoon

So I often don't have a lot to do on Friday afternoons. I am at co-school and thus away from my resources and because we have meetings everyother week I have no classes. Someone told me once that I should be interacting with students, which I do a bit, but it's hard to talk to students who don't speak English and laugh at your Chinese for 3 hours. Today I watched the 6th grade practice dragon dancing. That's actually pretty cool kinda like seeing the backstage rehersal of a play, but I teach all the students so I know them. The coach then lectured them and hit one kid in the face. I may have mentioned that hitting kids does not have the definitive no on it the way it does in the US. This wasn't a hard hit, more like batting a cat on the nose. Still very affronting to have someone put their hand in your face.

I then watched art class and tried to talk to kids. Most wouldn't respond, some couldn't stop laughing when I asked how old they were. Pretty funny. Now I'm sitting here contemplating that covering myself in talc has done little good in this heat and humidity and I'm wondering what I will do through the summer. Perhaps I will write more from an air conditioned haven. Perhaps I will have nothing to write because I don't leave my air conditioned haven.

Dad comes in tomorrow. We have a lot planned with the help of my teacher. I must say though, this country would not be very accesible if I didn't have Taiwanese friends to help. It took Roxanna and I nearly all afternoon to book a room at the promisedland, a hotel my mum was project manager on (after I tried on my own) and a rafting trip, and Roxanna is Taiwanese! Hopefully everything will go fine and my Dad will get from the airport without mishap.