goodbye monday

goodbye secretaries..
goodbye jasmine's class! teddy and isabel moved to daxi so they were gone. we kept saying 'teddy!' and then pretending to cry. he was really a joy in our class. they said if anyone else leaves, they're just all going to go on strike.
i'm going to miss those girls! we were like a little group of girlfriends, gossiping and discussing fashion and boys. i always went to class 15 minutes early so we could chat.. half in chinese, half in english. kitty, the one hanging off of me, was louder than the entire class. she and eason would scream at the top of their lungs when we read.
we started off on kind of a rough note but we turned a corner when she entered the speech competition and i went to watch her. we would exchange nervous glances before it was finally her turn.
crazy boys. eason, in the middle, is so outspoken. his old teacher, jameson, called him 'poo poo man' so he would say it 10x a day in our class.
this is my view.
in my little kid class we did the shaving cream spelling game again. they went insaaane. i had shaving cream all over one hand, so i took these pictures with my left hand and my right arm, which is why the flash is kind of screwy.
bill and debby..
neil and becky
look how sweet those boys are! could they be any cuter? far left, jerry (formerly jellyfish), bill (formerly tiger) and scott were the three who would always run away from me and then let me hug them. the kid right in front of me is neil. he's been in our class a few months and he and i have become besties. the one on the far right is ethan, who would break into spontaneous dance.
happy girls. we never bonded like the boys, but they are so fun. so smart and giggly and fun.
week 2..
week 62. look how much jerry has grown! he used to not even come up to my shoulder and now he's past it.
i stood by the door and hugged everyone and they left, and jerry came back through the line 3 times. and neil stuck around to help erase the whiteboard and asked what i would be doing in america. i told him i'd work at the white house. he kept saying the real white house? and then he followed me downstairs to the secretaries to ask them if i was serious. he asked me to write them a letter from america. i think i will.

i've found my strength in you

these are some random pictures from the last couple of days.
i have the creepin crud (scratchy/cruddy throat, achey body, chills, headache) so i went and got a 2 hour massage today at the spa one last time. margaret is 4 months pregnant now! her tummy is pretty big. we had a conversation half in chinese and half in english today! she didn't know i was leaving, but she's very excited. she's going to send me pictures of her baby (we're hoping for a girl) and i'm going to send her pictures of me in DC.

the massage was fantastic. i managed to keep my mind from wandering for the majority of the time, which is always a struggle. every time i go, they've added some more things you can customize. which kind of oil for your foot soak (orange), which kind of spray for your room (nameless chinese stuff), which music (anything without birds), which oil for your body (lemon), which kind of tea (rose).

text message from mr. wang. it says miss megan.. something something america.. something something. mr. wang.
benny drying himself off after he took a bath in the sink after daisy creamed him with tin foil full of shaving cream.
then tonight, a whole bunch of us went to taipei for indian food at this really authentic restaurant down some little side street off of the jungshan denhua stop (exit 3, take a right, take a left at family mart and then right at the next little road. it's on the left). it was kind of my going away dinner. we had a nice time.

the bus ride home was pretty strange. we were the first ones in line for the taoyuan bus and they let the 10 of us on the bus and then stopped the line, so we were the only ones on the bus, even though there were still 20 or so taiwanese people in line. then the bus driver stopped at a light to walk back and count us. then he stopped to ask if we had seen any glasses. then he stopped to show us he had found them, so we all clapped. he was laughing. it was odd. we thought for a minute we were being kidnapped.
that's emily in her taiwan-fab top. she bought me pants from the same store. they're cream colored with red, blue and green polka dots all over them aaaand bows.
i'm still mostly feeling bummed about leaving. i'm sure once i'm home i'll be excited, but for now i'm just sad i'm leaving. i'm proud of myself for getting to the point that i wasn't missing america or my family really since we talk so often. there's been a lot of reflecting on how far i've come this year. i'm just trying to feel my feelings while i'm here so i don't get home and then freak out. done that once already!

p.s. the kid who walked from florida to washington to raise awareness for childhood homelessness emailed me back. i'm going to help him get a letter to the president's desk. it should be easy enough, right? there can't be a bazillion 11 year olds walking up the coasts of america for a cause.

aand this is a video of corey from tongue in cheek on the back of a motorcycle with her husband. if you've never been on a scooter/motorcycle before, you should watch it. he has more guts than me taking those turns so tight. i'm always way in the middle of the road.

goodbye saturday

i am getting so tired of this whole not ever seeing my kids again thing! enough already! i'm glad tomorrow is sunday so i can take a break. i was the first foreign teacher for both of these classes, so they've only known me so far. i'm not sure it really clicked with them that they're going to have a new teacher next week.. but we did have a lot of fun today.
i brought all of the stickers i have left and stuck them all over everyone. there were stickers on the floor, walls, kids, desks, lightswitch.. (this is neely).
daisy! her wish came true: their next teacher is going to be a guy. phil. he's new/awesome. they'll love him.
phina and kiki spelling words in shaving cream.
daisy nailed benny in the face with a whole sheet of shaving cream-covered tin foil as i was taking the picture of their messy hands!
he was not thrilled.we made a biiiig mess in the bathroom. dora's class was one of my favs because it was all little girls (and ian, in the middle). most days, every single kid was wearing something with some pink on it. and vivi always had her bear.
sammy and sandy. try saying their names 3 times fast. we also had vivi and vivian.

messy hands!
after that, i spent 3 hours at the kuo's hanging out with mr. kuo, mr. chen and mr. wang for the last time. i'll see the kuo's on tuesday, but not the trio. if anyone had told me that my best friends in taiwan would be 3 drunken taiwanese men, i'm not sure if i would have believed them. they're the best though.
mrs. chan is all business, but she's great. she's always walking around on a mission and jumping up to make people food and get business done while her husband is laughing and saying hello to everyone. today they kept wanting me to drink and i said no no no, but when she went and got a bottle of wine out of the fridge, i had to. i've never see her drink a sip!
and a saturday without cake is no saturday at all. we had spaghetti that mr. chen brought, green tea, beef stir fry, guava.. and just when i thought i couldn't eat one more bite, mr. chen disappeared for a bit and came back with a bunch of cake. there was no way i was getting out of there without eating the cake, so i just stuffed it into an already full stomach.
they boss me around and make fun of me and hit on me and spoil me. what am i going to do without them?
this is the official megan's favorite cake. cake around the outside and strawberry whipped cream on the inside. yummm!
it makes me teary just to think about not coming back here every weekend. we've had such a good time. (that's mr. kuo's little sister with the pool from the other week).

goodbye friday

goodbye friday! "what happened last week? right, we had a typhoon. well, i was supposed to tell you last week, but i have a new job in america, so this is our last week together." not the ideal way to let my mostly-boys class i'm leaving them. but i don't think they cared tooo much.
cindy was the only one in there i really got close to. during break, she stands beside me and lets me listen to one earphone of her ipod and she plays her favorite songs for me. during class today, she made an improvised going away present.it's a pin, the best note a teacher can receive from a student, and some drawings she ripped out of her QA book. the bottom one is me.
cindy and shirley. shirley has TWO lazy eyes. that makes sticky ball games kind of difficult.

my second class had a demo tonight. we love our demo's in there. we've done 3 together. this is one of my faaavorite classes because the kids are super sweet, eager to learn, and elaine keeps them in line so i just get to be the fun one. don't tell anyone, but eunice, sally, vanessa, jessica, paul, ryan, joseph, kendrick and i used to speak chinese like crazy before class every day.sweet girls! every time they saw me they'd run up and say MEGANNN!! and we walked in a gaggle upstairs to discuss the previous week.
during our demo, they had to try not to blink. these are their 'non blinking' faces.
"wake up, billy! you are late for school!"
"there's no school today, mom! it's a holiday."
"LAAAAZYBONES!"
i couldn't pry them away from the snack table so i just hugged them from behind while they stuffed their faces with shrimp chips and cookies.
ryan, total teacher's pet (in the cutest possible way) made me a card :)
i subbed his brother's class literally a year ago in the first few weeks i was teaching, and he remembered me because we played spoons. they're really fluent in english so it was just like chatting with friends.. a welcome surprise when you're a new teacher.
i almost cried a million times during our demo, but i knew if i started, i probably wouldn't be able to stop. i'm going to miss that class so much. we would just laugh and play games and have fun the whole time. they always wanted to tell me about their lives and show me their new things and ask about my life at home. they're all super smart and just good-natured kids.

p.s. corey over at tongue in cheek wrote a really perfect description of what it's like to ride a scooter, or in her case, motorcycle. she and her french husband are currently on a tour of europe on their motorcycle. she lives in provence but she's an american. i love her writing and spirit.

ying ge with alex

these are the pictures from when alex and i went ying ge and made some pots. his camera is the same as mine but he has some ridiculous zoom lens.


(are you singing aaaaabbaaaaa, aaaba pooottterrrr.. [how does it go, maj?]).
youuu are the pooottterrrr... and i am the claayyyyy.
oh, metaphysical church songs from my childhood.