This has probably been the most overwhelming week of my life–a mixture of excitement, anger, frustration, homesickness, disappointment, and yumminess. The past two weeks have seemed so competitive, as we try to impress and get to know the LETs that we like and hope that they will choose us as their ETAs. Unfortunately, many of us liked the same LETs which made it even worse.
On Wednesday, we found out who would be paired with each other for the rest of the year. It became quite evident that the process was completely biased in favor of males and more Western-looking individuals. Of course, I fit neither of these requirements. I can honestly say that I’ve never felt more discriminated against than being in the Philippines and in Taiwan. As it turned out, I did not end up with any of my original top choices for LETs, unlike many of my Western-looking counterparts who had a slight advantage.
After that crazy process, we had to also find out who our new roommates would be. Lucky for me, I got placed with Deborah again! It really has been such a blessing to live with her because we get along so well and we are also both believers. So, that night, after going to the Luodong Sports Park for their annual Chinese Valentine’s Day celebration, I had to pack up all of my stuff and move the next morning to Yilan City.
Once I dropped off all of my stuff with the great help of my LETs, Amy and Lisa, we went to the school that I’ll be teaching at to start preparing for the new year and to meet all of the staff. We began decorating the new English classroom and lesson planning for the first day with the students! Despite feeling shafted in the decision making process, I know that I was meant to be placed with Amy and Lisa as my co-teachers. Amy is so sweet and I’m so glad to have gotten to know her better. After decorating, she invited me to meet her friend and took me to this great cafe in Yilan! She also helped me find a birthday gift for a friend and has been more than welcoming and hospitable.
I’m excited for the new year, but this week has seriously been insane.
Aug25
The past weekend, I finally was able to stay in Luodong and experience a bit of normalcy. On Saturday, Deborah, Kat, and I went to Dong Shan Water Park for the annual Yilan Rain Festival. We watched a Chinese acrobat performance and screamed into a random megaphone that made water shoot into the sky. At the end of the show, there was an amazing fireworks show, comparable to a Fourth of July show in the States, with Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” playing in the background. Too bad no one else could appreciate the song choice except us. On Sunday, I went to my first church service in only Chinese. It was a really charistmatic church and it was pretty fun because instead of a regular sermon during this Sunday, we got to watch a bunch of funny skits.
Today we sat through 24 rehashed self-presentations from all of the elementary school ETAs and LETs. It was riveting. Then we went through a strange process of “speed dating” where the ETAs went around and had 5-minute dates with all of the LETs to help us try to decide which LET and school we would want to work at for the rest of the year. The entire day was pretty stressful as we awkwardly wondered, “Will you put me first?” “Where am I on your list?”. The Academic Advisory Panel is finalizing the decisions today after looking at our complete preferences and will announce the ETA/LET pairings tomorrow. Our school decisions also determine which city we will live in and through random selections, also who will we be living with and where. And on Thursday, we’ll move to our new apartments.
All of this craziness crammed into one day. Plus tomorrow, everyone’s taking their scooter test so that we can wreak havoc around Yilan.
The past three weeks have just been absolutely non-stop. We have training daily at the the Yilan Teacher Training Center which includes lectures about different pedagogical topics, practice with the LETs (local English teachers) that we will be paired with by next week, various administrative business, and scooter practice. So far, the scariest part for me has been the scooter practice. I have a lot of trouble balancing, probably because I also never learned how to ride a bicycle. But, thanks to my friends, I now know how to ride a bicycle! So, the next step is just learning how to drive the scooter–which I think is a bit harder. continue reading »
Aug8
The past few days at orientation we’ve been doing a lot of different things, from talks about how to keep safe in Taiwan to visiting different schools that we might be placed at, there’s a lot to swallow. There are twelve different elementary schools that I might be working at and each time we visit a school, we are given different gifts and taken on whirlwind tours of the school. One of the schools we visited housed only 100 students and had the most gorgeous view:
Beach School
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I’ve only been in Taiwan a few days, but a lot has happened. I got sick and had to go to a Taiwanese clinic where they basically throw pills at you and you leave with a string of packaged pills. I think I was ordered to “chi yao” at least 5 different pills 4 times a day. I also got to ride on the back of a scooter which was a lot of fun and I’ll soon learn how to ride one myself!
Yesterday marked the first official day of orientation with Fulbright. We had a lot of introductions, checked into our beautiful hotel, and ate at an original aboriginal restaurant for dinner. Then, this morning we drew lots for apartments and moved into our apartments. I’m sharing an apartment with Deborah which has worked out great so far except that we only have one AC unit. We do have a gorgeous view of Luodong, though, and lots of floor space!
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