writtensoul [dot] net

So, I don’t know if it’s the combination of English enthusiasm or puberty but something about Li-Sing Elementary School’s fifth grade class that makes me deaf. Whenever we do chorus-like call and response activities, the girls voices are always just slightly too high for my ear drums. Not only that, but they also feel the need to scream their responses as if I am five hundred miles away from them. That’s not to say that I don’t want to encourage their enthusiasm for English, but sometimes I really wonder if it’s such a good habit to teach the students that screaming English is the way to communicate. I fear that one day they will meet a stranger that will ask them, “How do I get to …?” and then will scream at the top of their lungs, “LEFT TURN!! GO STRAIGHT!!!”

In addition to the high-decibal noise level from the students’ voices, we also use a microphone in the class to be able to talk over the students. This only adds to the overall level of noise, and unfortunately for me, I stand right underneath one of the speakers in the classroom when we teach. I realized this today while teaching the fifth graders and thought to myself that I think the Yilan BOE owes me some compensation for the damage done to my poor ears!

Further detrimental to the health of my innocent ears are the constant fireworks that are set off at random in Taiwan. When Deborah, Eric, Nola, and I went to Tainan last weekend, we must have passed at least three different fireworks shows within our first night. We would be walking along our merry way back to our hotel when out of nowhere, sounds of gunshots would come from the street ahead of us and we’d find that we couldn’t cross the street because in the middle of a mass intersection, someone decided to have a party of fireworks. We were so close in fact that Eric got shot in the eye with some firecracker debris.

And then, how could I forget the constant supply of vans daily roaming around Yilan City announcing random political candidates using huge megaphones. It’s hard to avoid these on your scooter and I don’t think it’s possible for me to go a week without getting at least one blast.

I fear I may come back to the States deaf in July.