Howdy all

Howdy! I suppose it's time to post a little note about what's going on in Sharon-World... haha..
Welll, to start with , beginning yesterday and I assume continuing into today (as I have not been outside yet today I cannot say this with certainty), Taichung has been covered in fine little dusties that got blown over from Beijing's sandstorm. Errggghhh. So annoying! I've been in Sneeze-Mode almost constantly since last night and my eyeballs are so itchy. I wore two face masks yesterday on my scooter. So annoying. But, at least it's not volcano ash like was going on in Kenai right before I left Alaska last year. Hehe, I suppose there's a bright side to everything...
The Bumblebees are plugging along and we're having loads of fun as well as moments of frustration for Tr. Sharon as certain students decide they are having SO much fun that they can disregard the classroom rules or not pay attention to lessons.
They have a favorite song now that we sang in our Let's Go class (the basic English curriculum we use): "Sue Doesn't Have Any Glue". We're learning .. I have, you have, they have....but, he HAS, she HAS....but, I don't have, you don't have, they don't have...but, he DOESN'T have, she DOESN'T have...good grief, why is English so hard? Why can't he/she don't have the same like I don't have? It would be way easier...anyway, my complaints about English aside, this song is so sad and depressing sounding on the Cd and the kids LOVE it. "Sue doesn't have any glue, Sue doesn't have any glue..Sue has some paper, Sue has some string, Sue has a bird and it's learning to sing...Sue has some ribbon, Sue has some chalk, Sue has a dog and it's learning to talk, but Sue isn't happy, no she's feeling blue..Sue doesn't have any glue..BOO HOO...Sue doesn't have any glue!" The kids really like the BOO HOO part.
So this is what's been in my head for about the past week. So the kids now understand that SUE doesn't have...but when it comes to any other he or she character, they still are writing "He don't have..." argghhhh.
We've also been drilling the adding the "s" on he/she verbs thing..again, I'm irritated with the English language. I go, he goes. I do, he does. I play, he plays. I study, he studies. It's hard for new English learners to get this down.
Let's see...what else has been going on around here... oh yes, I've started teaching one of Jacob's classes on Thursday nights..Teacher Jacob was our part time night teacher but he quit two weeks ago to stay home with his new baby girl while his wife went to work with Hess English school (I think I blogged about this a while ago). So instead of hiring a new teacher, although Jackson tried, nobody who applied really worked out for the position, so Jackson, me, Stephanie and Karen (the other two foreign teachers) are each taking a day of teaching for the week, so each of Jacob's classes have two teachers. Jackson and I took the Dragonfly class. I get the easy day, reading and phonics. It's only through the end of the semester, in June.
So the night before I have to teach this brand-new class, I have a dream. A terrible dream! And in this dream, all the Dragonflies (who I've never met) are grown-ups! And there are not 12 of them, oh no..there are 25 of them! And they will not listen to me and start throwing things. It was terrible. Now I knew in real life the Dragon flies are not grown ups and there really are only 12 of them in class. But I was still a little nervous after that dream. Augh.
So I get to class and they're all checking me out and nobody will say anything..and these are a brand-new English class, and some of the kids are teeny tiny! And Teacher Jacob was doing the reading/writing format different from all the other classes so I wasn't used to it. So I changed it back to the way every other class does it and all the Dragon flies worked really hard, but it was kind of stressful and challenging. We ended up with almost no time for phonics and had to rush through the workbook. Augh. I hope next week is better.
Well..I'm sneezing all over the place and I have to go find lunch before working time. So I know this was kind of a boring blog post, but at least it's a post! I put most of my pictures on Facebook now so if you want to see them you can find me on Facebook or leave me a message here and I'll add you.
Zai jian! Happy day to everybody! :)

Peanut Butter and Jelly

In case you, my faithful blog follower, are just so curious as to the state of affairs in the Hampster World over here, I would like to just type a little update that following the loss of our dear Fat Pudding, we went to night market again and bought two very tiny baby hampsters that have blue-ish fur. Peanut Butter and Jelly. So now there are four hampsters. I think that's enough.
That's all.
I have to go to work now. Happy Monday...*sigh*....

Here, There, and Everywhere..

Whew! I just finished (I hope) filling out all my tax information on Turbo Tax and submitted it for a "professional review". I think I may have messed up the foreign income part. What a pain. But I won't get into it because then I will get grumpy again about what a pain it is to do taxes. I'm sure you all agree, so no use in pushing the point.
Well, let's see. I always have to reach back in my mind to remember what went on over here since the last time I blogged which in this case ( and other cases ) has been a while. My bad! Let's start with most recent. Um..this morning we had a 6.4 earthquake centered in Kaoshiung to the south, rocked our word for about 10 seconds, but no major damage or injuries on the island. My roomate Katie is so funny when we have earthquakes, because she's always convinced it's
"The Big One" and that we'll have to evacuate and be stranded in the street for five days and one of her fears is that she will be caught inappropriately dressed in her pajamas. So no matter how small the earthquake, as soon as she feels one, she gets completely dressed, stands in the doorway and yells, "EARTHQUAKE! EARTHQUAKE!" even if it's really early or really late. But we can't complain because she's so darn cute about it. Anyway, I know I will never sleep through a terrible earthquake thanks to Katie Jo. :)
Jimmy's been in the States this week for a business trip with his university class, so I've been taking care of the hampsters. Well...you know how I blogged about how fat Pudding got so fast and we thought she was pregnant but she never had any babies? She became really listless and wouldn't respond or move a couple of days ago, wouldn't eat or drink but she was breathing. I didn't know how to help her so I put her in her own cage so the other hampsters wouldn't bother her. Well anyway, she didn't make it and I came home from work one day to a dead hampster. I'm pretty sure she's been sick for a while, because she acted weird sometimes almost like she was having seizures. Add that to almost losing Dumpling twice during their last cage cleaning (stupid hampster ran out of the cage and jumped off the table into a bucket! And the bucket was REALLY far away!), and I feel like the worst hampster babysitter in the world. No worries though, I'm sure we will go back to night market when Jimmy gets back and shell out another 80 NT (about $2.50) for a new hampster.
Wellllll what else is going on....hmm, not too much. We've got an open position for a part time night job we're trying to fill at Jackson Five, since my co-worker Jacob's wife Mandy had a baby and they decided he would stay home and study Chinese and watch the baby while Mandy went to work since she has a great teaching job with Hess (big English school chain in Asia). So we've had various foreigners in and out of the school. The kids are always impressed. One of them, so funny, I had just taught them the word "giant", right, during our "soft g" phonics class. Means something that is really big or bigger than normal. So, they're all coming up the stairs from the movie room while Jackson is taking a new teacher prospect down the stairs from the classroom where they did the interview, and this guy is pretty big but normal big for a foreigner. I didn't see anything unusual about his size. But he was bigger than all Asian guys for sure, and especially big to little Taiwanese kids. So my kids started staring at him and saying "oh TEACHER! LOOK! it's a GIANT! it's a GIANT, teacher!" I was so embarrased. I told them later it's not nice to call people giants.
I think I ate duck yesterday. I thought I was buying a very small barbecue chicken at the grocery store, but as I ate it I became less convinced it was chicken and more convinced it was duck. Because, first of all, it didn't taste like chicken at all. And secondly, it was awfully small. Hm..in any case, it was pretty good. I would buy one again.
Well, I'm noticing there's mold on my wall. That's gross. I'm going to clean it. I'm thoroughly disgusted now. Ew.
Later...