of co-teachers, Bumblebees and Koalas

My co-teacher, Teacher Tina, is not returning to JacksonFive next year. She lives kind of far away and has to take care of her mom. She's been the Bumblebee co-teacher for the last two years and has literally been with them (in the same room) for about 6 hours every day, 5 days a week. They're pretty attached. So we're making this ginormous cool card for her and we took a picture last week to put on the front. I took four pictures and it was like pulling teeth to get the boys to smile nicely without making a face *siggh* here they are:

ok, I did tell them they could make a silly face for one. This one was my fault.

This one would be ok, except you can't see about three of the kids because they're too short and are standing in the back (aggh, bad planning teacher Sharon!), and my Kyle only has his hands up (I guess he figured since somebody was standing in front of him he'd better try to get some part of him in the picture)

The girls are so cute and the boys are unmanageable. Seriously, I couldn't make them just smile nice. Well, it's test week for them so maybe they're a little off.

This one, even in it's weirdness, is the winner for the card. You can see all the kids, and...yeah, that's pretty much why.

This is one of my night classes, the Koalas. They're a little bit older, about 5th grade - junior high aged, with the oldest being Tommy on the left in black. He's 13.

When I started teaching this class it was a nightmare. They didn't know anything they were supposed to know at this level English class, some of them had attitude, and nobody would ever volunteer or do the conversation activities.

But now we have a lot of fun. They've come a looonnnng way. I'm really proud of them, actually.

My co-teacher for this class, Tr. Fanny, is also leaving next year so this will go in a card for her.

My Bumlebees are so cute. They've been making little "gifts" for teacher Tina at home and will sneak up to me with their hands cupped and whisper "look what I'm going to give Tr. Tina!" and it will be some little paper thing or note or something and I'll whisper back "it's amazing! she'll love it! go hide it until Wednesday" (our last day of class). This has happened about four times this week. They can't wait until Wednesday..and neither can I!

wheee ... vacation here I come! :)

Tonight we're having a good-bye party for my roomate Stephanie and couple of other people from our cell group who are leaving this summer. It's an 80's party so we're supposed to dress 80's ish. Well I was a tiny kid in the 80's and also I lived in Suriname.. how am I supposed to know..

but I did remember the big ol' T-shirts the older kids in school used to wear and they would bunch them up on one side and tie it with a scrunshie or a t-shirt clip made specially for this purpose. I inherited a big red t-shirt from a previous teacher that has a black outline of a guy with a mullet hair-do and sunglasses on the front and it says "Mullets rule! business in the front, party in the back". I sort of think mullets are 80's...maybe...anyway, I'll wear that and tie it on one side with a scrunchie and wear some big red earrings and my black and red Converse shoes and I should look sort of 80's. I think the other foreigners will be dressed in similar attire, but I'm interested to see what the Taiwanese people do. Should be fun, I'll post some pictures.

Well, I've gotta run. Zai jian!

Problems with Cell phones, Mold and Mildew, and Shower heads

I seem to have a problem with cell phones. I lost my cell phone after going to Jimmy's KTV (Karoke) party last weekend (I think it fell out of my pocket in the KTV room), and so now I'm using Jimmy's old cell phone as he now has a new iPhone he got for his birthday. It's a skinny, slipper little thing that's always jumping out of my hand.
So the other night I was sitting on my bed with my laptop and the phone RIGHT beside me. I KNEW it was there. I was checking my receipts against the winning numbers of the Taiwan receipt lottery (if you Google Taiwan Receipt Lottery, the first link should be for the tealit.com article about what it is along with the winning numbers. It's basically a way to keep businesses legal. All reciepts have numbers and ever two months they post winning numbers, you can win small amounts or very large amounts of cash. I haven't won anything yet, but I still diligenlty save my receipts and check every two months.) Well I had a mountain of receipts for the last two months that I was piling on my bed as I checked them. Then, when I had sadly confirmed that I hadn't won anything (again), I scooped them all up and dumped them in my trash can.
Later, I couldn't find my cell phone. I looked high and low, stripped my bed, I KNEW it had been there. I couldn't believe I'd lost a phone again.
So I went to the living room where my roomate Stephanie was watching Tv and asked her to please call my phone, so she did, and it rang - - from my purse! I was like how the..what the...HOW IS IT IN MY PURSE! I KNEW it had been on my bed! I thought I was going NUTS. I tore apart my purse and couldn't find it! I seriously thought I was going crazy or just really really tired.
Well, when I come in my room, I have a plastic stool right inside the door that I put my purse on. And under the stool, guess what - - the trash can.
So you guess where the phone was.
That's right, in the trash can, along with the huge pile of receipts I'd scooped up earlier that night.
Stephanie says "I'll keep this one between you and I" and walked away chuckling.
*palm to forehead* how Stupid am I!!!!

So I went to clean the bathroom yesterday. The new team of (mostly) girls is coming in a little over a week and will be staying here for a few days, so I thought I would make the bathroom really clean. Well, I bought some Mr. White and some gloves for the job. Mr. White is the local can of "anything" foamy cleaner that is very strong and noxious and totally terrible for your skin and lungs, but works magic.
I sprayed the tub and shower walls with Mr. White, left the bathroom to put on a face mask, and returned to scrub away. I scrubbed away the most mold and mildew I'd ever seen. When I sprayed it with the showr head after scrubbing it was like a wall of black. But it was lurking in the gray "stuff" between the tiles, so it was hard to see until I cleaned it. So nasty. I couldn't believe this is where I'd been coming to get "clean". Ew.
So I was all proud that I'd finished that noxious job, then I was so proud too that I'd bought this cool rotating massager jets thing showr head for only 39 NT on sale! (a little over a dollar). But it doesn't fit on our hose. PHOOEY! So now I have a showr had hanging out in my room irritating me when I look at it because I can't use it.
This post is rather boring, you can see my days of late haven't been too exciting. School ends soon and July should come with lots of fun things, new people, wisdom teeth removal, trips, and pictures. Stay posted.

Flat Sharon's First Birthday Walk

Here she is! Over a year since she was "born" and given to me as a gift by thoughtful co-workers, Flat Sharon has had a most boring year sitting on my shelf. But I took her on a Birthday Walk and so here she is outside my apartment building.

















And here she is being "green" and doing her share to save the world by recyling. Those first three big green bins are for general trashes, then there's one for plastic bags, one for glass and metal, four different kinds of plastic bins, and one for paper down on the end. And one barrel for food scraps waay down at the very end. It's intense.



Here she is also outside my apartment building. She likes the plants.












Here she is ready to ride on my scooter, but I didn't have a helmet that would fit her so I told her she was out of luck.


You know, I don't want her to get squisht any flatter in an accident or something.


She needs a helmet.








Here she is back in the house, in the living room right inside the front door, where she will dutifully remove her shoes.





Here she's chillin' in my bedroom and surfin' the web. Note "Buddy" my Bamboo plant there on the bedside shelf. He's made significant growing progress.

Here are the Bumblebees on their recent field trip to the Science Museum. This was, I think, a mammoth at some point in history. The kids aren't really paying attention. This is a funny picture.














Here are some more Bumblebees in front of a model Chinese pagoda which up close is very detailed.












Aaaand here we are again, with Tr. Sharon this time. We're cute.















I haven't got anything new to blog about. Just wanted to post some pictures. And to report I sneezed about 300 times today. I hope I'm not getting a cold again.
Zai jian.

Howdy all...
Well, I realized today that "Flat Sharon" who was "born" on June 12, 2009, is now over a year old! (refer to some of my first posts on this blog if you are confused at this point)
So I took her on a walk today since I haven't taken very many pictures of her, and snapped some photos of her chillin' in her apartment and on her scooter. I also had some cute Bumblebee pictures, but blogger won't upload them. I think they updated their photo uploader and I don't know why it won't work. Well I will try again another day I suppose.,
I lost my cell phone yesterday. I'm super sad. We went to KTV (karaoke) with some friends for Jimmy's birthday (which is today), and I think it must've fallen out somewheres. pooh.
Really, nothing exciting is going on. That's why I took Flat sharon on a walk. Because nothing else is going on. :)
School's almost over. Two and a half more weeks! Go Sharon Go...