Samson grows ever larger...

..he is now a fat blob of fur that runs around at warp speed and pounces on everything and even things that are not there. Right now, though, he's a fat blob of fur asleep on my Bible.
My sunburn is getting better and my feet stopped swelling but now I feel rather dragon-ish with the scars and the skin coming off and stuff. It's not nice. Phooey.
Real Classes started today ( as opposed to the Sort of Real Classes that I was teaching in August's summer schedule ), and it's going to be a rough year for the Bumblebees. So much more work to do in so much less time! Whew. But we'll make it.
I taught my Dolphins 'Jesus Loves Me' last Friday. None of them knew it and nobody knew who Jesus was. So it was their very first ever introduction to Jesus. It was really amazing to sing 'Jesus loves me' to 14 wide-eyed 7 year olds and get to be the first one who tells them who Jesus is and that He loves them. It really struck me what a great privilege it is to teach these kids and also a great responsibility to show them the love of Christ and share the Gospel message with them in a way they'll understand. I hope I do it well this coming year.
Well, it's almost midnight. That's when I turn into a pumpkin. *har har har* I'm going to bed.
'til next time.....

All Day Field Trips and a Fuzzy Kitten. and a Sunburn.

Last Wednesday we went on an all-school, all-day field trip to some farm/entertainment park-ish sort of place in Miaoli. I had a bunch of kids to keep track of since I have two after noon classes now. We did lots of fun-ish sort of things like..."making" cookies, which involved squishing cooky crumbs into a wooden mold sort of thing and then banging the mold up-side down on the table to make the "cooky" fall out; making pinwheels, taking a tour of ancient tea-making machines, and watching a great clown/magic/fire show thing, which is where this picture was taken:

This dude is spinning some "glass" (really not glass because he dropped one on accident and it bounced - uh, huh...) bottles that are on fire, and he is blindfolded. It was a pretty impressive show, and as you can see there is a huge clown balloon on the stage.

This is a Bee I caught with my camera. He was a bugger, too. I chased him on 7 flowers before I got this picture.

Here's my "cooky-making" set-up. One box for cookys - check. One cup of crumbs - check. One wooden spoon mold thing - check. They're smiley faces.

Here's my Dolphin class! Cute, aren't they?

---aand, here are the Bumblebees, taller than ever and mostly paying attention to the camera. That little orange shirted kid on the left is Louie and he actually belongs to the Dolphin class. His English is lower than the other Dolphins and he I guess didn't understand the "move this way, Dolphins!" to get them all out of the way.

Here're two of my Dolphins, Little Shawn (we also have a Big Shawn...) , in orange and Hugo in white. They are showing off their tea leaves. Little Shawn is a silly, very friendly outgoing child who speaks pretty good English for his grade and loves to talk to me. He also loves to be silly when he shouldn't and gets in trouble a lot. But he's very sweet. He made me a paper heart at home last week and presented it to me first thing the next morning. Aw...

This is Samson, chillin' with the Word.

He's got to check everything out, you know. Even the camera.

This is one of only two pictures I took in Kenting this past weekend. The day we went out to the beach and on a scenic scooter drive, I forgot my camera in my room! *bad Sharon, bad Sharon!* I tried to take with my cell phone but didn't work. Phooey.

This is my and my friend Annie diggin' some groovy hats in the night market.

Kenting is in the southernmost tips of Taiwan and has some beautiful beaches. A couple of cell groups went on a weekend trip for fun. We spent most of the day Saturday at the beach and then went on a scenic drive around that area on rented scooters (we also had a slight delay with a broken down scooter and had to get that fixed somehow out in the middle of nowhere, but that's another story and I'm kinda tired, and it's a long one).

I applied sunblock once before going in the water. We were in the sun for .... a looong time...like...4 hours? at least. I "snorkeled" a little bit (not like, really professional...like with a kiddie snorkel), but I saw some Nemo fish and his buddies. Well, apparently my sunblock got washed off fairly soon after I was in the water, and I ended up with the mother of all Sunburns. My legs are deep dark red from the mid thigh down (I had a skirt Thing over my swimsuit) and although my back and shoulders are burnt, my legs are way ouchier. They're swollen and extremely painful - on Saturday night I nearly passed out in the night market and on Sunday I had to take ibuprofin just to stand and there was still pain. I went to Dr. today and he gave me cream and pain meds, but is still very painful.

Lesson learnt. Re-apply, re-apply, re-apply.....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

My students told me I looked like a pig, and some other students said "Tr. Sharon SO SCARY!!!"

I was like a walking Sun Safety ad at the school and everywhere else I went today. They were whispering - look what happens when you don't cover up in the Sun. Hrmphphph.

I won't post a picture. The kids were right. Tr. Sharon really is SO SCARY.

Well on that note, i'm going to take those meds and go to bed...

good night.

Teaching, and such

One of the teachers at my school gave me a disc today with some photos on it from last year. The co-teachers are supposed to take photos in the classroom all the time so they can give discs to the parents at the end of the year and show them what their kid has been doing and how much fun it was. (ha, ha...)

Anyhoo, it had about 17 candids that I had no idea were taken of me so I thought I'd post a few to show what I do every day.

Okay, that last one isn't JacksonFive. That was Amanda and my drama workshop at the youth camp last month. We had almost 60 students. Whew!

Ok, that's all. I survived my first week of August - 3 more to go! I started speeding up the matrerial for my super smart Dolphin class and it's going much better.

I'm tired and hungry. I'm going to go forage. Zai jian!

of Dolphins...and...surprises...and...stress...

Hallo Blog Followers.

As I write this I'm pondering a strange situation that I hadn't thought about. I requested a year 1 class this year at JacksonFive for several reasons: 1.) They're incredibly cute and small and I loved the projects and the cute little basic English things they get taught in this year and I liked the idea of being their first English teacher ever (actually I suppose that was two reasons..anyway.) 2.) As I taught the Bumblebees last year (year 2) I wished many, many times that I had known exactly what they learned and went through the year before so I could plan better. I never got to confer with the year 1 Bumblebee teacher because he went to Hong Kong before I got here last year.

Well, today was my second day with my year 1 class, the Dolphins, and I've got a problem (a rather good problem, I suppose, but it means a lot of time for me..)

They are in a year 1 class, but all but two of them know all the things they're supposed to learn this month and many things they're supposed to learn in year 2. Over half the class has already had 2-3 years of ESL classes or kindergarten and I have three students who can effectivly use the word "ceremony" and "graduation" and many, many other words they're not supposed to know yet. They're not supposed to know ANY English words yet except maybe "hello" and "goodbye"!! There are 11 students in this class.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH

I am not any of their first English teacher, they all have previous ESL training. So my simple lesson plans that I modeled after all the other first year classes are far too simple for these kids, and they are starting to complain that they already know their alphabet so why are we spending a whole class period learning one letter (as per the JacksonFive curriculum). After yesterday's class I had a parent ask the same question.

So I have to amp it up and come up with harder worksheets, more challening lessons, and way more material. And I spent sooo much time this July at home planning these lessons and I can't even use them anymore!

I'm so stressed out and on top of that, my Bumblebees decided to have drama and disrespect and behaviour issues (they are undergoing a lot of transitions this year in Chinese school: going from year 2 to year 3 in Chinese school is a HUGE transition and takes a lot of time for most students to adjust to the enourmous difference in classwork and homework). And they are growing up so they have that attitude thing. *sigh*

But, the Dolphins are reeeallly cute, and we played some games and did a song and stuff and they thought that was really a lot of fun. They like to do activee wiggly things even if they already know the stuff the active wiggly things are supposed to be teaching them. So.... yeah! I'm pretty sure with the right planning I can really take advantage of this and Dolphins can be one of the top classes at JacksonFive, like...ever. But with Bumblebee class too.... planning is very stressful for me right now.

AAUGH.

Here's a photo of my cat, Samson. He's fuzzy. I like him.

He's my buddy.

So, that's been my two days so far. ONLY TWO DAYS!! AUUGGHHH... how will I ever make it through this year?!

Realizing you're way underprepared for something is not a great feeling. Jai yo, me... (Go, go, me..)

Guess I'd better get to work.

Samson

Hallo faithful blog followers!
I have a cat. A kitten, more exactly. I've always wanted my own cat, but couldn't because of landlords and allergic roommates, or different other living situations. So I checked with my roomates 'bout a week ago and they said if I got a cat they were fine with that.
So a couple days later Jimmy and I went on a "date" to the 24 hour pet store (we went at like..midnight. Jimmy works pretty late so we do what we can to hang out...and the pet store is kind of fun. They have a lot of puppies. And we like to watch the fishes) Anyway, since I was now "free" to get a cat I went to check out the kittens. And I started playing with one in the window. And I knew I wanted him.
He's a little 10 week old black and white Persian kitten that's supposedly a purebred (he'd better be for what I payed for him), and he's very playful but also likes to come sleep on your stomach when he's tired. He likes to jump on my bed and stare at me while I'm sleeping which is kind of creepy to wake up to. He's a very good cat. I'm pleased. Even when I gave him a bath, he stood in the tub all well behaved and didn't try to bite or scratch. I didn't have to hold him down at all, he didn't even try to jump out of the tub. He did meow pitifully during the whole process, and looked kind of miffed afterwards, but I was still very impressed.
I named him Samson because he is very hairy. I have to brush him every day.
I have pictures, but it's really late now so I'll post them another time. But take my word for it. He's cuter than 99% of the cats in the whole world. He could be a kitten model.
School starts on Monday. I went in to prep some stuff this afternoon and was a little overwhelmed at all the stuff I have to do. Even though I've been lesson planning all month, there's still a load of prep work for August. August is still summer schedule, so that means more classes and waaay more of those classes are "theme" classes (don't follow a book which means I have more prep and planning to do). I hope I don't get sick.
Well, it's been a nice laid back July vacation, but next year...I'm going somewhere. I don't care where. I'm takin' a vacation.
August, here I come!

Rain rain....blah

It's been raining all day. Blah. I've been inside. Anyway, many of you will I think be happy with the new blog layout which should load much faster than the flowerie one.
Um...camp was fun. I just woke up from a nap so I'm not in much of a blogg-ing state of mind. There's not a whole lot to report from camp, we had a lot of down time. I did the drama workshop again and it was just as fun as last year. Lots of creativity. I finished a book. We visited the Taichung harbor and I ate some squid-on-a-stick and a sausauge on a stick with garlic and saw some slimy slitherly sea creatures for sale. We went swimming. We played a lot of cards. Um....yeah. :)
I still haven't heard from my dentist so I'm starting to give up that the surgery will happen before school starts. So some time in August, and then I will have to struggle through classes with a mouth full of...gauze...oh, pooh.
Um.... nothing very exciting is going on, really. Just...lesson planning, and ...stuff. Watching Survivor on PPS. yes, very exciting. :)
That's all. Hope the new blog template helps.

Sun Moon Lake, etc.

Well, I think it's high time I posted some photos of the happenings around here. Blogger confuses me with its photo placement when I upload, so I scoot them around but I apologize in advance if this post is still hard to follow. :) At least I posted, right?

This was taken a few weeks ago at Stephanie's "goodbye" part which was cleverly disguised as an '80's party. Steph left this week, sadness and sorrow for us, but she's going to a Bible school in Redding, CA for a year and I'm sure she'll have a great time. I got to move into her bedroom which is HUGE mongolous and has a king-sized bed and two closets and... way more room than I need but I'm also pretty stoked about having all the space. I'm sad Steph had to leave for me to get it, but..that's the way it goes, I s'pose.

Check out my groovy shirt "Mullets Rule".

This is me also at the "80's party" with one of my students who showed up kind of on accident. Her name's Cherry.

Ok! Here I am at Sun Moon Lake. We went on an ITPS team trip this past Wednesday. In retrospect, I should've removed my groovy shades for this self-portrait, but oh well. I like this particular lake's shade of blue.

Here's a picture of the lake from our hotel window. We scored these amazing rooms overlooking the lake for 800NT for the night which included dinner and breakfast (that's about 26 USD) Pretty cool....

Here we are on a dock somewhere on the lake makin' faces. Faces make a photo just that much better. :)

Left to right: Josephine, Amy, Marvin, Me, Autumn, Beth, David, Mandy, Vicki, Jacob, and BoBo.

Here we are again, in the same place, but Not Making Faces. Same order as above. Wheee...

This was taken on a dock outside our hotel that evening. The lighted things behind us are a band of big glowing insects rockin' out. This is a "pose" photo. Aren't we great posers...

Left to right: Iris, Mandy, BoBo, Vicki, Autumn, Amy, Beth, and Me.

We visited an Assam Tea Farm the next day. All my other photos at this place turnd out really dark, but here's another group photo.

....and these are my awesome dumplings from a couple of weeks ago. I want to see how many people read this blog and then become hungry when they see this picture.

Yes, so that's it for photos for now. I will be going to the Banner youth camp this week. After some roundabout communication with my dentist, I now understand they won't have a surgery room available until August for me (AAUUGUGGHH) which means I will have to do the four teeth out surgery on a weekend and hope I'm sufficiently recovered for class on Monday. My August schedule is kind of crazy with my new class, so please pray for me! I'm a little worried about it.

Umm..... I can't think of anything else particularly interesting to blog about. Two more weeks of vacation! Yay me.... :)

I probly won't update my blog for at least a week because I'll be at camp. Zai jian!