Monday, August 17, 2009

Quick Post

I taught a new class today. It was fun but they were very naughty. They were smart, at least, and did what they were asked to do. They were loud though. Morris, one kid, prides himself on being chubby and loves to eat. I have a boy named Smile who "Loves to smile" and a girl named Jasmine who speaks very fluently with the words she does know. Her accent is quite thick, though. She speaks so quickly that it's hard for me to understand her, but it's amazing to think she's putting those sentences together at such ridiculous speed at her age. I know Taiwanese almost 3x her age that have to think much more deliberately to make a sentence.

My other class, the American school one, was great as always. They're so sweet and well-behaved. This last weekend I taught a relatively advanced class for older students, but that class was lazy and spoke lots of Chinese. It goes to show, the classes don't indicate your fluency, but how willing you are to learn that does. I have kids half the age of those in SA13, and they speak much more openly. Maybe it's because they aren't afraid of making mistakes, but overall, the kids in my American School are just excited to learn.

What else is new... Not much. April and I plan to have a date on Wednesday. We rarely see each other these days and are almost never alone. Work is really picking up the hours this week, but at least that's going well. My social life is slowly disappearing entirely, but I'm OK with that as long as I manage to find time to be with April, and on occasion, some other friends.

I don't know what else to say for now. Today I didn't eat anything until 7:30 pm. I don't know why. I just forgot. But I am full now!

Speaking of being full... I notice Taiwanese always want to check a few certain phrases with me to make sure they are right. By far the most common is "Are you full?". This is because in Taiwan's culture (not Mainland China's, though) "Are you full?" is the equivalent of "How are you?" In fact, in the Taiwanese dialect, they do not say "How are you" at all, but only "Are you full" is the greeting, besides the basic equivalent of "Hello". There's an interesting cultural lesson for you.

1 comment:

  1. Go Peter....Sounds like you are enjoying your classes, children and wild new food! Keep up the GREAT WORK! Glad to hear that you and April have each other. She sounds nice. Take care of yourself...later...Aunt Shar

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