Field trip!

While growing up, field trips were the highest valued school days of the year(to be followed by "snowstorm early dismissal" days; "half the class is absent so the teacher can't teach real stuff" days, and "magazine drive/ walk-a-thon/get super pumped about raising money for your poor school" days). I've found the same holds true when you are a teacher, especially if the element of children has been removed from the day!

Yesterday all of the junior high teachers ventured out of Taipei city to an area called Wanli. Only about 45 mins- 1 hour from the school, our destination was the school's outdoor education center. All students K-10th grade visit the center about 3 times per semester. I'd heard my students excitedly talk about upcoming trips, but had no idea the camp was so impressive! We were given a brief overview and powerpoint presentation of the center's programs when we first arrived. The whole point of the outdoor education program is something like "courage, challange, cooperation". The activites are supposed to encourage teamwork, thinking outside of the box, and pushing oneself to new physical limits. Some of the insane activities the students participate in include: paintballing, rockclimbing, horticulture studies, forest navigation (where they put the students in the middle of nowhere and give them compasses and gps systems to find their way back), cooking assignments( in which the students are given a small budget and sent to local markets to purchase supplies, plan 4 dishes and cook the entire meal without modern appliances), and new destination challanges (students are given a location in another part of the county and must arrive at a specific destination at a certain time using a budget and planning their own transporation--a la the amazing race). I was completely blown away! This is what girl scouts was supposed to be like before selling cookies became the main event of the year, yes?

The presentation ended with a quote. Something to the effect of "A ship can rest safely in the harbor... but that is not what a ship is built for." Simple, but seeing as I was completely wrapped up in the moment of utopian education and empowerment for all, it stuck in my mind and I thought I'd pass it on to all of you :)

Afterwards, the teachers split up into various activity groups. Seeing as I have only just recovered from my last paintballing experience, the other Kathleen and I chose rockclimbing. I'm not quite sure what I was thinking. We all know I failed miserably at the monkey bars on the playground as a child, and my lack of upperbody strength has haunted me ever since! Truthfully, however, it was a ton of fun and even though I found it difficult, thankfully I reached the top! Today my arms are extremely sore and so are my toes since I decided to go sans shoes in an attempt to become one with the wall...aka I was afraid my big feet in shoes wouldn't grip the rocks.

Before leaving we headed to the vegetable fields and picked white turnips. In a week, 7 smelly rotting turnips will be sitting in our fridge. Send me your favorite turnip recipe that requires no oven (most Asian kitchens lack them) in order to save us from this wasteful and totally innevitable fate.

I WILL send presents home in the next week and half so help me God. They are halfway packed and prepared, which means if anyone has any requests now is the time to voice them. If it's taken me 8 months to send anything more than a postcard back, another trip to the postoffice again anytime soon seems unlikely. So don't be shy in asking for something...nor will I be... my roommates get more letters than I do..hint hint.

ok, love to you!

beautiful afternoon

The last few days we have had gorgeous weather. At last! In the past several weeks there has been pretty much nothing but rain, so a bit of sun (albeit dulled by clouds/ pollution) has been more than welcome!

As I write this I am at school on Saturday. boo! Because of an extra day of vacation that the school is giving us for an upcoming holiday, the entire staff and student body has to come in for classes as usual today. Unfortunately it is a repeated Friday schedule, which is one of my busiest afternoons. Being forced into work on Saturday as if it is business as usual feels completely unjust. Bad news: there are 3 other Saturdays this semester I'll be working, 2 of which will be a part of mandatory weekend English camps. That's a 12 day week, twice, before the end of June! I realize that I should stop complaining when other Taiwanese people I know work 8am-11pm Monday-Friday. Compared with this I think I have it pretty easy!