Happy Thanksgiving and happy birthday Dan!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I am sorry it has been a couple weeks since I wrote my last blog. I’ve been staying pretty busy. Ok here’s a quick overview on what has been happening. Thursday November 14^th the middle school girls and boys volleyball team had their first game of the season. We got out of school early to take the two hour bus ride up to Taipei to play against the Taipei American School (TAS). The girls team lost, but the boys team won! I was on duty the weekend of the 16^th and 17^th. This was a great weekend to be on duty because everyone had to be at school anyways on Saturday because it was Common Good Day. For common good day, each house (I’m the leader of the Knights house) has to come up with some sort of community service project. The Knights House went to a group home for people with mental and physical disabilities. The group home was about an hour away. When we arrived we helped feed them and clean up, then we had lunch and watched a video and given a tour. I got the school to donate $250 to the group home!!! If we go back again I would like to try and do more for the group home like paint or do yard work. Overall, I think it was a very eye opening experience for our students. Saturday night I went along with the student to Mode Mall since I was on duty. The activity on Sundays was a lot of fun! We went to Top City to see the movie Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above. Two of our students are really good family friends with the director of this movie, a former national geographic employee! This film is entirely shot from the viewpoint of a helicopter so you can imagine how gorgeous the scenery is! It is an educational film on appreciating the natural beauty of Taiwan and promoting people to think about their actions and to go green. I plan to buy this movie as soon as it comes out and ship it to my Mom and Dad so if anyone wants to see it just let them know!

This past weekend I had Saturday classes in the morning and then went along with the students to Lugon. Lugon is a small village with a lot of shops that sell unique trinkets. I walked around with Katie and Jon as we were all doing some Christmas shopping and eating tasty food! Sunday Katie and I helped chaperone the art field trip to the National Palace Museum in Taipei. When I say helped chaperone, I really just mean get a free bus ride up to the museum and free ticket haha! There was a special Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit that was very interesting! I enjoyed the art museum very much and will probably go back again sometime, as like every museum there is more to see than you have time for.

It is my brother Dan’s birthday tomorrow!!! Happy birthday Danny!!!! Also here’s a shout out to all my family and friends back home as I will be missing you this Thursday for Thanksgiving. Please know that this year I am so thankful for how supportive everyone has been of my decision to teach abroad. Know that it is greatly appreciated and I could not ask for a better family and friends. I love you all very much!

Just a regular week in Taichung!

Not a very exciting week. On Tuesday my Varsity volleyball team surprised me by all coming into my classroom and giving me a huge card that everyone signed and a Polaroid camera. It was so sweet of them. The reasoning behind the camera was one day at practice we celebrated one of the girl’s birthdays and we took a picture with a Polaroid camera (which are quite common in Taiwan). The girl’s thought my reaction was so funny because I had never seen a Polaroid camera before. I’m going to bring it on my next hike on the nicer trails! Middle school girls’ volleyball started on Wednesday. I have fourteen girls on the team ranging from 7^th grade beginners to 9^th grade intermediate or advanced (one 9^th grader was one of the best players on my varsity team). We practice every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Friday night was the schools Halloween dance (the weekends closer to Halloween were busy with other things).  I had to go for a little bit, but I only stayed for about an hour. I taught classes again on Saturday morning, and then there were house competitions for kickball, dodge ball, and a soccer shoot out. Again I stayed only for about an hour. Saturday afternoon I went to the jade market again to pick up more souvenirs for people back home. I also bought myself some wall hangings! Saturday evening I went out to eat at a Thai restaurant for one of the teacher’s birthday. Today I’ve just been doing the usual; went to church, lesson planning, and a run up the close closest hiking trail. I miss everyone back home. I hope all is well!

An Earthquake, Volleyball, and Choir!

I survived my first earthquake this week! While sitting on the couch with the computer on my lap lesson planning, my computer started shaking and my door started to bang a little. I have never been in an earthquake so I did not realize what was happening right away. I thought someone was knocking on my door so I hollered “I’ll be right there.” Then I proceeded to unlock and open the door only to find no one there and understand what was happening; haha! I guess on the southeast coast it was a 6.6 magnitude earthquake and no severe damage was reported.

We had another all day volleyball tournament on Saturday at Morrison in Taichung (there was also a soccer tournament going on at the same time). We ended up taking 4^th place out of 10 teams. Once again I was so proud of those girls! This was our last game as new activities start this coming week. I will be the middle school girls’ volleyball coach for term two (7^th through 9^th grade).

I joined the choir at the church I have been going to! Today was my first day singing with them. They are definitely no Concordia Choir; however, it is better than nothing! They practice for about an hour before church starts (I will be a little late for practice as I go with another teacher and a student every week and neither of them are joining choir). There are about 10 in the choir, a couple guitarists, and a piano player. It appears that most of them are Japanese and it also sounded like they were speaking Japanese (I am almost positive on this, but I do not want to say for sure). It was interesting because this was the first time that I was completely surrounded by non-white people. They were all very friendly and interested to know where I was from and what I was doing in Taiwan. A few of the girls also kept touching my hair which was a little weird. This same admiration for my hair has happened at school too. According to my volleyball team most Taiwanese have thick course hair, which is different from the smooth and thinner hair that I have. Also I think I may finally have to admit that my hair is almost a blondish color (especially here).

In case you are wondering Taiwan does not partake in daylight savings time so I am now fourteen hours ahead of everyone in the central time zone…remember I can basically predict the future since I’m half a day ahead, so if you want to find out what happens in advance just let me know haha!