The downside to smart students.

"Teacher, you wrote your 'k' carelessly."

~Treehouse student, a day after learning the adverb 'carelessly'

The great injustice of 2012 and a toilet bowl lunch.

I won a flat screen television at the year-end banquet this past weekend.  However, unbeknownst to me, there was a tiny box at the bottom of the raffle ticket I was supposed to check in order to officially win my prize.  So they put the ticket back.

What.  A.  Bummer.

I've tried to trick myself into thinking that a flat screen television would be a burden, and that I'm better off without it.  I'm not fully convinced yet.

***

Sunday afternoon.  Day of rest.  What better way to spend it than at 'Modern Toilet: the Restaurant'?  Please cue epic music.

The whole restaurant was decorated in bathroom decor, right down to the porcelain thrones we sat on.

Picking out what to order was a challenge, but everything came as a combination with a drink and some fro-yo; for an extra NT$30 (US$1) one's drink would be served in a take-home urinal...so that happened.  I didn't order the right thing, though.  The food was fine, but it arrived in a sink (observe my urinal, complete with bendy straw).

The other lunches arrived in style.

Who wouldn't want their chicken served in a black toilet?  Riddle me that.  While the side of rice came covered in a ceramic pile of dung, the hot beverages were served in toilet mugs.

The amount of security cameras around made one wonder how many times the dung-covers had been involved in attempted abduction.

While dining at this restaurant our group became "those Americans"...but we were too easily entertained to care.  So many poop jokes and, yet, it still didn't feel like enough.

Striving for the green pig

In an effort to dream big I've taken to collecting the 'Angry Birds' stickers on the side of my 7-11 lattes--ensuring that one day in the (hopefully near) future I will be able to collect a free pen.  The free pen I'm striving for is one of the following...

...and it is all the rage among Taiwanese school children.  I've saved five out of the necessary nine stickers in the past week--this statistic is both shocking and appalling.  Only five 7-11 lattes this week?!  I should've had my free pen days ago!

When people see me add the stickers to my collection they assume I'm going to give it away as a prize to one of my classes--they're wrong.  I plan on going about my daily writing business with a new sense of flair...and as the envy of all my students.

***

A fellow teacher told his kindergarten class that my Chinese name is 'Lady Gaga'...so that was an interesting greeting from a class of twenty 5-year old's this morning.  And their parents found it to be a curious salutation later in the day as they were leaving.

***

The Christmas tree at school was removed the day after Christmas, with a blatant disregard for the 'New Year's Day Rule'.  Yesterday the vacant spot was filled with this:

I couldn't bring myself to reprimand the kids that punched it as they walked by since I've been holding back from doing that very same thing.

***

Last week was the start of a new 'Yo-Yo' unit which means one thing...

...a new window display!  It's still unclear as to whether I succeeded in drawing a bear (as was intended) or if I morphed it into a dog unintentionally.  The class poll was inconclusive.

***

(Further) Evidence that I have the coolest co-workers:

On Tuesday, after kindergarten, the rain took a break and it was decided that we couldn't let it go to waste.  A fellow teacher and I headed around the block to Carrefour (Taiwan's Wal-Mart) to purchase baseball gloves.  We bought the cheapest ones we could find at NT$298 (US$9)...both cheap in price, and in quality.  We headed to the park across the street to have ourselves a catch; we even played a game of "Pickle"!  It was a fantastic way to spend the afternoon and temporarily satisfied my urge to throw a baseball around.  I've already given a trustworthy individual instructions to transport my glove to South Carolina, where we will rendezvous in two weeks' time.

The baseball glove remains in my school locker, where it shall be ready for any spontaneous games of catch that may be had in the future.  That is, if the rain gives it a rest, already!

***

The kids here play "Paper-Scissors-Stone" nonstop (it's actually quite brilliant).  In some variations of the game the loser can get their foot stepped on--literally; if your weapon of choice is on the losing side you have to jump out of the way almost immediately upon throwing down to dodge the winner jumping onto your foot.  I enjoy entering these games during class break times, but sometimes just to mess with the students I'll step on feet whether I win or lose.  The following is a diagram one of my students, Jamie, drew to illustrate how the game works when there are more than two people involved.

The 'paper' sketch reminds me of "Bullwinkle"; the 'scissors' even resemble the moose's hooves.

 

 

The artist with his unfinished diagram (on the right) and a few of the girls from class.

***

It was a really, really fun Friday.

Kiki's, guiding me in the right direction (yet again)

Things that happened to me today...bullet-point style:

•  When I awoke I had a huge bruise on the side of my hip, as I wasn't injured when I went to bed last night I am to assume one of two things occurred:
• I sleep-walked...somewhere
• I believe that the sleep-walking destination (should the hypothetical injury explanation become fact) would be to visit the woman who makes fried rice on the first floor of my building
• My rock-hard bed has taken to injuring me as I sleep, when I am rendered defenseless to any and all attacks
•  Personally, I'm leaning toward this explanation for my spontaneous injury
• Last month may have been my month to lead exercise-time but I was the only option today, and so I danced/jumped solo this morning in front of thirty-five kindergarteners...again
• I forgot the choreography, but was corrected (many times) by the adorable girl in the front row
• I was heckling a toddler for getting milk all over himself as he drank (but admiring his milk beard at the same time) when I spilled my coffee down the front of my sweater
• The toddler laughed...rightfully so
• Enter second toddler with the most intense milk mustache I've ever seen; he refused to wipe it off, so I (being the adult) drew a mustache on my finger and joined him...'stache twins!
• He laughed, but there was a look of pity in his eye
• It took me a while to remember to wash this carefully drawn mustache off...one wonders how many times I accidentally wore it in the time that it existed outside of school (through nasal region scratchings, general hand-to-face contact, etc.)
•  I had a slight feeling I wasn't going the right way out of the MRT toward my post-kindy coffee destination, but I happened upon a Kiki's Restaurant--assuring me with it's basic cat sketch that I was headed in the right direction for coffee...and life in general
• There's a chance I've attached excessive meaning to the constant appearance of Kiki's Restaurants in my adventures as I traipse about Taipei
• Kiki's: a culinary stalker, or a beacon of light?  Research (delicious research) must be done.

***

The 'listening comprehension' portion of homework asked this youth to draw a purple teddy bear; this haunting portrait was the result:

 

 He received credit for his interpretive depiction.

Happy New Year (from the future)!!

My video refused to upload, so I had to steal it from youtube.  Check out how I welcomed in 2012.

THIS:

Dude.  Taiwan.

A bullet-pointed year in review

In case I lose you somewhere within the next few "paragraphs" I will make this announcement at the beginning:

Check out this website: http://www.ediblecommunities.com/upcountry/blog.htm and bask in the delicious sound of "the Seasonal Kitchen: Pumpkin Soup for the Winter Soul" as written by the talented Whitney "Mr. Magoo" Gerhard.  I've yet to try it myself, but I expect a batch to be concocted when I visit!  After all, it's dishes like these that made me begin my "adventurous eating phase" in the first place.

***

It's my first New Year's with a blog and I feel as though I should write a 'year in review' themed entry; I feel compelled, really.  It's no wonder, though, considering my beginning the year as a bookseller in Walnut Creek, going to Prague with intentions of living and rounding out the last third of the year in Taiwan.  Let's retrace the journey together, in the form of a highlight reel of favorites:

• Purchase 
• Plane ticket to Prague

•  Honorable Mention: ticket to Coachella Music Festival.  Nothing welcomes in the warm weather like a sweltering Jimmy Eat World dance party in the desert!

• City
• Boston: a trip during the springtime was planned with a friend, and it did not disappoint.  I was immediately sucked into all things Boston, and I'm sorry to say that this included wearing a Red Sox hat (I plead peer pressure, and an insufficient will to win in Oakland).  This New England city saw me eat lobster raviolis (when in Rome...er, kinda), wear a crab-shaped hat, and act like an seven-year-old on a sugar high--jumping around with all kinds of excitement while waiting in line at Fenway.

• Prague: obviously.  This Czech city made passing the time simple and majestic; I never could spend the day inside...many explorations were had, and many discoveries were made.  The Czechs satisfied my appetite (meat and potatoes...*gargle*), and my quest for adventure.  Also (lest you forget), there was an entire church made of bones in the city's outskirts--I'm not really sure if anything can top that.

• Taipei: I've become strangely at home in Asia--despite my lack of language skills.

• Hostel (excluding the one I essentially lived in)
• Tiger Tim's (Budapest): first off, the name; secondly, the proximity to a delightful Indian food restaurant (where I dropped my wallet in curry...just one of the many chuckle-worthy events that took place there); third, the entire room of good-looking guys we awoke to on the last morning (ah, those mixed dorms).

• Job
• Teacher: though the employee discount at Barnes and Noble was enticing (perhaps a little too much so), I have become partial to the occupation of teacher, over bookseller.  I find this reassuring  given that I've been planning on teaching as a permanent occupation for quite sometime--oh, and because I moved to Taiwan to do it (good thing I enjoy it).

• Movie
• "Moneyball": Michael Lewis' book of baseball finances centered around the A's caused me a little worry when I heard the movie was in production.  The book was brilliant but, as anyone feels when a movie is made about something close to their heart, I was concerned that it wouldn't capture the magic of "the Streak" or that it would just be terribly inaccurate.  My mind was eased upon viewing the film in a Taipei theater (two months after it premiered in Oakland); I laughed, I cried (don't judge), and I fell in love with the A's all over again.  And, fun fact, I was watching this movie at the exact moment my nephew (an A's fan by inheritance) was born!

• Honorable Mention: "Midnight in Paris"

• Book
• the Book Thief by Markus Zusak: a tough category, with a clear winner.  I read this book during the first months of spring, and thus sat outside in the sun for most of it but still had chills.  I had borrowed the book, but ended up buying my own copy about a quarter of the way through because there was so much I wanted to underline and mark.  The year's obvious winner.

• Honorable Mentions: Life (Keith Richards), the Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett), Fever Pitch (Nick Hornby), Just Kids (Patti Smith), Bossypants (Tina Fey), Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh)

• Album
•  "Suck It and See" (Arctic Monkeys): ignore the crude title...this album was awesome, and I've had a hard time shutting it off since it came out.  I love those Arctic Monkeys, but they don't feel mutually about me...if they did, they wouldn't have waited until after I left the country to tour with the Black Keys.

• Honorable Mentions: "Elsie" (the Horrible Crowes), "El Camino" (the Black Keys), "Pink Strat" (Bahamas), "21" (Adele)

• Favorite song to finish the year: "I Only Want to Be With You" (Amy Macdonald, covering Dusty Springfield)

•  TV Show
• "30 Rock": still the easy winner with another successful season; Avery Jessup was a delightful new character.

• "Up All Night": Maya Rudolph + Will Arnett + Christina Applegate = my neighbors thinking I'm the strangest person in the world...not that I'd understand them if they made any remark about hearing my constant laughter through the walls.

• "Arrested Development": yes, I've hopped on the bandwagon; yes, I've giggled through my journey; yes, I've finished all the episodes; yes, I've done the chicken dance in front of not one, but two of my lower level classes.

• Food
• I regret to inform you that I am unable to pick a favorite from the entire year--also, at the risk of engaging in an "F.G.N.Y." I shan't devote any more space to food...at least for today.

• Biggest Disappointment
• Missing Jimmy Eat World's "Bleed American" tour: in order to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their album, the band went on tour to play "Bleed American" in its entirety.  One show was slated to take place in San Francisco in September...when I wouldn't be there!  That's ok, Jimmy--the album was only the soundtrack to my teenage years.  And to add insult to injury the show took place at the Fillmore, which is only the coolest venue!  No, no, it's cool...why don't you add a second show just in case I wasn't hurting enough.  You did?  Thanks.

• Honorable Mention: the Oakland Atheletics' 2011 season...no surprise there.
• Cutest Baby
• Isaac Elliott:

***

 So there it is; my year, my favorites.  And I'll show you out with this little number:

Happy New Year's!!!

Official Report: 'Svelt Lindsay' may be a myth.

It's been long enough...I shall now devote an entry to my favorite Taiwanese food item: the "handheld omelet".  Phonetically it's pronounced "chung yo bing" and once I managed to remember that Chinese phrase I knew I would have no chance of going hungry here.  Given my desire to use this Asian/mystery meat experience to morph into 'Svelt Lindsay' (a characterization that I failed to embrace fully in hearty Prague), the discovery of what I call "a handheld omelet" has become both a gift and a curse.

Here it is in all its glory:

 

 Allow me to expand on the above visual as the full delicious appeal is too glorious for photography (and the lighting in my apartment flatters nothing and no one); the outside is some sort of crepe/croissant-y situation.  Complete with green onions this shell is fried to perfection and beat with a spatula to create the ideal texture (note: I believe the beating to be unnecessary; I have an untested theory that it would be even more amazing if it was left in its non-abused form).  Given Taiwan's tendency to add egg to everything I originally embraced this because I couldn't communicate it any other way--but embrace it I did!  An egg is fried on the hot-skillet and the crepe/croissant-y shell is placed on top of it.

With just these two ingredients (shell and egg) I have been more than satisfied on many an occasion, but it is not yet a "handheld omelet".  In order to complete the final process one must add bacon and cheese...which, fortunately for me, are pronounced in Chinese very similar to the way they are in English.  Once the latter two ingredients are inserted into the center the treat is folded over--ready to be enjoyed with enthusiasm and a smile on the consumer's face.

This "omelet" is typically a breakfast food, but I went through an astonishing amount of time able only to consume it at the night market stand where it was originally discovered (lacking cheese and bacon).  Once the official (yet not as creative) title was successfully researched the boundaries of consumption expanded to include the morning (when it is meant to be eaten), with a break in the afternoon before the night market man set up camp.  And then one shop changed everything.  There is a seemingly rare, yet utterly delightful, 24-hour breakfast shop a mere ten minute walk from my apartment building.  Actually they have more than breakfast food, but breakfast is what I am currently most concerned with...and (the most important part) the owner speaks fluent English.  Originally this was rather discouraging, for I attempted to order my meal in Chinese and she responded in English.  I quickly realized what a gift this is; I can ask her what certain appealing items are called.  I have been working on my aspiring position as a regular with a focus only food can provide me.  The relationship looks promising.

I wonder if there is any country where the potential of a 'Svelt Lindsay' actually exists...