Pneumonia

After a weekend of recovery from the mystery fever, I decided I needed to go to the doctor. My cough was getting worse and I needed to be able to sleep. Since I've been so full of rage lately, you can imagine my frustration when the medicine the doctor gave me did nothing to alleviate the cough, after I had specifically asked. I kept myself awake well into the night with my cough, but I did manage to get a few hours in there somewhere.

The next day was, I would say if I had the appropriate gentalia, a ball-crusher. I had kindy, drive directly to more training, drive directly to work at night. No breaks, no naps. I showed up to training on time, but something wasn't sitting right and on my way out of the bathrrom 15 minutes later, I ran into Charlene. This woman, like so many other Taiwanese workers I know is a powerhouse. She works 3 jobs, has two kids under 5, and finds time to help us out too. She took one look at me and in an ever-so-subtle way informed me that I "looked *really* sick." I glanced at myself in the mirror, and sure enough, I had big black circles under my eyes, which were red-rimmed, but they really brought out the green of my skin. I pulled myself up the stairs to training, struggled to keep my eyes open, but the fits of dry, hacking coughing kept me awake long enough to curse the evil woman who had planned this training.

I asked to leave early, and when I got home, I knew I needed another doctor and quick. I decided to take the evening off. Little did I know how sick I really was. Later, that evening the fine doctor at Chung Shan Medical informed me that I had a mild case of pneumonia.

Now, usually I wouldn't have pushed myself so far before taking time off. In fact, I regularly tell the women at work to get some rest. I apparently had no use for this advice myself. I guess working with people who show up to work unless they are bleeding profusely from a severed limb (although I think Jacqueline would just patch herself up and keep teaching), has started to rub off, because all my normal responses to this situation had been altered. "You have a mild case of pneumonia...." (Pause) "Can I still work?" I said. Not, "how long until I can work, " "how long should I rest?," or the equally responsible, "Will I be ok?" I ask if I can go to work tomorrow. I am a damn fool.

I took three days off from work, and have spent them blissfully in bed napping, and watching movies. It feels really nice, but I'm worried about going back to work. I've used up all my sick days, and I'm not sure how I can work less, or get more rest. I wasn't going out anymore (a part of my life I sorely miss), I was napping as much as I could inbetween classes, and I was sleeping as much as I could at night. I can't really think of any ways to change my pace to keep me from getting that sick again. I will have to remember to drink more water and take my vitamins. Hopefully, that will have some impact. Plus, my vacation is coming up in less than two weeks now. Yippeee!

Relief

A weekend of near constant whinging and sleeping actually has me feeling a little better. My stomach is still touchy, and I kept myself up late coughing last night, but I'm going to the doctor today, so I should be right as rain in no time.

I've talked with people about my feelings, that usually seems to help :) and although I still need the vacation, I now feel like I can survive the next few weeks until the time for it actually comes!

I hope the doctor doesn't spray that stuff up my nose again...that was weird.

Bad Day

Sorry about the tone the ol' blog has taken of late, but I can really only write what is happening and my response to it. Perhaps I'm still adjusting to my new schedule/workload, perhaps I've got new kindy germs to deal with, but I can say this with complete clarity: Friday was a bad day!

It started waking up from a deeply restful sleep only to realize that it was 8:30 (I usually leave about 7:30) and with my 40 min. commute I had no hope of being on time to work. On the way to work my nose started running uncontrollably. Strange given I hadn't completely recovered from last week's cold yet, so the onset of a new one seemed bizarre. From there it went downhill. The kids were really good at misbehaving, to the point that we practiced sitting quietly, not talking, and paying attention to the teachers for 45 mins! Dude! So, bone-tired, I scraped myself onto the scooter for the drive home, and tried to rest. Unfortunately, I had had some tea, and was completely incapable of sleeping. So red-eyed, and runny-nosed I drove to work at 4 pm. On the way, I had a breakdown of sorts, the emotional variety as opposed to the scooter kind (refreshing change, eh?), and started to cry. Got to work, still crying. In order to spare the majority of embarrassing details, I will only say that I cried until about 2 minutes before my first class that night. This was the direct result of nothing, just a culmination of minor frustrations.

An amazing discovery: a very large and boisterous class of mine, when warned of a splitting headache, will be very quiet. Thank the gods!

In order to try and have some fun (I've been working crazily, and haven't had any money/energy to go out) I put myself back on the scooter and drove out to Fengyuan. This was a big mistake in retrospect, but I had arranged to crash there anyway and I knew I needed to have some fun. Wrong. Apparently all the crying and coffee drinking had drained me of all fluids, and then the beer I had didn't make it any better. I woke up the next morning with a fever, a splitting headache, and a bit of the nausea. I spent the entirety of Saturday sleeping and shivering, waking up just long enough to sip some water, watch bits of two different movies, and eat half a bowl of instant noodles. Today was slightly better, I could actually get out of bed, and had enough energy to make it to a movie with some friends.

In any case, it is becoming ever more clear just how much I need a vacation! Soon...very soon.

Good Kindy Day

My kids are finally starting to get used to me, my chants, and my silliness. Today some students ran up to me and gave me hugs for the first time! They are so cute. Now, if I can just get them to behave too...

I observed a fellow teacher in her Xiaoban (Small Class) and got some great ideas for discipline, timing, games, and activities. It was short and I'd love to watch more, but it was a nice start.

I have made some progress though. They line up for exercise time now AND do the exercises as best they can. A couple of kids had to miss play time before they got that I was serious about that one, but at least we aren't the only class in the school whose students are running around hitting each other anymore! Yippee!

6 Month Training

I just logged in about 8 hours of indoctrina...I mean training for Ye Olde English company in Taiwan. Ok, that was just too much. It was ok until the illusion (as tenuous as it was to begin with, it's still important for me to maintain this particular delusion) of this company caring about teaching more than it cares about money was broken. After that point I really just wanted toget out of there. I guess I'm starting to have problems reconciling my problems with global Americanization and working for a company that teaches English, and particularly English with a North American accent. Am I preparing them for the global marketplace or participating in the erasure of their culture in favor of Lay's Brand Potato Chips (seaweed flavor be damned) and other "exotic" American corps? Probably both. I think a vacation is a good idea. I think getting away from all the small frustrations for a while will really clear my head a bit.

A Little Help from Your Friends...

After sending out an email detailing my burning rage against the scooter mechanic who had wronged me, a bunch of my friends sent emails of encouragement, but only one wrote a song. Now, if he doesn't mind, I will post that song for all of you:

Go Go Casszilla

With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound
She destroys every scooter that can be found

A scooter has caused her too much pain
Now she will mangle all of they-em

She picks up a wheel and she throws it back down
As she bashes and smashes to the center of town

Oh no, they say she's got to go
Go go Casszilla, yeah
Oh no, these scooters really blow
Go go Casszilla, yeah

[Japanese verse omitted]

Oh no, they say she's got to go
Go go Casszilla, yeah
Oh no, these scooters really blow
Go go Casszilla, yeah

Scooters break down again and again and mechanics are but the fools of men
Casszilla!

I love it! And given that I'm at least a head taller and much bigger than most women, I often feel Godzilla-esque. Thanks, Eric!

The Scooter Saga Continues...

In what may be a major source of said frustration, the scooter debacle continues unabated. Luckily, after the latest episode yesterday, which reduced me to making screaming phone calls to my CT, asking her to yell at a scooter repairman in Chinese, the battery wiring problem seems to be fixed. Just to be sure, my CT asked me to bring my scooter to a shop in Da Li City, near where I work, to have it checked out by a more reliable mechanic. When Betty got wind of this, she sent me to her mechanic (a thoughtful idea, but sadly clear across town again), a friend of hers who spoke no English but would call her before making any repairs to the scooter.

Let me first say, that although it was a pain in the ass to find this guy, I like him already. He actually listened to the sound of the scooter, checked more than one place for a problem, and found a problem in development! So, two weeks from now when something else would have gone wrong, I may (fingers crossed here, folks) still be blissfully cruising Taichung City, artfully dodging insane blue trucks, and homicidal taxi drivers! Sadly, I have to have some more work done to the scooter in the next week, but it's quick, and not too expensive (about 3 USD a pop). It turns out the first mechanic really did sort out the battery problem, but I had some water in an oil tube. It should have been cleaned out by somebody at some point (and I'm not sure if I was supposed to know that or the other mechanics were) but it hadn't been (again not inspiring my confidence in Taiwanese mechanics), and now I have to have this specific type of oil changed every three days for about a week and a half or so. I guess it's better than getting stranded and having to replace some enormous thing that's blown off the back of the scooter.

Wish me luck.

Fatigue/Frustration

It is said that homesickness ebbs and flows, generally making an appearance around months 3, 6, and 9. I've been doing decently well, with minor occurances. For me, missing home and all that means usually is only a dull background ache (previous episodes of homesickness excluded), as opposed to a sharp pain. The pain seems to have shifted to the foreground in the last few weeks, and I'm having trouble deciding if it's because I really want to go home to visit, or I'm simply tired and lacking in patience (it is, of course, possible that both are true).

I find myself getting angrier and angrier at small situations. I no longer have patience with the older students at school. I'm feeling more frustrated on a daily basis (both in school and out), and I'm not really sure what to do about it. My guess is that I'm adjusting to kindergarten, new hours, a new commute, and new germs, so it's to be expected to feel rundown and cranky.

Luckily, one of my largest frustrations (not being able to effectively communicate in Chinese) is getting slightly better. Today, I was actually able to understand one of my kindergarten students speaking in Chinese! I mean, that's a whole sentence pattern I got. Sure, it was a 4 year old's sentence pattern, but you gotta start somewhere. She told her friend "Ni meiyou he tang le!" (You didn't drink soup!) He ate his lunch very quickly and was already asking for fruit, when she hadn't even finished her rice, so she assumed he hadn't had any soup yet. It took me a second and then I told her that Terry had already had some soup. Finally it registered that I understood a whole sentence spoken quickly! Yippee. It only took 7 months...

New Discoveries

In celebration of the beginning of my 7th month in Taiwan, I've decided to recap a few of the things I've tried in the last few months/days:

I've tried to be adventurous as possible, culinarily-speaking anyway. I have stopped short of chicken feet and snake blood shots, though. I haven't worked up the courage just yet. Give me a few more months for these tasty treats. The chicken feet just look too much like chicken feet. I mean, they just sort of cut 'em off, clean 'em up, and then cook 'em whole. They have no meat on them, and apparently are oddly chewy. Clearly, this is not something I'm dying to try. Snake blood shots, procurable in Taipei's Snake Alley Nightmarket, although apparently good for virility, and would so clearly make a good story, aren't for me either. Gotta work my way up to that. Apparently, one can also eat deep fried bees, maybe that would be a good stepping stone. First bees, then snake's blood. Eh, why not?

But onto things I have tried:

Lemon Milk Juice: a smoothie-esque drink with lemon rind, milk, sugar, and other assorted goodies...yum!

Stinky Tofu: both fried and in soup form. Soup is pretty damn stinky. You can detects it's particular odor from blocks away. When stopped next to a vendor at a light, the smell is so strong as to feel like it is just as much an full-bodied entity as you are, ready to clock you over the head. It's often compared to moldy cheeses of the west, and I can appreciate that, but even so, I prefer cheese any day!

Seaweed, seaweed, and more seaweed: It's in soups, cooked as a sidedish, sold in strips for a fishy-flavored light snack. Lay's International even has Seaweed flavored potato chips. I gotta say this one has grown on me. I'm a fan.

Millet Wine: This wasn't so much wine as it was grain alcohol. Sweet, grain alcohol. It wasn't bad as far as Taiwanese wines go, Emilie and I split a small bottle of "wine" in the Kenting beach hostel over New Year and the millet wine tasted nothing like the cloyingly sweet, bubble-gum flavored medicine-y taste of that bottle. That aside, it's better to think of it as anything but wine or you'll be sorely disappointed. On a side note, the Taiwanese gov't makes it's own liquor, wine, and cigarettes, selling such wonderfully named brands of cigarettes as Long Life, and Extra Long Life. It's a beautiful thing!

Unforeseen Expenses

The alarm clocked pounded and I awoke slowly, rolling out of bed with a moan. My experiment of non-midday napping had failed miserably as, even though I was coherent for the entirety of the previous day, I was clearly paying for the lack of sleep the next morning. I realized I didn't have enough time for coffee, but a quick shower should do the trick--sort of. Down the elevator I rode to unlock my scooter and join the morning chaos the Taiwanese call "traffic." "Boy, it's sure hard to push my scooter backwards today," I think, the idea knocking lamely around in my head. A few more pushes and it started to become clear: I had a flat tire.

The last week has been scooter trial after scooter trial. I noticed that I had had a nail in the same tire and had dutifully taken it to get patched. No problem...or so I thought. This of course added to the battery I had to replace on Saturday, makes for an increasingly light wallet this month. Ack! Ever so slowly, I pushed the scooter the two and half blocks to the nearest scooter repair shop only to realize that even though traffic is crazy so early, most shops don't open until 10 am. Oops. I called some friends from the kindergarten, but they knew of no shops open so early, and I sent the message that I would be late. I figured I might as well pick up breakfast and that coffee I had missed, before I sat down to figure something out. Luckily, another teacher at the branch offered to cover my class, since the earliest I could possibly arrive was 11:15 (30 min repair time + 40 min commute), a mere 45 minutes before lunch time, and the end of my shift. I couldn't afford both the scooter repair ($750 for the new tire) and a roundtrip cabride, that would undoubtedly cost somewhere around $1000. Damn Chinese New Year and it's unpaid week of holiday bliss!

This month continues the theme of the empty wallet. Luckily, things aren't as desperate as the last week before payday...yet. I think about it this way: By now I've pretty much replaced everything on the scooter so it's almost like I've bought a brand new one! Sadly, or happily (I'm not sure which yet), I missed the kindergarten field trip to the stationery shop. I wasn't really looking forward to controlling 30 little hands grabbing in every direction, but it was a change of routine and possibly a fun one at that.

Weather Blues

Homesickness makes a reappearance. I've heard that it usually strikes around three months, six months, and nine months, and sure enough, I'm right on schedule.

It may have something to do with the weather, and I usually get a little blue in the winter anyway. For the last two-three weeks there has been a huge coldfront. You can see your breath, it's windy, and then there's the rain. I have a raincoat, but it doesn't do much on that 40-minute scooter commute to kindy.

This wouldn't be so bad, but Taiwan doesn't have central heating anywhere, so my clothes never seem to dry. I have a pair of gloves, but they've been wet for days, and show no signs of drying. It's too humid and I have no way to dry them. So after arriving and changing into only slightly damp clothes, I'm left to feel chilly and kinda wet all day. I only have so many clothes and with the dampness issue, nothing I own at this point is 100% dry. The only time I've been warm is in the shower and in bed. It's a little taxing so I've got a good case of the sniffles. Luckily, it's March so the coldness should break soon and we can get into the super humid blistering heat of summer. I'm not sure which one I like less. But the grey skies should clear soon and at least a little sun might dry out my clothes.

I realized that I'm used to driving a car so I've never really spent so much time exposed to the elements before. At the very least, getting wet wasn't ever an issue as you could be sure to find a heat source soon enough. I guess I'm learning a lot about the importance of proper rain gear, and the dangers of swamp foot. :)

Shady KTV

Mike's last bash was this weekend. He's been teaching in Taiwan for a year and a half and now he's heading back to New Zealand. To celebrate, he organized a big KTV party. We all assumed it would be at a Holiday KTV, but after much confusion, it was decided that we'd meet at a smaller KTV somewhere.

Now, I was a little worried, knowing Mike's sense of humor and his penchant for purring at other teachers, I thought this might be a KTV that really wasn't a KTV at all. There are tons of flashy KTVs all over town, with a few bigger chains like Holiday or Cashbox thrown into the mix. If it's not marked Family KTV, and it's not a big chain, then you can bet that it's placed reasonably close to a motel and you can order a whole lot more than just songs. But Mike assured us that it wasn't this type of establishment, and so I found myself with a small map on my way to a new KTV with such specific directions as "it's in between two 7-11s (they are on nearly every corner here, so not really an effective landmark)" and "it's a big white place." Um, ok.

So, turning onto the street marked on the map in the middle of the freezing cold rain. Lee and I got off the scooter and walked up to the big white KTV. We asked for Tina, and the security guard pointed us across the street to a second KTV. We assumed he had seen a gaggle of foreigners over there so away we went. We walked inside only to be turned away a second time. "Meiyou (No) Tina." We headed back across the street after consulting the map a second time, and by this time our unhelmeted heads we dripping wet. We walked in and suddenly all the women in pink suit dresses looked confused and concerned that we had entered. Again we asked for Tina and a room number. Their concern at our presence and a huge picture of a couple in wedding gear decorating the info desk wall was pretty much all the evidence we needed that this was not your "family style" KTV. Again they pointed across the street and a quick phone call to Mike let us know that the map was wrong and actually the KTV was further down the street. We were between two Family Marts, not 7-11s. Oops.

The number of KTVs in this town is rivalled only by the amount of convenience stores, these things can be hard to distinguish.

Exercise Time

I have a pretty long commute in the mornings now. I work about 40 minutes away at a Kindergarten in Fengyuan. I find it helpful to wake up early, drink some coffee and then listen to some heart-thumping, wake you up kind of tunes on the way to work. Usually, I still feel reasonably awake by the time I get there, and ready to tackle a classroom of 15 barely contained 3 year olds. First up is Exercise Time, or 15 minutes of trying to get my students to line up, pay attention to the teacher leading the exercises, reasonably mimic said movements, and *not* hit each other instead of all of the above. This is proving to be rather difficult.

But it turns out that exercise time isn't only for Kindergarten. On my way to work the other morning, I spotted a car dealership with all the employees standing on the sidewalk out front. Near the door was the manager leading them in exercises. In suits and skirts and whatnot, these guys were touching their toes, stretching their arms, and doing full on calesthenics! My head whipped around for a second glance, before I thought better about taking my eyes off the road for any number of seconds in the morning traffic. It was a great sight to start the day!

I'm an Aunt!!!!!

Nichole had the baby and now I'm an Auntie! It seems so strange and so far away... I can't wait to go home to see the baby! I'm not sure when I'll be able to get home, but 6 months just seems like to long! The baby will be so big by then! Oh my.

First Day

No children caught fire. No serious injuries. No crying (not even me when put in a room with 14 3-4 year olds staring at me!). Number of poopy bottoms to wipe: 1. Number of stickers given to me by 3 year-old Taiwanese children: 1.

It was a good day.

Pregnancy, Taiwanese Style

At my language exchange, which usually functions more like a casual conversation in English, with a few Chinese words thrown in for me to promptly forget, I asked Nichole, who is seven months pregnant about baby names. She was debating what English name to give her son, and I asked what Chinese name she had picked. She let me know that she wouldn't be picking the name at all, that her husband's parents would be handling that. They will be going to the fortune teller to have her determine the most auspicious name for the little guy. I asked about her name, wondering whether her father's parent's had picked her name, and she told me that her father did it instead. He didn't go to a fortune teller, but rather counted the strokes of each character and (I'm a little unclear on this one) came up with a lucky number and an auspicious name. Her Chinese name is Autumn Millions and her sister's name is Beautiful Moon. Sounds like he did a good job to me! When her son has a child, it will again be the fortune teller that chooses that baby's name.

Also, there aren't baby showers in Taiwan before the birth of the baby. Friends and family will give her gifts, of course, but not on any specific day. The big celebration happens after the baby is one-month old. The party is usually only for baby boys, with the parents of new girls giving special honeycakes to friends and family instead. This seems to be changing though, she said, and now more baby girls have parties too. I happened upon one of these parties a few months ago in Kenting...

During the time before the one-month party, the baby and the new Mom aren't allowed to leave the house. Friends and family can visit, but Mom and baby stay put. What does Mom do in the house for a month? Read. Sleep. Eat. She can't watch TV, and no air-conditioning (making July births particularly horrible). She must also eat a specially prepared chicken everyday. She doesn't need to eat the whole thing, but no one else can eat it until she is done. Her family stays close to help out with the baby so she can rest, but one imagines she might lose her mind in a different way...

I found most of the bed-rest stuff a while ago while talking with Nichole and another pregnant friend of hers. During the conversation, they were careful not to touch each other. When her friend flinched when Nichole jokingly tried to touch her she explained why they couldn't touch: "If we touch each other, the babies might change places." I asked if they touched twice if the babies would switch back, but she said laughed and said it was better not to risk it.