You Tube

You Tube is great! I visit it almost everyday and see what's happening. I also love typing my old favorite music groups in search and being able to watch and hear live concerts of Joe Walsh, Pink Floyd, Weird Al (a great teaching tool for 6 graders) various reggae groups and pretty much anyone you want to see.

There are also some great art videos. "Silent Beat" is an example. Just type it in the search area of You Tube.

Coming soon. My six graders will make a short video and we'll put it on You Tube. The challenge for me is using the equipment and software. The challenge for them - deciding what to do. Some are in to it and others I don't know.

Six graders are a breed of their own. Sometimes they are "too cool to show they really care." At least I think so. Hard to tell. How this video turns out will tell how much they really do care or not.

Hot Hot Hot and Humid

The weather has been really hot, and really humid. Last week it got up to 37 degrees Celsius and high humidity. That's actually the human "normal" body temperature 98.6 Fahrenheit. It was the third highest May temperature ever recorded in May in Taiwan.

People ask me if it's this hot in Hawaii. Most think so. But I tell them in Hawaii the temperature it rarely goes above 90 Fahrenheit or 32.2 degrees Centigrade.

http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm This is a link to convert temperatures. Easy, just insert a number, either Celsius or Fahrenheit and it converts to the other.

http://www.cwb.gov.tw/V5e/index.htm This is the English Taiwan Central Weather Bureau. They are not too good at predicting rain. However they do report on Typhoons (Season starts in June) and report on Earthquakes (There hasn't been a big one or one that we can feel in quite awhile. It worries me a little since I think it's overdue.)

New Teaching Position

On Friday I went to Future Heir Bilingual Elementary School in Taichung and did a teaching demo for the principal and others. I signed a contract for next year NTD $10,000 increase in my salary or about US $340 per month. Not bad. I also substituted a class while I was there - 3rd grade - 40 minutes for NTD $500. I'll be teaching social studies, math, science (if the I teach grades 1 or 2) and English. Grammar is taught by the Chinese homeroom teacher. The Chinese homeroom teacher and I share the classroom.

The students are high-level English speakers and most seemed fluent. Most spoke better English than some students in the US. I read a chapter from Narnia to the third grade. They understood. The class size range from 13 to a maximum of 18.

I'll be living in Annie's apartment in Taichung. She will live there part-time too. It's about a 15 minute walk from the school. There is a gym and a pool nearby. The inside of our apartment is nice but the location is noisy with traffic. It'll be okay for a year or two.

Perhaps a new blog - Life in Taiwan, Chapter Two; Taichung, will be appropriate.

Two photos of why I feel homesick

Feeling Better or Onward through the fog

Finally feeling better after a good week of culture shock and homesickness. I still don't feel back to 100% but my attitude is a lot better. I think the improvement has to do with thoughts and plans of a few weeks in Hawaii in July, the reality of moving to Taichung and finally living with my wife instead of the weekend commutes between Taipei and Changhua, and the potential new job I may get in Taichung on the 18th.

As an old friend of mine used to say: Onward through the fog.

A few more photos from Alishan

These are a few more photos of our Alishan trip. The park is at about 2000 meters and used to be 2000 year old forest. When Japan had possession of the island between 1905-1945, they built a railway in order to harvest the forest. Now there are only a few of these 2000+ year old Red Cedars around. same old story around the world. The train is pretty cool though. It is one of two in the world that zig-zags up part of the mountain, going from 50 meters to 2000+ meters in 75 kilometers.

Severe Homesickness

Saturday after noon I got hit by a huge bout of homesickness. It's the first time that it was so severe. The feelings are depression, alienation, a bit of hopelessness, melancholy, airline ticket price shock and craving for pizza and expensive wine.

So, I ate the pizza and drank expensive wine. I still feel melancholy. What a wonderful word. I've never appreciated it before.

So I plop through the day. The kids at school still give me a thrill - that's nice. I think the homesickness will pass in a few days. We'll see. Till then I'll keep checking ticket prices on flights to Hawaii or the continental US.

I really wish this wasn't happening. I'd rather take a trip to Australia, New Zealand or some other place nearby. But I may have to go home...

The Monkeys

During our trip to Alishan I finally got to see Taiwan Monkeys in the wild. This is only the second time I've ever seen monkeys in the wild. The last time was in Indonesia on the island of Sumatra many, many years ago.

These monkeys look cute but actually, the dominant male scared the shit out me by jumping right up to me and making threatening facial expressions (sorry, no photos). I was worried about getting bit...

A little bit about the monkeys. Macacus monkeys living in Taiwan have hit 250,000, Taiwan's local media reported on Wednesday (March 8, 2001). The media said that local agriculture officials have delivered a report to conservation experts saying that Macacus monkeys inhabit Taiwan's broad-leaved forests at altitudes of between 500 and 1,500 meters. The officials said Macacus monkeys usually stick together during the day, and the largest observed group had 75 of the animals. Because of their status as a rare species, citizens in Taiwan who hurt the monkeys face prison terms of between six months and five years as well as a fine ranging from 200,000 new Taiwan dollars (US$6,000) to 1 million new Taiwan dollars (US$30, 000).
(reminds me of my younger brother...hardy har har)