Nov I, Weeks 14 & 15: Busy, Busy, Busy

These two weeks have been fun, if a bit tiring. I've been trying to schedule things differently and explore different places I haven't been, and it's been nice. I've gotten to visit Tainan, go to my first music festival, and even go on a field trip with some of my students at Guogou.

     On Monday, October 30th, school went relatively well. Afterwards, my roommate and I cooked Japanese curry for the first time! It took a little bit to prepare, but it was delicious. I also wasn't expecting the curry powder to come in big blocks.

The next day was Halloween. I didn't have a costume prepared, so I just used eyeliner and some paper to make myself into a cat. Ah, last-minute costumes. Throughout the day, I had groups of different students come into the office, read a sentence or two in English, then get a piece of candy. At one point, I had probably twenty or thirty kids lined up to read their sentences (truly a testament to the power of sugar).

In the afternoon, I helped one of my LETs with her performing arts class. The class was split into three groups, each of which had their own dance, so I helped a group of students their dance. I think they did pretty good!

The next day, I went back to Guogou. I taught my origami lesson to my eighth graders in the morning, then I went to pottery club in the afternoon. I finally finished my crested myna! It's a bit large. And could be... more attractive. But it doesn't look too bad!

     On the drive home, I had some weird things happen. In the span of maybe thirty seconds, while I was pulling up to a stoplight, I registered three things: 1) there was a police car nearby, 2) a bee hit me in the chest and fell into my scooter cupholder, and 3) my scooter turned itself off and refused to turn back on. It was a lot, to say the least. I briefly thought the bee was the reason for my scooter malfunctioning. Or that the police would do something.

     After half an hour or so on the side of the road (with my roommate, who kindly offered a ride home), a mechanic came and helped me fix my scooter, then I went home. I think I just made a mistake with the gas.

     For dinner, we had a (semi-)cohort dinner at a teppanyaki restaurant. It was nice to see people again! Also, the teppanyaki was pretty good. We spent an hour or so chatting, then some of us went to the Taibao apartment to hang out.

     On Thursday, I had my Fulbright teaching observation (yikes!). It went ok. I did station teaching, and my ninth graders learned about Día de los Muertos, Diwali, and Loy Krathong. I think they liked making paper lotuses, at least. Otherwise, the day was pretty unremarkable. I liked my lunch, at least.

     The next day, I taught my origami lesson to some students, and tested out my YouTube lesson with my ninth graders. A couple of eighth graders made me some more paper boats, which was sweet, but one of the highlights of my day was how well the YouTube lesson went!

     After classes, I headed down to Tainan to meet up with my partner, and we explored some of the city. Among other things, we checked out a cool bookstore and got Oreo and banana shaved ice.

     My partner, my roommate and I explored Tainan together on Saturday. While my partner went to part of the music festival, I had some pastries with my roommate, then we went to Hayashi Department store for a bit. Among other things, I saw a cute coin pouch with myna birds on it, which I contemplated getting but didn't end up buying. Then for lunch, the three of us had burgers and pasta, plus we shared a soufflé pancake (yum).

     We explored Snail Alley afterwards, and we got little rubber snails from a gacha machine for funsies. After that, we met up with some other ICLP students and walked around some temples and markets, including Kongmiao Shopping District. Then, for dinner, my roommate, partner, and I went to an Indian restaurant, and I also had a boba egg tart (which was delicious). We visited Shennong Street afterwards, and we got to see a bunch of different lantern displays and little shops. Honestly, Tainan's an incredibly cool place, and I loved exploring it!

     I bought my music festival ticket for Sunday, so my partner and I (plus some other Chiayi people) spent the day going to some concerts. After we had Korean food and boba for lunch, we went to our first concert of the day (held at the Museum of Taiwanese Literature): Ichiko Aoba.

     She's a Japanese artist who plays dreamy, atmospheric songs (mostly on guitar). The first time I heard her music, I was going up Maokong Gondola with the other Kinmen ETAs. I was glad I got to hear her in person! It was wonderfully relaxing; her voice is just as beautiful in person as it is in her recordings.

     After the concert, we all went to Gan Dan Café (甘單咖啡館), then my partner caught his train back to Taipei. The rest of us briefly went to Hayashi Department Store so I could circle back for the crested myna pouch I wasn't sure if I wanted initially, then we went to Chimei Theater to see a Filipino funk band called Flu. I haven't listened to much funk before, but it was a great time. Also, at some point between concerts, I also saw Ichiko Aoba in the street! I didn't realize it at first, but when I did, I was admittedly a little starstruck.

     For dinner, we all went to a famous Tainan restaurant called Du Hsiao Yueh (度小月), then we went to one more concert at the literature museum again and saw a Korean rock group called The Bowls. I had to leave partway through to meet up with my roommate and catch my train home, but I had a wonderful weekend, and I hope I can go to more music festivals in the future!

     Monday, November 6th, was my first day teaching again. Classes went okay, then I went to a café to do work with a Chiayi ETA for our upcoming storybook volunteering together. I haven't been able to talk to her for a while, so it was nice catching up. Then, I went home and my roommate and I ate leftover curry for dinner (which we had so, so much of). I got to show my roommate the first episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and she loved it, so I think we're just gonna watch the whole series for the next couple of months.

     Also, good news: I found out that the visual novel that my friend and I made for inkJam placed thirteenth! And we scored ninth in narration, which isn't bad!

     On Tuesday, I helped teach my eighth graders about occupations, and I got to teach them the English words for some of the jobs they wanted. Among other words, they requested the English for "chemist", "animator", "funeral director", and "mixologist".

     In the afternoon, I helped out with my LET's performing arts class again, and I got to watch them perform their dances. They killed it! I think some of them enjoyed dancing too, especially my one student who loves Kpop (especially G-IDLE).

     The rest of the evening was chill. I ran errands, my roommate and I inquired at a local dance school about taking classes there, we had dinner, etc. Nothing major.

     Wednesday was my first day back at Guogou, and also the first day we implemented English BINGO. Since the Chiayi County government wants each school to record students practicing English with teachers outside of class, our solution at Guogou was to make a BINGO board with English phrases on it. Each week, students can come up to me, practice a sentence, and receive a stamp. If they complete a row, they receive a small gift, and if they fill out the whole board, they can receive a bigger gift.

     The kids took to the English BINGO well. A bunch of them swarmed my desk throughout the day. Classes also went relatively well, and in the afternoon, I got to work on a new, smaller clay project. I decided to make a "money toad" (金蟾) with a coin in its mouth, and somehow, I managed to finish the frog part within the forty-five minutes or so of class time.

     I went to another café (Seimokuya, in Puzi) with another Chiayi ETA to work on a separate storybook volunteering after school, and it went well. I got a milk tea, and the ETA got a latte and a crepe cake. I liked planning and chatting with her!

     That evening was also our planned cohort (?) dinner and movie night, so I went to Taibao house and we played mahjong, then we had Korean fried chicken for dinner. Our movie of the evening was Across the Spiderverse, which was as amazing as I remembered. Animation? Stunning. Soundtrack? Incredible? Wifi at the Taibao house? Not great, but it got better, and we managed to get through the movie.

     The next day went well. I tried a new breakfast restaurant for fantuan, and they were great. Teaching went well again (the YouTube lesson seems to work like magic for my classes!), then I ran some errands before going to a café in Lucao called Coffee Behind The Scenes (幕後咖啡). I went with another ETF, who was celebrating her birthday, and we did some creative writing. The café was cute, and I liked the vibe. There were two cats; one was particularly desperate for attention, and it wore a little ribbon around its neck. The other was spectacularly rotund—I cannot emphasize how surprisingly round and wonderful this cat was.

     The two of us then walked around the area and checked out the Lucao Night Market for dinner. Honestly, the night market was much smaller than expected, but we got some skewers that weren't bad. I also had fun walking around with the other ETF and chatting.

     Friday was field trip day at Guogou. In the morning, I taught one of my seventh grade classes, then did a bit of work before our afternoon field trip to Haomei Beach in Budai Township. Even though the kids were just cleaning up the beach and learning more about the environment, they were ecstatic to leave school. A number of them had bucket hats, shades, and fanny packs ready to go. One seventh grader even had a clip on pinwheel in her hair.

     My LETs and I ended up on the bus with the seventh graders, so we accompanied them through their three learning stations. First, they cleaned up the beach, then they learned about the plants in the area and looked for mud crabs. Apparently, the trees and shrubbery planted along the beach is a windbreak meant to keep the sand and dust from blowing inland.

     The last station was a plant scavenger hunt in the Shuiyang Forest, also known as the Black Forest. My group did a pretty good job at finding most of the plants on the sheet despite me contributing very, very little (i.e. nothing). After the kids finished, we went back on the bus to a rest stop so the kids could use the bathroom and walk around. Some of us, myself included, checked out some of the sea life-themed murals in the area and bought 紅豆餅 (red bean pancakes).

     I'm pretty happy I was able to accompany some of my students on a field trip! Last year, Jhuo Huan's field trips were always on Fridays, so I could never go because I had English Village. I'm still a little bummed that it seems I won't be able to go to any of Budai's field trips (their field trip days are also Fridays), but hopefully, I'll be able to connect with the kids in different ways.

     I picked up my partner from the HSR station later, and him, my partner, and I all hung out and had dinner together. We also had some mochi that my partner brought from Taipei, and eventually, one of the Chiayi ETAs came over for a sleepover. Yay, sleepovers.

     Saturday was overwhelmingly busy. Fun, but exhausting. In the morning, myself, my partner, and some other Chiayi cohort folks went to try archery. I haven't done archery since I was a kid at summer camp, but I had a good time trying my best, and I even hit a bullseye or two.

     Later, we all went to lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant in Taibao, then had boba, then went to the city for a double birthday party. Two of our cohort members celebrated their birthdays recently, so we got them two cakes (a lemon tart that ended up being more of a key lime pie and a Costco tiramisu) and sang happy birthday. We also played mahjong, mafia, and Codenames as well as had two Kahoots testing everyone's knowledge of the birthday people. Of course, I made the one for the Kinmen ETA-turned-Chiayi ETF. And included as many wonderfully embarrassing photos as possible.

     Afterwards, some of us got dinner from Smokin' BBQ and ate together in Wenhua Park. Then, I went with some people to watch a cello performance, then we went to douhua. I was sleep deprived the whole day, so I probably should've gone home after dinner, but talking to people was nice, and I liked seeing cohort people.

After a week of nonstop movement and café visits, I crashed on Sunday. Sadly, I also had volunteering. Myself, my roommate, and some other people signed up for a walking tour of Puzi to help create tour translations. I dropped my partner off at the HSR station, then took some photos and notes, but I was mentally not doing great, so I went home and took a nap during lunch. It was much needed.

     Despite the exhaustion, walking around Puzi and learning about the Peitian Temple (which is apparently the most visited fertility temple in all of Taiwan) as well as other iconic sites, such as the city's water tower, was interesting. I especially liked learning about the indigo dyeing plants and process, which apparently a local bookstore is trying to revive in the area. We all got to plant some indigo plants, plus pet some dogs as a bonus.

     After volunteering was over, I went to Puzi Art Park with my roommate to check out the Puzi Common Market. There was live music as well as, obviously, a little market selling plants, baked goods, etc. Even though I didn't have the time to check out the Chiayi Daughters' Festival in Shuishang, which is apparently one of Chiayi's larger festivals, I had fun having a little outing with my roommate. I also had fun later when I accidentally took a two and a half hour nap.

     Although I've been feeling better these past few weeks, I think this past week especially, I haven't had enough time to recharge from all the fun things I've been doing. I think I've been stacking my schedule so that I always have something fun to look forward to.

     It's been about two months, nearing three, and I'm still not having a particularly good time this grant period. I hoped things would get better by now, and I think they have a little, but they doesn't seem to be consistent. Here's to hoping that the next two weeks go relatively well.

Writer's Note: This post was originally written on Tuesday, November 14th, 2023.