Week 3: Welcome to Jhou Huan Elementary!

This week was the first week of classes! Although I still didn't quite feel ready to teach yet, I think having a teacher prep day on Monday definitely helped me get my bearings. For prep day, I woke up around 6am and scrambled to catch the morning bus to the pier. Since myself and two other ETAs are teaching on Little K, our morning commute includes a ten minute ferry ride between Big K and Little K.

Once we reached the other port, the other ETAs and I had to figure out how to get to each of our schools before 8am. We still didn't have scooters, we couldn't rent electric ones (which don't require a scooter license), and none of us even had bikes, so we had to rely on the bus. Mine, Jhou Huan Elementary (卓環國小), is the closest to the port, so I didn't have to ride too long, and I was able to grab breakfast at a nearby Seven (7-Eleven) along the way.

When I got to Jhou Huan, everyone was very welcoming! I still didn't feel comfortable yet with having conversations in Mandarin, but I was able to get around, and I could ask questions in English to my LETs. Most of the day was spent lesson and activity planning for Tuesday's classes, aside from a faculty meeting. I also got to check out the textbooks for each grade as I lesson planned. Personally, I was thrilled to see some of the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) appear in one of them. Yay linguistics!

The real "trial by fire", so to speak, was the first day of classes on Tuesday. Fortunately, we also had the entire morning to continue lesson planning for the kids, and I only had two classes in the afternoon. I also co-teach for almost all of my classes, which makes it much easier.

In the morning, we also had a brief assembly, during which all of us teachers introduced ourselves to the students. I was incredibly nervous for my first class after lunch, but I think it went well! The kids were very sweet and energetic, and they seemed to enjoy interacting with my introduction slideshow. I think the second class went well as well, even if the kids were a little restless.

Wednesday was the first day I solo taught. I was only teaching kindergarteners, but it was tricky to try to expose them to English, especially when they were still learning Mandarin (as am I). Despite the language barrier, I think they enjoyed learning songs like the Itsy Bitsy Spider and looking at English language picture books. The next two classes, who were definitely older than the kindergarteners, were a little easier since I was co-teaching again

Given that we have weekly Fulbright trainings in Jinhu every other week, one of the other Little K ETAs and I had to book it from our schools to Jinhu Elementary. It took an hour and a half from leaving on the ferry to getting into the classroom, but we made it! This week's meeting was largely just planning our activities for the English Village.

A handful of us had dinner together afterwards, then those of us living in Jincheng caught the bus back to our apt. I forced myself to go to the nearby furniture store first, where I finally got some desk organizers, a trash can, etc. to help me organize my room better. It only took a week and a half, but I could finally clear off part of my desk!

I think that being able to have a routine and also organize my space has helped me feel finally settled down. The past couple of weeks, I felt like I was going a little crazy living out of a suitcase and hopping on and off planes.

Thursday and Friday passed fairly uneventfully. I spent Thursday teaching and lesson planning as well, but was moved to another desk since there wasn't enough space in the first office. My coworkers in the second office are also incredibly friendly and helpful, and I managed to have a decent conversation with them in Mandarin (I think). Then on Friday, I went to the English Village instead of Jhou Huan so that I could help prep our materials and activities for the semester. Allegedly, Super Typhoon Hinnamor was due to hit Taiwan on Friday, but I think that Kinmen's proximity to Mainland China helped shield it from the worst of the storm. Honestly, it didn't even rain, but it did cool down a bit temperature-wise.

I think one of the most notable events of the week was two of the ETAs finally getting their scooter licenses! During the week, I realized how badly we need to be able to scooter to have any flexibility in our schedules. So far, we've all been relying on public transport (and sometimes the goodwill of others) or just walking to get from point A to point B, but waiting for or riding public transport usually eats up most of our day.

Example A:

Jincheng to Jinhu by bus: anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour depending on which bus you catch, which isn't always easy to determine (Google Maps isn't always right, and the bus schedule isn't always right either). Also, if your stop isn't one of the terminal stops, you have to hope the bus is coming at the time your probably-inaccurate website has told you it will, which it probably won't. Don't forget to flag down your bus too, because sometimes it'll drive right past you if you don't. And then you'll have to wait another half hour to hour for another bus.

Jincheng to Jinhu by scooter: probably about fifteen minutes.

Although I feel like a fifteen year old trapped in US suburbia, I'm glad we've been able to get around at all, and I look forward to getting to scooter around, even if the traffic laws are a little frightening.

On Saturday, my roommates and I finally made a trek out to Carrefour. It was hot and a little further from the bus stop than expected, but we could finally buy necessities, like Tupperware sets, cleaning supplies, laundry hampers, lotion, storage solutions, etc. as well as some fresh fruit and snacks. Our biggest hurdle was coming back from Carrefour with everything we bought. There was a convenient bus stop right across from the Carrefour, but the bus didn't come when it said it would, so we slogged in the heat to another bus stop. That particular bus apparently came an hour after the time we arrived. We tried hitchhiking, but that didn't work either. Then we wanted to walk back to a Seven to call a cab, so we started to do that. It went poorly.

Fortunately, an empty taxi happened to be driving nearby, so I tried my best in Mandarin to ask her to drop us off near our apartment. She agreed once I found a nearby address in Mandarin, and the three of us were spared over a half hour walk in the scorching sun. We still had to walk to the apartment from where she dropped us off, but it didn't matter—we were practically home already! When we got in, we couldn't turn on the AC any faster. I must say, air conditioning had never felt better in my life, not even after a long day of summer camp as a child.

We spent the next couple of hours recuperating, then taking the Mandarin placement exam for National Quemoy University, Kinmen's local university. Most of us Kinmen ETAs had signed up to take a Mandarin course while living here, and many of us opted to take the online placement exam, which was admittedly quite difficult.

The format was definitely confusing, and the difficulty curve ranged from listening to a sentence describing a picture to reading several formal paragraphs discussing theses. The test was also broken into two parts: listening and reading. I knew my listening was far below my reading (as well as writing and speaking), but taking the exam only made it more obvious. At the very least, we all survived the exam, and we got to go out to KTV (karaoke) together afterwards.

Am I a good singer? Nope. Did I still have fun? Absolutely. As the night went on, everyone had fun taking turns singing different songs like "What Makes You Beautiful" by One Direction and "All Star" by Smash Mouth. One of my favorite moments of the night was everyone singing along to "Bohemian Rhapsody", which obviously included imitating the guitar solos. Walking back, we also got to make friends with some students at NQU.

After this week, I feel like I'm more adjusted to living here. As fun as the past several months have been, I've missed having some structure in my life, even if I was definitely sleep deprived throughout the week since I couldn't get to bed early enough for a full eight hours. I'm starting to feel more comfortable speaking Mandarin with people as well, even if I'm still not doing a great job understanding what anyone's saying back to me. Hopefully, the classes at NQU will help us out soon.

I'm also looking forward to competing on Jhou Huan's field day on October 29th! I'm not sure what it entails, but it looks like all the faculty members are going to be competing in at least one athletic event. I'll be competing in the relay race, so I'm excited to see how that turns out. Until next week!