Week 40: Happy 60th Anniversary, Jhuo Huan!

This week, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of Jhuo Huan Elementary! The whole week was just spent prepping and practicing for the ceremony, but it was fun. Lots of dance and musical performances, plus some awards, cake, and a dodgeball tournament.

The six of us ETAs still in Chiayi spent our Monday morning there. A couple of others and I decided to go to Song of the Forest, which is a renowned landmark in Chiayi made out of wood, stone, and railway ties (according to the internet). Although they didn't all pan out, we took a bunch of photos there, including some fun jumping ones.

We had brunch at a nearby restaurant afterwards, then took the HSR to Kaoshiung so we could fly home. We barely caught our train, but thanks to the power of f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶s̶h̶i̶p̶ determination and running, we made it with a whole five minutes to spare.

Back in Kinmen, everything was business as usual. I bought some fruit, went to Chinese class, then got shaved ice with my partner. My laptop also auto-updated and messed with some of my settings for some reason.

Tuesday was another dreadfully class-heavy day. I missed seeing my kids, but I was definitely not well rested enough to teach. They were cute though. In preparation for the anniversary on Saturday, there were a couple of faculty members (and even some kids) setting up decorations and art, which I liked seeing. They each made little bookmarks!

On Wednesday, we had a half day. In the morning, my classes went pretty well. The kindergarteners were surprisingly good at the letters A, B, and C, and I got to teach the fifth and sixth graders the word "bestie" as their slang of the week. After lunch, I took a nap, did work, watched the kids play with their new kites outside, etc., then helped w folk dance.

The girls definitely like having me there, especially the first grader who always plays rock paper scissors with me. During one of their breaks, some of the girls also sat at the piano with me, and one of the sixth graders could pick out the theme to Pirates of the Caribbean.

I had Chinese class at NQU after that, then we all went to FamilyMart. Aside from the regular ice cream and other fun, usual FamilyMart things, there was also a tiny kitten outside and a mystery tire that rolled from... somewhere.

Thursday morning was spent prepping for the school's anniversary. For the first two periods, there was a dry run of the ceremony in the auditorium, complete with the sixth graders in white gloves handing out awards and ushering teachers on and off the stage. The older kindergarteners also rehearsed holding up signs that said "卓環生日快樂" (which were at first held up upside down).

My singular class of the day went well, then I went to the honey shop with my partner during lunch. I'd been feeling a bit nauseous all day, but I managed to spend the rest of the day vibing, playing piano, and stretching. Recently, I've been feeling extra anxious, so I've been trying to spend a bit more time doing physical things with my hands or my body to feel more grounded.

I didn't do much after school. Just chores. Dinner. Feeling nauseous. All the usual fun hobbies that people in their twenties love. Later that evening, I also discovered that when my laptop auto-updated, it did some cool, fun things with my files, including making me think they had all been deleted. Love that. Thankfully, they'd just been moved, but it was terrifying to find at first.

I was a little nauseous the next day too, but it was a bit better. EV went well, then I sat by Lake Tai afterwards and listened to music for a while. My partner and I went to the Indonesian restaurant for dinner, and we ran into a local teacher and her guest, who was a visiting Irishman. Pretty lowkey day.

Saturday was anniversary day! I ended up sitting in the back of the auditorium with last year's ETA, who came to visit. The ETA before her (who taught at JHES three years ago) was also in Taiwan, but wasn't able to make it to Kinmen.

The kids were happy to see last year's ETA and I, and they waved at us when they could. All of them did a great job during their performances—there were folk dances, melodica, flute, and recorder performances, and songs and dances from the younger kids. One of the cutest performances was the dance performed by the first graders, who were wearing different basketball jerseys.

After a variety of different administrators and officials received awards, the students had sung the school song, and the three-tiered cake had been cut, there was a "ball game". When I'd been asked if I wanted play a ball game with the kids, I'd initially thought it was going to be a game of catch or some sort of cornhole-like game.

The ball game was, in fact, a dodgeball tournament. I wasn't quite ready for it, but it was incredibly fun. Both last year's ETA and I put on vests with Velcro on them, then were handed fuzzy balls to throw at the kids. At the end of each round, refereeing teachers would count the number of balls stuck to each player's vest, and the team with the fewest fuzzy balls would win.

The tournament bracket initially pitted first and second grade against each other, both third grades against each other, fourth and fifth grade against each other, and sixth grade and the teachers against each other. Over the course of the tournament, different victors emerged, until there was only one match left: first grade versus the teachers.

To level the playing field, the sixth graders as well as some visiting seventh graders and parents joined the first grade team. Understandably, us teachers lost, and it was a wonderful time. The chaos of having your students and other community members gleefully pelting you with fuzzy balls was a joy to experience. 10/10, would do it again.

Last year's ETA (who's a Kaohsiung ETF) and I ended up staying for lunch, then heading to a different restaurant to meet up with other ETFs (all from New Taipei). We chatted over shaved ice, then I headed home for a desperately-needed nap. Two, actually.

That evening, I went to a restaurant called KM with my partner for burgers and a brownie sundae, then to a birthday party at Vent Bar (夢酒館) in Houpu Plaza with another ETA. It was the birthday of one of the owners of Mike's Quiches, so we bought him some drinks and hung out with him and his friends. There were a bunch of other restaurant/café owners, and also a college student with a dog named Laimu (萊姆). It was nice getting to know everyone, and I especially liked petting Laimu. There was also a yummy cake decorated like a pizza.

I had Mongolian folk dance on Sunday again, so the next morning, I woke up early and headed to the community college. I also finally got a student ID card for the community college! It's just a little laminated card that has my Chinese name and says 學員證 (xuéyuánzhèng, student ID card) on the back, but it's nice to have.

I went to Sushi Express for lunch with my partner, then took another two naps (yes, that's a grand weekend total of Four (4) naps) and woke up groggy. Since hotpot was closed that evening, we went to re chao (熱炒, stir fry) for dinner instead. My brain was being a little funky, but I had an ok time.

This whole week, I feel like I haven't really been hanging out with people as much as I'd like to. I feel like I've been playing catch up on work and sleep since Chiayi, so every moment I have outside of doing work is spent laying down and/or sleeping. In turn, I think I've been getting more anxious about not spending enough time with everyone, so that's making my recent nausea (which is already probably exacerbated by sleep deprivation and the heat) worse. Cool.

Hopefully, I can spend next week hanging out with more time with people. We have an upcoming Taipei trip (the last cohort one of the grant period!), plus on Friday, there won't be any kids, so we can just chill. Until next week!

Writer's Note: This post was originally written on Sunday, May 28th, 2022.