WOW. I'm reeeal bad at this whole blog thing. Let's get caught up! In the last post I was in the final days of an English Language Program in Taiwan as part of my study to become an English as a Second/Foreign Language teacher.

The last days in Taiwan were spent adventuring about the city of Taipei. One of these adventures included me tagging along with Dan, Charlie and some of their students on a bike trip. We rented bikes for a day for less than the equivalent of $10USD. It was so fun! More importantly, thank goodness for ice cream. It was a staple of my diet while I was in Taiwan because of the heat. Also....it's delicious.

This trip was absolutely invaluable to me. It helped me to grow not only as an individual, but also as a teacher. It cemented my decision to change my major officially (even though I'll be in school for an additional year and a half)! Also, it revealed to me the gaps in my knowledge. Knowing where I need further development and more experience has helped motivate me through my classes. Even though some things may be tedious, I now have a goal that I am passionate about and invested in that I am working towards. BOOOOOOOORING. Sorry. I just had to get it out.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!!!

Good News! I passed the Praxis I! If you're not familiar with it, this is the test that teachers need to pass in order to get into university education programs. In addition to that, today I received the grammar reference book that I bought online. In summation, one, no TWO STEPS closer to being a REAL teacher!

Now on to more exhilarating events. It happened. The moment I had been waiting for. I actually felt old for once.  Most of the time I feel like I'm still sixteen years old and I hate it. Now I'll most definitely regret saying this when I am older but right now, I don't. So it was in my class TED 120, Introduction to Education and Technology (or something along those lines). The teacher made a comment about September 11th and then said, "You guys were in what, 3rd grade when that happened?" Everyone in class was like, "Yea, that's right." As I mumble to myself, "I was in 5th grade." Now this made not seem like a big deal to you, but for me it was monumental, cataclysmic even. Of course, I should have expected it being in a senior in a 100 level class... Don't ask me to explain it because I don't really understand it myself.

Since Thanksgiving was last week, I had the opportunity to spend quality time with my family. (See above image for a brief summary of my holiday) I've apparently reached the point in my life when it's appropriate for people to ask if I'm currently seeing/dating someone or if I have a boyfriend. Maybe it's not appropriate but either way, people do it. A LOT. When I respond with a no or not right now. There is one of four reactions and they are as follows: 1) "Smart! Boys are trouble." 2) "Don't worry. There's someone out there for you." 3) "Good for you! Focus on school for now!" and last but definitely not least 4) "So you don't have a boyfriend? ....Do you  have a girlfriend?" Now I'm perfectly comfortable in my singleness. To quote Kelly Clarkson, "It doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone." But seriously, I'm really happy where I'm at right now. I hate that people react like it's a bad thing. In some ways, it's way better than being in a relationship! Plus I get all the love I need from my wonderful friends and family.

If you didn't notice, I learned how to insert cool things like gifs into my blog. Sorry, I'm not sorry.

Two new posts in two days?!

Well I realized that I forgot some important things in my post yesterday so here we go again!!!

In America during summer the sound of music in the street causes children to go scampering to their parents for money so that they may stop the ice cream truck and purchase an icy melty treat for their enjoyment. So when I heard music here in the streets logically my heart leaped with the joyous memories of my childhood. As the music came closer I saw it was larger than a normal ice cream truck and not as colorful. When it passed so did a not so pleasant aroma and I realized...it was a garbage truck. In Taiwan the garbage trucks play music! What a wonderfully simply way to make trash less unappealing.

Oh. The movie was great last night! It was the first time I'd seen a Hollywood movie in IMAX form. Otherwise I'd only seen IMAX movies at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Every once in a while I got distracted by the Chinese subtitles. I was telling myself that I could totally learn Chinese and that it'd be awesome! But then I tried to learn some words from the students who came with us to the movie and reality came crashing in that it was completely different than anything that I know. 

At the McDonalds here in Taiwan they are doing a promotion. If you buy a meal and a fancy drink (which comes of to a total of $3USD) you get a glass cup celebrating the Olympics. Well my two lovely roommates Nicole and Julia have been brought in by this and have decided they need all six colors! Julia needs only two more and Nicole, who recruited her students to help her has the full set. I have one. Of course I tease them for coming all the way to Taiwan and eating at McDonalds several times a week. The truth is the cups are kind of cool. They are glass and as far as we know aren't in America! Its kind of a neat souvineer and McDonalds is cheaper here so why not?

Every morning for breakfast we go to Ed's. He and his wife have a lovely little shop off the street with tasty food. Because Ed was a flight attendant for China Airlines, he even knows English! He has made a point to learn our names. Even though some days he thinks we are all Ami or Kelly, the two blondes in our group. He recommends us tasty things such as a green onion pastry, cheese shortbread, and passion fruit juice with black tea. Its a great and positive start to our days.

With less than a week left its getting harder to squeeze all the things in that we want to do with our students and the touristy things as well. Today is the last day of actual class :( Tomorrow are our final performances! While rehearsing, I'm sharing with my students some of my favorite theatre warm ups for diction and energy. I'm so pleased with how hard they're working and it will certainly be entertaining to watch!

Well I don't think I forgot anything this time, but if I did you'll hear from me tomorrow!

B

P.S. I'm out of control excited for KTV (Karoake) tonight!

Random Adventures!

Since I haven't posted recently...for a week...this post will be a series of short anecdotes or explanations of what I've been up to and things I've experienced.

Today, for an activity all of the classes participated in an Amazing Race where each teacher was in a location and had a task for the students to perform before they could move on the next task. Each task was designed with a school subject or American culture in mind such as English class or Driver's Ed. Mine was Dance class. I had taught the Electric Slide and the Macarena in my class as had some other teachers, along with the Chicken Dance. So, the only other thing that came to mind was the HOKEY POKEY! Because each group got to each station at a different time throughout an hour and a half, I had the opportunity to do the Hokey Pokey at least 30 times. Seriously. Keeping my energy up in order to encourage all the different levels of students overcome shyness and language challenges was exhausting, but so fun! That's really what its all about. (See what I did there?)

As some of you may know, the restrooms work a little bit differently here. They normally will have the Western toilet that we are used to, but they also have a 'Squatty Potty' or five. Essentially, its a toilet except in the ground. Metaphorically, a western toilet is the above ground pool in your backyard, where a squatty potty is in the ground. Got it? Sometimes there is a bar on the wall for you to hold on to and brace yourself with, but other times you just gotta hope your thighs don't give out. Well, I had managed to avoid the Squatty Potty knowing the time would come when I wouldn't have a choice. Would you like to know the circumstance where this choice was taken from me? Well I'm going to tell you. It was on a MOVING TRAIN. Yup. My first time using a Squatty Potty was on a train ride. I couldn't very well hold it as it was a four-ish hour ride so I had to bite the bullet. I was surprisingly successful. I'm going to stop this story right here though before I reach the realm of too much information. In conclusion, I'm no longer afraid of the squatty potty but it does make me appreciate the convenience of a western toilet and good thigh muscles. 


I don't know if I have a friendly face or what the deal is but when my roommates and I here in Taiwan go somewhere I'm the one who get approached by the kids. I'm going to guesstimate they were around ten to thirteen. The first time was in a store. The roommates were wandering about looking at school supplies so I found a comfy couch. A girl who was there with her friends approached me holding her phone and said something in Chinese. Since I don't know Chinese, I smiled at her and said Hello. Not put off one bit, she then, in excellent English, asked to take a picture with me. Anyone who knows me can easily guess my answer. Of course! So we took our picture and afterwards I was able to chat with the girl and her friends. I was impressed with how well they knew English and with how confident they were! I would say they were about on the same level as the students I am teaching. The second time was in a food court at a festival. I was waiting for my food and two boys approached me and asked where I was from. I was able to talk to them about the festival and they thought it was way cool that I was there teaching English. They weren't quite as proficient but since I've gotten used to speaking more slowly, we were able to communicate. They are just so excited that you are there because they don't see a lot of  'foreigners.'


Last evening, a buddy and I hiked on the Path of the Immortals. It's a lot of stairs on the hill right behind the University but because of those stairs you get a great view of Taipei. We planned to be there to watch the sunset around six. We ended up hanging out up there playing cribbage, drinking wine, and taking pictures of the city lights for quite a bit longer. I've noticed that some of the most memorable things you can do while travelling aren't the touristy things but rather the little things that you could do at home, just in a unique location. Great company doesn't hurt either! Even getting attacked by the giant cicadas (a beetle-y looking insect) on the way back couldn't bring me down. 


Several other highlights of this last week include and thirty minute massage by a blind individual for $10 USD (its sounds sort of sketchy but its a real thing here and its really popular). It was spectacular! 
I went to Xingting Temple and Longshan Temple to experience a little native religion. The structures themselves are beautiful, ornate and absolutely stunning.
A group of the teachers went to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial. He was basically the president of China until the communist party defeated the nationalists and he and his government were forced to retreat to Taiwan in 1949.  Wow! I sounded like a person who likes and is knowledgeable about history. To be honest, I looked it up on Wikipedia. But in the bottom of the memorial was an art exhibition of Salvador Dali's work. It was so intensely awesome and profound. Then we fed the fish in the pond outside the memorial and it was so juvenile it was perfect. 
My students took me on the Maokong Gondola where we got a car with a glass floor. It was a great view and the height was thrilling! We stopped for tea on the top of the mountain and then went back down and headed to the zoo. At the zoo, I had the pleasure of enjoying Pandas, Koalas and in the nocturnal animal building there were even hamsters and guinea pigs. The most humorous part for me as a Midwesterner was when I saw they had raccoons! 

Tonight we're planning on going to the Dark Knight Rises at an IMAX theatre. We've made sure it will be in English and as with most American films that are shown here, there will also be Chinese subtitles. All of the teachers here are aware of the tragedy that occurred in Colorado at this film's premiere and some have used it as an discussion opportunity in their class. The solutions they have offered such as "ban all guns" have been an opportunity to explore cultural differences. It does make it difficult to encourage them to come to America and tell them that its 'perfectly safe.' But things like this happen and it doesn't mean that we should live in fear of 'what if.'  My thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the victims. I can't imagine what it would have been like to be in that theatre. I know this isn't a very good note to end on and there's enough talk about it in America but I wanted to mention it.

Other plans for this week include karaoke (which I'm so pumped for!), more night markets, and some hiking! This is a effervescent and magical place and coming home in less than a week will certainly be bittersweet!


Since this blog is about me being a teacher I suppose I should comment on that a little bit more. One of the requirements was that we have to present a skit on Greek Mythology on the last class day in front of everyone. My class chose Sophocles' story of Oedipus. For any one who knows the story, its a great one isn't it? haha. Today they made their props and costume pieces out of cardboard and aluminum foil! We're having a great time getting to know about each other and our cultures!

Love you all and thanks for checking up on me :)

B

So let me tell you about my weekend. Thursday after classes we head to the train station. The train was full but we were able to purchase standing tickets for about $10USD with the knowledge that when people got up we could take their seats. The first hour was spent sitting on the floor napping in the corner. Thankfully a bunch of people got off and we were able to find seats for the last couple of hours. When we arrived we decided to head straight to our places of lodging. Four of the ladies went off to find their hotel while I, my two roommates and three guys went to our hostel. We got there and paid, about $15USD a night. Since we waited so long to book it, the only room left was a ten person, so we were able to make some foreign friends. With the six of us there was a Russian guy, Artem, and a guy from Munich, Germany. They were there both nights. The other two beds were taken by two Taiwanese bikers the first night and a father and daughter the second night. I thought it was great! We all shared one bathroom, but it was cleaner than the one in the dorms so we weren't complaining.

That night we went to the best restaurant of the trip so far with our new friend, Artem. It was all you can eat for about $10USD. There was buffet of rice, raw seafood, meat, and veggies. You chose what you wanted to eat and brought it back to your table. In the middle of the table there was a hot pot filled with two different broths that you could place food in to boil, such as noodles. There was also two grills at either end of the table for grilling meat. At first it was absolutely terrifying not really knowing what I was eating but it was so good that was quickly forgotten. The taxi rides were quite entertaining as well when we listened to some 'Girls' Generation,' a popular South Korean pop group.
     
Friday was awesome! We all met up to go whitewater rafting. This was an interesting experience because the safety demonstration was given entirely in Chinese. In spite of this, we all managed to make it through alive with a few sunburns, bruises, collisions and persons overboard (including my roommate, Julia). When we were near the end, the guide 'let the foreigners out to go swimming' while the natives just watched content in their rafts. This took pretty much the whole day with us exhausted by the end and ready to crash...which is ironic because on our way back from a 7-11 (they're EVERYWHERE here, like every block) we witnessed a car/scooter crash. I can make that joke because thankfully, no one was hurt. It was one of the most bizarre moments. It sounded like a piece of plastic getting run over. Within seconds, a lady police officer had pulled up on her scooter and was diffusing the situation.  


The next day was spent at Taroko National Park.In this park is the Taroko Gorge,which is one of the most famous tourist spots in Taiwan. We hired a taxi to cart us all around to the hiking trails and the best sights. It was beautiful! The water of the river flowing through the Gorge was a stunning turquoise. I love America but honestly, this was better than the Grand Canyon. The most thrilling part was walking across a suspended bridge to the other side. The sign posted stated that the limit was 8 persons on it at a time. Oh. Well I feel safe. At another trail we were given helmets just in case some of the rocks fell. It was nothing if not an exciting, beautiful adventure. We then had the driver take us to a swimming spot where we relaxed and stayed cool until heading to the train station to head back to Taipei. We had seats for this train for $15USD. I also took the opportunity to enjoy a light and refreshing pineapple beer.


I would like to reassure you that amidst all this fun there is learning/teaching happening. The first week of classes went splendidly! My students are all bright and kind. There are a few that have decided to take a picture with me each day. 


Critter Sighting: A cockroach strolling about the streets, some more lizards, and a more startling encounter with a flying cockroach...I might have screamed. The other group saw a giant spider. I can't say I'm sad I missed it.

Well back to lesson planning to catch up from the weekend away. Thanks for reading! 

Well, yesterday was all sorts of wonderful! We slept in until 8, which for jet-lagged us was perfect. Then around 10 decided we should see one thing and then come back and prep for our first day of class. So we decide on Taipei 101, figure out how to get there and head out. We took the MRT (subway) to the closest stop and decided to walk the rest of the way. First we stopped at a beautiful bakery for lunch where I bought bread with cheese and bacon. How awesome is that?! Then we meandered in the direction of Taipei 101 stopping in classy (air conditioned) malls that contained Gucci, Coach, Rolex, and the like. The best part was an acrobatics troupe that was performing on the street. Two men and three women were dancing, balancing, flipping, twirling, and lifting outside in the heat. It was the coolest thing! A couple of the stunts they did were terrifying but exciting. Finally we made it to Taipei 101, where we first wandered around and looked in the different stores. We didn't end up going to the observatory because part of it was closed due to the heat so we decided to go back another day. We headed to the food court to rest our weary feet and after much sitting gave our table to some guys from Canada who looked Taiwanese but spoke accent-less English. They showed us to an electronics expo. Needless to say we didn't get back with much time to lesson plan, but it was a great day!

Today was the first day of classes! I have 9 students but one wasn't there so we'll see if they show up. I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be and it went well. They are between the ages of 18 and 21 and one older gentleman. I had them write down 5 things they wanted to learn. My two favorites were 'How can Americans enjoy life so much?' and 'How do I know where the white American comes from: America or Europe?' Ohhh this will be an adventure. Also I brought them Jolly Ranchers and they were huge fans. The main part that is especially tricky for me is slowing down my rate of speech. I'm a fast talker but then factor in excitement and nerves...

Alright, I gotta stop for now. I'm sorry this post is kind of boring and factual. I was up at 4 this morning due to jet lag, so this afternoon and evening have been a struggle. On a positive note, I'm using the song "Call Me Maybe" in my lesson tomorrow. These is no end to the joy that will ensue!

                   

Hi friends!!!

I have safely arrived in Taipei, Taiwan. The flights went well and I have zero complaints! I'm staying in a dorm with three other lovely ladies. The room is about the size of any University of Wisconsin school dorm room, except we have four people. Our bunks are on top of the desk and closet, but best of all THERE'S AIR CONDITIONING!!! Only from the hours of noon til two and eight pm til six am, but if we keep the fan on and lights off it stays pretty cool.

Woke up early this morning because some of us couldn't sleep very well and we went for a walk along the river and about the city at 7 in the morning. There was a little market that had clothes and all sorts of food, such as fish fried whole, raw meat, and dead chickens with their heads still on. Is it weird that I'm even more excited to try the food now? Probably because I'm starving.

Creature Sightings: One spider in the hallway which I promptly smushed (I know they eat bugs but they freak me out), Ants crawling all over the desk, and two lizards.

We were discussing airport security in our room and that we thought Japan seemed rather lax. My bag got scanned twice but my roommate said it's "because out of us four, you're the one who looks the most like you would have a drug dealer boyfriend." She was dead serious. Um. Thank you? Hahahaha

Mom and Dad, this is your friendly reminded to check Steve Jobs the Hamster's water levels and feed Penelope Jones the fish. Thank you!


Well time to head out for brunch with the group, bye!


P.S. Hopefully the documentation of this trip goes better than Germany, Switzerland and Austria's did :)

Germany Day #1

We're in Germany! We flew through the night, with a stop in Iceland, to Frankfurt. We landed at 12ish their time which was 7 am our time and now as I write this its midnight. Talk about a long day on little sleep. After a snafoo at the airport with getting a car that set us behind, we were able to see a good amount of Frankfurt. I recognized a lot of it from when I was here 4 years ago.

We would honestly be completely lost without the Grehls. They are the family I stayed with when I was here. Their son, Peter, who is Brad's age was my primary host. I went to school with him and such. Back to the point, they have helped so much since we don't know any German. They pretty much planned our first week here and what we need to see. It was so good to see them at our gate! Peter is great and his friend Sandra is as well. Stefi, their daughter, is a delight.

What I learned today: Mothers in all countries worry too much.

I apologize if this is a bit scatterbrained as I'm exhausted. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a bit more time. Tschuess!

So, yesterday my brother graduated college. How neat is that!? Although it kind of makes me want to be done with college...but alas, I have at least two and half years left...maybe three. More importantly, I'm super proud of him and he's already got a job too! WOW! Despite his best efforts he has also managed to get a real girlfriend and apparently she really likes him, like for real. She told me so herself. Weird.

One other story from this weekend: I got my performing moxie from my Grandpa Boettcher. He likes to make people laugh. His classic joke that he will tell EVERYONE and also his family, much to our chagrin, is "I'm so old that when I was young the Dead Sea was only sick." Well, this weekend he was out in the hallway ten minutes before the graduation service was about to start, so the graduates were lining up. He approaches one of the girls in the line and asks, "Now what was the name of this play again?" I can only imagine what went through her head, trying to figure out if this old man is senile or just being facetious.


So you know how some people name their summer or have some sort of song lyric that defines their summer? No? Well they do. i.e. "It's a smile, it's a kiss, it's a sip of wine, it's the summertime" or "Summer lovin' had me a blast" Well I'm theming my summer too. I'm calling it, "THE SUMMER OF A BROAD." Get it?! It's a play on words. Because I'm travelling abroad, but also I am a broad. Still nothing? Well i guess I'll just appreciate my own cleverness while you groan at my weak attempt at humor.
(Note: I will still name my Facebook photo album "Summer of a Broad 2012" )

Onto more teacher-y like things, I have to write a syllabus for my class in Taiwan. Which I haven't done before along with writing lesson plans, which I haven't done before. Tonight, I did those things while sipping a glass of Barefoot Moscato Wine. It was certainly something I could get used to doing on a regular basis. (P.S. Its legal for someone under the age of 21 to drink in their own home with the permission of their parent or guardian. Right?)

I told my mom today that my goal is to make it to 21 without getting an Underage Drinking Ticket, so I suppose I should play it safe this week. :)

I can honestly say that I can't remember the last time I was this excited about my life. I've got so many big exciting things happening! It's a great feeling. I'm pretty sure it mostly comes from actually knowing and feeling confident that the major I'm currently pursuing is the right one for me. I get to travel like crazy this summer and work my butt off to make up for that. My schedule for next semester will be super great, I'm the Vice President and Business Manager for our theatre club, Masquers. I'm also the Theatre Ambassador for Alpha Psi Omega, the theatre honor society. Second semester, I'll be Stage Managing the Masquers show for the first time!
I'm surrounded by great, intelligent and funny people who have enriched my life. My brother is graduating college and getting a big kid job! I'm so proud of him.
This week, a big project for one of my classes was cancelled (thank goodness I had procrastinated) so that makes my finals week easier. I'm going to a show on Friday at the dinner theatre I worked at. Saturday, I have a end of the year picnic and awards ceremony. So much is going on but I'm loving being busy with the things I chose and not just things I have to do. I don't know how everything will turn out but I'm finally going in the right direction. :)

Oh yea, I also got a grant of $300 for the trip to Taiwan to go with the $500 stipend!!!

To top it all off, I dyed my hair. It is now a reddish purple-ish burgundy, but enough about me. How are you?

B

So a friend of mine on facebook shared link and to be honest it kind of annoyed me. http://www.cracked.com/article_19785_5-ways-modern-men-are-trained-to-hate-women.html

I feel like the idea that everything men do is intended towards impressing women is a conceited and mildly ignorant statement. Read and discuss amongst yourselves if you so desire..

Updates for Taiwan: We bought our plane tickets!!! The official dates are July 5-30. They were almost $3,000... Thank goodness the University in Taiwan is footing that bill... I only have to pay for tuition and fees.Although I'm really struggling with lesson plans. Partly because I've never written one before. The other reason is that I'm worried that all the awesome and ridiculous games I played to make my language learning experience fun are way too juvenile for the university level. I'd think they were fun... but I'm notoriously easily amused.

RICHARD III opens Thursday!!! For those of you who are unaware, for the past month or so I have been in rehearsals for Shakespeare's Richard III. I'm Lady Anne. Basically, Richard seduces me, marries me, I get crowned his queen, and then he kills me. Super. (It's actually really fun.) It's the first time I've ever done Shakespeare and it's certainly an adventure.

Finally, recent events in my life have been somewhat difficult. It's been a learning experience to say the least, although I'm slightly disappointed in myself and some of my reactions. I've found myself behaving in a juvenile fashion. Thinking about it, I've realized for myself that my parents were right when they said focusing on the negative things aren't going to help. This has pushed me one step closer to getting my tattoo. I've been thinking about getting the Greek word "agape," meaning unconditional love, on my wrist in cursive. I need the reminder that even if someone has hurt me or I'm not their biggest fan, I still need to show them love. In the words of my ENG 100 teacher from my freshman year of college, we need to "practice being nice" and eventually it'll stick. Contrary to popular belief, practice doesn't make perfect. It makes permanent.

Happy Easter everyone!

I had a delightful weekend filled with Easter joy and general merriment due to my silly family (and close family friends such as the ever cantankerous Luke Krajcik).

The highlights include:
~Cassie and I sang like warbly old ladies during church as per tradition.
~My brother, Brad, decided that we were all past the age when the Easter egg hunt needed to be closely monitored by our parents, mind you, our ages are between the range of 16 and 23. The rule was that we each get 12 eggs, but Brad decided that since we were old enough, it was a free-for-all. He took to finding the eggs, claiming the candy, and then promptly re-hiding the eggs. This caused great ire for the less athletic of us.
~I had the privilege to meet Taquito. My cousin's turtle. We're not quite sure what kind of turtle he is, so I will call him a pocket turtle. He is approximately an inch and a half across and quite adorable. While he does have an actual aquarium for his home, he tends to spend more time in Makenzie's pocket and/or purse.


Moving on, this past week and weekend also contained three birthday celebrations! Last Thursday was my best friend Lisa Miske's surprise party!!! On Saturday we celebrated my Grandma Boettcher's birthday, as well as Great Grandma Oberstadt's 100th birthday. Oh Boy! Let me tell you, that is quite the accomplishment, although it is not a goal for me. I've become a fan of my independence and would not like to return to a life where I depend other people for my daily existence and activities. Granted, I suppose to a certain extent it is inevitable.

In other news, I just finished the second book in the Hunger Games Trilogy! Usually I pride myself in being a book snob. Meaning, I read the books before I see the movies. With the Hunger Games, this was not the case. However, while I watched the movie (feeling a little guilty), I was able to simply enjoy it rather than comparing it to how I imagined the book or being mad that they took something out or didn't follow the book exactly the way it was written. What I have discovered, more often than not, is that if you read the book first, you will be disappointed by the movie.

Since this is supposedly a blog about me being  TESOL Teacher, I guess I should include something about that. While looking through the activity idea book, there was one about riddles. An example of one of the riddles is as follows: "A man lived on the twelfth floor of an apartment building. Each day, when he came home from work, he took the elevator to the eighth floor, got out, and walked up to his apartment on the twelfth floor. The elevator was in good operating order and went all the way to the twelfth floor. Why did the man walk up those four flights of stairs?" Now I'm sure you're quite curious as to what the answer is. I would prefer you gave yourself a moment to think about it, but if you'd rather not think too hard, here's the answer: "He was a midget and could not reach any button above '8' on the elevator panel." WHAAAAA?! Is that even politically correct anymore?! I think I'll just skip that activity or maybe use a different example...

Thanks for your attention to my blathering! <Yes, that is a real word!

I received the packet of various teaching materials and ideas that our professor wants us to look over for Taiwan. I open it and the first activity made me laugh out loud. Maybe this is more of an inside joke for my family, but I'm sharing it nonetheless. The activity is intended, in the English learning world, for practicing asking questions.This is the first time I've ever thought to use it in an educational setting. I used it for a Christmas party and, according to my friend A.J., it is a drinking game called "Celebrity."

Now, I don't really know a name for the non-drinking, classroom appropriate version of this game so instead I'll just explain it. You write the name of many different famous or well-known individuals on small pieces of paper and tape it to each participant's back. Then, you wander about asking questions about your person in hopes to determine their identity. Or, as my family tweaked it because we're rather easily distracted, we have one person do it at a time. Then, everyone can appreciate the ridiculousness that ensues. We also make it more personal, including people who are a part of our lives. So, here's a shout out to the Boettchers!

Speaking of the Boettchers, I'm excited beyond belief to see them this weekend for Easter. So much hilarity and adventure will occur. I also plan on eating my body weight in various forms of hard boiled eggs, which I have recently developed a strange affection for.

Well, here we are. The moment I've fought since I was in the sixth grade. This moment consisted of a child's dream to grow up and be a teacher and the realization of how much work it really was . A never-ending stream of grading, lesson planning and determining curriculum was not the life I picture for myself. Working at the YMCA as a summer camp counselor had turned me off to ever interacting with children that were not my own. Hearing some of the tales of my dear mother's substitute teaching experiences weren't very encouraging either. With all of this working against me, I tried to plan out what I did want from my life. I knew I wanted the adventure and excitement from theatre. I wanted the interpersonal relationships of communication. Now, what can I find that includes those things and also doesn't really seem like work...?

I recall a time in seventh grade when I turned in grammar homework and my teacher told me that I "was good at it," and that "I should become an English teacher." I scoffed, rolled my eyes (as most 11 year olds tend to do) and shrugged it off. I was still determined that teaching WAS NOT the right thing for me. Throughout high school, I resisted the encouragement to "attend Martin Luther College" and "join the ministry." I didn't want to become the stereotype: go to MLC, marry, live in happy, conservative wedded bliss with my children. But that's another topic for another time.

I was always pushed by my parents, especially my mom, to do my best, learn as much as I can and travel. To me, the best way to do this was by leaving the realm of private, religious based education and jumping into a public university in the exotic and distant land of River Falls, Wisconsin where my father attended college. I started out as Undecided Major with a Minor in Musical Theatre. Throughout my college career, that Minor is the one thing that has not changed. Second semester, I lept into Communication Studies. After taking Sophomore Seminar, decided it wasn't for me. Side stepped into Digital Film and Television Sophomore Year, where I made delightful silly friends and became one of the hosts of Focus on U, the esteemed (but rarely watched) student run TV show. Junior Year, deciding I wanted to travel and also for giggles, I picked up and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Minor. Uh oh. I loved it. Diagramming sentences, phonetics, and language acquisition were all the new exciting things that filled my dreams and hopes. Now, I am contemplating changing my Major to an Education TESOL Major (and by contemplating, I mean I'll change it next semester). This is the moment I've been fighting. I'm going to be a teacher. I have to take all the education courses that are required to get into the program, take the Praxis I, take the classes needed to be certified and then take the Praxis II and I'll be certified in WI! And then on to MN! To top it off, I'll probably get my Master's while I'm at it. I mean, I'll probably be here for 5 years at least. Why not just add a year or two?

Now this explanation wouldn't be complete without the travel opportunity that got the ball rolling. At the beginning of this year I was desperate for an adventure. Then in my Intro to Linguistics course, I was introduced to the month long trip to Taiwan in July to teach English at the University in Taipei. There was no going back.

This blog will serve as a means of reassuring my darling parents, family and friends that I'm still alive while I'm there and also to document my thoughts and experiences. It'll be my journal because, realistically, who even uses real tangible diaries anymore. If you do, get with the times!!! But seriously, the purpose of this blog will probably evolve over time so don't get too comfortable.


B