Friday, October 28, 2011
We've spent about two months discussing and several long weeks planning and preparing for Halloween at the Berhan Language Institute, and finally last night we were able to decorate and pull it all together. Today was our big activity, and I think it is safe to say that there were some very memorable things for the kids (good memories and bad memories; some of them cried because they got scared so badly). It was a LOT of work, and, despite my fears and worries, it was a really fun day (also despite the fact that most of us were running off of little to no sleep). Last night around 8:30, once classes were over and all the kids had gone home, we started decorating the entire first and second floors of the school. We didn't
finish decorating until a bit after midnight, and I don't think we had our bedroom lights off until after 1 am. Then we had to be back downstairs, in costume, by 8:30 this morning.
Nerd Jessica
Spongebob Jenny
Mummy Sara and Pirate Kylie
Mr. Veronica (with Kylie and Maggie in the background)
Mysterious Kaylee
Veronica, Sara, Jessica, Kylie, Kaylee, Christina, Heather, me, Kendra
This time the same people as the picture previous (minus me) plus Jenny
Cut-throat Kylie's got a pretty nice ring to it, don't you think?
Kendra with some of the MK kids
More Mk'ers
Christina and Nica. Oh, man, this picture makes me laugh.
The bloody bandages hanging in front of the first floor kitchen
We were all super tired when we got up, but the fishing didn't take any energy (I sat behind a cardboard wall/door and just clipped things on to the end of a fishing pole; Gerald did all the talking and stuff with the kids on the other side), and the afternoon kids liked the slimy noodles. The AK kids LOVED it, and they loved seeing me (I didn't look scary yet). I scared Tim pretty bad. He went to pull out an "eye" from the noodles, and I had my hand under it (covered with noodles) and knocked it into the air, screaming, as he went to touch it. Then HE went screaming and ran back to his desk. I wasn't able to get pictures of ALL the AK kids, but I did manage to catch a few of them on... digital memory card (I was going to say "film," but who uses film any more?).
The fishing "door" that took up five hours of my life to make. Even Frances told me she liked the fish, and that's a Big Deal! I didn't like the way it looked last night when I finally called it quits, but, looking at it today? It does look pretty good. I hope they keep it for next time! (I only did fishing for the babies and MK; Jenny was the fisher for the afternoon classes.)
Jack and me before Afternoon rotations started
The slimy noodles with a slimy mouse, some spiders, and eyes mixed in. There were a few other nasty random things, too (like a tomato that was almost totally demolished by the time evening classes were done with this and a bunch of grapes, also of which many were unrecognizable as fruit by the end).
Some of the decor of my classroom. Nica was in charge of designing/decorating this room, and I think she did a fabulous job!
Oscar saw the red-eye thinger on my camera light up and stopped digging long enough to smile at the camera. I love this kid!
Mia. She was not phased even a little bit by anything disgusting in here. She just dug right in, found what I told her to find, and went back to her seat. This kid has only 2 facial expressions: this one, and crying (which I've only actually seen her do twice; Jack and Sam cry a hundred times more than she does).
Vincent
Tiffany (shaking some noodles off her hand)
Kevin
Coco
Jay
Me, Candice, and... a girl I don't know.
Me, another girl I don't know, and Nick
Ok, the deal with the mystery children. Nick and Candice were with this group of kids instead of with the rest of the AK kids. They were my very first slimy noodle rotation, and I really wanted to try to get a picture of/with all my AK kids (but I totally failed with accomplishing this as I missed out taking pictures of an entire group of them; sad hearts). I took the pictures with Nick and Candice first, and then all these other little kids in the group wanted a picture with me, too, so I obliged them.
And this little girl really wanted me to wear my sparkly glasses, so I did.
The evening kids... well, I think most of them liked it OK, but by that time I had a bad headache, I was getting really shaky and dizzy from not eating (there wasn't any time to eat after noon today) and it was hard to get some of the older ones to cooperate. Amanda from my elementary class told me when she came in (the room was dark, by the way; there were only two lights: the bug zapper light and the light coming in through the window from the hall) "Miss Rachel, you don't look like you." I asked her if I looked scary, and she said "A little bit scary" in a voice that said, "You're making me nervous. Can you please not stare at me/stand so close to me?"
Heather and me in our Evening Garb. I actually added a trickle of blood from the stitches on my forehead shortly after this picture was taken
The festivities finished at about 8 pm, and we were completely done cleaning
everything up by nine. It's disgusting how long it takes to prepare for something like this and how little time it takes to
destroy clean it up.
Meanwhile, I'm seriously looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow and catching up on some much-needed R&R.
Labels: children, Halloween, Holiday, Taiwan, Teaching
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
This is why literally living at work is not too bad. Unless...
TRAFFIC JAM ON THE STAIRS! STAMPEDE!
(can you tell I haven't gotten much sleep lately?)
Sunday, October 16, 2011
*Note: I've been made aware that my archives are having... issues. This, I hope, will be resolved in the near-ish future. Until then, I'm sorry if you miss a post.
So, yesterday (Saturday), some of us took the train to Changhua to meet Bree and Jessica Stoker (they teach at the ILP school there), who then showed us the way to Lukang.
Lukang is one of the older villages in Taiwan. When we got there, we went down Old Market Street and just wandered around shopping for the day.
(I want a door like this some day)
Labels: Taiwan, travel, weekend plans
