ni hao ma (how do you do?)

Everything is going swimmingly. Have had a couple of good weekends, including a night in a hotel in Taichung after partying until 6:00am. Also went to Lugang to see the national Dragon Boat Race, a festival that celebrates a bloke who jumped into a river and drowned to make a point about some bad guys who wanted to kill him. That's the gist of it, but there might be more to it?

Teaching is getting easier and slowly I'm getting to know the kids and having some fun with them.

I'm now waiting for my ARC so I can buy a scooter, already bought a mobile phone. It's my second one ever, the first being a Nokia brick. This one has flashing lights and wallpaper. Crazy days.

Please email me, what's going on out there?
Over and out, MC

Lesson Plan

My first day at Yuan Lin school was yesterday, after spending last week covering in Changhua school. I went into my second lesson, teaching "some", "an" and "a" etc... The teaching assistant turned to me and said, "Teacher, you're doing the wrong Unit in the book!" Shit. My lesson plan took ages and I had no games for the other language. So I fucked that up a bit. Quite funny for the other teachers.

I now have a place to live, the 2nd floor in a house rented by an ex-shane teacher. It's a large room and bathroom on the same floor. Kitchen (which smells of cat piss) and lounge area too. Plus a roof top over looking the canal and rice field, with a hammock. Costing about 65 pounds a month, which is very useful as I have no money!

Yuan Lin is growing on me and I've been travelling all over the place at weekends with the other teachers. Taichung, Changhua, Taipei and new places around Yuan Lin. Soon I hope to start some hiking up the mountains and maybe do some kung foo.

The teaching has been quite hectic, the learning curve is steep but I'm getting better at planning my lessons now.

It's about 33 degrees here, I'm always looking for a cool place to sit and rest! The aircon is my saving grace.