New kid

New little girl showed up at the orphanage today. Don't know her story yet, but she just cried, cried, cried all day. I'm sure it's all scary when you're new.

I wanted so bad to just hold her, but I'm big and white and scary too, so I just let the PT do it.

(3/13/2012)

eager keener

Had one student today who just can't quite get it yet: one of the parrots in the cage out behind the orphanage. I think he'll get there eventually though. He was trying like crazy!

(3/13/2012)

Father to the fatherless

Felt really overwhelmed at the orphanage today:

Was thinking about friends and family who've recently had babies, and how lucky those babies are to have two people who are *madly in love* with them. And I felt heartsick - that the kids in the orphanage, no matter how we provide for their physical and educational needs, are missing all the emotional and developmental support that two crazy people who are madly in love with them supply. And it shows!
And that even if I'm willing to do it, I literally can't do it for 60 some kids. At least not at the same time. And certainly not even close to as often as they need.

1) Thanks to my parents and Rick's parents for all you did for us, before we even understood what you were doing.

2) Thanks God for this, because it's the only thing today that kept me from feeling despair:

"Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation."
Psalm 68:5

(Photo by Christen Webster; Posted 3/9/2012)

Mmm.

Mmm. Jungle rain. I'd like to stay in bed.

(3/7/2012)

It ain't Kansas anymore, or Quito, as the case may be

My Taiwan kitchen overlooked a swamp. My kitchen here overlooks the jungle.

Going back into preemptive-strike mode on the mold and bugs and creatures, oh my~!

(3/7/2012)

Jungle town, here we are.

Rick and I are in the jungle town of Shell, working at an orphanage for a month, helping out with their EFL program.

(3/7/2012)

Second graders on streaking

So I'm teaching second graders about storms, and our latest page we did said, "Lightning streaks across the sky." "Streak is what?" they wanted to know.

So I defined it as, "when something goes so quickly it makes a line."

"So if a wolf streaks across the forest, what color line does it make?"

"A grey line," said Laura.

"And if a taxi streaks across the road?"

"A yellow line," said Angelo.

But what conversation about streaking would be complete without definition #2.

"But streaking can also mean something else," I said. "It means when crazy person takes off all their clothes and goes running down the street."

Peals of laughter, and the hands shoot up. Oh the can of worms that definition #2 opened up.

Now, every time the kids have to make a sentence, they love to incorporate their new word:

"Please make a sentence with the word 'brother.'"

"My brother streaks when he goes to buy the food."

"Please make a sentence with the word 'pink.'"

"When a person streaks, he makes a pink line."

"Please make a sentence with the word 'lightning.'"

Lightning doesn't wear pants, so it's ok if it streaks."

What have I done?

Thoughts on romance...

... from my first through third grade EFL students:

Me: What is out second sentence for sun?
Class: We saw a beautiful sunset at the beach last night.
Me: Wow! That's really romantic. A beautiful sunset on the beach.
Laura: What is "romantic?"
Me: "Romantic" is something that makes you think about love... or boyfriends and girlfriends. Like maybe going to a movie is romantic. Or watching the sunset at the beach is romantic. What do you think is romantic?
Laura: I know. Sharing the same popcorn.
Corrine: Walking beside the Love River
(the stench of which, by the way, can be caught on the breeze from blocks away. But the city government has been trying to change its image.)
Ken: I know. Wearing the same clothes. You and your girlfriend can wear the same T-shirt.
Daniel: But many people here have the same clothes. They all say Bo-Ai elementary school.

Blue Lagoon

On a lighter note, yesterday we took some of our students to a water park in town. Except for one good scare on a ride with steeper drops than expected, I would say a good time was had by all.



This is Duncan of the "Duncan and Me" entry. He is one crazy guy!












These lovely ladies are Linda and Rose, two of our higher level students at Super Kids. Show off those legs, ladies!











This is Joe and Bruce. Joe is Duncan's brother and Bruce, of late, has been taking the role of school clown.

unreasonable state

Last year about this time, I assisted two students in going through some trauma. Though I would say we are all through what seems to be the worst of it, I still find myself in this unreasonable state...

When am I going to stop going into an absolute panic every time those students try to contact me now? Every time the phone rings, and I see it's them, my stomach starts to churn, my head starts to whirl. If I was in the middle of a conversation with someone, the train of thought is lost. My mind is instantly in chaos. It doesn't matter if I know that they are calling to ask me to go get ice cream with them. It's completely unrelated to the mind or logic. It's almost like a purely habitual physical response.

So, with this backdrop in mind, one of the students, let's call her Rachel, decided to play this April Fool's joke on me. She calls me up on my cell phone, just as I was getting out of a musical that I had gone to watch. I was still kind of *in the show* mentally, so I wasn't really thinking about the date. I see it's her and the panic starts.

"Hello?" I answer.
*Silence.*
"Hello? Rachel?"
And suddenly I hear heart-rending sobbing on the phone.
"Rachel," I say tentatively in the calmest and gentlest voice I can. "What happened?"
She went on to tell me that her dog had just died. I thought, "Oh crap! Of all the things to happen. And of all the times for it to happen. This is the last thing this girl needs." My mind is racing, trying to think of ways to help her handle this one. After about a minute, she burst out laughing and told me "April Fool's."

Ok, I just don't think my heart can handle that much stress. It was surging with adrenaline, and then to suddenly be told nothing's wrong.... I thought, "Child! Are you trying to kill me?!"

Anyway, after the fact, my friend Kara was kind enough to explain to her that that probably wasn't the kindest joke to play on poor ol' Becky.

Me and Judy

While doing a game with students where I said a definition and they had to tell me the vocabulary word, I gave third-grade Judy the definition for the word *highway.* Judy is a very dilligent student who usually knows all the answers, so when she gave me this one with the beaming confidence of a straight-A keener, I almost fell off my chair trying to keep from laughing, and to keep the other students from laughing as well.

Me: A place where you can drive your car very fast.

Judy: A refrigerator.

Me: Duncan! (stifled laugh) Stop laughing! (stifled laugh)

You know you're busy when...

You're looking foward to a 16-hour non-stop flight just because flying is the only thing that you're actually *supposed* to be doing at that time.

Headin' home in T- 56 hours and counting. Can't wait for that fresh air, baby.

city kids and the kitten

City kids are so funny man!

All my students here are afraid of animals. And I mean just about any kind of animal. I think it's pretty normal for a kid to be afraid of bugs or snakes or spiders. But a puppy? Or a kitten?

I mean, my students physically cringed one day when I showed them the tiny little ball of fur that my boyfriend Rick had found on the street. It was a little orange tabby kitten, about 5 weeks old. Its eyes were still baby blue. It didn't have any coordination yet.

It had a face that melted even the hearts of betelnut-chewing, blue-slipper wearing, internet junkie crowd that upholds the somewhat sordid reputation of the internet cafe next door to our school. They give me heck when I tell them to park their motorcyles elsewhere, but when they saw that little kitten, it was like all my past transgressions had disappeared.

So at about 7pm, after a day of enduring cringing, screaming, and the general revulsion of about 90% of our student body, the kitten was sleeping in a little box behind the secretaries' desk. One of my students, Jason came up to me and said, "Teacher, where is the... lao shu?"

Umm... lao shu is "rat" in Chinese. I said, "Do you mean the cat?"

"No. Lao shu." He starting gesturing it's size and shape with his hands.

I was baffled. My eyes were getting wider. He couldn't be serious. "What color is it?"

"Orange."

"Jason, that's a cat." I pulled it out of his box. "This is a cat."

He seemed just as baffled as I was. "Oh. I don't know," he said sheepishly, which was his way of saying he didn't realize.

Now I realize he must have just never had much contact with cats, but you'd think he might have seen one on TV or something?

I was just thinking... maybe the other students all thought it was a big rat, and that's why they were so afraid. A big... orange ... tabby... rat.

snakes!

DSCF0966
Originally uploaded by jadewingz.

This sign was in a national park in southern Taiwan. It says, "Be careful of snakes and bees!" Or maybe it says, "Don't feed bees to the snakes!"

beck and freya

beck and freya - noble
Originally uploaded by jadewingz.

This is me and my girl. I found her in a park called Gold Lion Lake when she was a mere pup of 7 months. She's one of the best dogs I've ever had except for her wild rat obsession which often leads her to the no man's land of Taiwan's park trash cans.

Typhoon in Town

Seems a bit early to me for two typhoons in four days, but here we are...

I had at least three blown-down signs pass me on the way to school today. I was literally checking my rear-view mirror to make sure there weren't any following me, and planning the quickest and easiest way to communicate to the people around me who were also waiting at the railroad crossing for the 6:45 train to pass, "Get off the road! There's a giant 'Sushi Express' about to run us all down." Just in case.

People never believe you when you say that kind of stuff though, and they've always gotta look for themselves, and by that time, the toddler holding on to grandma on the scooter in front of me would have been another casualty of the fast food industry's marketing.

Help wanted!

My boss, my boyfriend, and I run a set of free Bible classes every Monday morning at a local elementary school. It's early. The kids are sometimes brats. It's a Monday morning! We don't always like it. It's tempting to quit, but isn't this what laying up treasures in heaven is? What will a few more hours sleeping in on Monday morning mean to me in eternity, in comparison to being able to see one of these kids there?

Sometimes, when we ask other Christians for help, they aren't so keen on it. It isn't paid and it's a yucky time. However, we recently asked two buddhists/daoists to help, and they said "yes" with almost no hesitation. Make of that what you will.

Just when you think no one's watching

I’ve been wondering lately if people who live in big cities, by necessity, become less self-conscious and uninhibited.

What made me start wondering was a girl I saw in Hong Kong once. I was walking down one of the maze-like sidewalks in downtown Hong Kong Island, looking for the American embassy, when I saw this young woman. She was maybe 27, about the same age as I, and professionally dressed in a gray, linen suit. However, despite her professional appearance, she was skipping down some stone stairs, tossing her hair, and laughing out loud. Her laugh was so carefree and loud, as if she had just had a wonderful unexpected encounter with an old friend who made her laugh and did her heart more good than she’d had in ages. She didn’t even seem to notice the people around her. If I was being mean, I’d say she could have looked slightly unbalanced, but if I was being honest, I was jealous, and wanted to laugh like that myself.

I thought to myself, “Well, maybe that’s what you have to do in a big city where you are never alone. If you want some alone time when you just let your hair down, maybe you just have to take it, whether you’re surrounded by people or not.”

Kaohsiung’s not nearly as crowded as Hong Kong, although with 2 million packed into about 20 sq. km, it’s crowded enough. And lately, after four years here, I’ve also caught myself taking those little moments. Moments when I start talking to myself or singing or gesturing, and suddenly realize I’ve forgotten that the world is still going on around me. I think it does help me keep sane.

Today, however, I saw a guy who perhaps could have done with a bit more self-consciousness. He was walking down the side of a busy road, and had his arm UP-TO-HIS-ELBOW-!-! down the back of his pants picking a wedgie.

Look at me. I’m laughing now just thinking about it, and right in the middle of a crowd in the park who has no idea why.

From 5/1

Our school’s budget broke even this month. We still can’t pay ourselves, but we’re not running off investment any more. Thank God!

The Fourth Reich

This is when you know your boyfriend’s reading of “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” is going a bit too far.

Today Rick and I were talking about our ideas for our school’s summer English program, and Rick had this idea:

“Let’s have our students come in every morning and do extensive training exercises. Then, they can swear allegience to us. ‘I pledge my allegience to Super Kids and a to it’s teachers, Rick and Rebekah. I will do what they tell me to do. I will say what they tell me to say. I will turn my friends in for speaking Chinese because it is my duty as a student of Super Ki….”

“Rick!” I stopped him there.