Today was a long day. Well, every day here so far has been a long day… But today was a looooooooooooooooong day.

I was exhausted from the minute I got out of bed this morning. I didn’t feel very good. Not quite sick. But not quite healthy, wealthy, and wise. Ha. Ok, but seriously. And I wasn’t hungry for breakfast… never a good sign. I forced myself to eat a little anyway, though. The kids seemed to be extra crazy today. I love them, but 26 kids can easily be overwhelming when you’re already having a long day. And my TA was driving me CRAZY! I snapped at him a few times, and had to apologize for being a jerk. I hate those days. When I find myself being a jerk… I’m a jerk when I’m tired. But that boy makes me seriously crazy. I know that’s no excuse, and I really do try to bite my tongue (literally sometimes), but ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Sometimes, I just want to scream. 

And also, when you spend any amount of time in another country, no matter how much you like the food, you’re bound to have those days where all you want is the taste of something familiar. And that’s completely how today was for me. All I wanted was an American sandwich, or pizza. Not rice with new flavors. Not noodles with different-looking meat. Not tea with jelly stuff in it. This picture is of dinner the other night. Rice balls is what they called them.

The other thing that has made a long week longer, was the fact that the time difference between Taiwan and the USA just plain sucks…

To find the time here, you add 13 hours. Because I get up at 6am (5pm your time), there’s no way I can make myself get up earlier than that to talk to anyone back home. And because my day is so long, by the time I get home at 7pm, I’m exhausted… But I’m left with a dilemma. If it was just me, I’d go to bed at 9pm everynight. But that means, I basically would never have any time to talk to anyone. And I haven’t. I haven’t skyped or called anyone this week, not family, not friends. I’ve forced myself to stay up til 11pm or midnight a few times hoping to get to talk to anyone that may be online before 10am.

And, although I’m not desperately lonely, it does suck having not really talked to anyone =(

So, enough complaining. Let me tell you a little about the past week.

1. I LOVE my co-workers. Seriously. In all of my jobs, I don’t think I have legitimately liked my co-workers to this extent. And the last time I was in another country, I wasn’t necessarily fond of the americans I was with. But this has been totally different. And it’s fun and refreshing to be able to go to dinner after a hard day’s work, and be able to joke light-heartedly with the other teachers about the days’ happenings.

2. Today, I had some teachers-in-training from around the university observe my class. It was… weird, to say the least.

3. One girl in my class, gives hanging hugs… She’ll come for a hug… but won’t let go. And it’s progressed. Now, she hugs tightly, and then lifts her feet completely off the ground. Haha. Several times, I’ve been in the middle of doing something too important to stop and take the time to get her off, so I just kept walking, dragging her along until she let go. Hahaha. Oh man. The other thing is… she’s a crier… The other day, she started crying, but every time someone asked her why, she changed her answer. Here’s some of her answers: “I wanted to keep playing duck duck goose”. “I don’t want Timmy to teach us, only Lauren”. “I fell down”. “I don’t like meat”.

4. Lunch everyday is… shady. I eat it, mostly. Basically, it’s a boxed lunch. There’s a few varieties. Some have a chicken leg, some have crusted pork, some have pieces of pork in sauce. And it’s basically the luck of the draw. The kids HATE the pork. I do too. But it’s funny… Even the kids won’t eat the meat most of the time. One girl told me “That meat scares me”. I looked at her and laughed and said, “Ya, I know, it scares me too”.

5. This is some of my class… Each day, we have 45 minutes to work on our class commercials. The kids are all in groups, and have been working on making their own commercial or advertisement for a product. The girls have gotten super creative with it all. It’s so fun to watch. The boy at the board is drawing his own advertisement on the chalkboard. Within 30 minutes, the chalkboard was literally filled with drawings of toys that he invented to advertise. Woah! It was awesome! Today he drew a map with how to get to his Toy Store. It included the city airport, the boat dock in the harbor, the train station, the fastest road to the store, and also the easiest road to the store, and much more. So fun!

Ok, well I would write more, but I gotta get ready for work. I may use Sunday to call people if I can.