And that would explain my last 2 weeks in a nutshell. I am ready to skin myself alive. I can’t tell you every detail, because 1. you would be sick of hearing me complain and 2. that would take weeks. So let me give you the high points. And by ‘high points’ i mean, the points that make you most want to kill yourself. (And yes, I am being a little dramatic right now, but i’m exhausted and sickish).

The main frustration with the past camp was simply the unorganization. The person in charge of our camp would tell me one thing, my TA something else, and then tell us both something completely different 2 hours later. What the heck. I’ll give you one example, although there are many.

Our class was supposed to come up with several short TV commercials to perform for their parents at a ceremony on the last day. We started working on these on Day 2. However, we weren’t told that they needed to be performed for their parents until at least Day 5. No big deal. But I would have organized things much differently had I known it was such a ‘serious’ affair. But ok. Whatever. So… then, like on Day 5, they tell us that each group will need to make props and posters and such for their commercial. Great! The kids loved it! I allotted an amount of time each day to work on it. Day 8… in the morning… The camp director ‘checks’ each classes stuff to see if they’ve been working on it. We practice our commercials for them. She tells me they’re all great, and that everyone has done a great job. She told my TA that our commercials were horrible and that the kids need to work harder. Not long afterwards, all the TAs had a meeting with the director. All came back frustrated because they were told how horrible all the classes performances were and that the needed to practice more and that their props sucked. My class was told that our props were WAYYYY too small and that we needed to remake all of them.

(I will say though, that my feelings toward my TA have changed from being frustrated with him to sharing frustration with him if that makes sense)

I was so frustrated. Especially after seeing how frustrated the kids were when I told them they had to redo everything they’d been working on over the past 3 days. So, we spent extra time on Day 8 working on our props so the director would be satisfied.

Day 9. In the morning. Teacher’s Meeting… “Ok, teachers, some parents complianed that you wasted too much time yesterday working on props instead of having class. Don’t waste time on props”.

Now, let me pause and tell you about Day 9… I had gotten 9 hours of sleep the night before, but I woke up feeling like I got 3. I was exhausted. My head was pounding. I felt like I was either going to throw up or pass out. Oh, and, let me metion that I had diarrhea on a squatty potty… thanks to some bad meat. If you don’t know what a squatty potty is, google it. It’s the only kind of toilet they have here where I’ve been teaching. Needless to say, I was already on the edge.

So, when I heard this, I was pissed. I said, as respectfully as possible, something along the lines of “ok, well, we spent so much time on props because you told us they weren’t good and that we should spend more time on them. what do you want us to do? work on them? or not work on them?”

This is just one example. But this is how EVERYTHING in the past 2 weeks has been.

Everything is as inefficient as possible.
Sometimes I wonder if the people running the show know anything about children. And it’s frustrating, because we, as teachers, are in the classroom all day with our children, so we have a better idea of what the can and can’t handle, and HOW they will handle it.

For example. Schedule says: Sing ‘The Chicken Dance’ from 8am-9am. Ok, that will take all of 10 minutes. MAYBE. After about 3 of any song, they all start groaning. And the boys start jumping around mindlessly, and then they start fighting, and before too long, it has potential to turn into a moshpit of sorts.

So, naturally, I can’t just say “Sorry, too bad kids, the office says we need to do this for an hour”. No, that would be idiotic. So, of course, I come up with something for them to do. Something somewhat productive, and something that hopefully contributes to english-learning.

What happens then? Oh… well, someone comes by and gets all mad because I’m not following the schedule. Really? REALLY? Someone told me I needed to be more flexible. Maybe that’s true. I don’t know. I feel like I’m pretty flexible. Maybe not. But, I thought to myself, “really? ok, here’s the thing. i AM being flexible. i have to be flexible every stinkin day because everything always changes. but it is YOU who are not being flexible if you can’t even understand that MAYBE we need to amend the schedule so that kids don’t get out of control”. Ugh.

So there’s that. One of my girls actually told me, and I quote, “Teacher, I’m going on strike.” Haha. I feel the same way.

So, Friday, yesterday, was the last day of my teaching in Tainan, Taiwan. This is a picture of me with my class. It was bittersweet. It had been such a long 2 weeks that I was so glad for it to be over, but at the same time, I loved my class. Really. They made me crazy sometimes, but I would have loved to be their legitimate teacher for the year.

I was looking forward to relaxing. Ha.

Well, here’s it’s no rest for the weary. Not even close.

After it ended, we hopped on a train, then to an hour taxi ride to Hsin Chu in the north of Taiwan. We’re in the middle of no where at a resort place. And I can safely say, I am sick of the rainforest. Very sick of the rainforest. At least the Taiwanese rainforest.

So, we get in at about 10pm Friday night. And guess what. We’ve got another 2 day event to teach. Saturday and Sunday. Ok. fine. Sounds exhausting. Whatever. We met the guy in charge of the whole company. He said ‘hello.’ and ‘we’ll have a wakeup call for you in the morning at 630’. Oh good. Good good good. Please exhaust me more.

Today has thoroughly made me want to die. Not really. But you know I overuse that phrase. This place… where I’m at now… it’s like a legitimate summer camp. There’s no classrooms. There’s SOME situational stuff (which IS HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BE cool) [like a clinic and restaurant]. And then just a whole lot of jumping around, chanting, shouting competitions. And that is NOT my cup of tea. Not even close.

All day, I kept thinking, this is NOT what I signed up for. There’s a few other teachers that feel the same way. If I had known that, it would be my own problem. But I didn’t… Not really. My contract says I’m an english teacher, NOT a camp counselor.

I did not get one break today. Not even a lunch break. From 7am until 9pm I was working. Without a break. And I am exhausted. I am on the edge of everything. The disorganization is making me want to throw a baseball through the freaking window.

In the past 2 days, I have moved rooms 5 times.

I’m pretty sure I have a fever. I had the hot/cold chills going on all day today. My head has been pounding. I’m exhausted. I hate chanting and dancing and singing. I didn’t sign up to work 14 hour days without even one break.

And the whole thing was so deceptive. 2 other teachers and I were talking about it… Our job description is an english teacher. Not a camp counselor. And we are even given a certain amount of money for “evening sightseeing” alluding to the fact that we get time in the evenings. And some information we were sent talked about the camp counselors as a separate entity and how the teachers spend time in Taipei during their evenings. Um FAR from the truth.

And I feel so bad for my kids this weekend. Becuase they’re not getting even close to 100% of me. And I hate that. Really. But I’m just so exhausted. I have nothing left in me right now.

I have gotten 1 full day off in the past 14 days.
I’ve been working from 630am until 8 or 9pm.
I get no breaks.
Not even a 30 minute lunch break by myself to regroup, refocus.
I am exhausted.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more exhausted in my life.
I hate shouting and shouting competitions and hearing shouting.
I don’t want to learn and teach stupid songs and dances.
I want to teach english. English that’s useful.
And my head is pounding.
My throat hurts.
The inside of my ears are burning.
My eyes are on fire.
The back of my neck hurts… like I feel when I have fever sometimes.
And… I’m currently in teh sauna locker room hiding and using internet.

And, I miss my friends at home. I haven’t gotten to talk to anyone that much. I’m glad this isn’t for more than a month. Cuz I wouldn’t make it.

And I can already tell, I have a LOT of stories, some of them pretty funny. But at this point, it’s not funny. I’m just pissed.

Everything here is as disorganized as possible. Also, when I said earlier that some of the things have potential to be really cool. Coming from my cynical side, I think that when you say something “has potential” it’s really a hopeless way to say it never really will reach that potential. It does have potential. But it won’t ever get there. “Ya… they have the potential to be a great team” Sure they do have the potential. But there’s too many other factors that will override that potential or them reaching it. So anyway… basically, everythign here is run so ineffeciently that the kids could be learning WAYYYYY more if things were just done differently. But they’re not. So even though this is made out to be a great thing, it’s really deceptive, because everything is so… out of whack.

And also… a Canadian teacher just came in and told me that in our room with 8 beds, there’s 10 teachers. And in another room with 2 beds, there’s 3 teachers. And that there’s even more teachers without rooms. Although they did get offered something really shady in the hotel basement.

I’m sure this will all be laughable in a few weeks. But I’ve lost my sense of humor for the time being. Usually, I can laugh at stuff like this, but, I’m too far past that point. Oh, and I’m SUPPOSED to have Monday through Friday off. And I’m pretty much being kicked out of where I’m currently staying. I told them that I wasn’t paying to stay somewhere else because my contract says my accomodation is provided the whole time I’m here. So they’re shipping me and some others off to a hostel in another city – Taoyuan. I’m just gonna find somewhere quiet.

And I forgot everything else I was gonna say, because I typed it all… just now… for like the past hour. But my internet erased it all. And once I write it, I pretty much don’t remember what I wrote. So, whatever.

Oh, and I’m sorry that I’m being such a Debbie Downer today. I’m always hesitant to write negative posts, because people freak out. Like, in Russia, I had some hard days… a lot of hard days. And people came to the conclusion that I hated Russia. But that is FAR from the truth.

Next week will be better… And there are some good thigns… Maybe just some, but some nonetheless. Today is just one of those days that I kind of just want to cry and not be social.