Friday, July 3, 2009

free and easy down the road i go

i think i've finally reached a point that i don't feel homesick at all anymore. who ever thought that the girl who cried every day for the first week would say that! i do miss hanging out at the lake and seeing the fam, but hoooopefully i'll see them in another month and get to do all of that summery stuff. the lake is probably the biggest thing. the lake and my queen sized bed with millions of pillows.
well there's one girl in my second class, coco, who i don't know what to do about. her sister is older so all of her books are already written in. lots of times, she just won't participate. today she was supposed to ask a question and she knows if she just stands there long enough, we'll tell her to sit down. last time i held up the class until she did something, she just started bawling. it's times like those that a little training would come in handy.
that class was pretty cute tonight when i told them i was going to thailand for 2 weeks. at first they were kind of disappointed, but then we decided i could ride elephants, swim in the ocean, and eat lots of thai food (which ryan says is disgusting). they said they want to see lots of pictures of elephants when i get back. 5 days!
dawn left for thailand today. she was eating a mango and she noticed some little white things and we think they were maggots. OMGGG. dena, dawn and i inspected it for about 5 minutes before we decided they were definitely worms. then dawn got sick. it was gross. i made her some tea and disposed of the partially eaten, wormy mango for her.

p.s. rattlesnake in chinese - xiang wei she

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would suggest not to push too hard on the kids that don't participate. I was always one of those quiet girls. It's not that they're purposing rebelling against you, and it's not that they're not learning. We're just not comfortable having to say things in front of the class. You might think it's strange, but that's the way we feel. I was always extremely angry when teachers thought I wasn't actually learning. We all have different learning styles, and it's not fair for us 1 out of 10,000 people who are quiet. It was my grade 2 teacher forcing me to participate that I grew into a really bad-tempered girl. Looking back on it, I am STILL angry at those teachers. So please do not force your students to do things they aren't comfortable doing. I'm not saying to just let it go completely, as we all need some social training; but, to make that little girl cry, I know what she must feel. It's hard to explain, but it's not a good method. Sorry for rambling on so.

megan said...

yep i was also a quiet girl in school. i think it's ok to be quiet, but she's just really stubborn. she should be able to at least give me an answer when she's just talking to me without the whole class watching her.
thanks for your insight.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I was like that too. Even with private lessons I was just scared to answer a simple 'yes' or 'no'. I found out later it was because I had OCD; but, I got over the quiet-ness by my own determination and unbelieveable stubborness, so I think your student will develop in time.

I forgot to mention, though, that I love reading your blog! I'm coming to Taiwan next year to study, and assumming you're still in Taiwan in August, if I see you down the street, I would definitely introduce myself as a blog-fan! =)

megan said...

that would be so excitinggg! i find out by the end of this upcoming week whether or not i'll be in taiwan in august. email me when you're headed here and we can go get some tea or i can send some friends if i'm not here.