goodbye saturday

i am getting so tired of this whole not ever seeing my kids again thing! enough already! i'm glad tomorrow is sunday so i can take a break. i was the first foreign teacher for both of these classes, so they've only known me so far. i'm not sure it really clicked with them that they're going to have a new teacher next week.. but we did have a lot of fun today.
i brought all of the stickers i have left and stuck them all over everyone. there were stickers on the floor, walls, kids, desks, lightswitch.. (this is neely).
daisy! her wish came true: their next teacher is going to be a guy. phil. he's new/awesome. they'll love him.
phina and kiki spelling words in shaving cream.
daisy nailed benny in the face with a whole sheet of shaving cream-covered tin foil as i was taking the picture of their messy hands!
he was not thrilled.we made a biiiig mess in the bathroom. dora's class was one of my favs because it was all little girls (and ian, in the middle). most days, every single kid was wearing something with some pink on it. and vivi always had her bear.
sammy and sandy. try saying their names 3 times fast. we also had vivi and vivian.

messy hands!
after that, i spent 3 hours at the kuo's hanging out with mr. kuo, mr. chen and mr. wang for the last time. i'll see the kuo's on tuesday, but not the trio. if anyone had told me that my best friends in taiwan would be 3 drunken taiwanese men, i'm not sure if i would have believed them. they're the best though.
mrs. chan is all business, but she's great. she's always walking around on a mission and jumping up to make people food and get business done while her husband is laughing and saying hello to everyone. today they kept wanting me to drink and i said no no no, but when she went and got a bottle of wine out of the fridge, i had to. i've never see her drink a sip!
and a saturday without cake is no saturday at all. we had spaghetti that mr. chen brought, green tea, beef stir fry, guava.. and just when i thought i couldn't eat one more bite, mr. chen disappeared for a bit and came back with a bunch of cake. there was no way i was getting out of there without eating the cake, so i just stuffed it into an already full stomach.
they boss me around and make fun of me and hit on me and spoil me. what am i going to do without them?
this is the official megan's favorite cake. cake around the outside and strawberry whipped cream on the inside. yummm!
it makes me teary just to think about not coming back here every weekend. we've had such a good time. (that's mr. kuo's little sister with the pool from the other week).

goodbye friday

goodbye friday! "what happened last week? right, we had a typhoon. well, i was supposed to tell you last week, but i have a new job in america, so this is our last week together." not the ideal way to let my mostly-boys class i'm leaving them. but i don't think they cared tooo much.
cindy was the only one in there i really got close to. during break, she stands beside me and lets me listen to one earphone of her ipod and she plays her favorite songs for me. during class today, she made an improvised going away present.it's a pin, the best note a teacher can receive from a student, and some drawings she ripped out of her QA book. the bottom one is me.
cindy and shirley. shirley has TWO lazy eyes. that makes sticky ball games kind of difficult.

my second class had a demo tonight. we love our demo's in there. we've done 3 together. this is one of my faaavorite classes because the kids are super sweet, eager to learn, and elaine keeps them in line so i just get to be the fun one. don't tell anyone, but eunice, sally, vanessa, jessica, paul, ryan, joseph, kendrick and i used to speak chinese like crazy before class every day.sweet girls! every time they saw me they'd run up and say MEGANNN!! and we walked in a gaggle upstairs to discuss the previous week.
during our demo, they had to try not to blink. these are their 'non blinking' faces.
"wake up, billy! you are late for school!"
"there's no school today, mom! it's a holiday."
"LAAAAZYBONES!"
i couldn't pry them away from the snack table so i just hugged them from behind while they stuffed their faces with shrimp chips and cookies.
ryan, total teacher's pet (in the cutest possible way) made me a card :)
i subbed his brother's class literally a year ago in the first few weeks i was teaching, and he remembered me because we played spoons. they're really fluent in english so it was just like chatting with friends.. a welcome surprise when you're a new teacher.
i almost cried a million times during our demo, but i knew if i started, i probably wouldn't be able to stop. i'm going to miss that class so much. we would just laugh and play games and have fun the whole time. they always wanted to tell me about their lives and show me their new things and ask about my life at home. they're all super smart and just good-natured kids.

p.s. corey over at tongue in cheek wrote a really perfect description of what it's like to ride a scooter, or in her case, motorcycle. she and her french husband are currently on a tour of europe on their motorcycle. she lives in provence but she's an american. i love her writing and spirit.

ying ge with alex

these are the pictures from when alex and i went ying ge and made some pots. his camera is the same as mine but he has some ridiculous zoom lens.


(are you singing aaaaabbaaaaa, aaaba pooottterrrr.. [how does it go, maj?]).
youuu are the pooottterrrr... and i am the claayyyyy.
oh, metaphysical church songs from my childhood.

goodbye thursday

goodbye mr. wang! thank you for the cake, tea and company. "do you love me?"
goodbye thursday yellow book class! crazy pronunciation, following emily's rules, exchanging funny faces when no one was looking, voices that no one could hear, slow writers who became the fastest in the class, judy 1 and judy 2, unhappy moms.
left to right: outspoken mandy, strong wendy, inaudible elaine, funny face angela, sweet angel, clueless kelly, coming out of her shell judy, focused bella.
sweet, crazy boys. spaced out ryan, "i don't know" danny, slurred sean, ADD jason and quiet kevin.

goodbye GL2! it was a victory just to get everyone to sit down at the same time and stay seated. you can't read with your fingers on the words (or read at all, i think), but you're super sweet and you'll get better with time..
wendy during our reading/writing relay.
charlie and i paper scissor stoned before/during/after class and once i introduced jerry's "claw", he started coming up with his own variations. the bird, the double claw, the dog. wendy, sherry and charlie demonstrate:
cutest, tiniest boy in taiwan. i'm going to miss that sweet face (and the snail)!

pictures of da chu

driving to da chu on wednesdays is my fav because the sunset is so pretty. ..nevermind that this pond smells like raw sewage. :)


amanda had a daaaate so she had jie mao gao (mascara).
the kuo's had fried dumplings yesterday with sauce his mom made andd i got to use the family chopsticks for the first time!! usually i get the disposable ones. another milestone reached.
random mom: did you make those dumplings?
mrs. chan: no, we bought them. i'm just frying them again so they're crispy
mom: the teacher is eating with you?
mrs. chan: she teaches across the street but she eats dinner with us four nights a week and she loves these dumplings. they're from blahblah, you should try them
mom: interesting

goodbye wednesday

goodbye wednesday class. i'm going to miss how you spoke mostly chinese all year and then once you found out i understood some of what you were saying, you started speaking it just to test me. i'll miss how you're too cool for me because i'm all sunshiney and augusta is your favorite because she's strict and strong.
i'll miss that mindy and tina, the mean girls, actually started showing small signs of friendship with offers of chips and candy even if it was done by yelling across the room in chinese during the movie. i'll miss nicole and jane's sweet notes during QAs. i'll miss joyce 1 and joyce 2 even though i never learned which was which.
i'll miss how aaron even said 'i don't know' in chinese and how justin was a jerk in front of the class but really sweet one on one. i'll miss harrison's grandma who gave me a ride when i was new. i'll miss ben and how everyone picks on him just for being the smallest.
jane gave me a present! it was wrapped with shiny pink and silver wrapping paper that said 'i will miss you' all over it.
and hooray for sweet notes. they make the world go 'round and jane was my favorite so it really means something extra special.
p.s. wouldn't you try to marry a taiwanese person just for these wedding photos? the next 5 minutes will be the highlight of your day, seriously. look how lovely my coteacher is!