Sunday Strolling

I met Renee and Geoff with Zach at the diner (the Early Bird) for brunch. I had a tasty tuna sandwich. Then we decided to go for a stroll. We walked for over 3 hours. It was great! We also wandered through Taichung Park on the way back.

A Question of Citizenship, Nationality and Identity

I just read an article about a woman who was hanged in Iran, I have posted a link to the article for you to read.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/01/20111302244769874.html
Even though the details are a bit sketchy as the the reasons why she was hanged, the main focus of the article is that the Dutch have frozen ties with Iran. Dutch diplomats were not allowed access to the woman while she was in jail because Iran does not recognise a person as having dual nationality. The woman in question had Iranian and Dutch citizenship.

The question of citizenship is a whole can of worms right there. What do you do when you are in a country that does not recognise you as having two nationalities. Can you indeed have two? It would surely pose an advantage and the opportunity for exploitation. Let me clarify, it could well be exploited by individuals who would commit crimes in one country, only to claim authority from another.

But what about the individual. If you had dual citizenship, for which country do you truly belong? Which do you feel loyalty to? The case of the woman in the article, she gained Dutch citizenship from living there. I am thinking more about people who are born with dual citizenship.
What is your nationality? It must be odd for people who have ties to two places. For your nationality gives you a sense of who you are. A sense of belonging to a group that you identify with because you associate part of your personality with that group.

Being Scottish, I would not claim to being British, I have a strong pride over being a Scot. I may not sound like a Scot most of the time, due to having to change my accent for work and friends. This pride is heightened when I am away from home. Because I am in such an alien country to my native land, I almost cling to things that remind me of it. I am patriotic to the point of irrationality, a point I would never reach if I remained living in Scotland.

So, citizenship and nationality is something that is central to the person that we are. We identify with a group of people simply by geography and cultural interpretations of the world and relationships, but what happens when you identify with multiple nationalities?

This for me is incredibly interesting. It provides a spring board to explore what this means for people in religions as well. What about a Hindu who lives in the UK? Someone, who has been raised in a religion that is steeped in a different culture, but that person is raised also in western society.

I could go on and on about this. But I shan't, I shall stop :)

Engagement Celebration

I had a couple of friends round at my place last night to celebrate Renee and Geoff's engagement. If I haven't already said, he proposed on Christmas day. So sweet! So, we had a lovely evening of chatting, red wine and many laughs. It was nice to have people over.

The afternoon was spent preparing a gift for them, doing a bit of shopping to get the things I needed for the evening, and relaxing. Today, Sunday, Zach (he crashed in my spare room last night) and I will meet Renee and Geoff for brunch at the Early Bird.

After that I don't know what the day holds. More relaxing, reading, maybe a walk in Dakeng. I doubt it though, i'm not feeling well, not over indulgence with wine but other reasons, so a long walk is not an exciting idea at the moment. But I shall see how I feel a bit later.

Love to all.

Current Reading

I'm currently reading 'The Elves of Cintra' by Terry Brooks. It is the second in a trilogy of books of a prequel series for the Shannara series. The Shannara series is a set of books (totalling 14 books) that I have read. I love the series.

I love what Brooks has done with the series. First off, he releases the Shannara series (which has 4 mini series'). It is a world of magic, it has druids, elves, dwarves, demons, lizard creatures, the lot! I love it! But then he releases a series called 'The Word and the Void', basically good and bad fighting it out while agents of the Void are trying to bring down current world order and lay waste to the Earth. This is set in the modern day. It is amazing. I haven't read the whole series because the book is at home (I will have to read it when i'm back on vacation).

This trilogy is followed with the 'Genesis of Shannara', the series I am currently reading. It is set in a post apocalyptic world where it is a race to save as much of humanity as possible before demon armies enslave or wipe them out. Great stuff.

I love that he has 14 books on the Shannara series, and in some of them there are hints that the world of Shannara is set in the future of modern day Earth. For example, there are some characters that come across a place where they need to find some information, and it is described as being round discs you have to slot into something and pictures show up. Totally a DVD in a computer. It had me thinking, and then he released the 'Word and the Void' series.

In all honesty, the Shannara series is a fantasy series that is just for easy reading, it's not all that complicated, no extra plots and each book can kind of be self contained. I prefer Robert Jordan 'The Wheel of Time' series because it is meaty, goes on forever and there is so much depth to it. Though, that means it takes a lot of mind power for me to keep track of all the plots going on. Not light reading if you want to read the whole lot. A couple of months ago I decided to re-read the Wheel of Time series (14 books- of which I have read 10 or 11). I have read the first two but had to take a break before I started the third. Jordan died and the last three have been completed by another author called Brandon Sanderson. So, it will be interesting to read his style when I get that far.

Meeting of DOOOM!

I had my meeting with my HRT (home room teacher), the branch manager and my branch supervisor. It went really well, my boss (supervisor) really had my back and raised points I had mentioned in the regular weekly meeting. It was awesome to have back up. I think the meeting went well. I brought up the fact that my HRT makes kids do Chinese work in the time i'm teaching, I didn't make it sound bad (I hope not), and my supervisor made it clear that no Chinese is allowed when i'm teaching. My company is all about English immersion, so the students shouldn't be doing any Chinese work. So, if my HRT does want to punish students i'll need to prepare English work for her to give them. Fair enough.

I also got a few tips on how to deal with a couple of issues I have been having with the class. So, all in all it was a good (long) meeting, but one that was really helpful.

Then for the rest of the day, I did nothing but lounge around and read. It was glorious.

Later, at 9 I met Renee and Geoff at the Early Bird for dinner and White Russians. A wonderful Friday indeed!

Hualien

Hualien, where I hope to go next Wednesday (but it doesn't seem likely) is on the East coast of Taiwan, I live on the West coast. Check out the map. In order to get there you have to travel around the island. There is a road that runs through the mountains but it is prone to being flooded and of there being rockslides if there is bad weather.

I have the idea of a road trip to drive across, but i'll have to wait for warmer weather.

Filling the time

I have two evening classes that are on an inter-semester break, so I only have a 7pm class on a Mon/Tue and Thur. Woohoo! I have a Wednesday and Friday free from teaching after Kindergarten. Today I went to the train station to attempt to book a ticket to Hualien, they said there were no seats. Then I tried bus companies, but they said there isn't a service from Taipei to Hualien. Oh well. Looks like I may not get to Hualien this Chinese New Year. But I do have a lot of things around here that can occupy my time.

Then I went in search of an art gallery called 'Stock 20'. I couldn't find it, but after my day of walking about I checked online and I have a better idea of where it is, so i'll try again :)

After that I had a bit of a wander and look about some stalls a few blocks up from the train station. Most were selling candy for CNY. Then I went to ChungYo department store in search of Lush :D To buy perfume. I ran out and bought another.
They have a store called 'Jasons' in there, where I went to buy the ingredients for Tablet.

Later in the day I made tablet :D haha! It is so tasty, if not quite right. I think I put in too much butter. I took it to work to try and introduce something new to my workmates. I think because I didn't hand it to them directly, folks were reluctant to try. I'll see if more of it is eaten next time I go to work.

Then I joined Renee and Geoff for dinner. Renee made white chicken chili. It was delicious, I have never had it before. Yummy.

Sunday Stalls

I met Renee and Geoff at a superb pizza place called 'Salut' for dinner. It was delish! On the way home Dalong Road was closed off and had some little stalls on it. It was so pretty. It is a couple of streets over from me, the pretty shopping area in Taichung dubbed 'Little Europe', called so because of the amount of Western restaurants in the area. Here are a couple of pics.

Rocky Road Yumminess!

Today I had an overwhelming craving for Rocky Road. I really miss the little bars you can buy in the Freuchie shop (not the kind from the bakery counter), so I looked up the recipe and made some. It was so easy, and sugary yumminess.

Pot Luck And Tropic Thunder

This evening was spent in great company. Dave's workmates; Tina, Wendy, Nik and his girlfriend Tanya came over for pot luck. That just means that everyone brings food and we have a big meal. It was great. I made little trifles (without cream), they were quite tasty. Nik made devilled eggs which I had never eaten before. They were very tasty. Wendy made a shrimp/cous cous dish, Tanya a veggie dish, Tina clam soup and Dave stuffed peppers.

Tanya rented a DVD rather than faff around with subtitles on a computer. Last time the subs were all over the place timing wise, so Tina and Wendy had to try and understand as much as they could.

It was still a small mission to get the DVD player working, and Dave picked it up and pressed the open drawer button with it being vertical. Naturally the DVD got stuck inside the player. Tanya and I came in from outside and saw this: Haha:

Communication and Punishments

Sorry, mini rant in the last post. I was so infuriated that so much time of it was wasted by showing a bunch of kids ranging in age from 3-7 disabled toilets. Again, why?
Oh well. I'm mainly angry about it because I couldn't understand a word and I got a kid in trouble.

All I did was hold his hand and try and entertain him because as expected, he was bored, and so was I. The problem here, is if my HRT doesn't like the way I do something she will punish the student instead of telling me that she doesn't want me to do something.

She actually pushed the kid out of line and threatened to leave him at the station. She did it all in Chinese but I knew what was going on. OMG I was so angry! Argh! he was about to cry- and this is THE happiest kid in my class, always full of energy and sunshine- then she let him back in line. Then he wouldn't take my hand. WTF?

I have a meeting this Friday with my HRT, branch manager and native speaking teacher supervisor. I have been making a list of things that we should discuss. The problem about Taiwanese people is that you can never be direct about something, they will never be direct with you.

Unfortunately that is the worst way to communicate with me, I can't understand hints. I need people to be direct with me, so I can understand what's going on.

My relationship with my HRT is a delicate one, it has taken me months to build up to her saying good morning to me and giving the odd smile. So, for the points I want to raise in the meeting...I know all will revert back to the way it was when I first started.

The way communication works here, if someone is pissed off at you, they won't say a thing. It will fester and fester. But, hopefully with help I can sort it out.

Some of the punishments I have seen her dish out to my kids is unbelievable! Though most are when i'm no longer the teacher and i'm kicking about doing preparation work. I need to ask if parents have asked for this specifically (because sometimes they do) or if they are her rules. HESS has a very strict code of conduct for teachers when it comes to punishing students. Basically it's what I would expect of day care in the UK.

A tricky dilemma.

Field Trip of Doom, and not the good kind!

Today we went on a field trip for Kindy. To be honest, it was terrible. We went to the High Speed Railway station because all our themes (little, middle and big class) have been about transport in one way or another.

First we had to take the shuttle bus to the station, which was exciting for the kids, but boring as hell. It took us over an hour to get there (good to know for when I have to go there myself for a train). Then we had a snack and found the middle and big class. The two smaller classes got the shuttle bus before us because we couldn't all get on at once. That's why it took so long to get there.

A lady gave us a tour, first we spent forever at the ticket machines while she explained to the kids how to use them. At times I think she had them guess prices to different places, not bad. Then the tour took us to the disabled toilets. Why would kindy kids be interested in toilets? Why I ask? Why?

Then we went outside, the woman was talking to them again, my co-worker Matt, and I walked out a bit to see if we could see a train at the platform (The building has the platforms on top of them- when you are outside the building you can look up to see them. We saw a train had pulled into the station. You could only see a small top section of it, but still it was a train.

We told Matt's HRT (home room teacher- Taiwanese teacher) about it and that the kids should be shown it. The look she gave him, we made our point that we are at a station, so the kids should see an actual train! OMGoodness. I felt like hitting my head against a wall. So, we interrupted whatever other boring thing the tour lady was saying to get the kids to come to us and see the train, we waved it goodbye as it pulled out of the station.

What would have been an awesome trip would be to take the kids to the station and organise a tour where they could go upstairs and actually look at the trains. Or go to the local station in Taichung and get on a cheap train ride to the next town, they would have loved that.

A Forest with a Twist

Our last theme for big class (third year) kindy was the Animal Kingdom, we had a fun time project where the students had to make a forest. I decided to change it a little and have them colour animals and prepare the background of the forest with hand prints. They loved it! Very messy, great! So at the end of it we had a huge poster sized forest of hand prints and animals. I'm not allowed to post pictures of my kids online, so I'll be taking pictures of their work instead :D

Work with Pride, Live with Satisfaction

Today was the annual banquet for my company. It was for the central area. My branch had a dance/cat walk number on the stage this year. Most branches do, this years theme was 'Fashion Week'. A few weeks ago we were asked to choose characters and we were to practice a catwalk/dance thing. It was great! I had a good time. It was a short piece with quite a few people. I was 'Joliet' Jake Blues (and my workmate Andrew was Elmwood Blues). Here is a picture of a Polaroid :)


I also received an excellent teacher award 'Employee of the Year', quite a few people get them, but I got a cool ornament out of it :) And I won a 16GB flashdrive in the raffle. Pretty cool :) Also, this years motto is 'Work with pride, live with satisfaction' hence the title of the post.

Swimming...in the rain

I didn't actually swim in the rain, but it has been raining a lot here today. I finally managed to get to the swimming pool today. I wanted to start last week but work got in the way.

I feel great for it, I only did 10 lengths (20 times back and forth) but I know it is a good start for me...especially since I haven't done any proper swimming in a long time. I hope it is the proper kick up the backside I need to go regularly during the week.

I had to share a lane with a Taiwanese lady who seemed a bit miffed at someone interrupting her rhythm...for she was much faster than I, as I was doing breast stroke and she was not. She was doing a kind of circular lap in the lane, not just going up and down one side. If she had done that I think she wouldn't have been too bothered with my presence.

After the swim I relaxed in the jacuzzi :D They have outside spa pools as well that I may check out tomorrow if I have time. Woohoo!

Local Wall Art

This is literally around the corner from my apartment :D Amazing art work!

Catching up and meeting new folks

My friend Hans has been back in Taiwan for a couple of weeks and I managed to catch up with him On Friday night. It was great, we joined Geoff and Renee for a couple of drinks, then had scotch at my place. He is now working in Moscow!

I had an Open House for Kindy on Sat morning, so I was very happy to have a coffee before it began. Haha! It went alright, I was slightly confused as to what my purpose was. I was told that There would be a Chinese teaching demo, then an English one. It was just me, maybe I took too long for it. There were only two students and one who already attends our kindy.

After that I chilled at home and had an unwanted nap. I fell sleep :) I met up with people in the evening. Some of Zach's friends came down from Jhunan. It was great to meet them and put faces to names. I was totally not in the mood. I have a lot on my mind and feel like i'm distracted. I have no idea what is wrong. Maybe something in my Friday night conversation with Hans triggered some kind of deep thought i'm not aware of. After a while though and some tasty cocktails I was in a better mood.

That brings me to today. I had a couple of guests at mine last night (Zach's friends Russell and Carling), while I waited on them to get up I painted a little. We went to the Early Bird Diner and met the rest of the Jhunan folks and Renee and Geoff...then I went home and painted some more. I've had a lovely day.

I still feel like i'm bothered by something. I hope it gets resolved or goes away. I have what can be called a stress knot in my neck. I sit hunched most of the time, I wasn't aware that I did it until the Chi lady at the Spa told me about my neck. I notice the way I sit now. I must be stressed to have a constant knot in my neck/shoulders.

Wet. I may add more to it once it is dry.


The white part, empty space. I gave it texture by using a palette knife to slap on white paint.

Late Christmas Presents- YAY

I received a package from the UK today. My Christmas package from Mum. Here is a little picture that I think you will find amusing.

New Year Blessing Graffiti Style

This is some graffiti across the road from my work. My workmate Ronee says it is a blessing for married couples (or those about to get married) to have a harmonious union. I think that is really nice, and I think that's why it has lasted for over a week. The last piece of graffiti there was only there for a couple of days.

You can see the number 100 on it. Taiwan turned one hundred this New Year :) It's such a shame that no one else recognises it.

Christmas Pictures

Tanya hosted a Christmas do at her place in Fongyuen. It was amazing. She has a wooden house and it was decorated brilliantly. Everyone put in NT$1000 (£20) to cover the cost of everything, and had to pick a name from a bag to buy secret santa for.

I had a blast. It was so great to have had such a brilliant Christmas away from home.

A Spa Treat

My Head NST (boss) of my kindy branch treated myself, Leanne and Robyn to a massage at a spa. It was a full body (naked- with knickers on) massage. I wasn't shy as I thought I would be. It was great! So relaxing. Though my neck is a bit dodgy, so i'm in a bit of pain just now. Eeek. Well worth it though. What a wonderful way to spend a Sunday morning, definitely worth getting up early.

Leanne, Robyn and me

Start the year with Chocolate

The Science Museum has a chocolate exhibit at the moment, so I cruised on by to check it out with Renee and Geoff. It was cool! Vases, shoes, lego, bags, The Terracotta army, Buddhas and so much more all made out of chocolate. Incredibly impressive.