It's been a while...

It's been a long, long while since I last wrote something, and it's about time. Life hasn't been too exciting. I mean there was Halloween, a student of mine getting H1N1, and then being sick myself. I've been out of sorts and haven't quite found the motivation to do an update, but that all changes now!

Halloween

I can't believe Halloween was two weeks ago. There was so much preparation at the school for the big day (and not to mention a huge amount of stress, etc), and it all turned out fabulously. And let's be honest, who can resist seeing cute Taiwanese kids dressed up in their adorable costumes? I, for one, cannot. Here are some pictures during the day (we had the younger students come in the afternoon and the older kids come at night):

The line of kids acutally looking at me are my first graders. Next to them, on the left are my students from last year. It's fun to see how big they've gotten over the years! The lighting in all of these pictures are going to be kinda weird because of the special effects/scary lighting done at the school.

And these are my students from last year, waiting to go into the haunted house. I had a free rotation, so I was able to go help out a bit. We spent most of the night before decorating the entire school (we were here until midnight). A little crazy, but it was definitely worth it!

I was in charge of taking the kids trick or treating. Originally the plan was to have the students go to different doors at the school (which I was grateful for because I had chills and a fever the night before and wasn't too keen on too much activity). But the original plan changed...with the help of one of the secretaries I took groups of 10 + kids out around the neighborhood and on two very busy roads. I was so nervous that one of the kids wouldn't listen and run out into traffic, but luckily we played a little game that kept them all on the far from the traffic. I taught them the infamous trick or treat song, which they had to sing at each door in order to get candy. It ended up being soooooo much fun, plus the people in the neighborhood that volunteered to hand out candy were thrilled to have the adorable kids come by.

One of the things I really enjoyed about the kids costumes is that so many of them were hand made. One kid painted a card board box exactly like Sponge Bob. It was amazing. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me for the majority of the afternoon, so I'm lacking in pictures. Boo.

I don't have any pictures from that night because I was in the haunted house the entire time. It was a blast! I think my favorite part was scaring the trouble makers. Some of them were so scared that they couldn't come all the way through the haunted house. I few times I had to lead them through because they were so scared. I think the funniest quote of the night was, "Don't scare me so much, I still have to do my homework!" Some of my fifth graders wouldn't even come through. I let them have it the next class period. :)

Oh, do you want to know what I was? Captain Recycling. Yeah, I'm a dork. It all kinda started the night before and I had no idea what to be. The original plan my roommate Connie had was to go as the people from Mama Mia, but that quickly fizzled out when we couldn't find anything Mama Mia worthy. Shocking, right? We couldn't find any of the crazy leggings, etc. that we found last year. We were devasted. But then Connie found a devil costume. But I still coudn't come up with anything terribly creative and I didn't want to just dress up in black again and wear a mask. I did that last year. Anyways, I got the idea of making a cape out of newspaper from my friend Brittani's blog (which is totally awesome), and decided to do something somewhat like Captain Planet. Here's the result:

 I'm a little obsessed with the cape and can't bring myself to throw it away. And I probably won't until I pack my bags to come home. Last, but not least, here's me and most of my 1st grade class:

Derek looks upset for some reason, but I love how Kristine (the witch) had whiskers drawn on her face and Kelly had a bunny tail. Too cute!

My debut wearing a face mask

I was starting to feel a bit under the week of Halloween. The WORST TIMING EVER! I knew that we'd be putting in a lot of hours and that I needed to be on the top of my game. So I went to the ear, nose, and throat doctor (who happens to be the dad of one of my former students, Belinda) the day before Halloween and got some meds. I didn't have an infection then, but it worsened quickly, and by the next day I wanted to shoot myself. I went to the doctor again and within a matter of a few days a runny nose had turned into bronchitis. The doctor stocked me up on six days' worth of antibiotics and a stock of face masks. Yeah.

Face masks are very common over here. People wear them on their scooters to keep the pollution off their face, some wear them because they're sick, and others wear them so they don't get sick.  I spoke to my mom that night on the phone and she asked me if a lot of people wear them here, and it occurred to me that they aren't very common in the States. So here is a picture of me on my one and only day that I wore a face mask:

Gorgeous, huh? I did not feel good and I wanted to die this day. It made my face really hot, and my students couldn't understand me, so I decided that as long as I washed my hands a lot and didn't cough on my students, that I wouldn't infect them. And guess what? It worked.

Anyhow, that's about all for now. Oh, and did I mention that I chopped my hair off? Pictures to come.