Teaching, traveling and eating... Taiwan style

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So I've been at my job for about a week and a half now and things are ok. However, at this rate, it's going to be a very long year. Overall my students are pretty well behaved considering they're about 7-12 years old. It is just a little annoying that none of them seem to really want to learn English. It seems a little cruel that they go to regular school and then their parents force them to come to English school after that. Some of my older students aren't finished until about 9:15 at night. If I were them, I would hate learning English too. I guess I'm just feeling like I should have found a job teaching people that actually wanted to be taught, but if that's my biggest problem, I shouldn't really be complaining.

On Sunday I went to Tainan (a small town about an hour north of here) with Marco and his mom for Mother's day. It was an interesting experience. They all commented on how tall I am, how light my hair is, and how pale I am. They were all very hospitable and kept piling food onto my plate. His grandparents don't know any English, so there was a lot of translating being done by Marco. It was all good though, and nice to see another part of Taiwan. This weekend I'll be going to Kenting (the National Park that has an amazing beach). It has been super hot here (in the 90s almost everyday) so I'm excited to relax in the sand and swim in the ocean.

I have a feeling I might be eating a lot of western food while I'm over here. The Taiwanese food isn't that great. Most things I've tried are okay, however, nothing I've eaten has been amazing. My favorite meal was shabu shabu (hot pot) that I had with my former student and friend, Angela. For those of you who don't know, it is a pot of boiling water that you add vegetables to (and meat if you're into that kind of thing) and make this great soup/ noodle dish. Definitely eating there again.

I know you all want to see pictures of my adventures... I'll see if I can upload them now and I will definitely get some Kenting pics up next week. Please keep in touch and let me know how ya'll are doing. Miss ya. wǎn ān (goodnight)

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