i have the sweetest students ever.

it never ceases to amaze me, really. one girl brought in candy for everyone, sweetly offering a "give you" and a smile while she went around the room handing it out to the other students and me. if i drop something on the floor (which is often), they will race to see who can pick it up first. for no reason at all, sometimes they will greet me with "teacher, you are beautiful!" even the ones who are so naughty and give me such a hard time are just so cute that i can't get angry. of course the most popular mode of transport in taiwan is the motorcycle. kids will ride their parents' to school and i love seeing them hop off and run inside, yelling my name and pulling off their helmets and shoes and giving me a huge hug. there are days...like today, for example...when i have to spend 30 minutes trying to teach just one word: today's was "floor." i must have stood at this one kid's desk for 28 of those 30 minutes just repeating it over and over: "FLOOR," i'd say. "f-weruosalknclewaroierllllllllll" was always the reply. he just couldn't get it. even through this frustration, they are just too cute and too sweet and trying to hard to really get frustrated. yesterday, i somehow got on the topic of van gogh with my advanced class. they sat on the floor with me, silent and still, and listened to me tell about van gogh's life and work. they were completely fascinated with him, and the story. "why was he such a sad man?" they asked. "i don't know," i replied. "everyone needs to have friends," one kid said. i miss teaching high school very much, but the minds of children are really amazing and inspiring, and they teach me so much.

the cultural differences i encounter everyday are also interesting. today the kids were writing on the board (why is it that kids are obsessed with writing on the whiteboards?!) and one kid was trying to write my name. she had used a red marker, and all the other kids immediately started shouting at her in chinese and trying to erase it quickly. she looked at me, and i could see tears welling up in her eyes as she choked out an apology to me. "teacher...red...(sniff sniff) i'm sorry..." i wasn't sure what was going on, so i asked tammy, one of the taiwanese teachers, what was the problem. she said that in chinese culture, writing someone name in red is not acceptable, because it means bad luck (i think its because emporers used to sign the names of people to be executed in red or something like that). she said that kids are really apt to believe this, and that's probably why everyone was so spooked. i just laughed and told the child that it was ok to write my name in red, because america people don't have any such legend, and she looked nothing if not very, very relieved.

today was about the coldest day i have ever felt in taiwan. BEHHHHH, where is summer.
ps one of my taiwanese friends said she had a dream that i was speaking perfect chinese. i can only hope that this dream was, in fact, a prophecy...