School Anniversaries

School birthdays are a big deal here in Taiwan. Lots of preparation goes into them, and the week of includes all sorts of games and competitions. The actual anniversary day is built around a school carnival and the finals of all of the contests and races. For some reason unbeknownst to me, my two schools picked the same week to have their anniversaries. Luckily, for the big day, one had chosen Friday and the other Saturday - otherwise, I really would have been in trouble.

Above: Me with co-teachers Carol and Anita

On Fridays, I have English Village in the morning and the afternoon off (all of the ETAs are supposed to have Friday afternoons free for "cultural exchange" purposes), so I usually do not go into school. This Friday, though, I had to try to make it from one side of town to the other in under ten minutes (it normally should take quite a bit longer...) so that I could make the tail end of Minzu's carnival. The seventh graders (my students) had started working their stalls early in the morning and would be closing up around lunchtime. When I arrived, I realized that I had made the mistake of not bringing any small change. So I handed a $500 bill (equivalent to US $15) to my co-teacher, asking for change, and ended up holding $500 worth of tickets. Not quite what I had in mind... I now had the remaining 15 minutes of the fair to spend $500 on carnival food and drinks. I walked around all of the tents, holding my wad of tickets in one hand, while students hung bags of food over my other arm and stuffed all sorts of fried food (which I don't even eat), blow-up toys, drinks and ice cream into my purse. I was quite a sight... I had finally had enough, so I gave the remainder of my tickets to a student and roped two other students into helping me carry everything upstairs to my office, where I proceeded to give as much of the food away to other teachers as possible.

Above: Me with Carol's homeroom classroom

A list of everything I acquired (I honestly do not remember buying most of this - I was just telling students to take tickets and put stuff in my bag haha):
8 drinks (everything from coke to green tea to black tea ice cream floats)
3 juice boxes
1 bowl of spaghetti
6 boxes of sushi (don't ask... that was my co-teacher's class's stand - I think she was abusing her power lol)
2 bags of friend chicken
3 slices of cake
3 bags of popcorn
2 bowls of ice cream
6 tiny Hello Kitty key chains (only in Asia...)
2 blow-up toys

Above: Me with Minghua office buddy Vicky

The next morning, I tramped over to the other side of town to Minghua's birthday celebrations. Their carnival was huge - much larger than Minzu's and encompassing nearly the whole of the grounds surrounding the school. I was wiser this time around, and only bought $200 worth of tickets. It was hard, because while I do not eat carnival food, I wanted to visit all the stalls and buy things from my students. Basically, this means I got lots of drinks and ate lots of ice cream - not a bad thing. :) As always, visiting Minghua was fun, as students were very excited to see me. The day was quite festive, starting off with an opening ceremony, then including an English spelling bee, 80 meter races, art exhibits and live performances with students dancing and singing on stage. I heard all of my favorite Asian teen-sensation songs, such as "Nobody Nobody" and "Sorry Sorry."

Above: Me with old co-teachers Yachi and Ellie
Below: Me and Phoebe (church friend who teaches some of my kids in her cram school)