Sunday, April 19, 2009
Law School
So I got into law school! It looks like I will be attending John Marshall Law School in Chicago in August. Orientation starts August 15th to be exact, which means I will be leaving Taiwan earlier than originally intended. But I will need to get back to the U.S. probably a few months earlier, so maybe I will most likely be back in June. The reason for this is twofold: I need to do a lot of administrative stuff (such as get my immunizations from an American doctor), and second I need to earn more than I am here so I will have some money to start with (for transportation, living expenses, etc). So I will most likely see all of you in June!
Monday, April 13, 2009
Hot Springs and All You Can Eat
This weekend we went to the hot spring that you may have read about in Carolyn's blog. It is located in the mountains near Taichung (Dakeng). Supposedly they are natural hot springs, but they are new and I'm not so sure of that claim. The place itself is quite nice. It's a hotel resort and the prices are very reasonable.
The spa has two hot spring jacuzzis, both of which I sat in for awhile but they really burn. I couldn't stay in them too long because they were too hot for me. I did however enjoy the warm water pool with the various fountains. I particularly liked the fountain that felt like a waterfall giving you a back massage. I also tried out the pool with the fish that you stick your feet in and they eat the dead skin off your feet. Unlike Carolyn, I found the fish to be very unpleasant. It's like a tiny biting sensation and it's very startling every time a new fish comes to eat your feet. The bigger fish are downright painful. But the spa did give us free ice cream, which is very nice after having spent 4-5 hours in a hot spring.
Afterwards we went to an all-you-can-eat barbecue. It was similar to a Korean barbecue I visited in Taiwan. In the middle of the table is a barbecue pit where you can cook your food, and they also have a hot pot with soup cooking on the corner of the table. For about $12 US it's all you can eat for 2 hours. We had 4 rounds with about 10 dishes per round, for 4 people. We ate a ton and most of it was good. I still have a boycott on organs but Carolyn tried the chicken hearts and cow tongue. On the other hand I ate the raw beef while she still refuses.
So to sum things up, it was a long day but it was well worth it.
The spa has two hot spring jacuzzis, both of which I sat in for awhile but they really burn. I couldn't stay in them too long because they were too hot for me. I did however enjoy the warm water pool with the various fountains. I particularly liked the fountain that felt like a waterfall giving you a back massage. I also tried out the pool with the fish that you stick your feet in and they eat the dead skin off your feet. Unlike Carolyn, I found the fish to be very unpleasant. It's like a tiny biting sensation and it's very startling every time a new fish comes to eat your feet. The bigger fish are downright painful. But the spa did give us free ice cream, which is very nice after having spent 4-5 hours in a hot spring.
Afterwards we went to an all-you-can-eat barbecue. It was similar to a Korean barbecue I visited in Taiwan. In the middle of the table is a barbecue pit where you can cook your food, and they also have a hot pot with soup cooking on the corner of the table. For about $12 US it's all you can eat for 2 hours. We had 4 rounds with about 10 dishes per round, for 4 people. We ate a ton and most of it was good. I still have a boycott on organs but Carolyn tried the chicken hearts and cow tongue. On the other hand I ate the raw beef while she still refuses.
So to sum things up, it was a long day but it was well worth it.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Catharsis
As of late I’ve been doing a lot more children’s classes because I think I’m on the outs in the adult department. Our managers work on a system of passive aggressive punishment. A couple of weeks ago I received a complaint in the adult’s department that I wasn’t checking their homework to make sure they were doing it correctly. Instead I was going over the answers in the class so they can check it, and the process is more active. However this student didn’t want that, she wanted me to take all of their workbooks home and spend 3 hours each night grading them. I don’t get paid for class preparation, and I don’t get paid for grading homework. For a 3 hour adult class I put in 2 hours of preparation time. Now add to that 3 hours of homework grading a class, and I will be spending 5 hours of my own time for a 3 hour class. The 3 hour class pays about $60 U.S. a day. So in the end if I brought the homework home that means I’d be getting paid $60 for 8 hours of my work time. That comes out to $7.50 an hour. I was making $7.50 an hour 5 years ago as a tuxedo store clerk. When confronted about it by the secretary, I told her there is no way I’m bringing the workbooks home to grade. I suppose this was foolish of me, but I was just being honest. If I wanted to tell her “no” in the Chinese bureaucratic way I should have said “hmmm….. that will be very difficult. I will see what I can do.” Later that day the adult manager called me at home (at 10pm) and also asked me to do it. This time I gave him the second response, but it doesn’t work on him really because he’s not Chinese.
So what is the result of this supposedly little issue? Well as it turns out over this past month I’ve been repeatedly skipped in adult class assignment. Not a single adult class has come my way even though I have the most availability and I ask the manager for classes nonstop. Even Carolyn, who is already at nearly 20 hours a week (Compared to my 14, soon to be 6), was offered a 4 hour Saturday adult class. The time this class is at I also have free, so the manager could have called me, but he gave it to Carolyn, who has way more hours than me. I’m glad at least Carolyn got it because she also needs the money, and she’s an excellent adult teacher, but I find it ridiculous how this management at my school works. The funny thing is that when the manager offered the class to Carolyn he said “See eventually you get enough hours and then get to choose whether to accept classes or not.” Well I have never been given this option. And she really didn’t have the option to accept it or not, because if she rejected it she would never receive another adult class offer again. That’s how passive aggressive they are.
Here’s another funny little tidbit. A co-worker of ours just re-signed a 2nd year contract with our school (It boggles my mind why she would do this because there are much better jobs here in Taiwan for those with experience and the willingness to teach children.) She filled out the application and signed the contract and applied for the ARC. Well she wanted a copy of the contract for her records and when she asked the manager, the manager said she doesn’t think it will be possible.!!! I know it’s illegal in Taiwan to not provide a contract (well technically if you have enough money nothing is illegal in Taiwan), but our stupid manager wouldn’t provide her a copy. I am beginning to suspect she is under orders from the owners not to provide contracts because later on if there is a dispute the employee will have nothing to give his/her attorney, thus putting the school at an advantage.
So now that I’m getting dropped from adult classes I’ve received a few children’s classes. Lately I’ve begun to absolutely loathe teaching children. My older class with teenagers has become pretty awful. They were behaving for the first semester, but now they have started reverting to infancy. Yesterday we were doing a project involving cutting up newspaper pictures to make an advertisement for tourists in Taiwan. Well one group of students instead just decided that it was hilarious to shred all the newspaper into little pieces and throw them about the room. I haven’t encountered this behavior since my dogs got a hold of newspaper. These are teenagers ranging from 12 to 16, not elementary children! What’s worse is that a few children decided to make newspaper balls and start chucking them at girls (who were seriously working on their advertisement). It was beginning to escalate so I told one student to get out of the classroom and go sit with the secretaries. And guess what, he refused to my face! I was very stern, threatening and menacing, and finally he got up and came with me after refusing for like a minute. I brought him downstairs and told the secretaries, and later he came back and helped another student pick up all the newspaper scraps they had produced.
The children here are so disrespectful compared to students from schools I have previously attended (Woodland and Warren). I never ever disobeyed a teacher like that, especially to his/her face. I have a variety of theories that I will share.
First, I believe the Chinese have a penchant for spoiling their sons (it’s every parent’s dream to have a fat pampered son). So half the boys here are really rotten, mean, and cruel, to me and to their classmates.
Second, at my school children come at night after having spent the whole day at another school. So they are stressed out and overworked. They do want to have fun and play. So they often goof off and don’t pay attention. Unfortunately their parents are paying us to teach them English (and to baby-sit them), so we try our hardest to prevent goofing off.
Third, these children tend to be a lot more disrespectful to white teachers compared to Chinese teachers. The reason for this may be racism. They don’t see their white teachers as real people or valuable members of society. So they feel that it is alright to disrespect them.
Fourth, as the white teacher who only speaks English, we can’t call their parents and tell them what their children are doing. So the children recognize we have no power of punishment beyond the classroom. If we want to punish outside of the class we have to get the Chinese teacher or secretaries involved.
Last, white teachers come and go constantly, and the quality of teachers is very low. We are not trained as teachers, and they may see as many as 4 different teachers in one semester. Because of this they figure it’s alright to be disrespectful because if it puts them on the teacher’s bad side, the teacher will be gone in a few weeks anyways. Furthermore, a lot of teachers they have had in the past probably have been pushovers, so they expect me to be a pushover as well, and when I punish them they really refuse because they don’t think I will escalate the punishment.
So those are all my problems with the school system in Taiwan and the particular school I work for. It’s truly a mess and I seriously want to get out of it as soon as possible. I’m highly considering going back to law school (because I don’t want to have to do disagreeable jobs like this for the rest of my life) and I already applied for John Marshall with an August start. If I don’t get in for August I will reapply for January. Hopefully I can get back to school soon. In the meantime I’m making plans to move back to Chicago and find some temporary work to hold me over until I start school. Carolyn on the other hand is doing very well here and we both agree she should stay to finish out the contract. She thinks she may want to be a teacher, so this experience, and the references, will be quite valuable. Of course I will miss her a lot and I wish she could come back with me, but we will only be apart for 3 or 4 months, and it’s the best thing for our future.
I want to apologize for spending this whole post complaining. But I really feel some catharsis when typing up all my feelings. I hope to see all of you soon!
So what is the result of this supposedly little issue? Well as it turns out over this past month I’ve been repeatedly skipped in adult class assignment. Not a single adult class has come my way even though I have the most availability and I ask the manager for classes nonstop. Even Carolyn, who is already at nearly 20 hours a week (Compared to my 14, soon to be 6), was offered a 4 hour Saturday adult class. The time this class is at I also have free, so the manager could have called me, but he gave it to Carolyn, who has way more hours than me. I’m glad at least Carolyn got it because she also needs the money, and she’s an excellent adult teacher, but I find it ridiculous how this management at my school works. The funny thing is that when the manager offered the class to Carolyn he said “See eventually you get enough hours and then get to choose whether to accept classes or not.” Well I have never been given this option. And she really didn’t have the option to accept it or not, because if she rejected it she would never receive another adult class offer again. That’s how passive aggressive they are.
Here’s another funny little tidbit. A co-worker of ours just re-signed a 2nd year contract with our school (It boggles my mind why she would do this because there are much better jobs here in Taiwan for those with experience and the willingness to teach children.) She filled out the application and signed the contract and applied for the ARC. Well she wanted a copy of the contract for her records and when she asked the manager, the manager said she doesn’t think it will be possible.!!! I know it’s illegal in Taiwan to not provide a contract (well technically if you have enough money nothing is illegal in Taiwan), but our stupid manager wouldn’t provide her a copy. I am beginning to suspect she is under orders from the owners not to provide contracts because later on if there is a dispute the employee will have nothing to give his/her attorney, thus putting the school at an advantage.
So now that I’m getting dropped from adult classes I’ve received a few children’s classes. Lately I’ve begun to absolutely loathe teaching children. My older class with teenagers has become pretty awful. They were behaving for the first semester, but now they have started reverting to infancy. Yesterday we were doing a project involving cutting up newspaper pictures to make an advertisement for tourists in Taiwan. Well one group of students instead just decided that it was hilarious to shred all the newspaper into little pieces and throw them about the room. I haven’t encountered this behavior since my dogs got a hold of newspaper. These are teenagers ranging from 12 to 16, not elementary children! What’s worse is that a few children decided to make newspaper balls and start chucking them at girls (who were seriously working on their advertisement). It was beginning to escalate so I told one student to get out of the classroom and go sit with the secretaries. And guess what, he refused to my face! I was very stern, threatening and menacing, and finally he got up and came with me after refusing for like a minute. I brought him downstairs and told the secretaries, and later he came back and helped another student pick up all the newspaper scraps they had produced.
The children here are so disrespectful compared to students from schools I have previously attended (Woodland and Warren). I never ever disobeyed a teacher like that, especially to his/her face. I have a variety of theories that I will share.
First, I believe the Chinese have a penchant for spoiling their sons (it’s every parent’s dream to have a fat pampered son). So half the boys here are really rotten, mean, and cruel, to me and to their classmates.
Second, at my school children come at night after having spent the whole day at another school. So they are stressed out and overworked. They do want to have fun and play. So they often goof off and don’t pay attention. Unfortunately their parents are paying us to teach them English (and to baby-sit them), so we try our hardest to prevent goofing off.
Third, these children tend to be a lot more disrespectful to white teachers compared to Chinese teachers. The reason for this may be racism. They don’t see their white teachers as real people or valuable members of society. So they feel that it is alright to disrespect them.
Fourth, as the white teacher who only speaks English, we can’t call their parents and tell them what their children are doing. So the children recognize we have no power of punishment beyond the classroom. If we want to punish outside of the class we have to get the Chinese teacher or secretaries involved.
Last, white teachers come and go constantly, and the quality of teachers is very low. We are not trained as teachers, and they may see as many as 4 different teachers in one semester. Because of this they figure it’s alright to be disrespectful because if it puts them on the teacher’s bad side, the teacher will be gone in a few weeks anyways. Furthermore, a lot of teachers they have had in the past probably have been pushovers, so they expect me to be a pushover as well, and when I punish them they really refuse because they don’t think I will escalate the punishment.
So those are all my problems with the school system in Taiwan and the particular school I work for. It’s truly a mess and I seriously want to get out of it as soon as possible. I’m highly considering going back to law school (because I don’t want to have to do disagreeable jobs like this for the rest of my life) and I already applied for John Marshall with an August start. If I don’t get in for August I will reapply for January. Hopefully I can get back to school soon. In the meantime I’m making plans to move back to Chicago and find some temporary work to hold me over until I start school. Carolyn on the other hand is doing very well here and we both agree she should stay to finish out the contract. She thinks she may want to be a teacher, so this experience, and the references, will be quite valuable. Of course I will miss her a lot and I wish she could come back with me, but we will only be apart for 3 or 4 months, and it’s the best thing for our future.
I want to apologize for spending this whole post complaining. But I really feel some catharsis when typing up all my feelings. I hope to see all of you soon!
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