Why couldn't I have been observed today?

My name is Jimmie and I am addicted to reading.

I woke up this morning and read the news for an hour not coming out of my room until I heard my roommates say something about how they didn't think I was home. At that point I decided it was probably time to show my face (not to mention eat "breakfast").

After I ate (an apple) I stuffed my nose back in the book I've been reading. I'm in the 400-pages now. It's so good.

I told myself I would only read until 3 p.m. Then I would do yoga, take a shower and do my lesson plans before going to class. Three o'clock rolled around and I wasn't ready to put the book aside so I told myself 30 more minutes. Then I opted for 30 more. It was like a snooze button for reading instead of sleeping.

Finally 4 p.m. struck and I realized if I didn't get ready and do my lesson plans quickly I was going to lose my attendance bonus for the month.

Going to work was totally work it though.

Alice came to school with her hair wet so Angela blow-dried and combed it before the bell.

My kids were being so goofy and fun today. We joked and played and we were super loud, so of course I got out the camera.

Glenn was probably the goofiest of them all today. His English is awesome for a 6-year-old.

I like when it's like that with my classes but especially with this class because we're in the very front classroom in Dar-Nan and it has big windows. We're basically always being watched through the big windows whether its by the front desk, other kids or parents. That's also the class that I got observed in and didn't have to best comments in the world.

This is Jim. He can be a brat but he can also be a lot of fun. Today was a fun day.

Today I felt like it went off without a hitch. Why couldn't I have been observed today?

I taught them all the material in the suggested lesson plan plus had time to review other stuff. They're so smart that they even knew how to answer today's new QA (What's your favorite number?) before I told them how.

Me: Everyone, new question! What's... your... favorite... number? (All the while miming my words.)
Kids: What's...your...favorite... number? My favorite number is one.

I was shocked and thoroughly impressed. It made me feel really good that they actually recognized the sentence pattern (from the previous questions: What's your favorite color and What's your favorite animal). Since they already knew what a number is it was easy for them.

I tried to get Tim to say his favorite number is 13 (superstitiously seen as a very unlucky number, especially in Asian culture) but he didn't fall for it.

Alvine was not excited about getting his picture taken at first. Then he gave me the cutest dog ears. :)

I'm getting to where I truly enjoy my Tuesday classes. The kids are so much fun and they're really smart.

I love that I can spend a lot of the class joking around and not using robot-speak. They're smart kids and they deserve to have a real conversation instead of being little drones.

Hopefully I will learn to like my Wednesday night class half as much. We will see.

After classes I headed over to the Night Market. I saw four other foreigners (one being one of my roommates) while I was at the Night Market. It occurred to me that we are pretty easy to spot in a crowd.

I wonder if Taiwanese people recognize as many people they know at the Night Market when they go or if it's just because we go all the time (I estimate that each night there are at least three foreigners there after work). There are always such large crowds that I'm amazed whenever I do see someone I know.

Who's that girl?

You know that alone-in-a-crowd feeling?

Well, I've decided that I kind of like it, which is good because it's pretty easy to find here. Or so I thought.


I went to the Taoyuan Night Market last night after work. There are a million booths set up nightly all down a couple of streets. The booths are filled with clothes, watches, cheap jewelry, bootleg DVDs, food and games.


I went with the intent of exploring, taking pictures, checking out some of the Chinglish shirts and grabbing a late dinner.

I didn't really get to do much of that.

It turns out half of the people in the dorm had a similar plan. I can't say I blame them. There is a ton of great food to be found. It's kind of hard not to see the other teachers in the dorm. Although there are a ton of teachers from America, Canada and England in this city, we're still incredibly outnumbered and therefore stick out in a crowd. I saw at least six other people last night.

So much for my night exploring alone.

I have absolute nothing against any of them. On the contrary, I actually like them very much. They're good people and a lot of fun to hang out with. I just wasn't in the mood to hang out with anyone.

I am honestly better at being a tourist when I'm alone. I know that sounds unsafe or at the very least antisocial, but I like to just go and take pictures and ask questions.

I guess it's the journalist in me. If I'm with someone else, I feel like we're kind of trying to make sure the other gets to do what they wanted to do. Inevitably I don't because I wanted to be alone.

I know I should have just said so, but I know they mean well. The past few days have been a little nervewracking and I made the mistake of letting a few people know that. In other people's worlds, this means you have to be surrounded at all times. In mine, it means I need time to think and just let things happen.

It's funny because I went to bed last night thinking about two things: the idea that I needed to get lost in a crowd and the realization that that's nearly impossible here.

It's a perplexing situation.

I know very few people here and there are crowds galore. But given the cirumstances, I kind of stick out in a crowd. I even have kids whose classes I've subbed coming up to me because they recognize me after seeing me once.

"Teacher! Teacher!"

The other is that I would give anything not to be noticed right now. I think it's funny how most people go through their lives wanting to be noticed.

They want to feel special for something. Of course, I'm sure that starts with your parents telling you when you're little that you're special. Everyone is special. We all want to be the best at something or even the worst at something if it will get us noticed.

And, now that I can't help but be noticed, I don't really care.