Wondering

Its Monday morning. I slept until 10 am, which is not a bad way to start out the week. This afternoon I'm supposed to observe classes and tomorrow I get to teach my first one. I'm nervous to teach my first class, but I'm also ready to really start working instead of sitting in other people's classes and feeling bored.

Saturday was a big day. I broke down and cried in front of Will because I didn't have the internet, or a bike and my apartment was disgustingly dirty. He was so great and stayed late at school to give me a ride home, bought me lunch, went with me to the grocery store to buy cleaning supplies and then brought his friend Doug over to help me clean. I still can't believe how great he was about that. He also loaned me his bike so now I can at least get myself around town. So now my biggest challenge is still to figure out how to get the internet. I'm actually feeling a little more peaceful about not having it, even though its 9 pm at home and no doubt some friends would be online if I could get on right now. It feels great to know that my apartment is pretty clean and the bike is so nice.

Yesterday a bunch of teachers went to Jinshuan Fancy World together. When I saw the name of the place I knew it had to be a hilarious day. Its an amusement park with a water park in the middle. So you can ride all the usual rides and then swim when you get hot. The rides weren't much compared to Magic Mountain, but they did give me a little thrill. I had a great time getting to know the other teachers and some of the Chinese teachers. I had a little moment in the middle of the day where I started feeling nostalgic about my childhood and all the fair rides and water slides that we enjoyed. It made me really miss my family...but also made me sad because that family doesn't exist anymore. We are all grown up and moved onto our own things. It will never be the same as those fun family vacations where all we cared about was going down the slides as many times as we could.

I was happy the other foreign teachers wanted to go swimming. I was really hot and the wave pool looked like fun. The Chinese teachers either didn't bring their suits or didn't like to swim. So we got changed and tried to swim but got kicked out because we didn't have swimming caps on. I've never been required to wear a cap anywhere that I've gone swimming. My theory is that people are more worried about hygiene in Taiwan because there are so many people. After we bought swim caps for $100 NT, which is about $3 USD, we were in business. That was my favorite part of the day. We started out in the wave pool, floated around the outside of it on inner tubes, and then went down a big slide. I didn't want to go down the slide at first, but Doug and George were all about it. I ended up being glad because it was really fun. I rode with George and I think the two of us weighed more than most Taiwanese so we went really fast.

Moving to a new country and culture is so intense. I think I will lose weight because my apartment still grosses me out and I lose my appetite. Also, I feel intimidated to order food from any of these little stands on the street, so I end up eating potato chips in my room or something. I'm sure I will get over my fear of trying to order food soon enough. There are so many little stands to try. At work I am feeling intimidated too. Every time I start a new job I'm nervous to speak up for myself when I need help or have a question. It seems like everyone else is so busy with their own stuff and I don't want to bother anyone. However, they are supposed to help me if I need it, thats part of their jobs too. I think I will try to be bold and smile more. That makes it easier to interrupt someone or bother someone.