My Cute Kids

You may have wondered why it has taken me such a long time to post pictures of my students. Well, the answer to this question is that they are so cute and adorable that I don't know if my blogging about them could do them justice to show off their unique personalities. I think pirate day finally gave me the courage to try to see if I could accurately get some good pictures. They still aren't the best, but here is a little bit about my students.


If you know me then you would know that of course I would have a pirate unit. Putting everything together to look for our buried treasure was a major success. My students from left to right are Koala, Kelly, Stephani, Eric, and Derek. Aren't they cute? They weren't too happy about taking this picture because they wanted to "find Misses Jaimie's Treasure and not take pictures" as Derek told me.


This is Stephani, the queen of Chinglish phrases. Example:

Me - "Stephani, stop chewing on your hair"
Stephani - "Don't have!"
Me - "What don't you have Stephani?"
Stephani - "Don't have chew on hair"
Me - "Say I didn't chew on my hair, and yes you did I saw you and your hair is wet."
Stephani - (In her whiniest voice possible) "Don't have!"

Something along these lines of Chinglish happens on a daily bases with her. It's quite funny actually.


This is a picture of Koala and Kelly getting ready to eat some ice cream. Koala is the most Taiwanese student that I have. He is pretty stubborn about certain rules and customs. For example, if we run he won't let us sit down afterwords because according to him "heart goes so fast that if we sit down, it will not be good for we." Also, he will not let us drink cold water when it is cold. It is another thing that will not be good for us.


Derek is sooooooooo cute. He talks so fast and doesn't have to think at all about what he is going to say, he just says whatever he is thinking. Usually the things that he thinks about are things like "how to make a joke that will get us out of doing our classwork." Each day, he does something so odd and silly that I honestly do bust up laughing. Example - yesterday he was able to somehow take my shoe off of my foot as he was turning in his homework. It caught me so off guard that instead of being mad, I started laughing along with the rest of the class. He really does make each day exciting.


Kelly is probably the best student in the world. She does what she is supposed to do, is always on time, sets up the tables and chairs, answers all of the questions right, is nice to everybody. She is the perfect product of what Asian culture tries to make out of their students. When you think about how strict and rigid Asian schools would be, you are right, they are that bad. Kelly is one little girl that can handle it and seems to enjoy the structure.


Last, but certainly not least, my toothless Eric. This kid is such a trouble maker, but is honestly the smartest in the class. Unfortunately Taiwanese culture is upset at his bad behavior (they are always watching) and instead of helping him so that he could skip a level to have a more challenging course, he gets punished often (thank goodness not while in my class, but in his other classes at Berhan).

And this folks, is my Basic Reading class. I love these kids and am growing pretty attached to them. I really do like teaching.

Blogging like a blogger again

Some of you may be wondering where I have been as I haven't blogged for a while. Well, don't worry I'm still alive and the scooter has not killed me yet. I have started doing something that I thought I would never do - scrapbooking. Its a good feeling to print off pictures and then put them away and not have piles and piles lying around! Anyway, on Saturday I went to Lugang (an ancient city) with some friends and here are a couple of pictures.



I really liked the high red brick walls and how everything felt like a maze when we walked through the street. I was told that the reason for this is because the city is close to a harbor and there were problems with pirates coming so they built the big walls for protection. How exciting it must have been to live in the time of pirates.

Here I am with my two roommates Derek and Dane. They were posing like that on purpose - unknown to me.


This is a picture that my student drew of me after I told them that they needed to write their fixed sentences 5 times. I thought it was mostly funny because he spelled my name wrong. Although this picture may suggest that I have a poor relation with my students, we were actually laughing about this. Don't worry - I am surviving. I think.

Gee Cha - Scooter in Chinese

Ok, I have decided that it is not a matter of if I will get into a scooter accident as much as it is a matter of when will I get into a scooter accident. I have come to terms with this. The nice thing is that I drive my scooter slow enough that it shouldn't be fatal, little old men with white hair pass me.

Taipei - part 6

While in Taipei, we went to a really pretty park outside of the National Palace Museum. Here are a couple of pictures that I took from it. I hope you enjoy them.

Here I am making a funny faceThis is a picture of me and my friend DaneThis is a Crane (I like how Dane and crane rhyme) Well, this is just some pretty water And Buddha

Taipei - part 5

Taipei 101 - The second tallest building in the world thanks to Dubai. Although the tower in Dubai isn't finished yet, so I guess Taipei 101 can still be considered the current tallest building in the world. The record that the building is officially number one with is for the faster elevator in the world. It was exciting to be at the top of the building in less the 30 seconds and feel my ears pop.

Here is a picture of the tall building from the bottom of the tall building. And a couple of blocks over. Here is a picture from the top of the building. This is me in Taipei 101 giving the generic Chinese peace symbol.
This a picture of the big ball in the center of the building that helps Taipei 101 stay standing tall. The theory behind it is that if there are earth quakes and such in the building, they have a really really heavy weight in the middle to pull the building back to the center so that it doesn't fall over.Ok, here is a picture of me at the bottom of Taipe 101. Just in case you are wondering, I am giving the peace symbol in this picture too. Just in case it looks questionable.

Taipei - part 4

I didn't realize how many pictures I took in Taipei! I have so many other things I want to blog about, but there are a few more things that I want to say about Taipei so look forward to more blogs showing up other then the regular Sunday blogs that I typically post :)

However, first thing first - Chinese New Year! We went to a hotel to see the Chinese New Year festivities. It was really fun to see the dragon and lion dance. They do these dances in front of stores to wish good luck for the store in the New Year. I'll let you know if it works. If it does, maybe America should start doing Lion Dances in front of the malls or something to help the economy.

This is a picture of the drummers outside of the hotel that we went to when we watched the celebration.These guys doing the dragon dance are awesome to watch because they made the dragon have a lot of character and they were amazing at doing cool gymnasticish moves. These firecrackers are quite possibly the loudest noise I have ever heard. The annoying thing is that because Chinese New Year is a week long we found ourselves being woken up by these blasted things at 6 AM on a few occasions.
This is a picture of the dragon dance. Make sure to watch the video below where I have recorded some of the dragon dance for you.Here is a picture of me with the cute little lion...Well, this guy was somehow a really important part of the festival but I have no clue why. He brought out a scroll and all of the crowd seemed interested in what he was showing them. Regardless of my lack of knowledge to what his purpose is, I thought he was cool to take a picture with.Here is the video that I promised you. This is the dragon dance.


To finish off, in other exciting news I rode the bus all the way from Taichung to Fongyuen today all by myself. Ok, so this isn't that exciting because it was just the bus ride home that we make from church each week, but it was the first time I did it on my own. I feel very accomplished for getting on the right bus and knowing the symbol for the city I live in :)

Taipei - part 3

In Taipei, we wanted to celebrate Chinese New Year like they do in Taiwan, so that meant going to the temple on New Years Eve. We went with a big group of people that stayed at our hostel and these are just a couple of the pictures that I took of the temple. The video at the end is sort of cool because it shows just how crowded it really was.