Big news!

This was the last week of our orientation, when the important decisions get made! On Monday, we had another session with the local English teachers, and in the afternoon we had a "speed dating" activity in which the ETAs rotated around so we could each have 10 minutes talking to each LET one-on-one. It was extremely tiring (two straight hours of trying to cram all of your important questions and bonding time into 10 minutes, over and over), and at the end of the day, the ETAs and LETs both had to fill out preference forms indicating who we would like to work with the most and why. I had a really hard time filling out my form, because there were a lot of people I liked, but I didn't have lots of excellent, concrete reasons for why I would be a good fit at their school. I think the LETs were a lot better equipped to answer the question of who fits their schools' needs. Our program advisers spend the evening matchmaking, and on Tuesday morning they announced the pairings. Drumroll please...

So I'm going to be working with a fabulous lady named Patty at Yang Ming Primary School. Patty was worried that I wouldn't like her as much because she is old enough to be my mother, but I don't care, she's hilarious. In our speed dating session, I asked her about her strategies for classroom management, and she said that we would play good cop/bad cop. (I get to be the good cop) Patty is a character - she wears bright pink lipstick and is very funny and easy to talk to. I'm supposed to go into school with her sometime next week, where I will meet with the principal and get introduced to the whole school on their internal TV broadcast. Super. The principal at Yang Ming is a little bit crazy, judging from our visit there. Apparently he wanted a girl teacher because he wants to practice his English and he thought a guy would be too intimidating to talk to. Also, when we were visiting, he made some weird remark about how our Asian-Americans weren't really Americans, so I think he wanted a white person...it's going to be an interesting time with this fellow. Hopefully I can be a good influence, although it might be challenging to convincingly explain American diversity when I personally am so stereotypically American-looking. Exciting times. Also, besides my regular classes at Yang Ming, I'm going to be teaching conversational English classes for the teachers and for a group of advanced students apparently known as the "English Angels." Oh my. The excitement never ends!

Also this week, besides finding out our teaching placements, we went to National Sun Yat-Sen University to take a placement test for Chinese language classes, which we're going to have in the evenings. Our classes will just be us Fulbrighters and maybe some other foreigners who want to get in on the action, so we get to choose the time and location and everything. They put me in the advanced class (hahahahah) with people whose Chinese seems a lot better than mine, so I imagine I'll be working hard.

Today we went to the American Institute in Taiwan, a very special place that is certainly not an embassy or consulate of any kind, no sirree. We met some nice guys who gave us a little talk about what AIT does and told us that we can come over for Thanksgiving and the Super Bowl and whenever we need a little more Americanness in our lives. Also they told us to try not to get in trouble with the law, but if we do we can call them. A special warning was issued to the guys, because apparently in Taiwan if you correct somebody's manners or accidentally flirt with their girl in a club or something, they will call all their friends and beat you up later when you're not expecting it. Ooch. Also: Driving a scooter while intoxicated is a very very bad life decision! This message has been brought to you by the American Institute in Taiwan.

Ate a giant lunch today and had an intense attack of Food Coma. I should probably go find some kind of dinner, even though I don't feel like I need it...blargh