![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Taiwan Teaching Diary #5
Aug. 20th, 2022 06:15 pmThe first week of school is done. Next week I'll get to meet my students, but then they are all leaving for a camp Wednesday through Friday. Oh well. At least I don't have to go.
Today I had brunch with my coworker Vika. She has been teaching ESL and social studies, but now she's teaching regular literature and has been floundering a bit. She asked to go out today so we could talk and get some ideas. It was really nice. We went to a French cafe that also has a lot of board games. It's in the neighborhood of my new apartment (I'm signing a lease for my apartment tomorrow!), so it was nice to see a bit of the neighborhood.
It was also nice to talk shop with a colleague. We aren't teaching exactly the same classes, but we teach the same age level. We got a workable plan together for her first unit and will use the time that the students are away this week to map out a few more. It was so nice to talk pedagogy and ideas. I just didn't have that at my last school because we were all so busy and also stayed in our own rooms a lot.
Anyway, things are moving along. I spent some time looking on Google maps for interesting sights around town. I went to Starbucks yesterday and bought the cutest water bottle. The Mid-Autumn Festival designs are the cutest things I have ever seen. They have knitting bunnies! So many cute things! I was very restrained in buying just the water bottle. I will be buying some of the tins of cookies. I can use the tins for storage and share the cookies with my colleagues and students.
Now that I have my housing situation sorted and I'm feeling confident about work and I'm making friends, I'm feeling much better about the decision to take this job.
The humidity and heat still suck, though.
Today I had brunch with my coworker Vika. She has been teaching ESL and social studies, but now she's teaching regular literature and has been floundering a bit. She asked to go out today so we could talk and get some ideas. It was really nice. We went to a French cafe that also has a lot of board games. It's in the neighborhood of my new apartment (I'm signing a lease for my apartment tomorrow!), so it was nice to see a bit of the neighborhood.
It was also nice to talk shop with a colleague. We aren't teaching exactly the same classes, but we teach the same age level. We got a workable plan together for her first unit and will use the time that the students are away this week to map out a few more. It was so nice to talk pedagogy and ideas. I just didn't have that at my last school because we were all so busy and also stayed in our own rooms a lot.
Anyway, things are moving along. I spent some time looking on Google maps for interesting sights around town. I went to Starbucks yesterday and bought the cutest water bottle. The Mid-Autumn Festival designs are the cutest things I have ever seen. They have knitting bunnies! So many cute things! I was very restrained in buying just the water bottle. I will be buying some of the tins of cookies. I can use the tins for storage and share the cookies with my colleagues and students.
Now that I have my housing situation sorted and I'm feeling confident about work and I'm making friends, I'm feeling much better about the decision to take this job.
The humidity and heat still suck, though.
