On Monday my employer sent me on what basically amounted to a scavenger hunt in the pouring rain on an attempt to get my ARC card. Your ARC card lets you stay in the country, so it's pretty important. First I had to go to our head office on the other side of the city to pick up some paperwork that was supposed to be ready for me... except it wasn't ready. Then I had to go back into Taipei to the immigration office, where they politely told me I'd been sent to the wrong place. Since I live in Taipei County, I had to go to the office in Banchio. After walking around Banchio for about an hour I somehow found myself a full subway station away from where I started, but this subway station had a *MAP*. Yay for maps! I never would have found the place without it because although it was on a main street, it started out as a dinky little street with some noodle shops on the end. Never would have gone up there. But in the end, I got it done and even found the site of my next haircut: Funny Hair. Sounds professional enough.
On Tuesday, Mel found out that another teacher at her school quit. So the staff was down two people within 5 days. Mel's boss's first question.... "do you think Shawn would be available?"
On Wednesday, I went to Mel's school to do a demo lesson! Unfortunately my audience was not made up of just students... Mel's boss and the principal were there too. As a result, the kids were very well behaved but also very shy to participate so my lesson went by so fast. Their English level was lower than I anticipated so one of my games was pretty unsuccessful. At the end of the class I actually remember turning my back to the class for a minute and s l o w l y erasing the board so I could try to think of what I was going to do with them next! It was one of my worst ever classes. When it was over, the principal came over to shake my hand and tell me what a good job I'd done. Um... okay!
So, Thursday was Melodie's birthday and as her birthday present she got a new co-worker: me! Lucky! Because I had to come in early to go over policies and stuff with the school and I had to stay late to observe a class, I had a 10.5 hour day at school so the birthday festivities weren't as wild as they probably might have been. However, for lunch Mel's boss treated us all to pizza and chicken and we also had a cake and sang "Happy Birthday". After work we went to an all you can eat BBQ place where we ate our money's worth, and then our neighbors came over to give Mel a gift (a hot suit dress, just ask her... she loves it aaahahahahahhaaa). Tonight we're going out for some Thai food with friends to celebrate as well.
So far, I really enjoy the new job. I think it's going to keep me pretty busy since I already have another part time job. I'm really happy to be working with Mel again (just like Korea!), the school is right across the road and I already know the staff and bosses quite well through Melodie. It's been quite interesting so far... in the last 2 days I've learned about all the characters in Final Fantasy thanks to a fan in my grade 9 class, found out that one kid hates pizza because it is too "no water", danced the grapevine with Nareesa and I've been told that I look just like Richard Gere. Who is like 60. C'mon. I used to get told I look like Beckham! I've aged....
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