Christmas Day in TW

What a great few days we've had here! I have three sets of friends here...my co-workers, which includes Sam and Erin, my teacher friends from Canada...my South African friends, which includes my roommates and their extended circle of friends...and my church friend, Julie, who is American and has been in Taiwan for nine years! Over the last few days, beginning on Sunday morning and finishing late Tuesday night, I got to spend some quality time with each of these folks and enjoyed it so much! It made being away from family a little easier to bear and the necessity of working on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and today Boxing Day (hey, I lived in the UK for three Christmas's) a little less of a bummer. I miss my family, but thankfully I will see them and my friends in SF in just 5 and a half weeks. Woo hoo!

I've included a video (sorry it's on it's side) and some party pics of our Christmas "Dinner" at school yesterday, which our boss put on for us in lieu of our weekly staff meeting. ("Dinner" was a turkey, a plate of french bread slices and two pizzas from Domino's. This, of course, was better than the funky combo of foods they would have put on if we had asked them to prepare their food in a traditional feast, so we didn't complain, we just ate pizza for Christmas Dinner.) She made my heart skip a beat when near the end of lunch she made a big "announcement". I thought she was going to say we could take the rest of the day off, but I guess I've been watching too many movies. She said, "I have a big announcement to make! I want to give you all a very special gift for Christmas, so I've decided that next year on Christmas Day the school will be closed!" We all cheered raucously, but were of course thinking, "Ugh! What about today? 365 days away? That's a special gift? I got your special gift over here. Where I come from we call this a knuckle sandwich!" And on and on my sad mind went with my thoughts on her announcement, but you get the gist.

My three classes passed without too much fanfare and I scooted after work at almost 10:00 over to Julie's house where she had spent the day preparing a real Christmas Dinner. Roasted lamb, scalloped potatoes, corn casserole, green beans, rolls, and homemade blueberry cheesecake. I had made a box of stove top stuffing so we also had that. It was awesome.

I came home around midnight, gave my folks a call to wish them a Merry Christmas. My dad had just come in from hunting (and killing) ducks and he was happy. Mom sounded really good, which was great for me to hear. I think she feels a little better in the mornings. Anyway, I went to sleep late, very tired but very happy.

It's Wednesday morning here, I have much to do to prepare for teaching in a few hours, so I'm off. Hope your Christmas was memorable, and if it wasn't, perhaps you can think of ways to make it so next year. As for me, I'm already looking forward to next year, when I won't have to work, 'cause my boss declared it yesterday! ;)

Merry Christmas from TW, until next time, Larissa



This video is not great, but it's a slice of life here for me, if you can stand to have your head tilted to watch it for less than a minute, and hear me trying desperately to coach all the Chinese staff to say Merry Christmas, when most of them thought I was taking a photo and just freeze framed their smiles. Alas, it is what it is!

This is the group of young women that work
for our school as Teacher's Assistants.
Left to right is Annie, Cara, Joyce, and Debby.
I work with Cara mainly.

Below is the motley crew of "foreign teachers" that teach at Kang Ning. There are a few missing, but back row is Ben from New Zealand, Erin from Canada, Hendri and Stephen both from South Africa; front row, Sam from Canada, me, and Candice from South Africa. I only teach with Erin but I go to staff meeting with all of the rest of these except for Stephen. (He looks like a happy fellow, eh?)

Here I am pictured between my boss,
Serena, and her brother, Alex, who works
for the school. (I think they were having
a dispute over our upcoming Reading
Competition and I made them take this
picture with me. Rather Kittlitz of me I
think, don't you?)

Finally, here is a classic kitchen shot
of all the ladies that happened to be
standing nearby when I wanted a picture
with only one or two of them. They love
the pics (note the poses on both of the
bookends.) The only new people in this
shot are the two ladies in glasses. I work
with Lizann, next to me and Sharon,
in the front looking very uncomfortable.