Sports Day

     turned out to be really fun!

Now, I know what you’re thinking:  “Christina, I can maybe guess why that student is dressed up as a cow, but why are you dressed up as an obese homeless person?”  Funny you should ask.  I am, in fact, a member of the Taiwan baseball team, with 4 layers under my jersey including a wool turtleneck, and a scarf that my mind knows is ugly but my heart loves, for some reason, and ski gloves.   Cause my goodness, it is so cold.  I can’t even explain it.  So cold.

These girls are dressed as Taiwanese aboriginals.  My other class was the American baseball team, so another of my students dressed up as… well… you can figure it out, right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each grade was something- there were basketball players, surfers, and little second-grade matadors!

There did turn out to be lots of sports- relay races and a game where kids walked on paint cans attached to strings- mostly things kept moving and it was fun to watch.  Near the end there were some parents vs. staff races and I was in both.  The first was a relay race and the second was where you had to walk side my side with a globe between you without touching it.   The teachers won the relay race but came in last for the globe thing- I think because of the drastic height differences between the foreigners and Taiwanese!

But it wasn’t all cuteness and smiles…

Yeah.  I’ve tried to think of some way to make this funny and… it’s just not.

Later I had a Bible study and went with my student to a free (outdoor) concert- gah- but it was quite entertaining.  A xylophone orchestra, I guess you’d say?  OK, I think I’m getting a little too used to Taiwan culture because I think a little xylophone orchestra was quite the pleasant way to

spend an hour. 

Now I’m sitting in my apartment, next to the space-heater, in head-to-toe polar fleece.  Yes, I’m wearing a polar-fleece hat, and polar-fleece slippers.  I had seriously never worn polar fleece before I came to Taiwan.  I remember discussing it once with a friend and saying “It’s the kind of thing ugly people wear.”  Maybe it’s true but it sure is warm and it doesn’t grow mold like “natural fibers” do in Taiwan.  I’m also sipping hot water.  Yes, I’m very used to Taiwan.