Math

I feel like my first week of regular classes at school was a smashing success. To put it a little more properly, sometimes I felt like smashing something, and sometimes I felt quite successful. The successful parts involved good, clear, productive lessons. The smashing parts included such mix-ups as teaching P.E. to the wrong class. There was also my math class. I am teaching English, but there are certain "topic" classes that the foreign teachers have to teach in English as well. I have a one hour math section with my first grade class. Math and I have never been the closest of friends. It is not that we are outright enemies. We are acquaintances who have always been polite enough to give a cordial nod when our paths cross but have never felt any real compulsion to initiate a deeper relationship. Thus, I was not thrilled to find out that I must teach math. However, the fact that it was just a first grade class consoled me. How complex could it be? When I got the curriculum, I noticed that the first class was on "number bonds." No problem. Bonds are things you buy from the government.

Well, it took the kids about 10 minutes to teach me what number bonds are. They, of course, already knew all the material. The worksheets were finished before I could explain what they were to do. There I stood, embarrassed by my inability to teach meaningful mathematics and with about 50 minutes of class time left to fill. At this point the old Thigpen blood began to rise. We don't just lie down at let these sort of situations steamroll over us. I reared back and threw my first punch. Yes, I reared all the way back to the Pythagoreans, explaining the centrality of mathematics to the philosophy of a large branch of these ancient thinkers. Since we were talking about Pythagoras, I though I would throw the old boy's theorem in there for extra weight. Forty-five minutes of class time left. Next came a jab with Archimedes and his approximation of pi. This knocked off about two minutes. Unfazed, I charged back in with Paschal's representation of binomial coefficients in what is now called Paschal's Triangle. 35 minutes left. I was tiring now and blood was flowing freely, but as I mentioned earlier, it was Thigpen blood, which is of the non-quitting type. On I went with Newton, Leibniz, and the calculus wars, coming down clearly on the side of Newton simply because of my dislike for German philosophers. Next came wild swings at applied mathematics, logic, and anything else remotely connected with math. I discussed the glories of the number 15 and how it has adorned all of my jerseys for years now. I got them to guess how many hairs I have in my goatee. Then we counted them. At the end of the hour, the kids carried me back to my office. I was battered and bruised, but we had done math for an hour.

In other notes, I started Chinese lessons today. I am a prodigy. I can say my cell phone number in Chinese. It is not quite intelligible, but I am saying it none the less.

The last baseball game was a 7-6 loss. We gave up a 6 run inning late to hand the game over. My line: 1-2, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 1 K. On the year my line is .500 AVG, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 1 K, .600 OBP. Not that I am keeping stats, though.

Well, I must go eat supper. It will probably involve rice. When it comes to meals with rice, I am eating about .500. The other half of my meals have noodles.

Prep blog

Well, I found a few minutes to dash off one more blog before the semester starts. This is in response to the fevered outpouring of insistence that I continue to write at all costs. Yes, in my book one polite mention that it might be a shame for me write less frequently amounts to a feverish outpouring. Of course that very polite person, who now ranks among my favorite people in the world, had never read the blog, but that makes little difference. I encouraged him not to read it. It is far better, I said, that he use his imagination to picture pure sublimity of wit, substance, and form, thus integrating himself into the blog. My purpose in giving this advice was to keep me and my blog in his good opinion. Upon further reflection, however, it would have been better to have said nothing and hope he would simply forget. If he takes my advice he will someday grow curious, read the blog, and have his faith in wit, substance, and form destroyed.

Yes, the semester is less that twenty-four hours away from starting. I am in the midst of preparing my self for action. At present this preparation involves Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor and a bowl of ramen noodles. I will be meeting later with my kung-fu instructor who is teaching me the art of classroom self-defense. Six year olds are dangerous. I think I will wear my black belt right into the classroom to intimidate them. Our warm-up games for the first classes will involve the students holding various objects that I will kick, punch, or slice through. Later on I will have to gear up for parents who will demand to know why their budding genius is not progressing in the acquisition of English at a crisper rate. Oh, I will be ready for them.

My preparation has now moved to Toby Keith's I Should've Been a Cowboy and a mango.

Note to anyone related with my school or any person considering putting their child in my school: The only true parts of the previous paragraph come in the first three sentences. I do not know kung fu, and even if I did would never use it in the classroom or on parents of my students, no matter how badly I might want to do so. They specifically trained us not to hit the children.

I finally played my first actual game of baseball after weeks of practicing. The cold hard facts are as follows: We won 4-3, I went 1-2 with a single, and played nearly flawless defense. I must admit that I was not a vacuum at third today (maybe I should get rid of my cleaning lady). I flubbed one play, but in my defense, it was a little tricky. It was also my first game in over a decade, so I don't want to hear anything from my brothers (With that statement I just guaranteed that I will indeed hear from my brothers.)

When I was out there playing, I really felt like I stood out like the oft mentioned sore thumb. I just couldn't figure out what made me so different. Then it struck me; I don't smoke. Everyone else who plays smokes religiously. They smoke between games, between innings, between pitches. If I would just smoke a cigarette here or there, I am sure that no one would even look twice at me out there. It might also improve the team's play by promoting team unity. I don't think I could ever take to cigarettes, though. Being a more homey type of person, I would have to go the pipe route, were I to take up smoking for the good of the game. But then I would still stand out because no one else out there has a pipe. Oh well, I guess I will just have to stand out. There is no way around it.

The guys on the team, being mostly university students, seem to be related to that breed we call the "party animal." Here, at least, I can relate to them is some way. Those who know me know I party hard. You can bet I have already had some raucous times in my little apartment. Why, just last night, around 10:00 o'clock, I busted out some Jeeves and Wooster and watched a whole episode. Yes, those rumors floating around that I have even had people over to watch Jeeves and Wooster are true. Then there are the many hours I have spent reveling my way through Don Quixote. There is 940 pages worth of party right there. I have even been so bold as to take Don Quixote out to different places to read as well. Faced with the combination of the Don, Jeeves, Wooster, and me, I don't think the rest of the team can keep up when it comes to partying.

My preparation has moved to KISS' "I wanna rock n roll all night" (can I get a certain someone, you know who you are, to finish that line please?) and a banana.

Well, I must close now. Before I do, though, let me impart a word of advice that some friends of mine found on a sign at a crosswalk here in Taipei. This simple piece of advice is as axiomatic as any I have ever come across, and I adjure you to keep it always near at hand. Without further ado, here it is, "Jaywalking leads to regretting." Live by it, my friends.

My preparation has moved to "Mr. Sun" and bubble tea.

Cleaning Lady

The cleaning lady came yesterday. Yes, that's right--the cleaning lady. For those who may not know what I am talking about, the cleaning lady is the lady who comes to clean my apartment at regular intervals. She comes with the apartment. I walked in the door after work to find the place not only spotlessly clean but also neatly straightened with everything in its place. That is just how my life here in Taiwan goes. Now, I imagine that there are three different responses to learning that I have a cleaning lady. A third of you just decided that moving to Taiwan is the best idea you have ever heard of and are wondering why you haven't been a resident of this fair, clean island for years. Another third just said, "Yeah, I have one too. I call her my wife." The last third really don't care, because you don't know what the word "clean" means and therefore don't know what the word "lady" means either. To the first third I have say that you are not issued a cleaning lady upon disembarking from the plane in Taiwan. As a matter of fact, I am the only person I know here who has one. To the second third I have nothing to say. Your wife is now saying enough. To the last third, that is disgusting. You may need a cleaning lady, but you probably don't deserve one. As for me, I am going to go on living the good life here on this tropical island. Excuse me a moment as I ring for a drink.

The regular semester starts for me this coming Monday. This means that I will begin making the trek out to the Neihu district six days a week. Some of you, upon learning that I will be working in Neihu, will immediately, and wrongly, suppose that I will be working at Gymbaby since it is "Children's first school for brain based learning." Neither am I working at George School of Language, Cherries English, or Happy Dancing Dinosaur School of Learning. No, I am working at a good school, and one with a decent name. Oxford is one of the best cram schools on the island. It has teachers who have cleaning ladies. In all seriousness, though, it seems that I have been blessed by landing at a really good school. The school seems to be committed to providing a good education, and everyone I have met there has been great. If I can just get used to teaching little kids I think I will really enjoy the job. I do love kids, but it might take a while for me to learn how to teach them English. I wouldn't mind your prayers as I try to adjust to my new job as well as life in a new country! I really would like to be a good teacher, but I have a lot to learn.

With the new, busy schedule that will hit me starting next week, I am not sure how often I will be able blog. This does not mean I will stop blogging. It just means that I may not be able to dash one off every week. Keep checking in! I enjoy staying in contact with people back home even in this small way. Maybe I can use the time I would generally devote to cleaning to blog. Or maybe I will just get my cleaning lady to blog for me.

Settling In

The past week has been spent settling in to life at my new job. Right now at my school there are just a handful of students in a two week summer camp. All the regular teachers are on vacation so this camp is used for easing all the new teachers into their new job. Poor kids. For this camp there is no set curriculum, so they just give us topics to teach. The first week we were to teach them about the topic of "sky." I, on the other hand, wanted to start teaching in areas with which I am more comfortable, like literary theory or classical amd medieval philosophy. It took some work, but I was able to meld the given topic with my own desires. My first period with the kindergarten class started well:

"Good morning children! Today we are talking about the sky! The sky is very big! Any where you go you can look up and see the sky! If you were in Italy, you could look up and see the sky! This means that when Saint Anselm was your age he could look up and see the sky! As a matter of fact, when he was little he would play outside all day long! When it was getting late, his mother would step out of the house and yell, "Saint Anselm, it is time to come in!" He would often reply, "Mother dearest, please observe that the sun, which is but a dim reflection of the glory of its Creator, though it can in truth scarcely be compared to its source of light for it is mutable and goes through phases and will some day cease to exist while the One who uttered it into being is immutable and eternal, has yet to come down from the sky!" After hearing this, Saint Anselm's mom would remember that her son was a saint and would give him five more minutes under the sky! But storm clouds sometimes form in the sky and bring bad weather, just like the theological storm clouds that formed over Saint Anselm when he took on the established doctrine of atonement...!"

You may have noticed from the exclamation marks I was quite enthusiastic about the lesson. The children were enthusiastic as well. One girl was enthusiastically screaming at the boy next to her for hitting her. Another dear little blessing was enthusiastically zooming around the back of the class pretending to be an airplane. I took this to be a good thing, since at least he was pretending to be in the sky. Over all, I am fairly pleased with how things are faring. The regular semester starts on August 23. At that time I will try to figure out the regular flow of things at my school.

I will end by offering up a particularly tasty morsel for the "Good said" segment of this blog. It comes from my favorite place of business here in Taiwan. About two minutes from my apartment is a wonderful little bubble tea shop that I love to frequent. If you have never had a bubble tea, go get one right now. Well, wait until you have finished this blog, and then travel however far you have to travel. Just get one. The best place to get one is the GuDi Tea shop which, as I mentioned earlier, is close to my place. Don't just take my word that it is the best, though. Listen to what is found in the fine print at the bottom of one of its advertising posters just after the copyright information: "GuDi Tea. It is yummy and feel like sweet a gourmet feast." Even if I didn't like bubble tea I would up and buy one from GuDi immediately after reading that presentation, for it is a statement that compels patronization. Anyone who feels similarly moved may send me money. I promise to buy sweet a gourmet feast with it.

From Scooters to Baseball

I took my first ride on a scooter yesterday, and were I a man of means, I would have bought one today. No, I would have bought one yesterday. A teammate on my baseball team picked me up to take me to practice. There we were, two guys whizzing through town decked out in baseball uniforms and carrying baseball gear. I would like to pause here for a moment to note that "whizzing" is the perfect verb to denote the action which takes place while driving a scooter. It is slightly better than "zipping", because "whiz" seems to pick up better on the noise that accompanies the movement. I digress in this fashion merely to help fix more firmly in your mind the entire scope of that action we call riding a scooter. Anyway, we went whizzing through town, weaving in and out of traffic, running up on sidewalks, and going the wrong way down one way alleys. It was a moving experience. There are, of course, rules that scooterists must follow, but these rules are more lenient than those foisted on cars. When I say that these scooters are everywhere, I mean just what I say. You cannot walk out your door and look in any direction save up and not see a hundred of them. If you look up you will probably see only fifty or so. It seems that some people believe that operating a scooter is a formal affair. I say this because half the time you see men in suits and ties or women in skirts and heels whizzing about town. If I wind up with one, I will go the suit and tie route. I just don't do heels.

Practice went well--all five hours of it. It started at one o'clock; at least that is what I was told. It seems, however, that to say practice starts at one o'clock means that is the time the players should remember that there is a practice and begin to prepare to head that way. I am not sure when we actually started practice, but it wasn't one o'clock. Not even close. That is the way things work here, though. When we finally did start practice, they indicated that they wanted me down in the hot corner. Some of you, of course, will complain that it is highly inappropriate for me to be occupying the hot corner. I prefer to ignore you and dwell instead on the fact that I completely sealed off that particular piece of real estate. I stated earlier that they "indicated that they wanted me" in the hot corner. I worded it in this fashion because communication is rather difficult between us. Their English is strained and my Chinese is still nonexistent. At one point they referred to the "batter" as the "knocker", and their way of saying "Let's go!" seems to be "Cheer up!" This is the sort of conversation that takes place between us:

Teammates in English: "You shthourd base. Knocker in random play try knock good in play. One out in try runner on fourst and pitcher throw up ball. Defense practice in match in playing team. Double play in one out. Cheer up!"

Me in Chinese: "Hello! Thank you!"

We make it, though. We all love baseball, and as we all know, love transcends all languages.

Am beginning to teach now. Taught my first lesson at my new school this morning. Over the next two weeks I will teach at least one class a day and go through more training. I still have a lot to learn. I still don't have the "Mr. Sun" song down pat yet, much less "Five Little Monkeys." I will get them, though. I promise you I will get them.

The Decision

"Let me begin by saying that this summer has been very exciting for me. I am referring specifically to my job search here in Taiwan. It has presented certain challenges, but it has been everything I expected and more. It has included meetings between various schools and my team and me, interviews, midnight calls from Canada, and lots of seeking advice from friends and family. I have changed my mind a lot during this process. I finally made up my mind this morning, and I have no doubts about my decision. I was able to make up my mind after talking with my mother, who told me I had to decide what was best for me and what would make me happy. So here it is. This fall...this is tough...this fall I will be taking my talents to the Taipei Oxford Institute. I know that the other schools will not be happy with my decision, but as I said before, I had to decide what was best for me and what would make me happy. Oxford is the place."

I just wanted to give you a snippet of the hour long special that played out on Taiwanese tv last night incase you haven't already seen clips of it on American tv this morning. The special was called, "The Deciding of the Mind of American Native to Speaking of the English Spoken Language in the Situating of His Employment of the Teaching of This Language in Small Childrens." I have not signed a contract with Oxford yet, but we have agreed in principle. I start observing classes tomorrow, and start training next week. Fans of other schools have been seen burning replicas of the shirts I generally teach in. I think I will be happy at Oxford, though.

In other matters, it has come to my attention that some readers of this blog are concerned with my use of the English language. They have noticed some oddities in grammar and vocabulary usage, particularly in the opening paragraph of a recent blog, that brought about grave concerns about my command of my mother tongue. This was particularly troubling considering the fact that I am about to embark on a career involving the teaching of English. To these persons I first want to express my gratitude for their concerns on my behalf. I also want to assure them that I have taken their warnings to heart. With laborious and assiduous study, I shall endeavor to improve myself in this area.

I shall close this blog with some words of wisdom that I garnered from a Korean notebook that I purchased this evening. I picked this particular notebook out from all the rest because of these words. In the bottom corner of the notebook rests the picture of a bicycle with a little word bubble pointing to it and stating "Ride bicycle!" The notebook doesn't leave you hanging as to what kind of bicycle you should ride either, for in the top corner stand the bold words "Ride Green." It goes even further by imparting these sage words on which one should meditate while riding the green bicycle: "No matter what kind of world you want to write, Think Nature on green field, let's start at the basic. History starts now." The punctuation and capitalization comes straight from the book. Once again I say, "Good said."

Back Home Again

I finally made it back home. It seems a whole lifetime has past since I left here. I am sure that I am not the same man who packed his bags and departed from the only place he had every really called home. Sure I gave other places a try. I have been here and there. Sometimes it was of necessity. Sometimes it was just plain wanderlust. My heart, however, never let me settle in any foreign land. Like the needle of a compass, it always pointed to the place I had left until it brought me back here. Back home. Well, to be perfectly honest, I spent more time at shortstop than at home. Just as well, too, because my performance in the field was a little better than my performance at the plate.

Yes, I am playing baseball again. They say your first flame never quite dies. Maybe there is something in that. Baseball was my first love; some of the fondest memories of my childhood come from my time out on the diamond, or out in the front yard for that matter. As long as I had a glove, baseball or bat in my hand, I was happy. I tried basketball and ultimate frisbee in Russia. I tried ultimate frisbee an soccer in South Carolina. These sports were great and I would play them all again. But they weren't home. My flings with these other sports just made me want to return to my true love. And we all know that true love wins in the end. I think I am on the verge of writing one of those gripping Christian romance novels and use sports as main characters. I'll get to that when I finish my Amish romance.

I found a team here that has generously agreed to let me join. Today I went to a practice, which I think was a kind of try out for me. Just a handful of guys showed up and put me through the paces. I played passably enough to work my way on to the team. None of the guys spoke much English, and my Chinese is terribly limited, so to be honest, I don't really know much about the team. I don't know, for example, who they play, how serious their games are, how good they are, if they chew sunflower seeds, what their version of a rally cap is, if they allow spitting on the field, or if they prefer line drives to "dream team" hits (ask Jeb about that one). All I know is that they occasionally go out on a baseball diamond and engage in America's pastime in Taiwan. I also know the name of the team. I could tell you what it is, but I think it more fitting for you to learn it from our theme song. I won't be a star on this team. I will probably ride the bench, if I even get to the bench. Maybe I will just practice with them. But I will be out there, glove on hand. Yes, as soon as practice was over, they took me to the local baseball store where I outfitted myself with a glove, cleats, socks, a batting glove, and put down a deposit on a uniform. All of this, minus the uniform, is sold as a set at the store. You pay $2,800 (that would be Taiwanese dollars) and get to select from a set group of gloves, cleats, socks, and batting gloves. It is kind of like ordering a value meal at a fast food restaurant. Now that I think about it, though, It may be that the guys who I practice with work for that store. They may sucker in people who desperately want to play baseball, take them to the store to get outfitted, and then disappear. It may be another one of those Taiwanese practical jokes, just like the food. These people really are jokers.

Anyway, if I wasn't suckered, I shall soon be back out on the field, hoping desperately that, after more than 10 years of not playing, I will not make a fool out of myself (as fun as it was, I refuse to count the games I played on the St. Andrews softball team as being out on the diamond. We had fun, but it was the least competitive team I have ever played on.). Maybe I can make up for all my rustiness, or just plain lack of ability, by looking good in the uniform (yeah, that's really wishful thinking). Maybe I will make them all proud by being a fantastic spitter out in the field. Maybe sometime I will get either a line drive or a dream team hit. And maybe, just maybe, after one of those hits, I will make it all the way home.