Weekly Update

I started teaching my junior high class this week. We gather together (to ask the Lord's blessing) for little over two hours on Saturday mornings. This is the highlight of the week for these sixteen kids. In Taiwan, the junior high years are spent in a monk-like devotion to study. Every child (or more likely, every child's parent) longs to get into a top high school. This is accomplished by doing very well in junior high, as the students are placed in different high schools according to their test scores. Thus, they spend all their time studying and preparing for tests. For this reason, they exude boundless gratitude for the opportunity to get up early on Saturday mornings to spend two hours sitting in another classroom. They were so overwhelmed that they were unable to express their gratitude. As a matter of fact, they were unable to express anything. Yes, I received two hours of silent gratitude. It was rewarding. Allow me to give you a peek inside the junior high classroom.

Me: Alright guys, I am really looking forward to getting to know you over the course of the year. I am really excited about this class! Let's start with you giving me your names. What's your name?

Student 1: (silent moving of the mouth)

Me: What is that again?

Student 1: (more of the same)

Me: Um, can you spell that?

Student 1: (more of the same)

Me: Very nice! I am so glad to have you in the class! And what is your name?

Student 2: (through similar facial expressions and movements exhibits a close relationship with Student 1.)

Me: (after realizing that it is somehow culturally inappropriate to ask junior high students their names) Well, guys, I am so excited about our lesson today that we are just going to jump right in!

(blanks stares)

Or maybe I will jump right in. This is going to be great guys! Today we are going to Alaska! How many of you know where Alaska is?

(blank stares)

(Pointing to a student who hadn't made the slightest movement or sound) That's right! It's a part of America that is adjacent to Canada and just across the Bering Straight from Russia! It's inhabited by the Aleutian Indians, who are eskimos of the first rank! All Alaskans subsist on walrus meat, use whale blubber for just about everything, and wear seal skins (nothing like using false stereotypes to generate interest)! They live in igloos and get around by dogsled. There is an adventure to be found around every snow bank!

(blank stares accompanied by a sniff from the back of the room)

But today we are going to read about one of the greatest adventures ever! It involves scaling sheer walls of ice on towering mountains, a death defying plunge of 45 meters from said ice wall, and a frantic rescue operation! This tale is soaked in peril and wrung out by heroism! It is guaranteed to have you on the edge of your seat (I now sound as if I am giving a movie review)! Who's up for doing some reading?

(blank stares)

Before we start, let me set up the story and give you a taste of what we're in for by throwing myself from this fourth floor window to the pavement below!

(blank stares)

I will now ask that you leave the classroom. You have seen enough.

In other news, the Monkeys' season is over. We lost today 6-5 and were eliminated from the post-season tournament. I must say that we didn't go down without a fight. We staged a brilliant 9th inning comeback to take the Giants into extra innings. However, we were taken out by a bases loaded single in the 11th. I went 1-4 with a solid single to extend my hitting streak to a season high 3 games. I can also make the claim of getting a hit in every game I played this season. I would like to remind my brothers, that this is not the first time I have been able to make this claim. This will be the last time baseball is mentioned in this blog for a while.

I will now end with some fantastic words gleaned from yet another notebook I recently acquired. It is just a small notebook with a cover that flips up, but it looms large in terms of carrying great weight in the "Good said" world. Boldly printed in the center of the cover are the words "Good Idea." Nothing special so far, but things rapidly improve from here. Just under "Good Idea" stands the phrase "in yours head freeidea." In the top left hand corner we find this gem: "Must therefore maintain an optimistic heart also has the intelligent brains." Even this phrase does not exhaust the glories of this notebook, however, as it goes on in the bottom right hand corner to say, "Has many ideas in yours life is needs to move the brain to think." I am going to leave it at that. Nothing more needs to be said.