Narcissus Speaks

In Which The Author Does Some Considered Navel-Gazing

I am not, oh readers, a god. I do not have magical energy, I have not attained enlightenment, and I can neither read minds nor fly under my own power. I mention these because they seem to be distressingly common misconceptions. People seem to believe that the things I notice are somehow beyond the capability of a normal mortal to notice, and that the consideration I grant my fellows - by "consideration" I presume they mean "concession to their right to be human" - could only conceivably be achieved by someone who is not (note the illogic here) actually human. Allow me to set the matter straight.

Several doctors have conclusively proven that I am, in fact, human, with human functions both physical and emotional. The odd tendency people have to doubt this is one I frankly find disturbing. I have no doubt that the way I operate in relation to other people is perhaps unusual, but it does not by any means exceed the capacity of ... well, of anyone. In this way, I am not special. I do not glitter with some indefinable enchantment.

Here's why I'm so sure. I am not, in fact, a naturally kind and forgiving person. I'm bitter, I have a propensity for impatience and grudges, I pull toward anger and selfishness like I have a faulty steering wheel. And yet, I do not spend my life being angry. I share nicely with others. I wait for small eternities without reaching to "hide or fade or fix" other people's problems, and I do not snap with the frustration of doing so. I don't ever give up on a person's potential to change. I can move past actions that bother me. I remember striking before thinking, and holding grudges beyond reason, and wishing to be the center of attention at all times and believing I deserved it. I remember not actually being aware that other people mattered. And I also remember the decisions that I made to change that. They're decisions I have to make every day, every minute, and sometimes I forget to make them the right way and I screw up, but they're conscious and deliberate and difficult and often painful.

And that's why I don't much care for accusations of transcendence or flippant praise and awe. I worked for this. A god? That's not giving me enough credit.

Like Riding A Bicycle (But Not How You Think)

In Which I Delve Into The Realms Of The Heart

I haven't written anything on here having much to do with emotions. There are a number of reasons for that. Some of you (if, that is, there are any of you left reading this) think of emotions as the telltale signs of weakness and it has seemed more important to avoid the jeering than to put down an accurate account of the way I'm being affected by the world around me, for example. I initially intended my famigerations to be famigerations and deal only with my perceptions of my new environs, as objectively as I could put them down. And there is a little part of me that has wondered whether my emotions are valid, and whether they're even acceptable as inclusions in a blog I share with whoever wants to read it.

On reflection, though, the above pretensions are - well, pretensions. I've said before that I think of emotions as a valid set of data, so why keep them from my writing? Particularly as I now find myself wanting very much to articulate some of the emotions that have taken hold of me in the last five months. I just don't know if I have the vocabulary to do so.

Better wordsmiths than I have spent lifetimes trying to describe the feeling of being in love, and the truth of the matter seems to be that it is, in fact, everything that all of them have said.

When you're learning to ride a bike, everyone keeps telling you, "Keep your balance! Push the pedals! Have confidence! And you're thinking, "Screw you!" You're thinking "This isn't working. How come I'm not getting it? What's wrong with me? I'm so stupid! Every kid on my block already knows how to ride a bike." And then one day you get on your bike and it just happens. And suddenly all the advice makes sense. You even feel a little stupid for having felt so stupid.

Well. Yes. He got off the plane and it all just fell into place. The last two weeks have slid by like amber beads on a string, clicking into each other and turning the light golden. We were a little worried because we're fairly lucid people and we know our probabilities, and nothing seemed to be going wrong. We were both sick, it's true, with one ailment after another for the majority of his visit, but it didn't matter.

He left yesterday, and the gaping loneliness I expected has been almost completely obliterated by the joy of just knowing he exists. I am ridiculously happy.

Winter?

In Which The Loyal Readership Is Treated To Another Update

My first semester at Columbia has come to an end, and winter classes have started. The adjective here is little more than a pretty, meaningless description of the time the classes span - last week it got up to the 80s.

I won't see my level 4 and level 1 kids for a month. They'll start 4B and 1B after Chinese new year. They did well this semester - I'm proud of them, and I'm proud of how I did as their teacher. I have a couple of them in my winter class, and it was nice to see them when I walked into the room this morning. It made transitioning to a new class much easier and much friendlier.

I've started taking a tango class here in Taipei, which is an interesting exercise in mixed cultures. It's a great class. The instructors seem to have an incredibly good grasp on both teaching and the dance itself. My boyfriend being in another country as he is, I go by myself. It's mostly ok. People are pretty polite, and for the most part there isn't much ickiness. This is qualified because there has been some recently, with one man who seems to have a different goal than I do. I'm hoping this will not last.

I've slowly been putting up some of the backlog of photos I've got... Bear with me, guys, it's taking a while. The most recent are still from November.

My Students Are Awesome

In Which My Faith In Them Is More Than Rewarded

One of my 4A students just sent me an About Us page in English... All about CERN. For the curious among you, they're responsible for the Large Hadron Collider that I've been so excited about for a while.

I think this means I'm succeeding as a teacher.

The Future Cometh

In Which The Next Few Months Are Outlined

Happy 2010, everyone! I've been dreadful about this blog of late, but rest assured that my life is going swimmingly. This is actually a more auspicious statement than you might think, given my history with swimming. Life is good in the Land of Me.

A brief overview:

January brings the end of my first semester with Columbia, and I am still much happier there than I was at Kojen. We're having a celebration near the end of the month, and then starting winter classes. The winter classes go for a couple of weeks before they end to make way for Chinese New Year.

Over Chinese New Year I am going to head for Australia to visit the esteemed Teacher Thomas with whom I became friends last year. You may remember him from a sunburned trip to Kenting. We're going to visit Darwin. I have no real idea what this trip will be like. Wish me luck.

When I return, it will be to a new semester and social studies instead of science with my then-4B class. I don't yet know what our readers will be - I hope they're good.

At the end of March, the very excellent Jacob Ela will be arriving for a much-anticipated visit. Anyone who has advice about what to see, please do not hesitate to speak up.

This is what the next several months hold for me. I hope they are delightful for all of you, too.

Merry Christmas, etc. (It's Been A While)

In which I am not apparently as much a grinch as the rumors would lead me to believe.

This is not going to be terribly long, nor terribly informative, but I thought I'd tell everyone who is still looking at this that I'm having a pretty awesome holiday season, and I got more than everything I wanted, and I hope all of you are having a lovely time as well.

My students are adorable and of course the most intelligent creatures to walk the planet, and life is pretty dang good right now.

Best wishes to everyone.

A Good Day

In Which Sometimes Things Just Go Well

Today was one of those days in which even the frustrating things added up to a harmonious whole. I had two classes today, a 1A and a 4A, at different schools. My 1A has five students, who are as rambunctious as the six- and seven-year-olds they are. They finally began to settle into the class routine today, and we didn't even lose much time of actual curriculum to acheive it. Even better, I think it's sustainable.

In my 4A class, we wrote silly questions as preparation for writing a paragraph, or set of paragraphs. My students will be writing about things like "Why do polar bears like chocolate?" "How big is the sky?" "How much water is there in the ocean?" and "Why does Joe laugh all the time?" During the break time, they drew a butterfly on my hand with facepaint sticks.

After the 4A class, I went to Subway to grab a very quick sandwich before the open house at the first school. The sandwich I got had very little on it, but it was sustenance. Nevertheless, I don't think I'll go back there at night. It occasioned a pleasant conversation with another teacher, however, who thought of me and wanted to know if I wanted anything when he went to get dinner. I declined, but the overture of friendship was nice.

The open house was even better. The parents of three of my students came in, listened to the general speeches and introductions, and then came to my classroom to talk to me. They cared about the education of their children. They asked pertinent questions and raised well-considered issues. They brought up the ways in which their children were feeling frustrated, and about what they felt confident. They were eager to participate themselves in their children's education, and when they left, one of them shook my hand and said, "We are lucky to meet you."

And after all of that, I met with the manager for Columbia Schools to talk about a proposed change in the presentation of the curriculum for my Saturday class. It's a group of teenagers, bored, on Saturday morning, with vastly different skill levels. Different kids are coming and going all the time, so it's challenging to keep the whole class on the same page, and would be even if they were willing to lift their eyes above the level of their knees. I want to make the class into a game like I have mentioned here previously. I described to our manager what I wanted to do, and when she understood, she said, "Yes. Please do this. And if it works at all, please let me know, because we want to watch it happen and see if we can use it for the other Saturday classes." I couldn't have been more thrilled.

I walked to the MRT station through the courtyard of the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall and felt pretty good about life.