Mama Mia!! It'za Pizza!!

This week our school celebrated it's 26th anniversary.  Friday night was band and musical competitions.  nearly 3000 people there, and they wanted the Americans to sing - so sing we did.  The eight of us filed onto the stage and did our routine of the round 'King of Kings'.  I used to think my second grade Christmas programs were bad...I now understand the reason for stage lights.  

As I mentioned in my last post, we were in charge of making pizzas for the event.  Friday was a late night, and we spent all day at school mixing and baking 50 pizza crusts in the school kitchen classroom.  We had 'helpers' coming in and out to stick their fingers in the dough and keep us company (and also maybe take a break from all the decorating outside)...After 14 hours at school, we finally got home and around 10:00 and caught some sleep before we had to be back at the school by 7:00 the next morning (Saturday morning, I might add!!).  We assembled the pizza and baked them six at a time, then sliced and ferried out too our booth.  More curious students came for taste tests, and to help carry trays out to the stand.  At about 12:30 ish, we sold out and it was time for the races.  All of the students competed in relays around the 1/4 mile track (and some of the teachers too).  4:00 came, and we jumped on a train into Kaohsiung for a Christmas concert...the Christmas carols were a delight to hear after months of thinking they didn't even celebrate Christmas here.  The choir was exceptional and the saxophonist and opera singer were fun to hear too.  

This Saturday I will go to a sports meet at one of the schools I taught at this past month.  After that, one of the teachers will take us to a traditional Taiwanese Opera, and then to see a boat that will be burned next year for the town's tri-annual boat-burning festival.  An interesting tradition where they believe that all the bad spirits can be put onto a boat and destroyed by fire.  The theory is definitely familiar to me, but unlike the fire they will use, the fire I believe in doesn't ever die...

Saturday night is also our church's Christmas party, and then Monday we will host another party at the EV for our teacher friends and Nan Jung students.  Mint hot cocoa and a white elephant exchange are on the agenda as well as decorating Christmas cookies.

Tomorrow we will teach a group of professors and college students with English majors at the EV and host a Q and A time for them after classes.  I find it almost ironic that I will be 'teaching' people older than myself and people who probably have more experience in the teaching department to begin with.  I just happen to be one of the more fortunate people on the planet who is a native speaker of English.  Needless to say, it will be entirely different to teach while being scrutinized than standing in front of little elementary students who just would probably just be content to stare at the American for the whole class period.  I'm pretty sure that coming back to America and not being the center of attention is going to be quite the humbling experience. :D 

I had the best students today in class, full of questions and excitement.  They loved hearing me speak my minimal Chinese, and exchanging vocabulary words.  Some days teaching are better than others, and this was definitely a good day...good week...good month...it's all I can do to give the praise to God, who brought me to this place, and knew that it was the perfect thing for me to do this year.