Leofoo Village

The second day we went to Leofood Village. It is a nice village with a lots of rides. This is the entrance to the park of adventure.

While we were waiting for other classes, we took a group picture.

students and I like to take pictures very much. also they had topic of Halloween.

These students are so brave. They are going to ride the most dangerous ride, the 360 degrees.
At end of the time, they have a water show. It was so great and fun to see. Everyone really enjoyed it.

Overall, the graduation trip is the most memorable trip I ever had with my students. I really enjoyed in this trip. Thank you to all Junior Three E for their company.

Junior Three Graduation Trip

The last year in junior high school life is junior three (9th graders). The Junior three E invited me to go with them to their graduation trip. I was so lucky to go with them. Last year, academic affairs' office did not let me go with them, I was so sad because that group of students were nicer and quieter. Now, I did not see them anymore because some of them went to another school to study for Senior High.

We get together at 6:30 A.M. After that we were waiting for other people to arrive. There are 10 classes of 9th graders, with 450 students, 20 teachers, a nurse, a dean of academic affairs, 12 drivers, 12 tour guides, one photographer, and two coordinators. We were a lot of people going to the same place.

This was my first time to see everybody going to the same place. Wherever we will go, the business must be good.

Students were waiting for their teachers or classmates. There are 12 buses total in this trip.

These are students from junior Three E. While we are waiting for others, we were taking pictures to kill time. She is our tour guide. She did a lot for us in this trip. She was taking care of us and she was showing movies and singing with us all the time.The person next to me is my TA. She is so active and smart. She is a good student. Well, all of them are very good students. I have been too long on the bus. We stopped at each resting area. By the time we arrived to Taipei, it is like noon. In the resting area, I found some students form other classes. They were my good students before from Junior Three A. Unfortunately, I do not teach them anymore. I miss them very much.

慈湖

The peaceful lake (慈湖) is located in Taoyuan. It is a place of ex-president of Taiwan rested in peace. We could see his tumba. The park is beautiful, it is good for families to go for a picnic. Also plants, flowers, and trees are very green.

This is the house of the ex-president of Taiwan. He governed Taiwan long time ago. I heard that he was the best president who worked hard for the country and he knows what people needed.

Here is the big sculpture of the ex-president. Everyone likes this sculpture.

Here is he with is horse. We thought it is good sculpture to take picture with.


Here is the park outside of his house. You can see a lot of his faces in all kinds of colors. Also you can see him standing, or shaking hands or talking to others. It is so much fun looking at this. But the worst part is every area has the same sculpture. If you saw the same sculptures in area one, you will see it in area two or three.

Old Street

This is the old street in Taou-Yuen county. This street is very unique for its building structures and models. The old street has everything you can buy. you can buy from traditional food to modern food. The traditional food here you can not eat in anywhere else. It is very typical.

We finished buying beans cake, it is time to enjoy taking pictures on the streets. I really enjoy to be with my students, at least I can feel younger again.

While we were walking on the street, we found this little shop. It is very traditional shop that you can buy anything you want. Now, this shop is replaces by 7-eleven.

Once we finished walking, it is time to go to a restaurant and have some dinner. While we were walking down, the view from above is so incredible. It is so beautiful that everyone wants to take picture with.

The view is incredible. It is a long way to walk down. Students never get tires, they have so much energy for everything.

Eating Time!

Wherever I go, there's food on the table for us to eat. The food looks god but tastes really bad. I am hungry all the time, so I can still eat a lot.

This chicken, i have been eating for three meals already. No matter where I go, I can see this chicken.

This is the only new thing in two days. I am tired of eating a lot of meat in these days. Students have different food compared to teachers.

Check In!

We stayed at the very nice hotel. This hotel has everything, swimming pool, sauna, pin-pon, gym, massage area, playground for kids, and more.
I shared the room with an English teacher. We have a little living room and TV. The living room is so big and nice. I never been to a room like this.

The bed is really soft and comfortable, I think I can sleep very well tonight.

This is my bed, very big and comfortable. I can be myself in this bed.

This is the bathroom. It separate the shower and the bath area. It is nice and big.
This is the closet area. We can put all the clothes we want. I heard that this hotel is the best in Hsinchu. We do not travel often, so we do not stay at the hotels too. This is a nice gift from this graduation trip. I am so lucky to be able to enjoy this time.

Oliver's X'mas Decoration

X'mas is coming soon, it is time for everyone to decorated their houses. This situation is not even popular here in Taiwan. X'mas decoration is not even important here. A few people or families will decorate their houses. As before only Christian families will have x'mas tree or decoration. But now in these days, non-christian people will start to decorate their houses.

X'mas decoration is beautiuful, we can see a lot of lights on the streets, specially in this cram school, Oliver. When I was a child, I can see a lot of decoration on the streets. But now, I am living here in Taiwan and x'mas time is like one of normal days, nothing special. I really miss x'mas time in overseas.

WebConference

Today I had a webOfice conference for our project Enters. This is the first time for me to use this kind of web conferene. Things turned out very well, but some internet connections in some schools are very slow, so they could not even catch if I said faster or show it faster.

I did not know I had to slow down during my presentation, so other schools will understand what I was saying. After my presentation, professor Wen said, "In a web conference, you should speak a little bit slower." I replayed him, "Sorry".

From today's experience, I learned something new from this project. If I am not participating in this project, I won't be able to know anything about other sources of technology.Besides of slowing down, I have to click my PPT slower too.

If there's next time, I will show it slower and speak slower instead on a rush.Overall, time is a problem, they gave us 30 minutes between two schools. This means 15 minutes each school. I have to cover everything in 15 minutes. Anyways, I learned something and I had a great experience doing this.

Alan's X'mas Performance 2008

Photos of Alan's Performance

2008 Enters International Conferene

2008 Enters International Conference on ICT Assisted Cross-Cultural Learning and Application Project for Elemntary and Jinuor High Schools. Today teacher Mao and I went to the Enters 2008 conference. This conference was very special because it was all spoken in English. I really enjoyed listening to each speaker. Each speaker was so special and they shared a lot of knowledge and experience with us.

I've been to other conferences in USA. This is the first time for me to go to a conference in Taiwan and represent my school Sheng-Kung. I felt very important members as part of this project.

The conference is held at Dominic Catholic High School in Kaohsiung city. The Conference room is really big. A lot of people are setting up computers for the conference.

Each of us will got our name tags like this. It will show up our personal information, which school, and the name of the participant. This name tag is very valuable for me and a good gift for the conference.

The conference coordinator is introducing people on the panel. He did a great introduction about everyone. I really enjoyed listening to his introduction.

A lot of people attended to the conference. Teacher Mao and I sat separately. He was seating in front of the conference room, while I was seating in the middle of the conference room. Both of us enjoyed the presentations, even for teacher Mao is very difficult because of English.

I admire teacher Mao a lot because he with his little English, he could guide us in this project and attend the conference.

Dr. Dr. Bruce Shapiro is the first presenter of the conference. He is showing us how to make a video and it can be one tool of fun into our teaching curriculum.

The second speaker is Ms. Lesley Signal. She is the one who we are working with on the project. She is from New Zealand, she talked about gifted and talented students at her school. Also, she said Information Communication Technology (ICT) is very important part in our education. She gave us examples on how ICT is so important in the classroom.

The third speaker is a professor from Hong Kong, Dr. Allan Yuen. He did a wonderful and clear speech how classroom changed from time to time. I really like the way he shared the case studies with us.

Overall, this conference is meaningful and valuable to all of us in this project. I think this is kind of guidance on how we can do this project. A lot of learning and sharing among speakers. I think this was wonderful. Thank you to all of you for a wonderful work.

Photos of Conference

Sold...

This is our 18 years old car. My husband David likes this car very much. The motor still can use wonderfully. It has a lot of power and energy. This car can still run for many years. When I met david for the first time, this car was very new. When Alan was very little, this car was there for him.

David goes to work by his scooter, so he doesn't need this car. In Taiwan, we have to pay tax for each car. Each year's tax money is not cheap, it is very expensive.

David doesn't drive very often, so we decide to sell this car. He wants to sell for $20,000 NT dollars. This is the price we pay tax for this car yearly.

Yesterday, suprisinly David told me that this car is already sold out. He was kind of sad. Anyways, it is better in that way because this car is just a decoration on the street.

Jambalaya

After many rehersing so many times, the big day is here. Today of course today, we are going to sing Jambalaya in front of 2,000 students plus stuff members. I am hopping that everything will turn out ok.

I was so nervous before the big day. I also want to look good in front of my students. I have to memorize the song and I have to design the dance. While we were performing, students came to dance with us. The environment was great. Everyone enjoyed our show.

Here is the video of our presentation.

After the presentation is not so bad. We did a hard work and everyone cooporate it. Anyways, the music truned all right too. I am very happy about our performance. It needs a lot of courage to do it.

Photos Of Jambalaya

Preparing to go for a Conference

Friday, Dec. 19th, I have to go to 2008 Enters Conference. Unfortunately, I have classes, so I have to change my class schedule to be able to go to a conference.

Luckily, at that day, I do not have a lot of classes. Junior three, mean grade 9th they have tests, so I do not need to go and monitor the exam. I am so lucky, but I have to attend whole day long conference. It will be very tirering.

MS. Lesley Signal is in Taiwan!

Who is Ms Signal? Well, this is the person who I communicate with on the e-mail. She is the one who is in charge of Enters project, 2008. She is taking this project very seriously and she is coming to our school and see our campus.

Now, I can meet Ms. Signal, I do not know how she looks like. Finally, this is the day that I am going to meet her. I am so excited, I will finish my class very soon and I am preparing to go upstairs and meet her.

Our Chair of English took her to the entire campus. They took an hour to see our entire campus. Also they went to the new school building to see the dance classes.

After the tour on campus, it is our time for lunch. It is time that we can seat together and chat about our project, but first lunch is more important. While we were eating, I asked her about her trip. It seems it is a long way from New Zealand to Taiwan.

After lunch, it is time we are going to discuss about our project. We did a outline of the plan for our project. After that, we set up the time where our students are going to meet. The problem is New Zealand now they are in summer vacation, meanwhile here in Taiwan, we are in winter class.

The most difficult part of the project is the time. Finding the right time for both countries is a little bit difficult. However, Queen's students are willing to staying after school.

For our part, we still need to find stduents who wants to be part in this project. This project will be time consuming not only for stduents, but also for teachers.

I am hopping both schools will be productive in this project at the end. I am looking forward working with Lesley in this project.

Going to RT - Mart

David is not here with us. Alan and I had to do grocery shopping. We went to RT Mart and we bought what we need for dinner. Alan saw a cute dog an he really wants to ride in it. But I told him that he is big enough to ride on the dog, so he told me that he wants to take just a picture with it. That is what we did it.

Italian Dinner

Dacid went to Taipei and he left us home alone. It is Sunday afternoon, I decide to cook for Alan. Alan wants to eat spaguetti and he is dying for a corn soup. I said ok to Alan that I will prepare what he wants to eat.

In the early morning, we went to the market and buy food. Also we went to look around at the market.

The first dish I prepared is salad. This is a delicious bowl of salad with tomatoes, mashrooms, olives, egg, onion, lettuce and of course salt and peppers.
It has been a long time for Alan to not have his creamy corn soup. I put a can of creamy corn, one can of yellow corn and little slices of mushrooms and salt. At the end I will put one egg and a little bit of butter into it. Alan really like my corn soup. It was a enjoyable time for me to cook. Now, it is time for me to prepare for the main dish, spaguetti. Alan likes tomato sauce. I put a little bit of onions, tomotoes, corn, mushrooms and carrots. After everything is cooked, I put the sauce into it. Of course, there's more than spaguetti. I have baked beef for dinner. Alan loves beef, I do not know why.Also sausage cannot be missed in this special dish. For spaguetti, I use the thin noodles, istead of traditional noodles. This noodles I brought from Ireland. It is hand made and this is really good. I did not tried noodles like this before. This is our first time.

After dinner, I really enjoyed it. Alan also enjoyed eating dinner. He could finish everything that I put on his plate. I am glad he relaly enjoyed my cooking. it was enjoyable time cooking for him.