Teacher Snowflake

Pictures are really the key the understanding of this whole escapade. Yes, I covered myself and the break room in paper snowflakes. No, the kids have never seen snow before and were totally confused at the sight of me. I had imagined that when they introduced me as “Teacher Snowflake” the little children would go wild- as if Miley Cirus was in the room. Instead, I looked out to a bunch of cute little Asian faces with a variety of “Jigga What?” expressions on their faces.
Hess’ Christmas Party was the Saturday before Christmas, and both Nazeer and I volunteered to help. Nazeer was Santa… complete with a paper-like version of a fairly small Santa suit and a jacked-up beard. Together, we taught the kids to dance the chicken dance and the hokey-pokey, because hey- that’s what we all do at home each year. We also volunteered our services to teach carols, hand out gifts, and judge the many competitions.
The children came deccced out in full on costumes. Not many were really Christmas-themed, but they did what Christmas costumea are supposed to do. They made us all laugh, made the kids feel awesome, and helped the celebrate as the walked down our handmade runway to Beyonce. I have to admit, that my smile was pretty much fixed the whole day, which sometimes doesn’t even happen in traditional celebrations.
Enjoy the pictures folks, as they are much more descriptive than the video… which you will never, ever see. : )
After the celebration Nazeer and I felt a little like rockstars. And what do rockstars do? They party. So we trecked down to the night market for some tasty treats and a bakery run/conversation. Imagine us sitting outside in the warm air after enjoying pastries just talking among the masses of people at the night market. Now add a little shake-n-bake. Because, that’s exactly what happened. My very first earthquake.
In tornadoes, you get away from windows and stay low to the ground. In hurricanes you leave town and if you can’t, you stay away from windows and don’t try to drive. In a blizzard you build a fire, hunker down, and enjoy some shut-in time with friends or family. In a earthquake… what in Sam-hell’s name do you do? I’ve been told to put a mattress over you, get under a door frame, or under a desk. But I was outside. On a patio covered by a very large building. Both Nazeer and I froze and then Nazeer had the presence of mind to run. That’s right… run. He had seen the light fixtures swaying and we both heard the bakery girls scream an run out, so he just followed suit. After I composed the hott mess of myself, I soon joined him. It was so weird. The ground was shaking. It was like a bad full earth massage. And it freaked me out, because for the first time in a while I had no clue what to do. I wasn’t prepared.
Where was everyone else? Shyra was in our 14-story apartment and felt it pretty hard with the intense swaying of the building. Suzanne was out with friends. The boys were also out in Changua. Most people barely were affected by it, but it was a little sobering. The local response was, “ah, that was easy.” They weren’t shaken or visibly scared. This whole experience started a short obsession with the earthquake website that monitors every earthquake, the time, and how strong it was. Turns out Hualien has them at about a 4.3 range almost every day. So kids, it looks like we are all going to make it. Whew.