Day 24 (Day 16 in the school)

See how lucky I am. I was picked by Director Chung at the roadside too.

0800 – 0835

A pretty CID together with the director from the branched police station in Xinpu town came to our school to give a talk on the violence crimes, including some sexual and oral harrasment. The students here are lucky as they are exposed to this knowledge formally.

Time flies. I can’t imagine that I’ve been here for that long period already. One week passes after one week.

1030 – 1110 Grade 4

Flashcards + Game (Guess Guess Guess) 6 vocabs

I love teaching the children especially those who are willing and able to do it but don’t know how to. There are 2 girls sitting at the back there. I know they are not really good in English pronunciation, but I am pretty sure they want to do it, with the textbook open. I pronounced 2 times the 6 words and asked them to repeat after me. They are willing to try after that and most important thing is one of the girl looked happier after she managed to try and guess the right answer and got the chance to stand in front of the class to hold the flash cards. Proud of her.

12pm Lunch

Afternoon: Of course some facebooking as well as blogging and replying AIESEC mails. This could take the whole afternoon, trust me!!

1730: We went to JinFang’s house on foot to eat Bak Kut Teh. Guess what? The Herbal Soup Bag is brought by Huikey! =)

We cooked the Bak Kut Teh together and we start to eat dumplings. The Hakka and MinNan dumplings taste slightly different. After all, they are good taste.

Day 23 (Day 15 in the school)

From convent to ShuiBianTou. Ya Qi again, who picked me up as soon as I went off from the bus.

0800 – 0835 Grade 1 & 2 English

It’s pretty hard for me to handle this situation alone. When the kids don’t know you could speak Mandarin and you have to act it out and there is no teacher beside you to translate it. By the way, I take it as a challenge and also for the kids too. They will have to face it someday people who don’t know Mandarin and this is the right time for them to learn. But luckily, they can guess the meaning of the words very fast and correctly by the assistance of the pictures. I observed something which is quite interesting too. Whenever there is existence of the home teachers in their classes respectively, everyone in the class would follow the instructions without any hesitation. That’s why home teachers are always the best teachers, regardless of the boundaries.

0840 – 0920 Grade 1 (with Judy)

Workbook 30 minutes and some revision of the vocabs. I can’t help with those cute Grade 1 babies.

1030 – 1110 Grade 5 (with Judy)

Flash cards + Game (Guess Guess Guess)

This game helps the students to pronounce the words. If they are willing to try, they will be able to improve in their pronunciation.

1120 – 1200 Grade 2

Drinks: apple juice, water, hot chocolate, iced tea, milk, milk tea.

They can drink the real drinks if they are able to pronounce the name of the drinks. Isn’t it cool?

12pm Lunch

I got the graduation photo today. The one took with Grade 6 in the first week I came. Now, everyone in the school knows my Chinese name and they kept chasing after me to ask “is it your name, teacher?” It is because everyone’s name is stated right behind the graduation photo.

Today is still a tiring day as I was totally overloaded of the weekend events, but worth though.

I went back with Jinfang at 5pm as I need Internet connection for everything.

I slept very early today too, 9pm.

Day 22 Global Village Camp (30 May 2011)

It is is a tiring day but it’s definitely the reason I come to Taiwan. I can do cultural sharing to the kids here. It brings me satisfaction.

Even though we had to wake up early to fry the taufu,

Even though we had to stand there and repeat the presentation for six times,

Even though we had to take bus from the place we stay to NCTU,

Even though we had to carry all the way long the things we needed to the place where the Global Village held and same when we’re going back,

Even though I had to pull along my baju kurung while I was moving around,

I think everything worths,

Because we have CTLC AIESECers, we have them to support us!

Some of the kids are curious and they asked more and more about Malaysia.

Even one of the kids told me: Thanks for coming here to tell us about your country.

That’s really enough for everything.

Every word, I can hear it and I appreciate it.

Thanks CTLC.

Day 21 (28 May 2011) Saturday

After one night Karaoke-ing, we were so tired that it ended up with a McD breakfast and finally I could have a taste of pork burger! Wuahaha… However, the cheese was too salty for me and it wasn’t that tasty as I imagined. But who cares? I just want to have a proof that I’ve been to Taiwan before. Hahaha… as I know I won’t have it in Malaysia.

After that, we went for sleeping. At where? Of course in trainee house.

Around 11am, we all woke up and had a shower. After that, we went to AiMai supermarket to buy materials for the Global Village tomorrow. It took us for a few hours as we took our time to have a look at the cute umbrellas and some special arrangements of the groceries.

After coming back from the AiMai, we went out to place the taufus in Che Kai’s mother’s shop, 御香凉麵. His mother is pretty, and Che Kai looks like her. No wonder he is such a pretty boy too. We took many photos of the noodles as it was too delicious. She understands what AIESECers do and support what we are doing. I think she must be the best speaker for the whole AIESECer I had ever met.

Then, we went for shopping. We came to a shoe shop accidentally and it was doing promotion. One pair of shoes were only NTD 100!! I managed to grab my favourite shoes and it were 3 pairs!!! How happy I was… As I always can’t find my size over in Malaysia, or else it will be too expensive.

Then we went back to have the GV meeting with the BTG (The project name: Bridge the Gap) team to discuss about our plan tomorrow for the Global Village.

Day 20 – 14th Day in the school (27 May 2011) Friday

While I was waiting for the bus to the ShuiBianTou, there is an uncle who came, pointed at the ShuPao bottle (isotonic drink) and said, “Young girl, don’t drink this, didn’t you watch the news on the TV?” I was so amazed and it happened so sudden until I can’t immediately give him the proper response. I thought he was telling me “not to leave the house, girl!” OMG, how embarrassed and I told him “I am foreigner.” LOL… Of course he must think that I am crazy.

Again, bus from the convent to ShuiBianTou, picked up by YaQi and breakfast by JinFang on the roadside. It’s pretty cool I always knew I am a lucky girl to have so many people around me to help me. I have nothing to nag any more.

It is a sunny day. I thought I have to have an English class with the Grade 5&6 students as last week. Who knows, I don’t have to host the class as all the students are going to have a competition, continued from the Sports Day, the game they didn’t finish on that day, 趣味競賽.Of course, I grabbed the chance to take as many photos as I can! Haha….

It’s almost the end of the 3^rd week of my internship. By the way, I am still happy that it’s Friday as I can meet up with most of the EPs and AIESEcers. This makes my life colourful. I yawned just now, but when I came across with the diary which I am writing, the tiredness is all gone. I don’t why I still yawn even though I have had 8 hours of sleeping.

I have 4 classes today. Rock the school on Friday! Yay!!

08:40 – 09:20 Grade 6

Graduation Speech Practice. World Café – Malaysian History. “I will follow Him” – song practicing. However, this song is going to be replaced by another song as there is a part that the students, even I can’t sing it well. So, we’ll have to change to another song, according to the Grade 6 teacher, Mei Zhou.

Again, we went to NCTU by Judy’s ride. We went for laundry at the female hostel, and met with Joyce and Mindi. Joyce was so nice that she prepared cupcakes and puddings for us!! However, the clothes didn’t dry up even though we put it in the dryer for 50 minutes. It is probably because it is overloaded. Haha… All right, I won't wash it by machine if the weather allows. The weather was not suitable for clothes drying.

At night we had a really crazy welcome party by CTLC. It was then continued with karaoke session in the midnight. Imagine we went there to sing for 5 hours. After we came off from the K Box, the sky is bright. So much thanks for the CTLC, especially the AIESECers that hang out with us for that night.

Day 19 – 13th Day in the school (26 May 2011)

0700 – 0800 Clay board Carving Session

Of course it was only me who was so free to do this, partly also because of the “order” of the l director Chung.
I have made up my mind yesterday that I will carve something different from the teachers and students here as most of them drew flowers, butterflies, animations and etc. I decided to carve AIESEC on the top and a map which covers Malaysia and Taiwan. It came out with the result that satisfies me. Thank God. I had spent hours to finish the thing. It will be sent to a company to finish the remaining process like some sort of adding small glass pieces and dyes on top of it. I am really looking forward the time to see one of the walls in the school is full with all these boards.

1010 – 1030 Grade 6 (Alone)

1^st time Graduation Speech Practice

Even though some of the students not really into it, but the girls are all paying attention and are willing to learn. For boys, some of them I can see that they are all willing to learn too, but just may be they just can’t sit quietly to read something. Anyway, that’s not a big deal, as human won’t be 100% awake in the condition, the same as me too.

1120 – 1155 Grade 1 (hosting the class with the presence of YaQi)

YaQi, the Grade 1 Home Teacher. I can see she likes my style of teaching and this gives me confidence to teach. This is the 2^nd time I teach Grade 1 on my own, without Judy. Same as the first time, YaQi told me that she likes my teaching very much and the way I used at least can make the students to keep awake and to remember at least one or two vocabs.

Method: I distributed the flashcards of the vocabs that day to the students and asked them to memorize their own words in a limited time. After that, they are asked to write their own words on the blackboard and pronounce the words loudly in front of the students.

Vocabs: brother, sister, father, mother, cheese, yo-yo, jam (There are only 6 Grade 1 students. Oops…)

1200 – 1230 Lunch time

1310 – 1350 Grade 6 (with the presence of MeiZhou and Judy)

This time the class was so organized that they read accordingly to the paragraph. The most important thing is they read louder. This is the power of the Home Teacher. Luckily she is here, I wouldn’t know how is the progress if she wasn’t there. The Home Teacher sat at the back and learn to pronounce the words in the speech with the students too. Bravo right??!!

1450 – 1525 Grade 5

Cultural class for the kids. I explain to them in Mandarin about the geography of Malaysia, where Malaysia is located and how far is it from Taiwan. The direction (North, South, East, West, northwest, southeast, etc…)the location of airports, the differences between Malaysian and Taiwanese mindset. It was may be due to the presence of their Home Teacher, ShuMei, the class atmosphere was so great! =D I like the class. They could learn new vocabs by writing down the vocabs such as national, international airport on their papers.

0410 – 0430 Back from the school to convent at GuanXi, on JinFang’s scooter.

0500 – 0830

Dinner time! 3 of us, invited by Dong An Elementary School teachers to have Italian buffet at a restaurant in LongTan in TaoYuan county. There are all together 9 of us, Medha, Huikey and I together with the 2 teachers named Lisa, Beryl and a nurse. Beryl has 2 kids, YuJun and Peter.

And the nurse has a very cute son too. Her son, Mayson can speak good English too.

Lisa was quite crazy that night. They kept asking the English sentences and phrases and applied it immediately to the waiter there. This made the waiter felt awkward. By the way, the way she learnt English is really fun. I am sure that the children with her will definitely have fun! =D

After the fun English speaking dinner, we were drove by the nurse back to the convent, the home of us. Korean drama time! I saw Medha was watching the drama hosted by my favorite actress, that’s why I watched with her for 2 hours! =D It’s so fun that I have a accompany to watch drama together and at the moment. That’s why I say I am lucky.

10:30pm Sleep

Day 18 – 12th Day in the school (25 May 2011)

The nurse picked me up at the roadside while I was walking to the school after going off from the bus. Again, how lucky. Haha!

0800 – 0835 Grade 3 & 4 English class

0930 – 1010 Grade 2 (with Judy)

Sentence practicing: Give me _(number) _of fruits___, please.

Some of the students are too shy to speak English. However, it’s okay as I think time shall solve all fears for them. I was one of them at the age like this too.

1030 – 1110 Grade 3 (with Judy)

1120 – 1155 Grade 6

Song Pratising “ I will follow Him”. The effect wasn’t good enough as the students playing the main characters in the songs weren’t into the role. I asked them the reason, They said it is not a suitable song to be acting like this in front of the community on the Graduation Day. However, I really hope that they could learn some English from the song as some of them seem like they weren’t sure of what they wish to be and want to be in the future yet.

1200 Lunch

1230 Tomyam soup preparing by Jinfang and I for the teachers.

0130 – 0330 Professional conversation between the teachers.

The objective is to raise the awareness of the importance of studying among the students as some of the students don’t pay attention or pass up homework. However, sometimes there are exceptional cases that the teachers have to understand the reasons behind of not passing up homework. Sometimes it is due to the economic condition of the family. All in all, the teachers not only take care of the academic part, but also as well as their mental development.

The time I was about to leave the school, I forgot that I didn’t settle the bicycle lock yet, so either I walk back or to ask one of the teacher to offer me a ride. Even though the 會長 offered to help to open to lock but it was not working. That means I couldn’t lock it in the public. So, I thought of to ride it to the bus stop and ask the restaurant (水汴頭鄉土餐廳) owner to keep the bicycle for me overnight.

The conversation started as I chatted with the owner of the restaurant, till I missed the bus. Haha… I have to wait for another bus, which costs me 30 minutes to stand at the bus stop there.

5pm, at the convent. After the dinner, 3 of us, yes three of us again as there are only 3 trainees staying in the place. We went to walk around the neighbourhood in the town. We took around 2 hours to walk into the school and river side. The view and wind were both pretty cool. Haha…

0800 – 0900 Again, with Medha, watching Korean drama.

-Sleep-

Day 17 – 11th Day in the school (24 May 2011)

Today is the first day I ride the bicycle to the school after the approximately 15 minutes bus ride.

I thought today I am going to present the Malaysian culture to the whole school. I was going according to the schedule on the first day I arrived. Who knows there is another function to be held today. So, my class was cancelled. I talked to Director Chung, she said Tuesday is fully booked until next week and I can only have one whole school cultural class, which is the week after next week. I can see that they are all busy with their own administration. So, I understand their situation. The students here are exposed to many functions. The Grade 5 students prepared a short sketch for the whole school. It was meaningful enough as it resembles a cup of water to varieties of students’ characters. There was also a practice of Hakka recital by a Grade 4 girl. I can’t understand a full sentence though. Haha… I was amazed that they even have their own dialect recital competition. The girl’s bravery surprised me too! She is just 10 years old and she’s brave enough to step up the stage to recite.

1030 – 1110 Grade 4 (Animals, Adjectives and some vocabularies)

12pm Lunch

0100pm Walk around the school compound and took photos.

The nurse was busying with her own work. I can’t see she is sitting there doing nothing. She must be with her power point slides and her paperwork. This time she had to assemble those students with decayed teeth to tell them the importance and proper ways to take care of their teeth. She has to include all these in her report, together with photos.

This makes me think of the ways Malaysians doing work are rather different.

After that, the whole afternoon is my private time. I gave it to facebook, AIESEC and friends. Haha…

The time I was trying to go back with the bicycle, I realized that may be because of the way I lock the bicycle lock is improper; I can’t unlock the lock now! However, I say I’m always lucky as Jinfang is inviting three of us to her house to have dinner and I just have to ride on her scooter to go grab the needed ingredients to prepare the food. We prepare Tomyam soup, which is the first time Tomyam soup I had ever made by raw ingredients. Luckily the taste wasn’t bad though.

And I fried a plate of water spinach with Belacan. Now only I know that Belacan is actually 蝦膏that we used to called in Hokkien or Mandarin. OMG…

A very fulfilling day, as to be fulfilled by the delicious food in the teacher’s house. Hmm….

Day 16 – 10th Day in the school (23 May 2011)

The principal picked me up after the ShuiBianTou bus stop. I can save my energy for the 20 minutes walking again.

0800 – 0835 Grade 1 and 2 English

0840 – 0920 Grade 1 (with Judy) 10 frequently used sentences

1030 – 1110 Grade 5 (with Judy) story in the textbook & hobbies

1120 – 1200 Grade 2 (with Jinfang) review of 1^st chapter (rainy, snowy, cloudy, sunny, windy)

It’s pretty cool that we asked the students to draw whatever is related with the weather and we played a game. The students liked the game so much.

Today, a very simple day. After having dinner with Medha and Huikey, I watched a very classical story, Chinese Ghost Story with Medha. She has this movie in her laptop! This is the first time I could finish watching the whole movie.

Sleep at 9pm. A very healthy life style indeed.

Day 15 – A trip to Sun Moon Lake (22 May 2011)

We woke up in the morning at 7am. I was the latest one to wake up in the morning as they’e all ready to go downstairs to have their breakfast. Haha… Only Medha and I were still on the bed!

The breakfast in the resort was available at 7:30am. Luckily I was able to make it at 7:45am. The breakfast tastes good and I have no culture shock at all as the side dishes and porridge used to be my breakfast when I was a kid.

0900 – 1020 Boat traveling around the Sun Moon Lake

I am really attracted to the tea eggs sold at the lakeside. The boat stopped at a quay and we were allowed to have 15 minutes to walk around at the hill side and temple. There were aborigines singing and telling stories there. From the story, I knew that an owl is the mascot of bringing fortune to those pregnant mothers to give birth smoothly.

After the boat-traveling, we went for a walk around the market. There are shops as well, but most of the time they place a stall in front of the shops and this makes us to try the food easily! =D

I bought 2 tea eggs from different stalls, mushroom bun(I like mushroom so much!) and postcards. We didn’t dare to spend too much for the food haha… We all have several more weeks to spend on.

After that, we went back to the city centre and met up with Ah Fang and Ming Foong. After having dinner together, we went back to the town to prepare for the school tomorrow.

Day 14 – A trip to Sun Moon Lake

With the leading of Johnny, we(Le Hui, Medha, Huikey, KarMay, Jia Ye, Lokesh Michael and I )did it to the Sun Moon Lake. We went to Taichong by bus (NTD130) and a taxi to the Sun Monn Lake (NTD225).

We went to the amusement park called Aboriginal Cultural Village after meeting up with the owner of the resort we’ll be staying for that night.

We went there by 2 times cable car. One is in the amusement park itself. We did UFO, roller coaster, royal train, love boat etc, made us feel dizzy all the way. After lunch, we went for to the cultural villages. It was so fun that we could enjoy part of the show and the aboriginal people could sing very well. In fact, there was one more thing which is more fun was that we paid only NTD100 for the costume renting to take photos! That was pretty cool, as there are even foreigners from Hong Kong thought we’re actually the real aborigines.

It was almost 4:30pm, luckily we got into the cable car on time as the thunder was coming soon.

We bought some souvenirs in the cable car station. It was mochi… We spent quite some time to find the way out from the station to the resort.

After we reached, we went to our rooms. We stayed in the branched resort which was within 100 metres away from the main resort, owned by高阿姨, a very cute and helpful owner.

We went for a show presented by Tsao tribe. That was awesome as many of us are invited to join the aboriginal dance.

We went back to the resort after we had our dinner at the restaurant nearby. That was a bit creepy as there is no one there and only 6 of us, all girls.

Went back to chat with the uncles and aunties there. -Sleep-

Day 13 – 9th Day in the school

We went to LuFeng Elementary School to visit. The director of the school taught us to make grasshopper by leaves. It was a great experience as I wasn’t come across with this making process which I wished to learn it since long time ago. Then, we went to visit to the traditional paper making place, called 紙寮窩. We went back to Nanhe at almost 12pm and had lunch.

1310 – 1350 4^th Grade, Adjectives (Tall/short, big/small eyes, big/small nose)

How warm is that!! 4th Grade students named Andy, gave me a candy!!! According to the room teacher, this is what he wrote: “I have an English teacher and I like her.” =D That makes my day!!!

1400 – 1440 3^rd Grade, Revision for Spelling Test

1450 – 1525 5^th Grade, Hobbies

1530 Judy drove us to Hsinchu city, save us NTD$77 bus fare and 2 hours time. =D

1730 At the first restaurant in NCTU, NTD$ 65 烤豬排飯

Met Patty and Jerry in the 7 Eleven in NCTU. How touched! Patty purposely came to us from her part-time job as to make sure we didn’t get lost.

When we went out from 7 Eleven, we met Joe. He was with his bunch of friends. However, he went for a walk with us although we weren’t very sure where should we head to for the meeting. We went for the famous waffle shop in NCTU. Hehe, NTD$45 for an ice cream waffle.

Then we received a call that the meeting will be moved to the trainee house as there would be an EP going to realize on that day, Jia Ye, from AIESEC UKM.

That night, was a crazy night. It was also the first meeting of our Karaoke session on next Friday as well as the Global Village meeting. Charles, Med, Johnny, Iris, Mike, Tomo, Jacky, Eunice, Ming Foong, Medha, Huikey, Kar May, Le Hui, we were all there! We chatted for few hours. However, it was too bad that they didn’t gather as a whole. Here comes the craziest EP batch of AIESEC CTLC.

Day 12 – 8th Day in the school

I took a bus to 水汴頭 again. Fortunately I could make it for the bus and arrived at 7:21am. While I was walking to the school, 雅琪, the first grade teacher picked me up at the bridge there. It is a very beautiful bridge. I took some photos yesterday. Hehe…

It was the school weekly assembly from 0800 to 0835. Every teacher and staff must be in the assembly site while the 6^th Grade students play the musical instruments for the marching part and the flag raising ceremony. After the assembly, the 6^th grade teacher (美週) and 鐘主任 met me to discuss about the way to teach the children.

After that, I was confused that who I shall listen to. Shall I use any Mandarin to teach English? As the 6^th Grade teacher told me to use Mandarin during the teaching. However, the principal told me to speak 100% English. I understand the pros and cons of the two methods above, but I am really confused. Luckily Judy told me not to be worried about that, as I just speak 100% English for other classes, and just an exceptional case for 6^th Grade. I understand there are reasons behind to speak only English in the class. So, I think I can find the balance point to speak how many percentages of English in the class. It all depends on the understanding level of the students.

1120 – 1155am Brief introduction of Malaysia geography & Pronunciation Correction

1200 – 1230pm Lunch

1230 – 1300pm Photos snapshot session around the school compound

1320 – 1350pm Story-telling session by volunteers, 6 grades divided into 3 classes

唐朝小栗子故事、買智慧

1450 – 1525pm 6^th Grade students practice graduation performance

(Sister Act: “I will follow Him)

1600pm Back with 錦芳 to her house for dinner and buy toufu fah.

In Teacher錦芳’s house, we were there for chit-chatting. I received several calls from UK which regarding to the VISA application of Youth Alive Project EP. This is quite worrying as for the technical part of Incoming Exchange.

Then, we had a little chatting with her father-in-law. Once again, surprise for him, we knew several languages and later we talked about some cultural sharing too. After that, three of us together with the teacher and her daughter and son, went to the Dong An Elementary School(The school Medha and Huikey went to) for the playground. We met with a lot little kids! They are all from Dong An. There was a cute kid! He answered me his name immediately while I was walking towards his back asking him “Didi (弟弟), what’s your name?” Cutie!!!!

We met the teacher’s dog called Liang Liang. She was so energetic all the time.

After dinner, we went out for a walk again because we were too full. =D

We met a few more kids. Let me introduce them one by one. The one who can go hunting with his father and did a super cool pose in front of the camera is Harry. What is funny is that he can’t pronounce his own name perfectly even I tried for a few times. Another kid who is quite shy called Xiu Kai. He is so shy and always forgot what he was trying to tell us. Haha… It’s so fun to meet them in the neighbourhood. As in Malaysia, the kids cycling around and running around. This is so called a kid’s life should be. =)

Day 11 – 7th Day in the school

In the trainee house,

05:20am Woke up & shower

06:00am Walk to the bus stop nearby trainee house

06:20am Bus to the Hsinchu city centre, $15top up my phone credit ($300)

06:45am At the city centre, lost for a while and top up my phone credit ($300)

07:03am Bus to 水汴頭 ($55) It’s cheaper than going to Kuanhsi as it’s further.

08:03am At 水汴頭, called up the school, but they’re having meeting.

08:30am Brandon phoned and came. I started to walk as it was too late.

After I reach the school, only I got to know from 邱小姐 that the school teachers were having meeting and the meeting was longer than usual as they have to discuss about the vacancy available after Brandon leaves in the coming July.

I shared the 阿Q 桶面（by鐘主任） with 月玲as breakfast. 錦芳gave me a set of breakfast too. It is potato with cheese.

09:30 – 10:10am 2^nd Grade

Judy and I discussed a bit the materials we’re going to teach. We decided to correct the children’s pronunciation. We let them play with the ball, whereby if the song is paused, the one who holds the ball will have to answer the question “How’s the weather?” and they have to answer according to the answers picked. I can see they like the game so much.

11:20 – 11:55am 6^th Grade

We practice dialogues in textbook. They all knew the meaning of the dialogues, just that there are some words (such as garden, sun, sung, etc) that they didn’t pronounce well. It is probably due to lack of practising. That’s why I am here. =)

Lunch at 12pm.

1:30pm

An explanation by the promoter from the company selling the super-big first aid kit to the teachers in the school. It was so many steps to be followed and remembered. I guess only 月玲 knows it well.

2:30

Keep updating my diaries. It is part of my job description for the internship.

2:50pm

I was so tired and get a nap at the Health Centre in the school. It’s a small room and it’s comfortable enough for me to have 30 minutes nap.

3:20pm

Packed up and went back to convent with 錦芳. This time, I could have a better look at the views along the roadside. It was raining for the past few days and couldn’t have a clearer look at the views. The cold wind blew on my face as the scooter passed by the houses, rice fields, and bridges. It was pretty warm that 錦芳 invited us (Medha, Huikey and I) to her house to have dinner tomorrow.

I asked 錦芳to drop me at the 7-Eleven nearby the convent. There are two 7-Eleven at the area. I went to the other one after did a window shopping at the first one. The first one is actually opposite the Internet Café I went to. The second one is at the same side with the convent I stay and it’s within 100 metres distance. All right, I have to admit that I am addicted to the 7-Eleven here. There are so many things to eat and see. I bought a set of Dove travel kits of shampoos($199), hotdog ($25), tea-egg($8), a bottle of jasmine tea ($17), sushi ($24), 2 bowls of instant noodles ($55 & $25 respectively). I collected 6 points of Doraemon. I need 30 points to redeem the Doraemon fan. Haha… I am thinking I will redeem it one day since the cashier at the counter kept asking me: “You have only another $20 to get 1 more point, do you want to buy any other things?”

After finishing some of the food I bought, I went for a nap… Haha… I swear I will be a big fat girl after 6 weeks!! At around 8pm, Medha and Huikey came back from Hsinchu. We chatted and ate the 愛玉冰 I brought from school for dessert. It’s fun though. Internship should be like this! Work hard and play harder. We have no obstacles to talk to each other because we share the same thoughts at most of the times.

12:21am: Sleep… Zzz…

Day 10 – 6th Day in the school

錦芳 picked me up at the convent at 7:20am. It was raining too, so I have to be in the rain coat to ride on her scooter. It took us around 20 to 25 minutes to go the school. As yesterday, I don’t get the chance to view the sceneries along the roadside as the raincoat covers half of my face!

Once we reached school, it was so kind and lovely of 月玲 who brought me to dry up my clothes and hair. It was actually because I took a shower in the morning, that’s why my hair was wet. Haha… But I actually got wet only for the bottom part of my jeans and shoes. It took me quite some time to dry up the clothes and shoes.

I ate the breakfast prepared by 錦芳, it was so tasty, I love it! Another set of breakfast by Brandon, haha… a set of sandwich with fried chicken and egg inside. It was very delicious too…

There are not many classes today as the students are having tests today.

0900 – 1100 Visitors from Dong An Elementary School (It is actually the school where Medha and Huikey have their internship)

The principal and the teachers in the school came to visit our school. I became a helper to shot for videos of the opening ceremony and some explanation done by the students on the butterfly specimen exhibition room. It was so cute of them that I saw Jason and Candy from 3^rd Grade did the presentation of the exhibition room very well.

1030 – 1110 5^th Grade 1st time introducing myself to them.

This is the last class for introduction. Again, I introduce my name as Sun and the place I came from, Malaysia. There is a hyperactive student in the class. I can observe it from the way she behaved, part of the syllabus from my course, haha!! Actually I had met one before in tuition centre I used to teach in Malaysia. They share similarity, GOOD ENGLISH. Both of them can score very well in their English tests.

After lunch, I did my preparation again for the presentation tonight. Right after that, I took a nap as it was really tiring to look at the laptop non-stop for a few hours. Again, time flies. 劉老師 sent me to the 水汴頭bus stop and I took the bus back to the convent on my own. I have to leave to convent as together Medha, Huikey and I, we’ll depart to Chiao Tung University Campus for the LC Gathering. I didn’t have the chance to combine the slides with Huikey.

4:30pm At the convent, packing. (As we’re going to stay overnight at the trainee house)

5:00 – 5:15pm At the Kuanhsi bus terminal, checking and waiting for the bus to Hsinchu city centre. NTD 77 from Kuanhsi to Hsinchu.

6:45pm At the Hsinchu city centre.

7pm Meet up with Kar May at the junction in the city centre, in front of Watson. We had dinner together at the shop beside Watson. I had my 香香雞排.

7:25pm Took a number 2 bus from SOGO in the city centre to the campus.

NTD 15

08:08pm Meet up with Joyce (Medha’s TN Manager) after 15 minutes of walking.

She brought us to the place where the LC Gathering and Sharing held.

08:08 - 10pm After the presentation of each countries by the interns, we had dances from AIESEC Toronto by Medha and also CTLC. Of course there roll calls from CTLC, Toronto and USM. Hehe…

10pm We walked to take bus stop to go to the trainee house together with Huai-Yu and Joe (Michael’s TN Manager). We met Jacky there and we had fun chatting there while Huai-Yu and Jacky were busy discussing about the workshops. AIESEC work again!

12am After the CTLC AIESECers left, we went for sleep as I have to take bus back to Kuanhsi early in the morning.

Day 9 – 5th Day in the school

It was a rainy day too. I heard from Coco on Saturday that it was manmade rain since Taiwan has dry weather for many months and I could see it from the news that everyone is practicing to save the water in their daily lives.

I was so tired that I couldn’t wake up in this morning. I missed the bus at 7:05am and waited for 20 minutes for the next bus, it only came at 7:40am. It was late to be in the school as the teachers in the school were having a general meeting and Brandon can only come to pick me up at the bus stop after the meeting. I got to the school at 8:30am. It is late and rainy day.

0830 – 0920 1^st Grade Correct the pronunciation of vocabulary

It was so cute of them that the 7 years old students of them are learners. They can pick up the pronunciation very fast. Just that I am worried about a few students in the centre. There are 3 boys who can’t really follow what I was trying to teach.

0930 – 1000 A volunteer came to the school to teach English

Although the volunteer can’t pronounce the accurate pronunciation sometimes, she was really good in making the atmosphere in the hall becoming warm enough to let the students to make their own try. I think it’s because she spoke bilingually. She presented her story together with flash cards and pictures drawn on her own on a blackboard. I can remember that the story is about the life cycle of a butterfly 蝴蝶生態.

1030 – 1110 5^th Grade Sang a song “The more we sing together”

We sang a song named “The more we sing together, together, together.” We actually made a circle to sing that song after a few times practising. Then we did some dialogues on the text book. They enjoy the participation!

After the lunch, basically what I did for the whole afternoon is just online-ing, talking to 2 teachers and preparing for the coming day presentation to the whole CTLC. I showed the teachers the national anthem, Jalur Gemilang, Tanggal 31, the USM anthem… Haha… I did a lot of downloading from the youtube in the school. I must be grateful enough as I have Internet access in the school as it really helps a lot!

After that, 錦芳 sent me to the convent, the place I stay in Kuanhsi. Again, I save the money for transportation since I don’t know whether I could claim it back from the LC.

I didn’t take away the lunch from the school for my dinner I knew Medha and HuiKey will be back and I wanted to have dinner together with them. =D

They were there when I got home at 4:30pm. I didn’t update my diary as I was busy exploring the town with both of them. We went to a shop(鍋貼專賣店) just in front of the convent for dinner. I ate a bowl of 炸醬麵 and shared a bowl fish ball soup with them. The 炸醬麵 tasted so good and it costs ne NTD 55, NTD 30 for a bowl of fish ball soup (so NTD 10 per person). Then, we headed to the 7-Eleven to buy some desserts! Yay… We bought sushi (NTD 39) as we were craving for it since the time Kar May gave us a try on hers one when we’re in the bus to Taipei. Oops, it’s not allowed to eat or drink in any public transportation in Taiwan. So, please don’t tell others that we did it. Haha… I bought also a bottle of chocolate flavoured Milk Tea (NTD 25). It wasn’t taste as nice as I imagined. Then, we went to the Internet Café that I used to go last week; however it smelled bad as the people were smoking inside. This time, it was much stronger smell than the previous two times. We didn’t manage to get into the counter for further information as we came out from the door as soon as we get into. Then, we had no choice but have to go back to the convent. It is raining by the way. I hate raining… especially when you’re walking on the street. It’s so cold. We passed by a bakery shop, again we threw some money on the buns. I spent NT 63 for a few buns and puff.

The sisters weren’t back yet as they went to Taipei for meeting. So, we had to wait somewhere around the convent. We went back to the restaurant. One thing I must mention is Taiwanese are so friendly, they allowed us to eat the buns we bought from outside and chatted there.

At 7pm, the sisters are back and we went back for showers and we did some roll calls and AIESEC dance in the room. Haha… That was so fun! Sister Theresa (張修女) knocked our door at around 8pm, she was wondering whether we were having party. We told her that we’re making preparation for the LC gathering. She seemed quite satisfied with our answer, and we introduce Huikey to her since this is her first day here. For Internet access issue, she showed her understanding to us, just that we will have to pay for the Internet access there. However, it’s okay for us since we don’t have to be in the smoking area for Internet access.

Medha went for her sleep at 9:30pm and I had mine at 10:30pm after making some discussions with Huikey regarding the preparation of slides in the LC gathering tomorrow.

Day 8 – Taipei – Hsinchu – Chiao Tung University Campus

We woke up the next day at 9pm and depart at 10pm to Hsinchu. We took around an hour to walk to the terminal bus to take the bus to Hsinchu. We didn’t lost too much as we asked people around whenever we go. Haha… Luckily they are all very friendly.

We managed to catch the bus to Hsinchu at 11am. Again, another one and a half hour to Hsinchu. We reached the junction at Chiao Tung University Campus at around 12:30pm. Then we wait for Ming Foong to unload her luggage as her home is just near by the junction. Then, we walked into the campus 2^nd Restaurant to have our dinner. Again, I ordered 炸醬麵 and a cup of 綠豆冰沙. We talked for a while at the restaurant and went into the library for Internet access! =) Unfortunately, Ming Foong was not feeling well after the meal, I think it probably because of the rainy day. It was so cold and finally we got our own seats in the library. Once I opened my facebook, I saw a very surprising news, the news kept me happy for the rest of the day. My brother got his JPA scholarship! He will be going to Canada after a year. I told Medha immediately and she was excited too. I took my time to do my own stuff there such as blogging, working for AIESEC, checking mails and so on.

Actually I called up Che Kai for the relocation of Lokesh and Michael as they don’t have their own cell phone number here and Bill for the information of Huikey as she’s arriving today. She is my junior in USM, taking the same course as mine. I saw Jerry, Bill and Huikey in the library at 5pm. Jerry is an AIESECer in CTLC too, he went to an exchange in India. Of course, we took a few photos as well.

After that, we went to the 1^st Restaurant to meet up with Che Kai and his teammates. Since they weren’t sure when will they reach the campus from their transition camp, and then we just move to a place that we think it’s suitable. Ming Foong came to meet us and we went there together. Definitely, she felt more comfortable after a nap.

We went to the Seven Eleven in the restaurant to buy our dinner. It’s so fun to buy the food available there as we wouldn’t have so many choices over in our countries, as told by Medha too.

After the dinner, I was lead by Che Kai to the city centre in Hsinchu to take a bus to Kuanhsi Township, whereby both the places I stay and the elementary school located. It took me again NTD 77 to Kuanhsi. It’s worthwhile as I can chat a lot with Che Kai. He went to borrow scooter from his friend. It took us some time to search for the scooter at the multi-level car park as well. Don’t be surprised when you see a lot of scooters are on the roads. It’s very common in the city centre. By the way, since we chatted a lot, Che Kai has now become my sister! Haha… Sometimes he sounds like my dad, but he doesn’t really fit into it as he is 2 years younger than me. That’s why.

I reached the Kuanhsi terminal bus at around 10:25pm and the convent at 10:30pm, after 5 minutes walking on the street in the cold rainy weather. So, the journey from Hsinchu to the KuanHsi was around 50-55 minutes, as told by the driver before we departed.