Friday, November 18, 2005

Wasting Time


I had a strange week of work. My mornings and afternoons were filled with crying. I am also a new father so my evenings and nights were also filled with crying. So it was 24/7 crying in Big Ell’s little world. I teach youngsters who are prone to cry. I can accept this; theses kids should probably be at home sucking on a nipple or watching Cartoon network rather than being forced to interact with some foot loose and fancy free foreigner (thank you J-Hole). To be fair I have worked with mainly responsible folks at various kindergartens in central Taiwan. But I have run into some folks who are probably on parole or have been recently discharged from some kind of asylum in their home country. If I had some balls I would write some kind of ‘Kindergarten Confidential,’ book. But I have a kid now so I don’t want to end up wearing cement flip-flops at the bottom of some Taichung County rice paddy.

Children cry a lot in general but it seems to be more common place in Taiwan. I am not sure why this is. Maybe it is because they are being raised by their grandparents who grant their every wish as grandparents are wont to do. Maybe it is because one parent is working in China leaving the child in a defacto single parent situation. Or maybe it is because they sleep with their parents until they’re 14-15 years old. Alright, that is a lie but that is what it seems like. In this case the people were not children but co-workers. This is not that unusual. I seem to have a gift for making grown adults cry. I made an adult cry during year one by asking her what her English ability was. To be honest, most of the adult criers were women; probably because they have higher EQs or something like that. But I did make a man cry once, unfortunately I can’t remember how.

The grown adult crying this week was for reasons that are too inane to type. Mind you if you read this blog you have come to expect the inane. Adult one cried because I asked her if she had ever made popcorn with a casseole dish and a hot plate. Adult Two cried because I asked her why she had her students complete the wrong workbook pages. So to celebrate the adult crybabies in my life this week I have included this link.

An indispensable Taiwan ESL elementary classroom game is Rock, paper, scissors or if you like Paper, scissor, stone. This game has so many uses. I normally use this game to see who gets to start the plethora of games I use in class. I actually use tons of games that trick the students into thinking they are having fun and not learning anything. Mind you my 4th and 5th graders have caught on but still keep coming back for more. I have also heard of other English teaching professionals killing 30 minute classes with endless rounds of this game. Actually I am lying but that would be funny and is not that far fetched. This is a funny link to a Rock, paper, scissors game gone horribly awry.

Oh the joy of picking ones nose; I would write more but my wife occasionally reads this blog

My dad is an artist and knows all about Bob Ross from PBS. Here is Bob Ross the painting mother fucker.

This is a link to different orgasm faces. . Which orgasm face are you?

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10 comments:

Bread said...

you going to be in calgary anytime soon? my brother says he is in for the league.....

Big Ell said...

Good news about your brother! I'll be there for christmas from the 16th to the 1st.

Mark said...

Wow, that sounds really different from where I work. How old are the littlest ones you teach?

Big Ell said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Big Ell said...

The littlest ones are 3 or 4 years old and to be honest usually only cry at the start of the semester.

Bread said...

i'll be there as well, but only for a couple of days. i will be driving there around the seventeeth, flying out on 20. send an email with your folks number...

Unknown said...

When did you change the header? It looks fantastic. Is that the famous sea of clouds visible from Da Shwei Shan or just the morning pollution found over any Taiwanese city with over thousand scooters?

p.s. The word verification was particularly tricky today; I almost went back to bed after my second attempt at it.

Kevlar said...

That cry baby stuff is so true. Teenagers prefer to sleep in their parents bed, because the parents rooms are cleaner.

Does your kid prefer you to sing popular music or can you just make it up as you go along?

Mark said...

Back when my boss was still a teacher at Modawei, there were 2 different moms who cried because their kids failed an exam and had to switch down to a lower level class, taught by another teacher.

Big Ell said...

Wow, that is excellent. At one of my old buxibans there were similar parents. They would never cry just help their children by cheating.