Kaohsiung

First things first. I had class performances this past week. The last 5 weeks have been dedicated to preparing for them. Mine consisted mostly of skits. It takes A LOT of work to get kids ready for a 30 minute performance with no teacher help. I had to prepare for both grade 2 and 4. It's stressful for the kids, the teachers, the administration, everyone involved. But my kids ROCKED it. 4th grade fought nerves during most of their performance, but they still did great. My grade 2's absolutely owned. They were funny when they needed to be, serious when they needed to be, and overall convincing as actors. Big props to them.

Moving on.

Breaks are few and far between for a teacher at Cornel. So any break we do get, we take advantage of. Many of the other teachers went to China to see the Great Wall or K.L. in Malaysia. I decided that I should make a responsible decision and take a less expensive trip. So I took an hour High Speed Rail trip south to the 2nd largest city in Taiwan, Kaohsiung. I went with Claire, Stephanie, and Zimba. I haven't gotten tospend a ton of time with these teachers so it was a great chance to do that. But this was the week before our class performances, so all I needed was a relaxing weekend. That is what I got.

Kaohsiung is a very active, diverse city. There are mountains, rivers, and the ocean all inside the city. It seemed as if most of the population of Kaohsiung was between the ages of 16 and 26. We biked around an island, went to some of the famous sights of Kaohsiung, day tripped to a small town, and ate some amazing food.

This was the first break I had where I was actually more refreshed than when the break started. I think I credit that to short travel time and some very chill fellow travelers.

I cant promise I will update my blog every Sunday. I don't have any crazy trips coming up. If anything exciting happens I will blog about it. If anyone has something they want me to blog about just leave a comment.

Here are some pictures from my trip.