h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Firts notes home.

its 10.45 on Thurs morn and i thought i would right you a letter!
all is fantastic, this place is so unreal, the market street with their food and stalls are just amazing, i can hardly comprehend the things i see and smell, so crazy. this place reminds of greece in many ways. The streets are dusty and littered with run down objects and fire bins where they their ghost money ( i will explain that one later) the buildings are half intact, put together with modest tools with plants in tubs of all types and vines that crawl up the walls. Posters advetising i know not what and the pavements or lack of htem are full of mopeds and bikes. Then there is the western feel in chinese that covers the walls with neon lights and signs. the traffic is beyond belief, with new york congestion with greek driving mentality! the light signals are pointless. The people are life you imagine, i never speak to them, i would not now what to say, except hello and thanks!

The school is called Shane. it is a franchise of school from japan. it is a very expensive school for the parents and they demand a good education. The school where i teach is very close to home, just a 5 minutes walk from the apartment. it has many materials and has a very friendly atmosphere. There is Linda, the boss ( Chinese) with here four or five teacher assistants who are also chinese. they are lovely girls, one of them, i forget her name gave me rose yesterday! i now for sure she is not called Po! There are four teachers including me, Ged, Nick and Brendan. Kieran was the teacher who i have replace, he left this morning. The rest were sad to see him go. he has been here from the beginning and has been here the longest out of the old four. We have a staff room with music and a coffee machine, very failsworth school. the flash back are getting more intense every day! We teach all ages from kindergarden to adults. it is all stages in to different levels like how you would imagine it really, lower primary, upper primary and so on. I have a mixture of classes from kindergarden to adult private tutition. I was meant to start teaching at 10.30 this monring but the class was cancelled, i have a class tonight of one adult called lorraine and that is it for the day. I do about 4.5 hours a day and ony on thursday do i a have an early start, if you can call 10.30 an ealry start. We have to prep for the classes and this takes time, especially for me! Each class has a folder and register and lesson plans and books to use for each stage. it is so well planned out. it feels very wired doing this job.

I had my first class yesterday at 4.30 and i was totally dreadin it. I only found out i had a class so soon on tuesday when i arrive in changau! I was so nervous. it was CH, higher primary and it went really well. the class last for 1.5 hours with a 15 minutes break. they were great kids and had alot of fun with them. i just stuck to guide in hte teachers hand book and that saw me through. I was great to see them laugh and respond to you. i came out on a high afterwards. i had an hour to prep for the second class of lower pimary kids. this class did not go very well, they were wanting their old teacher and i think i sacred them a little. one girl was almost in tears as soon as she came into the class. the groups are small, this one was only 5 kids. what i had to teach them they already new from the previous class. it was difficult but it will always be hard at first. i need to know what i am doing, know them and allow them to get used to me.

it was very good to have my first class so soon. i felt tons better afterwards. i need to do more reading on what i have to do but in time i will be fine. i feel very comfortable in this job so soon. saying that still have to do my third class. teaching beginner adults may prove difficult and i have yet to experience the horror that is kindegarden!

The other teachers are fine to get along with, Bredan is quite, but a very good teacher. He was very close to Kieren so he is upset today. Nick is from leeds and talks alot. Ged is fine and the one who i talk to the most, because he was my contact i suppose!

the apartment is on the 18th floor of a building with excellent views of the industry area that spews crap out into the air! and on the other side a fantastic view of the city with the Changau budda temple on the hill! we have cable TV and CNN. the odd channel of UK/US TV, and friends on HBO weeknights! the apartment is great, spacious and clean. Excellent secuity althought not needed as there seems to be no risk of having stuff stolen, it never seens to cross their minds, still the door is lock when we leave. we have fob keys to get into he building and to use the lift.

after my first day we went to a 'tendie' bar in town for drinks for Kierns last night and met up with some of the other teachers to work close to town. Simon and Ann, Nick's girl. there are other people but they were not there that night. alot of Kiernes private students came, it was a great night, the beer was NT$110, about 2 squids a bottle. expensive for here, in shop you can buy beer for NT$45, 1 pound. i brought a pack of 20 marlboro lights, a can of tiawan beer and a butty and it came to NT$100, which his just over 2 pounds! very cheap really, but booze and fags are due to increase in price soon as Taiwan joins the WBO, but only by NT$17 or so.

I get paid 10 pounds and hour and collect my wage on the 10th of each month, soon it will be put in to a bank for me when i set it up with linda. I am on a contract for 80hours a month and will always get paid that, even is my hours drop that month due to cancellations. over time is collated and paid in lump sum at the end of hte contract. if you have donw less hours then the over time hours are deducted to compensate. the rent is roughly 80 pounds a month and is taken from our wage by linda and we pay bills when they arrive. Linda is in control and very approachalbe. willing to loan us money if need be and takes us out for slap uo dinners to, just yesterday we had lunch in a very posh restaurant. she is well respected and no doubt is paid very well. an example of how good we have it is that the TV had no sound. after the earthquake last year the old tv broke and the guys got hold of this cheep one only to find it had not sound or very little. yesterday over lunch we mention this in passing joke and by the afternoon we had a brand new tv waiting for us already installed and it was a sharp tv too!

this internet place is very good, i was in here a 1.30 last night quite drunk and it cost about a pound an hour!

right i have talked for long enough, am off home to change out of my work cloths. oh andi have my medical this afternoon,they want it all off me, blood wee, poo...and it cost me 50squids!

and i think this weekend we are off to Taichung for the weekend, a another city not far from here. the group of friends here were away last weekened on the east coast and they say it was beautiful. i am looking forward to seeing in it may as we have a long weekend and plan to visit it again.