Jolts of All Kinds

Today started as a reasonable day, but it quickly turned strange. I went in at lunch and met up with Paul. We went to the bank where we deposited a small fortune and then transfered it back to America. The exchange rate has really tanked in the last month, which is unfortunate from one perspective, but having fewer Taiwanese dollars make one American dollar is great when you're going from NT to USD. Anyway, that all went off without a hitch and we returned to school. My co-teacher graciously did opening for me today (which was great since I suck at faking enthusiaum about today being the 17th or whatever). The kid were drowning in clothing. Seriously, they were wearing pants and long sleeve-shirts or jackets, either of which was worn over a tee-shirt. Within 60 seconds of starting class, they were all dying of heat stroke. It's cooling down, but my gosh. You would have thought it was in the low sixties, not the low eighties. The secretaries are wearing jackets and scarves so they don't catch cold! The SPE kids were fine, aside from the constant dressing and undressing. (Less they forget their excess clothing they would put it on before switching activities, only to take it off again after arriving.) The older kids were something else. My kids--who are normally and easily the best behaved--were whiny, grumpy, and just plain mean-spirited. Kids who are never behavior problems were yelling at each other and hitting each other with intent to cause injury, it was just wacky. The problems in Paul's class were even worse. He had a 3A student (10 yrs old) who he had previously described as a "tiny geisha" because she is so very shy, easily embarrassed, and very giggly. She screamed, "F--- you!" at another student in class. (She defended herself by saying the student had said the same thing to her in Chinese earlier and that her sister, who is one of Paul's 5A students, had taught it to her. Her sister vehemently denied it and blamed it on the media. Just to round out the story.) While impressed that she chose to answer in English with spoken to in Chinese and with her flawless pronounciation, Paul nevertheless promptly sent her on a one-way trip to the principal's office. His 5A--while usually not pillars of unbounded English-learning glee--were downright prickly over having to do their work. I don't know what it was about today. Last week, all of the student had very serious tests in their Chinese schools, but I don't know why all the fallout would hit today and not Monday.

Worn down from dealing with so much unexpected nonsense, we opted to eat dinner at a restaurant. We ate at McDonald's. Even here, it's sad when McDonald's is where you go for a sit-down dinner. We rode home and were watching "In Good Company" and chatting with Audra over today-related wackiness when the doors shook and everything jolted forward and back. It was really weird. It was an earthquake that lasted 5 seconds, just literally long enough to move everything forward and back one time in a non-smooth fashion. Another 5.7. I checked and there have been five earthquakes in the last ten days. Ah well, things will probably quiet down for a while now.