Like Rats on a Sinking Ship...

Wow! I must note the excellent suggestions on how to deal with the utter collapse of civilization at Casa Americana. I'm please to report that some of the roommates had a change of heart (or reached their absolute limit) because the dishes have been done by people other than me, the trash had been taken out and washed out (now larva-free!), and most of the recycling taken care of. Hurray for basic cleanliness!

We also successfully pulled off a Spectacular, which is the equivalent of a primary program, but twice as long and on a Saturday. It had been consuming my waking hours for some time. Since our children never meet at the same times, we never had a complete rehearsal. In fact, the older children had no rehearsals at all. Everything had to be memorized, too. Here's a snippet of one of my thought trains from the second rehearsal (the day before the Spectacular):

1. The kids won't know what song to sing unless I tell them.
2. I should have my signs like the primary choristers do.
3. Do I have time to make signs tonight?
4. Doesn't matter, I can't draw.
5. Can I ask the other teachers to draw signs tonight?
6. No, that's too big of an imposition.
7. Maybe I could still make them.
8. How would they know to connect the pictures with the songs.
9. I would make a horrible primary president.

Surprisingly, it went off okay. The kids did their best, no one wanted pictures (except one of Paul's students, but we like him, so it's okay.), and everyone was apparently too distracted by the principal's see-through dress to bother me. Our kids were rewarded with ice cream, gatorball, and Pokemon toys, depending on age.

Now, we're just trying to riding it out without burning out, but it's hard. It's been a rough month of grammar review for everyone and the kids are melting down because they have important tests in Chinese school next week--but Chinese school also ends next Friday. I only have 2 4B students left, both of whom know they are dropping out of the program on the 30th, so they aren't exactly giving 100%--or even 50%. Meanwhile, an enterovirus has broken out in Taiwan (yes, there have been 204 cases THIS YEAR in a nation of 23 million. Clearly this is an epidemic, call the CDC.), causing mass panic at the school. One student has been forbidden to attend class in the afternoon (but not in the morning--what the???), the school was "sterilized," and McDonald's playground use has had the kibosh put on it, which is no good for us. How are we supposed to entertain small children in an unconfined environment for 30 mins? After they have been at school for 12 hours, mind you. (Yeah, Taiwan has a truly screwed-up education system.)

The BIG news though, is that there is 1 teacher coming. Yup, ILP couldn't recruit enough teachers for the Taiwan program. So the five of us will be replaced by 1 teacher. Keep wondering how that's going to turn out. ILP and our boss have been leaning on us to stay, which is ridiculous and impossible. Ellie is working illegally (which puts her US residency in jeopardy, BTW), the Roommate Who Must Not Be Named has already been here for 13 months and she just found out her mother has cancer, we'll be lucky if Katerina doesn't burn down the school as she leaves--plus she already has a ticket to and a job in Costa Rica, and Paul and I have to get back to our regularly scheduled lives. You know, permanent employment, moving to Arizona, grad school, etc. I do genuinely hope things somehow work out. Not so much for our boss (she'd land on her feet), but for the other employees and the kids. The little ones in particular are just so excited to go to Basic Reading. They were literally jumping up and down saying "I can go to Basic Reading!" How can we not teach them English? Sigh. The deal I cut with myself is that we'll stay an extra two weeks if that allows them to get the rest of the teachers over. If they can't, then we'll come home on the 2nd. As it stands, we'll be coming on the 2nd.