Observation Week

The week after Sanyi brought Cheech the Cockroach into my apartment. I was having a lovely, relaxing morning before work when I felt an icky tickle and I looked down at my feet to see a cockroach running away. Naturally, I yelped and jumped out of bed. By the time I reached for a shoe, the cockroach had gone between the bed and the wall, and since the landlord is a thinking landlord, he bolted the bed to the wall. I stayed sentinel by the bed with my shoe, calling the cockroach all kinds of names, but he chose not to come out.

I slept terribly for the next few nights, waiting for the cockroach, but I never saw him. On Saturday I had a girl day at my apartment, another manicure! Then Sunday, as I prepared to go to Taichung with the girls, the cockroach jumped at me after I had gotten out of the shower. By the time I had dropped my towel and found the fly swatter, it had gone behind the wardrobe.

The next Saturday, still no cockroach. We had a birthday party for one of the TAs at my apartment. We had Pizza Hut and dark chocolate brownie… yum! I spent Sunday relaxing and preparing for Observation Week at work.

Observation Week is a special kind of hell. Basically the boss observes one class per day, sometimes two. But you have to arrive early to work (unpaid) and give him your lesson plan. Then you have a special meeting about your lesson plan that cuts into your lesson planning for other classes, so you fall behind. Then you teach your classes with the boss either staring at you from the back row or through a one-way window they have in the classroom. Then you have another meeting afterwards. So that was my week. On top of that, I had a final to prepare for and a Parent’s Day to prepare for. Also we had to take a trip to Yuanlin, Changhua County seat, to apply for our ARC. Needless to say, I was a stressed out wreck.

Wednesday I was in the middle of downward dog split when I saw the cockroach on the wall. I dropped and rolled and sprayed the wall with poison—missed him. I went back to yoga and saw him run across my bed (seriously?) and sprayed my bed with poison (yes I washed the bedding), missed again. He emerged under my desk, apparently the effects of the poison had taken their toll and he was wiggling in pain. I smacked him and put him out of his misery. I then relieved some stress by doing a victory dance. And like all wars, you have to take a photo of your kill.

I was a drooling bag of bones by Saturday. Monday was a bit more cheerful as payday rolled around, but it was a sad pay day because of all the “loans” I had “taken” out from my boss—basically, the landlord collects his rent a day early and comes before I ever get to work, so the boss pays him the rent and takes it out of my paycheck. Also the ARC fees were three times higher than quoted. Something I learned in Korea, never trust any quotes, even if they are supposed to be an authority on it.

The joy I felt at not having a particular class anymore was struck dead when I found out that I teach them in their new class. They are cute, sometimes. With only four girls—three of them pretty clueless most of the time—and twelve boys, it makes for a pretty active class. For the first time in teaching history at Inter, I had my hair down. One boy, I call him The Screamer, started screeching and pointing, “Teacher! Teacher! Teacher! Hair! Hair! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOTIIIIIFUL!” I think he has a thing for long, strawberry hair.  However, the cuteness soon dissipated. I have one kid who no matter what I do, is always in La La Land. So when I call on him to participate in a game, he is always late at reacting, and the other team scores, and then he cries. But he has never learned that he has to pay attention. As my TA says, “This class is, ummm, special.” In their defense, they have had at least three teachers in the last five months, so that is a lot to get used to when you are seven years old.