BIRTHDAY TIME!!!

Celebrating my birthday in Taiwan was hilarious because of the kids trying to sing happy birthday to me. I love when they sing. It is to darn cute. My MKers were the most excited. They all shouted happy birthday when they saw me. (Thanks to their teachers for getting that into their head, it made the day.) I miss teaching those kids.

The teachers suprised me with a great pop out card and angel food cake made from scratch. Making angel food cake was above and beyond my expectations. It is my favorite dessert and I think everyone else enjoyed it.


A shout out/thanks to all of you who emailed, facebooked and sent packages. It was great to be remembered. I can only imagine that with such a great start year 28 will be a good one!

Two week later and I 'm enjoying sugar but not so sure about meat.

I Katie Laws lasted only 14 days abstaining from sugar. Honestly, I surprised I lasted that long, I like my sugar. I ended the sugar fast with a butterfingers sent to me by one of the last semester teacher. You can not buy butterfingers in Taiwan. I love butterfingers.

As a side note I am now considering an even weirder new eating habit. The other day I was innocently looking for recipes and ended up on the PETA website encouraging Veganism. (not sure if that a word but I am using it) They encourage the giving up of meat by advertising the grim world of the meat market. It is disgusting world and I am traumatized.

Today as I was trying to find something to eat images of tortured animal in small dark cages keep popping into my head. Animals that never seeing the light of day and force feed until they're so large they can stand on their own two feet. . . Needless to say I didn't eat meat today or eggs or dairy. The thought of it was repulsive. Did you know that humans are the only animals that continue to drink milk after infancy and the only animal to drink another's animal milk, kinda of gross when you think about it.

Words of advice do not go to the PETA website even if your are curious. It is addicting and requires major rethink of the meat you eat. In fact don't think about, STOP! It fills your head with random facts and cause your basic thoughts about what you eat to be challenged. This is one situation were innocent really is bliss. Remain blissful, I hope to return to such a place. My my vegan phase be shorter then my non-sugar phase.

I need to limit my time on the internet.

Tim Tam Slam

After deciding I was never going to eat sugar again, I needed to get rid of all the junk food that I had bought before declaring my war on junk food. The war started due to my pigging out over Chinese New Year. We (Sain, Destiny and I) were given American chocolate and ended up eating it all. It was good but disgusting, especially when I stopped and thought about how much we had eaten including a box of See's chocolate, a package of Reese's Peanut Butter cups and 9 plus truffles. I haven't had any chocolate or junk food since Chinese New Year. I figure I need to detoxify my body from sugar. I'll have to see how it goes. . .
Since I wasn't going to eat chocolate for awhile I decided to give my Tim Tams to my 2nd grade class. Tim Tams are great biscuit type cookies. They are chocolate biscuit sandwiches filled with chocolate frosting and then dipped in chocolate. To eat a Tim Tam properly you must eat them with hot chocolate. You take the Tim Tam and nibble off two corners that are diagonal from each other. Then you stick one end into the hot chocolate useing the cookies as a straw. As you suck up the hot chocolate the inside of the cookie melts. Once you taste the hot chocolate you stuff the cookies into your mouth and enjoy the chocolate explosion of melted Tim Tams. It is a chocoholics paradise aka Tim Tam Slam. YUM! You have to time it just right, if you eat the cookies to soon. . . no chocolate melted goodness. You wait to long and you end up with chocolate ever where but your mouth.

Disclaimer and comments about the video: I was talking to the kids while filming you can tell when I forgot I was filming. Sorry. Also the hot chocolate wasn't hot enough but they still had a good time. Lastly, a couple of times in the video I sounded like my mom when she would talk to us when we were kids. It made me laugh and just a bit homesick!

Miss Laws, Miss Laws, Miss Laws

I started the semester teaching a class of nine rambunctious 2nd graders. I wasn't sure I was going to make it the first few weeks. They wore me out in the first 3 minutes of class. I had to blow my whistle every 30 seconds. But over the past month we've all adapted and now just picking up the whistle causes everyone to cover their ears and be quite. We even managed to have fun the last couple of weeks.


Then about a week ago, as I walked into class, I was greeted by my class yelling "Miss Laws, Miss Laws we have a new student". I was surprised but figured it worked. Now we had an even number of boys and girls, prefect for group work. Joleen (the new girl) was quite and I did wondered and was a little worried about her ability to survive our crazy class.

Then this Wednesday I walk into class and was meet once again with a chorus of "Miss Laws, Miss Laws we have a new student." Okay. . . now we have 11 kids and not enough desks. We managed to round up the needed desk. Charlie (the new guy) was a returning student and all his classmates seemed happy he was back. So I wasn't to worried and figured we would quickly settle back into our routine. Guess what happened on Friday.

Yup, now I have 12 students in my rambunctious class of 2nd graders. New student number 3 is also a returning student Cindy L. Go figure, now I have a Cindy H., a Cindy L. and a Sandy. I've already told them to accept the fact that I will miss up their names. Alice was extremely comforting and started laughing. No doubt she remembers the first few weeks of school when I couldn't keep Cindy and Sandy straight. It going to be a bad semester for names. Once again we didn't have enough chairs or desks. After finding the right number of desks and chairs we started classes.

It was back to the first week of school behavior. Thank goodness I had my whistle. 12 kids who are excited to be with each other do not want to be quite. In fact, it maybe physical impossible for them to be quite. Even Joleen was talking and fliriting with the boys! I have no idea what I am going to do with this group. It was a crazy Friday in Miss Laws' class. As I stood (my chair was given to a student due to the chair shortage) in front of my class I made a discover. Don't tell, but 12 crazy kids is a ton more fun then 9 crazy kids. Who knew?!?! The more the merrier. . . I guess. Still on Monday I would rather not hear, "Miss Laws, Miss Laws, we have a new student."

Chinese New Year

What did I do for Chinese New Year? What ever I felt like, whenever I felt like doing it and if I didn't want to I didn't do it! I think I've been one to many group vacations where you have to be nice, compromise, do what other people want to do. (As a disclaimer, I love group vacation and I love everyone I've been on a group vacation with BUT I do think we can all agree that there is such a thing as to much group vacations. End of disclaimer) Because of my bad and I do realize very selfish attitude I was excited to spend Chinese New Year in Feng Yuan. I needed some me time and I was glad to get. Of course I wasn't completely anti-social. I managed to get out of the school and had a lot of fun during my lazy vacation.


DAY ONE: Hot Springs!
I love Hot Springs.
Sain told me to look tough and then she pull this silly grin. I do not understand that girl! We spent the day with one of her Asian friends.
We went hiking, ate good food, and then soaked in the hot tubes it was a great day. Can't you tell by our relaxed faces?

DAY TWO: Play Date
Early on day two one of my student called and invited me to go and play with her mom and brother. I agreed and of all random, they took me to a dairy farm. I thought Asian were lactose intolerant. Instead I seemed to be the only one concerned about the large amount of dairy we ate that day. My favorite part of the day was feeding the cow. It was also the most stressful part of the day because the cow sucked the nipple off the bottle and then tried to eat it. I thought she (or he) was going to choke to death. Don't worry she didn't choke and managed to spit the nipple out. Later one of the cow tried to eat my scarf. It may have been an act of revenge.


Day 3 and 4 Finally I Was Lazy
I was finally able to be lazy and hang around that apartment. It was blissful laziness and I stopped taking pictures. Destiny and her mom showed up and we all pigged out on American chocolate. We managed to finish a box of See's chocolate and a package of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Sain did some serious shopping and bought a lot of really cute clothes. Then Saturday night we made Mexican food and learned how to play Taiwaness Card games. We also managed to eat a batch of cookie dough. I never want to eat sugar again!

DAY 5 SUNDAY
We only had one hour of church this week. Then the teacher, who were not lazy bums and went a traveling, came home! It was back to Berhan craziness, which I admit I like and missed during the break. Then Jean, a lady from the local Chinese ward, invited Sain and I to dinner. I love being invited to dinner. It is the only way to get good Chinese Food.

DAY 6 THE LAST DAY
All good thing come to an end and it is the last day of vacation. It was my favorite day of vacation because the internet came back on and I got the following email from my mom. . .

Guess who is going to Willamette??????????????
Yep it's you!!!! Your acceptance letter came today.

I'm going to grad school!
GO ME!!!

Afternoon Kindergarten: My "Borrowed" Class

There has been request for pictures of the cute kids in afternoon kindergarten aka AK. Their old teachers miss them and I am starting to understand why. They are my "borrowed" class because in theory once the school gets the current licensing issues resolved they will go back to their original teacher and I will get my kindergarten basic reading (KBR) class back. I haven't officially decided how I feel about switching again. I really liked my KBR kid but I am really starting to like the AK kids. I wish I could teach both classes but they meet at the same time. . . don't see how that will work.

Tape Measures, Ping Pong Balls, an Empty Hall and Second Graders

Today I was trying once again to finish a ping-pong ball activity in my second grade class. We started the activity 2 weeks ago. I planned on it only lasting a week. Today started week three. It is a simple activity were they flick a ping-pong ball and then we measure how far their ball went. I wanted each student to have two turns so we could figure out the average.

Unfortunately, my kids are oblivious to my planning and we have never managed for the whole class to have two turns. I complain but deep down I have found the whole process hilarious. Here is picture of our latest attempt at the "ping-pong" activity.

As you can see we were having a good time. I have decided to consider it a success. . . the fights can be counted on one hand, I only gave out two "official" warning, only had to use my whistle once and only one student managed to draw blood when goofing off with the tape measure. If you are think to yourself that isn't a success then you have never taught children.

One of the girls, Claudia, got hold of my camera and took picture of her classmate. She didn't get the whole crew but here is a good chunk of my 2nd grade class.

Up first is the adorable and amazingly quite Sandy. I adore her because I never had to tell her to raise her hand to talk, instead I have to call on her if I want to hear her voice. I just can't be happy either I think they are to loud or I think they are to quite.


Next in the line up is Benson. This kid is funny and wants to be good but it hard when all your friends, who are little hellions, are having so much fun being obnoxious. He always has something to add to class and never let a minute pass in silence.

Cindy, her name is Cindy, and I keep calling her Sandy. I struggle with names it is a bit ridiculous. No, it is ridiculous. Cindy is quite but she won't put up with any of the crap the boys try to pull. She is not going to do their work and if they are working in partners and not pulling their weight she lets me know. I love it.

Alice wants to learn English. Her hand is the first one up and she is alway trying to say something. It is usually contains large amounts of Chinglish but at least she is trying and she talks about something beside poop. A common topic for the males in the class. I am glad that at least on of my girls is a talker.

Jerry would be the sweetheart of the class. The kid is always trying to pay attention and he does what I ask!!! Plus he has the talent of being one of the boys without getting into trouble like the rest. He gets along with everyone. Thank goodness for the peacemakers in the world. He doesn't like having his picture taken. . . I'm sure you noticed.

There are four more kids in the class Claudia, the photographer, Jon, he was absent today, Rick and Jack. Rick and Jack are the bane of my existence. They are the reason teachers do not last long in the teaching profession. They are hyperactive, loud and can not remember to raise their hands. They are also hilarious and carry all the conversations in class. I will admit that things were rough the first week but I think we are all settling in and I think we will have a blast this semester. I am all ready falling for these second graders.