Tales from Immature Juniors

Steve and I were out of town this weekend for a funeral in Utah, which was on Tuesday. There was no school on Monday so I only had to get a substitute for Tuesday. I guess my 4th period was horrible for my aid Nicole and the sub. They are a very wild and immature group of juniors. Nicole was so angry she pulled a few of the boys who were acting up out of the room and explained that Mrs. Bonner is at a funeral and is very sad and how do you think it is going to make her feel to know that they were acting bad? Nothing like a little guilt. Then she made the students who were acting up write down what they were doing, that they were sorry and then made them sign and date it. When I got back yesterday she had them read their sorrys to me and to the rest of the class. Here are a few of the I’m sorry notes. I will leave the miss-spelled words. Just imagine these boys standing in front of the class reading this. It took everything I had not to laugh!

“I was laughing in class. I will not laugh stupidly again. I am sorry”.

“I am sorry for make monkey noice (noises). I will not make ananizie (animal) noice no more”.

“I would not get up out of my set (seat) and jump up and down and make noises and I am sorry”. 1/22/08 1:50 pm

“I am sorry for laughing in class, and making clicking noises”.

There are good people left in the world!

So, sometimes I get a little cynical about the world do to where I work and who I deal with daily. Yesterday I decided to get my nails done to make myself feel feminine and pretty (girls, you know what I mean). I was talking to the person doing my nails about teaching, etc. There was a man getting a manicure next to me and got up to pay and asked me how much my nails were going to be? I told him $20.00, then he got out an extra $20 and paid for mine too! I told him that he didn't have to do that. He said that he asked his sister-in-law what she wanted for her birthday and she said just to do something nice for someone else. He also told me that he was a a retired teacher and appreciates what I do, and to keep teaching. How nice is that? There are good people left in the world after all! My nails look great by the way...

Taiwan

We are back!!! Steve and I just got back from a two week exploration of Taiwan and Thailand. What an adventure. The reason we went to Asia this Christmas is to visit Steve’s parents who are missionaries for our church in Taichung, Taiwan. I’ll break the blog into two sections: Taiwan and Thailand.

Taiwan: After a 13 hour flight out of SFO Steve and I landed in Taiwan and took the high speed rail train to Taichung. Bill and Ruth had emailed us a bunch of Chinese characters to show to taxi drivers to help get us there, and it worked! Taichung is the 3rd largest city in Taiwan. In many ways it was similar to big cities in the US, except everything and everyone is Chinese. There are not many tourists there. We got stares and smiles where ever we went. We even had someone ask for our autographs. We kept a very busy schedule to help with our jet lag and had an abbreviated Christmas eve together. Next morning Bill had arranged for a rental car to be delivered so we grabbed breakfast and were off to Sun Moon Lake and the Buddha Monastery for the day. Sun Moon lake was beautiful! There was a large temple on the hill with a gorgeous view. All of the temples there were very colorful and elaborate. We opened our presents Christmas evening. It was an interesting Christmas b/c most of the Taiwan are not Christians, so Christmas was like any other day there. We were able to load up on the culture of Taiwan with visits to LuKang, the Taiwan Cultural Center, the Science Center, local Buddha and Confucius temples. We went on a cool hike at Dakung where Bill persuaded all to take the unknown trail which turned out more scenic but much harder going. We left on the 5 am bus for the airport Friday and headed for Bangkok. It was so great to see them after a year. All of the missionaries told us what a great job they are doing and how much they loved them.

Thailand

Thailand: It was a 4 hour flight into Bangkok. We got there in the afternoon and we were unsure of what to do. After getting to our hotel we called a taxi company and had someone take us on a 5 hour tour. He first drove us to the main part of town and we took a long boat ride through part of the city. We saw more temples and a lot of slums built right over the water. We bought a wooden carved elephant from a peddler selling on a row boat that pulled up to our boat. Our tour guide drove us around the palace. Thailand has a king who has been reigning for 60 years. There are pictures of him everywhere. They seem to really love him. The palace was spectacular! He then dropped us off at the famous night market where we were able to bargain for designer handbags and sunglasses, etc. It was pretty fun. In my opinion one hour there was not enough… Everyone had told us how cheep Thailand was, but b/c the US dollar is so week now, it’s not as cheep as it use to be =( There were many other places we wanted to see in Thailand, like the floating markets, but we got there too late and everything was closed. If we had to do it over again I think we would have spent two days there instead of one. Oh Well. The next morning we boarded a small plane for Krabi, which is in the south. It was about an hour flight. Krabi is a beach resort town. Our hotel was about a 5 minute walk from the beach. Krabi is similar to Hawaii, just more lush. I feel like we were the only Americans there. I guess b/c we are so far away from Thailand. It was so nice to just be able to relax and soak-up the sun for a few days. We spend a lot of time lying on the beach and swimming in the warm water. One day we took a day trip to 4 different islands via a long boat. We snorkeled and had all sorts of fun! Another day we rented a scooter and explored. We found a hike to a Temple at the top of a cliff. It was 13,000 STEEP steps to the top, but we made it! It was an amazing view. There were signs every where about where to go if there was a Tsunami. The tsunami in 2004 just devastated this region. There were lots of monkeys there. If you fed them they would crawl on your lap. I keep trying to convince Steve that we should buy a monkey, but I don’t think it is working…