I got it one piece at a time...

Pretty long day on this end of life, but for everyone starting up Tuesday: Don't worry. I made it. It's going to be great. Always nice to have a word from the future, right? 

1) Went to the Taipei campus today to meet with Dr. Shih, a professor in Ming Chuan's Education department. Dr. Shih was a principal and a superintendent before becoming a professor and he shared with me all kinds of insights about Taiwanese secondary education, especially about classroom structure. He felt that it was best to have teachers instruct to students and to minimize discussions in class. Rather, teachers should encourage the students to discuss privately with them after class, or in smaller groups.

2) I read ten research article abstracts for the Education department that they're hoping to have published in English journals. They asked me to proofread for clarity and grammar. They were each between 150 and 200 words, but it was pretty painstaking work. I'd read a sentence, read on Wikipeidia or some other site about the topic, then correct as much of the English as I could. Their English is really good, but I'm neither an education expert nor am I an English expert. But, did what I could and am looking back over them now. As an edit, I'm STILL looking over them roughly two hours later. Could be a long night, but I'll sleep when I'm dead!

3) First presentation is tomorrow, about American Higher Education. The presentation is laughably simplistic, but I know they'll bring some great questions and we can hopefully have some fun conversation.

4) My general American Culture presentation is Thursday. I'm still working on it, but I'm hoping I can find a way to post it to the blog.  Who doesn't want to see a PowerPoint presentation filled with baseball clips, Superman, beer, muscle cars and Jay-Z? Oh, and let us not forget, Gap commercials. Oh, but baby, it's cold outside indeed. Yes, AndrewBear, Christmas will make an appearance. 

I also had some amazing chocolate toast tonight. I'm not sure what it actually was, but from what I can gather it's a bread similar to challa, in a cone shape. It's hollowed out and filled with melted dark chocolate. It hardens, but stays mushy. You eat and fall into a foodlustcoma. Go on, cue up the slow clap!