2008-09-27

Getting Used to the Life with 2 Dwellings

Taking buses becomes a routine now, this boring and repeating activity takes me 1.5 hours every 2 days sitting dully on the seat doing nothing. Well...nothing productive can be done anyway. I usually take the bus in the evening and no light is allowed when the bus is on the highway, so even if I wanted to read something on the bus, it didn't seem ideal.....

I have 9 teaching hours a week this semester. 3 hrs on Mondays, 4 on Thursdays and 2 on Fridays. At first, I was offered the courses on Monday and Thursday. So.....I thought I could fill in Tuesday and Wednesday by taking other part time jobs. Working from Monday to Thursday and go home on Thursday evening to spend a long weekend with my hubby, being a weekday single and a weekend wife.

But, I was offered another course for Fridays and it changed my plans.
Now, I go home on Monday afternoon after I finish 3 hours teaching in the morning and come back to Taichung on Wednesday evening for Thursday and Friday class and then go home again on Friday evening until Sunday evening and so the circulation goes on~~~~~~

Tiring~~Tiring drudgery~~Traveling back and forth between Taoyuan and Taichung. Spending ineffective hours on the bus, spacing out of the window or watching the lame films the bus provides. But.........it's just.......too difficult to solve this catch 22.

Can't have the cake and eat it, too~~~~I suppose.....
I thought about fill in the gap between hours in school and thought that I could have made a decent living out of it. It would be a piece of cake for me to arrange a light schedule for a decent amount of money, but then I would have to work from Monday to Friday in Taichung living a separate life with my hubby. He has to work from Mon. to Sat. especially Saturdays, he works from 9 in the morning to 9 in the evening, he only takes Sundays off and I have to be in Taichung on Sunday evenings, which implies that if I worked from Monday to Friday in Taichung, my time alone with my hubby would be less than a day~~~What can I do, right?

We are, afterall, the newly-wed......We need to see each other more often to bond the marriage and in order to acheive it, someone needs to sacrifice. I thought things should be simplified and so, I took the role to be a commuter.

Keeping 2 dwellings is not totally bad~~~ There are some merits to be a part-time single away from marriage; such as, having my social life back. All friends that I am close to are in Taichung.
Although, I only stay in Taichung 3 nights a week, many dates can still be arranged~~that's not a problem. Meeting old friends, arranging my favorite day field trips to department stores. Taichung has the best department stores and restaurants~~~~Hehehehehe....
Slow life pace is the rhythm in Taichung~~~~fair weather, fair tea stalls, coffee shops, well-dressed people walking on the streets. ~~~Nice~~~

At the first week alone in Taichung, I couldn't sleep. I haven't slept alone for quite a while~~I don't miss much of my single nights alone, though I do miss the freedom I had~~~~but definitely not the nights I spent with only ME~~~ At least I thought I didn't miss it~~~after the first week and it went into the second, I started getting used to the feeling of getting along with ME in the room. It felt great~~ I didn't miss my hubby, on the contrary, I was expecting the date I had with my friends the next day. Mmmmmm.........................interesting........

Owning 2 dwellings and changing roles from a single woman to a married one from time to time perhaps will do good to someone like me who always whines about the present condition with dissatisfaction...... Only by rotating roles constantly can I be able to keep a balance that feeds my needs for changing.

2008-09-24

What happened to our young????

The second week in the university has been good so far. I guess, it is because the students I have now, aren't as difficult as the clients I had outside school. For this, I am not saying that students in the university have bettter understanding in English than the adult students I had before and can lessen my working load. On the contrary, they aren't any better. In fact, they are poorer in English.
What I mean " difficult" is that those I had before asked more from the teacher and demanded to know more about the correct usages, which might have challenged my own ability if I weren't good enough!!
But, here in the university, students aren't eager to improve their English, they are content with what they are capable of and the scariest thing is that, they aren't good enough as they might have thought they were~~
The reason I suppose is, unlike those adult students who spent their own hard-working money to pay for the course they took; the college students are still under the financial supports from their parents. They take the support for granted and might overestimate their abilities.

That's why I said: "they aren't as difficult!" It takes me a lot of time to prepare for the "Introduction to Literature" , but for the "Intermediate English Conversation," I am quite disappointed with their performances. As English-majors in their third year, they couldn't even use " passed the test", " go to an interview" or "get a haircut."

What happened to our kids?
I should have felt happy for not needing to put more effort in them. They are easy as a pie. But I am not happy about this, I expect more from them~~What can I do, really?