Life Lessons Learned as a Jane of All Trades

Crossing Guard
- Dressing for the cold, sometimes less is more. Layers should be loose enough to have some give. If they are tightly packed on, the cold comes right through. I also learned that taping two handwarmers to myself (one to my back and one to my chest) worked wonders.
- Dressing for the cold is a carefully honed skill, but it can be done
- I still feel chilled after being in the cold for an extended amount of time
- How to give directions to the DMV that relocated during the time I worked as a crossing gaurd

Cleaner / Housekeeper
- How to clean a mirror or glass and leave no streaks
- A well maintained toilet is not hard to clean (actually it's easy)
- Cleaning is easier if using fewer cleaning chemicals for the following three reasons: 1) water, friction, and elbow grease are the main things that clean, 2) the chemicals are potent and not a lot is needed to kill germs, 3) the more chemicals you use, the longer it takes to rinse them away
- Cleaning is a physically demanding job, and the people who do it are doing honorable work
- The best rags in the world are not expensive, they are your old towels and wash cloths

Natural Landscaper
- Lawn is less awesome than most Americans make it out to be. It gives us no food, doesn't do anything for us except look vaguely pretty, and makes good picnicking spaces. But tons of people spend so much time, energy, and money to fertilize and mow these endless fields of grass to what point?
- There is huge diversity and beauty in Wisconsin's native plants and wildflowers

Restaurant Clerk / Busser
- The customer isn't always right, and they might just be at the wrong restaurant
- Subway should definitely have horseradish available
- Working in a high class restaurant, even in the lowest position, is a million times better than working at Subway
- The diversity found in kitchen staff of a restaurant can be one of the best perks to the job

Volunteer, Missionary / Living Overseas
- I don't need to be near my parents and family to survive
- Homesickness was never so bad for me as many people describe
- Being away from home opens your eyes to new worlds, new ways of thinking, new ways of life
- Opening your eyes to other worlds helps you see your own world more clearly
- You can't fix everyone's problems, even as a full-time volunteer
- Other countries have much to boast, but the longer I'm away, the more I appreciate the beauty Wisconsin has to offer
- Building relationships with people who speak a different language from you is possible, it just takes extra work

Nanny
- Kids can't be forced to develop in an area before they're ready. They can only be budged.
- Young children don't benefit that much from doing homework all evening after being at school all day. They would benefit more from eating a family dinner and running and playing like a kid.
- Kids are amazing creatures and parents are willing to do a lot for their success
- It is extremely rewarding to care for kids and to watch them grow

Parks and Rec Children's Activity Leader / Art Teacher / English Teacher
- Kids are a joy to teach, and very difficult to teach
- It is easier to focus on children's' behaviors than on the root of those behaviors
- I prefer teaching smaller groups of kids than large groups of kids. The benefit is so much greater in small groups or in one-on-one interactions.
- It is always best to come more prepared than necessary
- Being able to deviate from the plan in a pinch is a very important skill in teaching
- Kids are ALWAYS at least a little bit unpredictable
- Kids are a ton of fun to work with

Wife
- Onion and garlic breath are the worst! Kisses are better held off until the next day in extreme cases because toothpaste doesn't always help
- Getting married was a better choice than I ever realized it could be. I love being partners for life with my best friend, and I love waking up next to him each day
- The happiest husband is also a well-fed husband
- Guys are more sensitive creatures than people like to make them out to be. They need to feel respected and encouraged by their wives more than from anyone else in the world
- When your husband feels beat down by life, being there as his wife is one of the best things in the world to pick him up again
- While nobody is perfect, Rex is one of the most caring, gentle, thoughtful guys I have ever known. He is honest and wants the best for people, even if it means telling them something that is not easy to hear
- It is a lot easier than I ever realized to unintentionally say something about Rex that makes him feel discouraged or put down
- It is necessary to be willing to apologize and talk it out with Rex when I make mistakes (and they do happen!)

Daughter-In-Law to a Taiwanese Couple
- My mother-in-law has really good strategies for preventing nasty smells, cockroaches, and mold from filling your house
- My in-laws have different methods of showing their care and concern for us than the ones my own parents default to, but they really make a lot of effort to make me feel welcome and to make sure we're doing well - even with our little language gap

Living in a Tiny Apartment in a Tropical Climate
- It is totally doable, it only presents unique challenges not imagined by most of my American friends
- Plants, a couple of beautiful things, and personal photos go a long way to making a space feel like home
- Mold, cockroaches, and potent smells are some of the biggest motivators to maintain a clean kitchen
- Regularly doing just a little cleaning and straightening goes a long way to making a space feel like home
- Choose your purchases carefully. Each one takes up more space, and if it does that it needs to add somehow to the quality of your life

Thoughts of Beginnings

This is a little tidbit I wrote as I was still struggling through my first trimester:

"Each morning a struggle to get out of bed, each new day a struggle to eat breakfast without throwing it back up again, each day a struggle to find food that won't make me feel immediately repulsed, many days a struggle to finish anything before my energy is gone and I find myself simply exhausted, finished, and ready to sleep the afternoon away.

"This is the common struggle of many women long before they ever meet their child. For some the external symptoms are more or less extreme; for each person and each pregnancy, the experience is different. But before we know anything about the baby - personality, gender, physical features, etc., we fight through the days of exhaustion or nausea waiting until we know this child that seems to have come from out of nowhere.

"I have learned the stories of some for whom the morning sickness was so extreme that they felt suicidal - and yet would go through it again because they are now very happy and contented with their children and in their role as a mother. All these things a mother endures for her children - and this is long before the dramatic event of [birth], the continual [work] of feeding and nurturing, the struggle to teach the child how to live and live well as a person and as a part of society."

What an amazing process it is to become a parent.

On Learning the Chinese Language (and feeling it can be done!)

In March I began to take Chinese classes with actual classmates. I haven't had classmates that I can see with my eyes in forever because so many of my studies have been online. I find the experience enjoyable, if not at times grueling. The process is also very rewarding when you begin to see the results. It was a wonderful experience to read a paragraph to my sister-in-law recently who only had to tell me how to pronounce a couple of characters when I sat down to do my homework at her house recently. She was surprised at how much I am now able to read! I was happy to surprise her. My literacy still doesn't apply well to restaurant menus and groceries, unfortunately.

It is also a milestone to observe that many of my thoughts come to me in Chinese, and I even find myself waking up in the morning speaking Chinese to Rex rather than translating my initial Chinese thoughts into English. It's interesting how versatile the mind can be.

Chinese is a different process than learning, say, French, Spanish or German. Those are languages with a phonetical system of writing. Each word sounds like itself, even though there may be words that sound alike. In those other languages you can see a sign somewhere, sound it out, and ask someone what that word means (or guess at its meaning.) In Chinese you see a character, and until you have been taught its meaning and pronunciation, it will mean literally nothing to you. Chinese has one syllable words which could have a plethora of meanings on their own, and context is necessary for people to understand what you mean.

An example of the reality of this might be something like this following conversation.

Me:          What does "present" mean?

Teacher:   *blank stare*    Which "present"?

Me:          I don't know. (I try to pronounce the word again applying all four possible tones, which you might be able to imitate by means of my punctuation) Present? Present! Present?!?! Present...

Teacher:    Oh, do you mean the "present" like "gift"? Or "present" like the one that means you're here? Or "present" like the one that means "report"?

Me:         Yeah, the one that means a gift!

So you get the idea. One time I said "pig" instead of "Lord" to explain a song I know in Romanian. I had to sing a line of a Chinese song in order to give her the context because I had no recollection of which tone "Lord" is said with.

Teacher:    What was that Romanian song about?

Me:           It's just saying that God is truly "pig" over everything

Teacher:    *blank stare* You mean...

Me:           *singing* Lord, I come before you...

Teacher:    Oh, you mean Lord! That is in the fourth tone, not the first tone. Otherwise you're talking about a pig.

Chinese is also achievable; it just requires long, patient, persistent hours of effort in order to become literate. Each word has to be learned for itself, and yet the same parts of the characters are frequently recycled. One benefit is that there are words that you can "sound out" because it has a radical that often indicates a general pronunciation. But a character with that same radical might be said "zhong" "dong" or perhaps "chong". But it's helpful for guessing.

Chinese grammar is relatively easy especially compared to the Western languages we're accustomed to learning, but you do have to become familiar with word order and the logic about how to formulate sentences. We would say "I went to the store yesterday" but Chinese would say "I yesterday went to the store." We say an address starting with the house address, and ending with the State. Here they begin with the biggest thing first, for example: country, county, city, district, road, house number, name.

My listening and speaking in Chinese is still more advanced than my reading and writing, but I am happy to say that on both my final exams this year, I got 90 or 92%. I was surprised to get such a high grade in my August final exam because I had missed so much class time that semester due to morning sickness and/or an urgent need for sleep.

On Becoming Someone's Mama

Unless you don't know already, I'm expecting a baby! She is due on February 2 and we are becoming more and more anxious to meet her, not just feel her kicks.

I have a few observations about becoming a mom.

1. Mom's sacrifice a lot for a little person they know nothing about. Especially in the first trimester of pregnancy (and for some all throughout the pregnancy like my sister) we endure physical difficulties such as perpetual nausea, exhaustion, and a plethora of strange things our bodies do to us while forming a tiny person inside.

2. Morning sickness is worse than I imagined (and mine wsan't even that bad). It's not always like you feel normal and suddenly you have to puke, although that can happen. More often than not you feel like you're unwell with a stomach virus. You might feel better at noon, or you might continue to feel ill all day. I know one lady who had to stay in bed for 12 weeks of each of her five pregnancies and would throw up as much as twelve times a day.

3. Becoming a parent can be overwhelming. (I've got to take care of this vulnerable little life and be responsible for it until they turn 18 years old?!?!) Yet, the longer I anticipate the baby coming, the more excitement I get.

4. Each culture has very different ideas about what is good or bad to do during pregnancy and immediately after the birth. Chinese culture has an especially long list of superstitions, traditions, and practices that are not going out of vogue any time soon. Western thought is much, much different on these things and affords expectant and new moms a lot more freedom than Eastern culture. This merits a blog post of its own.

5. The first few weeks when you start feeling a baby kicking inside of you is very faint, and it seems somehow wrong that there is a living thing, maybe the size of your hand, kicking and squirming on the inside. Does it remind anyone of a parasite? (I apologize to my daughter if she one day catches a glimpse of this blog. I truly don't think of you as a parasite, but it truly is a strange sensation. Since you're not a boy, you have the chance to find out for yourself one day.) By the way, Rex loves feeling the baby's kicks, too!

6. Somehow, there is a love that grows for this unknown person growing inside. When all I know about the baby is that it exists, that it is growing, and that it is my child, it is still possible for a special kind of love to grow. I now know that my baby is a girl, that the doctor said her tummy is a little big, and that she likes to suck her fingers and spin in cartwheels (or did, she might be too crowded now), but I know nothing about her personality, her potential, what she will become one day, or anything.

7. It is super easy for my mind to become entirely absorbed by the subject of babies, baby prep, and baby care, as well as the development in the womb week by week. Four more months seems like an eternity to wait for her arrival, and yet it is also so very short!

Food and Predictability

I chuckle when I talk to my friend Amy who is spending the semester in Thailand. She told me once that she - the one who likes trying new foods and adventure - often finds herself opting for "the usual" when eating out. She actually has something that can be considered "the usual," something not usual for her.

I thought about this, and I thought it really makes sense. When there is so much outside of your control, it is nice to have something that is regular, something that you can control or at least know what to expect.

I find myself doing this with dumplings here in Taiwan. A bag of frozen dumplings from the grocery store is easy to prepare and it's filling. At restaurants where the menu is a list of bewildering and mysterious characters, it is nice to know where I can find a bowl of cheap but filling dumplings or wanton soup.

The other day I found a new restaurant and decided to try it out. They advertised beef noodle soup, a favorite food in Taiwanese restaurants. I decided to break out of my norm and order a bowl of the said soup. On the menu I recognized Beef Soup accompanied with other characters that I didn't bother observing or trying to understand. When the bowl came, to my surprise, it was full of beef broth with pork dumplings. They were tasty, but I was still eating dumplings

Today I went to the main station for buses, subways, trains, and the High Speed Rail. Inside there is a plethora of restaurants with incredible variety of choices. Here I intended to buy myself lunch. After buying a small dessert I walked around, decided there were simply too many choices, and returned home to cook for myself here.

Types of Adventures

I realize that when I went to Romania, there was a sense of excitement of seeing a new foreign place - a place in Europe. I had always wanted to go to Europe, albeit Germany or England, not the rural backside of Romania. I loved Romania, aside from the dust, the stray dogs, the culture in the South part that included yelling to be expressive whether you were angry or not, the blunt honesty if something was considered offensive or irritating by one of the locals, the overly traditional views of gender roles that were more frustrating than helpful. I loved the food, I loved the warmth of the people, I loved their enthusiasm for life, their passion, and I loved the sound of the language. Romanian rolls off the tongue and caresses the ear, unlike the strange tones of Chinese with uninteresting sounds not nearly so beautiful as those in Romanian.

I liked that Romanian sounds in some ways more expressive than English - especially if you're irritated you can sound like you're sincerely angry without actually being so. It was always fun reverting to Romanian when driving the car with phrases such as, "Move over!" "Goodness, you should be careful" or things like that. I especially love to tell people to "silence the mouth" (taci din gura!) when I don't want to hear what they have to say. The expression is not nearly so impolite as shut up.

Coming to Taiwan hasn't seemed as much of an adventure. I have had to handle much more of the paperwork on my own, I am joining family not simply exploring a new place, knowing new people, etc. I have had to look for work and become the provider of my tiny family of two while Rex is in the military. I am also living in an enormous city which is quite urbanized and shows less uniquely Taiwanese culture than if I were living in a rural area as I was while in Romania.

Taipei is also a relatively new city in a lot of ways. Only 50 or 60 years ago it was not much more than a fishing village recently developed by the Japanese. Prior to that Taipei City was just a fortress not much bigger than several city blocks - perhaps you could consider it a large neighborhood. But now, suddenly, it is full of new skyscrapers and high rises with a population about half the size of Wisconsin squeezed into this bowl surrounded by mountains.

Because so much of Taipei is new, there isn't all the old architecture you could see as if you visited some cities in Europe. For these reasons and because the city is just so convenient with restaurants on every block that it doesn't feel like an adventure or the same kind of challenge that I saw in Romania. I'm also a little older and more experienced than I was when I went to Romania. Regardless, Taiwan has seemed much more a puzzle than Romania because learning the language has been challenging in a different way. I'm also here with my husband in his native country. Perhaps that's the biggest reason it doesn't feel most of the time like I'm in a foreign country or a strange place. It is also very easy for me to feel like the United States is not that far away.

What strange things feelings are, aren't they?

My Personal Linguistic History

In the last ten or twelve years I have had an interesting relationship with languages. I was reminded of this journey when I arrived home and found my in-laws watching a movie in French. It was the first language I studied, but my comprehension of it is very limited.

I remember telling my mom that I wanted to learn Norwegian - the first language I was interested in learning. To this day I have only learned how to say Thank you, I have to use the bathroom, and I have to fart. You can see the influence of the high school kids who taught me these phrases.

The next language in my life was French - a high school requirement from my mom. I didn't really want to learn French, but I enjoyed the studies and worked hard, probably harder than I studied on anything else at that time. I was actually disappointed when we learned that the curriculum we used required families to pay a decent sum for additional students watching the language lessons. This was a ridiculous requirement for a home school video curriculum, in my opinion, but mom and dad couldn't afford to pay for Ginnie and me to learn with Laura, so Laura continued studying French without companions.

At some point in my high school days my parents bought Rosetta Stone software - this time a language of my choosing. I learned German in the next several months and my brothers also tagged along. I progressed quickly, but realized after some years that I really had never become conversational and understood very little of the language when actually interacting with it. This revelation was given to me by my German roommate when I went to Romania as a young adult. Her father and a friend of his visited her for a few days and I realized that my German was inadequate.

It was because of this revelation that I decided to learn Romanian to the point of conversational proficiency. When my college financial aid was lost and my work had little for me to do I found myself with plenty of spare time on my hands. I decided to use the time for learning Romanian and working on my art. Because I had not gotten very far using typical classroom approaches in previous languages and because little was readily available for Romanian language curriculum, I devised my own approach - an approach I later realized did not work as well for learning Chinese as used in Taiwan. It was fun to take the big fancy Latin borrow words we use in English and change the pronunciation to be more like Romanian and find that I could be understood. I even fooled a few Romanians that I am Romanian - something I wish I could do here in Taiwan but can't because of my physical appearance and limited language ability.

After I became proficient in Romanian (a process of about two years) I began to pick up bits and pieces of languages of those around me at my work. There was Russian from my Ukrainian coworker and Spanish from my Hispanic coworkers. I suppose I am just nerdy, but I picked up Russian phrases like "I want coffee" "How are you?" "I'm fine, thank you" and "goodbye". In Spanish I picked up little things like how to say towels, bedrooms, and "What do you want, man?" "I don't want anything" "I want you to hurry up" and even "My sister is here with her baby." It was easier to pick up on Spanish after learning so much Romanian which is much more similar to Spanish than English. People often say that English is a lot like Spanish, but I feel that English has a much closer relationship to German - a fact backed up by linguists.

Then, of course, Chinese. Why Chinese when I had never been interested in the language, in the people, or ever visiting Asia? Well I was dating (long distance) a Taiwanese guy and we were talking about getting married - what would we need to do in order to make family relationships work well if we get married? In order to talk with his parents and family I would want to speak Chinese and one day when we have a family we want our kids to be bilingual so they can speak Chinese with Rex's family and English with my family. It would just have to be a normal part of our life.

After learning Romanian where I felt I could communicate (poorly and with many errors and misunderstandings) after about 8 or 9 months, learning Chinese has felt like such a slow process. I couldn't read the language and sound out the words to learn without extensive copying and pasting into Google Translate. Google Translate used weird translations for many words. Most apps and language learning curriculum is designed for Mainland China usage - i.e. simplified characters rather than traditional, as well as words that are not commonly used in Taiwan. I also didn't have the time to dedicate to study the language like I had when I learned Romanian. I was, after all, working (whether in missions or my work back in the States), in school, working on knowing thoroughly a guy I intended to marry, eventually planning our wedding, and finally moving three times in one year. The time to dedicate to Chinese studies just wasn't there.

Now that I am in Taiwan, I have begun to see a lot more growth because I have the opportunity for immersion, I am being  given instruction and corrections by a teacher, and I am being taught piece by piece the most commonly used Chinese characters for typical conversation and communication.

Perhaps I'll write sometime about my strategies and methods for learning language that have worked or not worked for me. It could be of use for someone else.