September 1984


9-4-84
          I am going to have to forego teaching at the Language Testing and Training Center this term. Teaching there [in addition to full-time at Fu Jen University] would mean having to work ten-hour days. I do not know a teacher alive that could handle that.

9-10-84
          I have been home all day; the first time I have been off since the first few days back in Taipei [in July] but I have not enjoyed it much; I am worn out. I had to cancel a private 600NT hour class Saturday evening. On Sunday, I taught at Kuo-Ding kiddie school and then I went up to Taipei American School to play in the first exhibition softball game of the fall season.

9-25-84 8:25am
          More than anything else, I appreciate the office space at Fu Jen. If I did not have to share the office, I could lie down; I am pretty bleary-eyed. I wake up at six, catch the #23 bus at 6:40am, to the school bus near the Taipei Train Station. It leaves at 7:30am and gets to Fu Jen twenty minutes later. The total travel time, not including waiting, is forty-five minutes.
 I had no class yesterday but I failed to realize that; when I walked into Sister Helena’s office to ask for the room schedule she said, “You know the freshmen classes do not begin till mid-October.” I said that I did know and had only come in to get things settled and visit the Writing Lab. Tom Nash was there in the Lab. His status is a little above mine though I do not think his salary is. I have a sophomore composition/conversation class to hit it off with at 10:10am. I want to catch the 12:10pm bus home.

9-27-84
          It is such a difference from Taipei looking out of my office window at Fu Jen. I can see mountains, the school chapel, the business school classrooms, clouds, sky, trees, grass; only an occasional car, students walking, some bicycles…it is so peaceful here. To think of Taipei; polluted, traffic jams, disorderly, noise everywhere. I think I am going to like it here. I do not like getting out here, but I like it here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

March-April 1985

3-4-85           My old 102 class is starting 104 tomorrow and a private conversation class with me soon, perhaps next Sunday evening. I am on my spring schedule now; private classes change though these seem stable. 3-16-85           It was made official yesterday; I will not be rehired as a full-time teacher at Fu Jen next school year. Its English department may not be worse than English departments in other universities in Taiwan but I cannot imagine one having a more feared and misguided chair. It is a relief. It has caused me so much unnecessary pain. I am not the bad teacher she thinks and I am not alone in her contempt. Last week I began to type up letter to other schools. I enjoy the prestige of being at a university and I know I have the background to deserve a position at one, at least in Taiwan I do. I have no illusions about being a college professor in the United States but my...
Read more

December 1984

12-7-84           From the moment I walked into Fu Jen and Helena told me in the hallway that my mother [had called her from Brooklyn about my daughter who was recently ill] and wanted me to call her back; our home phone was having a problem and she couldn’t get through.           Those two huffy American educated Taiwanese teachers grate on my nerves. I wish I did not have to deal with them. We agree to do something and then they disconnect and do it slightly different. My position in the good Sister’s mind gives them their leeway. They made the midterm exam without me, though I agreed to it [after the fact.] I have nothing to say. It is a little more than just the way they do it. I did something I never did before and I will never do again; I made up test grades randomly on the test I had no part in. I put off [fudging the grades] two times and then faked it not wanting to struggle with it...
Read more