My Corner for Education

The phone rang in the middle of one afternoon last week. I answered the phone, and a guy with a very strong accent on the other end of the line introduced himself as Michael Williams from the so-called “Window Service Centre”, claiming to be a contracted agency for Microsoft. He indicated that they had received messages from my computer, and they had a good reason to believe that my computer had encountered some issues with viruses (a problem which I happened to experience at the time).

I was skeptical but didn’t disbelieve him right away. I was somewhat curious about how he got hold of my personal information while he was trying to tell me that I had a computer virus and I needed to let him solve my problem. He wanted me to verify my name, address and phone number. Well. Well. Now, this is always a funny part when I get any telemarketing phone call from who-know-where. I immediately replied, “Wait, you should know my phone number and my name because you are the one who called me! I didn’t call you! So, why should I verify my information with you? I should ask you to prove yourself and how you got hold of my personal information."  (I could be very blunt, or pretend to be comical when I played this chatting game on the phone.)

Throughout our phone conversation, I kept pressing for how his company got hold of my personal information without my permission, and I would like to talk to his supervisor regarding the invasion of privacy. I was more annoyed with that than anything else. However, every time when I asked him questions, he would try to come back to my computer problem. It was like he was reading off a script, and he did not like to be steered away from his script. This went on for a long time. I finally had enough and told him that I knew very little about computer technical problems (a computer dummy), and I would have my family call him later. First, I asked him if his last name is Williams or William. He could not understand what I was trying to ask. That is strange, isn’t it? Haha…. Then, I asked for his phone number and address so I could call him back later. At first, he did not want to give me his phone number. He gave me a 6-digit phone number, which did not make sense at all, because our number has 7 digits. I told him that his phone number does not make sense and asked what his area code was. He had no idea what I meant about area code. I knew then this guy with an accent, very likely East Indian accent, had no idea about his area code. In fact, he didn’t know his own last name. Hahara…..

Anyway, after I hung up, I dial *69 to locate him and got hold of the source of a phone number. I then called that number back. A recording message from the federal government explained that the number I was trying to dial was a phishing scam. The government beat me to it and the big brother was watching them already! Splendid!

The fact is Microsoft would never call us for our personal computer problem. These scammers are just trying to gain access to our computer, so they could get our personal information. Shame on them!

This afternoon while I was almost snoozing on the couch (what a luxury for me), the phone rang. A voice introduced himself as Thomas William, a representative from Window Call Centre. He asked me if I had experienced problems with my computer. Here you go again! Why would they pick the same last name? Anyway, I was more annoyed that he interrupted my once-in-a-blue-moon “beauty sleep” in the afternoon. I went on the same routine phishing about how he got hold of my personal information and where he was located.  This went on for a while and going nowhere. At the end, I just screamed at him and told him that he (Thomas William), Michael Williams, or whatever Williams they want to call themselves should stop this scam. I have talked to the official and they are watching their move. Get lost, scammers! 

My classroom was flooded on Friday because a water pipe in the ceiling next room burst during the night. The water crashed through the ceiling and flooded the room next door. It was like a lake flooding the whole room. The room next door was totally ruined. You should see my friend's face turning green after he saw his room. He apparently had a fight with his wife in the morning and then that! Throughout the day, he had to air dry his books, toys, charts and shelves. Somehow the water seeped through the dividing concrete-block wall to my room. Thank Goodness! Mine only had minor damage. Most of my books and resources are in the plastic Rubbermaid containers. Only three boxes of posters and books in banker's boxes were lost in the water. However, stress level went up when the kids came in after the bell. Can you imagine trying to teach a classroomful of kids while rescuing the books and furniture? By mid-morning, my fever blister and headache came back. I didn't get home till eight thirty Friday night. Yeah, I was TOTALLY exhausted.

I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. However, the old energetic granny (Let’s call her Grammy H.)  who was sharing the hospital room with me had a severe hearing problem. People literally had to scream to her ears all the time to communicate with her. I was forced to watch the whole charade in the room. Grammy H could not remember her nurse’s name, either. In fact, she had repeatedly asked the same nurse about her name and where she lived whenever she came in to check on her. I finally had a chuckle and exchanged the look with the nurse. Oh, my my!

Grammy H had her whole family come in and out of the hospital room to visit her everyday. They all spoke so loud that I was forced to take in whatever they discussed in the room. Heck, I had no choice but to listen to her whole family drama during my four-day stay at the hospital. What can we say? When you share a room with a patient like Grammy H, you really have no choice but to live with it. So, I might as well write it down for my blog, and this is how it happened.

Grammy H came into the hospital because she had an earache and an accidental fall at home. Grammy H was almost 91 years old and living with one of her grandsons, Junior. Junior apparently was the main caretaker for her because he was living with her due to his job location in town. In fact, from all the conversations I’d heard, I believe he was the only one, of all people, who truly cared about Grammy H. I got to talk to him and his father when they came in to visit her. The way Junior talked to Grammy H was so genuine and appeared to have no condition attached, which was very different from the other family members of hers.

Grammy’s other family members came in to visit her as well, and they all wanted something from her. The daughter kept pressuring Grammy to sign a paper to state that she would not wish to move out of her home after her discharge from the hospital. She also brought her children in to pressure Grammy to sign the paper. Their reason was that they did not want Grammy to move out of the house. Apparently, Grammy lived in a big house with Junior, and she loved her house and garden. They told Grammy that if she did not sign the paper, they (the hospital doctors and her son) would put her in a nursing care or take her away to a farm.

Grammy wanted to stay in her house, but she also knew that her daughter had a different reason for wanting her to stay in the big house. Grammy told her brothers and other relatives that her daughter just wanted to have the access to her house and her property. From what I had heard, Grammy H just wanted to go home with Junior, her beloved grandson from her son’s side. She believed that Junior would take care of her because he was the only one who cared about her.

I really miss the atmosphere of a traditional Chinese New Year.

Living in a town where only a few Chinese are around, Chinese New Year is just another working day for me. So, how did I celebrate Chinese New Year? I went to work as usual, got home, heated up my left-over dinner, stirred fried tomatoes with eggs over a bed of rice, and ate it.

SAD!

Happy New Year to all my friends and readers. Enjoy the special New Year events in Taiwan.

無題

我最討厭放假前生病，因為我的整個假期就泡湯了！大部份的放假時間我都在養病。即使已經痊癒了，我還是得 “閉關自守”，小心再次著涼。我已經不會傳染給別人了，但是身體還是很虛弱。這次的流行性感冒在學校傳染了好一陣子，好多人都受到感染。我算是最後的受害者之一。

今年的聖誕節我就獨自在家中過，連家庭聚餐我也沒去。因為我不想讓去年的歷史重演。去年家中九十二高齡的老姨媽剛搬到養老院裹，一整個院裹的老人流傳嚴重的流行性腸胃炎，上吐下瀉，而她也被感染。我們要她好好休養，但是她堅持要參加家庭聚餐。結果，除了我以外，全家都在餐後中標。所以今年我主動堅持要在家養病，不想當家庭罪人，但是整日實在是無聊之極。

 生病的日子是非常痛苦的！

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I hate being sick right before the holidays, because I spent most of my vacation time recuperating from the sickness. Even though I am feeling much better, I still have to take it easy and avoid catching the cold again. I am not contagious to other people, but my body is still very weak. This flu has been passed around at school for quite a while, many people were infected. I was one of the latest victims.

This Christmas I decided to stay home alone and did not go to the family dinner. I did not want to repeat what happened last year. Last year, our ninety-two year old aunt just moved to a retirement home. The Norwalk virus was spreading around at the retirement home before Christmas. The aunt was infected with severe gastroenteritis and diarrhea. We wanted her to take rest at home, but she insisted on attending the family dinner. The whole family got sick afterwards except me. So, this year I took the initiative and volunteered to stay home for recuperation. I did not want to be the guilty one, but the day alone at home was really boring.

It has been ten days since I started to feel ill. I don’t want to write about the flu because the feelings are awful. Plus, I am so sick and tired of this flu already, and I get grumpy. Put it this way, I wouldn’t wish this flu upon any of my worst enemies.

When you have a lot of free time with nothing to do other than groaning and moaning in bed with the fever and cough, you would have no choice but to do lot of thinking. I did it, anyway, in and out of sleep. In fact, for a few days, I was so drugged out that I had hallucinations. Now, I am able to walk around a bit and stay awake for a longer period of time. It is about time for me to kill some time here.

 Anyway, these are my grumpy thoughts from the sick bed. Please bear with me.

 What is the spirit of Christmas?

The Spirit of Helping

Every year I take on the organization of a Christmas food drive for our school community. This year, instead of donating all the food to the food bank or Salvation Army, we packed them for some of our school families first. I am pretty sure that most of the food went to help the needy every year. Do the people who are at the receiving end feel happy about the baskets they have received? I don’t know the answer. I usually choose to be the collector of food, instead of the packer and deliverer of the baskets. I don’t know if I can handle the delivering to people I know. I know I would definitely cry when I get to the food bank or talk to the people there. I think I would rather remain anonymous.

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I am a ghost from the past. I love Jane Austen, the Bronte Sisters, and Charles Dickens. The characters in Dickens’ books all seemed to live in a dark and dingy time period, in need of a big scrub in the tub. I wish I could fly back in time to see the past though. That was a romantic thought. However, the presence is really the past for those children of presence in the future. Does that sentence make any sense to you at all? Well, bear with me; I am sick, you know. I just mumbled. Anyway, talking about children, some children could make me nosebleed.

Last evening, it was our school musical for the grade 2 to grade 5 students. All the classes had to sing in the choir for the musical. Each class as a group had taken a different role in the musical and had to learn quite a few songs. My class was the opening act. They had to sing and dance as “the elves”. I made each student a red scarf. It looked great with the elf hat that I bought for each one of them. A year ago, I found some mini finger flashlights from the dollar store. I had been saving them for a whole year for a special opportunity. We finally used them last night. Each student had two flashlights, one on each hand. The students were just adorable with the whole outfit. The music teacher and I told everybody to wear a white top with dark pants because the elf outfit would be totally perfect with the white. We went through a few dress rehearsals without any problem.

 I have a really good group of students this year. Half of the class has been with me for two years, so they know me and my expectations very well. A couple of the new additions to the class, however, might be a bit challenging at times, but don’t we all have one or two students who are sort of the “mission of the year”? Hahah… Anyway, here is what happened to one of those students last night.

 The concert started at 7:00, so most students were told to arrive at 6:40. However, I told my class to arrive at 6:30 because we were the opening act and we should be getting ready on stage at 6:55. I warned them not to be late or they would be missing the first performance. It did happen before that some students arrived really late, right after their class performances. It broke their hearts!

 All my students arrived on time and wore the appropriate attire. They looked so adorable! Anyway, all of them arrived, except one! The clock ticked and I finally had to give up waiting for her. I grabbed that student’s lights, hat and scarf and lead the class onto the stage. The curtains were drawn and a few minutes before our performance, the girl finally ran up to the stage to join the line, but with a pink and black sweater on! Goodness Gracious! What was she thinking?

 We had been through the rehearsals, and in fact, we had a dress rehearsal that afternoon. I even prepared extra white shirts for people who needed a white shirt. Now she arrived late and with a totally different outfit for the choir. I almost had a fit. I could not drag her off the stage since the show was ready to start. I quickly put the scarf and the hat on her, and send her back to the line.

 All in all, they had a fantastic performance last evening. Today, we had a little discussion in class about last night. I asked the girl why she did not follow the instructions to wear the proper attire for the choir. She said, “My mom said I should be different and be who I want to be.” (What? Can I smack that mother of hers?) Then, I asked her if she actually realized that she was NOT singing as a soloist but in a “choir” for a musical, just like the choir in the church. She said, “I don’t go to church, so I don’t know about the church choir.”  I replied, “I don’t go to church, either, but if I were singing as a member in a church choir, I would have to be singing in unison and dress the same as the others. It is called the teamwork!” Plus, we all got the same instructions as the other classes. Why should she be special? I know the little girl did not make the decision to arrive late, but she did not deliver the messages home correctly, either.

 I am so fed up with people who are so righteous about whatever they want to do and totally disregard the rest of the world. I know I should not be upset with a little girl. However, if she was not told about how her personal decision may affect the team, she would grow up to be another arrogant adult who thinks her personal “freedom of expression” is more important than the priority of the team. Can you imagine seeing a basketball player who decided to ditch the team colour and wear his own jersey instead? That would never happen in the real world. I find that children sometimes behave certain way that mirrors their parents’ attitude. This girl’s mother often comes in to talk to me. Once she had admitted that she is very disorganized herself, and no wonder that the child has difficulty getting herself organized.

 Anyway, my students had a superb performance and the concert is now over. Not only did they sing as the elves, they also worked like the elves helping me promote the holiday food drive for the community. They helped broadcast over the PA system on the daily public announcement, and they went to different classes to collect food. They are good citizens in training. It’s better to start them up when they are young. They are truly my angels of the year!

I am lying in the hospital bed alone, listening to the charades of people shuffling through the hallway, coming in and out of each room. It is the family visit hour. I am staying in the hospital for a short term, and hopefully, I may be able to get out of here on Monday. However, most of the people I have met on this floor would need some contingency plan in place before they can go back home. I am the youngest among the patients here. Most of them are seniors. I am in a semi private room. The lady who shares the room with me is going to be 90 this year. For the last few days, I have watched and listened to the conversations and movements on the floor. I have seen the ugliest family feud over family estate before my own eyes. I am sitting here alone without my family beside me. I can sense and relate the feelings of loneliness to many of these seniors who don’t get any family to visit them. This is the situation that I can foresee myself in the future, being old and alone. Everything happens for a reason. I start to wonder if it is a sign to show me that I should volunteer for lonely seniors who simply have nobody to come visit them in the hospital.