Doors Bowl 2010

we took ESL to the gridiron in the tiny town of Douliou, Taiwan. we had a few classroom lessons in which i taught my kids about the cultural craze that is American Football. for the final lesson we pumped them full of steroids and rage and marched 'em out on the field. i assigned a couple classes to write a sports review about what happened on the field that day, so in lieu of my story telling, here are some first person accounts of what happened on the field that day. (props to my people back home, without whom this would've been difficult to pull off. a big thanks and much love to zlatko and co. and grandpa 'Dosi!)

(the pics are a little out of order....sorry, i got impatient)

benny was the game's most underestimated player...he ran for record-breaking yards

julie doin her best peyton manning

yuri, on a fumble return

$cott

bit it

opening kick off

drills...

richard barreled through the D-line

arguing the call

we were playing flag football. unnecessary roughness!

reverse handoff...touchdown!

drawin plays in the dirt

wendy owned the QB position

kickin it

ocho cinco, in chinese that would be Ba-Shr-Wu

pregame pep talk. if you lose, you fail the course and you have to leave the school. if you win, you get to skip a homework assignment and a quiz

running drills

matt, special guest referee

throwing drills

intellectual ESL conversations

AK Class

Troy: Mike you are a sissy.

Vicky: (not looking up from her test) Yeah Mike, you are a sissy...but i don't know what is sissy.

T4 Class

(discussing a magazine article about eggplant)

Mike: Do you guys like eggplant?

Winnie: No.

Mike: (laughs) It says eggplants are versatile, what does 'versatile' mean?

Students: It has many uses.

Mike: Good! So what can you do with an eggplant?

Winnie: Throw it in the garbage.

comedy.

i bought a jar of pickles at Carrefore. they taste like spaghetti sauce.

i saw a dude punch a nail through a board today. i start Kung-Fu lessons this week. my goal is to chop a tree down with my bare hands. ill keep you updated.

The Flash

Sports Day drops once every semester. its pretty much the same as our track and field days back home, sans the 'field' activities. each grade splits up classes and holds relay races between them to determine which one dominates over the others, holding bragging rights until the next scheduled clash. the elementary school i work at had theirs last week. the principal asked me if i'd participate in it. of course i said id do it, although i think they expected a little more out of me than what i actually produced. as many of you know i'm not as fast i appear to be. so when i was paired up against the kid who's claimed to be one of, if not the fastest, 12 year old in the county, it came to no surprise to me when i was dusted right off the line. ha! our team of teachers still managed to snag the blue ribbon with the help of a quick footed Canadian and a dropped baton from the parent squad. we'll be back next semester to defend our title. reigning champs, what. the kids' races were fun to watch too. one race had even about 6 lead changes and came down to the last runners, which made it hilariously exciting. here are some action shots...(Warning: some images may be blurry due to my bullet like speed making it nearly impossible to catch a clear shot of the quickness that is teacher Mike. so don't worry...your eyes are fine)

midget race

grease lightning

roadrunner and coyote

goin for gold

probably the most butthead picture of me thus far

pushin limits

check out her swagger, she knows shes got this. hes straight nervous right now.

not catching the bullet in front of me

hes the fastest kid alive

lil punks tryin to get one up on us

the bad news bears, taiwan edition.

number one, left side. i was tryin to psyche him out prior to the race. no dice.

parent squad sizing us up

principal reviewing the game plan with us.

warm ups

me and nate dogg

regulators

award ceremony. the winners got a case of sports drink. it tastes like sweat.