Online learning has been an interesting experience. We're on the cusp of returning to a buzzing campus with 2,000 others tomorrow bright and early, forewarned that an army of volunteers will be temperature checking everyone entering the various gates and that we'll be hand-sanitized as well if we pass the temperature check. Apparently, according to the administration, the place is so squeaky clean after weeks of cleaning and purifying, that you could eat your dinner off any or every gleaming surface!

We feel, judging by the feedback and assessment data we’ve already received that most of our lessons worked well.The secret seems to come down to two factors. The first being simplicity in terms of instructions and the second being familiarity with platforms being used. Initially, we spent an inordinate amount of time working through each lesson and splitting it into workable units, manageable in terms of both time and complexity. We then sought to differentiate the tasks as much as possible and provide variety while targeting different skills. After we had a workable, varied and appropriately challenging lesson, we then made sure we worked and re-worked the instructions so there would be little or no confusion. We judged our success by work completion to an appropriate level(excellent) and by how few clarifying questions we received (very few).

So, all in all, we feel slightly triumphant and justified in the way we've set the kids up for success, even if we're not there holding their hands through the whole process. The school's mission statement alluding to 21st century learners able to adapt to a changing world has been played out on tablets and phones and laptops all over Taipei in the last three weeks as kids from all three divisions have tapped into various platforms and resources that their teachers have provided. So, we're patting ourselves and the kids on the back: it's been an eye-opener and a whirlwind of different tactics and methods but ultimately, very successful.

After our morning session, we've continued to challenge the river dyke promenade each day. The sun is essentially directly overhead and in the last four weeks (including CNY), the temperatures have graduated from windy and squally and occasionally damp to today's beating sun turning up the heat and searing exposed skin: I'm a glowing pink on the neck and arms after today's foray into the "wild"!

We walk briskly for an hour or so to make the circuit and, along the way, we run into all sorts of characters (almost literally at times!)

The oldies who seem to believe they have a divine right to take up as much of the pathway as they like are not the only ones we need to dodge, go single-file for, or squeeze up against the handrails to avoid collisions. There seem to be more than a fair share of our mentally challenged brethren, along with people with associated or separate physical disabilities. There are others who walk along oblivious to others, slapping themselves and releasing strange sounds by mouth. Yet another subset of romantic couples link arms and walk side-by-side without budging: apparently their love-struck demeanour allows them the right to bulldoze others off the path, or force them into a single file! 

So trafficking the path at certain popular times is often fraught with annoyance, but the sights and sounds keep us entertained each day. Cass spots the turtles sunning themselves and the egrets prancing, and we both admire the fashion plates wearing full black puffy jackets while we're hot in shorts and t-shirts! There's even occasionally the strange dichotomy of little kids on retractable leads, while primped and gussied dogs ride in prams....it has to be seen to be believed! Anyway, not a day goes by where we don't see any number of unusual or bizarre sights.

Wish us luck as we re-enter the world tomorrow! 

Photos: belatedly, some shots from Cassy's last book club get-together, a "sticky" of impressive vintage that didn't quite make it, a treasure trove of discarded phones time-lining the last 18 years or so, shots from the path and finally, a shot of our vacuum cleaner's filter loitering on the deck below our back verandah. Cassy bashes it to clean it and it flew from her hands to land below: luckily Mr. Lee managed to retrieve it for us!

Taiwan has the best health care in the world. A recent examination of 89 countries determined Taiwan's lofty status and we're certainly glad we're here in these uncertain Covid-19 times. Cassy went for her regular visit to the local hospital to check her blood levels this morning and after a short stroll atop the river levee, she clambered across road and park to her usual entrance only to be re-directed to a main entrance with carnival style tenting erected outside. In a very slick operation everyone was quickly scanned and if they didn't have a face mask they were supplied with one (she didn't have one!) and then she made her way to her usual sections of interest.

We've been immersed in a second week of online e-learning this week and the "powers" have even determined that we'll hold a video conferencing session with our home rooms tomorrow afternoon to supplement our regular academic lessons. We've all got Zoom accounts which we can utilize, the main hassle being a spot at home that doesn't show too much background of our rooms! As we're tasked with doing them concurrently, we'll have to shut ourselves away in different rooms to accommodate our various conversations...oh well, it should be interesting!

We've religiously walked 5 km of the river paths each day for our exercise, and we're also continuing our regular weights and push-ups, which we do regardless of the situation. The walk just about replicates our walking commute to school, plus our travels around the campus, up and down stairs etc. We feel pretty well exercised and clear headed and relaxed after a stint of excellent hours of sleeping, a relaxed vibe at home- (even during our slightly more hectic "on" time, where kids invade our chat rooms with some "pearlers"!) and a no-nonsense approach to our lesson planning and operation. In other words, we sort it out quite efficiently and amicably without the need for interminable and often gratuitous meetings with colleagues to work out the bleeding obvious. The subtraction of these meetings from our daily routine has led to the elimination of 99% of our work stress we've discovered!

I met up with some similarly relaxed men on Friday afternoon in the shape of Wal, Dave and Christian. Later on in the evening we ventured to a sports bar in the south western district to an area I was partly unfamiliar with, or at least hadn't visited in many years. At night, one of the larger cross boulevards is converted into an eating hub with a night market feel. The road itself is lined with restaurants anyway, so they get more passing foot traffic as well. It's a win-win. It didn't have one stall that might be considered "Western" and traditional flavours and odours assaulted the senses! Stinky dofu steam wafted through the alleys and the generous hiss of steaming noodles being dumped from steel to porcelain, and the clang of saucepans and woks rang out through the crowd. There were queues snaking down the back alleys leading to the hottest tickets, beef noodle shops of island-wide renown and even street food that had been Michelin starred. Among all these food sensations, crowds of people jockeyed for precious tiny blue plastic stools and fold-out card tables, jostling and laughing as they enjoyed steaming serves of noodles and meats. A famous "Manson" burger outlet was sandwiched in-between stalls, and various shops and carts also displayed shelves of exotic fruits nestled in beds of ice, (with dry ice gas giving an ethereal effect in muted lighting) and curious cuts of organs and offal were showcased in gleaming perspex carts.

We've got anther full week at home before we make our way back to campus: at least that's the current plan. There are vague whispers of extensions to the school closures but they're breezy rumours and not substantial. We could sustain this for longer of course, but I suspect the kids are missing their social interactions the most: even in a digital age, nothing seems to beat face-to-face relationships ultimately! With our long evenings and relaxed wake-up times we've been watching a cavalcade of recent Hollywood blockbusters, many of which featured in the recent Oscars awards. We've watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Irishman, Joker, Uncut Gems, Dark Waters, Ford vs. Ferrari, JoJo Rabbit, 1917, Little Women, Marriage Story and others! The most sensational of the lot, however, was the soaring noir film from South Korea, Parasite. Wow! The Academy actually got one right this time! Cass has read two Michael Connelly books in a row (I've finally converted her) and I'm reading the latest Jack Reacher from Lee Child. I'll try to fill in the blanks in our reading menus in the next entry: there are many titles to mention!

The Corona virus has forced a major lockdown of the city's infrastructure and schooling and business community here in Taipei. We're not quite experiencing the zombie apocalypse style vision emanating from the epicentere of the outbreak in Wuhan, China, but for a bustling cosmopolitan city normally teeming with cars and people on the streets the difference is stark.

The roads are quieter, the streets and paths lacking foot traffic and the schools and playgrounds are eerily empty. Restaurants have a just a smattering of their former custom and you could fire a gun through department store hallways with no danger of hitting anyone. We've taken to this pattern as I imagine most others have, by doing what we need to do out of doors and avoiding any unnecessary contact with others. We're not being paranoid, just practical and not tempting fate.

We've embraced a new daily routine which is busy yet because of its novel timetable and circumstances, refreshing. We get up to have our breakfast at a normal hour (instead of our regular 5.30 a.m.) then prepare for our online learning session in the morning. During that time we're on an online chat forum with all our students and they can ask any clarifying questions. They don't have many (or to rephrase, only a few have a question or two), mainly because we've spent hours preparing their instructional document, wordsmithing it to the lowest intellectual denominator (!), clearing up any ambiguity, and hyperlinking everything clearly. We send them to a variety of sites, some we've designed and some we've borrowed for videos, discussions, reading writing and speaking practice. It's well rounded, rigourous and entertaining....I wish my Grade 8 experience was like this!

The ease with which we've transitioned so smoothly to online instruction and learning is a testament to Cassy's years of hard work. She has developed documents and examples and written accompanying suggested responses which are detailed and engaging for all our units. This scenario was tailor-made for her slick operation: I imagine it is not so seamless and simple for lots of others! Our real secret is anticipating problems before they occur, keeping things simple yet varied and having strict rules in our online chat fora.

After our morning session the kids are meant to have a lunch break. We take this opportunity to do a round trip on the canals and walkways along "Sulfur Creek". We do this periodically under normal circumstances, but we try to do a 5 km loop daily just to make sure we're up and moving the legs each day. It's been great to spot the wildlife along the way! We've spotted flocks of birds of different feathers, egrets ballet dancing along the river bed and turtles sunning themselves on the smooth, hot rocks or even, in one case, a baby on its mother! The Moop has been spied doing its usual freeze frame body and wibble-wobbling throat in different parks on the route, and Cass was especially excited when we spotted a brown duck one day furiously paddling up the river to the lush grasses beyond!

The riverside parks are a hotbed of religion as well it seems. There is a garish collective of temples and shrines along the way, vying for the most hideous interpretation on the dragon on their spires, or the most frightening full body puppets that can be constructed: we see it all! The other constant is the reassuring thwack of tennis ball on racquet strings however: nothing's going to stop our local tennis buddies extolling each other to hit higher, longer or harder from dawn till dusk!

In the afternoon we're officially on again for a chat session to field questions from kids who don't understand the work, but, probably because of the aforementioned clear instructions, we don't have that many. The rest of the afternoon and evening is spent preparing the lessons and instructions for the next session when the cycle begins again. It's an interesting time and a glimpse at a different style of learning which has obviously morphed into a more sophisticated beast than the one that visited with the SARS virus lockdown we experienced in 2003. Fingers crossed that people stay safe and well and that the virus gets burned away as the warmer temperatures quickly approach.

Well, I hope I don't look back on this post and become horrified at my flippancy, but for a couple who have lived through the SARS scare in Asia, the coronavirus emergency just seems a tad overblown. Don't get me wrong, I'm saddened and concerned that people have lost their lives and have become very sick, but the protocols that are now in place in Taiwan seem to be cautious at best and overzealous at worst. This country doesn't need this....they're beating it!

In 2003, we were rounded up like cattle, placed in a lock-down at school, and told to go home and self-quarantine for a week. We were "not to pass 'Go'", not to collect any supplies, just go home and wait for instructions. Of course, people were breaking quarantine left, right and centre or they wouldn't have been able to survive. Following that and a send home to Australia, we had to make up the "learning gap" later and endured revised scheduling, online learning and extended days for months: I'm not sure if it helped or hindered the kids' learning in the end.

Today, we were informed that we are not to go back to regular school days until February 25th. We (the teachers) can go to the campus for meetings, resources, work environment etc, but no kids will be present. We're tasked with modifying the curriculum to online learning methods and all our lessons and feedback will be in this style. So, we'll be busy, probably busier than in a normal working environment. Those students or members of their families who have traveled to China for the CNY break will be required to self-quarantine at home for 14 days after they return from the mainland.

The situation is fluid: we'll be receiving updates from our divisional principals on the latest protocols and receiving directives from them as to how much (quantity) and how complex (rigour) will be the materials and requirements we send to students. Cass and I met with Todd today to decide on the start of some of these things....we have to wait and see, play it by ear and continue grading the poems I mentioned last week (of which we've made some inroads, but perhaps not as great as we'd wished!)

Until now, we've enjoyed the most blissful of breaks and really managed to re-charge our batteries. We've (well, Cassy mainly!) taken to our mini-cleanup with some gusto and it has been methodical and time consuming but also satisfying and cathartic. We've reminisced as we've pulled documents from files and letters from folders about what great teachers we were and are(!!), but also realized how many things we've done, classes we've taught and students we've influenced one way or another.

I neglected to photograph the garbage carnage but we filled bag after bag with recyclable materials (mostly paper), and tonnes of clothing destined for the thrift shop bins. The scooter has been getting a workout rumbling between home, garbage depot and clothing bin. The irony is that despite the gargantuan tonnage of refuse that has left the apartment, it doesn't look any different! We know, however, that the filing cabinet is no longer bursting at the seams with unknown documents in Chinese, the cabinets in the living rooms don't hide trinkets and keepsakes that we never should have kept in the first place, and that our wardrobes and drawers aren't cuddling much loved but long neglected items of clothing that just cannot be resurrected!

Apart from the long, slow cleansing, we've also thoroughly enjoyed some decadent sleep-ins (how could we sleep so long day after day?!), some time to kick back and enjoy games of BBL or a movie or some TV series. I met up with Wal, as is tradition, for some beers on Friday night, but we've pretty much hunkered down and hibernated in the typical CNY cold snap, where the temperatures have plummeted and the humidity has remained high, meaning uncomfortable cold alleviated by comfy tracky dacs, ugg boots and reverse cycle air-conditioning!

Who knows what the coming weeks will bring? We hope everyone stays safe and that the coronavirus really does fizzle from the vaccine which is hopefully just around the corner. Photos: what to do with 100s of DVDs?, the Moop, garbage bags need replenishing,and our meeting with Todd photo-bombed by an oversized-head temple puppet (only in Taiwan!)