My journey to Los Angeles went off without a hitch. The flight from Rapid City to Denver was a tad unpleasant as I was on a turboprop and had the luxury of being seated directly beside one of the engines. Even my iPod was unable to drown out all of the engine noise. Thankfully, it was a fairly short flight. After a brief layover, I boarded the plane to LA and had what I thought might be a minor celebrity sighting. I was almost certain that I saw Pat O’Brien board the plane right before me. Being that it was a flight to LA, it certainly fell within the realm of possibility. However, I didn’t get a good enough look to verify my suspicions.
The flight to LAX was relatively boring which is always good news. We made it to the gate ahead of schedule which, being a very schedule oriented person, gave me a bit of a warm fuzzy. LAX is hardly what I would call a state of the art airport but it’s certainly quite serviceable and I had no problem finding my assigned baggage claim area.
As it turns out, my suspicions stated above were correct as I found myself standing next to the one and only Pat O’Brien. For those of you aren’t familiar with him, I’m fairly certain he hosts one of those celebrity news magazine shows on one of the network television networks. As for myself, I seem to remember him from pre-game shows for major sporting events back in the early 90’s. I may be mistaken, however. Anyway, he’s also been having a bit of relationship problems due to a few indiscreet messages that were left on the answering machine of a female acquaintance (READ: Not his wife). As it turns out, these messages made their way into the public domain and Pat has found himself in a somewhat difficult situation. Tough luck for Pat, I suppose. At any rate, I’m not the kind to gush over celebrities, especially actors or television personalities. They’re just people, as far as I’m concerned. So, I’m not sure what that little discourse was supposed to be all about. I guess I just thought it would make an interesting story. After a quick scan of what I’ve just written, I believe my assumption to be somewhat incorrect. Sorry. I wish I could give you that couple of minutes of your life back but I can’t. Don’t be too upset. You probably weren’t going to do anything good with it anyway. I mean, you’ve read this far, haven’t you?
After recovering my luggage, I planned to call the person who was supposed to pick me up to find out where in the airport we should meet. Before I got the chance, I noticed a man holding a sign which read “Jessie Perrigo”. Before you ask, that is indeed not how my first name is spelled. I have no idea why people have such a hard time spelling it but I digress. The gentleman with the sign was named Paul and he had a friend with him named Joe. I found both of them to be very kind and interesting people. I thought Joe was especially fascinating. He was a quiet and understated man but after speaking with him for a bit, it seems he’s led a very full life. Among other things, he shared with me a very interesting story on how he was involved with founding of Wright, Wyoming, a small mining town in eastern Wyoming. I don’t think there are many people who can claim that they were partly responsible for the creation of a city and I can certainly say that I’d never before met someone who falls into that class. It was a very cool experience.
As it turns out, I came to spend more time with Joe and Paul than any of us expected. They were also responsible for picking up a woman named Anna who’s flight was supposed to land a couple hours after mine. The three of us waited by her baggage claim until all the luggage had come and gone without any sign of her. This left us quite perplexed as it was the flight she was supposed to be on, according to the information Paul possessed. After what I presumed to be some very smooth sweet talking, Paul was able to discover that Anna was in fact not on that plane but on the next plane, which was scheduled to land in another hour and a half. This in itself was quite a feat, given the heightened security that supposedly takes place in airports these days. Apparently it’s not as secure as one would think when passenger information can be pried out of a airport employee with nothing more than a few kind words. While it was certainly helpful to our cause, I haven’t decided exactly how I feel about the ease at which said information was obtained. At any rate, Anna showed up eventually and we successfully made it to our destination for the evening.
The next day, I met the rest of our group for a short orientation at the University of California at Irvine (UCI). After a quick tour, I decided I liked the campus and found myself wishing I had had the opportunity to experience life at a large school. As some of you know, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, which I attended, isn’t exactly a large, traditional school. UCI is certainly a very diverse school, which is also something that UCCS lacks. The Asian student population is huge. As a matter of fact, I’m quite certain that I’m in the racial minority while on campus. However, I suppose I should get used to that, now shouldn’t I?
After lunch, I began my first class. Basically what I’m being taught is all the technical parts of English grammar which are lost on most native speakers but are a huge part of the English curriculum in foreign countries. Up until two days ago, even though I’d heard of terms like “past perfect progressive tense” and “future perfect tense”, I would have never been able to tell you what exactly they meant. Actually, now that I think about it, I probably couldn’t tell you what they mean right now but at least I’m a lot more familiar with them than I used to be. Along with those types of things, I am also learning different methods to teach my future students and ways to keep them interested and active in the classroom. Besides the math tutoring I did in college, I have next to no experience when it comes to teaching so I find the methods I’m learning to be quite interesting and I’m hoping they come in handy.
At this point, I’ve got a few days under my belt and I’m a rather good time thus far. Its good to have the feeling that what you’re learning and the work you’re about to begin is of importance. I also find getting to know my “teammates” quite enjoyable. They seem to be a great group of people. All of them are very friendly and outgoing, so that makes things a lot easier for me since I tend to be somewhat of an introvert. I’ve met the fellow who will likely be my roommate while I’m in Hsinchu. His name is Kai and he is of Taiwanese decent. Apparently, he has something like forty cousins in Taiwan. I have a feeling that that might be a great asset to us while we are trying to adjust to living in Taiwan. It’s been fun getting to know him. Chalk him up as yet another interesting person I’ve met since I’ve arrived.
Well, I’ve rambled for long enough and I’m sure you grew bored a few paragraphs ago. It’s amazing how much has been going on since I’ve gotten here. I can hardly decide what should and shouldn’t be included in this entry. Hopefully as I become more accustomed to writing, I’ll be able to have a better feel for what my audience wants to read and what they consider to be boring, mindless drivel (that pointless Pat O’Brien story seems to jump to mind). At any rate, if you have any suggestions for what I should write or comments on what I’ve written, feel free to leave some feedback on the site or email me. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I will be including more on of my fellows group members in future entries. So if that was going to be your suggestion, I just saved you some typing. You can thank me any way you like but money always seems to be a decent gift.
Thanks for stopping by.
