I had a bunch of photos from my time in Taiwan floating around in iPhoto and sort of forgot about ’em. I’ve uploaded them to flickr. Check ’em out here. There’re some gems, in particular, of Jill and I with our students. Like this one (though it’s a bit fuzzy).
I’ll never forget the kid on the far right. His name was James. He had a birthmark the size of a hamburger on his upper left arm. It was dark brown and hairy. Before important tests, all of the students would gather around James and rub his birthmark “for good luck.” He always smiled and acquiesced sheepishly. He had a calm demeanor and his concentration perpetually wandered during class — he was invariably more interested in drawing oddly compelling-looking aliens instead of doing his work.
One time, the kids were supposed to be filling in the coloring sheets I’d given them. I walked over to James and noticed that instead of doing that, he had taken a bright yellow highlighter out of his pencil box and was determinedly inking up the entire back of his hand. He wasn’t disturbing anyone so I let him continue.