There was a time when traveling with a printer was a pain second to none. You needed to haul around a desktop printer the size of a large dog, you could try to bring along a famously temperamental ink jet, or you might decide that you needed a thermal printer, like the printers that grocery stores use to print out receipts.
All of these printers had their drawbacks. For instance, thermal printers needed their own special type of paper and the results were often strange. Ink jets gave you good results, but changes in temperature, humidity or set up could have you spending hours cleaning the heads. Similarly, ink jet printing could get very pricey very quickly. These were all problems that you might have had to deal with.
On the other hand, you might have had a laptop printer that would last you about three months and need a lot of care for those three months. They might not have been great solutions, and from hearing the IT departments grumble, they were a pain to support as well!
For the English Teacher in Taiwan There’s abundant information on the internet about teaching English to children in Taiwan, but there is very little information about the ‘special events’ that an English teacher might find themselves roped into by their school. This is the story of a ‘special event’ that I did when I was a teacher at Hess Educational Organization.
Cami, you would like to tell a story in the park on Saturday? says my Taiwanese branch manager. uhm what? I say, looking up from a stack of papers that I’m grading. Yes, I think you will like very much. And maybe you sing song too. If confusion was apparent on my face, my manager showed no signs of knowing it. So yes, I think we will meet at sports park, 10am. Huh? Okay good, my manager walks away from this baffling exchange, satisfied. I later asked my western manager, or Head Native Speaking Teacher, what this was all about. I think it’s like, an event for the children of the community. You just go to a park and read a story. It’ll be fun.