Ahhh! I’m so sorry it’s been such a while since I’ve
written! With working 40 hours and the added stress of 2 tiny side jobs,
familial misunderstandings, and my roommate running away, things have been a
bit crazy! So let’s get started! :D
My kids
are doing AMAZING! We’re learning more about each other every day J there’s one boy who
just makes me melt every day, his name is Sky. He loves to run up and wrap his
little arms around you as best he can and kiss you repeatedly Hahaha it’s so
funny.
A
normal day is pretty active. We usually have a morning assembly where we do
dance warm ups (really funny, and I’ve almost got it down!) and then stand at
attention for the Chinese flag to be raised. When we go back to the classroom
either I will teach an English lesson or my co-teacher will teach a lesson in
Chinese. We always sing an English song too, but it’s interesting because they
have a lot of English words put to English tunes, but they’re not the same
haha. Like they made up a song called APPLE and it’s to the tune of “This old
man” (Apple round, apple red,
apple
juicy, Apple sweet, apple apple I love you! Apple sweet, I love to eat). And
the walking song sung to the tune of that finger song mama used to sing us
“where is thumbkin, where is thumbkin, here I am! Here I am” (walking walking,
walking walking, hop hop hop. Hop hop hop). And of course I’ve thrown in some
primary songs, Do as I’m doing, popcorn popping ;) Haha On Mondays and Fridays
we do Chinese painting, which is really fun to watch, because the kids clearly
don’t know how to do things the “right” way, so they spend half the time
teaching them how to correctly hold the paintbrush. It’s funny to hear the
tonal changes when they get frustrated with a kid haha.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays
we have P.E, and that’s with another teacher, so we just watch them run around.
On Wednesdays and Fridays we go
swimming, and that is a blast! They do this to prep them for swimming lessons
for when they get to high class kindergarten. But they asked me to bring my
swimsuit so I could be in the water with them, and it’s all fun and games :D
Mark, the one that cries all the time, had a REALLY hard time with the water.
The swim teacher just plopped him in (it’s
about a foot and a half deep) and he just screamed and screamed. On the second
day of swimming, they passed him off to me, so I decided to just hold his hand
and start walking through the pool. He was screaming the whole time, and
finally I was just fed up with hearing him cry, I put my arm in the water and
completely splashed him from head to toe. He froze in shock for a second and
then it was like a light switch went off—oh! Water! And he was extremely happy
the rest of the time, playing, splashing, and laughing. Success :D
October Holiday
So the
October Holdiday is coming up! It’s a moon festival, and I still don’t know a
ton about it, except there’s a moon lady who has a rabbit…and everyone eats
moon cakes…and all of China is on vacation for a week….I’ll get back to you
with more information…Hahaha. But last week we made meat moon cakes to start
celebrating! They were VERY delicious. At first I thought they were teaching
the kids how to make dumplings, and I was like, wow…they start them young in
everything! Hahaha
Side Jobs
So my
tiny side jobs: After school on Mondays and twice on Saturdays I teach to a
small classroom of 4 students. They’re older than my 4 year olds, but still in
kindergarten (the majority of them are 6). At first it was really stressful and
I almost quit. The kids were really misbehaved and I didn’t feel like I could
teach them anything. Finally, one Monday was especially bad, and with about 20
minutes left in class I really didn’t know what to do anymore, and I just
watched 3 of the boys egg each other on and they were all running around,
throwing chairs, punching each other, laughing, and screaming, and I was about
ready to cry. When class finally ended I just sat in my classroom until a
parent who could barely speak English said, “I think they make you mad”. I
laughed. I asked her for advice, and she said I need to be better at showing
that I’m angry. I laughed more.
So I
decided to try a new tactic. The scare factor, mixed with a reward, accompanied
with positive reinforcement. Before class on Saturday, I went to the
supermarket and bought candy and stickers. When class started, I wrote each of
their names on the board and showed them the bag of candy (I bought m&ms,
and they were ecstatic at the thought of chocolate). I drew 3 check marks on
the board and told them that if they got 3 under their name, no candy. They all
got very serious, very quickly, and I got very happy very quickly. I used the
stickers to reward them throughout the lesson when they answered things
correctly and put in effort. Class went great! The worst kid only got 2 check
marks, and we had an entire lesson!! The next class that day went great as
well! Everyone was happy :D
My
second job is teaching a little girl that’s supposed to be in my class at the
school. Her mother came in and explained that her daughter gets terrible car
sickness and so she can’t come to school. She asked if I would be willing to
come to her house once a week and keep her up to speed with the other children
(as far as English goes). I consented, and the Wednesday before last was my
first lesson. Oh. My. Heck. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone that rich. They
picked me up at my house in a nice American Buick, and we drove 45 minutes (the
distance from Pocatello to Idaho Falls) to get to their house. It was
surrounded by a verrry tall metal fence, and to be 100% honest, I thought it
was a hotel rising 4 stories above ground. It was EXREMELY majestic with two
sets of 18-step stone stairs that both C-curved up (on both sides) to a balcony
on the second floor that led to the front door. So up we went!
When they
opened the giant door, we stepped onto granite floor where they gave me
slippers to wear. The hall had a giant porcelain vase in it under a chandelier.
Towards the back of the hall was a fish tank, 10 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 4 feet tall (but elevated 4 feet
off the ground) that had at 2 3-foot catfish, and 3 2-foot catfish in it (poor
fishies all confined...). That wall was shared with the dining room, which is
where they led me. I guess they were going to feed me first (so far they’ve
done that every time I’ve gone). They sat me down, where they have a table with
a spinning glass on it covered in expensive fish (the best I've EVER tasted),
shrimp, jelly fish legs (which I tried!) pumpkin cakes, vegetables, soup, it
was amazing. They even offered me wine (which of course I declined, and they
got me Dole orange juice :D). For dessert they brought out a platter of fresh
peaches (I've never really liked peaches, but I LOVED these, and Asian pears).
The mom then said that we were going to go upstairs to Audrey (the 4 year old
I'm teaching)'s room, so I head for the stairs only to hear her call my name. I
look up and she's standing in a furnished, sparkling (literally, glittered)
gold elevator. So we go up to the 4th floor and go to Audrey’s room...well not
really, more like the foyer to her room, with couches the size of a full bed
and windows soaring 20 feet into the air draped with gorgeous curtains (I’ve
noticed that's a big thing here). On the couches were teddy bears LITERALLY the
size of me, which turned out to be a distraction for Audrey (go figure), so we
moved to the 3rd floor, where the same "foyer" like setup was there.
It was insane. But lessons with her are going well!
Roommate Dessertion
And now
the roommate. Well, the school hasn’t been very gracious to her at all. She was
originally in a homeroom classroom just like me, but then they accidentally got
an extra full year teacher, and since their more partial to full year teachers
as opposed to 4 month teachers, they outed Sabrina. She was told that she would
be a substitute teacher, and whenever someone was sick or on vacation, she
would fill in. And that’s great and all, except for the fact that few people
get sick…so for the first 2 weeks she was substituting for a girl who was still
out of town, but then she got back, and Sabrina didn’t have a job, so we talked
to the school and to our program’s Chinese coordinator. She became an ESL
teacher! She had about 6 lessons to teach a day, and for the remaining 5 hours
she had to sit in the Staff room. Yep! She was not allowed to leave the
building. Obviously this was an issue. So finally, she talked to our director,
and he spoke with the Chinese coordinator and they were going to see what they could do. He also
said that he could start looking for another school, but chances of finding one
this late in the game were slim. So Sabrina decided her real options were be
relocated, or go home and defer her contract. So she decided to take the day
off…and not tell anyone….and not take her phone with her…and not take her passport
with her….and not bring our address with her so she could get home…so she was
stuck in downtown (we discovered after the fact of course), and so she decided
to find a hostel to stay the night because it was late, but because she didn’t
have her passport, she couldn’t get one. She was about ready to sleep in a
field when a hostel took her. She got back the next day around 2pm. And then
the school told her to take Monday and Tuesday off to “have a rest” (pretty
sure they just don’t know what to do with her). Oh well, pray for her!
A Bribe
Um but so happy time!!!! So One of my students parents came
up to me after school on Friday and asked if I liked music. I told her I did!
She said that she had gotten 2 tickets to see Maroon 5 in concert on Tuesday,
but she doesn’t really care for them, so she just gave them to me. Floor seats.
Front row. VIP passes. I couldn’t believe it!!! I told her I couldn’t take
them, but I guess it’s called the “Chinese way”…I’m pretty sure there’s another
name for it though….hahaha. But yeah! The envelope she handed me has it all
there! I looked at the price on the ticket, and it said 2000 yuan each. That’s
over $300 US dollars each…that’s insane. People are insane.
So this week was Festival Week! And boy has it been crazy.
Hahaha. To make up for October Holiday (a whole week off of school) we have
Saturday school, so it’s been a long week! Monday we made moon cakes, Tuesday we
learned Chinese songs, and Wednesday we had a fair! Oh my it was awesome! They
had little booths set up all over the school with different things for the
kids. They had extravagant key chains and necklaces made out of string (it puts
my boondoggles to shame…that’s for sure), cotton candy, and butterflies and
grasshoppers made out of grass. Yeah it amazed me. If I saw it sitting on a
leaf outside I would DEFINITLY think it was real. And they do it so quickly!
Okay, well it takes like 5 minutes, but still, for how extravagant they are?
That’s super fast. Hahaha. They also had these really cool candy sticks. They
would have a hot pot with a hard candy boiling so it was liquid, and then they
would scoop it up with a spoon and just start drizzling it really quickly, and
then all of a sudden it was a rabbit, or a butterfly, or a mouse, it was
INSANE! Then they put a stick on it, wait about 30 seconds and then use a
spatula to get it off, and vwala! You have an animal shaped sucker thing! I was
fascinated! Hahaha. They also had clowns and balloon makers, it was great fun
:)
On Thursday we had a
big assembly, and everyone in the school had to wear either red, yellow, or
both…except I didn’t get the memo until I got to school….so I made a necklace
out of ribbon and these colored wooden things (I made them beads….haha). My
kids sang their anthem and then we went out the assembly, and it was so cute!
They had a mini marching band, and they were dressed up, and then actually
marched and played well! And then they had about 50 kids in army outfits
marching behind them all, it was a flag procession. It was awesome! I took a
video of it :)
On Saturday it was a pretty lax day, but our lunch was a traditional moon festival meal. We ate meat moon cakes, beans, duck, and taro root. The moon cakes were DELICIOUS (oh but I have to tell you, normal moon cakes? Not really a fan…I haven’t tasted many that actually taste good. I don’t really count the Haagen-Dazs ones as authentic haha), and the taro is actually good! They look and have the texture of lavender colored potatoes. The duck was good too, but hard to separate from all the bones. The beans really through me off…they were just incredibly furry and tasted kind of….fermented? Don’t know if that’s the right word, but I didn’t really enjoy them…haha but all in all, the meal was not too bad! :)
