Playing Catch Up

  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.