We interrupt your regularly scheduled stories with this China Doll life update.
This past week was my first back to work, back to life, back to reality. I had been feeling really meh about China: I wasn't in the mood for Chinese food, I was frustrated with my lack of language skills, and I was really missing my family and friends from back home. However, getting back on track really helped me remember how great this city is and how much I love it here.
This semester, Sophie and I switched students from last semester. It was a huge compliment when my students groaned in upset that I wouldn't be their teacher again (of course, Sophie's students felt the same way.) My new students are great though! This semester, I am teaching all my classes once a week, but I have five Junior I classes and two Junior II classes like last time, however I am now teaching a total of ten Senior I classes (I see three of them every week, and seven of them every other week on alternating schedules.) Super complicated. However, it's great because I love teaching the Senior Is. I'm really excited to teach this semester. Sophie and I decided that last semester was for "pragmatic English" (ordering at a restaurant, asking for directions, etc.) and that this semester will be "creative English." We want to do a lesson on American cities, and we decided that this month will be "fairy tales" month in our Junior I classes. We will teach them about fairy tales and how to write and orally deliver stories. I'm really excited!
Also, we have new classrooms in the brand new school building! The school is under construction, so last semester we were constantly moved around and we couldn't really use our offices because they were too far away from our classrooms. But now, we have our own space in the new building! I don't have to carry around my books and jacket all day, I can leave it in my new classroom/office. It's nice to leave a room one way and return the next day and it's still just as clean and tidy. Plus the new building is really beautiful and well-designed. The only downside: we are in the furthest corner from anything and we're on the top floor. At least it's quiet!
I also started working at Rise Kindergarten again, which is just really a fun job. The kids are so cute, and I am always doing something different. I am like a traveling teacher, sometimes I work with four year olds who are just starting to learn English, and sometimes I work with nine year olds who can read and write quite well. Sometimes I administer oral exams. Before the Chinese new year, a teacher recorded me doing a fake lesson for the kids to watch during their vacation. I had to do things like read a story about raccoons and ask "What do raccoons eat?" then wait a few seconds for the student to "respond," Dora the Explorer-style. So when I came to work my first day a student saw me and totally freaked out, pointing at me and talking in Chinese really fast. Apparently, the kids had to watch these videos every day and she was so excited that she recognized me from the videos. I'm famous!
I also really like all the Chinese English teachers at the school, they're really nice and a lot of them are good teachers. I learn a lot watching them because I literally don't know anything about teaching kindergarten. Plus, I'm making money. And making money makes me happy.
There is a park right near Rise, and I got to work really early one day so I sat there and read. It was so nice to be there, the weather has been great these days. At dusk, elderly people in China often power walk, so it's fun to people watch. There is a small lake and lots of statues and gardens. I had one of those moments when I remember how great this city is and how much I love living here. I had arrived early at Rise because I wanted to see if I could walk there from NDFZ, my day job school. I totally can. It's like a twenty minute walk. I'm so embarrassed that I used to walk all the way home and take the bus, which took about forty minutes during rush hour. I am so bad with understanding where places are in relation to each other! Rise is literally a straight shot from NDFZ! But now it's clicked and I have a whole new understanding of that area.
This weekend was also a lot of fun. Last night, I went to KTV with a large group of friends. We sang everything from Spice Girls to The Kinks, David Guetta to Nancy Sinatra. Considering how much I love to sing, it's hard to believe how infrequently I go to KTV. It was a lot less expensive than I thought it was going to be, so I hope to do it more often in the next few months. This morning I got real American-style brunch at a restaurant across the street from my dorm. It's a little expensive, but it's not that bad and they give you so much food! Salad, eggs, potatoes, real crispy bacon (crispy bacon=not a thing in China), sausage, and french toast, with unlimited coffee or tea. I've never been a breakfast person, but I've been weirdly craving American breakfast foods lately, and I'm really missing pizza, salads, and cheese. I was going well with the foreign food cravings until about two weeks ago... but it's hitting me hard now. Tonight, I am going ice skating with some friends and it should be fun!
I am glad that I am back on track and living my life instead of festering in a haze of TV and sleep. I always complain when I'm too busy, but I've come to the realization that I get really bummed out when I have nothing to do and it makes me feel really meh. I actually had plenty of stuff I could have been doing during my last week off, but laziness incurs more laziness. But now that I'm busy, I can actually sit down and get stuff done (like, for instance, blogging) and I feel much happier. So you can all expect lots of posts in the next few weeks, including Parts IV and V of my vacation updates!
*SIDE NOTE* I discovered that if you click a photograph that I have posted (like the ones from my vacation) you can view all of my photos all together in full screen mode. The pictures are so small, so if you want to see them all on a larger scale, you can click the picture and browse them all at the same time. It's great... try it!
No comments:
Post a Comment