Last week of summer English camp :(

Last Week of Summer School Means Changes

This past week was the last week of the English Summer Camp! It is really sad! First of all, it turns out that many of the kids that come to this school for the summer English camp will not be coming for the school year in the fall- many go to other schools. So that means I won’t get to see some of the same kids again! Also we will be getting new groups anyways so the kids that are staying may not me in my same teaching group anyway. To kick off the last day of summer camp the school had “Parents Day” Friday in which all the parents came to watch us teach the kids! It was a little nerve wracking but we only taught one class because they also had a special performance by the kids (it was soo cute!). But I think the parents day turned out pretty well. Also afterwards we ended up watching Dora the Explorer with the kids…except instead of it being in English and teaching Spanish, it was in Chinese and taught English! A lot of the kids were bawling though. But not really because they wouldn’t see us again, I don’t think they understood that concept. It was because after seeing their parents come for parents day and then leaving the kids just wanted to be with their parents. So they all started crying for mama haha.

Vivian!

Valerie!

Abbey!

Rachel!

Gordon! He is crazy sometimes, but his English is SO GOOD! I am going to miss him because he isn't coming back in the fall :(

Jack! He is adorable! Look at him so strong

Clara with Eason

Senior kids performing their dance

Junior kids performing their dance

Two of my kids Annie and Gordon

This is Annie. I love her! She has a harder time talking in English. But she is so talented. She plays the piano SO WELL and she loves dancing and performing. Seriously, she is going to be a superstar one day. 

Other changes also include half of our group leaving and getting more girls in our group! So I don’t remember if I explained this, but we have two ILP groups. My group of 5 and the other group of 6. The other group was supposed to go to Changsha but since it was still being developed they came to our school for the summer camp. But they are leaving now! And we are getting several more girls for a total of 13 in our group. THAT’S A LOT. There is also another school really close to where we live and there will be some ILP teachers going there as well, and since we are so close we will be able to hang out with them and actually have dinner. They are going to the Kaiyin school, and that is where Bella and Debby will be going! Serena luckily will be staying at Bond but Bella and Debby are leaving us L They are my favorite Chinese ever! But again they will be close and we can still visit them and hang out. It will be weird also getting adjusted to the fall semester- there will be more kids and the schedule will change a bit. I’ve already gotten used to how things are now and I like them so I don’t really want things to change. But it’s happening. Actually I was supposed to be leaving right about now in August but they asked me to come with the summer camp group, so it’s weird to think I would just be getting to China now and I already have 5-6 weeks of experience! I am soo glad I got to come early :D

ZHUIHAI: Beach Fail

This Saturday we decided to go to the beach! Since we are super close, it was about 1.5 hours by a normal bus. The place we went to was called Zhuhai. And let me tell you…it was pretty disappointing. I know it wouldn’t be like Florida or something but it was muddy and gross and not really much like a beach. Thank goodness for going to Hainan later in November! But it was a fun day trip, we explored the area, found a really neat park. I am trying to think if anything exciting happened, but not really. Oh let me say I am grateful for 1)getting to the bus early and 2) always taking my passport with me when I leave the city!  Because we decided to get to the bus early to go home but some girls wanted to stay later. Well they ended up staying too late and they missed the last bus! They found a train station but to buy a train ticket you needed to have a passport. A few girls had passports and were able to make it back to Zhongshan late but two girls did not have passports so they had to spend the night in Zhuhai. That is why you always get to the bus station earlier than planned people. And have your passport when you leave the city. But hey it makes for a great story for them I guess.

Everytime I see this statue I think of it as the Chinese Statue of Liberty, except it is smaller.

It looks nicer in the picture than it actually was. That's not water, it's "chocolate milk" or mud. Worse than the mud caves I think!

We saw a few brides at the park, this one had a pink dress!

At the park some guys rockin out

So close to Macau and Hong Kong but we aren't allowed to visit because of our Visas :(

Other Things This Week

This week we also went to Karaoke! We found a cheaper place to go to Karaoke and our lovely Chinese friends came with us J They had lots of American songs that we sang and the Chinese girls same some Chinese songs and American songs that they knew. And guess what song they had? Pingyou, or “friend”, the Chinese song that we learned in Chinese class so we were able to sing along. It was fun! Also we went exploring in town again to a new area and found a very American style mall, even with a movie theater. So we will have to go see a movie sometime!

Cool chair I found at the mall

Also, do you remember those pesky kids that live in our apartment complex I told you about? That gave us flowers and were causing all sorts of mischief? Well it never ends. They love coming and knocking on our door, leaving random things in front of our door or stuffing it through the peep hole. This week we found a “caution floor is wet” sign in front of our door and on top of it was a lit candle. It wasn’t even really a candle, more like a really long birthday candle or incense stick or something. The kids were not even in site. Not gonna lie, I’m a little afraid they may just burn down our apartment on day. Haha they are fun though and keep us entertained.

So the summer camp ended last Friday, the 22nd. Since the fall school year doesn't start till next Monday the 1st, we have a week break. Except the past few days Monday Tuesday and Wednesday we have been helping out at a new school. It is run by the same Chinese coordinators but it is in a different location, and it will be opening up in January, so they wanted us to kind of do a "demo". They had parents come and bring their kids and watch how we teach so they could decide if they want to sign their kids up for next semester. Most of the kids don't know any English at all, so it was hard. It was hard getting them to talk and repeat what they say because they have absolutely not experience and I am used to the kids at my school who knew some English already. Also they were younger. So it was pretty difficult but fun. I already love some of the kids that came though! 

One thing I am learning here in China is how to be a more on-the-fly kind of person. I like to think I am more organized and like to plan stuff. I like to have a plan. I like to be prepared, I like to know exactly how things are going to be run, what time, where, and the details of how it is going to work out. But especially for this open house for the new school, they changed the schedule on us soooo many times it seems hard to keep up and sometimes can be a little frustrating. Also when it comes to exploring or going places, like Yangshuo. Things don't usually turn out like we planned. And it usually takes a lot longer than we thought to actually get to where we want to go. 

A random thing I keep meaning to mention on my blog but I keep forgetting. So many of you probably know that Asians don't really like to be tan. Here in China, it is common (especially for women) to take umbrellas with them outside to protect them from the sun because they want to be pale (I Know such a weird concept for Americans!). Even on the bus the other day a Chinese girl was holding her umbrella up to the window to protect her from the sun coming in the window. Another strange thing they do....oven mitts!! No joke. A lot of people have scooters/motorcycles as their way of transportation and they literally have mitts that cover their hands and wrists when they drive the scooters to protect them against the sun. 

FOOD

 Also, I am getting pretty good at reading Chinese menus! And Chinese food is growing on me. The other night I even had rice for lunch AND dinner- on my own free will! I ordered it twice at restaurants in one day. I love noodles but sometimes I am just not in the mood for hot soup and noodles- it is way too hot here! But my favorite that I got was fried rice with beef and I am pretty sure it had ginger. I LOVE ginger. They make lots of food with ginger and garlic here and I love it! Oh another really yummy thing I had this week was peanut sauce noodles. It was just noodles in peanut sauce (and on a plate and NOT in a soup- yay!). And the peanut sauce was a little thicker, not thick like peanut butter but it tasted like it. Oh also I had duck in a ginger sauce. It was sooo good but it was very annoying to eat. It was chunks of meat with lots of bones in them. I feel like it was more bone than actual meat, which made it hard to eat and I didn’t get that much meat. But it tasted good, I like duck J

So I specifically made this meme because this is so me! Haha everyone in my group always makes fun of me because I am constantly saying "I normally don't like such and such food..."

One thing I haven’t yet mentioned- red bean paste! They love to make (especially desserts) foods with red bean paste! I’ve had a few pastry/bread type things with red bean paste. It’s everywhere. And it sounds weird. But it’s really good. So I also tried a red bean popsicle. It was white on the outside and inside was kind of whole beans. But the outside made it creamy. Not sure how to describe it other than it tasted like the red bean stuffed bread rolls but in popsicle form. Not bad! Some other random snacks I tried: dried sweet potato- kind of looks like dried mango, this was really good! Dried peas- they have all sorts of salt and spices on them and they are crunchy- seriously it is just as good as popcorn! Who knew right? Also some sort of spicy beef jerky. Except it is NOT beef jerky..it is not even meat. My Chinese friends got some for me and told me to try it. Love the spicy, it is good. But it really makes me think of beef jerky but supposedly it is made of flour. Chinese food can be weird. But I like it!

red beans and rice with corn. everyone else called it "mexican rice"

A red dragon fruit! Honestly it tastes the same as a normal dragon fruit except about 3 times as expensive....

Oh and on a (sad) side note…our dear fishy friend Space Cowboy took a nap this week…and never woke up. I think my roommates are gonna get another fish sometime….

So things that are coming up! Tomorrow (well I guess late tonight at like 2am) the other girls in our group are going to get here! We will start teaching again Monday and then Friday or Saturday we leave for SHANGHAI!!!! Yay. I am so excited. As soon as the new girls get here we are going to ask them if they wanna come so we can buy our tickets.