Check out this funny shirt I found...
"the romantic girls like elves valley garment".......
what?
I love my kids so much!! And I am becoming a much better teacher than in the beginning for sure. When I first got 9 kids it was a little overwhelming, and crazy, and I felt like my lessons were terrible. And I just did not look forward to it, to be honest. But now my kids have gotten better and under control. Their behavior had improved a LOT and they hardly ever speak Chinese anymore! I have notice improvements in my kids. I love seeing them progress. And they are just the cutest sweetest things ever. They always want to help with everything. They really like teaching me Chinese too( outside of class of course). Now whenever I see my kids they always make me smile. I've noticed if there is a day where I am in a bad mood, they always cheer me up!
Our teaching schedule is slightly different from what I posted when I first got here. We went from teaching 3 classes to 4, and back to 2. The reason being is about a month ago, the Chinese Police came to our school just as a check up. And apparently they aren't so fond of the fact that we aren't certified teachers...our school told them we are just on foreign exchange- here to play with the kids and they teach us about China. Which is true...but they moved us down to only teaching 2 classes and instead have some other actual English teachers to fill in the rest of the time. Which was actually fine, because I didn't like my other two classes as much. ;) So we have opening, and then the kids eat breakfast, and we get ready for our lessons, have our first lesson, then second lesson, then outside time where the kids go outside and do these dances that are so cute and fun. Then we have snack time, and then the other English teacher will teach. Then the kids have lunch, we introduce the food, then we eat lunch and come back up to play with the kids before nap time! By this time it is around 12 and us teachers are done for the day. Each day we have a culture class around 12:30. Chinese class, kung fu, and cooking! After the bus will take us home.
The past few weeks since we got back from vacation have been CRAZY!! We have been spending lots of extra time getting ready for Halloween. Halloween is BIG here. Not in China but just at the English schools. We have been making decorations to put up, teaching our kids songs and dances, planning a dance for us to perform and a haunted house..... but it's really fun!
Me and Carina taught our kids a halloween song/dance, and a country dance and they are pretty awesome!! Carina is the other teacher whose class I teach, we are Senior A!
Our Halloween party will be on Friday, Halloween of course.
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At outside time once, we were doing three legged races. And this cutie, Eric, comes up to me and wanted me to be his buddy!!
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I have made some amazing Chinese friends here! Not just with the coordinators at our school (tho they ARE AWESOME) but some families in our neighborhood. They sort of have this little friend group, and they all get together and have play dates for their kids. Which are all girls by the way...go figure. Anyways these are like way wealthy Chinese people, so the moms don't work, they are housewifes and get bored so they like having me and Carina come hang out. I love talking to them, playing with their kids. They make us delicious food, one time they taught us how to make dumplings. They even took us to 1 free belly dancing class! Which was sooo fun (but actually way hard). They always love to go hiking and to the park which I think is so neat. They are just always so kind and they LOVE to spoil us. I finally got to go to a Chinese Buffet like I have been wanting too (but sadly it was a vegetarian place- but still really good!) There have been a few times where I am randomly walking somewhere or swimming at the pool and Chinese people come up to me and talk to me and invite me over or want to hang out. It's awesome.
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| making dumplings with Sarah |
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Going to the park with Sarah's family and meeting up with a few other families!   |
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I love hanging out with Sarah's and Susan's families because It's almost like living with a host family, and I get to experience more Chinese culture. Even if it's the wealthy side of life.
Seriously, our city is SO WEALTHY. I never really realized that when I first got here. The kids' parents pull up to school in really nice cars. There are nice cars everywhere. And especially the women dress really nicely, stylish, and fancy. It's actually funny going places and seeing women in really high heels- especially at a park or hiking.
It would be kind of nice I think to visit and experience a more poor side of China, to see how many other people actually live that is less Westernized. Don't get me wrong though, I still love it, and it is still really different.
Another random thing: Often times people will just spit out seeds, bones, peels, etc and just put them on the table. Or at school during snack/lunch time the kids have a special plate in the middle of the tables to put all those scraps. And then there will be a giant bucket on the ground to dump your scraps in. It is kind of gross but at the same time...kind of genius. Then the people who clean your dishes don't have to deal with that (I would know, I did that too many times working at Catering and the Morris Center Cafeteria at BYU and it's gross).
I think I am going to start doing a segment called "Student Spotlight" where I will just talk about one of my students (so it will be fairly short). I have 9 kids in my home group and another 9 kids from Carina's class for a total of 18 kids so I might do a few a week!
Oh also there was a free barbeque recently for foreigners. It was to help foreigners and the Chinese government come together and communicate with each other, so foreigners could voice their concerns and make suggestions and such. We saw lots of other English teachers from other programs besides ILP, and foreigners here on business/work or intern programs. The food was soooo good, and they had a band playing with some English music too so it was great!
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| Me with two of our coordinators, Ami and Rachel |
Family Photos- October "Adams Family"
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| Carina, Me, May, Clara, Maegan |
One day we went to a Chinese salon and all got our hair washed and styled for super cheap!! They also gave a nice shoulder/neck/head massage while washing....ahhhh
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| Serena! Love this girl!! |
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| There are tons of wild cats and kittens running around. I mean there are lots, and they are all afraid of humans. The other day I saw this momma cat feeding her two kitties- so cute! |
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| It's like subway, except creating your own sandwich you create your own pizza or pasta. SO GOOD |
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| My Head teacher got her mission call....Birmingham Alabama! |
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