Halloween is OVER...HAHAHA

Well, I can have a life again! Ever since we got back from our vacation in the beginning of October, it has been crunch time for Halloween. Especially this past week.

Who knew that at one of the grocery stores they would have a little Halloween section???

Don't get me wrong, I love Halloween! I worked in a Haunted House for three years. Which is why I signed up to be the "official" Halloween coordinator. Just getting info from our Chinese coordinators to our group, making sure things run smoothly and we got things in on time. It was actually a lot of work.

We also ended up having an additional Halloween party, the week before Halloween. There is a new English school they are trying to open up, and to get people interested in the school we've gone there for a few events and extra teaching, and they wanted us to have a Halloween party there too. We performed our dance, and played Halloween games as well as host a little "trick or treating". 

Trick or Treat Table; Pretty sweet decorations

Clara and Kayla

Throughout the week of Halloween at our school, we had different "dress up days". Monday was Orange Day, Tuesday was Pajama Day, Wednesday was Crazy Hair Day, Thursday was Black Day, and Friday was MisMatch/Opposite Day! I have some pictures of crazy hair day and mismatch day: On mismatch day I also had my hair half in a bun and half in a braid.

 

Linda and Mavis had the best crazy hair out of my classes

For our school we teach however there was a lot more! We had to come up with two performances for each of our classes. For Carina's and my classes, we taught them a Halloween song called "Halloween is coming" with a little dance, and we taught them a country dance to the song "Boot Scootin Boogie". 

I was a little disappointed in the performance Halloween night though. Because my kids practiced SO HARD, they knew ALL the words, but the music was so loud we couldn't hear them at all :( I just hoped the parents were still impressed.

We also made tons of decorations for the school. Since my class was on the third floor I was in charge of decorations for thay floor with the other three senior teachers. Our theme was graveyard, we had tombstones with all the kids' names, a zombie hand, a giant skeleton, spider web and lots of spiders, hanging ghosts and bats. I think our floor turned out the best....only I forgot to take a picture admid all the hubabaloo :o

We also had to come up with a haunted house. We ended up having 4 rooms total. The pumpkin room and dining room weren't very scary, that way kids who were scared could leave. The last two rooms, the graveyard and witch room were supposed to be the scary ones. I ended up helping out in the dining room. We had grapes and spaghetti kids could touch (eyeballs and intestines) and a platter with a real head (thanks to Shalee)! It turned out pretty awesome, especially with the limited supplies and time we had.  I didn't get a lot of pictures of the finished Haunted House but here are a few in the process:

For our group dance, we all pretended to be creepy dolls and there wasn't much time to change into different makeup for the Haunted House so I just put on a cloak and called it good.

Carina decided to dress up as a zombie in the graveyard...yeah she made a few kids cry. Especially one of our students, Karmen. She is a tough cookie I totally thought she would not be scared in the haunted house but she barely made it into the graveyard and she was running out, dragging her parents with her screaming. Poor girl.

While some of us were in the Haunted House, some teachers were helping out with games and trick or treating.

The kids costumes were great- and so were their parents! Seriously some went all out. One of my home group kids-Lok- won the award for best costume out of all the senior kids! 

Lok with his parents

This is April, one of my students. Her English is REALLY GOOD she knows a lot of words and she doesn't stop talking ;) she was one of the "hostesses" of the night

This is Celina, our main coordinator at school

Snow White (Serena) and I

A pirate (Leona), a creepy doll (me) and a Superhero (Rachel)

A skeleton (Ami) and creepy doll

A zombie (rachel) and a creepy doll

One of the best things was we got to eat lunch that day with our kids!! And it was buffet style. Seriously I LOVE my kids!! They make me happy :) 

Kris, Mavis, Tim, Jim, Cherry, Matthew

Left to right: Linda, Karmen, Aaron, Emily, Connor

Billy, Debby, David, April, Judy

Karmen and Lok

David

Aaron and Linda

Aaron Linda Karmen and Lok; this is the table I sat with :)

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Oh it was also my birthday Monday. My room got heart attacked! Hearts everywhere and some nice notes. In the evening we went out for dinner, and then got dessert (I got cheesecake sooo yummy), then played games (pictionary telephone and mafia, of course!) 

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After Halloween I spent all Saturday with my Chinese friends (literally 12 hours). I went to the park with Sarah and her daughter Laura, then we ate lunch with two other families and their daughters. It was a farm with little huts to eat in- all the food is grown and raised right there on the farm! 

I had lots of fish-actually not as bad as I thought. Also pigs feet and pigs stomach....I went back for more so I guess it wasn't too bad ;). It was the type of place where they put all the food in the middle and you just take whatever you want from several dishes.  

After we went to another park, Sarah's husband was having a work activity there. They had teams and were blindfolded, having to get to the other side without stepping on the land mines. It was really funny to watch actually.

Then Susan invited me over for dinner where Allie and Carina met

up with me. We had lots of crazy little girls- Laura who is Sarah's daughter, Melanie and Yoyo who are Susan's daughters, and then Jacklyn who is Pheobe's daughter (also lives in the neighborhood). Apparently they make dinner the same way- the mom makes several different dishes and you just take some of each. It seems like a lot of work. She also said they don't make leftovers, they make whole new dishes every day! Because of course, that is the wife's job in China, especially with the high class. I asked Susan if she liked to cook and she said "I have no choice!" haha. Of course I helped her by doing a lot of chopping and she said I am a great helper!

Dinner at Susan's house that I helped with 

Sarah and Susan at Susan's house for dinner

Me with Sarah's daughter Laura

Sarah and Me at the park!

Does it look like November 1st to you??

Shoebee, her mom Kelly, Yoyo (not pictured cause she is hiding), Susan, Melanie, Hans, Sarah, Laura :)

Finally got a picture of Yoyo haha!!

Remains of pigs feet I ate

Just look at her face. I had to enlarge the photo so you could really see it 

Student Spotlight: JIM!

This is Jim. He is one of my favorites so I figured I would start out with him. He is tiny- probably the smallest in the class. Actually one day I was doing kitchen and the coordinator told him I couldn't give him any of the food because he was so tiny. Which didn't make sense because he always eats during snack and lunch (and I was just feeding them pudding with crushed up oreos-"dirt cups" hehe). 

Anyways, he is generally pretty talkative and participates in class, even from the beginning. His English isn't too bad. He is a jokester- I'd say he is the class clown. So sometimes he can cause problems when he doesn't know when to stop, but he is always a very sweet little boy. After we eat lunch we play with the kids before nap time and little Jim always grabs my hand and leads me somewhere to play. Sometimes it's a book he pulls out and wants me to read (in Chinese of course) or a puzzle or something else.  He is always wanting to help me with anything. He is just the cutest thing ever, and I really just want to pack him up and take him home!!!

Enjoy these pictures of Jim!

More cute kids & Chinese friends

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. 

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!!

Getting ready to practice our Halloween dance/song

Note the shirt: One day in the afternoon an happy time....

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. 

making dumplings with Sarah

Going to the park with Sarah's family and meeting up with a few other families! 

 

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!

 

Me with two of our coordinators, Ami and Rachel

Family Photos- October "Adams Family"

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

Serena! Love this girl!!

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!

It's like subway, except creating your own sandwich you create your own pizza or pasta. SO GOOD

My Head teacher got her mission call....Birmingham Alabama!