First Day of Class/Up to speed...I think

9/3/09
First Day of Class!

Today I woke up at 6:45 am to make my nearly hour commute to my first kindergarten, Xiang Yang. I taught three “Book 3” classes in a row. The kids were adorable. They were, for the most part, very well behaved, smart, and eager to participate. I had about 25 students in each class and we learned a “greeting song” and how to count from 21-30.

Teaching is kind of crazy. I’ve never done it before and it’s especially difficult to delegate to students who don’t speak your language. The kids really liked my stickers I gave them and I really can’t wait to see them again. I didn’t really take lesson planning very seriously until I realized today that it is the rock and incredibly essential to the class. Little kids have the tiniest attention span, so fun games are necessary at all times. Also, I hope to learn some more Chinese so I can communicate with them if they look lost. I whipped out a “Bu dong?” which I though meant, “Understand?” but I’m pretty sure it came out wrong. I’ve got some practicing ahead of me.

We started watching “Weeds” after racking up at the DVD store. Our setup is pretty special. Basically, we cramp in to my bed (mind you, smaller than a twin), kick back with our airplane pillows ‘round our necks, and watch some serious DVDs. We’ve already plowed through Season 1 and are continuing right along with disc number 3. While I find the show pretty bizarre, I think I’m hooked.

The day was a busy one after having school, lunch, and a teacher’s meeting. Hallie and I went to buy a new Ethernet cord at the “electronics market” near our school hoping to solve our Internet problem. We got a cord for 10 quai (about $1.75) and hoped for the best. We also picked up some salad from a Western supermarket to eat for dinner since we haven’t eaten that in ages. We come home to a broken Internet and even worse, a broken toilet. Remember the “Gotta love China” bits posted above, yeah, nope. Ah, the “delights” of living in China. No one told us we couldn’t flush toilet paper…..SUCKS BABE? It was a miserable and very long 5 minutes of watching a rather small Chinese man hack away at the toilet with a plunger. Really, someone could have told us about not flushing the paper down…

To let go of some of the stress, I went on my first run around the neighborhood. Pretty sure the thoughts going through all the Chinese people’s minds that saw me were, “Strange white girl, running around town with a silly t-shirt with a big shape of Texas plastered on the back, what the heck?” I think I’m getting used to the stares. Hopefully tomorrow with be a good day filled with fixing things and feeling like I’m kinda at home…away from home that is.

Duo Shou Tian- How much is this?

9/4/09
Up to speed…I think

We spent all morning with Lily, one of our Chinese waibans, a plumber, and a computer tech repairing all of our broken appliances in our apartment. Like I said before, no one bothered to tell us not to flush toilet paper down the toilet. So after spending hours removing our toilet from the pipes (COMPLETELY removing the toilet from it’s original location), and having our second run-in with the Internet man, we are feeling pretty decent about our place. Not to mention that our plumber didn’t mind having a smoke in our bathroom while fixing the toilet. Only in China…

Hallie and I went to the fruit market and got some new fruit and feel good about life. I was feeling pretty bad yesterday when nothing was working, but now I feel connected to home and in a few short days, the glue will have dried from my toilet so it will be usable. I feel like we’ve gotten all the necessities for our place and will hopefully have a little bit of free time this weekend. Now that we have the Internet, there is a little more down time spent at home.

Numbers 0-10:
Ling- 0
Yi- 1
Er- 2
San- 3
Si- 4
Wu- 5
Liu- 6
Qi- 7
Ba- 8
Jiu- 9
Shi- 10