some thoughts

a few interesting things happened today worth mentioning.

first, i was feeling very very ill last night/this morning. i'm better now, but i sort of felt like my head and abdomen were going to explode simultaneously. I'm sure you all appreciate that image. Maybe i ate something weird, or something. Anyway, I'm glad that's over. Pinkeye, however, is not over. It probably never will be.

Because of my pinkeye situation, I wore my glasses to school today. I wear them every once in a while to change things up a bit, but I guess I hadn't worn them to music class before. One of my students who likes to sit in front and talk to me about Thailand looked at me and pointed to my glasses. "Miss Stephanie," she said, "you are wearing glasses. I think that maybe you are much more beautiful without your glasses on."

What do you say to that? Thank you? That's not nice? These kids have no filter. And people wonder why I'm self-conscious about wearing my glasses....

Anyway, we finished watching the Wizard of Oz and I got a little choked up at the end when Dorothy wakes up and tells Auntie Em how she'll never leave them again and that there's no place like home. Granted, I cry at Hallmark commercials...but maybe the Wizard of Oz was perhaps a poor viewing choice for someone who is beginning to feel twinges of homesickness. Sigh.

The last thing of interest is in regards to how absolutely ridiculous China is sometimes, but I don't want to post about it until I have pictures to go along with the post. So...stay tuned.

surprise, another staff meeting

So today was great. My ESL classes went well, and there's nothing more rewarding then explaining something to 4th graders and seeing lights go off in their heads in recognition. I gave them their monthly test today, and I know a couple probably failed...but I also know that they at least tried. That felt good.

In my English class, I was teaching comparative adjectives, and I used the students as examples. I think they really like it when I do this. I try to make it light hearted and fun, and it seems to go over well. This might sound strange, but I realy feel like I have a connection with that class. Maybe it's because I see them every day, because I know I don't feel the same way about my history classes. But I just really, really enjoy teaching grammar to the kids and seeing some of them really striving for excellence. Two boys and one girl in particular really make that class worthwhile. When the girl turned in her journal-writing assignement on Friday, she told me that she had left room so that I could make corrections. I felt guilty making spelling or gramatical corrections on something that I didn't consider a serious piece of writing, so I didn't correct anyone else's. I found out later this evening from her homeroom teacher that this same girl who I adore wrote in her contact book (notebook? am I stupid? why don't i know what a contact book is?), "I love my English teacher. She is so young and beautiful and funny." Well, as if I didn't already love this student...my goodness. I almost got teary eyed when the class teacher told me that. I really hope they don't switch classes on me during the semester because I already am so attached to them that by the end of the semester, I think I'll be heartbroken if I'm not able to continue teaching them.

So...things were awesome until the staff meeting in the primary school building today, just for the primary school teachers. Apparently they wanted us to write notes about the homework/behavior of ALL OF OUR STUDENTS and then talk to each class teacher about each of the students. Right. With no notice, we were supposed to divide our students up by which homeroom they are in, write them down in that organized way, and then write comments about each of them. That's about 70 students each. Needless to say, none of us were very pleased about it, and I was there until after 6pm tonight talking to class teachers. I didn't finish writing down everything, but the class teachers themselves were writing down what I said, so I think the whole process was really pointless. Apparently we're supposed to turn in some cover sheet to the supply office. I wasn't even given sheets for all of my classes. It was just so ridiculous. Couldn't they have told us this ahead of time so we could have prepared the organized lists of student names? Or at least told us what the meeting was going to be about ahead of time? It just didn't make sense, so it was infuriating.

Definitely calling it an early night. I am so exhausted.

GOOD DAY

today was awesome. classes went well, got stuff planned, and got a phone call that Dania, Shannon and I needed to pick something up in the Xian Mian building (the high school building). We got there, and wouldn't you know it, we all had mail waiting for us! Mine was a little package from Sara, including a letter, a picture, a drawing, and a picture book. I was ecstatic. I didn't think the day could get better until I got into my dorm and the dorm guard (George) told me in Chinese and hand motions that someone had delivered something for me. I went into one of the little rooms where the dorm guards store things, and there was a beautiful bouquet of flowers! Mike knows where it's at, people.

So...if you were wondering whether or not I would actually receive mail if you sent it...I can and I have. Woohoo!!

Hash in Suzhou...and no i do not mean weed

Yesterday was maybe the most incredible day I've spent in China so far.

One of the returning teachers in our office told Shannon and me about this thing called Hash. The Hash House Harriers is an organization that is known as "a drinking group with a running problem." They have clubs all over the world, in most major cities (and in many minor cities as well). Here is their website: http://www.gthhh.com/

So anyway, we were told about a Hash event in Suzhou, a small city about an hour and a half outside of Shanghai. I am (obviously) not a big runner, but the event sounded cool and when we were told that you don't have to run, Shannon and Dania and I decided to go. We went to a designated pick-up spot (there were 8 of us total from our school going), and got on the plush bus that would take us to Suzhou. There were two buses and maybe about 70 people total (maybe...i'm terrible at estimating numbers). We paid 150 rmb each, which was more than worth the experience that was to come. The bus stopped at a rest stop, during which we used the glamorous facilities (read: more squat toilets...no toilet paper, but there was a flusher! amazing!) and perused the interesting choices for snacks. I ended up buying some weird pizza flavored pretzel sticks. Dania bought something that she thought was apple juice and turned out to be apple-flavored jelly. It totally reminded me of the choir Europe trips on the buses cause we always stopped at so many rest stops and bought interesting snack foods to share with each other.

Anyway, we got to Suzhou around 2:15 pm and I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that we were going to be following some trail, and at the end of it we'd arrive at a Buddhist temple/monestary and get unlimited drinks and food. As it turns out, they have 2 people (called "the hares") that scope out the trail the week before, and then on the day of the event they run 15 minutes ahead and mark the trail. They mark it with chalk in a way that they intentionally try to get you to go the wrong way. I had no idea, so when most of the group went the wrong way, asking "Are you?" (the question people shout out to ask if the people ahead 'are you on the trail?') and hearing an "oh shit" (obviously, the answer when the group is NOT on the right trail) from high up on a hill in front of us, I was sort of confused. This happened a bunch of times during the trek, and it was actually pretty fun figuring out which was the right way to go. Unless, of course, you made the mistake of hiking hundreds of feet up a steep hill. That was not so fun.

I honestly don't know how anyone could have run the course. It felt like most of it was up down these really steep hills. I'm pretty out of shape, but I felt like we kept a decent pace.



















At the top of the second hill I felt awful. The best way to describe it is that I felt like I was drunk...totally dizzy, not quite aware of what was going on around me. We just kept moving. I don't know what kind of crops we were making our way through, but they were terraced up the hill like this almost the whole way. You really had to pay attention to your footing cause it was really easy to trip or slide. I'm surprised that none of the runners sprained their ankles. I did, however, manage to get some of the most ridiculous mosquito bites of my entire life. By ridiculous, I mean that I just counted and I currently have close to 40, maybe more. And they're all on my legs. I'm not joking. The extra-strength anti-itch cream I brought is not working, and I wouldn't even know how to go buy benadryl in pill form so I guess i'm just going to suffer through it and continue tearing up my legs. Shannon took a picture of my legs, which I will hopefully post as soon as she uploads her pics onto her computer. So we continued on our hike for probably close to 2 hours, admiring the scenery, enjoying the lack of car horns and jackhammers and finally arrived at our destination. It was incredible. Not only did this finally feel like "real China," but we got to go inside, explore, and eat and drink as much as we wanted. We didn't actually see any monks or anything, but the whole place was up on top of these hills. We sat through a very interesting Hash ritual of toasts and drinking (which I won't explain in detail here) before it was finally time for dinner. Apparently the food was even further up the hill, another 100 steps up (which we hoped was a cruel joke. it wasn't). So we climbed up again, each bringing 2 or 3 bottles of beer with us. Here is a shot of our table, which shows the interesting soup that no one touched (and I certainly wasn't about to...ew mushrooms), our empty beer bottles and rice bowls, and a dish that is slightly covered was apparentl horse meat. And I had eaten it. Wow. It really is better to just not know what you're eating.

Anyway, most everyone continued drinking for a while, but Shannon and Dania and I went and explored a little even thought it was dark outside and not well lit. We went into this prayer room with incredible carvings...but since there was very little light, it was hard to see what we were looking at. Maybe it was wrong to take pictures in it, but here is what it looked like. Pretty incredible. We sat on the steps to the prayer room for a while and talked to a couple of the other runners about China and traveling and stuff, and it was all very peaceful. I couldn't believe how quiet it was, or the fact that you could actually see some of the stars in the sky. I think they might have been the first stars I'd seen since I got to China.

Anyway, I will leave you with one final image that will tell you even more about our day in Suzhou. Remember how i said that the primary school building doesn't have western toilets? And how the squatter 'toilet' at the rest area was plush because it had a flusher? Well, be thankful for your lovely porcelain toilets with seats, where you can relax and feel comfortable. You'll cherish even the filthiest truck stop toilet after you take a look at this:
Look closely. No privacy (obviously...there isn't a word in Chinese for 'privacy') and no flusher. Too bad this picture isn't scratch and sniff...then you'd really get the full idea.

suddenly, it's the weekend

another week of teaching has come and gone. phew.

it's been an interesting week. monday feels like a year ago, and yet i can't believe it's already friday. does that make sense? i can't even think of what i did on monday, but i feel like the week went by super fast again. hmm.

wednesday was (obviously) pretty terrible. it was bad even before i got my wallet stolen, because i was stressed out for no reason during the day and then got an email from the administration that frustrated me to no end.

let me back up. i can't remember if i already wrote about this, but if i did, sorry. So during orientation, the administration asked all of the new teachers to pick a topic for a speech and sign up for it, in case they wanted to pick one of us to give a speech to the local division. Shannon and I were advised by the returning teachers to put down something that we figured they wouldn't pick because let's be honest, who wants to give a speech to a couple hundred Chinese students who probably won't understand what you're talking about anyway? So, Shannon was ambitious (and, as I've learned, VERY smart) and wrote down "Human Rights." Obviously a speech about Human Rights, in China, is something they might avoid. I looked through the other topics people had put down, and noticed that at least 4 other people had written down "music." Very vague, very general. So I wrote it down too, assuming that there was no way they'd pick my name out the other people who wrote 'music' too.

Fast forward to Wednesday. Out of the 20-something new foreign teachers, they chose 5 to give speeches. And, wouldn't you know it, something about the way I wrote down "music" the same as everyone else stood out to them. I have to give a 40-minute speech on 'music.' I've obviously already narrowed it down to collegiate a cappella. That's right. I'm going to give a 40-minute speech on collegiate a cappella. You know you would too, if you were in my position. It's always so much easier to talk about something narrow for a long time. And I will obviously be playing a bunch of Dicks and Janes. Live tracks and the cd. Nothing will get me though those 40 minutes quite like playing some music tracks...

Yesterday was much better. My students were moderately well behaved, I showed the first half of the Wizard of Oz in my music class, and my favorite ESL student waited outside of my classroom just so she could give me a hug. Also, during the last 2 periods of the day, the 6th grade students were doing a scavenger hunt. The hunt required them to take pictures of/with some of their teachers...so I posed for a bunch of pictures. It was fun. AND I was able to get an advance on my paycheck, so i'm no longer penniless. And today we got our plane tickets and confirmation stuff for the trip to Xi'an. Now it's me, Shannon, and Dania, and I am so excited!

Special thanks to Courtney for creating a facebook group in my honor....

you need to read this

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060920/ap_on_re_as/china_man_bites_panda

Oh, China.

ugh

well, i feel like a big fucking idiot. sorry for the swearing, mom and dad, but i think it really serves to show emphasis. and you already know about this anyway.

i know better than this. i'm an experienced traveler. and yet...

as shannon and i were on our way to the dvd store after school today, i looked down at my purse to see that the zipper was now wide open and my wallet was gone. i'd had about $75 in cash, my debit card, credit card, teacher identification card, drivers license, u of m id card, lunch card, insurance card, not to mention some business cards, blockbuster card, library card, etc. the only important ones were my debit and credit cards, which i promptly called to cancel. i know it could be worse, i could be here on vacation and have that happen or have had my passport stolen or my camera or gotten hurt. but it's such a fucking hassle. i have to get a loan from the school until i get paid at the end of the month. i'm going to have to get a new drivers license AGAIN when i come back to the states. i had other little things in my wallet that i kept to remind me of people at home or as little tokens for good luck. those obviously didn't get me very far...but i'm just so disappointed in myself for letting this happen.

in other news, shannon and i definitely are going to Xian in 2 weeks. we're leaving october 3 and coming back october 7, and the trip is costing us about $480 each. That includes airfare, a 4 star hotel for 4 nights, daily breakfast, and a tour on one of the days. I'm definitely looking forward to getting the hell out of Shanghai.

touristing and things

Ok, so I already mentioned that Shannon and I went to the Bund and took pictures of Pudong on Saturday afternoon. It was really nice, even though it was super cloudy. Not that that's anything new...it's always a surprise when the sun is actually out. I'm never quite sure if it's clouds or smog...

Anyway, so we got off the metro at Raffles City, which is a huge huge mall. I'm sure the Mall of America is bigger, but this mall is intense. They have a Levis store and L'occitanne (I probably spelled that wrong) and whole bunch of other western stores, and the 6th floor has this crazy food court type place called Megabite. It's like an American food court at a mall, except it's all different types of Chinese or Japanese food, and you have to put money on a debit card in order to purchase anything. Shannon and I had a pretty good dinner there for about $3.

Anyway, so we walked out of Raffles City down Fuzhou (pronounced Fujo) Lu. We stopped in Foreign Language Bookstore and admired all of the American novels and other books that we wanted to read. We're going to share our books with each other cause the books at the store are pretty expensive. From there we just walked all the way down Fuzhou Lu to the Bund. We had to take a tunnel to walk under the road there in order to get to the touristy park that allows you to walk along the rive and get good shots of Pudong. It was pretty crowded, especially with annoying vendors who kept trying to sell us kites. I threw a few "bu yao"s in their direction and that got them to leave us alone. Good thing the only useful Chinese I know I learned before I started taking lessons.

So, we took a bunch of pictures of Pudong and other monuments along the river. Here are a couple:
So the first one is of Pudong. The next is sort of of the Bund...you can see the Peace Hotel in the background with the green roof. And, of course, Shannon and I with the Chairman himself. Pretty awesome, huh.

So saturday night we took it easy. I watched some pirated dvds and much to my dismay, disc three of the first season of LOST doesn't work. Dammit. I'm thinking of taking it back to the dvd store but I don't really know how that works here...

Sunday was spent doing some lesson planning and watching Michigan kick Notre Dame's ass at a bbq place. It was an alright time, but I already knew the outcome of the game so it was sort of anticlimactic. Plus...it made me miss being in Ann Arbor surrounded by my fellow Wolverines.

I can't believe Tuesday is already over. I've officially been in China for one month. I can't believe how fast the first month has gone by. I'm sure it will start to go more slowly as soon as things stop being so new, but right now it's just flying by.

I guess the exciting news is that Shannon and I are almost definitely going to Xian for 4 days/3 nights during the October holiday in 2 weeks. She talked to a bunch of travel agents and we're almost totally committed to one package a guy put together for us...but if it doesn't work out, she just told me about a package she found on a Shanghai expat website to go to Malaysia for 5 days. So...we will be traveling! I can't wait!

Now it's off to our favorite Tuesday night dinner spot...some random street i don't know the name of in Gubei. All I care about is that it's not Chinese food....which is getting old already. Eek!

Come visit me. you know you want to

Ok so here's another "fake" post. sorry adam.

If you are interested in coming to China to visit, you must apply for a Chinese visa. I did a little research this morning. It seems that those of you in the Detroit area can get your visas from the Chinese Consulate in Chicago. You can't mail the applications in, so you either have to take it in yourself or entrust someone (Gabe?) to take it in to the office for you. There are other consulate offices in New York...and obviously the embassy in DC could take care of it too...since I know you all adore me and want to visit so badly. Anyway, you'd be applying for an L Visa (a tourist visa), so here is the link if you want to look into more. I guess the visas are valid either 3 months or 6 months from the date of issue...I would assume that there is a part on the application where you would specify whether you need it to cover the next 3 months from now or 6 months from now. If you're looking to come soon, I'd recommend that you start looking into getting your visa! http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/hzqz/zgqz/t84246.htm

Come visit!!!

someone's got a case of the mondays...

Ok, I'm sorry I haven't updated since Thursday. I know you're all waiting on the edge of your seats to hear about my latest adventures. Or something.

So things have been moderately busy since the last time I updated. I spent all day Friday planning for classes and grading quizzes and homework. The quiz scores were completely disappointing. In my ESL class, the average was around a 53%. All I did was give them a dictation and had them spell 10 words that they had copied for homework and we had gone over in class every day. I didn't think it was too hard to ask them how to spell the word "frog." Jesus.

My history quizzes weren't much better. I'd say the average was a 6 out of 10. At least that's not failing. One girl literally didn't get any answers right. I couldn't bear to give her a zero, so I gave her 1 point for trying. I probably shouldn't even have been that nice. So, I'm going to be a lot more strict and have my students who got a 50% or below have their parents sign their quizzes. At least this way I'll know the parents are aware of how badly their students are doing. And since there were some kids that got 100%, I know that the quizzes weren't outrageously hard.

Friday afternoon after classes were over, Shannon and Molly and I went to the Botanical Gardens down the street from school. It was really beautiful. Here are some highlights:

The rest of the pictures are, as always, on kodakgallery.com

Saturday afternoon, Shannon and I decided to be tourists and go down to the Bund to take some pictures of Pudong. I'll update more about the rest of the weekend later, but I'll leave you with one more picture:

In case you can't see, yes I am giving a peace sign and no I am not smiling. When in Rome...

it's been a long 24 hours

so i wrote about how we were going to sushi for Dania's bday last night. I was so excited, and if you like sushi why wouldn't you be? Well that excitement pretty much evaporated the second i got into the front seat of the cab we were taking to the restaurant. I don't know if it was the fact that I kept turning around to talk to Shannon and Dania, the fact that I had had a strange feeling in my stomach all day long, or the fact that our one-star cab driver was driving like a lunatic (big surprise), but i swear to god i almost threw up in the cab. i had to close my eyes and think of something totally different from the horrible smells we were passing and the jerky starts and stops of the half-hour cab ride. when we got to the restaurant, Shannon was nice enough to stand outside with me for a while so i could get some "fresh air." Yes, that needed quotes.

When I decided that the air probably would be more fresh indoors, we went up to where the other 20 people we came with were sitting. it was very cosy, and we even had to take our shoes off before we sat at the low low tables on the low benches. i drank some coke and started feeling better, and ended up really having a good time. seriously though, don't sit in the front seat of a cab in Shanghai unless there are absolutely no other options. puking in there would have been pretty embarrassing.

I'm glad I had a good time last night, because today was awful. Not awful in the 'I hate that smart ass kid Ryan and want him expelled' or the 'why does the second floor always smell like urine' kind of way. It was just a lot of work that was really exhausting. I set my alarm for a little later than usual and I still woke up at 6, way way way earlier than I wanted to get up.

Then, since I had first period free today, I went downstairs and to the attached building to get some copies made. When I got there, there was an adorable little kitten sitting on the steps, and one of the Chinese teachers was feeding it bread. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that one of its rear legs was totally mangled (like the circulation was being cut off to the paw and it was almost like a club foot now?) and the kitten was limping, so no wonder it was hungry. And, surprisingly enough, even though he was a stray, he was really really friendly. This obviously made my morning. I spent like 20 minutes down there playing with this adorable, lame, stray kitten. When I scratched behind his ears, he started purring and I almost got teary eyed because I have a sinking suspicion that he's not going to live very long. Of course my immediate reaction was 'adopt him!!' but I obviously can't. Sad. The woman who works in the copy room made a little box for him and gave him some water, so I guess he hung out in there for a while. When I went to check on him later though, he was gone. It made me so sad....there are some scary stray dogs on campus.

Anyway, after that depressing incident, I had to teach 5 classes in a row. Granted, lunch did break it up a bit, but 5 classes in a row is seriously exhausting. I had 6th grade history, where they kids were actually slightly better behaved (but I still deducted points from 4 of their grades). Then my music class.

Let me just say this. I might be a good English teacher. I think I'm a pretty decent history teacher. But good lord I wish I had a syllabus for my music class because I honestly don't know what to do with them. The class was totally boring today for me AND them. An hour and 10 minutes is SO long to teach 5th graders anything, let alone music. I need to find some music books or something ASAP. In the meantime I think we're gonna watch some movies.

Lunch was...lunchy. It always makes me happy when they have the scrambled eggs with tomato because it always tastes exactly the same and I love tomatoes and know that i like that dish. I'm thinking about trying to make it here sometime but I know there must be another flavor they add besides salt. Probably MSG.

Then I had 6th grade English, where I had to re-teach them the vocabulary words for the week because more than half the class was using them incorrectly in the sentences they wrote for homework. And I finally got sick of the kids calling me "teacher" so now I refuse to answer to it. A couple of those kids are just so good and so eager to learn. They're really wonderful, and I'm glad that I get to see them every day. Maybe I'll change my mind in a few weeks, but so far they've made a pretty good first impression on me. Except for the one girl who never responds to me in English, only Chinese. I told this other girl who serves as her interpreter that she's going to lose points if she continues to do that. It's so incredibly irritating.

When English was over, I seriously thought I was done for the day. I started walking up to the office and realized I was holding another book in my hand. So I had to trek down to my ESL class and deal with hyper 4th graders for another 40 minutes. Just thinking about it makes me want to lay back down. I'm pretty sure that a few of the kids failed the quiz I gave, and that makes me feel bad. Oh well, maybe now they'll finally get tutors.

One thing that I think is really funny that I've noticed a lot of the teachers doing (including myself) is actually using our vocabulary words that we're teaching the kids when we're having conversations. I found myself saying something to Shannon about being 'envious' of the fact that she was able to take a nap...and realized that 'envious' is one of the words I taught today. Yesterday I used 'struggle.' Dania used 'creepy.' Jonathan used some other random 7th grade word. I can't yet tell if teaching English is going to make me even better at grammar (as if that were possible....jk) and expand my vocabulary, or just make me start speaking English like my ESL students. I hate that I have to be like "Gota....copy. Draw?' But he doesn't understand me when I speak in complete sentences....

Also, Shannon and I are talking about starting to plan our trip for the October break. Right now we're thinking of going to Xian, where the terra cotta warriors are. It's so unlike me to wait so long to plan a trip, and she said she's totally a 'fly by the seat of your pants' type person. So, perhaps our styles will complement each other well. I'm excited to travel in China.

Anyway. I borrowed Dania's dvd set of the first season of Lost and i think I might just spend the rest of the evening laying in bed watching some. i can't even really believe i had the energy to think of and type all of this.

time flies

i guess i don't really have much interesting to post, so I apologize if this isn't as entertaining as the previous ones. i'm already done with school on wednesday at i can't believe how fast the week is going by. today has been really stressful, which is mostly my own fault because i didn't actually get any work done during the weekend or on monday or yesterday.

however, i was quite productive today. i only taught 3 classes, but i really did plan a lot during my office hours. i decided that tomorrow in my music class we're going to spend the class listening to music the evokes different types of emotions...sad, happy, etc. I'm starting the class with Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder, so that should be awesome. I'm gonna try to go to the dvd store before next thursday because i really want to have them watch Fantasia.

Today is my friend Dania's birthday, so we're going to an all-you-can-eat sushi place for dinner. I've been craving sushi since I got here, so I'm pretty pumped. The school bought her a really pretty bouquet of flowers for her birthday, which I thought was nice. Maybe my birthday next month won't be so bad.

Anyway...people are starting to receive letters and packages so you don't have to worry about things not arriving here. Send me mail! Please. :)

Oh, and I can't remember if I wrote this in the previous post...but learning Chinese is freaking hard. We spent 15 minutes in our first lesson just trying to pronounce the letter R. Apparently it's more of a "zh" sound. Great. I promise I'll write about something more interesting next time, but I just didn't want you to think I was neglecting the blog.

history b sucks

so i made it through another monday.

not that it was that hard...yesterday was teacher's day, so i actually got presents from two of my students in honor of Teacher's Day. Charles, my great student who asked me if I liked ABBA on the first day, gave me a really pretty card, which I promptly taped up at my desk in the office. Another student, Katherine, gave me some dark chocolate. Now I'm sure it was their parents' idea to get their teachers gifts, but flattery will get you EVERYWHERE with me. Although honestly, these are 2 of my good students, so it's not like they really need to buy a grade or my affection. It was funny cause when Boris, another one of my favorite students, saw me open the chocolate that Katherine gave me and saw how much I liked it, he came up to me and said "Miss Stephanie, I'll bring you a present next time!!" Aww.

So of course that brightened my day a bit, which was good because going into 7th period I had a bad feeling. 7th period is the dreaded History B class. On Mondays I have both sections of the history class that I teach, right in a row. The A section is awesome. There are 20 kids in the class, they are attentive, and seem pretty interested in learning the material. I was able to get through all of the material with them today and gave them the last 10 minutes in class to start their homework.

History B, however, was not so lucky. Those kids never shut the hell up. I appreciate that they are usually asking me somewhat history related questions, but most of it is stuff that isn't totally related to what we're discussing in class, and also stuff that I don't know the answers to. When we're talking about the alliances that helped start the cause of World War I, I really don't need 6th grade boys interrupting me (literally interrupting) with questions about bombs and how to build a battleship. It didn't matter how much I threatened them today...these kids would not stop asking ridiculous questions. And then there's another kid who honestly knows WAY more than I do about the subject. I'm not exaggerating. When I don't know the answer to something and I'm thinking of a way to respond to it, he just blurts it out and i KNOW that what he's saying is correct. I'm totally shocked that a 6th grader knows more about World War I than someone who just graduated with a degree in history from the University of Michigan...but also sort of embarrassed and really impressed.

So anyway, I finally started threatening to tell their class teachers on them. The class teacher here is sort of like a homeroom teacher at home. Granted, I don't even really know what that means because we didn't have 'homeroom' in high school. We only went to our homeroom teacher to get our report cards at the end of the semesters...but here the class teacher is like the one who is in charge of one class of students in one grade. So they deal with disciplinary issues, and have contact with the parents. I was so pissed off when class ended because I wasn't even able to get through all the material with History B, let alone give them any time to work on their homework in class (which a few of them didn't deserve anyway, but the girls are so well-behaved that I feel guilty). So as soon as the bell rang, I walked up the stairs to my office and found the class teacher for the two boys that were causing me the most grief. I felt like such a tattle...like when I was little and I would tell on other kids in my class when they did something wrong. I know it's not a good trait to have, so it made me feel weird to tell on these students that are at least somewhat my responsibility. It made me feel like I had failed at least slightly, because I SHOULD be able to have control over my classroom. But whatever. These kids were acting like assholes and refused to raise their hands and literally interrupted me while I was trying to explain things to the class. I'd had enough. So I told the class teacher and she promised me that she would call their parents.

It's ridiculous how angry 6th graders can make you. I'm trying to let it go and I want to start fresh when I see them again on Thursday. But man, that is hard. Maybe they'll be better behaved on Thursday....?

ok adam

So yesterday ended my first full week as a teacher. I really think it went well. Yes, of course there were some annoyances and issues which i've already addressed in here, but I would say that for the most part, it wasn't bad. And I've been told that it only gets easier...until midterms.

So what better way to round out the week than with a banquet for all the teachers at the school to celebrate Teacher's Day? We had such a great time at the last banquet that we were pretty psyched about having another one so soon. And luckily for us, the seating chart remained mostly the same.

So we left school at 4:30 and got to the hotel-place that it was at in Pudong within the hour. In case you don't know, Pudong is the newer part of Shanghai, located on the other side of the river from where I live. It takes about 40 minutes to get there...and if you look at pictures of Shanghai and see the Pearl Tower and stuff, that's in Pudong. Last night was the only time i've been over there since we arrived at the Pudong Airport.

So I'd say the best thing about these banquets is the free-flowing Tiger beer. Although the food hasn't been bad, the beer definitely keeps everyone happy and entertained. Especially when you aren't sure what the hell it is you're tasting. For example, when we arrived there were already a few dishes on the lazy susan. Most of it was pretty recognizable (and by recognizable I mean in the sense that you could tell what was meat and what was a vegetable. This is important, because it's not always that easy to tell), except for one interesting dish. I mean, look at it. What do YOU think it is? I honestly had no idea. Some people at the table suggested that it was jellyfish, so I immediately picked up a piece with my chopsticks and put it on my plate. I put it in my mouth and started chewing, thinking that I didn't expect jellyfish to have that sort of exceptionally chewy texture. Then Lucien, who was sitting next to me, started talking about how it wasn't jellyfish. He said that one time someone told him it was cabbage, so he put a lot of it on his plate...and then they started pointing to their elbows and knees and saying 'ok, cabbage, oh wait, i mean cartilage." At this point I was still trying to chew whatever it was that was in my mouth...and as soon as I heard the word 'cartilage' it made much more sense. I tried to ignore it but the idea of swallowing this huge piece of flavored cartilage made my stomach turn. So for only the second time since I've been here, I discretely spat it out onto my plate. It just wasn't happening. I also ate some cow stomach, which really wasn't bad at all. I would have preferred not to know it was stomach, but they gave it a sort of spicy flavor and it was fine. One piece of it was more than enough though.

So as they kept bringing out the food, they also kept bringing out the beer. And when the principal of the school comes around to the table, you have to toast to him. So needless to say, everyone was getting pretty ridiculous as the dinner went on. I personally enjoyed it when they brought out a plate of pigeon. And not just the body, either. Look closely. What is that thing near the top of the plate? Oh right, it's THE HEAD OF THE PIGEON. We were a bit taken aback to see that the head was included on the dish. I was sort of intrigued by the fact that they were serving pigeon at all, considering how disguting I find the creatures to be. Maybe they weren't really 'pigeons' but some sort of game hen or something...but they look like pigeons to me. So I mentioned the free-flowing alcohol and now the addition of an entire pigeon, with detachable head. I mean...what did they expect to happen? I know that some of the other teachers at the more cultured tables actually split the head open and ate the brains. I'm sure it was delicious. Actually, I know many of them are regretting it today, as they have become very sick...although it's questionable as to whether or not they're sick from the pigeon brains or the beer. Either way...sucks for them.

Our table, on the other hand, chose to have some fun with it. Maybe this was poor manners. Maybe this was barbaric. Maybe it could even be considered offensive. But man, it was a good time. So, considering the fact that we did this to that adorable little pigeon head, it shouldn't be too surprising that when Mr. Zhu asked for 2 volunteers to play a game on stage in front of the 300+ people at the banquet, I volunteered Shannon and she volunteered me. He told us that we were going to be playing a game of 'telephone' with some of the other teachers...that game where you stand in a line and pass along a message from the previous person, until the last person has to guess what the original message was. That would have been fine. Turns out, we had actually just volunteered each other for a charades-type telephone game. Rather than passing along a message through speech, we had to mime it to the next person. That's right. All I can say is that I was incredibly thankful for the Tiger at that point because there's no way I would have been ok with getting up in front of 300 people I didn't know to play a game I'd never heard of and mime an unknown action. Turns out that I thought the action that the Chinese teacher acted out for me was 'blowing bubbles.' So I mimed out blowing bubbles for Shannon...and then we found out at the end that it was actually 'eating noodles.' We sucked, and everyone laughed at us. It was totally surreal and I still sort of can't believe we got talked into it. Then all of a sudden the banquet was over...but I think everyone was too drunk to even really notice or care. We just continued on our merry way to the bar, full of cartilage, pigeon, and Tiger beer. Can't wait for the next banquet.

***if you want to see more pictures from the banquet, etc...go to kodakgallery.com and use my gmail email address and the password 'snowdome.'

call me

just in case anyone was wondering about buying phone cards to call china, Mike bought a couple on speedypin.com for super cheap. buy some, call me, and hear the voice you've been missing so desperately over the past couple of weeks. (haha)

if you don't have my cell phone number and you want it, just email me.

teacher! teacher!

when i was done with school today, i had a very interesting feeling. i felt like i had maybe, actually, taught my students stuff today. let me explain.

yesterday was fine. not great (my english class was sort of a disaster. i guess i should plan out group work a bit better...but ESL was fun cause i had them play a pictionary-type game)...but we went out for indian food after work and had a drink at the blue frog. it was nice getting away from campus on a school night.

today, i had class first period, and then not again until 6th and 7th period. i felt like almost every part of today went well! it was so refreshing.

in english, i gave the kids a seating chart so i can keep a better eye on the talkers. i had them read a story out loud, and it seemed like everyone was paying pretty close attention. and there are a couple of kids in that class that i really, really like. they're great.

went back to the office, which is GREAT. it's only been 4 days, yes, but so far i think our office is awesome. the dynamic is just so funny between some of the teachers. in my next free periods, i was actually productive...graded homework, read the student edition for my history class and did a lot of lesson planning. it felt really awesome to get through that all before lunch.

speaking of lunch...just as an aside...please don't ever try stinky tofu. That's right, there is a dish that is actually called 'stinky tofu.' I am not kidding when I say that it tastes the way a public restroom smells. don't do it.

after lunch i brought my laptop to the office, where we have wireless internet. granted, it cuts in and out....but it's better than nothing! and it is AWESOME having a laptop. i love it. i got more work done figuring out which songs i am going to play in my music class tomorrow. the 'first class' playlist currently has 39 songs on it. i'm not planning on playing any of them in their entirety...i just want to play clips to get them to start talking about different genres of music. i don't remember what we did in 5th grade music besides our musical "Homeward Bound." man, those were some good times...of course if I hadn't had a lead role maybe it wouldn't have been so much fun...

...so after lunch I went to my ESL class. If you haven't been in contact with 4th graders recently, I really recommend hurrying up and finding some. They are so damn cute. And since we played a game yesterday and came in with another learning game to play, I think they really like me. Especially this one girl...she's such a good student and is so pretty and nice. She always says thank you. And then there's the little boy who doesn't understand hardly anything...he's just precious. Honestly, these kids just melt your heart. We were playing Simon Says and I was having some of the other kids be 'Simon.' One of the kids said "Simon says, go to the teacher" and the rest of the kids all came running towards me, many of them with open arms like they were going to hug me. There are only 11 kids in my ESL class. it doesn't get much cuter than that.

From ESL i went straight to my 6th grade history class. I felt sort of unprepared for it because on Monday the kids were so nuts. but that was the other section. this group of kids...i can't even begin to tell you how much I liked the class. The fact that I finally got to go into the material (the start of World War I) made me so happy...and the fact that the students understood what I was saying and reacted positively to the way I was explaining the material...it's just such a good feeling. The kids were pretty well-behaved, and seemed genuinely interested. Well, most of them. I left school today actually feeling like a real teacher. There were even a couple of times during that last class period today where I felt like i was looking in on myself, and thought "wow, what a great way to explain the connection between the vocabulary and the material." I was really proud of myself. What a good feeling.

and tonight Shannon and i ordered pizza and watched sex and the city on my laptop. Oliver wasn't kidding when he said 'it's just like college.' good times.

i don't even know how to describe what happened today

So, today was...interesting.

Actually, I did sufficient planning yesterday, so I felt pretty good going into today. I don't have a class first period on Mondays, and I got to the office early (why, I have no idea) so I spent the first two hours of my day making copies and talking to the other teachers in the office. Nothing exciting.

Then I went to my 6th grade English class, which it seems to me is currently my favorite. The kids understand me well enough that I don't have to explain every minor detail, and the material is basic enough that I actually feel somewhat qualified to teach it. And, seeing as I LOVE grammar, I had a good time when I started my grammar lesson today on articles. I don't think they understood it totally and I'm sure their homework is going to be a disaster...but whatever. It went by fast and I had a good time.

From there, I went to my 4th grade ESL class, which I had for an hour and ten minutes straight. Um....wow. Some of those kids are really, really cute. Unfortunately, the cutest one cannot understand a single word coming out of my mouth. He is from Japan and is a lot smaller than everyone and seriously doesn't know English at all. One other Japanese girl in the class had to help translate a lot of things for him, and when I helped him spell some stuff for the handout I gave them, he didn't even really remember how to make all of the letters. Spelling 'chicken nuggets' for him was rough. Those kids are sweet though. Too bad I have them for THREE PERIODS on Tuesdays. Seriously. that's like 2 and a half hours. They're in 4th grade. I already sort of decided that the last period we're just going to draw pictures of the vocabulary words or something because how can I honestly be expected to hold their attention? I'm 21 and I can't even pay attention to one class for more than 40 minutes.

So, after that class was done, I assumed it was the most brutal one I'd have. Let me tell you, teaching ESL is not going to be easy. I went to lunch, changed my shoes (now that the backs of my ankles have been sufficiently torn up by my new flat dress shoes) and spent fifth period meeting with my Chinese group leader for ESL (my kids are missing books...i don't have a teachers' edition of any of the books....that class is sort of a mess right now) and assuming that 6th grade native level history was going to be awesome.

Boy, was I wrong. I have two sections of history classes back to back on Monday afternoons. The first class was fine, even though there were a couple of annoying/know it all girls who asked the most ridiculous questions about the rules. Maybe they were trying to impress me with their English skills. I wasn't impressed-- just really, really annoyed. But, in retrospect, that class really wasn't that bad. If that one girl stopped asking stupid questions the whole thing might have been pretty enjoyable...and I didn't even get to start talking about the material. One of the boys even came up to me after class and asked me if I "particularly fancy anything" and I was totally confused...and he suggested earrings....so maybe that means his family is going to buy me presents? Haha. It would be interesting. I told the class my birthday was coming up next month and that I was going to have to teach that class on my birthday so they'd better be good...and that I might make them sing happy birthday to me if they're bad.

It was really my 7th period class that made my day. And by "made my day" I mean made me want to tear my hair out. I was SO strict with them. I went over the rules multiple times. I had to punish a kid in class by moving his seat because he wouldn't stop talking to his neighbor, even though he was the one that i made read the 'no whispering or chatting during class' rule. He and his buddy decided it would be cool to put these small plastic bags on top of their heads as hats. I repeated the rule about no cell phones in class several times, and they were completely shocked that I would actually take away their phones and not give them back. When one kid asked me what I would do with his phone if I took it, I told him I would "sell it on ebay." The girls in that class were VERY well behaved, but the boys...jesus christ. They were blatantly not listening to a word I was saying and/or disregarding the rules. When they made smart-ass comments to me, I responded with sarcastic remarks because 6th grade boys are mean and need to be put in their places. Perhaps this is not the best way for me to think about teaching, but unless they can prove to me that they aren't hellians, I'm going to have them on very short leashes. And I'm making a seating chart that requires all the boys to be sitting next to girls.

It's been a long day. If only I didn't have 3 periods of ESL tomorrow....

i wear my glasses when i teach cause it makes me look like a teacher

So if I haven't already told you about how my first day of school went, you might be curious.

Well, it started with me waking up at 7am and realizing I hadn't turned my alarm clock on. Thank god I woke up early, cause I have a feeling it would have been really poor form to sleep through the morning of the first day of school.

So classes didn't start until 10:35, and on Fridays I only have class from 1:10 to 2:10. I got to my office, printed out the two handouts I had prepared, and made copies. I was pretty nervous about running out of things to do during the hour-long period, so I asked my group leader if he thought I should assign homework or anything. He handed me a placement test to give my kids, and told me that if they couldn't answer any of the questions, they shouldn't be in my class. So I was totally nervous, sweating, went to the cafeteria for lunch, and then we all sat in the office until it was time to go down to class.

I walked into my classroom, and all the kids were already there. I guess I probably should have waited until the bell rang to start class, but I was pretty nervous and realized that I hadn't brought any white board markers with me, so I couldn't write my name on the board. Whatever. I passed out the first two handouts, introduced myself, and had them fill out the survey thing for 10 minutes. I immediately noticed that several of the 19 students in my class had electronic dictionaries to look up words...and that makes me sort of uncomfortable. I mean I was told that a lot of them would need electronic dictionaries, but I still sort of hoped that they'd be slightly more proficient than that. Anyway. One of my students, whose English name is Thumblina (yes, that's right, THUMBLINA) had to ask me how to spell "Madagascar" cause I guess that was her favorite movie. When I spelled it for her and she wrote it down, she looked at it and said "...wow." It was cute. I told them some information about myself, including answers to the questions that I had asked them on the sheet...but I sort of lied. I knew they probably would have no idea what "Forrest Gump" was, so I told them my favorite movie was the Lion King. Some of the boys groaned.

So we went over the rules for the bulk of the class, and I kept asking if any of them had questions and really really wanted them to ask me some, but I only got like 2. I made each of them read one line from the rules sheet, so I could see just how bad some of them were at reading. I don't think they loved the idea of reading out loud, but I tried to make it less embarrassing by making everyone do it. When we were done with the rules, I passed out the placement test and had them do that for 15 minutes...I haven't had a chance to look over it yet, but I have a feeling that they probably didn't do all that well on it considering the way they answered the questions on the student survey. I asked "Who is your favorite music group?" and about half the class answered "no." hmmm...

So when I told them time was up, we still had like 10 minutes left in class....so I went around the room and made each of them read one sentence from the story on the test. Some of them are pretty good readers, but some of the others...oh man. It's going to be a struggle. One girl named Ruby started talking to me in Chinese and another girl had to translate for her. The only word she said that I recognized was lao tze (i think that's how you spell it), which means 'teacher.'

When class ended, I felt really good. I told the kids I didn't mind being called 'teacher,' so on their way out, a bunch of them either said "See you next week, teacher" or "Goodbye, Miss Stephanie." It was so cute. One of the kids, Charles (who I think is either an over-achiever or a horrible student, i'm not sure...), came up to me when almost everyone was gone and said "Miss Stephanie...do you know the music group ABBA?" and it took me a second to understand what he was saying...he has sort of a lisp...but when I told him that I did know ABBA and that they're 'really good,' he got really excited and told me about how his mom really loves them but she says that they're too old to sing anymore. I finally had to cut off the interaction, but it was adorable and made me really happy. After talking to some of the other teachers, I have the feeling that my kids were pretty well-behaved. I think it went really well.

but....I feel like itw as just practice. The real test is how I make it through all of my classes this upcoming week. I haven't met with any of my groups yet, so we don't have anything actually planned out yet. And I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with my music class for an hour and ten minutes on Thursday... ideas? let me know. it's gonna be a busy weekend...

today i miss ann arbor SO MUCH. go blue.

today is my first day of school and i'm so nervous i feel like i could throw up

the school day doesn't even start until 10:35 today, and my class isn't until 1:10....

i decided i'm going to have the kids call me Miss Stephanie because in general no one can pronounce my last name, let alone classrooms full of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese students.

my plan for the first day? go in for office hours at 10:35 and print out the two forms i prepared and get copies made. then lunch (if i can actually eat) and go to class. i prepared a list of rules/class expectations, which I'm hoping will take the entire class period to go over. they're non-native english speakers so maybe they won't even understand whati 'm talking about? who knows. if i notice there's a lot of time left then i'll have them fill out the 'getting to know you' survey thing that i prepared, and after they fill it out have them answer some of the questions out loud. if there isn't enough time for that, then i'll make them do the handouts as homework. that should be sufficient for 50 minutes, right? i am so incredibly nervous.