Photo Shoot...

So, I don't think I've mentioned some of the hilarious things that Chinese people wear, but I'm going to recap even if I have. First of all...a lot of Chinese people, usually women and children, wear these things on their forearms. They are usually nylon and have elastic on both ends and go from wrist to elbow. Upon further investigation, we found that they are used to keep the arms of your jackets clean, because you have to wear jackets everywhere, even inside, so they have many chances to get dirty. Also, working people and children wear these smock type apron things that tie in the back and usually have sweet patterns including cartoons or animals on them. Anyhow, they are somewhat ridiculous looking, but make for awesome Christmas presents...as well as some of the things that in America would look normal, but in China have fake designer things on them, or so many bows, ruffles, animals, rhinestones, etc. that you can't even imagine wearing them in public. Here are some examples...
While these aren't traditional gifts that Chinese people would give, some of the presents I received for Christmas weren't exactly what I would put on my list in America. I got a snow globe with teddy bears in it, a metal guitar player sculpture thing, a framed cross stitch of puppies, and a sketch of some flowers with real (dead) butterflies on it in a frame as well. Oh! And a heart shaped mirror with lace glued around the edge and a white furry scarf with stuffed hearts dangling from each end. There is more, but I need to just take a group picture before I go. One student did actually get me a really nice pink, wool scarf. So that was good. I'm going to try and bring some of the gifts back, but I'm not sure they will all travel well, and some of them are quite heavy!
Anyways, we're heading down to Nanjing for New Years, and we're meeting our friend Christine there, which should amount to a pretty fun girls weekend. It will be the last time we travel before the end of the term, seeing as though we only have two and a half weeks of teaching left after we get back. I can't believe it's going to be that close to the end!!!
I'm sure we'll have plenty to get settled before we leave, so that should help pass the time...

No Excuses....

There's really no good reason I haven't written in over 10 days. I have more than enough free time on my hands, but perhaps I just tend to look over the things worth blogging about and feel that my life is pretty ho-hum here in China. As of 4:05p today, I can truthfully say that I am halfway done with my lessons at the primary school, which means that the end of my time in China is seriously approaching. Before I get ahead of myself though...

Last week was "Christmas". I know I mentioned something about having a holiday due to exams on the 23rd and 24th, but you can be sure that things changed, yet again, and I had lessons both days I expected off. It's alright though, my students were excited to see me, and it was good to stay busy. Christmas Eve we were invited to a party, so after English Corner, we met our apartment complex owner for a nice dinner, drinks, and some KTV/dancing. It wasn't exactly Christmas, but we had a good time, and there was a man with a super creepy Santa suit. Enough to put us in a good mood. After getting home, and a few drinks, Laura and I decided to have our Christmas. We exchanged gifts with each other, and had some from home to open as well. The majority of our gifts to each other were hilarious, based on some of the entertaining styles here in China. We followed one of my family traditions, in that you must put on any article of clothing that you received, and proceeded to play Christmas music in my room and dance around the apartment. It was a blast, and I think a blog entry strictly for photos and captions will be in order tomorrow. Anyways, it was an alright Christmas Eve, but we had some less than stellar things on our plate the following day.

My students had a "party" on Christmas Day, and they wanted me to perform. I convinced Laura to sing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" with me, and even though we weren't really up for it, we sang and made everyone happy. Then they told us that there would be 2 "parties" because not everyone could fit into the hall at one time. So, we had to go back, and do it all over again....luckily we sneaked out after the second time and didn't have to watch the same show over again. Afterward, some of the male teachers from my office and the school wanted to take us to dinner for Christmas, and we went along. They spent the majority of the dinner attempting to make us drink a ton, against our will, and trying to convince us to stay in China longer. We, however, always have been and continue to be able to out drink the people we work with, and by the end of the dinner, and on to KTV, the men were sufficiently drunk, and we were mildly buzzed, and a rather irritated. We tried to be good sports and sing some songs with them and everything, but it eventually got uncomfortable, and we bailed. I'm somewhat embarrassed for them because in a country where maintaining face is such a huge deal, they all really made fools of themselves, and guess what?? Laura and I are still going home at the end of the term.

Speaking of going home, WE BOUGHT TICKETS! So, that makes it official. I will not be a China Girl forever, not that I ever thought I would be, but whatever.

This weekend we were roped into singing in a another show with some girls from Laura's grade. They made us sing a song that we didn't know, and even had us singing alone for part of it. It was a huge hassle, and we spent like 6 hours in a freezing auditorium only to have one run through and then a performance totaling about 7 minutes of action. It was frustrating, and by the end of the night I was about ready to leave China the next day. But, alas, I had classes bright and early Sunday morning. Because the exams were moved to Monday and Tuesday of this week, and the students missed classes for the show on Friday, we all had to make up lessons at the weekend. FUN! Anyways, that does mean that I have a day off tomorrow, and we are heading to Nanjing for New Years. So this will be a short week!

As I said before, I'll try to get a bunch of pictures up from the last week or two, especially Christmas, and probably have a few more updates from things I forgot during this go 'round. I'm going to do my best to record my last weeks here, just so everyone (if anyone even reads this...) is on track with my plans and my arrival home!!! I miss everyone so much and now that I have an official end date, I'm getting more antsy than ever!!!! Soon...soon, but not soon enough :)

Tomorrow (3 days later)

After a lovely weekend, we got back into the school week with lessons and whatnot. On Monday, Laura was contacted by the Head English Teacher at our school with an opportunity to teach at a primary school in Siyang. Apparently Anthony, the "American" guy who was raised in England, left and the school would be in trouble if they didn't have foreign teachers for the lessons that students were paying extra for. When they asked us to teach they said it would be 2 classes each on Mondays, and we would make some extra money and not have to change our schedules for the rest of the week at the high school. It sounded like a pretty good deal, but the more we talked we found out that 2 classes meant 2 grade levels, with 3 lessons each. So we would actually be teaching 6 lessons on Mondays and then 12 more throughout the week at the high school. They also were offering to pay less per lesson than what we already make. The extra money would be good either way, but with such a short time left in the semester and the amount of extra work involved, we weren't really sure if it would be worth the time and energy. We agreed to visit the school to take a look around, and when we got there they basically gave us teaching materials and a schedule, and told us they would pick us up on Monday. There was no discussion on whether we agreed to teach or not, they just assumed everything was legit and sent us on our way. We expressed our salary concerns to the teacher at our school as well as the dean of the primary school, and we were finally able to get them to agree to a higher salary, and they will provide us with some perks, like lunches, a driver to and from school, teacher's aids, and whatnot.

So we planned out our lessons and got to the school bright and early Monday morning. I have a class of 1st graders and a class of 2nd graders, and I see each of them for 3 lessons. The 2nd graders have a book and I am supposed to use that as my lesson guide, but the 1st graders don't have anything. Any the school has been somewhat hesitant to even talk about Anthony so I have no idea what they have learned yet or not. They told me just to teach simple English words and phrases, so I'm kind of winging that one. Primary school is a lot of work, because you have to have so many different activities to keep the kids motivated. Also, I can't talk with them the same way I do with my high schoolers, so that is a challenge. This nice thing is that my TA is able to translate things for me, and she handles a lot of the classroom discipline. And the children really are exciting to learn. Everything is interesting to them at that age, but it's a bit exhausting for me! Laura has 3rd and 4th grade, and I'm a bit jealous because that is the age I taught in Italy, and I know how fun it is to teach. Those students are at a point where learning is still fun but they have so many more tools for building sentences and ideas and everything. We'll only be teaching at the primary school 6 weeks, and already have one behind us. The primary students know a bit more about Christmas than the older students, and the school even said they would give us a tree for our flat. I'm so excited about that! We also have a Christmas party to go to, and a Christmas dinner, and my students will put on a show on Christmas day.

I am lucky enough to have a holiday on the 23rd and 24th because senior 1 has exams, but I don't really know what I will do during the free time because not many people will be doing Christmassy things, and Laura will still have to teach because her students have exams over the weekend instead. Oh well. I think we'll be buying our tickets home before Christmas, which is very exciting. Time seems to be moving along rather well, even though so days it feels like forever. Christmas is a week away, and New Years just a week beyond that. We'll be going to Nanjing so that should be a blast, and even this weekend we are most likely going to Huai'An, a nearby city with shopping and things, just to spend a day doing something! It's getting quite cold here...especially without good heating, but I'm glad I have my Wisconsin genes, I can handle it better than a lot of people. Even my students think I don't wear enough clothes to stay warm.

As I start to think about coming home, I have a lot of things to worry about such as a job, money, new things I'll need, and just settling into a new life after university and China. But I'm also thinking about all of the things I want to do. My students asked me to put together a lesson about places to see in America. I made a powerpoint with some good tourist spots in the States, and realized that I haven't even seen half of them. I've been to 10 different countries, seen the Great Wall, the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, but I've never seen the Grand Canyon, or Niagara Falls. Perhaps when I can afford to go on holiday, some American road trips will be in the cards. That's a long way off though, and not worth worrying about while I'm here. For now, I just need to work on some lessons, plan out a bit of traveling, and enjoy what's left of my time in China. Sometime I just want to check out get ready to go home, but I really do want to give my students the attention they deserve, and, in all honesty, I'm sure it will be hard to say goodbye when that day actually comes.

Worthless...

I've pretty much been a worthless blogger for the past 2 weeks. But in all honesty, a lot has been going on that's been leaving me frustrated, and I try not to post when I'm cranky because it tends to get a lot of bad feedback. And it also seems to illicit a lot of "pep talk" type comments, which I understand, and appreciate the intent, but sometimes in China, I just want to be frustrated, and I don't want to get used to certain things, a there's so much that no matter how much I explain, no one can truly grasp until they live it. So, as I said before, I try to just let things blow over before I spill my guts into cyberspace and risk a more negative outcome.
Anyways! The weekend after our dinner/lunch adventure, Laura and I were invited to go have dinner with my student SongXian, her family, and her best friend, Connie (another one of my students). She is from a larger city near Siyang called Suqian. When she extended the invitation, she said dinner at the weeekend, because the students would have a rest. I said we were free both weekend days so whichever was better for her would be fine. So we made our plans to go Friday night. During the ride there, we were talking about the city, and SongXian mentioned going shopping and taking us to see the ancient home of some very important man to Suqian, tomorrow. Tomorrow?! Apparently, being free for both days of the weekend equated to us spending the whole weekend there.
We agreed to one night, but explained that we would need to get back the next evening (especially since we weren't prepared for a sleepover, we had to buy toothbrushes etc at a convenience store). We went to dinner and met a lot of SongXian's family, and then her parents drove us to where we would be staying. The home they currently have was too small to accommodate us all, but they had recently purchased some property that was not decorated as a home, but would suffice for a sleepover. The apartment had 4 different rooms, 1 set up with desks, 1 office, and two dorm-style rooms. Students at a nearby school used this place as a "club", somewhere they could study and rest while not actually on the school grounds. SongXian's mother made up 4 beds for us girls, and then went back to their old house with her husband. The four of us stayed up, talking and practicing/teaching English for a while and then we crashed.
The next day was filled with shopping, food, wandering, and touring. The girls bought each of us a hair clip, not really my style, but thoughtful nonetheless. (The crazy dinner/lunch man tried to contact us, but we said we would be out of town until very late Sunday and could not have dinner with him, and we haven't heard from him since...win!) We found a supermarket with western booze, and got to try some local dishes that were quite tasty, and did some touristy things. We caught the last bus back to Siyang, and spent the evening sampling out some of our purchases, and had a rather relaxing Sunday before the week began. Add to that a HUGE sweep for UW Badger Hockey over Michigan Tech, and it was a good weekend. The next week succeeded in throwing a huge wrench into things, hence my cranky mood, but I'll get to that in my next post, hopefully tomorrow. I'm quite optimistic about that...let's see if I follow through!!! :)

Christmas is coming...

Thanksgiving came and went and, despite being away from home and family, Laura and I had a really good night. We went to Chen's in-laws' as planned, and the food was just as wonderful as we expected. We even had pumpkin, not pie, but pumpkin nonetheless. There were boiled sweet potatoes, yams, and chicken (as a substitute for the lack of turkey in China). We topped it all off with some wine, and had quite the pleasant evening. On our walk home, Laura and I decided that the one bottle of wine over dinner just wasn't quite enough, it's the holidays after all, so we stopped at a market and bought a second. We popped it open on the walk home (no open container laws in China) and were feeling pretty good as we got back to our apartment.

There are many different buildings in our complex, and ours only has 6 floors so there's no elevator. The building across from us, however, has like 12 or 13, so we voted for riding the elevators and checking out what it had to offer. We were able to get all the way up on the roof and watched all of our students leaving school for the night. By Friday we were all excited to see the show by Classes 1 & 2 of Senior 2, but they had to postpone because the kids weren't ready yet, and then Christine called and had to cancel (again) because it was "Parent's Weekend" at her school and she had to stay to teach. The positive side of this was that I got to follow my tradition of watching White Christmas on the day after Thanksgiving. It was Laura's first time seeing it, and she really enjoyed it as well!!! Although our weekend plans fell through again, Laura and I decided to follow through on those fort plans that we made during the week. So on Saturday night (in the snow!) we made the trek to the Suguo for supplies. Some sticky hooks, a circular clothes-dying hanger, 2 bed sheets and some metal clippy things later, and we had quite the abode. We're looking into adding another sheet to make it more comfortable, but it's already awesome, and you really can tell the temperature difference inside the fort with the heater.

On Sunday we went for a walk to one of the parks in town that has a really nice coffee shop. We sat for a while with lattes and relaxed, when some random Chinese men decided to buy us tea. We accepted and stayed longer, they didn't speak any English so they didn't bother us. But it was just a weird situation. A woman from the coffee shop came and sat with us, and told us that they wanted to take us to dinner. We agreed but only on the condition that she would come along, because she was the only person who would speak even a little English. We went to dinner, which was hilarious, and afterward one of the men let me drive his car!!! It was an Audi, totally decked out with all the bells and whistles, and drove like a dream. He was really impressed with my driving skills, which makes sense because the Chinese are horrible drivers. All of them. The next day he wanted to take us to lunch and then dinner again, but we casually declined mentioning that we are very busy during the week and maybe at the weekend we could go to another meal together. It's a little creepy, but he can't even ask us himself, so we don't really feel bad saying no. We're also leaving soon enough, it's not a big deal.

Now that it's December, I've decided to theme all of my lessons towards Christmas. I've been teaching carols, and making paper chains where each kid decorates a link, and writing letters to Santa. My English Corner students will watch The Polar Express in their lessons right before the holiday. They really don't know much about the festival, and while I can't explain any religious details, I still like the excuse of being able to listen to Christmas music all month, and sharing my holiday spirit with the kids. The top students really love the activities so that makes me feel good. It's hard to believe that after New Year's I'll only have 1 classroom lesson left with each class. Senior 2 was able to put on the show tonight, and it was one of the most entertaining things I've seen in China. Some acts were really good, some were not. And others were simply hilarious because the students were able to write their own skits, and the Chinese sense of humor is so different than ours. Either way it was great to see them put their English to use, and I'm glad I was invited!

As things move along I've come to conclude that December will probably be the longest month. The excitement of Christmas is great, but the anticipation of home being close, but still far is what will get me. I figure January will fly with trying to get everything in line...but I can't look that far ahead yet! Right now I'm just waiting for a package to arrive, there was an attempted delivery on Monday, but apparently no one was in the mail office at school so they didn't leave it. Chinese mail is frustrating, but hopefully it will show up soon!!!