Field Trip

I saw this and laughed really hard. But my Chinese colleagues didn't share my appreciation.

Here's me and Nancy being awesome

Oh here's an old video from the second week of school when I was requested to teach them an "American" dance.

http://youtu.be/oKxYoo5d-F4

Since I helped the English department get second place overall at the Sports Meet, they gave me a certificate! They like certificates here.

Last week there were mid terms and a field trip, very eventful! So I only taught on Monday. I taught a super hero lesson.

We brainstormed as a class different super powers and then I had them in groups pick 3 and tell me why they would want those three powers. I then had a “Which Super Hero are you?” personality quiz at the end of class.

The same group of boys that complain to me every week about their lack of girlfriends did not disappoint. When I asked them what super powers they picked and why, I, as well as the rest of the class, was like:

Their response?

“We pick one. Mind control. Because I can get a girlfriend and she would have to love me.”

This was our reaction, haaaa

And I wish I had had my camera to take a picture when this same group played Scrabble this week when I taught. They had a section --- I KID YOU NOT --- that looked like this:

I think this captures what these boys are feeling all the time....

I can count on them to always make me laugh every Monday. :)

I did not have to write a test for midterms, but on Thursday I helped the other English teachers grade papers. I graded a spelling and fill-in-the-blank section, and a few kids really cracked me up. One sentence in particular was:

Without ___________ , modern life would be very difficult.

The correct answer was electricity, but I could tell some kids were having trouble remembering the right word. My favorite guess were:

Elevators (a valid answer)

Thunder

Lightning

I really enjoyed grading with everyone! We had fun despite being locked in a room for hours haaa.

Friday each grade went on a trip. I went with my grade 2 kids. Now I had a ton of pictures, me with students, me at the different awesome landmarks, but the memory card in my phone is refusing to work and I lost them all.

Which made me quite put out. 

So I stole pictures from other teacher’s posts on the China Facebook version thing.

Tired students. We walked a lot. Up and down several mountains.

Pony man who was giving rides. On the pony, that is.
He, himself wasn't giving rides.
Heee heee

My favorite. Thank you, Money! (That's the teacher's English name that I stole pictures from)

(I suppose I could photo shop myself in some of these pictures.....haaa)

I loved spending time with the little turds outside of class. Chinese people can be touchy feely when it comes to their friends, and I apparently have now broken into the Chinese culture circle. The girls like to touch my hair, hook onto my elbow, and the boys ask for hugs or put their arms on my shoulder, all stuff they have already been doing to their Chinese teachers. It's nice to start fitting in :)

It makes me feel all happy inside!

Now since this was a trip the students got to have their cameras, I felt like a celebrity. "Victoria! Victoria!" SNAP SNAP SNAP. Every time I turned around some one was taking a picture. I'm pretty sure I am the only person in this school without a picture of me.

I'm kinda a big deal.... (:

This week I'm just biding time until Thanksgiving. Very lax week. And the kids enjoy those types of lessons as much as I do.


Now on to some culture notes. So all the English teachers have English names. But they don't call each other by those English names. And then everybody else has Chinese names.

Usually I am super good with names, but being here I have been really terrible. Chinese names sound like just regular Chinese words to me, so when I hear Chinese chatter I can't distinguish names in the jumble.

And even if I do know someone's name, I don't really because if I am talking to someone else about them, they don't know their English name, they know their Chinese name.

I'm learning two names for everyone. This is unfortunate. However, I am getting better at sorting everyone out. But basically I stick to this:

It's been a solid strategy.

Another note-- I do really like it here! I love the other teachers and kids. Everyone is great. I think I've assimilated pretty well. Sometimes the English teachers try to talk to me in Chinese and then go "Oh yah, sorry, I forgot you don't understand."

But there are some moments that drive me crazy. So when I saw some of these gifs, they really resonated with my feelings towards China sometimes.

What I want to do when class schedules
 change and they forget I can't read the Chinese text messages
the school sends so I go to the wrong place.

When I realize that I can't do normal 5 minute errands like go to the bank
by myself without it taking forever because I don't speak Chinese and don't
have a car and the nearest bank is a 30 minute walk away.

When I go to the grocery store and have a small mob following me around

But overall this is a good place! I'm figuring out the busses slowly but surely, and have Nikki and Dionne close by, which is fantastic. I'm really lucky to have other Americans around who understand culture references like ERMAGERD because that's a hard phrase to translate to Nancy, haaa.

Looking forward to next week!

Thanksgiving, yaaaaaaaaay!