Busy C is back!

Ok so last week was a bit crazy... but not nearly as crazy as this week will be. We were told that we had two short weeks in a row due to the market on Nov 30. But on Friday the principal of the mainstream school changed it! So now we're on a long week. It's even worse when you consider that this week is Thanksgiving. The International Center is having all the foreign teachers prepare, not one, but TWO Thanksgiving dinners! And they're not even really dinners! We're starting the prep work at 1 and eating at 3... Then we leave work around 5ish, which means that we’ll get home around 6:30 with traffic. LAME!!!!! But before I get too ahead of myself, let’s review what happened last week.

Monday-Wednesday was pretty much the same as always. I had a few classes, a few meetings, and was put in charge of doing decorations for the two Thanksgiving dinners. I started working on them last week and this week I will be incredibly busy with them.

Then on Thursday during our grade 12 meeting I was told that I needed to focus more on practicing writing than teaching grammar. I asked, “So you want me to give them writing assignments, give them feedback, and then have them do it all over again, WITHOUT teaching them grammar?” My admin says, “Yes. They’ve had grammar lessons since they were in primary school so they find it boring.” Ok I get that grammar is boring… Hell, I’m a native speaker and I hate grammar… but if they’re making the same mistakes over and over again and they’re ALL making the SAME mistakes, then we need to go over it as a lesson. I can’t just give them the same feedback over and over again! That’s so stupid. Not to mention that my admin keeps taking classes away from me so now I’m down to one lesson a week per class. Really?! You expect me to give them feedback one week and do another writing assignment another week?! Nooooooo that’s not happening. So to compromise, I said, “I will do what you are asking me to do IF I can have another lesson per class each week.” I got what I wanted. I now see each class that I teach twice for my own lessons and Giles asked if I could help with his speaking classes as well. So really I see each class 4 times a week :D My admin was pissed that I took on more classes… Really?! I’m only in the classroom for 10 lessons each week on a long week and 8 lessons on a short week. That’s the amount of class time I’m required to be in the classroom on my contract so why is this a problem?! I don’t get it.

Friday was a half day. Most of my floor went out of town so I hung out with people in the other foreign teachers building. Eric, Robert, Hannah, and I went to Yosmite—a bar near Shandong Normal University where all the uni students go. I’ve never seen so many foreigners in one place! It felt like a frat party that turned into a Falstaffs party… If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you didn’t go to Skidmore and you, my friend, are missing out on life :P I danced my little heart out and had an amazing time! Eric’s coat was stolen at Yosmite though :/ His keys were in it so he ended up having to crash on my couch. He later had to brake into his own apartment with a credit card to get his spare key.

Saturday I hung out with some new (Chinese) friends. We went to see Hunger Games 2 (AMAZING!!!!!!!) in English. The movie going experience is so different in China! Everyone is funneled into the theater by ushers at every door and corner of the hallway, the seats are assigned, the leg room is enormous… the list goes on. It was awesome to experience. Then we went to dinner at Ajise Ramen… YUMMMMMM! We ended up staying there for a few hours. Jeremiah pointed out that it must look strange that people who look Chinese would be speaking to each other in English. I get that a lot here. My friends all need to explain that I’m American and don’t speak much Chinese. I’m working on it though! Then we went to a place on Furong Jie that felt a lot like a western café. We ended up staying there drinking tea and talking for another few hours. I swear, everything in China happens at different speeds. If you’re at work, everything moves ridiculously fast—the teachers eat and go back to work within 15 minutes! Then when you’re out, you spend 6 hours just hanging out at a restaurant! Regardless, it was such a great night.

Sunday I met a new student from the mainstream school who wants to practice her English with me. I met with her again yesterday (Monday) so that I could introduce her to a few foreign teachers. She was SOOOO happy that she was able to meet so many foreigners. She doesn’t have many classes left this year because she’s already accepted into her top choice university, Shandong Economics University.  Schooling here is so weird. You don’t need to attend class once you get the examination score you want/need. So that’s all school is used for, to pass exams. I even have some students who are taking the SAT next weekend even though they’re already accepted at US universities. I asked why they’re taking their test again and they reply with, “My score isn’t good enough.” BUT YOU’RE ALREADY ACCEPTED! I don’t understand. So bizarre.

This week… Oh my goodness! I’m swamped with decoration craziness. I love that I get to play with arts and crafts supplies all week but man it’s exhausting. I have two students helping me and they’re loving it but there’s just wayyyyyyy too much to do between now and Friday. On Friday we’re having “linner” with the grade 12s and on Saturday we’re having “linner” with the faculty. We’re supposed to teach them about Thanksgiving but no one wants to give up their free time so everyone is dreading going to this thing. It just sucks that our weeks change from week to week so it’s impossible to make plans with friends more than a couple days in advance. Especially hard for those of my coworkers who need to make doctors appointments or plans to have someone translate for them at the bank etc. It just feels impossible to do anything that isn’t work related. Fortunately for me, I don’t really have that problem. The only problem I have is being too exhausted from working 6 days a week to enjoy my day off when I have it! Alright, I think I procrastinated enough now. I have to go back to making tissue paper turkeys. I’ll let you know how this week pans out! Until then… Laters.

Again with the missed updates!

Except this time I have an excuse... It was midterms week last week... which means that I was grading midterms this weekend/yesterday because scores are due tomorrow. So I was actually working! I know, I know, shocker! Lol So here's what went down last week:

Monday and Tuesday were regular days with regular classes except some of my students had tests and I ended up with classes of like 3 or 4 students.

Wednesday I had block (two periods of the same class) but my other block was canceled because those students had midterms. It was a pretty boring start to my week. 

But then Thursday hit and all bets were off because it was the grade 10 and 11 field trip.  They called it camping but it wasn't. When I think camping, I think hiking to the spot where we'll sleep and set up tents and then do activities in the woods... What we did was what you imagine as day camp in the summer. There was a big fake rock wall and a bunch of equipment for CS (Imagine paintball with lasers instead of paint and no boundaries). We slept in tents in the -5 degrees Celsius temperature. But we we were also on concrete in the parking lot... Yea... it was like urban camping. It was entertaining. I made it to the top of the rock wall! One of the few females who did actually. The girls who watched me were so cute when I came down they all complimented me and hugged me. I played some of the bonding games like passing a water bottle from person to person using only your head and shoulders. I got very close to my teammates lol.  We went on a pseudo hike scavenger hunt up a rock mountain. I thought it was weird that we'd go somewhere with no trail but we were with a guide so as long as I didn't leave the group, I was good. The kids had a lot of fun and despite not understanding most of what everyone was saying, I had a great time too.  The best part in my opinion was getting to know different people. I teach 12s and only 10s and 11s were on this trip so it was nice to meet students that I could potentially teach next year. I also got to meet teachers that I hadn't seen before (well maybe I'd seen them but I just met them last week). Apparently everyone knew about me and they wanted to get to know me better but we just never really had a reason to cross paths and talk. So now I have lots of new friends :D My favorite new faculty member that I got to know is Jeremiah. He has a half sister who lives in Japan so he knows some Japanese and practices it with me (yes he's fluent in Chinese and English and working on Japanese... Jealous yet? I am!).  He's also applying to Princeton right now so I've been working with him to help him prep for his interview. He reminds me of myself when I was prepping for my interview... except his resume is ridiculous and he has WAY more accomplishments than I do now let alone back when I was applying for college. If he doesn't get accepted, then Princeton deserves to be shut down. He's an amazing candidate.  Anyway, we returned home around 5pm Friday evening and had to work Saturday.

Saturday classes were the usual.  I started grading midterms! I'm officially a teacher. I spent all day reading over short essays and grammar. It was fun to mark up everyone's papers... Not that I enjoy finding mistakes in my students' work. I just had a lot of fun with my red pen. Not surprisingly my students all did really well because we prepped them for the midterm and they studied really hard.

Sunday I went shopping with my new friends whom I met on the field trip. I spent a ridiculous amount of RMB on Starbucks travel mugs for my family and because I spent so much I got a free hot chocolate.  I'm still short two mugs, which hopefully I'll find next weekend. The inventory changes so drastically from day to day!

Monday... graded more midterms and decorated my dance club bulletin board. I think I'm gonna win that competition because so many foreign teachers just aren't doing it. Really the competition is between Michael and I. He's very competitive so we have a lot of fun trash talking each other and stealing students from each others' classes to help with our own boards. I can't wait to see what his board look likes.

This week is another short week so I'll be going out this weekend! I'm so excited to be going to a club called Soho. All my students say it's the "foreigner's bar" so I should feel right at home :P I'll let you know how that goes. Until then... Laters!

It takes a weekend...

To recover from a weekend! Hey hey bloggers :) I missed my weekly update!!!! So here's what happened last week. It was a short week so we had Friday off. But first a major shout out to my love Lucy for getting me my iPod from Hong Kong because now our bus rides are so much more enjoyable! An hour every morning and another hour every afternoon/night is brutal with no music. OK on to the updates...

Nothing of significance really happened except for the announcement/lack-there-of of the foreign teachers' bulletin board competition. So Tony walks into my office and says, "Excuse me, Chelsey? Do you have a minute?" I say, "Yes, Tony. How can I help you?" He says, "Follow me." So I do. We walk down the hallway where the 10s and 11s have class. As we walk he points at bulletin boards and says, "This one is Joanna's. That one is Greg's.  There is Nick's...." You get the idea. Then he points to three boards and asks, "Which one do you want?" My immediate response, which admittedly was a pretty stupid question, was, "Huh? To take home?!" Tony laughed super hard and said, "NO! To decorate for your club! All the foreign teachers have to decorate one for their club and it will be a competition. The deadline is November 22nd." Ohhhh now it all makes sense. Like I said, Lack-there-of announcement. Cool. So I choose a board and get to work. The only problem is that China isn't exactly known for having supplies to decorate with. So I am LITERALLY coloring white A4 computer paper to make construction paper so that my board is colorful... Talk about tedious work! But now that I've got my creative juices flowing, I'm definitely finding a lot of entertainment and fun in doing everything from "scratch" :P Haha. I have printed and hand cut a boarder of dancing silhouettes, cut out the letters D-A-N-C-E and attached arms and legs so that my letters look like they're dancing, and I started working on "bboy" and "bgirl" names for my students so that I can write them out and use their names as decoration. I have some pictures of my club so I can also use that. I'm getting pretty competitive and the psych club teacher, Michael, is trying to sneak peaks at my designs for ideas.... We are probably the only two who are taking this seriously. But it's so much fun to be competitive!

This weekend was awesome! On Saturday I went to lunch at a Korean BBQ place with Esperanza (Spanish teacher from Spain), Joanna, Greg, and Nick. Then we went shopping and Christine met up with us.  I spent equivalent to about $200 on clothes for the camping trip coming up as well as more work clothes and relaxation clothes.  If I had bought this stuff back in the states, I'm pretty sure it would've been over $500 easily. Thank God I'm in China! Anyway... after shopping we all bought pizza to take home... or rather to take to Michael and Christine's place. They bought a dart board and a foosball table so we decided to throw a party and have some tournaments take place. Robert and Hannah joined us for pizza, drinks, and games. Then we all migrated to KTV (karaoke). About an hour later Mo joined us at KTV and about another hour and a half after that, Eric joined us. So we had 10 people in one room, screaming songs and having a GREAT time! Best Saturday night EVERRRRRRR!

Then on Sunday I went for a walk under the clear, sunny sky.  We only get one of those every two weeks so I took advantage of it. Eric joined me for a walk down the hill to Holiland and then further down the hill to sit and try new snacks. This time we actually picked out good snacks. Usually I pick really bad/weird ones. I'll have to try to remember which ones we got so that I can get them again.  He was probably the only person who went to KTV that wasn't hung over >.<  Then at dinner NO ONE was in the cafeteria... IT WAS AWESOME! About an hour after I got there Eric got there and was like "Where is everyone?!" We never did find out why no one went to dinner in the cafeteria that night.

This week is midterms so I'm pretty much not doing anything.  Thursday and Friday is the year 10 and 11 over night camping trip, which I'm going to :D I can't wait.  I'm so excited! It might be cold but it'll be so much fun! Then we get back Friday afternoon around 5, which means the bus will get us home around 6 and we work bright and early Saturday morning. I don't know why they chose to make this week a long week... the kids will be so tired! But whatever. Not my job to ask questions. I will let you know how this week goes but right now I'm off to play jeopardy with the AP Psych students :D Until then... Laters.

Gossip Drama!

Hello hello my blog readers! Here's the latest in the adventures of China. So last week, as I mentioned, I got sick :( It took exactly a week but now I'm 100% good as new :D On Monday and Tuesday I was pretty much just miserable because I had a sore throat, runny nose, slight cough... you know the usual. The fun part was that my officemates (people I share an office with) kept giving me foods to help me get better. Sesame seeds, ginger tea, some other stuff I have no clue what it was... the point is that it was all FOOD! They know what's up ;P And low and behold, one week later, I'm cured! Quickest cold everrrrrrrrr. Yay Chinese friends!

In other news: I had another year 12 meeting with our administrator and year 12 staff. B pretty much micromanages EVERYTHING so we all get really annoyed. He took my TOEFL classes from me AGAIN. We also had major drama in our meeting. So basically every subject is supposed to have a midterm exam. However, for English, the students have two English classes that are essentially the same content.  But they're still getting two exams. So one Chinese teacher, Kevin, asked, "Why can't we combine our English classes into one exam?" B told him, "The research shows that the students need to be able to perform equally well at the start of the exam as at the end of the exam.  If we combine the exams, the time period will be too long and they will get tired by the time they get to the second exam."  But that's not what K was asking... He wanted to get rid of an exam altogether. So K rephrased the question and asked again (to everyone else it was clear what he was asking).  B literally said in the most condescending way, "What did I JUST say?" And then continued on with the meeting. Um HELLO?! You're an idiot. We all wanted to tell B that he was being stupid but he wouldn't let us talk after that question. He just kept going on with the meeting. He's not a team player and everyone thinks that he's a terrible administrator. After the meeting B pulled K aside and literally scolded him for being defiant and not listening to what he was saying. First of all, English is his second language... give him a break. Second of all, YOU WEREN'T UNDERSTANDING HIM SO WHY IS HE GETTING IN TROUBLE?! Third of all, don't talk to your employees like we're 5 years old. DRAMAAAAAAAA.

Moving on: Halloween was Thursday and it was actually pretty fun to teach the kids about Halloween in America. The IC had a pumpkin carving "contest" and the kids all learned why we make Jack-o-lanterns. A lot of the students were very creative and they had a blast (at least those I talked to did). We had some drama with this event as well because B kept saying to the Chinese admin that Halloween originated in Spain and we should therefore have our Spanish teacher, Esperanza, do all the decorations for the hall way.  So she got stuck with the task even though she had no idea what we do for Halloween. We were all really mad at him for doing that. But I couldn't stay too mad because I had DANCE CLUB!!!! I gained a few more students and lost a few. It makes it hard to create a dance when you have such inconsistent attendance but oh well.

Then on Friday we had a staff meeting and B was sick so we only had Sharon for our leader. The staff meeting was boring as usual but we had plenty of snacks. That was fun. I even won some chocolate for participating in sports day! Then as a prize we all got toilet paper.... yea it was really weird.

Saturday I got into a fight with one of my friends because he was being stupid and I called him out on it. He did not appreciate that so we're taking our time not hanging out.  This is what happens when you live and eat with the people you work with. There's just no time away from them. But then I went shopping with another one of my coworkers and we were very productive. Sunday I went shopping with yet another one of my coworkers and this time we were not productive HAHA. I had my first complete conversation in Chinese with a waitress so I was very proud of myself for that :D For the first time I was able to actually answer someone when they assumed I spoke Chinese. Instead of the usual, "I'm American and don't speak Chinese," response. All-in-all it was a pretty fun weekend even though we only had a day to rest. Hopefully this weekend will be better. I will continue to practice my Chinese now that I have students helping me practice. I even have a tutor from one of the Shandong universities.  He's a friend of Sophie's and we all went out to dinner one night.  He offered to help me learn and I accepted.  He's been very helpful! I think that's why my confidence in speaking is increasing.

So on to today... I have no classes :( I guess I will just continue with my studies and playing with my NEW IPOD!!!!! :D I will be sure to update you as life goes on. Until then... Laters!