I'm surprised I'm still sane.

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Good morning Bloggers! My my, this week has been busy! Before we get into what I’ve been up to this week, let’s take a trip back to when I first started working here…

Back in September we were given a translated document that stated all of the conditions under which we were medically insured. In our contract with the school it states that we are given insurance. We were never asked to sign any documents pertaining to our insurance (which honestly should’ve been our first clue to the troubles we were in for). We were just told that the document is not to be used for any other purposes except to serve as translation. In January, one of my coworkers got sick and needed to go to the hospital for IV antibiotics. Her husband paid out of pocket and was told that they would be reimbursed.  Our "translated document" also confirmed that they would be reimbursed for the treatments. When we returned from Spring Festival holiday in February, my colleagues filed an insurance claim to get their money back. We just recently found out, within the last two weeks, that our school JUST NOW paid the insurance company bill to cover us. So we were without insurance for the first 7 months we were working here. And honestly, I still haven’t signed anything so I’m not 100% sure that I’m insured right now. So for the last week I’ve been busy helping my colleagues collect evidence to build a case for them to get their money back. It’s been quite the process. We’re still not sure if they’ll see their money again even though our contract clearly states that we should have been insured. I mean seriously, my colleagues paid equivalent to 1,000USD for the antibiotics AND got her pay cut equivalent to 500USD because she had missed so many days of work. If the school won’t pay her medical bills, they’re violating out contract. It’s so frustrating to watch this happen because if it happened once, I can almost guarantee that it’ll happen again if someone else gets sick. We’re given two days of paid sick leave per semester and because people don’t wanna lose money (and I don’t blame them) they come to school and teach sick. I get that you need to be here for your students but by coming to work sick, you’re risking all of us getting sick! Stay home and rest! Easy for me to say when I have Juice Plus+ on my side but still.

In other news, my boss is giving me projects that are in his job description. He has me creating course descriptions for the course catalog. How should I know what each class is teaching?! You have all the syllabi, why don’t you cut and paste each teacher’s course description into another document and call it a course catalog? Oh right. Because it’s easier to transfer all syllabi onto my thumb drive or email them to me so that I can do that and then email it back to you, have you write notes on a hard copy that you printed off and then give them to me to edit. WHAT?! That makes no sense… Although when you say that you live in Jinan, Shangdon Provence on your emails, I guess it makes sense to have someone who knows how to spell do these projects for you. Just so everyone knows, we live in the Shandong Province, not the Shangdon Provence.

Last story, I swear. So I teach a culture class to my students and this week I taught them about the hook up culture on college campuses. Yes, they do exist, yes our students need to be aware of what they may see and how to say no if they so choose. I had a talk from… an administrator. Not quite sure what his title is but he comes into my office and says, “Excuse me Chelsey I need to talk to you about your lessons.” I said, “Of course. What about my lessons?” He then says, “I completely agree that our students need to know this because it is important but maybe if you could just avoid using the word ‘sex’ or ‘sexual intercourse’ it will be better.” I said, “OK but that’s as technical as I can get. How would you like me to address the action of having sex if I can’t say sex?” He suggested, “Maybe call it ‘seduction’ or ‘doing it.’” Uhhhh Ok…? Also, he said that I can’t, as in I’m forbidden, to talk about STI’s. I asked, “But don’t you think that’s important for them to know?” He said, “Yes of course but it’s not that present in China so they can learn about it from their schools when they go to university.” HOLD UP! What?! I can believe to an extent that STI’s aren’t that present in China because their culture just isn’t as promiscuous as the US’s. But you REALLY don’t think they need to know about STI’s before gong to university in the states?! Really?! Chinese education doesn’t teach sex ed correctly. They teach it definitely but they’re taught everything wrong… For example they are taught that using multiple condoms (not just two but more than two) is more effective than using just one. “The more you use, the more protected you are.” Ummmm no. FALSE! WTH Chinese government?! I’m genuinely worried about my students in the states. I REALLY REALLY REALLY hope they use common sense and learn quickly!

Ok that’s it for now. I’ll be sure to update you next week. There are some crazy things happening this weekend and next week so I’ll probably be writing a lot more. Until then… Laters!

Consistency=no blog post

Hey hey bloggers! As my title states... consistency=no blog post. At least for last week. There really wasn't anything exciting that happened two weeks ago but I did have an opportunity to practice my Chinese this weekend :D So here's what happened:
I've been going to the gym almost every night for the last two weeks. I've picked up a bunch of dance and yoga words in Chinese. I'm getting pretty good at dancing with Chinese commands telling me what to do. Then on Wednesday a student asked me to help with Community Day. I said yes and he asked me to teach people a dance. Then he asked me if I needed a translator because we'll be in the community, not at school. I decided I didn't want a translator so I worked on my vocab for teaching a dance class in Chinese. Well of course I had no idea who would be in my dance class. It could've been teenagers, kids, adults, elderly folks.... Anyone really. So Saturday morning I get dressed, get picked up by a student's parent, and off we went to do our volunteer work. The whole time we were there was supposed to be awareness spreading. We handed out reusable bags with our school's logo on them, metal chopsticks, and spoons. Community day (according to one of our admins) has two purposes: 1. to help our community and 2. get the students out of their comfort zones to become more productive members of society. Well I think with my dance class, they were definitely out of their comfort zones. Dance isn't really a common pass time here. Music, sure. Studying, of course! Dance... not so much... unless it's tradition Chinese dance. So dance for the sake of dance is hard to convince people to do. Anyway, we get to our site and I see what I'm working with. Mostly there are grandparents, parents, and 2 year olds running around. So with my school's students, I had a nice mix of ages. I taught them a dance to Jack Johnson's The Three R's and they seemed to all love it. I proudly shouted commands in Chinese and even spoke with some of the kids. Apparently I have the vocabulary of a 2 year old because I could hold conversations with them no problem! There was one little boy who wouldn't leave my side. He kept dancing to the music I was playing.... SO ADORABLE!!!!! It made me miss my cousins' kids so much.

Anyway, so that's the story of the week :) I got to use my Chinese, the weather here is warm and sunny with minimal pollution, which makes everyone in such a better mood than I've ever seen them, and today is St. Patrick's day so I'm allowing myself a piece of chocolate cake from the Irish Pub in town. I'm pretty excited for it :P Hopefully more excitement will happen throughout the next few days so that I have something to share with you all. But hey, if my schedule remains consistent, I'm not gonna complain. Even if that means having nothing to write about. Keep your fingers crossed for the weather to hold this nice! Until then... Laters!

IT'S MARCH!!!!

Hey hey everyone! Sorry I didn't update last week but life at work has gotten pretty hectic. I now have three of my very own classes (last semester if you recall, I only had a handful of classes that I co-taught with Giles). Well it's the same class but it meets three times a week. This class is something I'm actually knowledgeable about. I'm teaching 30+ AP and A level students about university culture. I started out with 35 students. Then about 15 students added my class. But after taking the first two weeks of classes and realizing that I'm ridiculous when it comes to teaching this course, they all got scared and about 10 dropped. I told them that I was going to simulate a college course... that includes pacing and talking to them as if they understand what I'm talking about unless they specifically say, "I'm confused, can you please explain that a different way." These students aren't ready for college (let alone college in a foreign country with a foreign language) and the ones who dropped told me they were dropped because I wasn't making the class fun enough. I asked them, "Well, what do you expect from a college class?" And their reply was, "I'm not in college yet. High school is not supposed to be this hard." How did these students get through three years of high school with this mindset?! It makes me so frustrated that they expect me to prepare them for college and then at the slightest bit of difficulty, they run away. But as my coworker always tells me, "It's all about our numbers. That's what gets the tuition coming in." And unfortunately, that's true. This school makes their classes really easy so that their students' grades are really high and therefore more parents buy into the fact that they're paying equivalent to $12,000 a year for their child to get a "great" education. Every single student gets an 85% or higher regardless of their actual score in the class. As long as the students get the test score they want and the grades that get them into a foreign university, they don't care how they get it. For every student that dropped my class I remind them that they requested this class last semester, "You asked for a culture class and now you don't want to take it." Their response usually revolves around, "You aren't teaching us what we need to know to survive in university. We need to learn how to get a driver's license and get around our campus." Yea... That's not culture class... That's "how do I become a citizen" class.  I'm sorry if that's what you think will help you "survive" in college but I'm not going to worry about that because in order to stay at university, you need to learn how to do different types of work. YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY DO WORK!!!!! There are some kids here who say, "Well my parents have money so I don't have to worry about the college kicking me out because they want my money." Ok while for some schools, that may be true, it isn't for the schools that they're all hoping for: Harvard, Yale, NYU... These aren't schools that will keep you there just because you have money... Maybe University of Nowheresville will do that because no one actually wants to attend that university! Ugh! These students have been brainwashed to think that they're set for life and I'm doing my best not to crush their spirits but honestly, they won't survive in a foreign country. They're all going to come home crying because they can't handle the pressures of university.

So that's what I was dealing with all last week. Basically just defending my class to my administration. These kids need this class! Luckily they agree but it's still a headache to deal with these backward thinking students. So fast forward to this weekend... Friday I went with some of my favorite Chinese friends to a coffee bar and we just hung out reading and relaxing. I love their little place but it's still not my favorite. It can become my favorite to go with them but to go by myself... I have another place for that ;) I also went to a gym and signed up for dance classes on Friday. I am now taking yoga, jazz, ballet, and belly dance classes. Of course all these classes are taught in Chinese so if nothing else, I'll learn some new dance terminology in Chinese. The membership for the gym is only 650元 (about $100) for a year) and classes are free to all members of the gym.  Such a sweet deal! Saturday I woke up in pain from my dance classes on Friday and decided I needed to go to MY cafe. There's this tiny little coffee shop down a very busy road in town called Truth Cafe. Christine showed it to me and now I want to go every chance I get! There are 4 cats that have full reign of the place and their tea is amazing! I went on Saturday from about 10:30am to about 2:30pm. Like I said, it's my favorite cafe to go by myself. I can just sit with the cats, read, and drink tea for hours! Christine came for a little while to talk with me and just get out of the apartments. Then she left and I left a few hours after her. I went to the gym again Saturday night. Sunday I took it easy. I slept in, read some more and then went to lunch. I met up with Michael and Christine and we decided we needed to go to a movie. Last weekend Frozen was in theaters but here in Jinan, the movies that are available in English changes almost from weekend to weekend. So we ended up not being able to see any movies. Instead we went to Papa Johns and indulged in a bit of pizza. Didn't taste like American pizza but it satisfied my cheese craving.

Now I'm back at work yet again for another long week. I think my Chinese friends might want to go back to their coffee bar on Saturday once we leave work. I love that they invite me to things now :) Even if I can't understand everything they say they still like having me in their company, which is an amazing compliment! One day... one day I will be able to understand them and even participate in their conversations! I just have to study a little bit harder. There is so much I want to do every day (learn Chinese, work out, read for fun) but there are only so many hours in a day :/ I guess I have to prioritize. Oh well. Everything in its own time, right? I'll be sure to update you on how crazy life gets this week... Long story short, my boss is on the defensive because all foreign teachers are now providing documentation that he outright lied about some stuff that happened. He told us that he didn't need some stuff but when his boss came down hard on him he said, "I told my employees and they failed to give it to me."  So his boss came down hard on us and we provided emails where he said, "I do not require your documents... blah blah blah." So now he's making our lives hell for not having his back in his time in need. But he hasn't had our backs all year so what makes him think we'd have his?! Just because we're all expats? Think again Mr. Hostile Work Environment. Seriously, if my coworkers hadn't shared this article about our boss with me, I would've defended him. But since he's done this in the past, I have no sympathy for him. He should've learned. Whatever... life goes on! Speaking of going on, I have to get back to work. Update again next week. Until then... Laters!