Happy Friday!

Except not really because I still have two more days of work before the National Holiday.  Yes I am working Saturday and Sunday AGAIN!  But actually it's not that bad.  I loved working a 12-hour day yesterday (literally. No sarcasm in that).

Thursday: In the morning (8:15am) I had a grade 12 staff meeting, which got a lot of questions answered. Then there was a Dubbing competition, which was actually HYSTERICAL. And then in the afternoon we had "pizza" for lunch before our IC (international center) staff meeting.  I put pizza in quotes because there were some interesting toppings that didn't quite make it pizza.  Like chocolate and strawberries, chili papers and onion, and pineapple and apple.  It was an adventure to say the least.  After our surprisingly entertaining staff meeting I had a few hours to kill before my "club" time.  Because we didn't have club activities this week, I walked around and observed all the club recruiters... I saw Harry Potter club, Law club, Cartoon club, Origami club, and Free Style club, just to name a few.  There are over 50 clubs on this campus. They were all REALLY entertaining! Then I went to dinner and had tutoring after that.  I got to hang out with my favorite AP girls and chat a little with them about life in the US. Then the bus left at 7:35pm and I got home around 8:30. It was a shockingly fun day for being so long :)

This upcoming weekend: The national holiday is coming up which is a break from 30 Sept to 6 Oct.  Because we have a 7 day work week this week, a bunch of us are celebrating on Sunday by going to the food street down town to be adventurous in new foods. We're still trying to convince a bilingual teacher to come with us to translate.  Then on the 30th I'm heading to Sophie's home town for a quick visit.  I'm not sure where she lives but I know that it's 4 hours by bus and another 40 minutes by car from Jinan while still being in the Shandong Province... Any ideas where I'm heading? Yea me neither haha! I'll be staying in her sister's apartment with her sister who doesn't speak any English while Sophie stays with her mom who also doesn't speak any English. This should be fun :) I'm only staying there for a few nights though.  Then I'm headed back to Jinan to explore the north end of town... Yellow river, hundred flowers park, Daming lake, Baotu Spring, etc etc. I mean I have a week off! It's time for an adventure EVERY DAY!

Speaking of adventures... Food adventures happen frequently in the counseling office.  Almost every day someone comes in with a new snack to share with me.  I've had walnut cakes (more like cookies), moon cakes (both regular and rose), wan wan cakes (more like crackers), Prince noodles, Chicken noodles, hua guniang (tastes like a sweet cherry tomato), and something else that no one would tell me what it was. I fear it was some kind of bug or reptile... I don't really wanna know at this point because it did NOT taste good. Did I mention that I've also eaten CHICKEN FEET?! Yea that was also pretty interesting. It was fattier than I expected. I didn't like it to say the least.  Food in China is very fun with a few bumps in the road. I can't wait for Sophie's mom's home cooked Chinese food! Alright it's time to get back to work.  I'll keep you updated about the National Holiday when I get back! Until then... Laters.

Here's to another long week!

Ni hao bloggers! Well, it's been a week (I think) since I last updated you.  Here's what's been going on.
Monday: Our bus broke down. About 5 mins after we left campus the bus made this really weird grinding noise. We notice 15 mins later that we weren't going any faster than about 30 mph... Yes we were stuck in first gear. Every time we stopped to let someone off the bus or we stopped at a red light/stop sign, the bus would shut off.  So it took us a while to get home. Longer than the usual hour. We didn't even get to our stop really. We had to hike up the San Fransisco-like hill that we live on.  It was brutal in the heat with all our stuff and wearing work clothes. We were not very happy hikers.
Tuesday: Half day for the exit-entry department. The foreign teachers (including me) had to go to the exit-entry department to get our residence permits. Little did we know, we needed our ORIGINAL physical forms to get a residence book.  We (the group I'm here with) was never in possession of our physical forms.  They got sent directly to our recruiter so we were almost screwed for getting our residence permits. Luckily, our school made something happen and we were able to get what we needed... about 4 hours later.  It was a nightmare.
Wednesday: Half day of school and also the 10th day in our work week.  BRUTAL. That's all I can say. My brain was dead, my body was tired, and I was ready for the Mid-Autumn Festival.  Our group went to dinner to celebrate.  We celebrated late into the night (if you know what I mean ;P).
Thursday: 1st day off in a while. Didn't do much except explore the city. I FOUND A BOOK STORE!!!! I was so excited. I also found some stuff to decorate my room with :D
Friday: Decorated room and went to RT mart to get more stuff for my room aka another pillow, a rug, some towels, etc.
Saturday: Lazy day in. Hung out with friends. Watched movies. Slept.
Sunday: Dance! I found a spot on the mountain next to our apartment and just danced for three hours.  IT WAS AWESOME!!!! I couldn't walk after lol. But I'm fine today (Monday).
Today: Work work work. Today through Friday is a Long Week schedule and then Saturday will be a Short Week Monday and Sunday will be a Short Week Friday. Then we're into the National Holiday. That's a week long break. Yay! More exploring to be done. I'll be sure to update you again next week. Until then... Laters.

Hello day 7...

OF A 10-DAY WORK WEEK!!!! Yes. It is currently Sunday afternoon and I am just wrapping up a full day of work. Today (Sunday) was a Tuesday Schedule, yesterday (Saturday) was a Monday schedule, and we will be done with our week on Wednesday with a Friday short week schedule. Anyone else confused? Yea welcome to our world! JNFLS is not exactly known for their consistency. We're pretty much told the week before what our week ahead will look like. If you're lucky, you get told which classes have be at BEFORE you have to be there! I went to a class today that I thought I had but the schedule had been switched that morning so I no longer have that class on a short week. It would've been nice if someone told me so that I didn't have to walk across campus and up three flights of stairs but whatever, at least I didn't miss a class like I did the first week >.< oops. 10 days of classes, planning, and grading papers is definitely taking its toll on me. And I'm only at day 7.... Yikes! At least there's a 4-day weekend for the Mid-Autumn Festival to look forward to. When we get back, we have an 8-day week and then 6 days off! Wahooo!

Usually my days look like this:
5:45 wake up
6:30 breakfast is served
6:50 bus leaves
8-3:55 classes/prep
4:00 bus leaves campus
5:30 dinner is served
7:30 try to kill time until it's time for bed (usually this consists of adventures with my friends and colleagues into the city or hanging out in someone's apartment playing philosophical games)

With a schedule like mine, it's nice that we have an hour-long commute between our apartments and campus because I've definitely made use of that time.  In the morning I use it to fully wake up, choreograph, read, or socialize. On my way home I use it to let everything go so that I don't take the office home with me every night. It's really helped me relax a lot more. I think today on my way home I'm going to read again though. Eric lent me his copy of The Alchemist and I'm having a hard time putting it down :D

Next week, starting Monday, all the overseas teachers are required to start their club. Yes I got approved to start a dance club! I even picked out my speakers this afternoon.  The only catch is I can't only dance.  I have to find ways to provide the students with English speaking and listening tasks as well as leadership opportunities.... So I guess I won't be doing much Bliss exercising.  It's amazing how even non academic activities still have to be academic. I hope I can make it work!

In other news, I've made several fans. Yes I'm calling my students fans.  I've gotten four letters of appreciation in the last week! All of them are pretty much the same: Chelsey I love your class; I hope you will let me practice English with you; I really appreciate your help on my college applications... It's so cute how all these students are so thankful! I don't think anyone else has gotten letters which is why I'm calling them my fans... I got fan mail :P I've been using their letters as decoration in my room so that my room doesn't look quite so much like an insane asylum.

I'll let you know how the Mid-Autumn Festival goes.  Until then... Laters.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Day!

Special shout out to the teachers of the world.  September 10th is teacher appreciation day in China and this is apparently a big deal. The administration gave everyone cards with gift certificates and each class gives each teacher a card or a gift.  When you walk into the room they say (well shout really) HAPPY TEACHER DAY! It was so much fun :) My AP-Level TOEFL class gave me a very beautiful card and my Japanese side kids gave me three gifts.  All the students have been so excited today. I am really loving being in classes on a regular basis helping students work on their applications and personal statements/essays.  It's all about the brand name of the school, you know? I've been trying to help the students de-stress a little but honestly, I feel like a bit of a hypocrite because I remember what it was like to be applying for schools... it sucked. Regardless, it's so much fun to have students walk past me and say hi and gawk a little bit because I look like I'm from China but I speak English. They grab every chance they can to talk to foreigners so that they can get some practice.  Unfortunately I'm no foreigner in their eyes so they don't stop me in the hall to talk to me.  They only come to my office to give me their statements and ask for help.  At least they use me as a resource.
Now on to the ugly news that I just got not too long ago.  Because Mid-Autumn Holiday is coming up next weekend, the school is allowing the students to go home Wednesday afternoon instead of Friday.  However, because we are missing two full days of school by doing that, we are making those classes up on Saturday and Sunday.  Isn't that interesting?! For every day that the school is not in session, those days are made up on the weekends. The schedule for the next week is always a mess because it changes so often! This experience is definitely helping me to go with the flow a little better haha! At least I get a lot of prep time during the day.  That's all I can think of for now with the updates so I'll let you know next weekend what I end up doing for the break! Until then... Laters.

First weekend

Ni hao bloggers! So here I am finishing up my first weekend in Jinan. Let me tell you about my classes this week. I had my first class on Thursday, a 12th grade IELTS prep class. I'm supposed to help the students improve their writing skills. That class was actually pretty fun. I see them again Tuesday afternoon. Then on Friday, I was supposed to have another IELTS prep class with different students but because Saturday was some market day thing, the school switched the schedule so that we had a short week with our Saturday lessons on Friday.  So we had a half day Friday with Saturday classes.  That means that I had TOEFL prep with the main stream students who are studying Japanese.  They don't speak much English. I also had a TOEFL and an SAT prep class with Joanna for the 12th grade International Center students.  If you're confused, all you need to know is that I'm teaching 10 periods of test prep each week regardless of whether it's a short or long week.  They are IELTS, TOEFL, and SAT prep. I've also had students already come and talk to me about where they would like to go for college.
After finishing the work week on Friday I came home, unpacked, and met a couple more people at dinner.  Mina (my favorite person so far) is from Japan and has been speaking with me in Japanese.  I am so excited to have a chance to brush up on it! On Saturday, after a quick SKYPE session with J3 and Tiger, I was off to breakfast. I met up with Vincent (teaches kindergarten and is from Cincinnati), Eric (teaches grade 1 and 2 and is from Indiana), Mina, and Steve (the most obnoxious guy from the same program that I was hired through). The five of us went to Thousand Buddha Mountain.  IT WAS ABSOLUTELY THE MOST INCREDIBLE PLACE I'VE BEEN TO. There are literally a thousand if not more Buddha statues in this park. There's a cave that goes through the mountain that all the temples and the park is built on.  The cave is FILLED with so many faces and statues and art work. It gave off a very strange energy like I was being protected but at the same time watched for everything I did. I took so many pictures! After about 5 hours on the mountain, we came back to the primary school.  Eric was irritated and ready for a nap so we said goodbye at the gate and Scott joined the four of us.  He took us into town and gave me a ton of useful information.  We went to a Western store where, should I ever crave American food, I could buy pretty much anything I needed. Then we went to R-T mart which is like Don Quijote (for you Hawaii people) but on steroids.  For you mainland people... it's like... nothing I've ever come across. Lol sorry. It's got a first floor full of businesses like KFC, McDonald's, Disney store, jewelery, bags, shoes, etc. Then upstairs is where you would start shopping. Imagine Wal-mart but more. They sell almost everything, including international food.  They have the country's flag under each food so that you know where it's coming from.  When you're ready to check out, you go down stairs to the grocery section and find a cash register.  If you don't have your own bags, you'll have to pay for a disposable plastic one. I'll definitely be spending more time there.
So here I am, Sunday morning. I think I'm going to Parc 66 (I learned where the mall was that I went that first day and what it was called).  Giles wanted to go and I felt bad for bailing on him yesterday for Thousand Buddha Mountain.  Vincent and Eric may have wanted to go but after yesterday's adventure, I'm not so sure.  I'll see them at breakfast so I guess I'll figure it out then. Tomorrow starts a long week so I'll be working a half day Saturday. I have a holiday coming up 1st of October and I have almost an entire week off! I can't wait to share all my adventures with you. Until then... Laters!

Brain dead

I was so excited to post my photos that I completely forgot to write about my first day at work! So here's that update.  I got into my apt around 2am and after a quick 4 hour nap it was light out and I was on a bus headed to work.  The bus leaves at 6:45 am and it's about an hour long commute to the international center.  Along the way I learned a few things about driving in China, like there aren't really rules when it comes to driving in China.  No one really stays in their lane if it means that they can squeeze through two cars and get in front of the.  It was also really entertaining that when we got to a traffic jam, people honk their horns while they are stopped even if there is no way that the person in front of them could possibly move.  Drivers drive through crosswalks even if the crosswalk is signaling that people can cross and even if it has people in it.  It's a bit scary but also quite entertaining if you are in a bus.  The bigger your vehicle, the better chance you have of winning the chicken fight when driving in the lane of on coming traffic.  The quote that comes to mind, "Do whatever it takes to get ahead."
Once I got to campus I was off to the dining hall for a quick breakfast.  Keep in mind I have no clue where I am supposed to go and what I am supposed to do.  All I was told the minute I landed was, "Your roommate is Joanna and we will see you at school tomorrow to show you around." Luckily Joanna left me a note in my room telling me when the bus leaves and all that good stuff.  So I finish breakfast and Joanna and a few other American teachers show me to the main office.  They had to leave because they were already running late for the class they were supposed to be proctoring for the placement tests.  I met some people and they showed me to the counseling office, though not the one I will be in permanently.  My desk isn't ready yet.  I met three counselors who share the office I'm temporarily in, who fortunately speak some English.  Two of them are actually studying Japanese as well so maybe I can brush up on that too!
Throughout the morning students came and went. From my understanding, there is no system set in place for when students can come into the office for help.  They just come and go whenever.  They have been trying to get a system in place for two years but nothing has worked. Also new this year (besides me) is the fact that the counselors are responsible for MANUALLY inputting grades to create transcripts.  The teachers submit the grades to the counselors and the counselors create a word document for each student.  That's the transcript.  All morning students have been coming in and filling out forms to request transcripts. Unfortunately I'm unable to help them with that since I don't have access to the system where all the word documents are stored. So all morning I listened to them speak in Mandarin and attempted to learn some.
Around 11:30 I was quickly and rather abruptly pulled out of the office for lunch.  I had 20 minutes to eat and then I was on another bus with 9 other people to run errands.  I went to the police station to get a residence permit, the bank to get an account, and the phone store to get a SIM card. After the bank almost all the Chinese teachers went home but my counseling colleague from the UK and I wanted to explore the city for a bit. Sophie (known to us as mama), a bilingual teacher offered to hang out with us.  She took us to town square where there were statues of famous Chinese people, springs, parks, and so much more!  I can't wait until I have more time to hang out there more.  Then she took us to the mall (the name of which I cannot pronounce for the life of me). We ended up eating at Greedy Bear Mini Hot Pot.  It was AMAZING! After dinner we walked around the mall square, which was overwhelmingly beautiful and just littered with activities.  See the pictures in the other post. Another place I cannot wait to spend more time in. Around 9pm Sophie got Giles and I into a cab and told him where to take us.  It was such a great first day in the city.
Today I am back in the office and waiting for my instructions as to what I should be doing... a handbook and schedule would be LOVELY! But I'm learning to go with the flow. In the mean time, it's practice practice practice... my Mandarin that is.  I will be sure to update you as more happens (and I'm sure more will happen).  Until then... Laters!

A picture is worth a thousand words

So here a few thousand! Lol enjoy :) I have way more photos of awesome stuff I did on my first night in Jinan, but sadly they won't upload.  When I tried to upload them, I got an error message saying "Server returned invalid response." Any tips would be lovely!
Regardless, here is a photo of a spring in Jinan.  Jinan is the land of many springs. People drink from them, wash their feet in them, and swim in them. I just walked over them.

Sophie (a bilingual teacher) took Giles (my counseling colleague from UK) and I to Greedy Bear Mini Hot Pot.  YUM!!

 Then we walked around the square outside the mall.  It was GORGEOUS!! I wish all the photos could be uploaded.  This is only one side of the square.

 At night the square comes alive with hundreds of people selling light-up trinkets.  Things that fly, things that spin, and wearable items (like the man's headband). 

 Little kids can take skating lessons here in the square.  There were 4 different groups last night.

 Sorry it's sideways.  At 8pm the fountain behind me and the long stretch of water to the left of me puts on a water show. The water sprays toward the lotus in the middle of the fountain as well as out toward the circle of the audience.  If you go, be prepared to get wet.

 There are lots of activities all going on.  This is hacky sack (the little yellow feathered thing to the right of the closest man to the camera is the hacky sack). We saw dozens of games going on.

 There were three or four men and boys showing off their nunchuck skills as well as selling nunchucks.  Yes those on the far right light up and change lights.  EPIC!

 This was where I HAD to join in.  There are groups of people dancing much like line dancing. The Chinese call it "mama dance." Clearly, the laowai, don't know the dances lol (That's Giles to the left of me).

We had a blast! Not a bad first night in Jinan. If I can get the photos to upload, I'll be sure to post all about it.  Until then... Laters!