so chantelle and me wanted to go to xiaolan today just to explore. so, projected plan we take the 4:10 shuttle, and go exploring xiaolan, and we had a couple of things we wanted to look for and then take either the 7:50 or 9:10 shuttle back
good to go right?
ha
so we take the 4:10 shuttle and we're on it
and its only us and another guy
so it takes approx 25 minutes to get to xiaolan if he just takes the straight way there
but this is the most unpredictable bus driver, he has a bunch of ways he always goes but we're used to it
well this time we start going the regular way and he turns into some alley road
and we're like uh.. alright. never been this way cool
well traffic was really bad on the main road
so we're thinking he's just avoiding traffic
but then he turns to a road that headed us back in guzhen direction
and we're like, um.. okay
so pretty much like half an hour later we're back on the main road heading to xiaolan again
so pretty much waste of time
then we're going and he takes a completely different way we've never ever seen
like we passed all of these tree farms and all of this stuff
okay so we get to a kind of townish part, because before we were somwhere out in the country
and then the bus driver just pulls off to the side and we're like oh maybe he's dropping this guy off,
no he turns off the bus and just sits there
and the guys just sitting there like nothings happening
so we're like um.. alright
maybe he's just waiting for something
so we wait like 15 minutes
and these guy just dont even acknowledge us
so we have no idea whats going on
and the drivers talking to this other guy on the bus and we hear him say 7 oclock
so we're like um, is he just going to sit here for 2 hours until his next run?
because i think he was too late for the xiaolan pickup/dropping us off
and they're not telling us anything
so we're kind of laughing kind of like what the heck
so finally we're just like okay lets just get off and get a taxi to the RT mart (the mall in xiaolan)
so we go up to the driver and are like okay let us off and they just laugh at us as he opens the door and gives a retarded buh-bye to us
and we're kind of peeved at this point in time
oh yea
so
its pouring today by the way
like raining non-stop
aaaaaand my umbrella broke
okay so we get off the bus and are walking in the rain to a street we see where we might catch a taxi
the whole time just cursing this guys name
so we're walking down the street and no taxis are driving by
so after about 15 minutes of walking we're like, ugh.. should we just get a motor-taxi?
and i pretty much was okay with going through my china experience never having to ride one of these
its a guy on a motorcycle and you get on the back
so we decided to do it, but i'm like um.. i dont want to ride alone can we see if me and chantelle can ride together
so we find 2 callie's on one and me and chantelle are on another
and we're just going down the road for a bit. and holy crap we have no idea where the shuttle driver was taking us because number one we were still in guzhen and number 2 we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere
so we're riding along and our guy is following callie's guy
and then we get back to the main road headed to xiaolan, so we're like oh good, something familiar
then we take a turn and split up from callie
mind you when i say we're going through traffic, we go through the traffic
as in squeeze past cars like 6 inches away from us
go on sidewalks
whatnot
chinese driving
and its two girls on the back of a motorcycle i'm just holding onto the guys jacket and chantelle's holding onto me, and we dont have helmets and chinese driving scares us enough without having to be on a motorcycle
so we split off and then we get to this bridge we normally cross
well our guys on the wrong side of the road on a motorbike sidewalk
and he just stops in the middle of the bridge and says something in chinese
and we're pretty sure he wants us to get off
and we're like um. no.
we're not at the RT mart
so we keep saying du fan yen (thats how you say it)
and pointing
and finally he takes us across the bridge and then just stops
and we're like um, what?!
and we see his gage is on empty so we're like oh, maybe he's just run out of gas
and the traffics pretty bad so we're like oh, maybe he just cant get through.
but after we thought he ran out of gas we pulled up a little more, so clearly we still had gas
and then we sat there on the side of the road and waiting for no joke like 20 minutes and we get off the motortaxi
because we're just kind of confused
and we wait long enough to where the traffics cleared
so we have no idea why this guy stopped
so we're standing there and the guys not going anywhere and not acknowledging us at all
so we're just confused
so we try motion to him and tell him we're just going to walk
so then he says something in chinese and then goes on ignoring us
so we're like.. um.. what?
so we try and figure out if he just wants us to wait and he'll take us or if we're done and he wants us to pay him
after prolly 25 minutes of standing next to him we just hand him some money and say we're walking
so then we're out in the middle of nowhere
we always cross that bridge to get to xiaolan and its pretty much at the beginning of the shuttle ride
so we're like nowhere
so we walk
in the rain some more
and we're just trying to find a taxi at this point
but again no taxi
and i swear this wasnt a coincidence
but we see one of our vans from our kindergarten that takes kids home
and we see one of the drivers we always say hi to
and he honks and waves at us
probably thinking what the heck are the english teachers doing out here
so he offered us a ride but we asked what direction the RT mart was and he pointed us in the right direction
so we thank him and go off walking
and we give in and just get another motor taxi
ugh
and thankfully this guy takes us to the RT mart
but on this one there was nowhere to put my feet so i just had to hold them up
and its pouring, and we dont have hoods or umbrellas
and pretty much just got puddle after puddle in my shoe
so we got there
at 6:10
a 25 minute shuttle ride, took us 2 freaking hours.
oh china.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
buh bye andrew
because of high demand i'm going to try to do this everyday
cute kid story of the day:
i'm teaching drama and kitchen this week (we each have two subjects) and for drama i did mary had a little lamb. i made a little lamb hat with ears on it from paper and cotton balls and had the lamb where that and then we have wigs and costumes, so i had mary wear a blonde wig. the kids were hillarious. apple was in the first class i did it with and he played the lamb and when i asked him what do lambs say its stick his tongue out kind of and make a loud "baaaaa" sound. even if i gave him a line to say, he'd still just make the noise.
i also switched the story a bit. so we have a strike system with the kids where they get a strike if they break a rule. 3 strikes, you're out, 4 strikes you dont get store (prizes redeemed for the tokens they got that day) and then i dont know how it happened but 10 strikes, and we throw you out the window (we're on the second story). so whenever we go over the rules they always shout at us "10 strikes!! 10 strikes!" and we're like "yea, 10 strikes and we throw you out the window" and they started this funny thing, theres a kid andrew who always gets a bunch of strikes, so they started saying "buh-bye andrew" in a higher voice as they wave out the window and then they do a soaring noise and then a andrew-just-got-squished-on-the-ground-dying noise. its funny. (teachers have been known to get thrown out of a window too "buh-bye teacher jessica...) so part of the mary had a little lamb was the teacher threw the lamb out the window and we all said, "buh-bye laaaaamb." it was way cute.
oh and chantelle made two kids cry today. ha ha. okay so she didnt make them cry, they just cried in her class, and it was two of the boys. one of them had this chapstick thing that he would not give to chantelle and she gave him a strike and got stern with him and he still wouldnt give it to her. we think he might've taken his mom's or something because when she finally took it he just broke down and started sobbing. so chantelle let him go put it in his packpack instead and that seemed to calm him down a bit. but it was just kind of funny. and then the class right after that paul started crying because chantelle wouldnt let him go to the bathroom. they get to go one time during class (it used to be 2 but they abused that priveledge). and so paul had already gone and he asked to go again so chantelle told him he already went his one time. and i guess that really upset him. i dont think he had to go it was just that he couldnt. he kept saying "teacher? bathroom?" in the sad puppy dog eyed way. and started crying. so chantelle had a bit of a rough day. i have kitchen this week which pretty much makes me the favorite and most anticipated teacher to get to through the rotations.
we're going to xiaolan tonite for FHE with the xiaolan group. we take a free shuttle that drops us off like 5 minutes from their school in front of this huge shopping mall. but its funny because when we have the catch the one back, its the last one for the night so theres a mass of people outside waiting for their bus. and as soon as they see which one they need they start booking it into the streets, barely letting the bus pull in. so its always an adventure. people dont know what lines are in china. people just cut anyone at anytime and nobody seems to care, but when you need to get on a shuttle, its do or die. its funny because people are shoving us as we're trying to make sure all of us get on and i'm usually just laughing because none of these little guys are getting past me. and its just a swarm of people just to cram themselves into the tiny space of the bus door. so yea. mondays are pretty much an adventure.
wish us luck that we all make it on tonite :)
cute kid story of the day:
i'm teaching drama and kitchen this week (we each have two subjects) and for drama i did mary had a little lamb. i made a little lamb hat with ears on it from paper and cotton balls and had the lamb where that and then we have wigs and costumes, so i had mary wear a blonde wig. the kids were hillarious. apple was in the first class i did it with and he played the lamb and when i asked him what do lambs say its stick his tongue out kind of and make a loud "baaaaa" sound. even if i gave him a line to say, he'd still just make the noise.
i also switched the story a bit. so we have a strike system with the kids where they get a strike if they break a rule. 3 strikes, you're out, 4 strikes you dont get store (prizes redeemed for the tokens they got that day) and then i dont know how it happened but 10 strikes, and we throw you out the window (we're on the second story). so whenever we go over the rules they always shout at us "10 strikes!! 10 strikes!" and we're like "yea, 10 strikes and we throw you out the window" and they started this funny thing, theres a kid andrew who always gets a bunch of strikes, so they started saying "buh-bye andrew" in a higher voice as they wave out the window and then they do a soaring noise and then a andrew-just-got-squished-on-the-ground-dying noise. its funny. (teachers have been known to get thrown out of a window too "buh-bye teacher jessica...) so part of the mary had a little lamb was the teacher threw the lamb out the window and we all said, "buh-bye laaaaamb." it was way cute.
oh and chantelle made two kids cry today. ha ha. okay so she didnt make them cry, they just cried in her class, and it was two of the boys. one of them had this chapstick thing that he would not give to chantelle and she gave him a strike and got stern with him and he still wouldnt give it to her. we think he might've taken his mom's or something because when she finally took it he just broke down and started sobbing. so chantelle let him go put it in his packpack instead and that seemed to calm him down a bit. but it was just kind of funny. and then the class right after that paul started crying because chantelle wouldnt let him go to the bathroom. they get to go one time during class (it used to be 2 but they abused that priveledge). and so paul had already gone and he asked to go again so chantelle told him he already went his one time. and i guess that really upset him. i dont think he had to go it was just that he couldnt. he kept saying "teacher? bathroom?" in the sad puppy dog eyed way. and started crying. so chantelle had a bit of a rough day. i have kitchen this week which pretty much makes me the favorite and most anticipated teacher to get to through the rotations.
we're going to xiaolan tonite for FHE with the xiaolan group. we take a free shuttle that drops us off like 5 minutes from their school in front of this huge shopping mall. but its funny because when we have the catch the one back, its the last one for the night so theres a mass of people outside waiting for their bus. and as soon as they see which one they need they start booking it into the streets, barely letting the bus pull in. so its always an adventure. people dont know what lines are in china. people just cut anyone at anytime and nobody seems to care, but when you need to get on a shuttle, its do or die. its funny because people are shoving us as we're trying to make sure all of us get on and i'm usually just laughing because none of these little guys are getting past me. and its just a swarm of people just to cram themselves into the tiny space of the bus door. so yea. mondays are pretty much an adventure.
wish us luck that we all make it on tonite :)
weekend in guangzhou
this weekend we travelled to Guangzhou (gwang-joe) for district conference for church. it was about a 2 and a half hour bus drive and it was kind of unfortunate because callie, our head teacher, gets motion sick really bad so she actually got off at the stop in xiaolan and just came back because she got sick. so that was sad.
this weekend has been kind of a thinking week for me. i've just thought about a lot. i think it started when we sat next to two business men from egypt, and i'm just sitting on the bus and thinking to myself um.. theres an egyptian sitting next to me. what? like this stuff doesnt happen to me. i'm the one who hears about it from somebody that has these experiences or watches it on tv. it doesnt actually happen. i think its finally sunk in that i'm in china. and its what only been about 2 months.
so we (chantelle, jae and me) stayed at a youth hostel on bar street. its pretty much the night life street and its pretty sweet, if you're into bars but it has some pretty good restaurants and its right on the waterfront of the pearl river. so that was really pretty to get to look at everyday. and at the hostel the cheapest room was a dorm room where theres 3 bunk beds so you actually just share a room and you have a big locker to store your stuff. so since there was only 3 of us there were just random ladies that would show up or i'd wake up with some stranger in front of me. it was a neat experience..? haha. really it was alright. i love international hostels because they're just busting full of foreigners like the first night i sat down in the lounge on the internet and theres a group of people from england just laughing and having a good time outside singing some drinking song (which actually got really annoying after a while) but theres just tons of people you see from germany, russia, and the middle east. its just a cool environment to be in.
we just explored a bit around there while we were in guangzhou and found some sweet shopping streets. and then we took a taxi to the hotel where our meetings were held.
saturday it was at this fu cheng gardens place and then sunday we had it at the ramada inn. pretty much never thought i'd ever have church at the ramada. lol. oh so funny story, callie volunteered the four of us here in guzhen to actually sing at this district conference. ha. and callie gets conveniently sick. lol. but i actually think it went really well, jae and chantelle are amazing singers so they covered up my mediocreness. but i think we sounded really good.
we also met some new friends. so we went to the saturday night session and this district conference was with people from the shenzhen branch (ours) and the guangzhou branch. so we met 2 girls and a guy named gilbert who were from the phillipines. the girls were teachers and gilbert was a designer. and then there were two other guys from the states that are here on an internship from BYU. and really wierd but jae actually knew one of them like him and her boyfriend are really really good friends, he was from idaho and totally had the idaho accent that just reminded me of rexburg. so after the meeting we went to mcdonalds and got some ice cream and hung out.
Brother Garn was our main speaker, he's the asia area authority. so that was really neat to get to hear him speak. and after the sunday session they fed us at the inn and then we got a young single adult session with him which was really good and way neat.
just meeting all of these people and getting to experience all of this has just made me so grateful for everything. getting to be here and live with the chinese people and getting to experience a new way of life has just been really humbling and i hate to say it but i dont know how i'm going to leave. its tearing my heart in two and theres still like 3 months left.. uh..
this weekend has been kind of a thinking week for me. i've just thought about a lot. i think it started when we sat next to two business men from egypt, and i'm just sitting on the bus and thinking to myself um.. theres an egyptian sitting next to me. what? like this stuff doesnt happen to me. i'm the one who hears about it from somebody that has these experiences or watches it on tv. it doesnt actually happen. i think its finally sunk in that i'm in china. and its what only been about 2 months.
so we (chantelle, jae and me) stayed at a youth hostel on bar street. its pretty much the night life street and its pretty sweet, if you're into bars but it has some pretty good restaurants and its right on the waterfront of the pearl river. so that was really pretty to get to look at everyday. and at the hostel the cheapest room was a dorm room where theres 3 bunk beds so you actually just share a room and you have a big locker to store your stuff. so since there was only 3 of us there were just random ladies that would show up or i'd wake up with some stranger in front of me. it was a neat experience..? haha. really it was alright. i love international hostels because they're just busting full of foreigners like the first night i sat down in the lounge on the internet and theres a group of people from england just laughing and having a good time outside singing some drinking song (which actually got really annoying after a while) but theres just tons of people you see from germany, russia, and the middle east. its just a cool environment to be in.
we just explored a bit around there while we were in guangzhou and found some sweet shopping streets. and then we took a taxi to the hotel where our meetings were held.
saturday it was at this fu cheng gardens place and then sunday we had it at the ramada inn. pretty much never thought i'd ever have church at the ramada. lol. oh so funny story, callie volunteered the four of us here in guzhen to actually sing at this district conference. ha. and callie gets conveniently sick. lol. but i actually think it went really well, jae and chantelle are amazing singers so they covered up my mediocreness. but i think we sounded really good.
we also met some new friends. so we went to the saturday night session and this district conference was with people from the shenzhen branch (ours) and the guangzhou branch. so we met 2 girls and a guy named gilbert who were from the phillipines. the girls were teachers and gilbert was a designer. and then there were two other guys from the states that are here on an internship from BYU. and really wierd but jae actually knew one of them like him and her boyfriend are really really good friends, he was from idaho and totally had the idaho accent that just reminded me of rexburg. so after the meeting we went to mcdonalds and got some ice cream and hung out.
Brother Garn was our main speaker, he's the asia area authority. so that was really neat to get to hear him speak. and after the sunday session they fed us at the inn and then we got a young single adult session with him which was really good and way neat.
just meeting all of these people and getting to experience all of this has just made me so grateful for everything. getting to be here and live with the chinese people and getting to experience a new way of life has just been really humbling and i hate to say it but i dont know how i'm going to leave. its tearing my heart in two and theres still like 3 months left.. uh..
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
sleeping through the static
so we're pretty much happy because its warmed up quite a bit here in guzhen.
tomorrow we leave for guangzhou to go to district conference for church. we have meetings saturday and sunday but are leaving tomorrow (friday) so that we can explore a bit because guangzhou supposedly is a pretty neat place. so we're excited about that.
and now its looking like we're actually going to head to xi'an next weekend. we have a four day weekend because of easter (they give it to us off). so we were going to go in may, but found plane tickets like $100 dollars cheaper, so we're pretty stoked about that. it will be chantelle, me and 5 other girls from the kaiyin group. (ps. xi'an is where we'll go see the terra cotta warriors)
alright um.. for other news. we had duck today. which we've had before but never knew what it was. its pretty good, we just have to eat it off the bone.
oh i know i havent done this in a while. cute kid story:
so we have this girl bree (in the picture), who is the tiniest cutest little girl, she looks like a doll. and she's also probably the smartest student in the class. like at least a couple of levels above the other children, like sh
e can form her own sentences and all that good stuff. something a couple of the kids like to do with us before and after class is they'll just point to things and say "teacher?" and we say "thats a book" or "thats a chair" and whatnot. well we have our supply closet in the backroom of a classroom they dont use anymore but the kids wander in there sometimes. and bree will come in a start pointing to things, and sometimes she teaches us the chinese. well callie was walking with her and bree was just pointing to stuff. and there was something that bree was making a mess of and callie says, "bree, thats gross." and bree just nonchalantly goes, "teacher, you is gross." i just started busting up from the backroom because i was just cutting something out. and i'm like oh no bree, i know you did not just do a comeback. it was hillarious. and then she pointed to the garbage can and callie said, "thats garbage." and bree says, "teacher, you is garbage." its so funny because she'll just say it so matter of factly like doesnt even realize what she's saying. its funny. so thats our new thing to say to each other is "you is gross".
other than that we just have another chinese lesson and are just keeping up with these little buggers. we're on the second story and andrew decided to throw a handful of kleenexs out the window. lol. he was embarassed when callie walked down with him to go pick them up. its the little things like that that just make you want to hug them and strangle them at the same time.
but i'm loving it here and alls well. :)
tomorrow we leave for guangzhou to go to district conference for church. we have meetings saturday and sunday but are leaving tomorrow (friday) so that we can explore a bit because guangzhou supposedly is a pretty neat place. so we're excited about that.
and now its looking like we're actually going to head to xi'an next weekend. we have a four day weekend because of easter (they give it to us off). so we were going to go in may, but found plane tickets like $100 dollars cheaper, so we're pretty stoked about that. it will be chantelle, me and 5 other girls from the kaiyin group. (ps. xi'an is where we'll go see the terra cotta warriors)
alright um.. for other news. we had duck today. which we've had before but never knew what it was. its pretty good, we just have to eat it off the bone.
oh i know i havent done this in a while. cute kid story:
so we have this girl bree (in the picture), who is the tiniest cutest little girl, she looks like a doll. and she's also probably the smartest student in the class. like at least a couple of levels above the other children, like sh
e can form her own sentences and all that good stuff. something a couple of the kids like to do with us before and after class is they'll just point to things and say "teacher?" and we say "thats a book" or "thats a chair" and whatnot. well we have our supply closet in the backroom of a classroom they dont use anymore but the kids wander in there sometimes. and bree will come in a start pointing to things, and sometimes she teaches us the chinese. well callie was walking with her and bree was just pointing to stuff. and there was something that bree was making a mess of and callie says, "bree, thats gross." and bree just nonchalantly goes, "teacher, you is gross." i just started busting up from the backroom because i was just cutting something out. and i'm like oh no bree, i know you did not just do a comeback. it was hillarious. and then she pointed to the garbage can and callie said, "thats garbage." and bree says, "teacher, you is garbage." its so funny because she'll just say it so matter of factly like doesnt even realize what she's saying. its funny. so thats our new thing to say to each other is "you is gross".other than that we just have another chinese lesson and are just keeping up with these little buggers. we're on the second story and andrew decided to throw a handful of kleenexs out the window. lol. he was embarassed when callie walked down with him to go pick them up. its the little things like that that just make you want to hug them and strangle them at the same time.
but i'm loving it here and alls well. :)
Saturday, March 8, 2008
harry....potter?
thursday we had our second chinese lesson with tina. tina is a our native coordinator now that lucy went back home. we LOVE LOVE LOVE tina. she's even tinier than lucy and is the cutest girl ever. she's 24 and she used to be a teacher in xiaolan (shaow-lawn) (the town next to us). she does the funniest thing that is just hillarious. so she's taught us that chinese people also communicate through sounds and face expressions. lol. we've learned this from just being around her. if theres something that surprises her or is kind of shocking she'll do this noise kind of like an awhhhhhh? and with her eyes as big as can be. lol. i wish i could record it and have it so you can hear it. its funny. but she does it to everything.
so she is teaching us mandarin now every thursday and she is a very good teacher. lol. but i think we make her tired. and i think we're coming along pretty well but we still get pronounciations wrong and say a lot of bad words that make tina embarrassed. for example callie had a spot of dirt on her coat and she asked tina how to say this is dirty. and apparently you're supposed to like point to the spot and casually say it but i pointed at callie and said it a little strong, and apparently when you do that you call them a prostitute. and instead of saying dad (baba) callie said sh**. haha. tina wouldnt even tell us what she said. whenever we say something bad we have to force tina to tell us, but she gets embarassed for us so she wrote it on the white board. she's cute
and as for new news (you know compared to the old news i give you.) there is a new teacher that works for bond. bond being the english teaching company that we work for. but anyways new teacher, he's 24 and from ENGLAND!! his name is harry and when tina told us that callie goes, "potter?.." haha. it was funny. and then we found out his name is Harry Waters. lol. i love that it rhymes with potter. anyways. he's way tall, like 6'4'' and we've figured out that he is probably the most arrogant person we've ever met. ha. but he has an accent so its okay. haha. no but seriously he's fun to be around and he seems like a cool guy, just some of the things he says, oh man. lets just say he needs to take some classes in humility along with his mandarin classes. but its way cool that he's here now and he's way fun. and dom, an australian teacher who's worked for bond for forever is back from his vacation. he's older, probably mid-thirties a bit on the stout side but way fun and so so funny. so we have a cool little group at the bond office.
okay and then friday night tina invited us over to her apartment. she actually lives with gary, his wife bella, and nina (another employee at bond). and i've actually been a tad under the weather the week and lost my voice (which didnt help when my job is speaking english all day). so tina said she knew this good pear drink she could make me and then she would cook us dinner!! we were so excited. we want her to teach us how to cook but she thinks she's not a good cook at all. so the pear drink was pretty much hot melted rock candy. haha. with a pear slice in it. it was really good, just really really sugary. but dinner. oh my gosh. SO SO good. we are going to force tina how to cook. because it was amazing. and harry came over that night too for dinner. it was fun.
then tonite (saturday) dom started this english corner thing on saturdays. its where chinese people learning english can come and practice their english. so we go so we can talk people and they can use us for practice. it was way fun. i talked to two girls lori and fionna. who were so cute.
it was way way awkward but went well enough. we're going to try and go every saturday if we can. its just such a good opportunity for us to make some friends! and dom is so happy when we come. him and harry seem to run it now. so we all get to hang out, its just way fun. i'll try and get a picture of them so you can have a face to put with the stories. :)
next friday we head to guangzhou for district conference for church so we're pretty stoked about that. we have meetings on saturday and sunday but we're going friday after we get done teaching so we can explore guangzhou because i spose its a pretty neat place. and we (as in the four of us here in guzhen) volunteered to sing in church? dont ask how that happened but i'm just glad we all have pretty decent voices. so wish us luck!
so she is teaching us mandarin now every thursday and she is a very good teacher. lol. but i think we make her tired. and i think we're coming along pretty well but we still get pronounciations wrong and say a lot of bad words that make tina embarrassed. for example callie had a spot of dirt on her coat and she asked tina how to say this is dirty. and apparently you're supposed to like point to the spot and casually say it but i pointed at callie and said it a little strong, and apparently when you do that you call them a prostitute. and instead of saying dad (baba) callie said sh**. haha. tina wouldnt even tell us what she said. whenever we say something bad we have to force tina to tell us, but she gets embarassed for us so she wrote it on the white board. she's cute
and as for new news (you know compared to the old news i give you.) there is a new teacher that works for bond. bond being the english teaching company that we work for. but anyways new teacher, he's 24 and from ENGLAND!! his name is harry and when tina told us that callie goes, "potter?.." haha. it was funny. and then we found out his name is Harry Waters. lol. i love that it rhymes with potter. anyways. he's way tall, like 6'4'' and we've figured out that he is probably the most arrogant person we've ever met. ha. but he has an accent so its okay. haha. no but seriously he's fun to be around and he seems like a cool guy, just some of the things he says, oh man. lets just say he needs to take some classes in humility along with his mandarin classes. but its way cool that he's here now and he's way fun. and dom, an australian teacher who's worked for bond for forever is back from his vacation. he's older, probably mid-thirties a bit on the stout side but way fun and so so funny. so we have a cool little group at the bond office.
okay and then friday night tina invited us over to her apartment. she actually lives with gary, his wife bella, and nina (another employee at bond). and i've actually been a tad under the weather the week and lost my voice (which didnt help when my job is speaking english all day). so tina said she knew this good pear drink she could make me and then she would cook us dinner!! we were so excited. we want her to teach us how to cook but she thinks she's not a good cook at all. so the pear drink was pretty much hot melted rock candy. haha. with a pear slice in it. it was really good, just really really sugary. but dinner. oh my gosh. SO SO good. we are going to force tina how to cook. because it was amazing. and harry came over that night too for dinner. it was fun.
then tonite (saturday) dom started this english corner thing on saturdays. its where chinese people learning english can come and practice their english. so we go so we can talk people and they can use us for practice. it was way fun. i talked to two girls lori and fionna. who were so cute.
it was way way awkward but went well enough. we're going to try and go every saturday if we can. its just such a good opportunity for us to make some friends! and dom is so happy when we come. him and harry seem to run it now. so we all get to hang out, its just way fun. i'll try and get a picture of them so you can have a face to put with the stories. :)
next friday we head to guangzhou for district conference for church so we're pretty stoked about that. we have meetings on saturday and sunday but we're going friday after we get done teaching so we can explore guangzhou because i spose its a pretty neat place. and we (as in the four of us here in guzhen) volunteered to sing in church? dont ask how that happened but i'm just glad we all have pretty decent voices. so wish us luck!
Sunday, March 2, 2008
so this is WAY WAY overdo
okay so in case you still think i'm living in some hole in the ground.
this is my apartment.
(and the wall of boys is our joke. there's this magazine called EASY which is like for preteens that callie always buys. the wierd thing is that all the boys look like girls. so i decided to put them up on my wall. but in all seriousness we have our love eyes set on three in particular, wang leehom, jay chou and pan wei bo. all are singers and very very goodlooking. theres a picture of a band with a white boy in the middle, short version of a very funny story, his name is benji, he's from idaho, went on a mandarin speaking mission to australia and was on chinese pop idol and is now trying to make it as a pop star. callie's met him at the branch in shanghai. needless to say he's a big fat joke. our favorite is wang leehom who is callie's and i have jay chou (he's the one in the giant picture) (pan wei bo is second on the top left) (i'm yet to find a good wang lee hom one). so dont think i'm serious. its just my joke. but i love them all, all the same)
and i'm sorry these are soo late.
oh yea.. and this little guy snuck into our lunch pales the other day and gave us a bit of a fright/
this is chicken soup, china style. (we drained the broth)
Monday, February 25, 2008
home visits and changes
last night we had another home visit to go on and chantelle and me volunteered to go. We went to paul and bree's house.
Okay Paul's house wins. No, he didnt live in a gigantic apartment, they actually had a house, and it was GORGEOUS! and humongous and just shouted we have money. Paul is one of my favorite kids and one of the cutest. He always seems to be off in his own mind in class but really he is one of our smartest kids. He speaks some of the best english in the class and he's just a really really smart kid. but he's also a little wierd he'll just get up and start doing karate chopping and what not but with his smile and laugh you just cant not love the kid. His parents seemed young and very put together, but also very very nice. Pretty much all of the rich kids their dads are in what else but the lighting business. (In case you didnt know thats all our town is, is chandelier shop after chandelier shop after light shop after light shop, its actually pretty ridiculous). And Paul was so cute. His parents said whenever teachers come to visit he gets really excited. It was so true he couldnt stop jumping up and down and going all over the place for like half an hour. Okay so if we didnt think he was super smart already, this house visit shocked us. So what we do at school is we have 6 subjects we teach, kitchen, shop, arts and crafts, drama, games and gym and we just interact with them. We have certain parts of speech they say and if they say the one we're focusing on for the day they get a token (for example one is concept of wants "i want ____"). So they get tokens and then at the end we count them and they get to shop at "store" which is just our boxes full of little toys as their reward. Well turns out Paul plays ILP school with his mom. And it was absolutely amazing. It cracked us up because he would be the teacher and he mimicked us SO well! it was hillarious. we have a list of rules and number one is "No Chinese" and if they do they have to go sit in the chinese chair, and his mom says he'll send her to a chinese chair. Its hillarious. so we played it with him for a little and he was giving us tokens and we were just busting up laughing. And then we had store and he had his own little box of toys and he was just so smart and just super impressed us. And it was funny because he had a little matchbox like car and he said it was 100 tokens and this is my proud little moment, but i busted out 1 of like 5 chinese phrases i know and used it on him. He told me it was 100 tokens and i said "oh, tai gui la (tie gway la)" which means too much! (we use it in bargaining) and his mom heard me and just started laughing and then paul looks and me and looks shocked said "UH! No chinese!" then he said "you have two more chances and then you get a strike, which is totally what we do with the kids because we have strike cards where they get three strikes then they have to go talk to teacher tina (our Foreign Affairs Officer) or Callie (our head teacher). It was just super impressive. He is so smart and he speaks english SO good. It was amazing. The only thing that was lame was that his parents were going to take us out to a dinner, but we had another appointment so we had to tell them we couldnt. but we were way bummed because i really really wanted to go.. laaame
Then we went to bree's. We love bree, she is pretty much our smartest student. She's one of the smallest cutest little girls and she can be a little pill sometimes but thats only because she's so smart. She forms sentences on her own and everything. its ridiculous. But we go to this shady kind of neighborhood and she takes us upstairs to this kind of run down office place and we go into her mom's big office and thats where we had the home visit because her mom had to work? i dont know it was wierd. And it was kind of sad because her parents didnt really seemed that interested in her progress or in her education, compared to the super involved and super inquisitive other parents we've met. and it was kind of annoying because bree's two year old brother just kept spilling a bunch of stuff and throwing things and it was just awkward because the mom wasnt really talking. I dont know it was just kind of lame. but bree was the high light definately. She is one of the cutest kids. And it was funny on the way home we were talking to her and saying some chinese, like asking her chinese name and then she said Zhongshan Park in chinese and chantelle tried to say it back and bree just pointed to her and let out a big fat "HA". and i just start laughing and chantelle's just like "ugh. i just got laughed at by a 7 year old." It was funny. And minus the setting we loved seeing bree. and these house visits help SOO much. I think the kids are more comfortable with us and we have fun a lot more now. It just seems like we're better friends with the kids.
okay now for changes. So its kind of upset our little world of guzhen but other school have WAY more kids that we do so they've actually needed some teachers to move to other schools. So the first week Megan moved to Xiaolan, the school in the next town over. And then Lucy moved back to live with her family and study for a test in April for a new job. So now we Tina, who is the smallest cutest lady ever. She's the same age as lucy about early mid twenties. And we just love her death. She speaks suuuch good english. Well then a couple days ago we heard they needed even more teachers in Kaiyin (two towns over, we're still all part of Zhongshan) so now Lorenda and Jaimee moved today to go there for the rest of the time. Its just been very frustrating trying to work this out and they give us seriously no notice at all. So now we went from 7 teachers down to just Chantelle, Jae, and me and Callie. Which we're a good little group and its going to be a lot more peaceful in the living conditions because sometimes i felt i was going to snap. But i'm sad that the girls had to leave because we had some good times and enjoyed each other. The other thing that is way way stressful is now our teachings all messed up. We went from team teaching, switching off in 6 half hour rotations, so really i only taught for an hour and a half. To then we were going for four 35 minute lessons in a row with no break, but one day a week we werent going to have to teach. To now where we will teach two subjects a week and have 6 rotations at about 25 minutes a piece with no breaks. It kind of stresses me out, and i think i'll just be really tired by the end of the day, but this is what i signed up for so i'm okay with it.
so thats whats new, and it was sunny for a while but now its gotten a touch colder.. sad face.. but other than that, s'all good.
Okay Paul's house wins. No, he didnt live in a gigantic apartment, they actually had a house, and it was GORGEOUS! and humongous and just shouted we have money. Paul is one of my favorite kids and one of the cutest. He always seems to be off in his own mind in class but really he is one of our smartest kids. He speaks some of the best english in the class and he's just a really really smart kid. but he's also a little wierd he'll just get up and start doing karate chopping and what not but with his smile and laugh you just cant not love the kid. His parents seemed young and very put together, but also very very nice. Pretty much all of the rich kids their dads are in what else but the lighting business. (In case you didnt know thats all our town is, is chandelier shop after chandelier shop after light shop after light shop, its actually pretty ridiculous). And Paul was so cute. His parents said whenever teachers come to visit he gets really excited. It was so true he couldnt stop jumping up and down and going all over the place for like half an hour. Okay so if we didnt think he was super smart already, this house visit shocked us. So what we do at school is we have 6 subjects we teach, kitchen, shop, arts and crafts, drama, games and gym and we just interact with them. We have certain parts of speech they say and if they say the one we're focusing on for the day they get a token (for example one is concept of wants "i want ____"). So they get tokens and then at the end we count them and they get to shop at "store" which is just our boxes full of little toys as their reward. Well turns out Paul plays ILP school with his mom. And it was absolutely amazing. It cracked us up because he would be the teacher and he mimicked us SO well! it was hillarious. we have a list of rules and number one is "No Chinese" and if they do they have to go sit in the chinese chair, and his mom says he'll send her to a chinese chair. Its hillarious. so we played it with him for a little and he was giving us tokens and we were just busting up laughing. And then we had store and he had his own little box of toys and he was just so smart and just super impressed us. And it was funny because he had a little matchbox like car and he said it was 100 tokens and this is my proud little moment, but i busted out 1 of like 5 chinese phrases i know and used it on him. He told me it was 100 tokens and i said "oh, tai gui la (tie gway la)" which means too much! (we use it in bargaining) and his mom heard me and just started laughing and then paul looks and me and looks shocked said "UH! No chinese!" then he said "you have two more chances and then you get a strike, which is totally what we do with the kids because we have strike cards where they get three strikes then they have to go talk to teacher tina (our Foreign Affairs Officer) or Callie (our head teacher). It was just super impressive. He is so smart and he speaks english SO good. It was amazing. The only thing that was lame was that his parents were going to take us out to a dinner, but we had another appointment so we had to tell them we couldnt. but we were way bummed because i really really wanted to go.. laaame
Then we went to bree's. We love bree, she is pretty much our smartest student. She's one of the smallest cutest little girls and she can be a little pill sometimes but thats only because she's so smart. She forms sentences on her own and everything. its ridiculous. But we go to this shady kind of neighborhood and she takes us upstairs to this kind of run down office place and we go into her mom's big office and thats where we had the home visit because her mom had to work? i dont know it was wierd. And it was kind of sad because her parents didnt really seemed that interested in her progress or in her education, compared to the super involved and super inquisitive other parents we've met. and it was kind of annoying because bree's two year old brother just kept spilling a bunch of stuff and throwing things and it was just awkward because the mom wasnt really talking. I dont know it was just kind of lame. but bree was the high light definately. She is one of the cutest kids. And it was funny on the way home we were talking to her and saying some chinese, like asking her chinese name and then she said Zhongshan Park in chinese and chantelle tried to say it back and bree just pointed to her and let out a big fat "HA". and i just start laughing and chantelle's just like "ugh. i just got laughed at by a 7 year old." It was funny. And minus the setting we loved seeing bree. and these house visits help SOO much. I think the kids are more comfortable with us and we have fun a lot more now. It just seems like we're better friends with the kids.
okay now for changes. So its kind of upset our little world of guzhen but other school have WAY more kids that we do so they've actually needed some teachers to move to other schools. So the first week Megan moved to Xiaolan, the school in the next town over. And then Lucy moved back to live with her family and study for a test in April for a new job. So now we Tina, who is the smallest cutest lady ever. She's the same age as lucy about early mid twenties. And we just love her death. She speaks suuuch good english. Well then a couple days ago we heard they needed even more teachers in Kaiyin (two towns over, we're still all part of Zhongshan) so now Lorenda and Jaimee moved today to go there for the rest of the time. Its just been very frustrating trying to work this out and they give us seriously no notice at all. So now we went from 7 teachers down to just Chantelle, Jae, and me and Callie. Which we're a good little group and its going to be a lot more peaceful in the living conditions because sometimes i felt i was going to snap. But i'm sad that the girls had to leave because we had some good times and enjoyed each other. The other thing that is way way stressful is now our teachings all messed up. We went from team teaching, switching off in 6 half hour rotations, so really i only taught for an hour and a half. To then we were going for four 35 minute lessons in a row with no break, but one day a week we werent going to have to teach. To now where we will teach two subjects a week and have 6 rotations at about 25 minutes a piece with no breaks. It kind of stresses me out, and i think i'll just be really tired by the end of the day, but this is what i signed up for so i'm okay with it.
so thats whats new, and it was sunny for a while but now its gotten a touch colder.. sad face.. but other than that, s'all good.
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