Well... not to much to really report about this week. We went back to Coco's (the dance club) and met up with some Chinese people we met last week..... and hooped/danced the night away.......(the way they dance here is like line dancing... and then they stand in one place and sway their hips back and forth). Its fun though... I still do my normal dancing and then occasionally will dance with some of them.
I made my first hoop in China the other day... its not finished yet... I still need to buy some tape. But nothing like making a hoop (and the connector for it) with just a pocket knife! I seriously lack tools....... It is getting warmer.. so i need to get on making some hoops so i can take them out to the park in a few weeks.
I got a few of the employees at my usual lunch spot to hula hoop the other day :) they are a lot of fun and always playing around anyways.
Sadly this weekend I got some sort of cold... I worked through it for the most part. I only missed two of my classes. I seem to be doing better tonight...... no more fever, nose stopped, not hacking up crap.... just coughing still.. but that should go soon. Luckily I have the next two days off... so I don't have to worry about trying to teach for the next two days.. which will help.
We get another foreign teacher this week. Another guy from America.... not sure which state.. I think he comes in on the 1st. So now there will be 6 of us at my school... which is pretty impressive.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
A very merry unbirthday to you! To me? to you!
So... I went to one of my usual restaurants Saturday night to eat and study/practice some Chinese, as I often do. There is one waitress at this place that speaks pretty good English and at one point while I was there she came up to my table and asked me if she could talk to me for a minute. I was like um... ya... I randomly talk to all of ya'll all the time. She was very awkward and nervous this time and it took her awhile to say what she was trying to say... and some of it I couldn't understand, but basically..... she said that she was leaving the restaurant tomorrow and she was very happy to have met me and thought I was a very interesting person and that she would remember me and my light circle. It was quite touching.
So Sunday morning I told the rest of the teachers what had happened... and we decided that we needed to all go and say goodbye. Then since there were so many of us going... we decided it would be like a farewell party.... so we should get a cake. The only problem is.. people don't really get cakes here unless its a birthday. So we walk in the restaurant with this cake.. and they automatically are like.... o whose birthday is it. Since I had misunderstood what the waitress had said before.... and Saturday was actually her last day there...... it became my birthday!
They had the person playing the piano and the singer sing happy birthday to me..... and brought me some sort of long noodle birthday dish.......yay for free food. We played around in the restaurant for awhile... and took some amusing pictures (i need to get them from Natasia.. then i will post them). When we decided to cut the cake....I asked the waitress for a 大刀... basically I asked for "big knife" .... so she went to the kitchen and brought out this like 2 foot long serrated knife..... but it worked pretty well for cutting the cake.. and it was quite tasty.
It was a good time... didn't quite work out like we had planned.. but eee....everyone had fun.
So it was a very merry unbirthday to me :)
So Sunday morning I told the rest of the teachers what had happened... and we decided that we needed to all go and say goodbye. Then since there were so many of us going... we decided it would be like a farewell party.... so we should get a cake. The only problem is.. people don't really get cakes here unless its a birthday. So we walk in the restaurant with this cake.. and they automatically are like.... o whose birthday is it. Since I had misunderstood what the waitress had said before.... and Saturday was actually her last day there...... it became my birthday!
They had the person playing the piano and the singer sing happy birthday to me..... and brought me some sort of long noodle birthday dish.......yay for free food. We played around in the restaurant for awhile... and took some amusing pictures (i need to get them from Natasia.. then i will post them). When we decided to cut the cake....I asked the waitress for a 大刀... basically I asked for "big knife" .... so she went to the kitchen and brought out this like 2 foot long serrated knife..... but it worked pretty well for cutting the cake.. and it was quite tasty.
It was a good time... didn't quite work out like we had planned.. but eee....everyone had fun.
So it was a very merry unbirthday to me :)
Monday, March 15, 2010
Lady Gaga
What is this world coming to..... so in the use we say "Oh My God!".........In Thailand they changed it to "Oh My Buddha" and I was pretty amused....... So what do I hear in China..... "Oh My Lady Gaga"...............WTF China?
Luckly its only the kids... and according to the other teachers its a very recent thing....like maybe started about a month or so ago. So many of the kids say it though....
On a side note... Lady Gaga is really big in this city.... her and Celine Dion.....so random.
Luckly its only the kids... and according to the other teachers its a very recent thing....like maybe started about a month or so ago. So many of the kids say it though....
On a side note... Lady Gaga is really big in this city.... her and Celine Dion.....so random.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Update of the last 2 weeks
So.. I have been lazy about updaing recently.... last week we had a foreign food party... where we all brought food that we could manage to make here and kinda missed from home. I took mash potatoes. Someone made grilled cheese (they had to buy the cheese in another city), pot roast, some sort of british pudding, potato skins, banana fritters, some Filipino food, and some other random stuff. It was a pretty good night... though I was kind of disappointed that we didn't get more Chinese people to show up..... but for some reason the Chinese teachers at our school don't hang out with us at all.... but I am working on that.
I have taught 2 weeks of classes now. The first one went amazingly well... Then the first two classes of week two went horrible... and Adam just told me ya.. we all have bad days.... where the lessons just don't seem to work at all. Then the rest of the classes went really well. I really like Saturday and Sunday where I teach anywhere from 6 to 8 classes in a day... you really just get into the swing of it and it just kinda flows.
You have one or two trouble makers in every class... usually I can make one of them go sit next to the Chinese teacher.... and the rest of the class acts better after that. But I have totally stuck two kids in the corner at this point :) The other foreign teachers thought it was amusing.... to use the classic corner.. but hell it worked :)
I have only thrown one kid out of my class so far.... or at least tried (if I would have had a better Chinese teacher... it would have been fine). He was being very bad throughout most of the class.. and for awhile was playing with this slime stuff... he got one request to put it away before I took it and just put it up on my desk (in its little container)... well about 10 minutes before the end of class.. he decided to grab for it again while I was writing something long on the board.. and throw the slime stuff on my lesson plan.....I barely caught him out of the corner of my eye.. and went to just throw him out at that point.. he wouldn't listen....(he was to fat for me to just pick up and move)... so looked at the Chinese teacher for help.. she asked him a few times to leave and then was just like.. . he will just sit there and be quite...................I was like wtf... why don't I have Ruby as a co-teacher at the moment.... women is spitfire... I'm even afraid of her :) So he just got excluded completely from the game we were playing for the last 10 minutes.
Finally went to one of the 2 clubs in town... it was pretty cool... the owner was having a birthday party that night.... so they had a giant like 7 layer cake....at one point the employees got the boss on the dance floor and then went and grabbed all the foreigners and put us up there to.........and started a food fight :) Icing flying everywhere :)
After the dance floor cleared a bit I got a chance to use my LED hoop for awhile....that went over well... and when I stopped the bartender brought me a free beer :) We went to a 24 hour restaurant afterwords (one of the like 3 in town) and since we had a group of like 10 people we pulled a bunch of tables together..... giving me plenty of room to hoop in the restaurant.... I only managed to get one waitress to try to hoop last night.. but I will do better next time!
This is a long post..... Yesterday I went to a cheap movie and bought Teeth for about $0.50 and Avatar for about $1.50 :) Then we found a 2 yuan store (kinda like a dollar tree except more only $0.30) and found some REALLY tiny hula hoops... so I have minis now... I think they are about 17inch.
And yes its still snowing.....
I have taught 2 weeks of classes now. The first one went amazingly well... Then the first two classes of week two went horrible... and Adam just told me ya.. we all have bad days.... where the lessons just don't seem to work at all. Then the rest of the classes went really well. I really like Saturday and Sunday where I teach anywhere from 6 to 8 classes in a day... you really just get into the swing of it and it just kinda flows.
You have one or two trouble makers in every class... usually I can make one of them go sit next to the Chinese teacher.... and the rest of the class acts better after that. But I have totally stuck two kids in the corner at this point :) The other foreign teachers thought it was amusing.... to use the classic corner.. but hell it worked :)
I have only thrown one kid out of my class so far.... or at least tried (if I would have had a better Chinese teacher... it would have been fine). He was being very bad throughout most of the class.. and for awhile was playing with this slime stuff... he got one request to put it away before I took it and just put it up on my desk (in its little container)... well about 10 minutes before the end of class.. he decided to grab for it again while I was writing something long on the board.. and throw the slime stuff on my lesson plan.....I barely caught him out of the corner of my eye.. and went to just throw him out at that point.. he wouldn't listen....(he was to fat for me to just pick up and move)... so looked at the Chinese teacher for help.. she asked him a few times to leave and then was just like.. . he will just sit there and be quite...................I was like wtf... why don't I have Ruby as a co-teacher at the moment.... women is spitfire... I'm even afraid of her :) So he just got excluded completely from the game we were playing for the last 10 minutes.
Finally went to one of the 2 clubs in town... it was pretty cool... the owner was having a birthday party that night.... so they had a giant like 7 layer cake....at one point the employees got the boss on the dance floor and then went and grabbed all the foreigners and put us up there to.........and started a food fight :) Icing flying everywhere :)
After the dance floor cleared a bit I got a chance to use my LED hoop for awhile....that went over well... and when I stopped the bartender brought me a free beer :) We went to a 24 hour restaurant afterwords (one of the like 3 in town) and since we had a group of like 10 people we pulled a bunch of tables together..... giving me plenty of room to hoop in the restaurant.... I only managed to get one waitress to try to hoop last night.. but I will do better next time!
This is a long post..... Yesterday I went to a cheap movie and bought Teeth for about $0.50 and Avatar for about $1.50 :) Then we found a 2 yuan store (kinda like a dollar tree except more only $0.30) and found some REALLY tiny hula hoops... so I have minis now... I think they are about 17inch.
And yes its still snowing.....
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Yay for Korean restaurants in China :)
We went to a Korean restaurant near the apt the other day and one of the other teachers ordered this nice plate of meat with peppers. It looked pretty good and she really enjoyed it.
Well.. she went back last night and got a waitress that could speak a little English. She flipped back to the first page where she found that nice plate of meat last time. But this time the nice waitress warned her that everything on the first page is dog :)
She freaked out so bad... I got an awesome text message of "OMG that plate of chicken and peppers was not chicken!!"
I was pretty amused... but she is considering trying to go vegetarian for awhile......
Well.. she went back last night and got a waitress that could speak a little English. She flipped back to the first page where she found that nice plate of meat last time. But this time the nice waitress warned her that everything on the first page is dog :)
She freaked out so bad... I got an awesome text message of "OMG that plate of chicken and peppers was not chicken!!"
I was pretty amused... but she is considering trying to go vegetarian for awhile......
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Welcome to my home.
So my apt in China is mostly set up now. I like it a lot. Its actually very big (and I can kinda hoop in the living room).
I have a little bit of a problem with the kitchen sink only having cold water... but I have just started to boil water to wash dishes... it works pretty well.
The bathroom is just odd..... the only place to put the washing machine is..... right in the middle of the shower.... yay! Thats the only place that there is a train I can put the hose in. Also... you use the shower head to fill up the washer :) or fill up the red bucket and use it to fill up the washer.
I have also heard that the big red bucket is useful for holding spare water for when the water randomly goes out... but that hasn't happened in a few months according to the other teachers.
I have a little bit of a problem with the kitchen sink only having cold water... but I have just started to boil water to wash dishes... it works pretty well.
The bathroom is just odd..... the only place to put the washing machine is..... right in the middle of the shower.... yay! Thats the only place that there is a train I can put the hose in. Also... you use the shower head to fill up the washer :) or fill up the red bucket and use it to fill up the washer.
I have also heard that the big red bucket is useful for holding spare water for when the water randomly goes out... but that hasn't happened in a few months according to the other teachers.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Lantern Festival
The Lantern Festival was yesterday..... and damn were there a lot of fireworks. People were shooting off fireworks from about 6am yesterday until ..... sometime late in the night.
Once it got dark you could see fire works coming up between buildings from every direction. Fireworks are pretty cheap here.... so normal residents have fireworks that would be the grand finale at a fireworks show back home. We went to where the government was setting off fireworks... and I took a few short videos of them... but it really doesn't show the awesomeness.
People are also releasing a bunch of lanterns into the air all the time. So in one of the videos you will see just a bunch of little lights off in the sky (that aren't fireworks)... those are the lanterns. The second video also follows a lantern that is just being let off.
Once it got dark you could see fire works coming up between buildings from every direction. Fireworks are pretty cheap here.... so normal residents have fireworks that would be the grand finale at a fireworks show back home. We went to where the government was setting off fireworks... and I took a few short videos of them... but it really doesn't show the awesomeness.
People are also releasing a bunch of lanterns into the air all the time. So in one of the videos you will see just a bunch of little lights off in the sky (that aren't fireworks)... those are the lanterns. The second video also follows a lantern that is just being let off.
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