Pictures with Students

My favorite student Rose. She had a rough day today, her last class with me and last class with Chris. She did a lot of crying. On a side note...this is after a LONG day of teaching... I look pretty crazy in this picture :)

She looks pretty happy here though.

The little girl in the front is my enforcer. She might be small but she is fierce! I just put her next to the really big annoying kid and give her the slappy hand. Any time the boy talks she will just beat the mess out of him... hehe

Poor Lucy was pretty sick today.

One of my best classes, all the girls are really smart.... the 3 boys didn't want to be in the picture.

The little fat boy in the front is great. A little stupid but really funny.

Another one of my favorite students (just because she is insane) is the girl behind me to the left in the green. First time I noticed her she was sitting on the floor chewing on the side of the desk..... this kid is awesome!

Check out my new game on the board in the background, thank you networking class for the inspiration.

The picture is sadly missing some kids from this class. It is a really big class and we usually split it boys/girls. The girls side usually moves to whichever classroom I am teaching in, so I don't know the boys well (there are more boys not in the picture). This class is pretty high level and smart.

This is one of the hardest classes to teach. Usually its the boys that are bad in class, but in this class the girls are nuts. They just run all over the place all the time. Its are hard class but one I like and enjoy teaching when I get them early enough in the day that i'm not tired.

A little calmer than the class above but about the same, also same Chinese teacher.

The girl standing ont he other girl in the front has a lot of attitude. She is smart but a pain in the ass sometimes. The boy right of her is just a pain. They flirt a lot.

Kids from the north side of the river.

This is another class that ends up like a madhouse of kids running everywhere, but its fun and they learn the material. Also north of the river.

This class needed two pictures, they were just to amusing. The little girl in the orange has a gimp left arm, she is really cute and sweet. She doesn't let the gimp arm get in her way at all when playing games, its impressive. Also north of the river.

A class that I used to hate, but now I have a lot of fun with. I eventually kicked the Chinese teacher out and took over the class. Not having her in the class made it easier to show that I was in charge (because she didn't do anything to help keep control of the class).

The Moon/Power class. Many classes we remember by certain students and this one has the REALLY young girl Moon, age 9 (on my shoulder). And the oldest Power, age 14 (big one standing next to me)

One of my great songjiang classes. Another one that went much better once the Chinese teacher started leaving the class. This is a really smart class and they like to insult each other.

This class is horrible and never goes well... but the students are really fun.... its just impossible to get anything done.

I might get a few more pictures tomorrow. There are two classes that I missed due to battery issues (stupid chinese batteries... unless you buy them from a really big supermarket they are probably fake batteries and don't work... at least i know this now)

Working at Songyuan Earth Village Foreign Language School

After a year and a half in Songyuan I am headed south. The time here has definitely had its ups and downs (as all places do) but I can definitely say I will miss it a little (except the winter).

The school I worked for ( Songyuan Earth Village Foreign Language School) was good. It got a little hectic at times with 5 Earth Village schools, 1 Joy school, and 1 Reach High adult school. The number of schools also left us running around the city a little but luckily Songyuan is so small it doesn't really take long to get from place to place.

My favorite school out of the three is Earth Village (which is a huge surprise to new teachers). The kids are all 8-15 and some are pretty crazy, but I find them to be less spoiled than the kids a Joy. The classes at Earth village are also a bit less structured than the Joy classes, which is tough when you first start teaching but after a while I find it more fun. This is were I taught most of my classes and where my favorites students are.

Joy is definitely the cleaner and nicer of the two kids schools. It is also more expensive than Earth Village. The classrooms are always well stocked with toys and since there is only one school you don't have to move around the city two much. The kids are a little richer and more spoiled but there are definitely still lots of great kids in Joy. The classrooms at Joy are also English only, the kids and teachers are not allowed to use Chinese in class. This makes the kids far most comfortable with speaking.

Reach High is by far the nicest school in Songyuan, but also the newest and most expensive. The classes are small ( 1-8 students) and all discussion based. These classes are great when you have students that like to talk (mostly higher level students in RH).

Most of the teachers in both schools are cool. Hanging out with them at school can be fun for helping them with their English and some will help you study Chinese. Though because we are in the middle of no where China, most of them aren't very likely to hang out with you outside of school (but some will).

The school technically has two bosses, Simon Sun and Kevin (not sure his last name.... I guess that kinda bad I don't know that...). Simon's English is very good and he is the boss you deal with the most. Kevin mostly handles Joy school, he understands a decent amount of English but speaks very little (mostly just "OK"). I ran into very few problems while I was here, they were usually very willing to help us with getting what we wanted out of our time in China. What I mean by this is that even though we have set vacation times, many teachers will take a week or so off of unpaid vacation to just travel around China and I never saw these requests refused. Simon (like most people in the world today) likes his money, but is very reasonable with us and I have never had a dispute about pay here.

The city itself has a strange charm to it. Though there is very little to do in the city (only 3 or 4 bars, none really that good), it gives you a lot of time to study without distraction. The winter is a little hard because its so cold you don't spend any time outside. Summer is amazing... the city is FLAT!! and biking around is amazingly easy (once you get used to the crazy traffic). There are only around 20 foreigners in the city (but this has grown a lot since i got here a year and half ago) so you can make a lot of Chinese friends. Most people don't speak much English here ("HEELLOO" is about the extent) so you can get amazing amounts of practice speaking Chinese.

The city is kind of in the middle of no where, and only about 10 years out of being a little village. So it isn't very westernized and there are a lot of things that take a bit of getting used to. But most people are very friendly here and always willing to give you a free beer if you drink with them.

It definitely will be interesting leaving here. Many people have asked me if I am coming back, and though I do like the city it is to far out of the way of any of my other travel destination to probably even come back. Many people will be missed.

Next Post: Pictures with my students and Chinese teachers!

August Vacation

Ya... i'm a little behind on the posts..... but thats ok.... the pictures have been up for awhile.

I think my pictures say enough about the vacation.

I went to Beijing for a week and stayed with Josh Beard from Columbia.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100343153928697.2622257.12634980

Then me and Chris headed to Qingdao to check it out and see if we wanted to move there.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100343170245997.2622260.12634980

facebook is just so much easier to put pictures on than blogger.

Again to Chagan Lake.. but this time by bike!

So... after my nice trip to Chagan lake with the Tanbo staff, I went back the next day with Chris. We tried to start out really early.. but that didn't end up happening. But we still made pretty damn good time... 2 hours and 15 minutes.... much better than last years 4 hours. not bad for 50km

We met up with Snow and Juliet there, got our hotel rooms, went swimming, rode horses, and saw the sites of Chagan lake.... all in all a pretty good little vacation... This vacation was partly just me and Chris wanting to do a quick run to Chagan lake and a goodbye vacation for Snow... she leaves in a few days for a public school job in the country side.

Chris really need a back seat thing for his bike.... I did a lot of playing taxi on this trip. The first day Snow and Juliet rented a double bike, but the second day Snow and Chris would start walking to where we were going while I took Juliet there. Then I went back and got Snow and took her, while chris of course rode his bike.

And now....... pictures.

if you are wondering... yes Chris does occasionally wear a shirt.

Random shack behind the hotel... right next to the pig pens.

This set of like bird cages and stuff were on the second floor of the hotel, right across from my room.





I can totally wear snows bathing suit!

This is the shower/changing room by the like.... yay for batteries!

I'm REALLY hungry!

Had to have a quick bath after finishing the bike trip to the lake... it was hot.

Chagan lake....again.... and again

The Tanbo owner recently asked me if I wanted to go to Chagan lake with the Tanbo staff... so of course I accepted the invitation, and cleared my Sunday classes so that I could go.

I was a little nervous about this at first..... because most of the waitresses I know and talk to a lot quit. I also haven't been to Tanbo that often in the past few months... maybe like once every two weeks.... some weeks I go a few times though. Luckily everyone still knows who I am :)

Most of the kitchen staff actually hasn't changed... they seem to stay a lot longer.

I got there at 7:15 in the morning... and we started loading stuff in the bus (they rented a bus) and then sat down in the bus. I was great I got a seat and all the waitresses I know were around me. Then the owner came and had me move to her car... which was nice (has air conditioning and such)... and gave me the front seat and got in the back with her niece and the manager. She also moved the guy that plays the piano and sings to another car.

Conversation was minimal on the way there... but ok.. we went to an area that I had never been to before... and i think i can find again... it was really pretty and there was pretty much no one else out there.... . probably because people don't know where its at.. and its really hard to get to... the bus couldn't make it... they had to get out and walk after the bus almost got stuck. They put the crates of bear and the grill in a little stream so that the girls could cross (all in some sort of heals of course, except the kitchen staff)

We went out to this little place with a few tent type things set up (I think one of their friends lives there or something). Set up the stuff and headed for the water... I wasn't sure people were actually going to get in.. because most people in songyuan don't know how to swim.....but the lake is really shallow so it didn't matter to much.

We got to the edge of the lake (boys first of course) and all the guys just start stripping down and throwing their clothes on the side of the lake... chinese guys were tighty whities (except other colors) or boxer briefs...... so they look very similar to the swimsuites guys wear here... so they just wore those...... I wear real boxers ... so that was not going to fly..... i just unloaded my pockets into my backpack and put it in the car..... at first i was just walking around pretty much fully clothed in the water but i saw the guys a lot farther out playing around and having fun.. and i was over by the shore just kind standing there with the girls (who were also fully dressed in their normal clothes) ..... so i said screw it and put the shit on shore and swam out the the guys (who were in waist deep water)..... if me swimming around all over the place didn't give enough shocked faces.... me taking off my shirt definitely did (OMG its a fur beast!).

We played out in the water collecting muscles (or whatever they are called in lakes) and putting them in this little boat they were dragging around. We had lots of splash fights... usually girls vs guys... even the Tanbo owner was out there playing. We were out there for about 4 hours playing.....ya.. i'm burnt... but only on my shoulders.. ..

When we got back on shore we started up the fires and had a nice BBQ...... only had to watch a guy rip the heads off of a few small birds before throwing them on the fire.... its so weird watching the girls play with the birds earlier in the day and talk about how cute they are.. and then watch their heads get ripped off... . I was happy to see that most of those same girls were still bothered by the heads getting ripped off... but not by eating them.. hehe

Then it was just hanging out and then heading back. They were supposed to get back at 4:30.. but it ended up being 5:30.... and then opened Tanbo and started working.... .everyone was exhausted .... I can't imagine that being a very good night. (they close at midnight)

I sadly did not take any pictures (I always seem to forget my camera, it's batteries have been dead for like 3 months).. and most pictures that were taken were on people cell phones... The Tanbo owner took some pictures with her uber camera.. so I will hopefully get some of those and post them soon.

Next post...... Back to Chagan lake..............what? ya... totally went back the next day... by bike! ( I have pictures of this one!)