My team!

Okay, so I know that this post has been promised for a long time, and finally I'm writing it. :)

There are two teams at our school, which is a little confusing, as we teach for the same departments, have Sunday night fellowship together, hang out, and live in stairwells that are next to each other. Within our separate teams, we turn in lesson plans to our team leader (who has been in China longer), have Word studies together, and provide a lot of each others' accountability, encouragement, and support.

I'm on an all-girl team. Our team leader is Danielle, who loves birthday parties, baking, and her pet rabbit Zorro. Then there is Sydney, who taught for a semester in GERMANY and who keeps us all laughing. Hilary is the brave soul on our team who had not lived out of the US before; she's also an awesome baker!! Depreena is our storyteller (seriously, she should be a professional!) and my buddy in all things Biblical language related. Mel is our representative Canadian; she lives in the apartment above mine and we do a lot of our lesson planning (or attempted lesson planning...) together.

Here's what it looks like...

Today has been a pretty average day in my life (whatever that means).  Meaning, I woke up (which is generally my least favorite part of the entire day!  And I teach at 8 am four days a week... lucky me!) and taught two classes.  Teaching has definitely become more natural feeling... like it's my job instead of panic attack inducing... which I am very happy for. 

As I was headed to lunch, I got a text from Depreena saying that there was a package for me in the library (where the half of the post office that mail comes to is located... as opposed to the half where you send mail out... and neither of which places sells stamps, as far as I've been able to figure out.)  I was surprised and excited, and pretty curious about what this box was.  So I went promptly there (forget lunch!) and chatted along the way with my student Marion, who was also doing something in that direction. 

And there was indeed a huge box!

I was good and took it along with me to lunch... ate... went back to my apartment and opened it... and then left the contents alone until after my office hours.

Office hours:  wherein today I took a nap (props to a culture where that is generally acceptable...), worked on lesson plans, and was quite chilly.  By the end of my three hours in the office, I had put my coat, scarf, and hat back on. 

This had a rather amusing consequence.  A few minutes after all the other teachers had left the office (there are eight of us in there), a student came in.  She was asking me very quickly in Chinese where one of the other teachers were, and I wasn't quite sure what she said, so I pulled off my hat so that I'd actually be able to hear her...

And she gasped. 

Apparently she hadn't realized that I wasn't Chinese...

Anyway... after office hours I properly opened the package to discover SUPER warm socks and a really soft blanket from the McP's!  What an awesome surprise!  (And I know... I didn't save it for Christmas... but I figured it was cold now...)

Then I headed out to the cafeteria for lunch with a brother and sister.  We ate, goofed around, and talked about some deeper stuff.  It is so, so cool beyond words to be able to have these types of conversations.  I really am getting to do exactly what I had hoped to be able to do here -- investing in the lives of brothers and sisters -- and that fact blows my mind.

After dinner, what's better than playing in the snow/on the frozen-over pond?  So we waded through the snow (which is really dry and powdery) and jumped down onto the frozen pond and stomped out names and shapes and made snow angels and skated around in our sneakers.  So. Much. Fun.  I felt like a freshman again!

Then we parted ways, and I came back to my apartment, supposedly to work on my lesson plans for next week... but I have no idea what I want to do with my translation kids, so I've been working on stuff for the study with my team that we'll be doing tomorrow night. 

Hopefully a new newsletter will be out soon!  :)  The comm department (which kindly mails them to y'all) has been a bit swamped of late, but it is in the works.

Things you could be lifting for us...
~a few people are sick right now
~we're all tired and need perseverance and new energy as we finish the semester
~relationships with students (as always)

Thanks!

(no photos today as they aren't wanting to load/attach)

Random!

I've been meaning to blog for a while about a few things. Some of them are just random things that I've realized and felt like sharing.

1. About the Chinese language

I don't know what insane part of my mind thought that I'd be able to come, work full time, get to know my team, get to know students, etc... and somehow learn Chinese. Sure, I've learned a little more (which is sort of inevitable when you live in the country...) but my Chinese is still pretty terrible. This leads to a lot of interesting situations.

For instance, I have learned that I have the habit of repeating whatever words I do happen to know. Generally, this works pretty well with Chinese, simply because of the structure of the language. Basically, a lot of questions follow this sort of format:

Now we're going to eat dinner, good or not good?

This thing, do you want or not want?

And to answer, you simply repeat the option that you wanted. Good, not good, want, not want. It's handy.

The problems arise when I really didn't understand any of the rest of the question, but for whatever reason automatically respond as if I had.

This just happened in the photocopy room (seriously, those women are some of my heroes). She held up two of my papers and asked a question. Here's what I heard:

Chinese chinese chinese chinese, keyi a?

Keyi means "can I"/ "may I"/ "is it permitted"/ "is it okay".

My default response to keyi questions is affirmative, which is probably a horrible idea, especially when it's taxi or bong bong che drivers asking.*

"Keyi!" I said.

And it worked out really well, but sometimes it worries me a little bit the number of questions that I answer with only the foggiest of ideas what I was being asked.

*As a disclaimer, I think this is my default because I assume that generally, most Chinese people have a better idea of what is and is not a good idea/what is going on than I do. Someday I'm sure I'll be proven wrong, but in the meantime... it keeps life interesting.

2. Pictures.

For some reason, it makes me really happy that people on the other side of the planet also like to draw things on frosted over windows and that these things include smiley faces and hand-footprints.

Thursday Student Stories

(actually, one story from Wednesday first...)

me:  "Will, what are you thankful for?"

Will:  "My mother!"

me:  "Okay, what else?"

Will:  "My father!"

me:  "What else?  Try to--"

Will:  "My uncle!"

me:  "Um..."

Will:  "My aunt!"

Phoenix:  "So basically his family... Will, just say FAMILY and think of something else!"

me:  "Yeah, think of something besides family --"

Will:  "MY COUSIN!!!!"

me:  *facepalm*  *walks off to check on someone else*

~~~~~

[from class 6]

me:  "Luther, where's Jean?"

Luther:  *thinks about this*  "He went home!  Because his... grandfather is...."

me:  *expecting something morbid/serious as Luther tried to think of the words*

Luther:  "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!"

me:  *laughing*  "Okay... so where's Talent?"

~~~

[from class 7, pre-class]

Jones:  "Keeler!  We are very sorry!"

me:  *confused*

Jones:  "Last week, you had the party... but we thought it was this week... so we did not come... we were very sad..."

me:  "Oh, I am sad too... but it is alright..."

Jones:  "So we want to have a party with you again sometime!"

me:  "Oh, maybe!"

...

some of the girls who did come:  "We had so much fun!"

me:  "I had so much fun too!"

them:  "We want to cook for you!"

me:  "Uh... I thought all that you could cook was eggs and rice!"

them:  *laughing*  "No, we want to make dumplings for you!  We will make them, you don't have to do anything!"

me:  "That would be fun!  We'll have to do that sometime."

them:  "How about Saturday?"

me:  *thinking... that could possibly work... wait no*  "I'm sorry, this week is really crazy, but we'll find another time."

them:  "Whenever you are free, call us!"

...

[during class, as I am walking around the room]

Vingo:  "So... are you busy on Saturday?"

me:  "Yeah, I am."

Vingo:  "Oh, we want to come cook at your apartment."

me:  "That is what your classmates were telling me..."

Vingo:  "How about next Saturday?"

me:  "Hmm... maybe... I'll check and get back to you..."

...

one of the guys:  "We will all come next time!"

me:  "Cool!  ...but my apartment will be really crowded!"

him:  "Yes... that's okay, we will ALL come!!"

me:  "Okay... awesome."

...

[after class, as we walked to the dining hall]

one of the girls:  "Keeler, do you have a knife?"

me:  "Yes..."

her:  "Do you cook in your apartment often?"

me:  "Yes... well, on the weekend --"

her:  "So you have salt?"

me:  "Yes..."

them:  "Okay, so we don't have to buy salt."

...

Any guesses about what will be happening in my apartment next Saturday?

~~~

[in class 8]

me:  "Wisdom!"

Wisdom:  *bouncing to his feet*  "Yes!!"

me:  "What do you want to achieve in life?"

Wisdom:  "SAVE THE WORLD!!!!!!"

....

me:  *checking on a group that was putting the story of Thanksgiving in order*  "No, the numbers are wrong... you have to read it and figure out what order it should go in.  It's like a puzzle."

Sky:  *very forlornly*  "Why do you puzzle me?"

me:  "To make you think!"

Sky:  *unhappily*  "We don't want to think..."

me:  "You're students, it's your job to think!"

~~~~

I love them.

Flattery and Thankfulness

We've been talking about Thanksgiving in my classes this week.

"I'm thankful for my teacher," Will said. I rolled my eyes. My students have been saying this all week – and okay, it probably is true – but as an American, that is something I'm uncomfortable with accepting in class. It seems somewhere between a cop out and trying to earn brownie points.

"My English teacher," he clarified.

"Thanks Will," I said, rolling my eyes some more.

"My American English teacher." I guess he wanted to make sure that I got the point.

I decided that maybe ignoring him was a good idea. He sits smack in front of my podium – his desk is shoved up against it – so we've sort of gotten to know each other better these past few weeks.

"My beautiful American English teacher!" he proclaimed.

I picked up my (full) water bottle. "Seriously, Will, someday..."

When we were doing micro-teaching back in Beijing, I threatened to throw Oliver out the window, which probably distressed whoever was grading my classroom management skills.

I feel like Oliver and Will might be great friends.

"I'm thankful that you are in my class," I said to Will later, because I am. I enjoy laughing, particularly in that class. "I'm thankful that you are speaking English."

"I like to speak English!" he declared, which I had my doubts about. "I like it because I like my English teacher!"

Sometimes I don't know if I should laugh or bang my head against my podium.

So... I'm thankful for... flattery?

Seriously though, I am thankful for having students who make me laugh in the middle of classes that are full of bleh, and I am thankful for the way that relationships form in the strangest of ways. I don't think Will had ever listened to me until I laughed at him banging his head because he was goofing around instead of paying attention.

I am thankful for laughter.

I Do Not Think That Word Means... (a chronicle of epic adventures)

Some days in China there is not much to say except Oh China.

Because so many things happen.

This afternoon, Mel and I walked into the "red and yellow" market (thus creatively named by us for its red and yellow sign).  It's chilly outside (although was warm enough today that I was fine in a hoodie -- lovely!) so of course my glasses steamed up the instant we walked through the doors.  We had been drinking bubble tea as we walked, and I had just finished mine as we got inside.

"Oh, here's the trashcan!" Mel said helpfully.  I pushed my glasses up on top of my head and put my cup inside.

At least, I tried to put my cup inside.  But it seemed to be rather full.  So I shoved my cup a little harder, realizing that something was not working and wondering what on earth was on top of the trashcan and trying to see what was inside and get my glasses untangled from my hair.  And one of the women who works there was coming over to see what the crazy foreigner (read: me, this is where it's a little unlucky to stick out so obviously) was doing. 

All three of us came to the same conclusion at about the same time.  "Oh no!" Mel said, pointing to something else.  "THIS is the trashcan!"  The saleslady was also telling us something... and I realized that yeah, the thing I was trying to put my cup in was definitely not a trashcan.

Fail.

Oh well, we bought our vegetables and continued onward to the meat market.

~~~~~

At the meat market (which sells a lot of things besides meat... such as vegetables and oil and jiaozi and cloth and coats and... everything pretty much) I was buying a lot of frozen chicken, since it is my duty to prepare cola chicken for both teams for our Thanksgiving dinner part 1, which will be held on Wednesday evening next week if all goes according to plan.  There was another man buying chicken ahead of us, which the chicken-seller was vigorously chopping up.

The man ahead of us was very excited about his purchase and wanted very much for Mel and I to be able to share in his excitement.  Unfortunately, all of his friendly and energetic admonitions to Mel that she should translate what he was saying for me did nothing to magically teach either of us all the words that he was using that we didn't understand.  (This is where it is lucky for me that I look foreign... random strangers in the market don't expect me to speak Putonghua -- Mandarin.)  So all we really got was a lot of zenme shuo-ing (how to say....?) and hysterical miming of a chicken beak and wings and xiao ji, xiao ji (small chicken!  small chicken!!) and he finally took his bagged chicken and went off with many ecstatic smiles bestowed upon us. 

I still haven't the foggiest clue what he was trying to tell us.  We could see that it was a small chicken.  We could see that it had wings and a beak.  I hope that he enjoyed eating it as much as he enjoyed anticipating it. 

~~~~~

Then we went to JiangShan, a street where we do a lot of shopping.  We were buying all sorts of things (which involved some other stories about not-quite-communication), but I think the highlight of that section of the day came as we were leaving the last shop and going out to find a taxi to take us back to campus. 

I slipped.

Earlier in the day I had slid down a ramp, but managed to stay on my feet despite the fact that I was carrying an awful lot of frozen chicken.  This time, on the other hand, with both hands quite full, I went from walking along to on the ground and I have no memory of being in a state of falling in between. 

Mel's response, of course, was asking if I was okay and trying to help me up while laughing so hard herself that I thought she was also going to get to experience the joys of being on an icy stone surface.  And that is a true friend.  (For anyone present for Rachel Sush's epic fall down the stairs at XiaDa last year... this was probably comparable.) 

~~~~~

I am just going to mention the fact that our taxi had a female driver and the picture of the licensed operator showed a rather beefy male.  It seemed like a fitting bit in the day.

~~~~~

And that class of 37 that I invited?  Ten of them came tonight.  Ten was a great number.  Hilary helped me prep snacks like a rockstar (see, Amy in FoCo, what you have me saying?) -- raw veggies with ranch dip (thanks to the FoCo people) and oreos and crackers and candy and drinks and we played a lot of UNO and Mel hang out with us and students sang and danced and gave each other grief and we laughed a lot and they inspected all of the pictures on my wall intensely.

The way we played UNO was a little different than anything I've ever done before... rather than "uno" meaning "I am down to having one card" it meant "I have no playable cards and must draw".  I thought about trying to correct this, but it didn't seem worth it, and the game was going alright anyway, so... my apologies to anyone else who plays UNO with my HR class.

It was Lola's birthday.  They said they were honored to be at my apartment.  I was honored that was how she spent her birthday evening!

We did get some pictures, I'll hopefully post at least one or two later.

It was a great day.

Random bits from today

me:  "Hi Bamboo!"
Bamboo:  "Hello teacher!"
me:  "Where are you going?"
Bamboo:  "The liblaly!"
me:  "...okay cool!"

me:  "So I invited a class over Saturday evening, it's one of my smaller ones, only 37 students."
Depreena:  *pauses in putting on her make-up*  "You invited THIRTY-SEVEN PEOPLE?"
me:  "Uh... yeah?"

I don't know who had the brilliant idea to pave over all of campus.  But the marble strips?  They are marble strips of DEATH.

Mel:  "Imma go up and get my computer, because I feel like you'll still be up in an hour anyway."
me:  "You know me too well!"
Mel:  "And... I'm gonna leave my phone here to make sure I really do come back."
me:  "You know yourself too well!!"

So many stories.

As you may have guessed from the lack of posting, the past week has been extremely busy.  Honestly, now through the end of December is probably going to be crazy, since there are really no breaks until the end of the semester (end of December/beginning of January).  The good news for us is that when break does come, it comes in full force -- nearly two months of no classes to celebrate the Chinese New Year, when almost everyone in China goes home.  We're making our plans too; all of us will go to Thailand for a conference and of course I'm planning to hit up Xiamen, other plans are in the works.  :)

Anyway, without further ado, here are stories from today...

~~~

After my first class had ended and I was erasing everything from the board, the next class came in.  One of the guys stared at me, walked up to the front, still quite intently staring at me, and stopped.  I had no idea what he wanted. 

"You are very beautiful," he said.

...never sure how to respond to that one, especially from a student who I've never seen before.  I think he got an answer along the lines of, "Uhh.... thanks?"

~~~

In my third class, ten minutes from the end of class as I was writing on the board, I heard some of the girls in the front (who I don't think have any interest whatsoever in attending an English class...) whispering xia ke le... class is over...

"No, it isn't," I snapped. 

They had no clue who I was talking to, so I turned around and looked at them and said it again.  "Huh?" they said.

"Class is not over, we still have ten minutes." 

There has to be a happy medium between students who assume that I'm fluent in Chinese and students who assume that I know none.

~~~

When class did end, as kids were gathering up their books and I was throwing my stuff into my backpack, I remembered that I had a question for Wisdom (who's a guy).  "Wisdom," I said, since he was right in front of me.  "How's saving the world going?"

Back at the beginning of the semester they each filled out an index card with vital information such as their student ID number, their English name, their phone number, any questions that they had for me, goals for the semester... stuff like that.  His goal read, "Save the world."

He stared at me with total confusion and tried to pull another student, Sky, in to translate.  Sky and I are friends.  "No," I told her, "He can understand me, he just needs to listen."  (Sometimes I will go through other students as translators, but I knew that Wisdom's English is not bad and that if he worked at it, he would definitely figure out more or less what I was talking about.)  Much to her classmate's dismay, Sky smiled, nodded, and waved goodbye. 

And he did figure out the gist of what I was asking and answered me. 

~~~

As I walked back from building IV to my apartment (they're quite close by) I saw a few of the girls from the class I had just finished teaching tussling with each other, maybe mock fighting over a scarf.  "LAOSHI!!!" Allison screamed.  I answered... because I do answer to teacher now... in Chinese and English... and then realized that she actually was talking to one of her Chinese teachers.  But since I was apparently going to be sympathetic, she latched onto me (literally) and we talked for a minute or two about this and that and then I left to go to my apartment.

~~~

And then I came up the stairs to my apartment, prepared to get started on the things that need to happen this weekend, thinking about maybe doing a load of laundry.

Or not.

My washing machine disappeared!

The good news: it's not a total mystery.  I talked to Finn (who works downstairs) when I was ordering water and he said that yeah, they took it -- which is great since it hasn't been working properly since I moved in.  He'll call when there's news. 

I still feel a bit like the Grinch visited. 

~~~

The next few days are going to be full of wrapping up paperwork for TESOL certification (which is a pain to attain but is going to be awesome to have!), having a first study with some sisters on campus :), hosting the family of our city leader for dinner (which is going to be fun; we love hanging out with their boys and getting to spend time with their family), and attending a party that we got ourselves into... it sounded like a great idea... you know, back in September. :)

Say Who?

Sometimes I stray from the lesson plan intentionally. 

Class 7 is one of my favorite classes.  They're extremely motivated and generally well disciplined, which makes them a joy to work with.  I'm consistently able to challenge them a little more than most of my classes and push them to go further. 

Yesterday I realized that they didn't know each other's English names well, and since they were flying through the material and we were going to have some extra time anyway, we took a three or four minute "break" in the middle of class to discuss names and play a fast name game. 

And no wonder they were having problems with names!  This class of 37 has Kristina-with-a-K, Christina-with-a-C, Krystal, and Cris.

Does the fun end there?  Oh no, of course not.  Actually, those four aren't even where we run into most of the problems!

The more serious issues arise when we get to Tyler, Kyla, and Keeler.

And then I threw in the trump card.  "Keeler is my family name.  My first name is Hannah..." and one of the girls in that class is another Hanna.

The good news:  they pay a lot of attention to eye contact!

break time... it seemed like Rusell intended to take full advantage of that!