An interesting week to say the least. Sorry for not posting anything during the week. I will do my best to describe daily events in a succinct manner.
Saturday: Makenzi and I decided to wander around town. She bought a few things and I bought an umbrella. I was surprised to find an umbrella with Japanese kana on it, but it had rabbits and was cheap, so I got it.
Shawn showed up and we went out for a dinner with him. Because of all of our limited speaking abilities, we have resorted to pointing to pictures and hoping for the best. There was some confusion when the dishes started coming out, but in the end, we all ended up with our orders. As usual, it was all very good.
Saturday: Makenzi and I decided to wander around town. She bought a few things and I bought an umbrella. I was surprised to find an umbrella with Japanese kana on it, but it had rabbits and was cheap, so I got it.
Shawn showed up and we went out for a dinner with him. Because of all of our limited speaking abilities, we have resorted to pointing to pictures and hoping for the best. There was some confusion when the dishes started coming out, but in the end, we all ended up with our orders. As usual, it was all very good.
Sunday: I got an e-bike! I went with Matt to a store and they had a bike for 600 yuan. It rode decently and I thought it was nice. So I bought it. E-bikes are amazing. I wish they were more popular in the US. One can use it as a manual bike or just sit back and relax as it goes along. The battery is heavy though. It weighs about 25 pounds. So, every time I want to use my bike, I have to lug it up and down four flights of stairs. To say the least, I will come home with very toned arms.
Monday started with speaking class, which did not turn out as good as I had hoped it to be. I forgot that the computers in the college building are not equipped with the latest Microsoft Office edition, so my presentation did not work. During the ten minute break, I sprinted back to my apartment, rushed up the stairs, quickly converted the file, flew down the stairs, and biked like I was part of the Tour de France back to the college. I made it in time, but I was sweating heavily and out of breath. My students thought it was funny to see their teacher frazzled, but they listened to my lecture and tried to follow along. I had planned to use poetry to help with pronunciation, but it turned into learning about rhyming words. Ironically, the students understood a Shakespearean sonnet over Shel Silverstein. I was not expecting that. After two speaking classes, I ended up taking a long nap and prepared for my writing class. Dinner consisted of baozi that I found in the supermarket. I wrap them in a damp paper towel and put them in the microwave. They are actually tasty pretty good and are inexpensive.
Tuesday: The writing class was great! After going over the syllabus, (which we had not done last week) I introduced the basic five paragraph essay, what an essay is, and we did exercises to understand topic sentences, supporting sentences, and concluding sentences. Overall, I thought it was a good lesson.
I had to buy tissues. There is only one store that I know of so far that sells these tissues. I think I will be returning to them when I need more...
I had to buy tissues. There is only one store that I know of so far that sells these tissues. I think I will be returning to them when I need more...
Wednesday: So, we finally got the schedule of Chinese language courses that we could take. Since I could go to a class today, I went to a reading class. Turns out the class is taught entirely in Chinese. This is because there are people from Russia, Tajikistan, Poland, Korea, and America in the class. The university cannot cater to one language or another, so they teach the courses in Chinese. In the two hours of class, I recognized maybe six words. I have a lot of catching up to do...Afterwards, I went to my writing class, which was ok.
Today was also Teachers Day. It is a day where the students show their appreciation to their teachers. Although I did not get anything from one of my classes, I did receive a flower and card from another class. I thought it was very nice of them to do that.
Turns out today is also the welcome ceremony for the freshmen. Here in China it is compulsory to do military training upon entering university. The freshmen (all 4,000 of them) sat on the track field and listened to many speeches from professors and other faculty. The president of the college also gave a speech, in which he quoted Confucius quite often. The color guard did a flag raising ceremony and Nadzehda gave a speech for all of us foreign language teachers.
In the evening, I hung out with Jason in the Confucius courtyard. A girl came up to us and started talking to us in English. For being a psychology major, her English skills were very good. We talked with her for about two hours and in that time, she bought us moon cakes and Coca-Cola. It was a nice evening to be out with friends and meet new people.
Today was also Teachers Day. It is a day where the students show their appreciation to their teachers. Although I did not get anything from one of my classes, I did receive a flower and card from another class. I thought it was very nice of them to do that.
Turns out today is also the welcome ceremony for the freshmen. Here in China it is compulsory to do military training upon entering university. The freshmen (all 4,000 of them) sat on the track field and listened to many speeches from professors and other faculty. The president of the college also gave a speech, in which he quoted Confucius quite often. The color guard did a flag raising ceremony and Nadzehda gave a speech for all of us foreign language teachers.
In the evening, I hung out with Jason in the Confucius courtyard. A girl came up to us and started talking to us in English. For being a psychology major, her English skills were very good. We talked with her for about two hours and in that time, she bought us moon cakes and Coca-Cola. It was a nice evening to be out with friends and meet new people.
The freshmen have been training all week. I can see some of them in their platoons from my window, working on how to salute, swing their arms whilst marching, marching, keeping in lines, and learning about-face. It is all very interesting. When they get a break for lunch, it is a sea of green camouflage on campus. They all carry their little stools around, along with all of their other personal items.
Thursday: Since this was my day off, I went to the Speaking class and to the Listening class. I think I confused both teachers when they saw me in the class, but eventually they figured out that I was not Chinese and included me in the class. I liked Speaking a little bit better than listening, but in both classes, I still have so much to learn and I need to play catch-up. I also had office hours for my students, but my stomach decided it did not like sitting in the office for very long and I returned to the apartment early for a quiet evening of grading papers.
Friday: So, we were told that we needed to go to the police station in order to finalize our resident cards. We were to meet at 8:30am and that our classes were cancelled and we will need to make them up later. I thought we had to go to Jining or someplace else for this process, but as it turns out we just had to go down the street. We were there on a day of promotional video creating and when Qufu city officials were inspecting the police force. It was kind of cool to see the drills and performances of some of the police officers. We finished and returned to campus in time (I thought) for my second class at 10:10. I rushed around my apartment to get my supplies and raced to the college building, but when I walked into the room, my students were surprised and said that class was supposed to be cancelled. So I returned home and have had a quiet evening grading papers and a little quiet time.
This week has definitely been fun and full of new experiences. Now for the weekend and resisting temptations to play rather than prepare a couple weeks worth of lesson plans.
This week has definitely been fun and full of new experiences. Now for the weekend and resisting temptations to play rather than prepare a couple weeks worth of lesson plans.