Well the power came on finally on Tuesday morning!
I have exciting news! I have been given a Chinese name!! 何伟山- Hé
wěi shān, it means The Gorgeous Mountain! Xing Yan Yan gave it to me! I quite
like it!
Tuesday's lesson went really well! I had planned to play a
lot of running games with the kids so I wore jeans and a nice shirt instead of
my normal smart attire. As luck would have it we were visited by a news team
from a local Xining TV station!! And there I was wearing jeans! They tried
interviewing me... in Chinese... repeatedly. Wo Bu Ming Bai - I don't
understand. The Chinese teacher had to the interview on my behalf! So watch out
because I will be on TV! I had the kids write a letter to the kids at Hyde Park
Junior School, they loved it! The letters aren't half bad either!
Wednesday took a rather interesting turn! We got told that
we had to leave to get to the office at 830 so we all had to get up early! Then
the bus didn't turn up until HALF PAST NINE! The organisational skills of China
are starting to get on my nerves. We finally made it to the office, we walked
in and it was tense... It quickly became apparent that Matthew was on the war
path. We didn't know who he was angry with, us or his staff! Turns out it was his
staff! In China it is bad to make someone lose 'face' however people were
losing face left, right and centre! Matthew even made Xing Yan Yan cry! It was
awful! We didn't have a clue what was going on! Once Matthew went into his
office, things were much nicer. We finally found out when we were off for the
Qing Ming Festival (Tomb Sweeping Festival). We got some lunch which was really
tasty! We even got PORK (Deena was ill and stayed at the complex). Then we
headed off to our schools!
It was my favourite school so I was excited! The lesson went
REALLY well, the letters were fantastic and we got to play some games! I had a
couple of new faces in class which was a bit of a surprise but not too bad.
However one of the new boys is a very bad influence on one of the other boys. I
think I am going to need a seating plan for next week! I am sure this is going
to make me very unpopular, oh well! Oh and on Wednesday there was a kite
festival in school, all the kids had brought in kites and were flying them! It
was beautiful! One of my kids got me a kite to fly too which was great fun
(until I realised they had stolen the kite off a small child...), first time
flying a kite since I was little! It was a really great day!
The evening was filled with making plans for Qing Ming!
Everyone is going to Xi'an to see the Terracotta army, well everyone except for
me! I am flying to Shanghai!!! EXCITING TIMES! I will be seeing Kathryn! And
getting a break from the people here (a break is DEFINITELY needed from certain
people...).
In a slightly scary turn of events, one of the teacher's son
text me saying there had been an incident in one of the middle schools here. A
student had killed another student with a sword after an argument! This is
crazy!! He went to primary school with the victim so was quite upset. Still
can't quite believe it.
Yesterday was an interesting day. It started off pretty
boringly with me scanning in all of the letters from the kids. Deena still was
ill so Matthew wanted to take her to hospital; she was adamant that she was not
ill enough to go so I tried to persuade Matthew that she will be fine. However
he wasn't convinced, he was just worried about her. He really cares about us,
all the adults do.
School yesterday was interesting... Originally they had told
me I would be teaching 20 students but have 20 students observing my lesson (3
hours of observation from primary kids, who the hell thought that was a good
idea?!). So when I walked into a class of 80 it was a bit of a surprise... I
had 20 kids from my first week, 20 from my second and 40 new ones... and they
all were taking part in the lesson. This was a bit of a shock to say the least
as I was expecting 20. Well I just went with it and tried to do as much as I
could in the lecture hall I was given. Tried a lot of group work and I think it
worked! Still would have been nice to have a bit of notice though! I was
exhausted after class, we went back and I spent the evening playing cards and
Chinese Checkers with Alex, Mike and Siz.
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