Yesterday I found out where I will be teaching! Very exciting! AND I GOT PRIMARY TOO! (Not Middle School like TTC said!)
I will be working 12 hours a week in 4 different schools (3 hours in each). The schools I am working at are (and this may change...) Bei Dajie elementary, Xi Guanjie elementary, Jia Xiaozhuang elementary and Gu Chengtai elementary. Can't actually remember which of the 17 schools we saw these are but hey its primary!!
We found out at a meeting where I was asked to give a presentation to a room with over 50 of the most important people when it comes to education in Xining. Needless to say I was nervous but it seemed to go ok, I don't know how much they understood as English teachers had to translate what I was saying into Mandarin. After the presentations (2 hours of Chinese lectures) we were put into groups with the teachers who we will be working with for the next five months. The teachers were very eager to know what I was planning to teach and how. One of them proudly said to me that she had given her children extra homework to prepare for my coming. It was very stressful because I don't know what they want to hear! I hope I can do them proud! However doing a 3 hour lesson with primary school children will be quite a challenge! On the plus side we get driven to school and only work afternoons!
After the meeting we were taken out for dinner by the school. We went to a family run restaurant in a tower block in central Xining. The food was delicious! Found out that Will is terrified of spiders (and crabs as we discovered when we were served them!). Drank Baijiu with the teachers (come to the conclusion that it is EVIL) and sang songs! It was a very pleasant evening and the view from the block was amazing!
Today we had a chilled out morning until lunchtime, at which point we were invited to go to a party celebrating International Women's Day. Lots of great food, more Baijiu (My liver weeps) and performances from various members of staff. We were told to prepare a song too so we sung 'I am the greatest' by R Kelly. It went down very well! The school also celebrates birthdays so Deena (who had her birthday in early February), Cecilia (whose birthday is on Monday) and various other members of staff got presents and a massive birthday cake to share. Naturally the cake was quickly used for nefarious purposes, namely a food fight. Will drew first blood after he rubbed my portion of cake all over my face, I got him back good and proper then I got it from both sides from him and Deena. A waste of cake in my opinion but the Chinese found it hilarious!
Oh and we have a washing machine now! And not only does it wash clothes but it dries them too!! Don't have access to it yet but the fact they've gone out and bought a brand new one is pretty damn cool!
We went into Xining after lunch to blow off some steam, it was lovely and warm (SHORTS WEATHER). I wasn't feeling too well (too much Baijiu i reckon) so I set off to head back early. However the buses had other ideas and no less than 3 buses drove past me! Ended up meeting back up with the guys and attempting to get a taxi. This is no easy task, not only do they speak no English but many can't read Chinese! This makes our address cards redundant in some cases. Even when they can read it many will say that it is far too far or demand an extortionate amount. Today was the latter who demanded 100 yuan, we told him meter and we argued a bit (neither one of us understanding what the other is saying). We got him down to 40 yuan which isn't too bad but it was just under twice what it would have been on a meter... I HATE TAXIS IN THIS COUNTRY.
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