My Last Week as a TEFL Teacher in China...

Monday

Monday morning was filled with lesson planning because I'd had my afternoon robbed off me. I had been asked by Gu Chengtai to come in to take some pictures with the kids. What they meant they wanted was for me to teach a lesson and prepare a performance... One hour turned into 2 and a half and all they wanted me to do was to practice 'Its a small world', which is quite possibly the most annoying song ever written, ever... I finally managed to escape and made my way back to school.

Tuesday

Tuesday meant saying goodbye to Beidajie, sad times. I had my morning lessons as normal and then we all went out for lunch together, 20 students, 2 teachers and I. We went for Mianpien and it was tasty! It was very sad saying goodbye to my students. I am going to miss them! 

Jason's 'Blue Steel'

Kid in the centre has named himself Jack Gaga because he loves Lady Gaga more than life...

After lunch I headed to the office where I met up with Mike and we were both taken to a new school to teach in the afternoon (which makes no sense whatsoever...). This new school is FAR, its a brand new school who Matthew wanted us to go to. We turned up and were thrown immediately into a classroom, in my case grade 4. I taught my stock lesson but it soon became very apparent that the English level of these kids was far below that of all my other schools. Definitely needed to improvise a bit! 

Wednesday

Wednesday meant it was time to say goodbye to my favourite students, I was dreading it! I arrived early and was asked to help out with a performance they were having to commemorate the end of our project. I ended up spending the whole morning with my kids which was great fun! I had to deal with some tears though when I announced it was my last time. One kid called Tom, wouldn't stop crying, it very nearly pushed me over the edge but I managed to keep myself together just.

So we spent the morning practicing their performance on festivals, for lunch we all went to get noodles. The kids were fighting over who would sit with me! 

Emily

Mary

Tom

Tom before he began to weep again! 

Erin

The afternoon consisted of my lesson from dragon boat festival, then we played lots of games and just enjoyed each other's company. It soon was time for me to leave and I was thoroughly upset my teacher saw this and suggested a couple of students, her and I go and get ice cream! It was really nice but still going to miss these kids! 

After ice cream, I headed to the office to pick up my clothes from Fish (FINALLY GOT MY BLUE JEANS BACK!). It was good to see Fish in the office again!

Thursday

Time to say goodbye to Jiazhouxuang! Not so sad about this goodbye if I am honest but its still hard. I taught my lessons in the morning and headed to the office to see who was going to take me for lunch. I arrived and there was no one there! They had all forgotten me! I rang Charity and she apologised and we went for lunch. The canteen was all out of food so we went to a restaurant for some nice food.

When we got back, I met up with Mike, Cecilia, Will, Deena, Fish and someone new, they were all here for the performance in the afternoon. The new guy was called Puff... Nope not even kidding! He seems ok and he gets on well with Will and Deena so that's good.

We headed in for the performance and it was ok, my kids from Jiazhouxuang performed but  seeing as I wasn't involved at all they made some pretty big English mistakes (such as saying Afric instead of Africa and saying Japan was in Europe). The performances from the older schools were good but they just went on a bit! It was a 4 hour long show!!!!! SO LONG! Being stuck in a hot room and expected to pay attention for 4 hours is difficult for us but it is impossible for the primary students in the audience.

Rappers! Go Victor and Dustin! 

This kid from Jiazhouxuang did the Hamlet soliloquy, I wish I taught him...

Despicable Me skit, might get this for Will...

Impromptu performance by Mike

Katie will be Maria!

Cecilia singing and dancing to Jingle Bells

Chinese Opera which had incredibly high notes...

Oh and apparently our driver's been fired for being well rubbish.

Friday

Friday morning the majority of us went to the new school to teach, I was given grade 1 which was challenging! We practiced colours and they struggled with that...

We had another performance at Gu Chengtai so we all made our way there. Gu chengtai started it and we sang our song ('Its a small world'), it was a really good show and all of the students I taught were involved (unlike Jiazhouxuang). 

They did a presentation about me and it was so sweet, they all told the audience how much they liked me and my lessons. They then started cheering 'Huw! Huw! We Love You!', it was incredible! I was then asked onto the stage and given flowers by David who then proceeded to tell the class to present their gifts to me! Each child had gotten me something! It was amazing, it was all I could do not to cry. They made me feel like a superstar.

The gifts varied form a vase, to a teddybear money box, to a painting, to a slinky! I felt very lucky!

The rest of the show was long and uneventful really! 

Apparently Puff had been fired though! He lasted about 24 hours, I don't really know why because I am getting a different story from him and from the other guys in the office.

Also my camera died! It just stopped working completely! Very bad timing seeing as I was off to Xi'an the next day!

I got the bus home with the guys, it was one of the worst rides of my life. Locals were kicking me because I was taking up to much space. Not nice! 

So that was my last week teaching, no one seems to know what I will be doing now until I leave Xining on July 15th... Oh well XI'AN!!!

Weekend Jollies!

Sorry for the lack of updates dear readers but I have been super duper busy! Now let me fill you in from the beginning!

Saturday

Excursion day! This week I was with Gu Chengtai and we were off to the science museum! Had a great time with the kids and I think I managed to infuriate the guards on more than one occasion! I love Gu Chengtai as the kids are just so easily amused by me! We had a great morning! 

One of my kids, David, invited me back to his house to meet his family and eat lunch! It was really great! The food was delicious although they eat salmon frozen here, weird huh?

Soon it was time for the English corner and I got lost. Now the English corner is on the top floor of an apartment building. I went up 3 buildings before I found the right one... To say I was out of breath and peeved would have been an understatement!

My English corner with Deena went really well! We had a good time and I think the kids did too! We looked at money and buying things. These kids are going to be in for shock when they realise how expensive things are in England!

Mike, Cecilia and I headed to Cafe Java for dinner as Will and Deena went to the train station because they were off to a neighbouring city called Lanzhou for the weekend. We bumped into Netty and old English teacher in Xining and it was nice to catch up with her! We then bumped into one of Michaels students an 18 year old called Katie with very good English! Awkward for Mike but funny for us!

Sunday

This was a rare occasion when we have a Weena free weekend! They had gone to Lanzhou for the weekend. Mike had a basket ball date so Cecili and I had a more leisurely start to the day. After dragging ourselves out of bed (figure of speech for me but literally for Cecilia) we headed into Xining to meet Mike! Turns out he got stood up, poor Mike...

Now the plan was for Michael Li to take us to Fish's mum in hospital so we wanted to get her some flowers. Naturally, we headed straight to Xining's flower market! I should probably mention that recently my hayfever has been going nuts so a flower market was bound to be a lot of fun! I endured and we emerged triumphant with a potted flower; Cecilia could probably tell you what type, but all Mike and I could tell you is that the flowers were red...

Anyway it was now time for lunch so we jumped in a taxi to the food court near the office. I got some rather disappointing dumplings.

Soon we were off to the office and, once Michael Li was ready, we set off to the hospital.

We arrived and after a brief spell of being lost we met up with Fish. I had missed that woman so much! She introduced us to her mother who then proceeded to scald Fish because she hadn't offered us anything to eat and drink yet. Looks like mothers are the same around the world! Although apparently in China mothers are very controlling and over-protective of their children (or in most cases child).

Fish's mum is recovering well and will soon be back at home and that means we will soon have Fish back! So happy days all round! We left the hospital in high spirits and Michael Li dropped us off at People's Park. Mike wanted to play more basketball so Cecilia and I went wandering. We decided we'd go on the monorail that goes around the park. Now although 'monorail' is technically correct, having ridden it, we'd describe it as more of a rollercoaster! It went so fast the turns were very sudden and jolty. Was fun though and we didn't die!

Next stop was the fairground in the park; we had both regressed to children by this point, well I had, so rides were the answer! I chose the log flume and managed to convince Cecilia to come by assuring her that she wouldn't get wet. I may have been lying... Needless to say, we both got soaked! It was hilarious though because Cecilia spent the whole ride cursing me!

Next stop was the bumper cars! Cecilia certainly got her own back! Turns out she is rather good at bumper cars, though I got some good bumps too! 

By this point it was dinner time so we met up with Mike and went to someplace new to eat, a restaurant called Boronia. We got steak! It wasn't very good steak but it was steak!!

Back to school for a quiet night as I had school in the morning... on my day off!