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Ni hao pengyou he jiating (Hello friends and family)
After the last blog, I said the weather was cooling down - scratch that.. we had another heat spell! ha!! The little change in weather however, seemed to give me a cold! :-(
This week I had lots of fun in my classes, and I treated some of the kids to fun lessons - such as making healthy smoothies and an ICT class where they made powerpoints on volcanoes. I am getting to know the children alot better now, but I still cant seem to crack one class: Year 1!!! I teach them Science, and they are all so used to doing their own thing, that often they just wander around the classroom and do whatever they want. There are 11 of them, and none of them understand me when I say things such as "sit down" etc.. or perhaps they do but are just ignoring me! :s haha.
BEHAVIOUR: Most of the children here are very sweet, but they are much more spoilt than in the UK - and used to getting their own way alot. No matter how stern I can be sometimes, they dont seem to care about my punishments. lol. I caught two boys spitting in each others faces in my Chinese Primary class, and when I made them stand at the back of the class, they just kept laughing!! Then I told their Chinese form teacher (by jesticulations - as she has no English), and she laughed in front of them! dear lordie!! They also are rubbish at sharing - I often say "you have to share the gluestick, as I dont have enough" and they will start crying when they cannot use it.. or they just shout "teacher , teacher.. i have no glue stick" for the whole lesson!!! One of the downsides of having a nation of only children! ha
Apart from the occasional problem with behaviour management (lol) this week has gone pretty well. Me and my friend Katie were bricking it , however when we were asked to meet with the principal for a meeting!! We were paranoid and thinking through all the things we could have done wrong! I had been feeling ill as well just before, and felt if she had a go at me that I would just cry - as I felt really run down! But we sat there, as she said with a big smile on her face that - after observing our classrooms she thinks we are doing an excellent job and she will follow our English methods in teaching English as a second language! (did not see that coming).
EXAMS AND EXTRA LESSONS: This week everyone has been asked to make tests for each of their classes, :s . I had never written a test before.. and found the process very hard as most of my children cant read English!! But I have submitted them now, so hopefully the kids will be able to understand what they have got to do! :S Another peice of news that I found out yesterday, because my teaching is (apparently) so good they have given me an extra 5 English classes a week to teach, as one of the other teachers had to leave due to visa problems! This means so much extra planning!! it does mean extra pay - but I think I'd rather the easier life :S
NIGHTLIFE: We have developed a good combination here of work and play! We make sure we always go out on the town Friday night. We tend to frequent the same places, the bar area is called Sanlitun and we love a nightclub called "Youth Club" which plays all the western classics. Often repeating songs, it does seem to like K$sha (Kathy will be pleased)! haha. There is also this v v cheesy song which is a huge hit here, a song from Korea which everyone goes crazy for in the clubs. Its called "Nobody but you" by the Wonder Girls.. or something like that. Its growing on me, I must admit! hahaha... Most of the Chinese people are quite shy and dont really go out to clubs! So in the nightclubs of Beijing you get a mix of a fair few tourists accompanied by the only Chinese locals who will go out and dance - the extreme exhibitionists. haha!! Most of these really put my efforts to shame! hahaha
THE MISADVENTURES OF EMMA AND GEORGE: Wednesday evening was epic... however it started relatively normal. Me, Brenden and George played football with the students (George teaches P.E) we had dinner at school with some of the Chinese teachers. George and I were messing around - and he hid my phone a few times and I picked up 10 bananas for my smoothie lesson. Nothing out of the ordinary.
We soon decided that we couldn't be bothered to stay at school anylonger, so we would get the bus back. 5 minutes into the bus journey I realise I have left my cardigan back at school. I thought - how annoying... but I will just ring my friend Gina and see if she's still there. Looking around my bag (packed full of bananas) I cant find my phone immediately. I say "George.. can I use your phone.. I can't find mine" - baring in mind I had just lost a phone last week, i was hoping it was just in my bag. His face froze - he admitted he had hidden it again during dinner and had forgotten about it. (urgh). He felt very guilty so we decided to get off the bus and walk back to school.
We are both carrying laptops at this point and I am carrying 10 bananas as well. haha. It is pretty hot and dusty but George (racked with guilt) says "I will run back and get it - you wait for me here". Its a fair distance, but he is a P.E teacher so I gladly accepted to wait with the bags. He runs back, I wait (being attacked by mosquitos - whilst getting strange looks from locals) haha. He takes about 15 minutes - but does eventually come back with phone and cardigan in hand! I think - ok, we can go home now!! We walk back to the busstop.. and get on the bus!! 5 minutes later... on the bus ride "Emma, I can't find my wallet and phone!?" ... I'm thinking - WTF is happening? George tells me he handed me his phone and wallet before he started running! - this is still something we are debating, as I know he handed me his bag and coat, and I had another bag full of bananas, - I think he just put it on the floor.. but anywho!!! We check his bag several times... No - definitely not there!! ok - off the bus again... walk back to the last bus stop and low and behold where I was sitting there is his wallet and phone!!! By this time, the bananas are very squishy in my bag! hahaha!! So, a little tired.. we think - ok - that was eventful... bloody hell! What else can happen? We are laughing about what idiots we both are.. and we are phoning our other friends - who all tell us we are morons!! ha. We get the bus back to our apartments!!!
I must have been home about 10 minutes when I get a knock on my door!! "Emma.....my key doesn't work". Its George!!! I look at his key and say "George, thats not your apartment key - thats ur office key!!" Turns out he cant find his apartment key!! At this point, we are both tired but we are in this together - he decides it must be at school... so we decide to get a taxi back to school to see if its still there!! (this is eventful as the taxi doesn't know where the school is.. so we use our memory and practice our Chinese in saying Left (yo-gui) Right (zo-gui) and Straight ahead (Jizou). Finally, we get to school - he runs in just before the guards are about to close the gates and runs into his office! He comes back to me in the taxi, brandishing a key!!! He has a big smile on his face.. bless him!!!! 20 minutes into the journey I say "George, I don't think this is your apartment key - it looks identical to your office key"... we study it in the moonlit taxi and determine that it is in fact exactly the same as his office key!! Its a spare key! (urgh) He seems deflated. lol. He was so happy when he thought he had the right key! lol. At this point, we are drawing a blank as to what has happened - the only conclusion is that it is also still in the grass where I found his wallet and phone. I feel bad... as when I searched for his wallet and phone I hadn't really looked that carefully, I didn't look around for anything else! At this point, we have spent a few hours running around Beijing and we are tired!! I suggest that he crashes at mine, and we go for a drink and some food! We go to our favourite Malatong (street food) restuarant.. which we eat at most nights and then went back to bed!
In the morning, we get up.. get a taxi into school (I am grateful as I have heavy bags of more fruit for smoothie making - although the bananas look foul, the kids didn't even seem to care) and we stop to look for his key!! - Hallelujah!! Low and behold his key is in the grass!! .. woop woop! This is lucky, as there are apparently no spare keys and a loss of a key involves changing the locks and getting the police involved! :S pheww.....
However, 4 minutes later.. George asks "You didn't happen to see my USB did you?" lol.....
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