Oh boy, where to start. Long story short, my trip here could have gone better. Now here’s the long story:
The day before I left, all my excitement left and I realized, I don’t want to move to China. I’m perfectly happy lazing around drinking wine, why am I giving that up? I remembered the things I didn’t like about China – how lonely it can be, how difficult it is to accomplish the simplest things, how you can’t exercise without your throat burning… And on top of that our dog suddenly and inexplicably got critically ill and when I left they still weren’t sure if he would make it another week. So needless to say, I spent the day I left in a nervous panic despite my mom’s best efforts to send me off well. We went to breakfast, got a massage at the mall, and got food and medicine for our dog in hopes it would help.
Everyone saw me off to the airport, where they had to literally push me to the escalator to the security check and boarding. Of course, as soon as I did a flash thunder storm began and my plane was delayed over an hour. And here’s where the fun part starts. By the time I got to LAX, I had to run for my flight to Korea, but of course missed it. The thing about LAX is, aside from being my image of hell on earth, mostly completely under construction, and full of unhelpful Californians, is that it’s not open at night. There is almost no one at the airport between about 10pm to 5am. That means no one at the desks to reschedule my flight. I of course didn’t know this, because it’s insane. I found one person in the back at the Korean Air desk, but he misunderstood my situation and was under the impression I had myself missed my flight, not because of Frontier, and had to rebook. So he tells me, after searching, that they can send me to Korea in a couple hours. But the connecting flight to Beijing doesn’t leave until the 12th of August. You heard me. They wanted to send me to Korea to chill in a hotel, that I would pay for, for over a week. Thereby missing not only orientation but almost half of training in Beijing. And they did not see a problem with this.
Well, fast forward to me figuring out I had to talk to Frontier, sitting in a very sketchy area for six hours waiting for them to come to work, and getting rebooked on a flight to San Francisco to Beijing. By the time I got to Beijing I had spent as much time waiting in airports as I should have traveling total. And then, surprise, LAX liked me so much they had decided to keep my luggage. It took over two days to convince them to let go of it and get it here, so I got to go through orientation and two days of work in my airplane clothes.
And let me tell you about these orientation and work days. They give us introductions and about four hours of talking about TEFL teaching, then let us in on a secret they’ve been hiding. Surprise, your first teaching day is tomorrow. What??? About 90% of us have not taught an entire classroom a day in our lives. Apparently “training” actually meant lots of kids’ parents paying the program to have their kids taught English by native speakers, and the program obliging by throwing us into the classroom. So yes, by the time you are reading this, I am a genuine teacher. Aside from teaching, we also have TEFL lectures and long Chinese language classes and group meetings, so every day since we got off the plane has gone from 7-5. And of course I’m sick from traveling (I ALWAYS get sick from traveling), so I have been completely exhausted.
The good part was that we were paired together for our teaching, which is an hour a day. My class is 11-13 year olds with scarily good English skills. I can have a entire simple conversation with most of the students. Even their textbook is too easy for them, so so much for that. The way it works is that there are six pairs of teachers for each class, and we teach successively each day. So potentially the poor students can have six of the same class a day. They warned us not to do that, but twelve brand new teachers trying to coordinate when we only know the same things is a little complicated. Luckily I have the second shift so they kids are not bored yet.
The first day the students were very well behaved and eager to get to know and impress their new teachers. The second day, we walked into the classroom and see they’ve been doodling on the board. In huge chalk letters there is a slightly mistranslated but very clear poster:
Jennifer: Wanted Die or Live
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