Twilight Zone: Hawaii

Well, it’s my first “lazy” day since I left home.  No, maybe since a week before I left home.  It’s also the week anniversary of my arriving at my school and new home away.  I thought I would take the small window of opportunity and mark the occasion by getting my sad butt online to write a new blog entry.  I keep thinking that I’ve fallen so far behind on blogging only to realize it’s been maybe two weeks, but every day here feels like so much longer with everything that’s been happening.

As you may have heard, I’ve gotten my certificate to teach TEFL in China and have arrived in Shenzhen.  Turns out, the training in this program is… um how you say… not the best.  I feel very unprepared still, but after this year I think I’ll be able to tackle anything.  The returners keep saying that the first couple weeks are the hardest, so hopefully that’s true.

I am at Meishan Primary School.  Yeah, you heard me, primary.  Which is good and bad in it’s way.  The kids are so. damn. cute. But they are so full of energy I’m amazed, and many of them are barely able to speak a few words of English.  Pretty much exactly what you would expect of a thousand 6-11 year olds.

The school is very nice as far as schools go, and from what I can tell I got a relatively sweet pad.  They set it up for me so it was ready to go when I got here.  I have a computer, T.V., bed with bedding, giant teddy bear, etc.  AND A LAVENDER COUCH.  That’s my favorite part.  I may continue to live here just for that.  The place is tiny compared to what I’m used to, essentially a studio apartment in a room with the area of my freshman dorm room.  There’s a small area for cooking (on a hot plate or microwave) and the bathroom… oh the bathroom.  It’s about 4x4ft, a squatty potty in the ground and a shower head over top.  It will take some getting used to, but so far I’m adapting all right.  I think the thing I miss most is having a sink disposal, since the pipes here leave some wanting.  I have one small tin sink in the bathroom area for the entire place.  There is also a washing machine outside for me, but I admit I’m having some trouble figuring out what the characters on it mean since there’s no English on anything, haha.  Hand washing isn’t that bad though, and it’s nicer on my clothes unless they’re filthy.

Everyone here has been SO NICE.  I have hospitality like you wouldn’t believe.  Aside from setting up my apartment, people at my school have walked me through the entire visa process (which I’m still in the middle of, more on that later), shown me around campus, taken me out to the beach and to dinner, given me sample lesson plans, set up my internet, etc.  I have a contact teacher (= senior faculty member to help me with living here) who has been so helpful and has introduced me to her friends and other teachers, taken meals with me, and gotten me set up work-wise.  My neighbors drop by often, often unannounced, to say hi and many have brought gifts or offered me food.  They are great to chat with, even though they speak about as much English as I speak Chinese.  We are both practicing and hopefully will be much better soon.

One family that lives next to me is especially great, they have two children who are a riot and the mother has cooked me dinner and offered to teach me how to cook Chinese food, since I have no fathom.  Seeing as most everything I eat here only exists in China and I have never seen it before in my life.  The daughter will be one of my students in fifth grade and the boy is at the middle school next door.  One of the best nights here so far, I helped the kids with their English homework and taught them how to moonwalk like Michael Jackson, whom everyone in this country is obsessed with.

Of course, it’s extremely stressful here too.  Everything is so different, from how you eat meals to how you address people, the language, the shopping system, the expectations, the attitudes.  It’s like entirely relearning what your idea of normalcy is.  So much so that I got excited when I identified a carrot in the soup yesterday, simply because I actually knew what it was.  It’s so difficult to explain, you really have to experience it to know it.  I’ve been calling it “Twilight Zone: Hawaii” because it looks like a tropical vacation, but it feels like you woke up in the twilight zone with no idea what was happening and no way to ask.  I think it will all change in a couple months when I’ve settled in a little bit, but it’s really just been unreal so far. 

I think the worst part has been all the surprise impromptu speeches.  My school has never had a foreign teacher before so I’m a novelty and therefore keep getting introduced in front of large audiences and being asked to speak.  It’s very awkward because I’m so off guard that I have nothing intelligent to say, and it ends up being “Nice to meet you, your school is so nice, the people here are so nice, I’ve very happy to be here and I can’t wait to teach because the students are very nice.”  Ugh. And I’m very concerned about disgracing myself, my family, my country, my ancestors, etc. because that’s entirely possible here haha.

I start teaching on Monday, and I’m pretty apprehensive.  I was excited, and then another new teacher came and told me her class was insanely rambunctious and excited, which equals impossible to control or get to do what you want.  Maybe luckily, my school is still figuring out the having a foreign teacher situation and I will have the actual class teachers there when I come in for my hour, so they will help control the class.  The downside is, they all have specific things they think I should teach so I’ve had to scrap my lesson plans several times now and start over.  The way that’s going, I’ll have to write a separate lesson plan for every class according to the teachers.  Which is not ideal, but at least they’re giving me guidance.  A lot of guidance.  Some of them are concerned because apparently I’m about the same age as all of their sons.  I will definitely have to prove myself.

Thank you everyone who’s been in contact, I know I’m pretty slow at replying to anything but I promise I’ll be better now that I have a residence and some regularity in my life.  Sounds like it’s mostly good on the homefronts.  I miss you all, and I miss home more and more.  I just can’t believe the life I’m having right now.  I hope that people can come visit me, because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to adequately explain it!

Until next time,

Jenn

Leaving comments

A few people have asked about leaving comments on here.  You do have to sign into an account you have in order to leave a comment, not sure why maybe to confirm you are in fact a person and not just spamming.  But you can use your google account or several other options, so it's easy to do.  I think you can follow the prompts and it will work.

Complete chaos

As if things could get crazier.  Not much time to write right now, I've averaged about ten minutes of internet time every four or five days.  It will get better soon when I arrive at my school and begin to get settled.  I feel like I'm displaced this month, never spending more than a day in one place!  Here's a run down:

* Finished teaching with teenagers, resorted to teaching slang and idioms for lack of any better direction.  Also made them put on hilarious skits based on a city we assigned them, like Austin and San Diego.  My crowning moment was teaching them to say howdy.
* Not one but two "talent shows".  Some of the least organized most bizarre mob events ever.
*Late night kareoke sessions.
*Certification banquet, at which so many random Chinese people decided to come to that there were not enough places for the people actually being certified.
*Went to the great wall, climbed to the top in wicked heat, and took a slide down (much fun).  Also went to the summer place, and then bounced to the zoo with a friend of mine in our maybe two hours of free time.
*24 train ride, in six person hard sleeper cars.  Meaning we had beds smaller than twin beds that my feet already hung off of, and then had to stow all of our bags and things to so had about five cubic feet of space.  Little bit stressful for people who don't love tiny spaces.
*Arrived in Shenzhen and went to the hotel, only to find out that they did not have enough rooms for everyone so some of us got to wait another hour or two to take vans, 6 ppl at a time, to another hotel, so we could come back to this one again in the morning right before police interviews.

And that's about where I am now.  I'll post pics and things when I'm able.  It's just been a bundle o chaos and confusion so far but I think that will start to lessen ::hopefully::  At least I'm not sick anymore!  ::knock on wood::

Miss you all!

Fellali!

The gauntlet continues.  Every day since we got here we have had lessons/classes from 8-5pm, then maybe have enough time for dinner, homework and lesson planning before bed (or for the more bold, going out and partying)(ß I am not among them).  Many people have gotten sick from jetlag and exhaustion.  I’m glad that I’ve already been to Beijing, because I certainly haven’t had time to explore this round.  My head cold has kept me to early bedtime and low energy activities.

The good news is that so far the classes have gone well.  My sixth graders thought I was delightful, and my teaching partner and I ended up pairing well together.  We had the students do things from making an itinerary for when E.T. visited them to making a story about Superman saving a friend of theirs.  Interestingly enough, Chinese kids don’t seem to care too much for Batman.  Not sure why.

Then, typical to the program it seems, as soon as we started getting comfortable with our classes and partners, surprise!  Tomorrow is your last day teaching them!  You’re switching classes!  So the last day we decided to play games like hangman and songs.  My partner and I had been arguing because he thought that Chinese people didn’t have trouble with “r” and “l”, because they have both letters in their language.  I told him, oh yes they do.  I don’t know why but they do.  So we put Ferrari as the hangman word to test it.  Sure enough, they got down to fe__a_i, and someone got it.  It’s a FELLALI! he yelled.  I win.

My new class is teenagers, and I’ve had some trouble figuring out what to do with them.  We are at a definite disadvantage, because by this point they had had seven days of six classes each, so 42 classes before we even got to them.  If you have only one English class a week, that’s as good as a year of classes.  They told us that if they had to do another debate there would be a mutiny.  We’ve tried teaching them slang, phone etiquette, and conflict resolution/ I statements.  They seem to like it ok but it’s difficult for us to come up with new things that may be interesting to bored teenagers, and we still have another week of coordinating six lessons a day.  I’ve signed up for juniors or primary when we move to our schools in Shenzhen!

My Chinese class has been alright.  I started in the advanced class but after two days moved down to intermediate.  I could understand when the professor spoke, but I couldn’t speak well myself and I’ve totally forgotten most of the characters.  She refused to slow down or explain more, so over half the class dropped down.  The lower class is a lot easier, too easy for most of us, but since we have no time at all to study that’s not an issue now.  The teacher keeps giving us tests though, and most people keep failing.  It’s very hard for Chinese teachers to comprehend that it could be difficult for us to memorize characters, not to mention we literally have no time to even try.  We’ll focus more on our Chinese when we get to our schools and have more time, but right now it’s not really possible.

C’est le vie.  My theory is that they’re trying to weed out the weak of heart.  Tomorrow is our first day off, we are going to the Imperial Palace (Forbidden City) bright and early.  So maybe not really a “day off”, but at least we don’t have to plan another lesson for tomorrow.  I’ve already been, but I think I will go again. 

Ok, I think that’s enough for now.  It’s raining again, so I’m going to run around and find a place to buy umbrellas!

For your entertainment

A couple pictures to keep you happy until I have time to write another post --

 Chinese clowns at the acrobat show

Pants as flower pot holders?  Why not.

Wanted: Die or Live

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 12^th 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

Panic Attack and The Land Without Cheese

The journey begins tomorrow.

What have I been doing in the couple days leading up to my departure, you ask?
I have literally been weighing individual items in my suitcase (via electric scale, thank you mom) trying to get the damn thing under 50lbs.  Not easy.  Who knew shoes were so heavy?! And big?!  Too bad those are the things I do actually need to bring because they don't outfit godzilla with work shoes in China.  It's at least 80f in Beijing right now, and I will arrive dressed in pants and two jackets, because they weigh too much to make the cut into my suitcase.  One 50lb suitcase is ridiculous.

I went and saw Harry Potter (thus ends my childhood )-':  ), X-Men: First Class, and Captain America.  A good dose of American movies at their finest.  And no, I'm not being facetious, I really do love these genres.

I've also been indulging in every delicious dairy product I can find, effectively counteracting a summer of dieting.  I regret nothing. While Chinese food is wonderful is almost every way, there is a blaring lack of dairy of any kind.  Especially cheese, the best dairy of them all.

In other news, I am FREAKING OUT about leaving right now.  All my weeks of preparation don't seem to have helped.  There are piles of everything everywhere around the house and no time to figure out what I was going to be doing with them.  As far as being gone a year, there was no problem until I started saying goodbye to people.  They ask, won't you be sad about missing Christmas?  Won't you miss everyone?  Your nephew will be walking and talking when you get back!  Tears tears tears.  Well now I'm upset about being gone!  I'm a great traveler right up til about two days before leaving, when I enter the you're-strapped-into-the-roller-coaster-and-it-starts-moving-up-and-all-of-a-sudden-you-start-panicking-and-want-off-but-too-late!-you're-s.o.l. phase.  It's almost cruel that I leave in the evening, because I'll have the whole day to dwell on it.  Positive thoughts, positive thoughts.

The good news is this seems like it will be the cushiest arrival I've done.  The program has taken care of everything I can think of, from getting me a window seat and a vegetarian plane meal, to extensive directions to the hotel in case we somehow miss the van, names of everyone, phone numbers... They even sent photos of the people we're arriving with!  I don't think I'll memorize that, but it's a nice thought.  Guess they don't want their precious teachers having a nervous breakdown before they get to the school.

Well, nothing for it now.  I'll try and post again in a couple days when I'm there and settled and have found the interwebs.  Wish me luck.

If I don't come back, avenge me.