A Week in the Life... Monday Edition

Happy Monday! You know that's something I have never heard anyone say in my life. I have never heard anyone feel enthusiastic about the start of another work week... after today, I've still never heard it. Today was my first day back in a classroom since last Saturday, and I got a little spoiled. Even though I went to bed around 2 AM, I was up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6 AM to get ready. This is my usual wake up time, though as you'll see later this week, sometimes I snooze it until 6:30. I don't have my alarm clock in this country so I have to use my little Palm pilot alarm. Brian's going to kill me for this, but I'm amazed that that tiny beep wakes me up much better than my alarm at home. I've been torturing myself for years for no reason it turns out; I guess I learned something new in China. Fancy that!

To get to school on time for my first class at 8:10, I have to leave my apartment no later than 7:30 for about a 30 minute walk. The first picture is the Botanical Gardens I walk through every Monday and Thursday morning on my way to school. It's just a park stuck on the side of a hill that people do... well, what people usually do in parks. They walk their dogs (no leashes in China though), get some fresh air, and do tai chi in the early morning mist. The only time I feel really 'in China' is when I see about a dozen Chinese people in the park doing tai chi around sunrise.

On Monday's, I teach at Wang hai Primary School, which is the best rated public school in the area... as they remind me constantly. I'm not a big fan of the school, but the kids are growing on me a little. I teach three classes of Primary 5 (5th grade) and three classes of Primary 6 (6th grade). Today in Primary 5 classes we started with a tongue twister, read a passage from the book, and learned how to use 'going to...' plus a verb to show an intended action. It went alright, though I couldn't care less about teaching today. The most interesting thing about Chinese schools (other than the fact that the students sweep, mop, and clean the entire school in between classes) is that every morning the whole school stands on the field outside and listens to morning announcements and chants about how great their school is and pledge to be good students that day (Picture 2).

After morning announcements, I teach two classes of Primary 5, after which ,around 10 o'clock, the whole school goes back outside (teachers included) and does morning exercises. They also have PE every day, but morning exercises are just the morning pick me up. Also, they have ten minute breaks between each class. It makes the schedule seem very laid back. Even though Chinese school is from about 8AM-5 or 6PM every day.

During the 40 minutes when the school is out doing exercises, some students run around the school cleaning or finishing up homework, I'm not sure what the policy is on this, but I see students still in the school. I usually hear them too because every morning I eat a Swiss roll and then pass out on my desk. Sleeping on the job here is tremendously common and is not at all viewed as lazy or unprofessional. Any time an employee is tired at work, of a teacher has a break between classes they almost always just sleep right on their desks.

After my little nap, I teach two more classes then go to lunch, for which I have an hour and a half. All of the teachers usually eat in the teacher's dining hall and the school provides food. The food sucked today so I just ate some rice. I usually eat with a computer teacher named Mr. Ling who speaks pretty good English. All of the other English teachers are female, and usually teachers of all one gender eat together, so they introduced me to him so I had a lunch buddy. I think he's forced to eat with me, but he's always very nice about it. Sometimes he begs other teachers to eat with us because they treat me like I may pass on plague at any second. That's the 'teaching in the best public school in the area' attitude. Sometimes other teachers join us, but it's rare.

Today however Mr. Ling wasn't here because his 10 month old daughter has been in the hospital for a few weeks and he was visiting her on his lunch break. I feel really bad for him because the first time I met him he talked about his new daughter for about an hour, he was such a proud father. Two weeks later his little girl's in the hospital with abdominal bleeding...

Any way, since he was not there and lunch sucked, I took very little food. It was like Def Con 4 in the teacher's dining hall!! Four teachers came over to me wide eyed, asking me in Chinese and their best broken English why I wasn't eating. They brought the cafeteria cooks in and began to ask me what they could cook for me since I didn't like the food. They would not accept that I just didn't want to eat. Luckily, Mr. Ling arrived and I explained to him that I 'had a stomach ache' and he told them in Chinese, they bought it but still seemed sceptical. At that point, I was almost done eating my rice and steamed bread, so I was over it.

After lunch, I attempted to take my usual post-lunch nap on my desk, but wasn't in the mood. I just sat with my eyes closed in between sending texts to Kailey and Ryan. Then, at about 1, I taught my last two Primary 6 classes about Christmas and Thanksgiving (I just follow the book.) Since the book introduced no new vocab or grammar that chapter, I decided to have the kids sing a Christmas carol. It went OK (see attached video). It was all I could do to not have them sing 'Fra ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra' just for a lark but I thought I'd actually be semi-professional.

After school, I had to go to the post office with Ed (the only American who works for the company and is in charge of H.R., a.k.a keeping us alive) to pick up a package from Grandma (just shoes, no cookies) and then headed home. After I made a pretty simple pasta dinner for myself, I met Ryan downtown for an Irish coffee and to catch up about his vacation out of Dalian. After coffee I took a little walk around the city, hopped in a cab and came home to write this entry. Now I just have to figure out how to add the video I already mentioned. Here goes nothing.... Cheers!