Kyung Khaan - The Korean Invader

So, I'm getting ill, feeling fed-up and am real nice and angry...what better time than now to blog, right (especially applicable last night)?

I'm more than fed-up, so...we're leaving the country! Hooray!

Not packing up and moving out quite yet. We're hoppin' on the trans-Siberian and going to Mongolia over the National Day holiday. With my current mindset as it is, the more distance I put between me and the school the better! I need to try to refresh or something. 'Cuz the whole teaching thing...well, I'm just not into it at all right now.

Ahhh...Mongolia! Can't wait! Our train leaves at 7:40 AM and we should be on the train for about 30 hours (hopefully not too many more than that). So, stay tuned for more stories of our adventures from the road and probably another 1,000 pictures or so. When we get back to, sigh, China.

Ahhh...Land of Kahn, Protoceratops Andrewsi (dinosaur named after Roy Chapman Andrews, you go RCA), and gerbils. Awesome! I can't wait!

So, until we meet again Zhong Guo, kiss my grits!

F-you, China, F-you.

Roast beef

Okay, Monday down, um...Thursday left to go?

Yeah, that is the hard life that I am living over here in Zhong Guo. I work 2 days a week. Well, I have a night class on Wednesday, but I basically have the whole day open until 7 PM.

So, today was the Yan Qing day. It didn't start out the best. Our bus driver hit a dog. Inauspicious especially during the year of the dog. But, then again, there were all of those people forced to kill their dogs here just a little while ago.

Anyhow, so after the dog incident, I was last getting off of the bus and I managed to kind of boff it on the stairs. Yeah, me and stairs, can you believe it!?! (Rolling eyes) So, stairs are a challenge for me in and of themselves, but I don't know how I wound up kinda sliding/skidding down the stairs, ultimately winding up in a very awkward position with my left leg kinda up. What happened next you ask? Well, let's just say that the little piggy who was supposed to have roast beef couldn't because he and two of his already hurt friends were stuck in a bus door! Yup. That's right, I got my toes stuck IN the bus AND I couldn't get them out. The bus driver had to shut off the bus, push the open button and then manually pry the doors apart so I could rescue my poor little piggies. Oh, poor piggies! If they weren't broken before, you most certainly are now. Oh well, at least I have some days off and can keep my little toes safe, maybe. My day to day activity has been rather harsh on them lately.

But, my general stance on any medical care has been NO DOCTORS IN CHINA!!! I'll just deal with it on my own.

So, one of my classes went a little better today. They really liked the tongue twister challenge and the slang exchange. But I think that keeping them motivated will be tricky. The momentum seems to die out pretty quickly. But the other class...oh geez! I have never had a kid mouth off to me before until today. I had a girl who volunteered pick the next person, so she did and I asked him to speak. He looked at me and snottily said, "Why?" This was immediately answered with a very terse reply from the teacher (me), he them had the gall to tell me that he didn't want to and didn't think that he should have to do it. Yeah. That didn't fly. Let's just say that it was "handled" and things just didn't really improve from there. MP3 players and cell phones had to be confiscated, ugh! Basically at the end of the class I told the class not to waste my time and the time of the students who were there to learn and if they were not going to participate in class and only cause trouble, I didn't want them there.

Sooo, we'll see how things go after vacation.

Cross you fingers for us - we will hopefully be on our way to Mongolia this weekend!

Things to look forward to: some sort of invading Mongolian horde on horseback type of pictures, Kyung Kahn, Molly in Beloit pretending to be a white male (Roy Chapman Andrews - dude, he has a dinosaur named after him! I mean, a dinosaur, man! C'mon, that's seriously cool.)

...and this little piggy went d@!%, s&!?, f%!?#

Hey, everyone!

First, I want to thank you all for your encouragement over the past weeks during my teaching funk. I can't say that I am out of it yet, but I have the National Day vacation coming up, so at least I will get a break from my oh so heavy workload :) I just don't have the motivation to teach yet. I don't think that is coming through in my teaching, but I am just not enjoying it right now. Things will get better with time, I know, I'm sure they will. But in the meantime, BLAH!

Our apartment is nice enough - a lot smaller than the one on Guyuan, but that one was nicer than most places we have lived in! What we really like about campus is being right next to the cafeteria. The cafeteria is great! It is 4 floors of food (the 4th floor is a restaurant), good for quick food and the taste is pretty good too! Our favorite is the third floor cafeteria. You can get made to order stir-fry as well as small hot pots. It's great! Nice to be able to just walk in, get some decent food quickly and go home.

But, now, my business English class has ended (special short term class). I am happy that I will free up an entire day for me, but I did like that class pretty well. They were all adults from a big steel company located in Shandong. They were very attentive and good sports about the things I wanted them to do in class. But now my teaching schedule will be lighter - I will teach 4 hours on Monday (plus 2.5 hours for transit), nothing on Tuesday, a 2 hour night class on Wednesday, four hours on Thursday and a free Friday. Of course they will probably try to get me to work an extra class in October and I will have volunteer hours at Huiling.

Anyhow, I don't know if I told you that Matt and I joined a health club. They are pretty new in China, so the memberships are a little expensive. But, after a year of basically no exercise, thought that it was a good thing to do. The first day at the gym was a very humbling experience. But on the plus side I am not intimidated at all to use the free weights. Usually, at other gyms that I have joined the weight pits were usually dominated by huge men who could heft a car over their heads. But not here! I was told a couple of times that I should not lift weights because I am a woman and my muscles will get too big and man like. I don't know how many times I have said, "well, I think it is good to be strong." in response. I can't believe how weak I had gotten.

But now, I haven't been back for a while because of klutziness. I hurt my toes. Specifically the two small toes on my left foot. Not just the phalange part, but down into the foot area. And, I have repeatedly hurt them. About everyday since the first injury. How? Because of said klutziness. The initial injury was the worst (kinda got stubbed and tangled with a desk), but the week plus or so of hurt that followed the first injury was not only painful but, eventually extremely funny. I would have the white flash of pain as I re-injured my toes, swear, sometimes collapse to the floor grasping said toes (swearing, of course), and, yes at times, some tears were shed. After about day 5 of repeated injury, it just began to be really funny. Hurt like hell, but funny.

Anyhow, I have a week of vacation coming up, so am looking forward to that - looking to get out of the country for a week (Outer Mongolia or South Korea). It does feel strange to be already planning a vacation after only 2 weeks of work, but for some reason, I really mentally need this one!

So, I hope all of you are doing well! Drop me a line when you get a chance - we have been a little lean on email from the US!

The Red-Headed Step Child

I don't know what happened today. I just woke up really not liking China. Yes, there were some things that happened during the week that weren't the best, but they really didn't feed into why I was filled with angst today.

So, my first week of teaching my full schedule is done and I am glad. The two hour blocks are difficult and I don't really like teaching in those long blocks of time. Yan Qing was...well, hopefully that will get better. I also had my special, short term class with the business professionals this week. Next week will be the last of those classes. Those classes are generally pretty fun and the adults are pretty good sports about them. I also got to me my sophomore classes on Thursday. I will be teaching 2 sections of English for Management Majors. Their English level is pretty high from what I can tell.

When I entered both of the classes, the students thought that I was a student. One of the students even told me that I should not close the door as the teacher was not there yet and would not be able to get into the classroom. When I told him that I was the teacher, I got quite a sound of shock from him. I don't know how these classes will go. They seem like nice enough kids. What I don't like is that they ask me to have the white teachers come and teach them. Yeah. A bit of a blow to the ego. Sometimes I feel that I have to work twice as hard to prove my value as a foreign teacher, to make up for the fact that I am not white. It is just frustrating.

Other than that, I am really not motivated to teach yet. I don't know if it is because of the attitude towards my ethnicity and lack of exotic appeal or just apathy. I just know that I am really dreading boarding that bus on Monday for Yan Qing. I'm just not feeling IT yet.

Beijing is fine. Big, dirty and polluted. But I have access to Mexican food. Did have some good, blue sky days though. To be honest, I just haven't felt like doing a whole heck of a lot lately. Pretty unmotivated right now.

The other day, I was walking home from class, alone. It dawned on me that I was alone. Alone. I didn't have 15 - 11 year olds tagging along chatting away. I didn't give out any hugs or exchange smiles. Didn't have someone dancing and singing just to make all of us laugh. No laughing. No smiling. Just walking. Walking. I miss my kids.

I know that I had some really bad days in Guyuan. No, really, really, really bad days. But, the vast majority of my kids were a delight. I'm really glad that I was able to get to know some of them and spend time with them. It was really special to me. I don't know what it will be like here for me and I'm sure it will get better. But, what I did notice was how much I missed the warmth and spirit of my little kids while walking home and how meaningful that time spent just walking home together was to me. Especially now as I walk alone.

Yup. I'm the Booby.

I really hope that Yan Qing will be good. I really, really do. I know that your shouldn't judge something on the first impression, but, ooo-ooo-wee!

Okay, I should just start from the beginning.

So, I was given the Yan Qing teaching assignment. I had some reservations - was warned about the extra time it would take to do the classes and the low language level of the students. But I was pretty okay with it as long as I would be compensated for the extra time it would take to teach those classes - it takes a little over an hour to get out to the school and then there is the ride back. So, although I am only teaching 4 hours the whole ordeal takes the entire day.

I had some questions about all of this, so I went to our waiban. I admit, I was still suspicious about the whole 10 vs 12 hours of agreed to contracted hours, but wanted to know about the teaching gig. So, after a couple of rounds of time vs money compensation she tried the "I'll just butter you up" strategy and was told that they select a very special teacher to go out to teach these kids who may be from the countryside and were not able to have as good as an education as some of the other kids (thus they scored lower on their entrance exams).

So, with not everything smoothed over, I leave with the general feeling of being lied to again.

The other night Matt and I met one of the former English teachers at the University. We all went to Mr. Pizza. Frank, who is an old friend of Adam's (our neighbor). I told him that I had the Yan Qing thing. His response? "Oh, so you got stuck with Yan Qing, huh?" followed by and a little laughing. Great.

So, Monday. THE day. I was told that the bus to Yan Qing will leave the school at 7:30 AM and that I should try to be a little early. So, I drag my groggy ass out of bed really early for me and make it out to the bus meeting place under a huge statue of Mao by 7:15 AM. Anyone there? Nope. 7:30 AM? Nope. 7:45 AM? Nope. I worry that I missed the bus or that they changed the time and didn't tell me. So I called the scheduling office. They sent someone down to hang with me and Mao. At 8:00 AM some people start to show up. I asked them what time the bus was to leave, they all said 8:15 AM. No one knew of the 7:30 AM time that I was informed of. Gee, thanks Gloria. I wouldn't have been nearly as bitter if I would have been able to get that extra precious hour of sleep.

So, now the ride out to Yan Qing. The ride was quite nice. I was able to see some of the Great Wall on the way and the hills/mountains were quite nice. Blue sky too - bonus! Right as we got to an interesting section of the wall the lady in front of me whisked down the curtain and bopped me in the head. I tried to pull it up just a little so I could see out. No dice. Stare of ice from that lady. So, I was forced to sneak peaks out at the scenery from two windows up when the wind would blow the curtain out a little bit. What is up with the mobile window treatment Nazis?

So, we arrived at the school and I was given the key to my "office". It was actually better than I had pictured. It is basically a little hotel room. I have 2 beds, 2 desks a wardrobe and my own bathroom. I didn't really have time to relax because I had to run off to class. I got lost. No one really knew where I was supposed to go. So I just wandered around the teaching buildings for about 10 minutes before a student found me and asked if I was the Chinese-looking foreigner. She said to follow her and I made it to my class just as the bell rang.

The students will hopefully be better than the first impression I have of them. From the way things sound, half of them didn't really want to work very hard in high school, so they placed low on the university lists and could not get into one of the top universities in Beijing. The other half are from the countryside and didn't have access to some of the educational advantages that their other classmates had and they are there to work, but their English level is pretty poor as usually they didn't really have an actual English teacher, just a Chinese teacher trying to teach them about English. I have two classes. One is for English teaching majors the other for Commercial English majors. I have to tell ya, I truly believe that my Senior 1 students at Guyuan had better English overall. Shoot, for that matter, my Juniors had better English. Many of these university students could not answer questions my 11 year olds could by the end of the year.

The class is supposed to be lecture style. Two L O N G hours of lecture. Four in total. I don't want to talk that long and being that their English level is so low, I don't think that they would be able to understand (nor sit through)what I am talking about the majority of the time. So, I think that will be the first change I make, more activities and less teacher talking time. But the students, oh I don't know. I just hope that my impression of them is incorrect.

For lunch I went to a restaurant. Went being the word to focus on. Note that I didn't say "eat". We caught a bicycle thing out to a restaurant on the other side of town (not a rickshaw dealy, but a bike with a padded skid attached to the back which people sit on). By the time we got out there and the food came, I had to go back for my afternoon class. I got about 3 minutes to shovel some potatoes in my feed hole before catching the bike thing back to campus.

Back at campus had some more difficulty finding my classes - nothing is labeled which makes it difficult for me as all of the buildings kinda look the same and all of the classrooms really look similar. So, lost laowai again.

So, finally, I get to go home! Hooray!

I find the car that is going back and hop in and we head back to Beijing. We get back about at 4:30 PM. A whole day wasted for four hours of teaching and I haven't heard what the "fair compensation" is yet from the people who were supposed to get right back to me.

Crap.

I'm tired.

Ugh.

That is the way I am feeling right now.

It is 6:30 as I begin this post and I will go jump a bus to my school in a little bit.

I'm going out to teach at Yan Qing. The booby prize.

I'll tell you more about it when I get home.

...and there I go!

I start teaching on Tuesday. Initially when we arrived, we were told that we wouldn't start teaching until the 11th. But people like to lie or to give an answer without knowing if it is actually true or not. At least it is a short term class (only will meet 4 times). Even though, it is a short term class, I don't feel mentally prepared for it yet - that extra week seems to make a big difference in mental preparation for launching the school year.

Needless to say,

I

AM

NOT

READY.

Hanized Holy Lake

Watch the video

So, this is from Tibet - we went to the summer palace for the big DL and they had a framed picture of the Potala. Across from the Potala was a beautiful lake and park. We were told that the holy lake has since been filled in and now a large Chinese monument and public square is standing where the lake had once been. A bit of the lake is still there, now just a little pond.

We were walking down by the Potala at night to get some night pictures of the place, when we saw all of the blue glow coming down from the lake. I though that it was horrible looking - all of those tacky blue lights framing what is left of the holy lake. Then I noticed the swirling orange disks and wanted to get closer. "Are those swastikas spinning around?" We got closer and to my horror, they were bright orange swastikas spinning in one direction and then slowing down to start spinning around in the other direction. Ugh.

The Potala is a kind of a transition point from the east and west side of the downtown area in Lhasa. The east side has more of a Tibetan feel and as you walk west you begin to see more and more colored rope lights, neon, tacky light fixtures and plastic palm trees. Anyhow, I can finally get back into my email in less than 20 minutes, so I probably shouldn't push my luck with adding more opinion to this post.