Medical College
As I explained last week, I only see the same class every 2 months at Medical College despite teaching multiple classes from the same year every week (thus showing how many students there are)! One upside to this is minimul lesson planning as I can just do the same lesson plan again & again & again. However, this is getting very boring after only one week.
We start every lesson with a 'question & answer' session about myself, England, etc. If someone else asks me, "do you like China," "do you like Chinese food" or "do you have a boyfriend" I might scream! What they class as an impolite question is different here & so we've all developed a persona for teaching, for example, Neil has suddenly aged 7 years & I have found myself a boyfriend who lives in England! I made the mistake of answering that I was single in my first class & then the questions of, why not & do you like Chinese men followed & so it's just easier if I answer 'yes' as that prevents further questions on the matter!
The question of age is a tricky one for me as well. Many of my students are older than me due to the fact that they are at Uni already. Obviously, Neil looks older than 18 & so he can get round this easly but I have had to resort to telling them that 'it's rude to ask a woman her age in England & so my age is a secret'. Apparently Chinese people can't tell Westerners' ages so that sort of helps my case.
Shui Yang Middle School
This one's the killer - up at 5am on a Wednesday to take the hour and a half car journey to Shui Yang. We leave here beore 7am to arrive for our first class at 8:40am. Andy & I both work there on Wed's & both take a Chinese assisstant - usually Nakata & Bain (pronounced Ben). We teach 6 or 7 lessons each - all the same lesson plan of course as they are all in the same year - of 14-18 year olds and then set back off to Wuhu, through the paddy fields & pot holes, not arriving home untill around 7pm. It's a long day.
Some of them are very shy though. I played a game with my students where they had to take however much toilet role they would normally use when they go to the bathroom - which of course got them all giggling & the boys were taking reems of the stuff trying to be funny - & then I tell them that how ever many sheet they have is how many things they have to tell me about themself in English - their faces dropped at this! The boys were all trying to hide their loo role in their desks & stuff which made everyone laugh. So the lesson went well, but some of the students, particuarly the boys, could barely even tell me their names because they were that shy & physically shaking when I asked them to stand up. I'm hoping this will improve as they get to know me better as I see the same classes every week at Shui Yang which is nice.
Was quite bizarre in a way though; as I walked into each classroom, I received a round of applause merely by showing up! I ham up the 'Westerner tthing' as well in order to try & get them on side & make them laugh, for example, I tell them I'm rubbish with chopsticks & things which isn't entirely true, but it makes them laugh which is the aim!
Lunch was very odd at Shui Yang as , as the special geusts, we were taken to a private room & given the local specialities... eek!! actually, it could have been a lot worse, as it happened, only one thing which looked to me like a mini carcus broken into smaller pieces was very difficult to eat, everything else was ok. Thank god! They get very offended here if you don't eat the food they prepare for you which, as most of you can probably imagine, could become very awkward for me!
Chinese Lessons
We started our Chinese lessons last week which are intense to say the least! We (Andy, Neil & I)sit for three hours learning Chinese which is difficult anyway, but keeping your concentration going for that long is tough! It's very much the Chinese way of teaching as well, which is fair enough, but makes it harder for me to get to grips with the language as it's more parot fashion learning than understanding & applying as it is at home. Yesterday, we persauded our Chinese teacher, Rebecca, to have our lesson in a cafe (which sells good waffles!!) so that we could learn how to order food etc. In reality, we just wanted waffles but the fib worked, tee hee! I actually had to leave early as after only a melon juice I thought I was going to be sick, but other than that the lesson was good!
Chinese Name
Our names are a bit crap which is a shame as Chinese names usually have a meaning & link with what you are like as a person, etc. However, Linda, who gave us our names, hates her job & so my theory is that she siomply couldn't be bothered to think of a proper name for us & so just translated our English names into Chinese characters. So, my name 'Ai' "Mie" means 'sigh' & 'rice' so I am a sighing piece of rice. Great.
That being said, Rebecca in my lesson said that she thought the character meant 'meow' so who knows! Maybe I'm not a piece of rice but actually a cat sound - it's getting better & better!
I was really disappointed as I had wanted a proper Chinese name & Melissa, who we live with, said they were rubbish too as she usually picks the names as she knows the foreigners best due to living with them but Linda was doing the business cards & therefore said she'd do it. Nevermind.
The New Arrival - And then there were 7
Hardeep (known as Habby) arrived late on Saturday night when I'd only been asleep about 30mins as I wasn't feeling overly well. She stomped through the back door (very close to my) banged the door, shouted about the amount of stairs... I didn't warm to her all that much on Saturday night!
Neil was also up & so the two of us sat & chatted to her into the wee hours of the morning (4:30am). I tried to go to bed at one point but the stomach cramps would not allow it so I gave up & went back to chatting. She's also a smoker which isn't great as on the first night she smoked on our balcony, on which I had clean clothes drying. I wasn't impressed. However, today she apologised & realised it was a daft idea & smokes in the stair way now so hereah!
Our rooms are joined & untill now, I've have a quiet room with a private balcony. As you can see on the picture of my room below, there is a brown wall on the right. This is pretty much just MDF & this is the partition between our rooms, same between Andy & Neil's who share a balcony as well. This means that if we drop a pin we can pretty much hear it in the other person's room. Ok, slight exageration, but you see where I'm going with this!
Habby is quite a character. She's very loud & 'in your face' but we're similar in that we're girlie, like our hair to look nice & Habby even brought a bigger suitcase than me!! So the boys might stop taking the micky now... pigs might fly.
In Closing
Melissa & Shining are cooking us a Chinese meal tonight, so that will be nice. I get on with Melissa really well. She's 23 (22 English age - in China you are already 1 year old when you are born) & we may be starting a Latin Dance class together which will be cool.
Speak to you all soon; I felt quite homesick on Sunday for everyone as I wasn't well & just thought how much easier it would be if I was home! But I'm feeling better today.
Missing nights out with the girls... actually, just missing nights out & the girls in general!!
Love to all xx
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