Typhoons and Vacation

As we finish up this period of teaching we have gone through several typhoons or tropical storms. The typhoons were both natural and in our school. First, we have had three storms come by our way: Typhoon Nuri (that hit us straight on), Typhoon Sinlaku (that went north of us) and Typhoon Hagupit (just went south of us on September 23rd). Oh, there is more to come. Tropical Storm Jangmi is on its way to hit Taiwan at the end of this month. In all three cases the damage around us was bad but for us it has been rather minor. Since the typhoon season is in its prime we will expect more. The order of events weather wise is: oppressive heat and humidity with overcast, followed by winds and rain that brings cool temperature. Then the storm hits followed by normal heat and humidity. I cannot wait for cool autumn and winter weather.
The typhoons in our school can be summarized in one word, madness! There is so much to cover academically, unexpected events like fire drills to a week long periodic school wide literacy testing. My students performed wonderfully to the lack of structure that today they were rewarded with “Game Day”. More storms are on its way and I see that this will be a long year.
As for our October break (which I think is to celebrate the founding of the PRC in 1949) I cannot find much information about the holiday. Eileen and I will chaperon two female high school students who are here on an exchange program at this school. The school was desperately looking for adults to chaperon and we were toward the bottom of the list. It worked out for us as our plans were falling apart. So we will go to the province of Guangxi, to the city of Guilin. The scenery along the Li River down from Guilin to Yangshuo should be fabulous per the second photo from the net. Then we travel by air to the province of Sichuan to the city of Chengdu (the top photo) Sichuan is where the big earthquake happened in May and is the home of the panda. Much like any popular vacation spot in the U.S., we will be there with many, many others in some sauna like weather. We will write more later folks!

International Flare

Monday, Sept. 1 – Sunday, Sept. 14

Sorry that we have not posted for 3 weeks. We have been so busy and so tired. We got a chance to go to Kowloon last Saturday. We took the bus route with a group of people. We wanted to find a Chinese/English book to give to a friend and were able to find it there. The taxi ride to the Shenzhen Port, going through immigration at the Hong Kong border, taking the bus across the bridge to the metro station and making a change to the next station took 1 1/2 hours. Coming back was even worse as we had to wait 45 minutes for a taxi. Next time we will take the ferry….more expensive, but ½ the time and very easy. Next time we will also go into Hong Kong Central and skip Kowloon. I wanted to shop for clothes and found 1 shirt only.

We had been trying to make plans for our upcoming Chinese National Holiday – Sept. 27 – Oct. 5. Nothing seemed to be coming together. Then Friday, we were approached by our director and asked if we would be interested in being chaperones for two high school girls who are living with them. They wanted to go to Chengdu (home of the Panda and Terra Cotta Soldiers), Guilin and Yongshou where we wanted to go. They would pay for Tom’s expenses (except food) and I will have to pay my way. They would make all the arrangements. We accepted, and that’s what we’ll be doing. It takes so much pressure off of us. The girls are Korean, but from the New Hampshire on an exchange program for the semester.

Yesterday, the 13th was the QSI annual International Brunch. It turned out really well and we stuffed ourselves with all kinds of great food! We had a good turn out of parents and everyone seemed to have a good time. I was on the committee to help set-up and clean-up. It was headed up by another teacher and was well organized. I didn’t wear any of my international outfits because they would be too hard to work in….I went red, white and blue.

Our shipment finally arrived on Wednesday night. Apparently there was a problem with the shipping company that was to bring our stuff from San Francisco. We found out a couple of weeks ago that our stuff was still in SF. Our shippers were very apologetic and put it on the next available flight to Shenzhen airport. It cleared customs with no problems…..none of our boxes were even opened….everything was in perfect condition. In one sense it was like Christmas….Yeah!!!! And in another sense it made our apartment a mess for a few days until we could unpack and organize it. We put a lot in our spare room and just took the school stuff to school yesterday. Now we have space in our living room again.

Today, Sunday, we got invited to go to lunch with the Chinese man that we gave an English/Chinese book to. It is the New Moon Harvest Holiday and Chinese usually spend this day with family. Since his family is not in the area, he asked us to join him. He ordered for us. It was interesting to each shrimp with the head and antennaes still intact. Somehow seeing those beady little eyes made them hard to eat. Everything was tasty, but different than the typical Chinese food that we are use to in the States. We discovered that in nice restaurants, rice is not automatically served. They request it at the end of the meal. This is a tradition from long ago in a time of famine when there was no rice. So they eat everything else first and then the rice to remind them that they can now have rice.

First Full Week of School

Monday-Sunday, August 25-31, 2008

The school here is like a zoo! It is getting better, but if I had one word to describe it, it would be “Disorganized!” I am slowly getting the supplies I need, but it is all piecemeal, with no rhyme or reason as to what I get and when. Oh well. :) I have a good class of kids… just lots of different needs.

I got my hair done Thursday night. This time the girl I had did not give me a massage. I asked for a trim and got a complete cut and hair do. It wasn't what I asked for, but I can't complain because it does look really good. Next time, I will have to be very specific and firm if I just want them to trim and not "cut." :) Also it took 3 1/2 hours. They do everything like it is their only job. It is quite different from the states. It's a L'Oreal chain. I think they were trained the European way. Another thing that they offer was a membership for 2000 Yuan. With this you get a 35% discount every time you have your hair colored. Normally this is 550 Yuan. What I finally understood was that it is a “pay in advance” type of membership. You pay the 2000 Yuan and it goes into your account. Then they just deduct the 35% off the charge for the color and then deduct it from your account. When you run low or out, you just pay in advance again.

I went to a meeting on Saturday night with 2 other 10 year old teachers. This was really helpful for me and I think I have a better grasp now of what I will be teaching for Reading and Language Arts doing Reading/Writing Workshop. I felt a lot better after this late night meeting.

Today, Sunday, we had lunch with another couple a little older than us that teach at the other international school in town. We hit it off right away when we met, and we realized that the grass is not greener on the other side. We have been dealing with accepting the situation that we find ourselves in and not being angry and bitter about it. We just have to take baby steps and know that each small step forward is a blessing and a reason to rejoice. Many times it’s 2 steps forward, 3 steps back.

First Full Week of School

Monday-Sunday, August 25-31, 2008

The school here is like a zoo! It is getting better, but if I had one word to describe it, it would be “Disorganized!” I am slowly getting the supplies I need, but it is all piecemeal, with no rhyme or reason as to what I get and when. Oh well. :) I have a good class of kids… just lots of different needs.

I got my hair done Thursday night. This time the girl I had did not give me a massage. I asked for a trim and got a complete cut and hair do. It wasn't what I asked for, but I can't complain because it does look really good. Next time, I will have to be very specific and firm if I just want them to trim and not "cut." :) Also it took 3 1/2 hours. They do everything like it is their only job. It is quite different from the states. It's a L'Oreal chain. I think they were trained the European way. Another thing that they offer was a membership for 2000 Yuan. With this you get a 35% discount every time you have your hair colored. Normally this is 550 Yuan. What I finally understood was that it is a “pay in advance” type of membership. You pay the 2000 Yuan and it goes into your account. Then they just deduct the 35% off the charge for the color and then deduct it from your account. When you run low or out, you just pay in advance again.

I went to a meeting on Saturday night with 2 other 10 year old teachers. This was really helpful for me and I think I have a better grasp now of what I will be teaching for Reading and Language Arts doing Reading/Writing Workshop. I felt a lot better after this late night meeting.

Today, Sunday, we had lunch with another couple a little older than us that teach at the other international school in town. We hit it off right away when we met, and we realized that the grass is not greener on the other side. We have been dealing with accepting the situation that we find ourselves in and not being angry and bitter about it. We just have to take baby steps and know that each small step forward is a blessing and a reason to rejoice. Many times it’s 2 steps forward, 3 steps back.