The first thing I want to say is that in the craziness of the end of the school year I didn’t get to adequately make a final post, and I had about half of it written out, so here is that. Following will be an update about what I did this summer! Yippee!
My time in China is coming to an end, at least for this year. I was talking to another teacher and commenting on how this year has flown by as fast as molasses. What I mean by that is in the moment sometimes time crawls by, but when I look back at how much time has passed I am astounded that I’ve been here for nearly 10 months. I’ve grown a lot in the past school-year here in many ways. But before I get to any more rambling deepness I wanted to list for you some new experiences I’ve had here in China, just off the top of my head and in no particular order.
• I have not driven a car for about 10 months
• I have only worn a seatbelt about 5 times out of about 100 trips
• I’ve taken public transit (bus/train/subway)
• I stopped converting prices back to US dollars. (I’m sure when I go to the States I’ll be converting it to Chinese currency!)
• I played ultimate Frisbee on the beach
• I ordered a pizza in Chinese (accurately)
• I had almost a whole conversation in Chinese with my Chinese teacher.
• I ate a duck brain
• I ate Chinese dumplings—Jiaozi
• I made Chinese dumplings—Jiaozi
• I ate Chinese Baozi (like a bread with meat in the middle)
• I made Chinese Baozi
• I went to the Great Wall of China with my parents
• I know how to say some things in 3 languages now, Spanish, English and Chinese.
• I can write and read a couple Chinese characters
• I saw a lady get into a fight with a guy on a bus and almost attack him with an aluminum step ladder
• I saw fried seahorses on a stick for sale…to eat
• I lit a ton of firecrackers on Chinese new year
• I bought a Chinese cell phone
• I played Counter-strike on a Chinese server
• I ordered something off of the Chinese version of eBay
• When bargaining, I haggled someone down to about 5% of their original price, which was outrageous.
• I bought knock off Nike shoes for about $15. The highest US size they had was a 9.
• I went into a bootleg DVD store that had a secret backroom behind a door disguised as a poster.
• The cheapest full meal I bought was 9RMB (about $1.50)
• The most expensive meal I remember buying was around 75 RMB (about $12)
• I’ve mastered the art of using chopsticks
• I went to Mongolia, which is not in China if you didn’t know.
• I dressed up like a tree for the sake of the environment
• I had a steady job for more than 4 months
• I worked 7 days in a row.
• I camped on the beach
• I was in South Korea…briefly
• I rode a camel
• I slept in a hut
I’m sure there are a ton more I’m forgetting, but this all I can think of for now.
The first thing I want to say is that in the craziness of the end of the school year I didn’t get to adequately make a final post, and I had about half of it written out, so here is that. Following will be an update about what I did this summer! Yippee!
Well, I haven’t written anything this summer, and that’s mainly because the purpose of this blog is to keep people up to date on what I’m doing in China. And the other part was probably laziness. So I will try to give you an update on what I did this summer and what I can be looking forward to as my second year in China begins.
One of the first things I did when I got back was go to Camp Highland. I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about it on this blog, but it’s the summer camp I worked at in 2008 and again in 2011. It’s a C summer camp where we focus on him through high adventure activities like zip lines, ropes courses and white water rafting. And there is also some teambuilding stuff thrown in there too. The first week (yes there was more than one) I went up I just helped out around camp, whether it was helping cook food or run the riflery range. It was a great experience because I got to get to know and bond with some people my age.
A few weeks later I went back with my cousin Josh who was a camper. During that week I got to be a counselor, which is a whole different dynamic. Instead of forming relationships with people your own age, you pour into kids younger than you, kids who sometimes need a role model. During this week I also got to do all the fun activities, like rafting and camping.
That’s me and Josh!
Another great thing about camp, and I just had this revelation the second week I was there, is that it’s basically like rehab for your relationship with Him. I know that sounds a bit harsh, but it’s not really—at least when you think about it. You go into the North Georgia mountains, in the woods, away from TV, cell phones, internet and computers and all you have is other people and the good book. It pretty much forces you to make good use of your time—something I know a lot of people struggle with, especially me. So those two weeks were great for me because I just got to get away and be somewhere not really accessible to me here in China.
Okay, I went up a third time too, but this was just for a weekend. Well, one day really, if we count it in hours. My friend Zach, who works at Camp Highland, told me that there were some Chinese international students coming up for 2 days and he wanted to know if I would go. Heck, why not? So I went up. It turns out these are kids coming over to the US for their senior year of high school and University. They’re all over on 4 year visas. Who! Can you imagine going to a different country when you’re 17 and knowing you will live there for 4 years! I can imagine that a little bit, but boy would that be overwhelming. Much like my students here, they were at varying levels of English proficiency and or outgoingness. Because some kids might know a lot of English, but they never open their mouth to use it—which is a shame. So I had a good time getting to know them, and I practiced my Chinese a little bit too. I asked one of them how the food was, and one of the students thought it was one of the Chinese kids talking! Alright! They asked me what food I liked here and when I told them a few things they told me to stop talking, making it evident that I was inducing a slight case of homesickness. I think they had a good time and I hope they do great wherever they go!
This summer I also got to see a lot of people I’ve missed being away for 10 months. Mainly my dogs. Okay, okay and my family and friends. But really though, I can facetime or skype with friends and family and they can ask me how I am and we can talk. If I try to do that with my dogs they don’t really understand what video chat is so they don’t even look at the screen. It’s like they don’t know I’m trying to talk to them! But it was great to have them jump all over me when I stepped in the door—my dogs, not my family.
I got to see my good friends Cat and Wes, who are currently in American Samoa for their second year of teaching with World Teach. They introduced me to a card game called Dominion, which was really fun. But I also felt like I was getting tricked into playing Magic the gathering…and liking it. But, I was the guy with like 1000 Pokemon cards and had no clue how to play the card game with them. Heck, I’m still that guy—got the cards and have no clue how to play. Go figure.
I also got to play some ultimate Frisbee with my friends Chad and Jenny Floyd and Derek—even though I don’t think I played in the same game with him because there were so many people there. I realized that I am out of shape to play Ultimate. But that can be blamed on three things: first—it was like 150% humidity on one of the days, second—I hadn’t played a “real” game of ultimate since I left, and third—I’ve just been out of shape. So, I will try to exercise some more while I’m over here so I can only use two excuses next year.
Oh yeah, I got to do a bit of shopping while I was in the States. The first thing I tried to do was get my camera fixed. Because, if you recall, in February my screen stopped working, which didn’t allow me to use any of the menu features or take video—which stunk! I sent in my camera via the Best Buy Geek Squad. After like 3 weeks of their estimated 12 days they called me to come pick up my camera. It turns out that when they sent it in they used one of the wrong ID numbers on the form so the people couldn’t do anything to the camera—they sent it back unfixed ☹. But the good news was that Best buy just decided to trade mine in for a brand new one! WOOP! So now, I have a new camera that should hopefully last more than 6 months.
I also got a snazzy laptop stand so I don’t hurt my neck while using my laptop, and a cool wireless keyboard so I can write things without an 8 pound piece of flaming metal on my legs (sometimes my computer gets hot when insulated against 90 degree flesh—go figure).
I didn’t really do any other shopping, I guess. I don’t really need new clothes, even though it always feels like you can use some. “Oh, what a cool shirt!” I did, however, get a light up Frisbee to play with the students at school after dinner. Because, for about half of the year, while the rest of the world is on daylight savings time and China isn’t, their recess time is in total darkness. So this might be a cool way to extend their playtime safely-ish.
This summer I also got to see a lot of family, which was great. I stayed with my brother in his new house, which allowed us to have bachelor bonding time. And I got to hang out with my other brother and his wife too. And as it turns out, this summer he got offered a job in San Diego and he left Georgia the same day as me! So good luck to him while he works at Sony Online Entertainment being a general programmer for Everquest, a game he’s played since he was like 14—it’s that old!
I also got to go on a sweet trip to New York City with my mom. We went for a long weekend and tried to pack in as much awesome as we could; and I think we did a pretty good job. We went to the 9/11 memorial, we are in the 102 club in the Empire state building (if you don’t know what that is then you’re obviously not in the club), saw The Lion King and Wicked on Broadway. Wicked was awesome, but The Lion King just wasn’t as great as I wanted it to be. It was still cool though! We went to the Brooklyn Tabernacle Church on Sunday, which was amazing. And we also took a walk around Central Park. I think it’s really cool how they preserved some of the natural beauty in a city like NYC when they could have easily just built on it and made a bunch of money. It’s a pretty cool place.
Mom and I in a NYC subway station.
Central Park
We also tried to eat at some semi-authentic New York restaurants. We went to this bangin’ pizza place called Sbarro (I’m kidding, you should watch more “The Office”). No, we did got to a pizza place though. It was good but the service was pretty awful. Yeah, our waitress was sitting down at a table with the other waitstaff drinking cokes and laughing, while my mom and I were halfway through our pizza with empty glasses. We went to a deli and got a really good roast beef sandwich, and I even got some Chinese take out, which I ordered in Chinese. Yeah, the guy was a little impressed. Ok, maybe not, but he did tell me that his two daughters who moved from the US to China when they were 1 were now like 7 and 8. I don’t know if he’s seen them since then, but you have to remember that some of the immigrants in America are here alone, in a foreign country and away from their families. What a life! We also went to McDonald’s. Twice.
As for this school year, I found out what I will be teaching. I’m going to be teaching 8th grade English again for 2 classes a day, 4 times a week. I’ll be teaching 12th grade creative writing 4 days a week for the first semester. For the second semester in 12th grade I’ll be teaching them the personal finance class I taught last year. I’ll also be teaching 10th grade English 4 times a week and 11th grade lit 2 times a week. It’s one more prep than last year, but I think I will be able to handle it.
Even though I’m teaching 8th grade again, we are changing around the book we are going to use. I think the book that we used last year was good, but not engaging enough for middle school students. So I hope this one will help remedy that, and at the same time, make my life a bit easier.
As the days roll in for this school year I’m sure I’ll have more to write, and I’ll try to be better about posting more frequently. Classes for students start on September 3rd, and work for me starts Monday the 27th, so I’ll have a whole week to prepare and get ready for this year. Wish me luck!
Also. This.
clayinqingdao 