June 16 - Busy Week, Heading Home

We had a busy Sunday.  After church at the Hanlin, we had lunch with everyone.  Last Wednesday, Jugita had been hospitalized, and we thought she was going to be released today, but they decided to do some more tests on her, so she couldn’t go home.  At least she was able to be with us at church and for lunch. 

After we got home, our friend, Simon (Kathy Guo’s husband from our friendship five years ago), had asked us to help him with the school that he has for English-learning students.  He wanted to test the 12-year-old students on their English.  It was a pretty big deal to have two native English speakers to do this.  I’m sure it gives Simon’s school more credibility.  

A special taxi picked us up about 3:00 p.m.and drove us to his school.  Simon took us to a classroom that he had set up for the testing.  We would both be listening, one of us would write some notes, and then we talked about the scoring after the student left.  Nine students were being tested that day, four boys and five girls.  A parent was allowed to come in and photograph, or video, parts of the test.  Some of the students seemed to do quite well and the others were okay.  

After the testing, we were all taken to a restaurant, and David and I were put in a dining room with the students.  Simon and two of the mothers would eat at a table just outside of our dining room, and we were alone with the students to help engage them in conversation and help them with their skills.

Simon ordered all of the food, and it was a lot of delicious food!  At first the students were rather awe-stuck and didn’t say much.  We decided that a good strategy with them would be to ask them questions and try to get an answer from each student.  That did loosen some of them up more.  Two of the older boys were getting quite relaxed with us, but the other two boys were quieter, and the girls we really had a hard time getting a lot of answers.  One of the more silent boys wasn’t feeling well but insisted on coming anyway.  I think if he had been feeling better, he would have been more talkative. 

As the dinner was winding down, we decided that each student needed to ask us a question.  That was hard, because I’m sure they had questions all along, but not the skills to find the right words to ask us the question with.  I noticed that several were using their phones to help them find the words.  I guess I think that is okay, because it still helps broaden your word base when you have to look it up and then use the word.  

The students from Simon's School.

Simon and us.

 We finally finished with the meal and all the questions at about 7:45, so Simon ordered a taxi for us, and we were taken home.  Had to get pictures first though.

In our classes this week, we were finishing up our final exams.  It is still hard to believe that this is the last time we will be teaching Chinese students here at Shandong University.

We were informed during our classes the week before that we needed to pick up our documents and take them to the police station.  Our work permits only lasted until June 8th, so to be legal here, we had to get an extension.  It was fortunate for us that Jackson was available, so that he could get us a taxi and go with us to the police station to turn our papers in.  

Having done this last year, we pretty much knew what to expect and all went well getting the papers in.  Then we got another taxi and took it home. 

Tuesday, we went for our massage in the afternoon.  We had planned a reception for our former students to come and say good-bye to us for that evening.  There were quite a few that weren’t able to come on the short notice that they had for the surprise party last week.  One of David’s former students booked us a room in one of the buildings, and that is where we held the reception. 

Most of the students that came were David’s students, but I had some that heard about it and came.  We sang them some songs with the guitar and then reminisced about some of the class activities and such.  We told them our “love story,” how we met and got engaged.  They really enjoyed that!  Then we had time to talk with individuals.  We only had the room booked for two hours, but it was a full three hours before we left.  It keeps getting harder to leave.

Wednesday, I needed to go to the hospital after my classes and help get Jurgita checked out from the hospital.  I hope that she can stay well now and be happy here.  They were able to catch the bus home to Zouping and get there safely.

David had forgotten his papers with his students’ evaluations at the Qianfoshan campus, so as soon as I arrived home from the hospital, he had to hurry over there to get them.  Eva was here at the moment, so she drove him to the bus station.  He was exhausted by the time he got home because of the heat.

We had our last Chinese massages on Thursday.  They were a fun group of people to be around.  I think it kept our bodies in fairly good shape for us to finish this year.  

We got home just in time for the car that was here to pick us up and take us to the English Salon final party.  Dr. Liu had a taxi waiting for us, and we were driven to a special party room.  The cuisine for dinner was Guandong style.  I LOVE Guandong style food!  We were very early and Dr. Liu ordered a movie for us to watch while we waited.  It was only supposed to be about 45 minutes, but it turned out to be closer to an hour and 15 minutes before most of them came.  Dr. Yang didn’t get there until almost 7:30. He’s a busy man.

Dr. Yang, David, and me.

Dinner was SO good!

Sun Bo? Who's behind the balloon?

It's Ling-ling and Sun Bo!

The guy in the pink shirt had a great voice!

More of the group from Qilu.

We had a lot of fun!

 The special that night was Haagen-Daz ice cream cake.  Ling-ling was so proud of that!  We did some karaoke, and after everyone had eaten, they went around the room and each person there either gave a speech or sang a song to us.  It was a sweet, warm evening.

The lovely and delicious ice cream cake!

Our farewell toast.

Dr. Yang had these plates made for us as a thank you gift.  They are made in Zibo that has a special factory to make these.

Kaycee Furhiman came back to Jinan for a visit and we decided as a group to try and catch the tourism bus.  We all met at the south entrance of DaMing Lake, where the bus was supposed to stop.  We waited and talked and waited and talked until it was finally time for David, Nancy, and me to leave.  Nancy needed to go teach a class, and we were scheduled to have our farewell lunch with Dr. Tricia.  We started walking away to go to a regular bus stop, when we finally see the tour bus come!  Too late for us, but I assume the others had a great time.

We visited at the hospital with Dr. Tricia for a few minutes, and then she gave us a map to get to the restaurant she wanted to go to.  We had to wait for a bus for over twenty minutes!  That is rare here.  We ate some great food and had a good talk.  Another hard person to say good-bye to.  

We have been packing and cleaning and getting things ready to go.  We had two visitors that evening.  Jackson came over with a gift from his hometown for us.  It was two different bottles that had the painting on the inside.  Very pretty!