Day 258 – Fun at the In-Zone and the English Festival

We did laundry this morning and we had to hang around because the washer is not fixed yet.  I have to turn the water on for the washer to fill and turn it off when it is done filling or it floods the kitchen.  It goes through three cycles that I have to do that on, so for the 37 minutes that the washer is going, I have to be jumping up and down and listening for the times to turn the water on and off.

When the laundry was done and hung out to dry, we went to RT Mart for some groceries.  I needed to get some butter among other things. RT Mart was out of butter, so we stopped at In Zone, a store that is next door to RT Mart, to get it there.  It is a little more expensive there, but if that is where I can get it, I’ll pay what I have to.  They were having some special day there where they had some young people (they looked about 12-13) who were wearing special red sashes, and they were going throughout the store, helping at the cash register and helping bag groceries among other things.

As I was checking out, one of the boys said, “Hi” to me.  I said, “Hi” back.  He left and before I knew it, there was a group of seven or eight of them behind me!  They had come to say, “Hi.”  I turned around and after I said, “Hi,” they were just grinning from ear to ear!  I decided to ask them some things more in English, so I asked, “How are you?”  I said it slowly and they looked at each other for just a moment to digest what I had asked them and it was like the light went on in their heads all at the same time and they said, “Fine!  Thank you!”  Then I asked a few of them their names and I tried to repeat their names back to them.  The clerk was starting to want my attention at this time (interpreted as: I needed to pay for my groceries), so I turned back to the clerk.  One of the girls was taking pictures of me as I was talking to the group.  The looks of awe on their faces was just precious.  This is one of those times where I wished that I had stayed around a little longer and talked with them, but we didn’t.  One of the clerks at a counter was trying to say something to us, I think making a comment about the students, but we just don’t understand enough to know what it was. 

David had a nap and then started working on the scholarly paper that Wu Jun is trying to get published.  He was struggling pretty badly during the first part of it, trying to clean up the “Chinglish” and understanding what it was she is trying to say in some places, but he has it done now and he feels pretty good about it.  I was working on my lessons for the next week and also getting things planned for the last three weeks of classes.  Hard to believe that is all we have left to teach before we start doing finals!  Rachel also called to chat for a little while.

We left here at six to take the bus over to the Baotuquan campus.  I had been invited to be a judge at an English Competition.  I asked if David could come along and they made him a judge also.  Libby Clarke had been asked to be a judge, too, so we were all there together. 

This is one of the guards on the Baotuquan campus.  I guess he sings to the students occasionally and they asked him to sing at the beginning of the competition.  He did a good job and got a lot of applause.

In this competition, they have teams of two read a poem in English.  These poems were written by Chinese in English.  Some of the sentences didn’t quite make sense and some of the words were words that I had never heard before.  When the Chinese look for a word that matches what they want to say, it comes in a wide range of definitions; many that some of us have never heard before.  They did a pretty good job on pronunciation and you could understand most of the words.  We don’t know who won that one.

These two young men are performing what is called, "Cross Talk."  This was in Chinese, so we didn't understand a lot, but just by their actions and inflection in their voices, we were able to enjoy the performance.

This is David, from my 8 a.m. class getting ready to perform the percussion for the a capella choir.

This is the campus choir.  

The other part of the competition was singing in English.  We had to judge the students on how clearly they sang and if they put emotion and feeling into it.  After all the singers had performed, they asked David to get up and say a few words about all the singers.  How do you tactfully put that most of them could have used voice lessons?  He did a great job on what he said and didn’t offend anyone.  They announced the winners in Chinese, so I don’t know who won that one either, but Libby and I were asked to come on the stage and give out the awards to the students who performed. 

When the competition was over, they had several individuals perform songs and a choir sang.  The choir had several of my sophomore students in it.  They did a pretty good job singing an a capella song.   A boy from one of my classes was the “drum” sound.  We sure enjoyed listening to their song.

After the competition, we talked with Wayne and Libby Clarke for a little while.  Their son, Jonathan, is here in China for his work and he is visiting them.  We weren’t sure we could get a bus home, so we took a taxi.  It has been raining most of the day and the walk from the bus would have been pretty soggy.  We had a Mother’s Day video chat with Caleb, Bethany and Aleeyah before we went to bed.

Day 257 – Fun and Games

Today’s teaching went well.  After my classes were over, Faith walked with me to the canteen as we were to meet Eva there at the teacher restaurant.  When we finished lunch, we came back to the apartment and I worked on lessons and grades.

We met Clarke’s and Pace’s at the canteen for dinner also.  They are trying to use up their lunch credits, so we ordered a lot of food and then we brought some of it back here.  We stopped for ice cream at the International Student’s Office and then came here and played games and talked.  Fun evening!

Day 256 – Dinner with April, Greck and Fany

After David left to teach his class today, I had the chance to talk with Caleb first, then Alisa and then Seth and Carolyn (and Ruth!)  It’s getting harder to be away from the little ones that you just want to hold and smile at and watch them grow.

We had lunch here and then I worked on getting my class grades entered and brought up to date.  David helped correct the quizzes from this week, too.  It all takes time…  David also had games with his students in the canteen this afternoon.

For dinner, we met three of David’s students in at the teacher restaurant.  He had only invited two, Greck and April, but when one of the other students (Fany, a guy)) found out that David had invited April, he was determined to come along too.  Fany has a crush on April and took this opportunity to get to know her better.  We let them each order a dish and then we have a fine meal and enough people to eat it.  They were all three eager to talk with us and asked us questions, especially questions about marriage…

David had Alan here to tutor while I finished working on my students’ grades.  I am finally caught up with the grades, until I give another quiz tomorrow and have to put in more grades.  At least now, all the names and numbers have been entered and all the old scores are posted.

Day 255 – Tutoring Four Girls is Fun!

David and I both had our classes to teach this morning.  My classes went well and David’s did also.  We had lunch here and then took naps and worked on the computer.  I am trying to catch up from the time my computer was down and when I was in the hospital. 

We went to the teacher restaurant for dinner because I was so busy and I didn’t have time to make something.  I also had to get ready for my four little girls that I tutor.  I am having fun planning things.  I decided to do the song, “There’s a little white duck…”  I’m not sure they understood it all but they were doing pretty good with it by the time they left.  

Day 254 – David’s Haircut

My classes went well today.  I showed them the old movie, Johnny Lingo and talked about respect for others and marriage customs.  It went well.

David was able to have two of his class monitors, Cat and Sally, go with him to get his haircut.  We know that Zhao Feng Wei (the hair cutting woman) likes to talk while she cuts hair, but since we know so little Chinese, it is hard to have a conversation.  She appreciated having the girls there so that when she wanted to talk with David, they could interpret for her and for him. 

Cat and Sally, who helped David with his haircut.  Notice the yam balls on the plate?  YUM!

After David, Cat and Sally were done, they went to the teacher restaurant and waited for me to be done teaching so we could repay them by giving them lunch.  They were not very talkative at lunch, I think they were kind of shy, but they did get some practice in.

This afternoon, we both took naps and then I had school work to do.  Because I lost all the data on my students when I had my computer wiped for the Trojan virus, I had to start over again with entering all the names and student numbers and then catching up all the data that I could so I can give them a grade.  It is not fun and it is tedious, but it has to be done. 

We went to Yon Ho for supper, just to get out of the apartment for a while and then came back.  The wind has been blowing pretty hard all day and it is blowing the cotton around.  Makes it miserable to want to be outside.

Day 253 – Computers That Don’t Work are Frustrating!

Monday is my long day of teaching.  I was able to catch the bus I needed in good time and I made it to the campus early.  I arrived at the first class with extra time and so I was going to put the USB in the computer that I had received from my 10 a.m. class monitor last week (I was afraid to put it in my computer and pick up another virus…) and start viewing the student presentations that I had missed while I was in the hospital.  However, the boy who had videoed the presentations from this class had them on his iPhone, so I watched some of them instead of from the other class. 

The first part of the class went well with the presentations and then I showed them Cheaper by the Dozen for the second half.  While they were watching, I was able to finish evaluating the rest of the presentations that I had missed.

The second class had a lot of presentations to do so that we could catch up on them, and the computer in that class is the one that I had gotten the virus from on my computer.  It was doing all sorts of strange things and when the monitor, another student that is good with computers, and I couldn’t get the computer to cooperate, we asked for help from the building technology person.  He came and got it running, but we had to restart it again before all the students could do their presentations.

When I tried to show the movie for the second half of that class, the computer would not even recognize the DVD.  I finally asked the monitor if we could change rooms, so he found a room that was empty (except for a few of the students that use it to study in) and we watched part of the movie there.  It frustrates me so much because that computer has caused this class to not be able to get all the information that I need to give them when it won’t work properly.  We wasted a good twenty minutes of class today just because of that!

After the class was gone, I stayed there to view the presentations that were on the monitor’s USB.  When I had them all evaluated, I caught the bus for home.

When we finished lunch, I laid down for a short rest to get my legs up and then David and I went to RT Mart for groceries.  We were under time constraints because he was doing games in the canteen at four with his students, and it seemed like there were no bus No. 1’s coming along as often as we thought they would come.  We hurried through the store and then tried to hurry home, but again, bus 1 took a long time to get there.  David ran with the bags of groceries to the apartment and then hurried to the canteen and made it only a few minutes late.

We had dinner here and I worked on lessons for the week and tried to plan the lessons for the rest of the weeks.  I only have three more lesson times with the sophomores before we start two weeks of finals!

Day 252 – "Have to Work" Sunday

David and I got ready so we could teach our classes this morning.  Because the last holiday, China’s Labor Day, only had one day officially off, and then took Friday off, those of us that had Friday classes, had to teach today.  It is hard to miss Church, but this is life in China.  We were not alone in having to work though.

When we were done teaching, we hurried to catch the bus to the Hanlin Hotel so we could enjoy dinner with the rest of our group.  The Despain’s, who taught in Jinan last year, were here visiting for the holiday and so we had a good visit with them and of course enjoyed the usual Sunday dinner.  Wendy and Jim Purnell were able to get back from Canada about a half hour before Church started and Wendy made scones, among other things. YUM!

After a good visit, we headed back to the apartment.   Life has gotten so much easier since the bus route changed back to Shanda Road, next to the west side of Campus.  It only took us a half hour to get from our apartment to the Hanlin Hotel!  Life is good!