Old fake tree. Not enough branches or tinsel. No decorations. The star is too heavy. But we got a Christmas tree!Ni Hao everyone. I hope you're all doing well as Christmas nears!
Everything is still rolling here in Wuhan. It's cooling down, but it has been a mild winter so far. There was one week of very cold weather with a little snow, but it's been in the 40's for the most part. I've been extremely happy with that since the outdoors temperature usually matches my apartment's temperature!
Last week, Dominic (our boss), along with some Chinese English teachers, sat in on one lesson from each foreign teacher. I think we were all a little nervous, but not too much. My lesson didn't go nearly as well as I was hoping. All week I had been needing to hurry to get through everything in time. For my demo lesson, I wanted to make sure to get it all in. I ended up hurrying through it too fast and having more time than I wanted for the last part! I was a little frustrated with myself for that. The good part was that the lesson was on William Tyndale, the man who translated the Word into English. Rebecca and I were able to talk about that with all our Senior 1 students. The next Monday, Dominic came to our weekly teachers' meeting to talk about our performance. He didn't go into specifics for each person, but he said he was very pleased with all of us. We're all pretty young, so I know he was nervous about us being unprepared and unprofessional. As the head teacher, I somewhat oversee all of us, so I was very happy to hear that. I'm glad we're making a good impression with the school's staff.
I've been surprised with a few gifts over the past few days. We usually go to two places almost every day. One is a restaurant down the street. The other is a small store right next to it where we pick up snacks and drinks. Zhen Zhen is a teenage girl who works at the store. The other day, I was buying a Snickers bar when Zhen Zhen ran to the back of the store and brought out 4 pictures she had drawn. At first, I thought she wanted me to buy them. Then I realized that she was giving them to me as a gift. One each for me, Kirk, Daniel, and Rebecca. While she scans our items, we always talk to her in English and help her practice it. Her family does not have enough money for her to go to school, so she was giving us the pictures as thanks for helping her with English. I thought that was pretty cool. Sometimes I think people have their biggest influence on people they don't even realizing they're influencing! One of my students also gave me a Christmas card with a nice note and a small decoration.
Other than that, a lot of the same. The Father has opened up opportunities to talk about Him. At Mr. Mai's, students may hear I am a C and just ask me about Him since they haven't really heard anything about this growing up.
Last night, we had a Christmas tree decorating party which we all enjoyed. We decorated our Charlie-Brown fake tree with some lights and not enough tinsel and then watched "Jingle All the Way." Daniel bought a DVD with 20 Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, so we had to watch the Christmas one this month!
