Home!

Daniel at Cory and Lara's party

Cory, Lara, and I. We both wore the same shirt on accident. It says "I hear you, but I don't understand" in Chinese!

Annie, me, and Patrick at Mr. Mai's.

Mr. Meng

Suzanne, a waitress at the Aloha Diner. She will be moving away this summer.

The teachers in my office. Mr. Zhou, Jane, me, and Teacher Wu.

Hey everyone! I made it home Tuesday morning at about 7am after a 30-some hour trip. I probably wouldn't have made it home in time if it wasn't for my friend Joe, who works for Delta Airlines. Kirk and I flew Delta from Los Angeles to Detroit, but our first two flights in China were on a Chinese airline. That airline messed up our baggage, and our flights were delayed. With those together, we had hardly any time to make our last flight. Fortunately, we had planned to hang out with Joe during our LA layover. Instead of hanging out, Joe spent the time helping us out. We were the last two on the plane before they closed the gate! Thanks a lot, Joe!

The last two weeks of my time in China were basically spent saying a lot of goodbyes. To my students, to teachers, to friends, to the other foreign teachers. It was nice to have our last week off which gave us more time to visit with so many people. Next school year will be the first time we will have lost some of our teammates. The first year, there were 5 of us (me, Kirk, Daniel, Cory, and Rebecca). This year we just added Mandi. Next year, Cory and Daniel will stay in California. We'll have two new teammates. It'll be really strange to not have them with us next year!

A lot happened these past few weeks, but here's a quick list along with some pictures above.

- I went to a goodbye party for Cory and Lara (Lara is his Chinese wife). They will stay in America and get their Master's degrees.

- We said goodbye to a lot of friends at Mr. Mai's. One of my closest Chinese friends (Patrick) is moving to Nanjing, a city close to Shanghai. Hopefully, we'll be able to see him a few times next year.

- One of the math teachers whose office is near mine had a goodbye lunch for me and the other teachers. Mr. Meng is a hilarious teacher who can't speak English very well, but he loves talking and teaching me Chinese!

- Rebecca, Mandi, and I went to dinner and had a very interesting conversation with a teacher at our school. This teacher is a member of a religion that is REALLY looked down upon in China (so much so that I can't even mention it on here). I'm glad I was finally able to learn more about this religion, as well as us share what we believe with her.

- Cory and Lara left a little too early for us to make one for them, but the other foreign teachers and I made a goodbye video for Daniel. It had a lot of interviews, funny skits, songs, etc. It was fun to make, but hard to hide it from Daniel while we made it!

- One of my students gave me a really cool gift before I left. She kept a record/journal of every lesson I taught their class along with some other things I did for the school! I know it was a lot of work for her, and I really appreciated it. It's something I'll be able to look back upon and remember this year.

- Wuhan had some flooding our last days there. So much so, that we had to walk home instead of take the bus one day. We had to walk in water that was knee-high for quite awhile. We also had to walk on a train bridge to avoid waist-high water. While we were on it, we were pretty close to getting run over! It was pretty crazy, but lots of fun too!

Well, I guess that's everything for now. I probably won't update this blog too much (if at all) over the summer, but it'll continue for Year 3 in August/September! I'm hoping to see as many of you as possible while I'm home! Have a great summer!

Finishing up

G

Grade 2 Class 22 on the last day of class. Just one of my 11 classes!

Hanging out with my students (Kevin, Isaac, and Wendy) over the holiday weekend.

At a smoothie shop with our Chinese friends (Douglas, Coral, and Lily). We convinced the worker to let us behind the counter for the picture!

Hey everyone. The end of the school year is just about here. This is my last week of teaching. Since it’s the last lesson, I’ve just been watching a movie or doing a campus-wide scavenger hunt. The students love doing something so out of the ordinary.

It’s been harder than I thought to say goodbye to most of my classes. Almost all of my students have been with me for two years. When I think about my job, they’re the first ones that come to mind. They’ll still be at school next year. However, I won’t be teaching them because they will move onto their senior year. As I’ve mentioned before, your senior year in China is basically a year-long review/study session for the GAOKAO exam, which determines what college they’ll attend. Their grades throughout their high school career basically don’t matter. It’s all about this one exam! They already feel a ton of pressure. I know I’ll see them around the school, but it’ll be strange to not see them every day and know that they’ll be incredibly stressed.

Quite a few of the students have been giving me letters and notes to thank me for teaching them which has choked me up a few times!

Last week was a small Chinese holiday, so I had a couple days off. I was able to go to a movie (Kung Fu Panda 2) with three of my students. The movie was really funny, and it was great to see them in a more relaxed environment. I was also able to go to chrch (the gvt allowed one) with another student for a second time.

Another friend (Coral) who we got to know well last year at Mr. Mai’s visited us. She moved to Beijing this year, so we hadn’t seen her in awhile. It’s weird to be living in China and having friends move away from me!

Other than that, not a lot of new stuff has happened. I cleaned my room like crazy over the holiday. I’m hoping this will help prevent mold (which is really common in our rooms) when I return in the fall. It’s also nice to have a clean room for a little while before the dirty Chinese air fills it with dust after a week!

We just judged a small English singing competition for our students. As usual, they asked us to perform at the last second. Daniel, Kirk, and I sang Beyonce’s “Halo” with our falsetto voices as best we could! I’ll post a video if I ever get a hold of one.

That’s all for now. 13 more days…

Pressure's on!

Teaching Class 26 during my open lesson

I have about a month left for this school year. It's still surreal that another year is ending, and I'll be saying goodbye to hundreds of students that I've taught, most of them for two years. Fortunately, they'll still be around for their senior year getting ready for the Gao Kao exam (think ACT/SAT with a LOT more pressure) even though I won't be teaching them. I think it's kind of cool that I'll be able to watch this group throughout their whole high school career.

Last week, I had an open lesson. Basically, this is when a bunch of the school's Chinese English teachers come to my lesson to take notes and pick up ideas for their classes. We've built good relationships with many of the teachers. Because of that, I wasn't extremely nervous. However, this is pretty much the only class where Chinese teachers will sit in on any of our classes the whole year. Plus, there are only two teachers who do them (Rebecca also did one). With that in mind, I felt a little bit of pressure to have a great class. If either of our classes didn't go well, it would reflect on our whole group. Another thing that adds pressure with open lessons, is that to the Chinese teachers, this lesson isn't a real lesson. It's more of a performance. Many Chinese teachers even practice their open lessons with their class beforehand! It's a pet peeve of mine. How are teachers supposed to learn how to teach a normal class when they're not watching one!!?? With our schedules, we can't "practice," so I had no idea how Class 26 would handle the pressure.

However, the lesson went really well! The textbook's unit was on cloning, so we talked about debating, then ended class with a short debate. I think students usually know that performing well makes their teacher look good. I purposely picked one of my better classes. They have good English, and I knew they would want me to look good (gain face), and they helped me out a lot! I have a few pictures from that lesson above.

This past weekend, the entire Zhong Relations team (about 17 people) went to some hot springs (a Chinese spa/swimming pool area) for our end of the year get together. We had a great time swimming, relaxing, and worshiping. It's always nice to hear about everyone's year and say goodbye to many of those who are going back to America for good. Hopefully I'll get a picture of everybody up on here soon. I forgot my camera, so I have to get it from someone else.

Now that the weather's been warming up, our group has been more motivated to get in shape. We've been doing a P90X (a famous DVD program) workout together once or twice a week, and those of us who are returning joined a gym nearby. Maybe I'll be add some muscle over time and weigh more than 130 pounds for once in my life!

Other than that, not a lot else is going on here that I can talk about. There are definitely some other things that I would like to share, but they'll have to wait until I get back to America. As I've said many times, it's been great to have quite a few opportunities to share my faith this year.

You can also be "thinking" of our end of the year craziness that we have to get figured out (visas, contracts for next year, etc). Last year, we almost didn't get our visas renewed in time thanks to an obscure rule about the type of pen you fill out forms with! I think we're more prepared this year, but you never know in China.

That's all for now! I'll be back in a month!