Short Notices

Five minutes before I left to teach ELE, I answered the phone and found out that this week would be our last week of ELE. This is just one example out of many of the Chinese and their short notices (other examples include us getting five minutes notice before moving TWO times). So naturally we were all pretty sad, except one girl who cheered, but not only was it the last day but we had to orally test each student. Talk about hating your teacher on the last day. I'm super sad that I didn't get any time to give them a little party for how far they've come. They all tested really well, and I even found out a few are really smart, they just act dumb. Jim and Henry said they were going to cry, since i'm leaving ha I highly doubt that. I'm really going to miss them.

In ELE today I asked a girl where Tina was and she said "her grandpa" and then pointed up. I kind of thought heaven...but wasn't too sure what the Chinese view on afterlife was so I told them I didn't understand. So Tom thoughtfully over-dramatized a heart attack and fell to the floor and then Leo flapped his arms (like an Angel i'm assuming) and then Linda pointed up. So I did the universal sign of death (slitting your throat) and they screamed yes! By this point the whole class was laughing and then I realized how terrible the whole situation was...whoops

A Monday

Today Caitlin was doing rotations and informed me that she killed a spider as big as her hand in the kitchen classroom. So far I haven't been too shocked with the bugs here, there are these flying beetles that scare me, but when I saw this dead spider I wanted to cry. I know that seems dramatic, and it is, BUT this thing was harry and the size of your hand. Not normal. The day just kept going up hill when I was riding one of the girls bikes and ran over a wire and heard all the air immediately leave the tire. Me and Nicole and three Ayi's laughed so hard and then I had to walk it down the street to a mechanic where we said "whoooooosh" and pointed to the tire. He promptly fixed the hole and the tire while a whole group gathered and we were just laughing. Then the man wouldn't let me give him any money. Sweetest man ever.

Good News

     Today one of the kids tied, not 1 but 3 knots in a scarf very tightly around his neck. I noticed when he began pulling the two as hard as he could, not realizing that this was only tightening the knots...so before he became hysterical I ran Home (that's his name) to a different teacher who had long nails. Maybe that's why the Chinese all have one extremely long nail, you never know when it will come in handy.
    In other good news, one of the teachers thought it would be a good idea to tell the kids we are going back to America on the 26th. They all came in crying "no teacha you no go to America" and I tried to explain that I missed my family, but they said "we will miss you!" These next two weeks are going to be hard. Good thing it's Children's Day tomorrow so they will most likely forget about us leaving for a few days.

An (un)successful teaching day

Today I looked over and saw one of the kindergartners with a chair in his hands going to throw it at one of the boys, who was guarded behind one of the girls (real manly men over here). So I took off running and grabbed the chair from his hands and got one of my other students to yell at him in Chinese. For some reason even if the person yelling is only three years older, the kids listen and stay in line, better than if I, their teacher, yell at them. But if I try and speak Chinese it breaks the number one rule of "English Only," That is assuming I could say anything other than rice or tomorrow in Chinese. All this was happening while another little girl, Oprah, tripped herself and would not stop crying for 15 minutes. Let's just say today wasn't my most successful lesson. Oh well there's always tomorrow, and that's the good thing about kids, they let things go so easily, the next day they are just as happy to see you and forget if you got angry with them the day before.

An Extra

So there is this girl we've named "Homeless Tina." She seems to just show up everywhere we are and kisses my arms and my belly (why you ask? I still haven't figured that one out yet). Well today I was just minding my own business teaching my last rotation when in the middle of playing follow the leader, I realized there was an extra student in there. You guessed it. Homeless Tina. So I tried telling her to leave, and then I let Sara tell tell her in Chinese to leave and after a while she just wasn't leaving so I see Jack and Danny each with one of her legs in their hands sliding her out the door. I didn't know whether to laugh or yell...I'm kind of one of those terrible teachers that think the class clowns are funny. She then went to a different teachers class to play-where was she supposed to be?

Three Weeks Left

So I can't figure out this whole picture deal, but I promise to overload this blog with pictures once i'm home. It will be a nice flashback for me, so we both win. I am done teaching in three weeks, I honestly never thought this point in time would come, yet I can still feel the feelings I felt as I stepped off the plane in Shanghai. Time has honestly flown by, just as everyone has said it would. I have grown to absolutely love the Chinese people and their culture, and i'm so excited that I get to take my family around so they can experience it too. Theirs will be a bite sized version while mine was a mouth full. I just love the kids and how far they have come. Like today I we ate blindfolded kids eyes and ate M & Ms and said if we thought they were the same or different color, and somehow we got on the topic of underwear and I told them one of the ILP third graders pulled his pants down and so Henry (my favorite) asked his name and went and found him and yelled at him in Chinese and said teacher "he won't do it again." Things like this just keep me laughing every day. Or when in Nicole's ELE class today one kid decided to play dentist and pulled out two kids teeth, when they were not ready to come out so they had blood dripping down their mouths. I wondered what her lesson was on today as I saw the kids come out of class...It just seems hard to think i'm never going to see these kids again, sometimes I just think about what they are going to grow up to be and where they will be in life. I'm pretty sure they are going to be awesome people.