First days of traveling

Here is a blog I wrote the first days of traveling...

The last two days have been full of exercise. Once I finally got to my hostel (I took two flights and an overnight train) my students and I explored Lijiang. The hostel guy suggested a bike ride so off we went! We were planning to see an old town and some beautiful scenery by a lake. What he didn't tell us was that we would have to bike up a mountain! We ended up walking quite a ways with our bikes. We saw the town, but then missed our turn for the lake. By that time we were enjoying the downhill, and didn't want to turn back to find the lake.

Day two started off with an early bus ride to Tiger Leaping Gorge. Wow!! We hiked down 2000 meters walked around on the bottom for a while, then slowly, very slowly, made our way back up to the top. Along the way we had ladders to climb, rocks to maneuver over, bridges to cross, horse poop to avoids, and A LOT of stairs!  Even though I felt like death by the end, it was so worth it. The sights were amazing!!! We were down inside of a gorge and I was blown away by the beauty. 

After a short nap back at the hostel, I ventured out for a short walk alone. I loved walking around in china with amazing views alone.  I sang hymns out loud and marveled at the vastness of His creation.  I'm thankful I got this time to relax before heading into a busy year of teaching and studying.

Even as I think back on this area, I'm in love. It was such a great peaceful place to be. It's crazy that in this country of a billion people there are places where no one is to be found. I was alone and it was great!

Horses along the way. They want you to ride them up when your half dead. Great marketing strategy!

You couldn't take a bad picture!

A bridge along the path

They had these great rests spots along the way. Very helpful!

View from my hostel

LOVED this area. This bridge is called G-d River Bridge :)

Hard to see, but there is a milk cow in here

The menu at the hostel

This one's for my dad! It's another cow. This is their "barn"

Beautiful!!!

Willllburr!!!!

Remember the story of Charlotte's Web? One of my students has the name of Wilbur. I love yelling "Willlburrr!" in the remembrance of Charlotte's Web. (I think that happened in the story...)

Wilbur is one of the students I traveled with the past week. He made me laugh numerous times a day. Sometimes he tried, sometimes he didn't even know it. Here are some of the comments he made that make me roll my eyes and giggle inside (sometimes a little outside too)

Wilbur:I need a snap
Jess: nap
Wilbur: but there is no place for a snap
Jess: It's nap
Wilbur: I don't hear the difference
Jess: snap has an s in the front!
Wilbur: oh, it sounds the same

I took some pictures of the three of us…
Me: I'll put them on a usb and give them to you.
Wilbur : usb?
Zero: [translates]
Wilbur : ooh!! Usb, I don't know that. I only know USA

Quote of the day as we biked past some fields
Wilbur: what's this?
Jess: it's corn
Wilbur: Oh! I didn't know that.
I laughed inside on this one. I live in the middle of a corn field and here is this city boy who has never seen corn...

Wilbur: Do you want to play deck?
Jess: Deck?
Wilbur: Yeah, deck. Do you want to play?
Jess: What is deck?
Wilbur: You taught me that word yesterday!!
Jess: Oh, you mean cards?
Wilbur: I thought you said they are called deck.
Jess: Yes, they are a deck of cards.
Wilbur: Oh... I know (meaning, I got it)

I had to take a picture of him next to a corn field. :)

I loved his little sweater vest t-shirt he wore.

 

Another round of History and Culture tests!

Here are the gems my students wrote for my last History and Culture tests. Wow, they take a while to correct, but when I get things like this, it makes it worth it :)

1. Easter is a festival in memory with the rebirth of chris.

In acient Rome, Chris was betraded by his student Yoda, a Jewish, and captured by the Rome soiders, who nailed Chris on the cross then. People hided the body of Jesus in a cave. Three days after, people found that the Jes-s body had gone, which indicates the rebirth of Jes-s. Gradually, the E-ster became a holiday of celebrating the advent of spring and the return of good things.

2. Chr.stmas: Long time ago, a child’s grandpa usually send gifts to other children, after the grandpa died, the boy always wanted to find where his grandpa was. And he left the town, before the December 25^th, an old man rode a track, and many presents with him, the old man took the boy and sent children gifts. Then the second day, just December 25^th became the new day, people called Chr.istmas.

3. In Christmas, every family will decorate a tree with different things to make it more bueatiful which called Satan tree…

4. GCSE- correct answer-General Certificate of Secondary Education- given answer-Geographic Classic Selective Emotion. I told them if they didn't know the answer to guess, that they might guess correctly, this was a poor guess :)

Oh the horror! You asked for what?!

Here is a text message conversation I recently had with one of my students...

7:25pm Me: Can I have your email address??

7:26pm Student: My horror. celia****@sina.com

8:03pm Student: Sorry! I just wanted to say it is my honor.

8:04pm Me: Yeah, I figured :)

I didn't realize that asking for an email address would cause such a reaction. :)

A Long Day

Tuesdays are a bit of a long day. I can't really complain because I only work three days a week (two of which are half days). However, today is a bit of a marathon. I have 8 hours of teaching on Tuesdays. 8-12 and 2-6. Thankfully, I have 2 hours off for lunch. That means I get to grab some street food (no cold lunches for me, few people pack a lunch here, it's super super convenient and cheap to eat outside) and then take a nap. I am very serious about my naps. There is a couch in our teachers' lounge. There is only one cushion, so most people don't sit on it, but sleeping works well. I don't trust the cushion (I'm sure it's never been washed) so I bring my own "pillow case" This pillow case is just a hand towel- small yet big enough. I also bring a blanket. So every Tuesday at about 12:30 I curl up on the couch for my hour long nap... it's glorious!

Today, and the next four weeks, we have a special activity after school. There is a speech contest and, since the speeches are in English, they ask the English teachers to judge them. That means that after supper, from 7-9, I got to listen to speeches and score them. They are ten minutes long and it's the strangest thing... the audience doesn't really listen to them. I'm not real sure why they are even there. There is so much talking going on that as a judge I got distracted. Even with the talking, it was interesting. These were the topics... Ernest Hemingway, the negative effects of mass  media, psychoanalysis, Gangnam style (it's a song), Mark Zuckerberg (or something), and Mass media and the truth. A variety of topics.

I have at least three more of those judging nights to go...

First Week

It's Saturday afternoon and I just finished my first week of teaching. This year I teach Monday afternoons, Tuesday morning and afternoon, and Saturday mornings. I don't really enjoy having to get up Saturday morning for school, but it's nice that it gives me a three day weekend during the week.

Even though I don't teach little kids anymore, there are still times that funny things happen in class. My first funny happened when I was reading their reflections about their English level.

• I put Brownsville on the board, but not my name. My name was on the powerpoint. One of my students wrote in their paper to me, "Dear Browsnville, I hope you can ask me more questions..." Oh how silly she must have felt when we played a name game and she found out my name was Jessica :)
• Next thing happened today. I had "Chicken" on my powerpoint and I asked what a Chicken was. One of the boys yelled out, "it's a place where you prepare food". Hahaha! "No, that's a kitchen. This is a little different."
• Finally, towards the end of class I was walking to the back of the room and a boy put his hand to his mouth and started whispering something to me. I didn't quite get it, so he said it again, "Nature's calling" I said, "ok, go ahead" and he got up and ran out. Oh... the things that may happen this year :)

A little taste...

This week I am finishing up my History and Culture of the UK class. To end, I wrote a 2 1/2 hour test to give to my lovely students. Now, I get to grade that test. :) I'm traveling this weekend, so I'll be bringing those little buggers with me. Since I started marking these tests the other day, I can share some of the fun things I get to read...
1. Christmas is about the death of Jesus.
2. Christmas is when people welcome in the New Year and put presents in socks.
3. (My fav) Christmas is the birth of Genius. (Well... Genius and Jes-s do sort of sound alike...)

That's all for now. I'll give you some more when I get them all graded!

One of a kind

My student, Ocean (it's not as weird name once you teach him all semester) invited me to see a band with him and some other students. At first I said "no" because it was 100rmb, which is about $15. Quite a lot for China. However, I was rethinking, it seemed like a fun group that was going, and the singer seemed good too. Tamas Wells, check him out. He's from Australia. Nice, low paced music.

Well... on to the story. So, we went, they got me a student ID card (I was a Chinese tonight) so my ticket was cheaper.I went with a friend, so I didn't feel too bad hanging out with a bunch of kids 7 years younger than me. However, she is 4 years younger than me, so that's not much of a difference. But she seems much much older...

I know... get on with the story... My friend, students, and I listened to the mostly slow paced, good songs for about an hour. Then, for the last song Tamas said he needs some help with this one. That he needs 8 people to come on the stage. Well, I decided this is a great opportunity for me! So, I put my hand up real high (not hard when most people around you are the same height and shorter). Then I heard my students yell my name from the front right corner of the stage. I go over by them and Tamas catches my eye... he nodded and smiled! I'm going on stage! They did a beach boys song "Do you Wanna Dance". The 8 of us were the dancers in the back. My students recorded it all. In fact, I think more than one of them did! It was quite fun. Was a bit surprised I did it, but, being the ONLY foreigner in the place, I had extra pump of courage. That's right, as I looked around all night, The band and I were the only people not of Asian decent.

Afterwards my students wanted some autographs, so I stuck around with them and took a taxi back. Overall, a fun night. Glad I went and hey, I found a new band I like! Check out Tamas Wells online.

p.s. I forgot my camera this day, so I don't even have a single picture. :(