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Published: March 5th 2006
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Morning Exercises
View from the Roof. School
I’ve been at school for three weeks now. I get up at six to be at school by seven. I’m one of the lucky ones though, my host father drives my host sister and I to school each morning. Everyone else in my group has to get up even earlier and ride their bicycles.
School starts at 7:20am. For the first ten minuets something mellow happens, I don’t really understand what it is and it is different everyday. Sometimes the students take a test for a class they miss that day. After that short bit of time we head outside for morning exercises.
Now when they say morning ‘exercises’ don’t be fooled. We’re not out there doing pushups, crunches, or running laps. We’re marching. Well, not only marching, but the whole affair is defiantly militaristic. It was really boring the first week, when we just stood while they talked, and then did something silly like flapping your arms up and down or twisting side to side. The squats were real exercise though…
The second week the ‘fun’ began. I really like it now, but I’m a rare mind-set. Now we get to ‘dance’/march to music. It’s
Art
This week we got to take some fun classes too, one of them was art. very much like parade music, which makes sense because of the marching, but it has counting in the background. I’ve never heard such mind catching counting in my life. It goes ‘yi er san si wu liu qi, er er san si wu liu qi, san er san si wu liu qi’ ect. Which translates to ‘1 2 3 4 5 6 7, 2 2 3 4 5 6 7, 3 2 3 4 5 6 7’ It is the most catchy thing ever. The seemingly ‘random’ movements we had been doing the first week were the break down of this choreographed dance number that takes place every morning. I think it is a lot of fun, especially because I have no idea what I’m doing and end up making a fool of myself. I stand with my fellow travelers and we all look really silly, in an awesome sort of way.
We also have to wear uniforms to school. Now, being an otaku when you say school uniform to me the image that comes to mind are the cute sailor fuku’s from Japan. These are not ‘cute’ in any sense of the word. These are perhaps the most
un-flattering school uniforms I’ve ever seen. They make even the best proportioned individual look completely ‘unfortunate’. You aren’t allowed to wear earrings or have your hair in anything but a pony tail. In the U.S. I actually wouldn’t mind if my school had a uniform or a dress code, because it wouldn’t be like this. I’m not even someone who wears that great of stuff, I mean… have you seen me? But this is really unfortunate.
There are more than 40 kids in every classroom. It really makes you think about how lucky we are in America. Anyone who says they’re bored in class, should come here for a day and then sit down and deal. The whole learning experience is so different. There is little individualism amongst the students. Some teachers don’t even know the kid’s names, only referring to them as ‘boy’ or ‘girl’. I wish I could understand more Chinese, and though I am learning more every day, I’m still nowhere close to understanding anything in any of my classes. My stepmother put it really well, she’s a language teacher in the U.S., she says that if you are at the language level n+1 and you
Robots
Some little robots we found caged up in the computer room. Why are they there? Is the one with the red thing their leader? are surrounded by n+2 or 3 you can learn something, but if you are surrounded by n+34 it’s all noise. My classes are all noise. It’s okay, I’m getting a lot of good things done in class, such as the comic book I have due in a few months, and a lot of books I brought with me. When I’m not productive we play Sudoku, and the boys teach me how to use a rubix cube, which is all math, right ^.~
It’s also neat to watch the class dynamic. Many students have cell phones, food, or other distractions under their desks to play/munch on when the teacher isn’t looking. And sense the teacher stays in the front and there are so many students, it’s pretty easy for them to get away with a lot. It’s also fun watching the kids. There is a definite personality to my class. There’s Hans, who actually stayed with me for a weekend. He is quite the character, he will never be seen without his green coat. He jokes around in class, but is so smart that the teachers let him get away with it. He also barely moves during morning exercises, if
Unrecycleing
The trashcans around the school say either 'Recyceling' or 'Unrecycleing' Awesome. he isn’t skipping them all together. Another kid worth mentioning is ‘Yakuza’ or ‘Yakuza Li’. This kid owns the class. He is defiantly in the mafia, before we knew his name we called him Yakusa (We couldn’t think of the name for the Chinese Mafia, Triad???)now that we know his name is Li, we call him Yakusa Li. It’s how we keep ourselves sane.
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marilyn
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heh~ Hans and the robot leader. omg. No cute sailor outfit for you! It looks like a gym uniform gone wrong. Like..an old man leisure suit. I'm sorry~ The counting system totally reminds me of how we used to count rests in orchestra :O *randomly* I'm glad to hear you're having fun :D! Do you take all of your classes with the other exchange students? or are you guys all split up? *hugs*