Blogs from Liaoning, China, Asia - page 23

Life around Maple Leaf International School is quite exciting and intriguing. Our school, with a student population of over 2400 with over 200 teachers, Chinese and Canadian, is located near the bay with sandy beaches stretching for a number of km. About 1 km from the school is the Discovery Theme Park which is gigantic. Loaded with rides and shows, it was drawing in huge numbers of families over the summer and only closed in October. We enjoyed the rides and a lovley Thanksgiving dinner back in October. Our school is beside a six lane highway that goes from Majitan( what used to be a relatively small community) to the beach. And I live in the teacher apartments, just across from the school which is quite large and surrounded by fences. When I was here three ... read more

Some random topics that don’t necessarily fit into a blog of their own…. Several people commented on the washing machine stories. I thought I would include a picture of the facility. My streak of washing machine events without a problem was cut short at one. Carrying the machine into the bathroom (I don’t like to wheel it on the hardwood floors) I managed to knock the drain hose out of its clip and it leaked all over the floor. When I clipped the intake hose onto the sink tap I obviously didn’t secure it properly because when I turned on the tap, the pressure blew the hose off the tap and the water hit the bottom of the sink and ricocheted all over me and the bathroom! You can’t buy fun like that! The next few ... read more

It's been a while since I've written, and the reason for this is due to the frenetic pace of the classes (and marking) that we've had as of late. The classes are starting to feel more comfortable to me (despite the stress of the end of term and first report cards looming). I've finished teaching one full term of art and drama and now the kids in each respective section switch to whichever course (art or drama) that they haven't had and I teach the whole thing over again until next semester when I get a whole new group of kids. I'll be sad when I'm finished teaching (some of) these kids! We had the halloween dance party for the students last night. I hadn't been expecting much (the kids had sounded somewhat uncertain about it ... read more

This rather belated entry in the blog describes our first foray into the Chinese countryside away from the school. The entry was delayed partly because I have had more than a few problems since my PC packed it in, the most recent being trouble moving files around on a PC running Vista. Sigh… The Chinese wife of one of the teachers runs a travel agency, massage centre and computer repair shop (sounds like something out of M*A*S*H). She organized a weekend bus trip to PanJin about two hours north of here. Twenty or so hardy souls loaded onto the bus early Saturday morning and headed off. As this was our first trip, even a stop at a roadside service centre seemed like an adventure. Figuring out how to access the washrooms (“You’ve got to love the ... read more

*I just need to make a note that I am aware in the original blog I wrote "tears" where I meant to write “tiers.” I had jetlag, and I only noticed this horrific faux-pas the day following its posting. The school year has started and the students (in their green and gold uniforms) are swarming the grounds. My teaching schedule is pretty fantastic, what with all the art and the drama classes, and the unbelievably supportive department behind me, handing me resources to help make things run more smoothly. I’m enjoying the students with their names like Reacherson, Dracula (for a girl), Dream, Zero, and Funny. I have approximately 30 students in each class, however, so learning their names (particularly in drama where they are constantly shifting around) has been a bit tricky. The classes for ... read more