Kids n Doctors n Colds, oh my!

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Well I've had some colds in Australia, and I've had some which just don't go away for at least a week but this sucker i have now should definitely should be re-named klingon! It just will not die. I must admit it may have something to do with the fact i have a kindy kids class twice a week where i get up close and personal with some tiny mucus production plants. One especially is just a ball of energy and oozes liquids everywhere. He is a great kid and i would not trade places for anything. We had a bit of a bad session last week and i saw an angry Chinese mother at work. Blue is his name and he did not want to do any English learning this session! That was self evident. I saw just how much the parents of the next generation are pressuring the kids to perform. We have written previously about these pressures but i have never seen it apart from what we get told by the teachers we work with and they down play it a lot.

We have moved up market! Wow there is a big difference to where we used to live. this place is huge and tidy and...and ...and i just love it to bits! A new and improved WiFi internet connection for both of us at home. Lynne especially loved this. Now i can sit down in front of tele and watch the latest pirated movies on channel 89 and do my homework too.

I have found it hard to remember all the old nursery rhymes and the games i played. So i have to come up with some newbies. One i tried to day...well i call it bum crawling...you know where you sit on the ground with your legs straight out in front of you and walk on your bum. We had a couple of races and they loved it, we sing some songs too, "i'm a little tea pot" "Little Peter rabbit" etc... I spend hours on the net searching for stuff i learnt when i was 3yrs old and all the actions to go with it. If you read this and you have any suggestions let me know PLEASE! Peter rabbit gets old after a while and nobody likes stale rabbit. Time is going so quickly here we cram a huge weekend of work, sleep, get up on Monday and start preparing for our kindy classes on Wednesday and Thursday. We finally met another teacher, from America, and we are going out Friday for dinner with her and some others. It is official there are about 5 million in Tai'an City and from what we gather there about 8 or so English teachers so that makes it a great ratio or depending on your point of view bad ratio.

Card games are big.....well ALL games for that fact. Lynne has a doosie she uses in her advanced classes which gets the kids really riled up. Steal, switch or bust, as the name suggests you steal points etc, etc, the kids get very upset when all the points they have made get stolen or switched. Anyway, if you go for a walk on any given weekend you will see many groups of people sitting around a small table and playing a very passionate game of cards with onlookers to boot.

Oh! I forgot we took Lynne to the doctors (don't panic as i mentioned above we both have nagging colds) Lynne likes to make sure that it didn't get out of control so through an interpreter we visited a Chinese hospital. This story begins with a short bus trip and we enter the premises of the central hospital, we approach the payment area and pay for our visit, then mosey on up to the third floor and sit for a while as the doctors are out to lunch until 2pm. The doctor arrives and in an orderly fashion...NOT! between 3 and 10 people walk into his examination room at once, our guide for the day is as pushy as the rest so she enters and summons Lynne. Now paint this picture in your head. Lynne, in a room full of Chinese, a doctor, paint peeling from the walls, a dim light source, and as i watch each person standing in the room pushes an appointment slip towards the doctor trying to get in first. Kiki, our translator for the day, pushes as much as the rest. Lynne does the best she can to describe to our translator about her sinus cavities and the way she feels. The doctor listens to the translation and takes Lynne's temperature.......time goes buy.......and Lynne is given a prescription for some Robotussin and antibiotics. Now standing in a room with 10 Chinese people discussing Lynne's illness was amusing for me but of course not for Lynne. It was a stressful visit and i hope we won't have to do it again soon.

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