Milady605

My fourth year at Wuchang Experimental Primary school is coming to a close. At the moment I’m in the midst of yet another explosion of marking doom (as seems to be the story of my life this year in particular!). Nonetheless, I’m glad to be signing on for another year, and that I don’t have to say goodbye to my students, even if I’ll have to say a lot of other goodbyes this year. Quite a few teachers who have worked at the school for multiple years are on their way home, and in particular I’ll miss Dina and Shane. I’m sitting right now at a Costa Coffee at a new, very Western style shopping center that popped up about a twenty minute walk from my school this year. It’s amazing how much Wuhan has changed. ... read more

The school year has started out more or less as usual. There are many new teachers. This year it seems as if we’ll have a primarily British workforce, though there are two new Americans and a new Canadian as well. I think there are also more people coming. The rumors of new apartments for this year proved to be false, but some of the apartments got very nice new furniture. Mine wasn’t one of them, but I defy anyone to successfully move any sort of large item in or out of here. I have too much stuff, and every drawer and cabinet is full. They did give me new bedding. This year I’ll be keeping all of my grade three students as grade four students. This will be my third time teaching grade four. I’m becoming ... read more

Just a quick note here. I will be flying to America on the 8th of July and staying until the 16th of August. Yes, I am actually 100 percent coming this time. The tickets are bought and everything. Another semester has been wrapped up in Wuhan. Everything is going well, and it's time for the usual flurry of goodbyes as some teachers go home or switch to schools in other cities. I had to let my current grade four students know that I wouldn't be teaching them next year in grade five, after having taught them for two years. That was a bit sad, and I know whoever has their class next year will be very lucky. They're a pretty amazing group of kids. The official word is that I'll be teaching -all- of next years ... read more

It's been a fun day today. My friends and I got invited to be guests at a restaurant opening. It was Brazillian BBQ. We got tons of free food and wine, a manicure set, and were generally made much of for the whole of the morning. We also met the boss of the establishment, and had tons of pictures taken of us. There were people dancing in skirts made out of plastic fruit. The place is quite near my school, and we got invited because I frequent a coffee shop owned by the same person. Also, because the owner wanted westerners at the opening of his western restaurant, and my friends and I fit the bill. Other than that? Well, my birthday was at the beginning of the month. Alas, it was right after I came ... read more

Last time I talked to my mom on the phone, she pointed out that I never posted here, to which I pointed out that lately I’ve just been going about a daily routine for the most part. It’s all great fun, but after nearly three years here, I’m at the point where Wuhan just seems like the place where I live. Not terribly exotic. Anyway, I told my mother I’d post something about a typical day here, and so I’ll do that. I’m a huge morning person, so usually I get up at five or six AM. At that time I get dressed, and take a yogurt out of my fridge. I mix in some cereal (it’s possible to buy cereal in Wuhan, but I can’t get used to the milk here. It’s disgusting. Hence using ... read more

In the past I’ve made passing mentions, in this blog, about attending Keats School in Kunming, in order to learn Mandarin Chinese. And, occasionally I’ve received private messages asking me about my experiences there. I absolutely adore messages and comments on anything I write (one of the reasons I blog instead of just getting a paper diary is because the interactive nature of blogging makes it so much more fun). However, I’ll admit that I’m much better at happily reading e-mails than I am at replying to them. Therefore, I think it makes sense to write a review of that (and maybe some of the other things I get questions about, like TEFL international, if I ever get motivated to do so). I’ve attended Keats School three times thus far. I went for two weeks during ... read more

First post of this school year! How lazy of me. I don't know if I mentioned it, but this year I'm teaching grades three and four. They are all grades that I've taught before, as well as children that I've taught before. It's been fun so far. I'm also taking six hours a week of Chinese lessons, and starting to learn character reading and writing. This past week was parents week, which means that the mothers and fathers of the children could come to the school to watch our classes. That meant a bit of extra stress, in terms of making everything especially shiny, but things are back to the normal routine now. I won teacher of the year at my school, which meant going to a ceremony where they gave me a plaque. So, now ... read more

I talked to my boss yesterday, and it looks like I will be doing a third year at my school in Wuhan. I'm quite happy about this. I've made friends here who I'm not quite ready to part with, and I'm honestly very attached to my little apartment here. The job can be difficult at times, but I love it. It has a stronger effect on me than any other job I've had in my life. I feel terrible on days when I don't think my classes have gone well, and elated on days when they do. However, even on the worst days, I know that there is no career that I could ever enjoy more than teaching. I like having work where I get to be creative, and do things that I thought could never ... read more

I’ve been on vacation now since the twenty-third of February. I started out with ten days in Guilin and Yangshou, which was nice. Yangshou was particularly good fun. Now I’m back in Kunming, taking intensive Chinese classes at Keats school. I studying Chinese with a private teacher for four hours a day, and I’m also learning Tai Chi for four hours a week. The Chinese lessons are really good, and I think I’m improving much more quickly than when I took the lessons last year -- mostly because last year I was a horrible student, and couldn’t be bothered to study. Now I’m spending about four hours a day studying to match my four hours and class, and progressing quickly as a result. As for Tai Chi, I expected it to be traumatic given my lack ... read more

First of all, best wishes to all of my friends and family for 2010! At the moment, I'm in Chengdu. It was a very spur of the moment type of trip. My co-worker and I bought plane tickets on Wednesday morning, and flew out that night. Since then we've been doing things around the city, and I also met up with my friend JP, who worked with me in Wuhan last year, but now lives near Chengdu. I held a baby panda on New Years day! By baby panda, I mean an actual, real, living baby panda. It was 1000 yuan to do it, but the money goes toward protecting the pandas, so I don't feel too bad about it. Yes, there are pictures. Other than that, I've been to two temples, eaten Sichuan hot pot, ... read more