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Published: October 17th 2007
it's been awhile since I wrote on here last..
so the main updates are:
1.Steve got sick over our National Day vacation, and had to go to the hospital in Shanghai. He was there for 2 weeks, and may have had appendicitis but its kind of unclear..and now he has to go home to recover, and will come back at the begininning of Dec.
2. Saturday is the school's 10th anniversary, so there will be a celebration thing all day. We (Candice, Drew, and me) have to sing a song in Chinese for it, so that should be pretty hilarious, lol. I'll try to put a link to the song but I'm not sure if you can do that.. The kids have been practicing songs, dances, and playing the trombone & symbols all week so I'm assuming they're going to perform on Sat...I'll definitely bring my camera! : )
3. I've tutored a few more times and its a lot of fun. Last Thursday I tutored 2 more of my students from school (a brother and sister). The girl, Hae ji, is in 6th grade and the boy, Young se, is in 3rd. When I asked them their names, they gave me their English, Chinese, and Korean names (and for some reason Young se has 2 English names, one from school and one from another English program, lol)..so I asked them which name they liked best and they both said their Korean name (since thats actualy their name! lol)..so I told them I'd call them by that. They had a million English workbooks in their apt., but their English is pretty good., they just speak kind of broken. So Young se read some short stories to me from those, and then I tried to just have a conversation with him about what he likes to do and stuff, but he's really shy so basically all I got out of him is that he doesn't like speaking English and that he has to learn Enlgish in school everyday, twice a week with a tutor like me, and on Sat & Sun. he goes to the private English school here, lol. poor kid, I'm definitely gonna think of some fun things to do with him. Hae ji also some workbooks, but she said she didn't want to read them so we just talked for the whole hour and a half.
Yesterday, I rode my bike to tutor to the 2 girls that I tutored last Tuesday, but of course as soon as I got there Flora called me and said that I had to go somewhere else. So, I left my bike at a supermarket and took cab. It ended up that I was back at the first place I had gone to last week. Jane met me at the entrance, and then i thought she was just walking me to someone else's apt. but she took me to hers. I stood there at the door for a min or two waiting for her to tell me where I was supposed to go to tutor, and then she said to come sit down and she broguth out some English books, so I figured out that I was tutoring her, lol. I also found out that she's only in 9th grade...and I thought she was my age! lol. It ends up that Steve was her tutor on Tuesdays, and since her mom is in charge of setting up the tutoring schedule, she gets priority over the girls that I was supposed to go tutor...so I will now tutor Jane instead. She goes to an International School in Suzhou (an hour and a half away!) which is cool, so she told me all about that and showed me her yearbook from last year which looked exactly like ours do, lol. They also have spirit week, which she couldn't believe we also have, lol. So, we ended up just talking the whole time also and not even looking at the english books. I asked her if she wanted to do something in the books, and said no cause they're very boring, which is definitely true, lol. It was pretty funny, cause Jane's brother, who's 13, was having Chinese lessons in the other room with a Chinese tutor while I was tutoring, or really just talking..haha..with Jane. She speaks English all day at school so her English is really good...she just makes some small mistakes and doesn't know some random vocab. When it was time for me to go her mom asked me if I could go tutor someone else, it was only 7:30 so I said ok.
Jane's brother took me to the other apt. and the girl was only 8 years old but her English is amazing, she's practically fluent. She also had a million English workbooks, and her mom, who doesn't speak much English, told her to tell me that she would read a story to me. So she started to read, and then said "ok, now you read this page" LOL, I couldn't beleive it at first cause I didn't think she could actually speak..I thought she just knew how to read! (thats how most of my students are, they can read a lot more than they can just speak or even understand) I then asked her, and found out, that she also goes to the International School in Suzhou. So we took turns reading and then after awhile she said she didn't want to read anymore..so we just talked. I told her to ask me some questions, and then I would ask her some. Her questions were 1. Are you from Malaysia? (lol, she told me that I look like the kids in her class who are from Malaysia) 2. Do you wear glasses? 3. Do you watch Playhouse Disney? LOL, I was so surprised, it was fun though cause she understood everything I said. I'm not really sure why her parents think she needs me to come talk to her, when she's already speaking English all day in school and so is everyone around her..I mean even when I asked her if it was time for me to leave at 9pm..she said "One second, I'll go ask my mom" and I haven't met anyone else here, not even adults, that would say something like that in English. She told me that Steve came to her house before and brought his "beautiful, white apple computer" lol, and that he let her borrow the Incredibles dvd, but then he got sick and has to go home for awhile...so I told her that next time I will bring my computer so I can show her some pictures, and we can write Steve an email. she was very excited, lol.
4. I got a copy of our segment on the Zhangjiagang news! I uploaded it to youtube and I was able to see it..so you should be too. here's the link again. http://www.youtube.com/Lchayot
5. I borrowed Nip/Tuck from Candice and its really good..like can't stop watching it, lol.
K, well..I'm gonna make a list of adjectives that I want to learn in Chinese..and attempt to study some of what Fun Shi Ja's taught me before I meet with her tonight!...more updates soon 😊
oh, and ps. avril lavigne's "i don't like your girlfriend" is blaring on the loudspeakers outside all around the school right now..random? lol
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Angela
non-member comment
Crazy!
You'd better have a recording or video of you singing this song!! I'll die laughing, lol. That video was so cool, I showed it to Greg and he was impressed with your Chinese and bike riding :-p Poor Steve!!