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Published: September 30th 2009
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my classroom 1
This is the word wall for my class--after a month of school, the word wall is almost full! My kids have learned so much already!
Before school started, I had to make lots of decorations and flashcards by hand AND I only had 2 days to finish decorating my room! It was madness :) But it was worth it to spend so much time and energy on the decorations because my room is pretty and the kids love it! phew! I survived my 1st month of teaching in Shanghai! There have been some very exhausting, challenging days; but overall, my class has been doing very well and the kids are just SO adorable! I have 26 kids....and I will get one new student after the holiday.
We have 8 days off for China's National Day (China is celebrating it's 60th birthday of being a republic) as well as for Mid-Autumn Festival. I'm excited to see how people celebrate these holidays here. Even today, parents were late picking up their children because there's TONS of traffic and the subways are all jammed up. I was told that it'll be basically impossible to get anywhere because everyone will be out and about...and we'll be hearing non-stop fireworks....!!!
To celebrate China's National Day, we had a singing contest at school. Each class prepared a song to sing about China. My class won an award for excellent teamwork and we won an award for the best performance (voted by the principals). 😊 I'm so proud of my kids! My class sang the Chinese national anthem. The performance was organized by the chinese teachers because of course I don't know mandarin. I took
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our birthday board! (designed by my chinese co-teachers) part in the performance and it was SO funny when we were practising. One of my students looked over at me and said loudly, "Rebecca...sing!!!!" Of course I don't know the actually words....so I just pretended and mouthed something. Though after hearing them sing and practice the anthem is past week, I was able to pick up a couple lines and sing them today!
So teaching has been pretty fun here, though it does get exhausting and challenging especially because of the language barrier. But I've enjoyed meeting and working with the Chinese staff. They are so nice and funny too! And the cooks at the school started to cook or order some Western cuisine for the English staff....like today we had spaghetti and we had pizza the other day--it was delicious! They also ordered some pop...but because they don't have any cups or glasses in the cafeteria/kitchen (because they never serve anything to drink other than soup), we drank Pepsi out of these stainless steel bowls. Hilarious, eh?One thing about the pop here--it's not as fizzy!
Some other interesting things about the schools here....they take the children's temperature once they arrive. If they have a temperature that's
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my calendar board
(this was taken before school started...now it's covered with songs and pictures...) higher than 37.4, they are sent to the hospital. It's the same thing for the staff. Once we get to school, we put this purple gun to our head to take our own temperature. So far, many of my students have been away sick for a day to weeks at a time. Even if they have a little cold or cough....they are advised to stay home.
A couple weeks ago, there were some people (I think sent by the government) to inspect our school for proper sanitation and cleanliness. I didn't receive any advanced notice that these people were coming...so when my co-teacher suddenly stormed into the room during my lesson and told all the children to get up and go to the washroom, I felt totally lost! My co-teacher wanted the children to wash their hands because the government people might look at their hands to make sure they're clean. So, two people came into our room with test tubes and swabs...they swabbed our furniture and looked around. I think our room and children were deemed clean because we never heard back from them. So no news is good news!
And sadly, our October field trips might
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my parent-communication board! be cancelled in order to prevent anyone from catching the flu. 😞 My class was supposed to go to the Sea Aquarium. I was SO looking forward to it.
Some of the precautions they take here are so bizarre...but it is reassuring to know that they do their best to control health issues and prevent any outbreaks.
ANYHOW, since Mid-Autumn Festival is coming up...I've been redeeming the mooncake gift certificates I received from my students and families. Mooncakes are EVERYWHERE! And all of them are presented in beautiful fancy boxes.
They even sell mooncakes at Starbucks--but they are made of ice cream. I find the traditional mooncakes don't taste as good here though. I got a box of assorted mooncakes from a very nice bakery at a hotel by the Bund (in Pudong)--some are fruity (strawberry, mango...) and some are savoury (one has a scallop and another one has crab inside). BUT the mooncakes that I've enjoyed the most are the Haagen-Dazs mooncakes. Ice cream and chocolate yummy-ness! I received 3 boxes of those---but I've been very good...I didn't eat them all. I shared them with my housemate and co-workers.
Anyway, I'm so ready for this 8-day
Mooncake 1
fancy box...the ayi of my class thinks that it is such a nice box that she wants to use it to keep her socks in. :) holiday!!! I'm travelling to Yun'nan with some friends/co-workers. Everyone has told me it is gorgeous there! There's a snow mountain too...so we'll be doing some climbing. When I get back, I'll post an entry about it!
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Jessica
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THEY HAVE ICE CREAM MOONCAKES?! From Haagen-Daz?! Where have these been all of my life?! Please send some asap :P