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Published: April 25th 2009
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New cubbyhole
This picture of the ESL building was taken out our dining room window (see next picture). The new office has two windows in the second floor extension. Dianne can keep an eye on my comings and goings. The start of term 4 is upon us and the biggest news is not that I have finally been replaced and get to start my new job as a stay-at-home spouse.
The big news is that Dianne has been named the ESL Systems Coordinator for the entire Maple Leaf Education System as of May 4th. I’ll turn the blog over to her so she can describe the new job:
How do I describe my new job? Well, the job description is a “work in progress” as this is a totally new position for the company. Basically, I will oversee all the ESL programs, meet with the different ESL Directors from each school, plan Professional Development, rewrite the learning outcomes for the pre-Grade 10 ESL programs, redesign the ESL Placement tests and the Grade 10 Entry tests, plan new courses, prepare a handbook for new ESL teachers, help evaluate ESL teachers, be part of an “English Enhancement Committee”, evaluate new resources, etc, etc. Now that I have conquered the “unknown” as the ESL Director on the Jinshitan Campus, I am ready to tackle these new responsibilities! This is a very exciting opportunity and who says that you can’t teach old
Home sweet home
I had been working in a classroom on the second floor for almost two months and happened to look out the window one day and realized a person could look right into our apartment from this vantage point. The three windows on the lower floor to the left of the outside door are our office, dining room and kitchen (the one with the half drawn blind). You may not be able to tell that the buildings have no eavestroughs so in the heavy rainstorms we have had recently you can probably guess where the heaviest run off is... Yup, right over the outside door. dogs new tricks!! Fortunately, I can stay on our campus and don’t have to commute to the Dalian office (at least an hour and 30 minutes from here). I have to turn my office space over to the new ESL Director and the principal assures me that he will find a little cubbyhole someplace on campus for my office. By this time next year, all the head office people will be moving to this campus so I will have a new office there.
Back to paw: How do I describe my new job? Well, the students thought it was pretty funny when I told them I would not be teaching as I would be staying home to do the cooking, laundry, cleaning etc for Mrs. Wilson. I think they were a little surprised when I told them I wasn’t coming back. Of course, I had told them that at the end of term 2 and then came back for term 3. I didn’t tell them anything at the end of term 3 because I didn’t know until classes were over that a new teacher had been found. I have managed to be in the school every day this term
The new digs
Dianne's new "office" was, and I guess still is, the ESL book storage room. We boxed and removed over 80 boxes of books that are no longer required by the high school ESL program. One of the advantages of working in a high school is that I was able to use the students in one of my classes to move them so I didn't have to do it by myself. The students are eager to help and do a first rate job. cleaning up loose ends and helping some new teachers with some computer problems. Just like to old days at Dianne’s former schools.
It’s kind of bizarre. We had a week of exams and now a week of classes for Term 4 and then a week of holidays. We are heading down to Cheng Du to visit the Panda Reserve so there should be some good pictures from that.
We have started our Mandarin class. Marion (a V.P. at the school), Dianne and I are students of Elaine who in her day time job is Marion’s secretary. She is a great teacher as she helps us with what we need to know rather than “text book” stuff. We sure have lots of laughs. We even learn stuff! It has paid off when we go shopping at the market. It is a really good exercise to help us realize what the ESL students are going through.
I had been teaching in one classroom for two months before I realized I could see our apartment from the classroom window. I guess that is a good sign that I was paying attention to my students’ needs. It really is nice to
Prison ?
Many apartment dwellers feel our buildings look like prisons. However, these steel doors don't have openings to slide in meals so I guess they can't be! be so close to work. Some of the teachers live in KaiFaQu and have a 40 minute cab ride to work each way. We are trying to decide what to do next year. Dianne’s office will be on the new campus. New apartments might be nicer but then the rent will be higher and I don’t get a free apartment anymore! It would likely increase our round trip from four to ten minutes! So maybe we will stay where we are.
The apartment building looks quite nice from a distance but as you can see from the close-up pictures, it does have a certain resemblance to a prison. The steel doors do serve a purpose though. Coincidentally, Christine passed on a story the other day. Our granddaughter Claire was asking her dad, Greg, to tell her about prison; for example, do the prisoners get to go outside, when do they eat, etc. After they had chatted about it for a while she said, "You know, Dad, prison sounds a lot like school." Hard to argue with that observation.
Dianne and I managed to get onto a 10 pin bowling team. Some student teachers from Canada finished their practicum
Cell 1-101
The prison motif carries on into the building "lobby". In our building there are three units per floor and all have doors like this. Makes it pretty noisy when people are coming and going. and headed home so one of the teams was desperate enough to use us as spares for the last couple of weeks. I had bowled in a league for a couple of years but it was over 40 years ago. Boy, was I rusty. Dianne had bowled 10 pin once or twice in her life so she didn’t expect to do that well (but did a pretty good job). The game is still the same. The only difference seems to be you can drink beer while you bowl. We couldn’t do that in the old days in Canada.
A couple of random shots close out this blog entry. A big problem in China is garbage. There is plenty of it everywhere. When you go for a walk out of the cities or towns there is no shortage of it. The bags eventually start to disintegrate and the wind blows them everywhere. The other problem, especially for me, if that they often leave manhole covers and sewer grates off the holes they are supposed to cover. This one at least has a cover but many don’t. Who knows where they have gone? I don’t have too much of a problem
Not all bad though
Being metal, the door can be used to hang pictures. We have had art work mailed to us by Lise and Claire as well as several photographs. It is really great to be able to see reminders of home every time we leave the cell, I mean apartment. with this one as it is out of the way and off the road. The ones on the street can be deadly, especially when you are walking at night and the street lighting is virtually non-existant.
The last shot is of a recent lunch I had at the school cafeteria. Three different items on a bed of rice for 8 kuai ($1.50 at current rates). The chopsticks you see are Dianne’s stealing some of my potatoes which are really quite good. We had stopped going to the cafeteria because it is so busy at noon but now that I am not in the classroom we can go 10 minutes before the thundering hordes and it is quite pleasant. For those of us at home it is nice to see folks. Ha ha says Dianne.
We are off on Sunday morning for our Spring Holidays. Panda photos to follow!
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