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We're really starting to be slackers with our blog entries!
Life here is pretty much the same as usual. Since the last blog, we've just been spending time with friends, going to Chinese classes and doing our final lessons for the year. As of today, we MIGHT be done teaching. We're off for the next 5 days due to it being the weekend and then GAO KAO-- the dreaded, HUGE, college entrance exam for students in China. If you thought the SAT was bad, come visit a Chinese high school for the couple months leading up to Gao Kao. It's intense. So many students won't get accepted to a school of their choosing, or to a school at all, and they've been stressed to the max preparing for it. During the three test days, all of Senior 1 and 2 students (whom we teach) go home to have fun & all the teachers at the school (except us foreigners) are required to help out in some way, whether that's proctoring the exam or just watching the students to make sure they don't make so much as a peep.
With that in mind, we made preparations a few weeks ago to take one final China trip. There are SO many cities we've yet to see. China is huge-- like the US-- and the portions we've seen would basically be equivalent to someone coming to just LA and NYC and saying they saw all of the US. It was a tough decision, but we settled on Shanghai, as it's a city both of us wanted to visit before even coming here this year. We'll be gone for 5 days and 4 nights, and will visit the World Expo for 1 day! Pretty excited about that. There have been approx. 400,000 people visiting it a day since it opened in May, though, so I'm sure it's going to be insane. It'll be fun just to be there and to see any of the smaller pavilions that we can see with limited time. We'll spend the rest of the days there just exploring the city & eating delicious Shanghai food!
When we come back, we'll have our friends P&E with us for two nights before they leave to go on their own end-of-the-year travels. Luckily, we won't have to say goodbye to them quite yet, as we'll see them again in HK and the four of us will actually be flying back as far as San Francisco together. The rest of the group isn't so lucky, though, so we had a farewell dinner last night with our group of eight that has become our family this year. Who would have thought we'd make such amazing friends this year? I know we'll all keep in touch for years and years to come...and who knows, maybe the 8 of us can meet up in some other country to travel together in a few years. Once you've lived and traveled with someone in China, I think you can get through anything together!
Our students have been unfailingly kind, giving us lots of gifts and little notes to say goodbye. We were given a yearbook of sorts to commemorate the school's 10th birthday earlier this year, and we've been taking it to each of our classes to have the students sign. It'll be a great keepsake. Some of them still don't quite understand that we're not coming back next year. "Next year, you will have a new foreign teacher. I will go back to America." "When will you go back China?" "I don't know! Maybe someday. Maybe." "But...you will not teach us?" Sigh. 😊 I came here sort of dreading the whole teaching aspect, and am now leaving filled with love for all my students...even the bratty ones!
Though we're nowhere near fluent, our (I guess my) Chinese skills have been improving rapidly and I finally feel like I'm at the point where, if I were to stay another year, I could get really good. It's a big joke with our contact teachers & our Chinese teacher about how much better I am than Martin. Even our school driver commented on it yesterday, all in Chinese, of course. 'Your husband often does not understand.' Martin takes it in good stride, smiling and shrugging and just repeating his incorrect answers even louder so that everyone gets a laugh out of it. In the beginning of the year, I would understand things better but Martin was more willing to take a chance with speaking. Now, he doesn't even try. He just shrugs and looks at me. Oh, lil Marts. 😊
I feel like I have lots in me to write to reflect on our experience this year, but another episode of LOST is calling me instead. Don't spoil the ending for us, we're almost there!
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Mom/MD
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While we were afraid for you to start this adventure, we are now sad along with you that it is over...for now! What a wonderful year you have experienced and in your doing so, we have grown and experienced it along with you! Your students are so friendly and welcoming and you were indeed assigned to a wonderful school! Your contact teachers and friends you have made over the year have added much to your lives!