Sep 2009

So i've finally started teaching all of my classes since i've updated last. 6 out of the 7 of my classes are college freshman and pretty much all girls. There are two boys per class and they generally scurry to the corner seats and only reveal themselves about once a class to make a joke that has all the girlies giggling with their hands over their mouths. Having said that, all of the girls look and act like they are 14 years old. Sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get the quiet ones to talk and when I march over to them in frustration and ask them a direct question they look like they are going to pee there pants. As they should, I apparently command fear and respect! Even picking out english names was a feat in itself. "Okay class, let's brainstorm some english names. Raise your hand and i'll write them on the board." If you are wondering, the only raised hand in the classroom most of the time is me simulating the fact that SOMEONE should be raising their hands. This is about the time where I get frustrated and ask them "Really?!? NO ONE knows ANY english names? You've never seen an american movie? Don't have a favorite american singer? Nope? Naturally." After this, I zoom in on one of the girls and make them tell me a name. "Beatrice" Brilliant. In every class there about 5 girls that actually participate and some classes are more outgoing than others so teaching is enjoyable most of the time. Don't worry, I don't scare them to death the entire class. Just when I ask a question and all I hear is crickets.

So i'm sure most of you are making the safe assumption that I will contract swine or avian flu at some point during this year. I am healthy as a horse according to the intensive medical exam they put us through last month of the ultrasound to the rib cage, the chest xray with no protective gear, and the makeshift ekg with clamps that were resting in cups of water. Oh by the way, there were no places to wash your hands anywhere in the clinic. Not even in the bathroom But GOOD NEWS! They have hired a girl to sit at a table right inside the front door of my dorm and her job is to take the temperature of all us foreigners whenever we walk back into the building. Never mind the fact that I generally run about 5 degrees hotter than the average person but just imagine little ol me coming back from the gym, after riding back on a crowded 120 degree bus for 25 minutes walking into the door still sweating with my patented red face. One of these days I'll go over the allowed temperature range. I'm sure of it. Once this occurs, two men in haz mat suits will show up immediately, throw me in an ambulance and cart me of to the hospital aka swine flu central where if I didn't have swine flu to begin with I sure as hell will once I leave. Maybe I need one of those water bottles with the battery operated fan that sprays water on my face to cool me down.

October 1st through the 8th is China's national holiday combined with Mid Autumn festival so we get school off. The problem with trying to travel is that it is the busiest travel week in china. It's like combining Thanksgiving and fourth of July and multiplying the amount of travelers by a billion. You can imagine the fun time we had trying to get tickets to somewhere, anywhere really. After 3 hours and 5 different "travel counters" that all sell different things, we were able to get train tickets to Hangzhou, a city right outside of Shanghai. Once we get to Hangzhou we will take an hour train ride into Shanghai for most of the week. This is sounding too simple to all of you isn't it? Well rest assured, it isn't. In China, they decided to make things exponentially more difficult on everyone by not having round trip tickets available. So the chance that we will arrive in Hangzhou, then immediately get in line to by our return tickets back later that week only to find out that they are all sold out is pretty good. It's best for me not to think about it too much or else I'll have a panic attack I honestly cant wait to get to Shanghai because they have MEXICAN FOOD. I am going to spend my first few days there tracking down guacamole if I have to. It's necessary.

So I seem so be settling in here in China. Orientation is over and i've been in my new apartment for about a week now. I'm living in the same building that I was orientation so I just had to drag all my luggage down the hall while everyone had to repack which was nice. It's a bit like being in the dorms after everyone has moved out for the summer though and now the remaining people in the city are anywhere between a 10 minute or 45 minutes bus ride away. I constantly have my map of the city that has both the chinese characters and the pinyin names of the streets which is a lot easier than the one that I had before. Im pretty sure the first one was made by a five year old with a red crayon after a long day of coloring based on how well I could read it. With my new fancy map, I have managed to master the bus system and have once again turned into the Magellan of the gps world. I've started popping on my ipod when walking out in public or using the bus to tone down the effect of chinese people STARING at me. I am the only foreigner as far as the eye can see and depending on my mood for the day, people are the recipients of my best glare or an actual response to the "Hallos" from tiny children with split bottom pants. FYI, China doesnt believe in diapers, it's not ecologically friendly. I won't even go into the sanitation considerations of this statement. Due to this, I have know bought my very own pair of Chinese house shoes. No bare-footing it here, that would just be crazy.

During my last few days of orientation I was given the pleasant surprise of being informed that I would partake in a mandatory home-stay for two nights. Lovely. My family was quite nice. Well, lots of smiles and forcing food on me since the parents couldn't speak a word of english and they just laughed at me everytime I tried to practice Chinese. I'm sure you all interested in what pearls of wisdom I learned during those two days. Get ready.

1) After dinner the first night the highschool girl and I go into the tv room to watch the chinese news (in chinese! weird, I know) and so I sit down. You must be thinking, Stephanie, your new chinese friend must sit down on the coach to watch tv. It just makes sense. Well, my friends, apparently standing for 30 minutes after every meal is GOOD FOR HEALTH. So just get the mental picture of me sitting perfectly upright on the coach with the girl standing one foot from me, just standing. Standing. Naturally.

2) Always do things that are GOOD FOR HEALTH. When I asked her about coffee, concerts, tv, junk food, etc the response was always BAD FOR HEALTH. Welp, that's news to me.

3) After some other odd encounters, I just figured that this was all normal. Only letting your houseguest out of the house to take walks in the park after each meal and planning no activities for the weekend is perfectly normal. NOT TRUE. Once reunited with the rest of the program, I found out that one went go cart racing, another got on chinese tv for going to a tap dance lesson, and another got a cell phone! Oh well, at least I know what's GOOD FOR HEALTH now.

I would have to say that by far my favorite thing about China is Karoke. Private classy karoke rooms for you and your closest friends?? Perfect. I have now gone twice and have successfully sang myself horse both times. I just LOVE the whole performance aspect of it. Twirling the mic? Check. Fancy feet dance moves? Check. Lots of hand and arm movements? Check. Turning my back to the lyrics screen to prove that if you are a REAL Karoke singer, you do not need a silly screen? Check check check. BADASS. Towards the end of the second night, I was asked if there was a song I didn't know every word to. Well the answer is no, not when people keep picking classic songs like Billie Jean, Adleviess, Boogie Wonderland, Mariah Carey, Whitney, and of course Rod Stewart's Do you think I'm sexy. Challenge me please.

I guess you guys are probably wondering if I have started teaching yet since that is why I am here. The answer is no. Ha. The word today is that I will start monday but that's changed about four times already. That's fine with me, I'm okay spending my days tooling around the city until they decide to start making me work.

For those of you with macs, you have absolutely no excuse not to be on skype videochatting with me since you've got the built in video and mic. My parents figured it out and I'm going to want a little change up from seeing Carter and Molly held up to the screen barking at me. For the rest of you, if you just get a headset mic, you should be able to use skype for it's audio and we can chit chat. Skype is completely free to use between other skype users so check it out. www.skype.com. If you already have skype, add me! My skype name is stephaniebuckland.

Well that's about it for me. Hope all is going well with all of you!