Mandarin Classes and Halloween

             With all of the mess last week I forgot to mention that we have started taking beginner mandarin classes.  There is a big group of us first year teachers that are doing them together.  The school is offering it to us for free, so why not?  This past Tuesday was our second class and we actually started to put some words together.  The first class was spent just practicing all of the different sounds of the letters.  That was amusing in itself.  Robyn and I have made good class buddies.  Between her ear for music and my ear of listening to mom and popo speak Chinese all these years we are getting the proper sounds down pretty well and can hear where each other is going wrong and try to correct each other.  It’s a good little system we have going on.  Tuesday we learned words like “hello, how are you?”  “I am sorry” “don’t worry about it” “no need to be sorry” and stuff like that.  We learned the words for mom, dad, sister, brother.  That is where my little background of Cantonese confused me.  I just have to forget that I know those few words as they are different in Mandarin. 

             Midterms are coming up next week for the students so I think they have been studying a lot.  They are very tired, which also has to do with the fact that we were all stuck here together on Saturday.  So, next week we have two normal teaching days and then the whole school is writing midterms wed-fri.  this makes it an easier teaching week for us, but an awful marking week.  Following this we have to mark provincial exams, so no weekend trips for awhile :S  We really want to go to Hong Kong next so we can get some presents to send home for family and friends in time for Christmas. 

             Yesterday the school had their Halloween day.  My costume was all I dreamed it could be and more J  I dressed up like ‘Boo’ from Monsters Inc. when she is disguised as a little monster.  I got it custom made on tailor street.  It was like wearing a sleeping bag around school all day.  Thank goodness it was a cold day out, or else I would have actually lost 5lbs yesterday sweating it out inside of my costume.  So, I was a hit.  Every student that walked by me smiled and said, “So Cute!”  haha.  It was awesome.  I had the whole get up, put lots of blush on my face, put my hair in pigtales and I was set.  All of my students commented on how young I looked as well, they said that I could fit in with the rest of the class.  It was a fun day.  None of my gr.11 students dressed up for school.  I had a couple of gr.10’s dress up though.  My favourite was one of my better drama students who dressed up like a cowboy.  He bought a blonde wig and everything.  It was hilarious.  Robyn and I both teach him so we were both extremely entertained by it.  Besides having my picture taken by everyone, I had also never been pet so much in my life.  Haha.  My costume was so fuzzy that people just kept petting me or wanting to hug me.  I felt like a mascot from Disneyland. 

             At night the leadership students put on a party for all three schools here.  It was a lot different than what you see back home.  It wasn’t a dance like we are all used to.  There were a lot of performances and games with the teachers that the students just watched.  At no point was there just music on and students dancing, which we thought was pretty weird.  The group of teachers that dressed up like ghostbusters did do a pretty cute performance though.  They all did a little dance and then caught slimer, too funny. 

             Tonight we are heading to Peter’s house for a staff Halloween party.  I’m not wearing my Boo costume because I don’t want to wreck it in case we go to the bar…which we most likely will do.  So Robyn and I conjured up a costume which involves an inflatable tube.  I’ll let you know how it goes after tonight, hehe.  That is all for now.  I’m sure there will be more adventures tonight.

-Taryn

Sunday FunDay

Well working on a Saturday didn’t turn out so bad.  My first block we watched the Mr.Bean Movie, second block don’t mess with zohan, third block Monsters inc, and my drama class watched glee and mr.bean.  It was a very productive day, work wise though.  I was able to get all of my marking done, enter all of my marks into the electronic system, and make all of my lesson plans for the week.  So I was quite pleased with myself.  The last block of the day I have  a prep, and didn’t really have anything to do, so I just hung out with Robyn in her class.  The students were quite entertained with us laughing together.

                That night we didn’t really plan to move off of the couch.  Haha.  I downloaded Biggest loser (how fitting) and watched that.  It gets dark really quick, so around 6:30 Mike knocks on the door, and was so confused why we were sitting in the dark on the couch being losers.  Tara was going out for dinner for her birthday at a new restaurant that a couple of the staff discovered.  So, we got off our butts and headed out.  The restaurant was in a mall right by computer city.  We didn’t really see any protests, so I’m guessing that it was more tame than expected.  Apparently later on in the night it got a little worse in the central part of the city.  Everyone was going to Peter’s house after dinner but Robyn and I were extremely tired.  So we did a little shopping around the mall we were in went to Starbucks (the first time in China) and headed home to have some more quality couch time. 

                Sunday I woke up early and went on my longest run to date in Wuhan.  40 times around the outside of the track.  So boring, let me tell ya.   I did it though and felt so awesome afterward.  We were headed to tailor street afterwards to pick up all of our costumes.  Bahahaha, my costume is so awesome!  When I got there everyone around remembered me and were so excited for me to try on the costume.  I put it on, and it’s so perfect.  It’s like I’m wearing a sleeping bag all over my body.  It better be cold on Thursday or else I’m going to lose like 10lbs sweating. 

                When we got home from shopping the boys came over with a bottle of wine and we had a nice little chat.  Robyn and I invited them over for dinner, so we started to cook.  I had everything under control, I cooked some bacon for salad, some chicken for the sauce, cut up some veggies for the sauce and had it all ready.  Mike and Robyn did the salad, and then they were in charge of cooking the spaghetti.  Well, who knew cooking spaghetti would be such a task.  I  literally left for 5min to do something in the other room and come back and there are flames in the kitchen.  The two of them just stand there, so Shane goes over and puts it out.  Then I look at the strainer and it’s all melted and burnt, and I say, what is this from, they both reply “oh, that was from the FIRST fire.”  Lol, how do you have two fires in 5min while cooking spaghetti :S.  The apartment is still standing, so we’re good.  Clearly I am still the cook.  Hehe.

                After that Mike made me try on my Boo costume.  It’s freakin’ hilarious and its hard to move around.  So I put it on and then he’s like…hey, what would happen if I pushed you over, and then pushes me on the ground.  Haha.  So he did this over and over while Robyn taped it.  Too funny.  I sewed the mop on the head of it while Robyn helped Mike make his Wolverine costume.  He’s also borrowing on of my white wife beaters for his costume….saying it’s a little tight is a bit of an understatement.  Oh jeeze

So even though we didn’t quite have the whole weekend off we were able to get the most of our weekend J

-Taryn

Havoc in Wuhan

Well this week has been pretty good.  It seems that once Monday is over Friday is already here.  We had a pretty good week.  Went out for dinner and bought some movies on Wed night with the ‘parents’ haha.  Margaret and Darrell were on the shopping bus with us.  They are so cute.  It’s nice to have someone that acts like your parents around.  We didn’t eat with them, but we ran into them at the movie store on our way out of the mall.  They ended up waiting for us outside of the store until we were done so that we all walked back to the bus together.  It was pretty cute. 

                Last night Robyn and I wanted to get out for a bit so we walked up the road and caught a taxi to one of the night markets.  If you want a cheap meal, this is what you do.  We both had dinner for $12 qwai.  Too funny.  We bought some fruit and a treat at the bakery and headed back home to do some marking and watch some of our newly purchased tv sets. 

                Today was a little bit of a crazy day.  We were all excited that it was Friday.  We had planned a trip to go to the hot springs close by for a girls birthday.  We had a bus booked and everything.  In the last period before lunch break Ewan (our VP) pokes his head into my room and tells me that we have an emergency staff meeting as soon as lunch begins and that it was very important.  The kids and myself were a little taken back by this.  So we go to the meeting and everyone is in a huff.  Darrell tells us that there is good news and bad news.  The bad news first we have to work tomorrow :S  So not fun!  Haha.  So as you may know  China and Japan are not really on the best of terms with each other.  So the most recent development in this is that Japan apparently took over one of China’s fishing ships and then stole their captain, causing and uproar.  Then my students informed me that the Chinese embassy was destroyed,  or burnt down in Japan.  So there has been a lot of protesting going on here.  The sony store in the mall was totally demolished.  Cars that are made in Japan are being totaled by random people in protest.  Apparently the big one is tomorrow so they have decided that all schools in Wuhan, including Universities must be in session.  So, this is not just a Maple Leaf thing, it’s a Wuhan thing.  Apparently the other  Maple Leaf Schools are not experiencing this, just us.  So, it’s very clear to me that I am clearly not in Canada any more….oh jeeze.

                The good news though.  In lieu of us working tomorrow Darrell asked the head of Maple Leaf if we could get Dec. 24^th off.  He agreed, so now we have a three day weekend for Christmas J  This makes me extremely happy.  I know that I am going to be a little homesick that day and wanting to talk to everyone back home, so this will make it a lot better. 

                Anyways, I am safe and will not leave home by myself, don’t worry, we’ll be safe. 

-Taryn

Sports Day and Awesome Wuhan Weekend

Friday was sports day at the school.  It was pretty intense.  Haha.  They had opening ceremonies just like the Olympics and all of the students marched out on to the field holding a sign representing their homeroom class.  At the end all of the teachers had to march in together.  Considering that they are military trained we looked slightly awful marching in together.  The vice principal also asked me if I could organize something cool to get an applause from the students, so robyn and I taught the boys how to do a little cheer stunt, which was so funny, and everyone loved it.  We were pretty proud of ourselves.  At the end of the day the winner of the big school tug of war faced 20 of the teachers.   Obviously we won, haha.  Overall the day turned out awesome.  It had been pouring rain all week, but somehow Friday turned out to be a beautiful day, some of the teachers even got a little burnt it was so nice out. 

                That night we all went into Wanke to meet a few of the teachers to go for dinner at stone pond.  After that we went to Bryn and Chris’s for a little dance party.  Most of the teachers met up there and it got a little crazy.  I was pretty contained though since I knew we had a lot of stuff we wanted to do the next day.  Everyone else went right into it.  I think Fridays are the day where everyone just gets all of their tension out from the week so they always get ridiculous.  After that we went to a bar that we had never been to which was so a lot of fun.  Much nicer than Vox, where we seem to end up most of the time. 

                On Saturday we got up and went back to tailor street.  I had to get my Halloween costume made which was quite the process.  I’m dressing up as boo when she’s dressed as a monster.  The tailors were so confused why I would want/need this costume needed.  It took about an hour to figure out everything out with the fabric and how they would construct everything.  They ended up calling one of the secretaries to translate twice without me knowing that that’s what they were doing.  I felt so bad.  Mike came along with Robyn and I and got three suits made.  Two of them being the dumb and dumber suits.  He’s quite excited about it all.  After that we headed to computer city, which was so nuts.  There was like 7 floors of everything that you could possibly think of.  I got new headphones since mine died the other day while running, and an external hard drive.  Not that exciting, but the whole place was pretty nuts.  Finally we walked down sports street to find some sweet adidas pants.  We weren’t too enthused anymore so we were unsuccessful.  We got home and made some dinner and went over to Mikes and had quality family TV night. 

                Today we went to get our first China hair cut.  It was a little freaky but I do know how to say ‘little big’ in Mandarin so that was very helpful.  He did a good job in the end so one scary hurdle has been conquered.  After that we did a little grocery shopping at Carrefour and then went on a little adventure down the street.  We found a new little shopping centre along the way and robyn bought this sweet wig for Halloween.  We played a little trick on Mike as well.  I told him that I had a new friend that I met while shopping today, but it was actually Robyn, it was quite funny.  Oh good times.  Overall we had a very good Wuhan weekend exploring around our new city. 

On to another week of teaching.  They go by so fast now J

-Taryn

Thanksgiving in China

Friday we went out for dinner with all of the English and Chinese staff at the school.  Dinner was at this neat little treehouse type place right by Lu Xiang.  After that we headed to KTV.  The room we got this time was huge.  It was like a split level with nice couches and tables, and a huge bathroom.  I had two favourite moments of this night.  The first was as soon as I opened the door to the room I see my principal singing  ‘Pokerface’ it was a sight to been seen, I tell you.  The second was when my VP went to pick a song, robyn and I were sitting beside him.  He scrolled to Black Eyed Peas and both robyn and I instantly pointed to ‘My Humps’ and told him he had to sing it.  He chose it but said that we had to sing it.  So, we did, but just as we’re about to sing Mike comes out of no where, hasn’t sang at all at KTV before and take the mic from me and starts singing the boy part.  It was too funny.  I talked to him about it later, and he said he really didn’t know what came over him, he just really needed to come up there and sing with us.  Needless to say we now have ‘our song’ for KTV.  Everyone kind of establishes a song, so that is ours now, pretty funny. 

                The next morning we went to ‘Tailor street.’  It’s literally how it sounds.  It’s a huge area with a bunch of tailors and places with material, buttons, zippers and everything you could imagine to make clothes.  You go up to one of them, pick a fabric and they measure you and make it.  I’m getting a couple of pants made for work and a skirt to wear.  All together for tailor made items was 350 kwai, so less than $20 Cdn for each item.  Now my mind is going nuts thinking of all of the stuff that I could get made, hehe.  Pretty exciting . 

                Sunday was thanksgiving.  It was a little weird.  We all kind of forgot about it since they don’t celebrate here.  We  did manage to have some sort of thanksgiving dinner though.  Since we had no gas brianne and david invited a few people over for dinner.  We had peas, carrots, squash, mashed potatoes (gross) haha,  salad and wait for it….KFC since we didn’t have any way of getting turkey.  One of the guys on campus was so nice and went on the bus to go get it for everyone.  It was really nice of him, since he doesn’t really come out with the rest of the staff since he is a little older.  After dinner we set off a few fireworks as well.  We did it right in front of the school, which was a little sketchy.  They were huge, after they went off the headmaster of the school came out, so Mike and I immediately headed back to our apartment just in case he wasn’t too pleased with our celebration display.  Apparently he just said ‘happy thanksgiving’ and then went back inside.  I guess that he thought it was a couple of students that had done it.   

                This week has gone by so fast yet again.  It’s been really rainy here all week though.  My run this morning was a little miserable, but it has to get done.  I’m glad I was able to get back into it after my little vacation and being sick the week before.  If the rain keeps up like this though it’s going to be hard to keep my motivation up.  The students are supposed to have sports day tomorrow, but looking outside I don’t think that is going to happen for them. They were really looking forward to it, so hopefully it can be rescheduled soon. 

                I finished planning my poetry week for the grade 11 :S  That was a little rough.  It’s really hard to teach a subject that you really have no idea where to start.  Thank god their English level is not high and lessons take longer than they would in Canada or I would be fresh out of ideas. 

                We finally got our gas back yesterday.  I cooked all the food in the fridge last night which was good.  I made a big veggie noodle dish.  There was still enough for Robyn and I to eat for lunch or dinner tonight.  It was so frustrating not being able to cook.  I’ve been using cooking as another outlet to just relax and not really think about anything else.  It’s funny though because it seems as if the staff doesn’t cook that much.  They all ask me what I am able to cook here, forgetting that I am half Chinese and that I am able to find stuff here to cook with.  At metro they have import food so I was able to buy some Cajun spice, oregano, ground garlic, and pepper  so that I can cook some westernish food as well. 

I can't believe the weekend is almost here again!

-Taryn

No Gas

We haven’t had gas at our house for the last three days.  It is not fun.  Especially because I hauled so much groceries from Metro all the way home :s  Just not fun.  Cooking is my break in the day.  I know that sounds silly but I really miss cooking at home.  I miss baking!  I miss making Mexican food…mmmm.  Ugh, I get random cravings all the time for things.  That has been my biggest one so far, or waffles.  What I would do for a waffle right now.  Actually the more I think about it there are a lot of things I am starting to miss from home.  I still have yet to crack open my cereal that I brought.  Haven’t had the real urge yet. 

                This week has been pretty busy.  Robyn and I had to do the planning for Grade 10 next week, and I also have to do the planning for Grade 11 next week, so I’ve got lots on my brain at the moment trying to think of lessons to wow the students.  Being so busy and being in another country you don’t really remember the things that usually happen at home.  For instance, this weekend is thanksgiving.  I can’t even make a grilled cheese sandwich at the moment, nevermind try and make a turkey dinner :S  Not having an oven is really starting to get annoying.  I might cave and buy a toaster oven.  I’ll talk to the girls about it, even though they’re clearly not the cooks of the house. 

                I am starting to miss home a lot though.  I miss my room and my bathroom.  My bathroom here is a little pathetic.  I literally shower over top of my toilet.  This was the trade off for having the stand up shower though.  Robyn and Amanda have bigger bathrooms with a tub, but you have to sit down to have a shower because it is a hose that does not mount of the wall.  I’ve included a picture so you can get an idea of what I’m talking about.  Now that it’s not as humid my floor is pretty much always wet….so anytime I need to use my washroom I have to put on flip flops, or wipe my feet on the way out of the bathroom.  Kind of funny if you think about it, but if you were the one experiencing it, you could imagine a little bit of the frustration I am having at the moment. 

                Don’t worry though.  I’m doing ok.  It’s just setting in more and more that I’m still here for awhile.  This week did go by super fast though since we were back in school.  This will be how it is until January, so I’m hoping that the next few months will just fly by. 

Miss everyone back home

-Taryn

Sanya and 'Home'

The second part of our trip was great.  We went to a hot spring which was about an hour or so away from our resort.  The car ride in itself was pretty entertaining.  We had arranged for a car to pick us up in the morning, drive us to the hot spring, he would wait there for three hours and then drive us back for 200 kwai.  Pretty good, we thought.  While we were driving there the driver got so confused.   Construction in china is a lot different than construction back home.  He had come off the turn off and it was just dirt everywhere.  He just kind of points around starts laughing, still speaking Chinese but I totally knew what he was saying.  It’s funny when those situations happen here, makes you feel like you can connect with people even though you may not speak the same language as them. 

                Once we got the hot springs there were many little hot pools around one big pool.  Some were kind of weird, like filled with tea and milk, flowers, lemon, etc.  The last one which we spent the most time in because it was so entertaining was the one with ‘big fish’ in them.  There were fish in the pool which were supposed to eat away at your dead skin.  It was a little freaky and I still can’t believe that I actually did it.  There were times when there were so many fish at my feet that I couldn’t stand it, would scream, and then lift my legs out of the pool.  I also did this when I looked down and there are 30 fish eating at my feet :S.  I only sat on the bench part.  Some of the people there had their whole body in there…I can’t even imagine! 

                I can’t remember which days it was now, as they all kind of blur into one once I am back home.  We spent a day shopping and bartering for pearls.  We spent a lot of time at the pool, and some time at the beach.  Didn’t spend as much time at the beach as I would have liked, as the girls weren’t into the beach as much as they were the pool…even though this is how they got totally burnt, hehe.  We also did a little photo shoot down at the water which was really fun.  We kind of left it to one of the last days and just as we were ending it started to down pour.  We didn’t want to let this ruin our fun so we went up to the room, but the camera away and went for a little swim in the pool.  It was still super warm out and the pool was really warm, so, didn’t really matter. 

                The last day our goal was to get up early and head to the temple that was near by.  Well, we did the getting up early part just fine, but the weather wasn’t really agreeing with us.  We went down for breakfast and then kind of waited out in our room until the weather was a little better as the temple adventure would be outside.  I don’t really agree with the idea of being on vacation and staying in a hotel room, so I took my new little toy outside and took some pictures of the resort.  I’m having fun playing with this new camera…which I still feel I have no idea how to use, but I ended up getting a few good shots of the flowers that I fell in love with there. 

                Coming home was a surreal feeling again.  The trip gave us a lot of time to think, almost a little too much.  I kept thinking of what was going on back home and what everyone is up to.  Sometimes I really think that I’m crazy for coming over here and wonder what I have done.  Today when I was back at work I was reminded why I am here.  The kids are awesome and I love my job.  Although it can be frustrating at times, the good always outweighs the bad.  Today when I was telling them about my trip I looked at them and I had that moment, like, I have them.  I’ve finally gotten on that level that I wanted to be at with them.  I know that it’s only going to get better from here but if we’re like this already, I can’t wait for what the rest of the year will bring with these kids.  It makes me really excited, which is great, since I won’t have another break for a long time!  That is all for now.  May be slacking on the blog this week as it is my turn to plan for both of my English classes :S  fun fun!