WHAT? You want me to TEACH?

Last night after I got back from Starbucks I wanted to go right to bed, but I took a shower and washed my hair for the first time since Friday! Gross I know! So I was expecting an email from Sabrina letting me know what time I needed to be at the school, but I didn’t have internet! I have no idea why..it says it was connected but didn’t seem to be. I tried going downstairs because it seemed like other people were able to get on, but it still didn’t work. I then went back to Starbucks (this was probably around 8:30) only to find there was literally one person inside. Luckily there were some tables outside so I was able to connect and check my email, only to find, she hadn’t emailed me! Ugh! So on the way back I called her and she said the headmaster hadn’t gotten back to her yet. I tried to explain how I couldn’t get email and somehow we managed to decide she would call me when she found out. I could NOT keep my eyes open when I got back, so I think I was in bed by 9 which hasn’t happened since..hmm has that ever happened?

Sabrina called me before I fell asleep to let me know I should be at the school at 10:00am so she thought I should leave by 8:30am. She was trying to explain the schedule and the grades but I did not understand at all. Then she started talking about her job and I thought she was saying she got promoted, but soon realized she quit! GREAT! My one person in Beijing quit! I THINK what she was saying is a lot of people aren’t traveling/volunteering so a lot of time she doesn’t have any work and now she found a job that’s stable? Honestly I was too tired to ask questions. She did send me a VERY nice email and said,

“Though I quitted job, u are my friend, and this school is introduced by me, so if there's anything i can help u just tell me. I will try everthing to help u to make ur trip much happier and smooth”.

So now I don’t feel like I am completely alone! I am going to try and get Melissa’s email (who was my coordinator in the first place) so if I have any questions etc. I can ask her! After that I set my alarm and passed out, until my wonderful mother called me! I don’t really remember talking to her, only that I think I said I was asleep! I woke up every hour on the half hour which was sorta weird. I think because I knew I had to wake up early and didn’t want to oversleep or anything!

Finally around 6:45am I just got up (now THAT’S never happened either!) By then I had internet so it was nice to be able to talk to some friends and check my email. I decided to leave around 8:15am which got me to the subway a little bit before 8:30am. I already HATE the blue line, line 10! It is beyond crowded..to the point you have to throw yourself into the subway car because people don’t have any room to let you in! It was hot and smelly and I was not a fan! I take that for about 5 or 6 stops and then switch over to the yellow line, line 13! I didn’t have any problems, I just had to double check the direction but I made it on and had a seat! Woo hoo! It was also cool which felt good! I take that for 3 stops and this is where the fun started! Now I had done all this with Sabrina, but after traveling for a day with little sleep I really wasn’t paying too close attention. I knew I needed to end up outside, but at every subway stop there are 4 exits in the 4 corners. Luckily I was able to find the right exit and I crossed the street to get my bus, 479! I had to wait a while and then my lovely mother called to wish me luck, but I wasn’t able to talk long because my bus came! I had to pay attention because I hadn’t done this part before. I needed to get off at the 4th stop. The first stop was in a very urban area, but then it quickly changed! I was back in that nightmare! Ok well it wasn’t a nightmare, but besides Cairo I have never seen anything like it! Again, dirt road, “stores” on either side, alleys that I think have markets maybe? The road seems big enough for one bus one way, but there are busses and cars and bikes and people going every which way! Again we were stopped for a while because of who knows what, but then came stop 4! Now if any of you saw what this was like you would probably tell me never to get off stop 4 again! I’ll send pictures soon! It is probably a 5 minute walk further down that street, with EVERYONE staring at me. There was not a single white person on the bus or ANYWHERE in sight, it is an interesting feeling. After 5 minutes I take a right onto the road the school is on and it’s only about a 3 minute walk to the school. When I got to the gate it was locked, but luckily there was an older man who smiled, held his hand up and ran away! I figured he was going to get someone to let me in? He came back with a clipboard that looked like a sign in sheet (at least that’s what I made it into!) and continued to talk to me in Chinese! Then a woman up ahead waved to me and I assumed she was the headmaster (who I was told to meet). She greeted me in Chinese and I said hello (in the hopes that we could continue this conversation in English). She brought me into her office as she continued to speak Chinese. I just looked at her, dumbfounded and then she wrote something down. She handed it to me like I was suppose to know what it said, but it was all in Chinese! She continued to speak to me in Chinese and finally ushered me out of the room since we obviously were not getting anywhere! I was then back in the classroom where I had first met Mr. John and Michael (yes, the strange map was STILL on the board!) And I was introduced to the teachers (all in Chinese). Finally Michael came to my rescue and explained (in pretty good English!) that I would be following Amy today, him tomorrow and Sophia on Friday! So there you have it, I was whisked away by Amy.

Amy is very tiny and laughs a lot! She told me we were going to do morning exercises! We were out on the courtyard when all the students came out (500 if I understood her correctly). They all seemed excited to see someone different and started yelling hello! Amy called a couple over and they would introduce themselves, “Hello, my name is ___.” I would say my name and say nice to meet you and they would reply “Nice to meet you too!”

So then, morning exercise. Now I tried to follow along and it really wasn’t THAT complicated, but somehow I became the laughing stock of, well pretty much the whole school it seemed, but at least about 8 boys that were near me. I didn’t think I was doing THAT bad but apparently my audience disagreed. I had to laugh with them because I couldn’t believe how much they enjoyed laughing at me! Tomorrow I am going to step up my game and show those boys! Morning exercises (and announcements) lasted about 10 minutes and then I was off with Amy to English class.

We were standing in the front of the room and she addressed the students (there were somewhere between 30-40, I think second graders) in Chinese and then said my name and they all clapped. Then she went and sat down. I stared at her wondering WHAT was going on, and she just smiled and said “Teach!” TEACH!? I just walked in and you what me to teach? I knew this was going to happen but my plan was to say “Oh can I just see what you do first?” but I really did not expect her to say Julie and then for me to teach! Uhhh..well the next bit of time I’d rather NOT talk about. I thought it was AWFUL. I had no idea WHAT was going on, I had no idea how much (if any) English they knew! Amy had given me a book so I sorta flipped through that but then she said they hadn’t learned those units yet. They definitely didn’t know as much English as I thought (or had hoped?) They knew the “greeting” down pat, but that was pretty much it. It was hard not to be able to talk to them..Amy translated a little but her English isn’t great so a lot of the time I just sort of stood there. Ugh I really just hate writing about this even now haha because I was like what the heck am I doing here? SOMEHOW I managed to get through the class. We did spend some time going over body parts (I tried doing “Head and shoulders knees and toes” but they seemed to know a different version so I was getting confused!) Oh man I couldn’t get out of there fast enough! They all clapped and were excited to say “goodbye”. Amy said we had another class but I asked her if I could get some water first. She said she thought I did great and I told her I had no idea what I was doing. She basically said to work on dialogue and the students like games. The problem with that class was I had no idea what they knew and wasn’t able to communicate with them at all. I felt like we couldn’t do introductions for the whole class without it getting boring, so I don’t know. The students are typical students. Some are very engaged, but most of the time it was never quiet and some of them were having their own conversations.

So anyway then we walked to the second English class, she introduced me and I asked if I could watch her. She didn’t seem happy, which I understood, I was there to teach English. But I had NO idea what I was doing! She had them do some greetings and work on a few vocabulary words. Then she called them up and worked on greetings with me in front of the class. This somehow turned into “Teach Julie Chinese”. Ugh, awful as well, but somehow better than ME teaching. This one girl in particular would just say things, and I would ATTEMPT to repeat it (while everyone laughed). I laughed too, I felt bad for butchering their language. We kind of did that for a while and then it turned into question time (with Amy translating). They wanted to know why foreigners had “white hair, white skin and were tall”. I laughed and told them I wasn’t quite sure. They all said they wanted to come to America too! Then, somehow, I was handed the book of vocabulary words and was told to teach! I don’t want to come across sounding as if this was the worst day of my life, it wasn’t! But I just feel like I have no idea what I am doing, basically because, I don’t! It’s hard to communicate with the kids because I have to go through Amy and sometimes she doesn’t understand either.

When that class was over we went back to the “teachers lounge”, which is the room with the map! They said it was lunch time, but I wasn’t sure if this is when I left, or when I whip out my granola bar? Michael asked if I liked Chinese food and I told him I hadn’t really ever had it! He asked how long I had been in Beijing and I said 3 days and then asked if I had eaten it in America. I just said, “Uh no not really”. So he said he would get me some! I gulped! I did want to try their food, but I didn’t think it was going to be with them all watching! I managed to sneak away to take a couple of Pepto-Bismols (precautionary) and then waited. Michael and Amy came back with a FEAST! My stomach was already churning. They had a soup (which looked good) some rice (I could do that) Chinese bread (I love bread) and something that looked, well looked like something I would never choose to eat. He said it was cabbage, pork and pumpkin. He said not pumpkin but something like that. Now it was A LOT of food. I don’t know if maybe they got a memo that I like to eat, but even if it was all pizza and chocolate I couldn’t have eaten it all (ok, that’s a lie). I prayed that I would be able to keep it all down at least until I left the school.

I tried the soup first, not bad! It had some spice that I didn’t really like, but it was doable! The rice was white rice, I could do that. The bread was in the shape of a roll and it was VERY white. It was pretty good though and I think I ate that the most, in hopes it would soak up anything my stomach didn’t like. Next came the, well whatever it was. I was handed chop sticks and then Michael asked if I knew how to use them. I said I didn’t but I’d love to learn. He told me to hold it like a pencil, but then gave me a spoon (it’s ok, other teachers were using spoons too!) Although at one point I looked over and saw Michael eating RICE with chop sticks, he is my new hero!

So, I tried the stuff and it honestly wasn’t AWFUL. Some of it was VERY spicy but I was able to get a few bites in. When Michael was trying to explain the food to me he did say it was spicy, but then seemed to be confused and asked what spicy meant. I told him I thought he was right because it meant hot. He then said something to the effect of “spicy girl”, not in the least bit creepy, but just to try to make sense of it I think? It made me laugh, because these are things I never really think about. I thought about telling him that spicy is really only used to describe food, but instead liked the way he used it..creative! (Steve, I won’t complain if you start calling me a spicy girl) Hopefully he doesn’t go around saying “Oh what a spicy day!” because then I will feel bad about not explaining it to him, but for now I think it’s good. Everyone was SO nice and kept offering me bites of their food. I got all of it down, which is an accomplishment for me. I felt AWFUL because I knew I wasn’t going to be able to finish the food. I kept telling Michael it was good but it was just a lot of food especially because everyone let me try some of theirs. I think he understood, but I still felt bad. After a few more bites everything just started tasting, not as good as it did in the beginning. I had at least tried everything and knew that even if I did like it I probably wouldn’t be able to finish everything, so I decided that was ok. I thanked them again and again in hopes they were not offended that I didn’t eat it all. I hope not.

Then both Michael and Amy brought over some books because they had questions. I panicked because while I can speak English, grammar isn’t my thing. Luckily it was mostly pronunciation! Then they showed me something I had never seen before, like a way to pronounce letters, but I just told them I didn’t know. At one point Amy said she thought I was sexy (which of course made me laugh). After that Amy said something that seemed like it was my cue to go, and I can’t say I complained! I was EXHAUSTED! I honestly felt like a celebrity, in the sense that I was always being watched and couldn’t really relax. She asked if I could get back ok and I said yes. They were all SO nice and welcoming, but it was a bit hard because really Michael is the only one that speaks English.

I managed to get home ok as well! It takes about an hour and a half which is a lot longer than I expected! I THINK on Mondays I go at 1:20pm but other than that I need to be there at 10:00am. I am already a little nervous only because I have no idea what to do with them. Tomorrow I think I am with Michael, which is good, but it is different students so again I don’t know what they know until I get there. I am reminding myself to be present, to go with the flow and that I will just show up and take it from there!

When I got back I did some laundry! They have laundry in the hostel, but the dryer is broken booo! I am actually proud because it was in Chinese but apparently the buttons I pressed did the job! It is now sort of just hanging everywhere in my room in hopes that it will dry soon. I may take a nap..I hate doing that because I know I am still adjusting to the time schedule, but I am very tired!