I had been thinking I could improve my Chinese in order to be able to talk about math, but today it went the other way around!
We have some new student teachers at the school, and one of taught me the following Chinese, using the following Maths:
The word “curse” was from a previous joke/conversation. The word “excited” was from how I tried describe how I felt after the math lesson π
(I finished writing this October 11th, but I started writing it on Friday, Sept 30th)
I found out yesterday, when Ms. Xu invited me to come, that the songs, dances, and chants that the kids have been practicing every day were meant to be performed at an assembly which happened today.
Routine morning exercises? ...or secretly learning choreography?
I was almost late due to an unsuccessful last-minute venture to get a Chinese bank account.
Continue reading
A question for all of you:
The kindergarten teachers here want to make a list of English phrases to use with the children, I assume for the purpose of creating some English learning environment. The children don’t have to learn to say the phrases, but they should learn to follow directions. We’re talking about things like “Please go back to your seat”, “Be careful”, etc – the kids don’t need to say or use them, but they should understand what is meant. And, when I say kindergarten, this includes 3-, 4-, and 5- year old preschoolers who aren’t actually in kindergarten yet.
Today was my first day doing whatever this says:
This means I stand in the hallways between classes
I think the idea is that I both make sure the kids don’t smash into walls when they are running around in the 10 minute break they get between classes, and be available if they decide to practice their English lessons on me. Many of them are getting comfortable with “Hello” and “Goodbye” and various versions of “Good Morning/Afternoon”, although they still switch those two up. Ah well, not bad. In most downtown establishments I’ve been to so far where they use any English, they greet me with “Good Morning” even though I’m there for dinner.
Ok, I have some catching up to do.Β I’m into my third week of being the Foreign Teacher (ε€ζ) for the Suzhou Experimental Elementary School at their brand-new Wujiang Pearl Elementary School (and Preschool/Kindergarten) branch, and I’ve only just gotten around to establishing some kind of web-presence.Β More explaining and flashbacks later – I figured I’d start y’all off with the same thing I start myself off with each day: Breakfast.
School breakfast: boiled egg, congee (rice porridge), pickled somethings, and two cute little mantou.
Yep, every day that I go to work, that’s what I eat. It never changes. I rather like it. The bowl of white stuff is plain congee. Congee is rice porridge/gruel. Kind of like watery oatmeal, except with rice instead of oatmeal. It’s not just rice in water – the watery part is smooth and has some substance from the starch of the rice. It’s a good cushion food for my stomach to hit first thing in the morning. It always comes with a hard boiled egg, and some pickled somethings. I usually mix both of these into my congee (after peeling the egg) to give it some more flavor. Finally, the dessert of my breakfast, there are the two adorable little mantou. They are just little rice dough rolls. They taste a teeny bit sweet, but I’m not sure yet if they have sugar added (probably) or if I just happen to think that rice dough tastes a little sweet. Anyway, this is what I eat every single morning that I go to work. Ok, I guess there is one thing that may vary. Sometimes one of my little mantou has … I think a sweet lotus paste … inside. Surprise :3 !
mmm... lotus paste...
Although, if you look at a filled mantou and an unfilled one, you can see that one is a little rounder.
Breakfast is served while the kids and teachers roll in between 07:30 and ~07:55, so every day I make sure that I’m at least moving around by the time the pleasant music comes on over the intercom system. Then the dorm bells ring, I imagine driving the boarding kids out of their rooms and propelling them towards the classroom buildings. I haven’t actually witnessed this yet, though. I live in one of the four large buildings on the brand-new primary school campus. I live on the 5th floor, and I think that one of the staff people also lives there, but I haven’t seen them yet. The boarding students live on the 2nd floor of the same building. Not all of the students live at the school. A large percentage are retrieved by their family every day and delivered again in the morning. Also, even the boarding students go home for weekends.
Today is Friday, the last day of my third week here. The students go home early on Fridays. Tonight’s activity will probably be to forage for food downtown because with the students gone for the weekend, the school won’t be serving dinner. But, dinner and lunch and school and downtown and all those other things will have to wait for later posts. This one’s just supposed to get us started.
The Tracy Update Blog 