Monday, September 12, 2011
Sept. 8, 2011 - In Shenzen
So...I am in China from now until June 30th-ish. I may get consistent access to Fbook sometime, but as of now, I do not have access to this website on a regular basis. So, if you need to get in contact with me, please send me an email: slovetro@gmail.com or find me on Skype: slovetro. I love and miss you all dearly. Ps. I started teaching already. First lesson: California slang.
Sept. 5, 2001 - China begins!
Well, this will be my first blog update. As of now, I have been in China for one month exactly. Sounds like a good time to actually share some information about my experience.
I will start at the beginning.
After a long 2 days of traveling I finally arrived in Beijing with my two new friends Genevieve Postlethwait and Trett Johnson. Geni is from Kentucky (kind of allover though) but went to school in Indiana. Trett is from Minnesota and went to school there as well. They are both very nice and easy to get along with. We took taxis from the airport to the hotel we stayed at in Beijing (BJ from now on). We arrived around 11pm BJ time but were not tired so we decided to walk around for a bit. We walked through the area around our hotel and found the best decision to make after being in a foreign country for 2 hours, street food! We sat on small chair less than a foot off of the ground and sat around an equally small table eating lamb and chicken kebabs cooked over some charcoal or something. We talked about how excited we were to be back in China because we had all been here before for study abroad experience. Trett in Shanghai, Geni in Beijing, and myself in Hong Kong. We were reminded of how terrible the smog in Beijing is when we looked up into the sky and realized that stars don’t exist in BJ. The only times the smog cleared up during the two and a half weeks we were in BJ were the days after it rained. Because the three of us decided against buying group tickets to fly to China, we got in about half a day before the rest of the group. This gave us time to explore the city and have a free day, which we took advantage of.
During our first full day in BJ we walked through the streets for a while until we reached a maze of worker’s housing. After walking around for more than an hour, we finally found our destination. The Summer Palace. This location is essentially a huge park surrounding a beautiful lake with old architecture all around it. We walked around for a few hours before finding some ice cream to sooth our hot bodies that were not accustomed to such humidity. The rest of the day was spent returning to the hotel and meeting other people in our program as they arrived.
The next day was the start of training, or teacher boot camp, which was held on the campus of Peking (Beijing) University. After basic introductions and tours, we started in with a 4 hour lecture and the news that we would be teaching children starting on day two of training. After meeting my teaching partner, Samantha Duckett (who also went by Sam), the next days of training all blend together. After the first day of teaching we followed a schedule of teaching in the morning, followed by a lecture and lesson planning before breaking for lunch. After lunch began two hours of Chinese class and then another TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) lecture. Every couple of days we would also have a group meeting to discuss official business or plans for the evening. This continued for nine days without break until we had one day off and then continued for another seven days. After these 17 days, we were almost done with training and our teaching. We had a talent show for the parents of the students to show off their English skills. Our group sang the song from the movie “Juno,” “All I want is you.” Our time in Beijing ended with tours of the Forbidden City and the Great Wall along with a dinner where we all received our TEFL certification certificates.
The next part of our year began with a 24-hour train ride from Beijing to Shenzhen. When we arrived in Shenzhen we were checked into a hotel in a not so populated area of the city. It was a nice hotel but it was away from some major parts of the city which could be why we stayed there. The Bureau of Education for Shenzhen paid for our hotel and all of our meals while we were staying these few nights in Shenzhen. We needed to stay in a hotel for the first few nights so that we could get everything sorted out about our passports and residences and things of this nature. A few of the people in our program randomly got very nice villas to stay in for these few nights. By “nice villas,” I mean two story rooms with elevators and baths that look like Jacuzzis. These were the areas where close to the whole of the program partied during our nights at the hotel. It was quite the occasion.
Around this time is also when I received information about where I was going to be living and working for the next year. My placement is in a town called DaMeiSha in the farthest East district of Shenzhen. The location is quite far from the city center (1 ½ hours by bus) but it is a 10 minute walk from the beach. Only my roommate and I were placed in this town and we are working at a Junior High School nearby. I teach three classes on Mondays, four classes on Tuesdays, two classes on Wednesdays, and one class on Thursday. Each class is only 40 minutes and I have Fridays free. ☺
I arrived at my apartment about a week ago. Since then we have had our air conditioning go out for 4 or 5 hours, an electrical outlet explode as my roommate was trying to plug something in, and last night I killed a cockroach. But overall, the apartment is very nice and spacious. The area I live in is quite interesting. There are a relatively large number of Russians who live here because there is a carnival close by that many of them work at as acrobats and stunt people. It makes life interesting to see white people almost every day that aren’t teachers. I will post pictures of my apartment and my area soon.
Today was my first day of teaching. I had three classes and while the first group of students was rambunctious, the second and third classes were better behaved. Overall, it was a good first day that boosted my confidence and made me feel like I will actually be able to handle a year of this.
I will hopefully update this more often now that I am in a specific place for an extended period of time. Tomorrow I have four classes in a row without a break, so hopefully I will be able to handle it! Wish me luck! ☺
I will start at the beginning.
After a long 2 days of traveling I finally arrived in Beijing with my two new friends Genevieve Postlethwait and Trett Johnson. Geni is from Kentucky (kind of allover though) but went to school in Indiana. Trett is from Minnesota and went to school there as well. They are both very nice and easy to get along with. We took taxis from the airport to the hotel we stayed at in Beijing (BJ from now on). We arrived around 11pm BJ time but were not tired so we decided to walk around for a bit. We walked through the area around our hotel and found the best decision to make after being in a foreign country for 2 hours, street food! We sat on small chair less than a foot off of the ground and sat around an equally small table eating lamb and chicken kebabs cooked over some charcoal or something. We talked about how excited we were to be back in China because we had all been here before for study abroad experience. Trett in Shanghai, Geni in Beijing, and myself in Hong Kong. We were reminded of how terrible the smog in Beijing is when we looked up into the sky and realized that stars don’t exist in BJ. The only times the smog cleared up during the two and a half weeks we were in BJ were the days after it rained. Because the three of us decided against buying group tickets to fly to China, we got in about half a day before the rest of the group. This gave us time to explore the city and have a free day, which we took advantage of.
During our first full day in BJ we walked through the streets for a while until we reached a maze of worker’s housing. After walking around for more than an hour, we finally found our destination. The Summer Palace. This location is essentially a huge park surrounding a beautiful lake with old architecture all around it. We walked around for a few hours before finding some ice cream to sooth our hot bodies that were not accustomed to such humidity. The rest of the day was spent returning to the hotel and meeting other people in our program as they arrived.
The next day was the start of training, or teacher boot camp, which was held on the campus of Peking (Beijing) University. After basic introductions and tours, we started in with a 4 hour lecture and the news that we would be teaching children starting on day two of training. After meeting my teaching partner, Samantha Duckett (who also went by Sam), the next days of training all blend together. After the first day of teaching we followed a schedule of teaching in the morning, followed by a lecture and lesson planning before breaking for lunch. After lunch began two hours of Chinese class and then another TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) lecture. Every couple of days we would also have a group meeting to discuss official business or plans for the evening. This continued for nine days without break until we had one day off and then continued for another seven days. After these 17 days, we were almost done with training and our teaching. We had a talent show for the parents of the students to show off their English skills. Our group sang the song from the movie “Juno,” “All I want is you.” Our time in Beijing ended with tours of the Forbidden City and the Great Wall along with a dinner where we all received our TEFL certification certificates.
The next part of our year began with a 24-hour train ride from Beijing to Shenzhen. When we arrived in Shenzhen we were checked into a hotel in a not so populated area of the city. It was a nice hotel but it was away from some major parts of the city which could be why we stayed there. The Bureau of Education for Shenzhen paid for our hotel and all of our meals while we were staying these few nights in Shenzhen. We needed to stay in a hotel for the first few nights so that we could get everything sorted out about our passports and residences and things of this nature. A few of the people in our program randomly got very nice villas to stay in for these few nights. By “nice villas,” I mean two story rooms with elevators and baths that look like Jacuzzis. These were the areas where close to the whole of the program partied during our nights at the hotel. It was quite the occasion.
Around this time is also when I received information about where I was going to be living and working for the next year. My placement is in a town called DaMeiSha in the farthest East district of Shenzhen. The location is quite far from the city center (1 ½ hours by bus) but it is a 10 minute walk from the beach. Only my roommate and I were placed in this town and we are working at a Junior High School nearby. I teach three classes on Mondays, four classes on Tuesdays, two classes on Wednesdays, and one class on Thursday. Each class is only 40 minutes and I have Fridays free. ☺
I arrived at my apartment about a week ago. Since then we have had our air conditioning go out for 4 or 5 hours, an electrical outlet explode as my roommate was trying to plug something in, and last night I killed a cockroach. But overall, the apartment is very nice and spacious. The area I live in is quite interesting. There are a relatively large number of Russians who live here because there is a carnival close by that many of them work at as acrobats and stunt people. It makes life interesting to see white people almost every day that aren’t teachers. I will post pictures of my apartment and my area soon.
Today was my first day of teaching. I had three classes and while the first group of students was rambunctious, the second and third classes were better behaved. Overall, it was a good first day that boosted my confidence and made me feel like I will actually be able to handle a year of this.
I will hopefully update this more often now that I am in a specific place for an extended period of time. Tomorrow I have four classes in a row without a break, so hopefully I will be able to handle it! Wish me luck! ☺
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