Second Day of Teaching

Today was the second day of teaching and it was crazy! The school assumes we know what we’re doing and just kinda threw us in among the wolves. The kids are so super cute! It’s really hard though, to teach the lesson and discipline at the same time. Every day it’s going to get better as we figure out the routine and exactly what we’re doing.

We went to the grocery store and to the market and I found that everything moves faster here. Know what you’re doing and move along in the line or someone will cut in front of you. Basically there are no rules in China. The cafeteria is supposed to be open during a certain time but they close whenever they feel like it. Also, wherever it says “no spitting” people spit. And not just spitting, hawking loogies is a big thing here.

Also, something that I could tell next semester’s teachers: bring slippers and warmer clothes! I always keep something on my feet, but that means I quickly run out of socks. I also really planned clothes for summer, not for snow. We washed our clothes last night… unfortunately the dryer doesn’t work. We had even washed our coats that we’d been wearing 24/7 and then of course it snowed today because all of our coats are wet! So today I wore every long sleeve shirt that I brought.

Things that I’m grateful for: Heat, Microwaves, Bakeries. In the cafeteria I looked around and saw a bunch of people had fruit. What?! So I asked around and we found around the corner in the building there was a little… kind of like a bakery… with pastries and cookies with meat in them, egg rolls, and tons of fruit! Yay!

Two stops down from us we found this hidden upstairs market where there are tons of little food shops. We were about to buy 6 potstickers from this 29 year old lady (who, surprise, told us she was also a midwife and had delivered 5 babies the previous night!) but she said, "No, no, I buy!" So she gave us like 24 free pot stickers. This lady in the picture saw us sitting down eating our food and gave us free samples of her porridge. So many kind people here!

There was a little fruit stand that had like half a pineapple on a stick for $0.30. We are so grateful for all the fruit we can get!

And this is breakfast. Porridge, a dumpling filled with cooked veggies, and pickles. There was also a boiled egg but I don't trust them since they don't refrigerate eggs here.

After breakfast, I bought me some kind of cheesy pastry and warmed up some Emergen-C to try to conquer this nasty cold I have. After teaching, I took a much needed nap from lunch (12:30) to dinner (5:30).