one year+ in china
We, the China 12s, have now lived in China for one year + 16 days.
We've said goodbye to most of our China 11s, and welcomed the China 13s.
We've learned how to give speeches with one minute's warning, how to speak openly and without shame about the state of our poo, how to introduce ourselves and buy train tickets and cuss in Chinese, how to teach inside of another culture and system, how to enjoy our students despite constant requests for the secret trick to improving one's oral English. We've taught 100s of students, eaten 100s of bowls of noodles, drunk a LOT of bad beer, played a lot of cards, gotten to know our neighborhoods and our colleagues and our country kids and our city kids, spent weeks of time on trains, and generally had a great time.
Thanks for the emails, the calls, the visit (eva!!), the planned visits over the next year (mom! dad! adrienne! betsy! linds! lucy? nathan?) , the packages, the cards...
it's been a good year.
They say that year #2 goes even faster. I can hardly believe it.
Grades are in and I've been putzing around for the last few days cleaning and working on my classes for next semester -- I'll be teaching American Literature, Adv. Practical Skills Oral English, and a poetry appreciation course that I'm developing.
On Friday we head up to the desert town of Jiuquan to conduct our two week teacher training project with rural middle school teachers. My family will be arriving in China in just 10 days, and traveling around for about a week; I'll be picking them up at the far western edge of the Great Wall just before the end of summer project. Straight from there we'll head back to Lanzhou, spending a few days in Gansu before flying to Chongqing and taking a dragon boat cruise down the Yangtze River. From their, train to Hangshou/Suzhou, and finish up with a day or two in Shanghai before they fly home just in time for Adrienne to start college! From Shanghai I'll go to Beijing for a day and then out to visit a student's hometown. From there, I'll race back to Lanzhou, do laundry, hopefully meet my new sitemate, and hop on another train with Ben to head South... we're going down to Guizhou to visit my old sitemate, Pierce, and to explore the beautiful landscape and many minority villages down there. A quick stop in Chengdu for medical check-ups, and back to site by September 1st, just in time to start classes.
I'll be on the road for the rest of July and all of August, but please keep in touch! In China, an internet cafe is never far away.
We've said goodbye to most of our China 11s, and welcomed the China 13s.
We've learned how to give speeches with one minute's warning, how to speak openly and without shame about the state of our poo, how to introduce ourselves and buy train tickets and cuss in Chinese, how to teach inside of another culture and system, how to enjoy our students despite constant requests for the secret trick to improving one's oral English. We've taught 100s of students, eaten 100s of bowls of noodles, drunk a LOT of bad beer, played a lot of cards, gotten to know our neighborhoods and our colleagues and our country kids and our city kids, spent weeks of time on trains, and generally had a great time.
Thanks for the emails, the calls, the visit (eva!!), the planned visits over the next year (mom! dad! adrienne! betsy! linds! lucy? nathan?) , the packages, the cards...
it's been a good year.
They say that year #2 goes even faster. I can hardly believe it.
Grades are in and I've been putzing around for the last few days cleaning and working on my classes for next semester -- I'll be teaching American Literature, Adv. Practical Skills Oral English, and a poetry appreciation course that I'm developing.
On Friday we head up to the desert town of Jiuquan to conduct our two week teacher training project with rural middle school teachers. My family will be arriving in China in just 10 days, and traveling around for about a week; I'll be picking them up at the far western edge of the Great Wall just before the end of summer project. Straight from there we'll head back to Lanzhou, spending a few days in Gansu before flying to Chongqing and taking a dragon boat cruise down the Yangtze River. From their, train to Hangshou/Suzhou, and finish up with a day or two in Shanghai before they fly home just in time for Adrienne to start college! From Shanghai I'll go to Beijing for a day and then out to visit a student's hometown. From there, I'll race back to Lanzhou, do laundry, hopefully meet my new sitemate, and hop on another train with Ben to head South... we're going down to Guizhou to visit my old sitemate, Pierce, and to explore the beautiful landscape and many minority villages down there. A quick stop in Chengdu for medical check-ups, and back to site by September 1st, just in time to start classes.
I'll be on the road for the rest of July and all of August, but please keep in touch! In China, an internet cafe is never far away.
posted by Kristen at
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
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