The start of break ended up being mostly working days. It was really strange to not have homework to contemplate or attempt. I am going to try to keep up with my studies over the five week break, hopefully it will work out. My Chinese friends have offered their Chinese as a way to help me study. We’ll see if it works out. I hope to clean my room up, it is currently covered in papers, as my room always is come the end of the school year. It’s time to drop off books and put things away. This weekend was also a weekend of goodbyes. Almost all the people who are staying for a semester have left. Hugging, long goodbyes, and a veritable garage sale of people’s rooms. I have acquired a few new items, most of which are cleaning supplies I regularly borrowed anyway. I have also acquired nice pillows and another set of sheets and towels. All in all a good haul. It trips me out a little to be think about when I will leave. People acquired so much in the three months they were here. I will be here for 11 months, I wonder what packing up my life will be like. Overall work was fun, I have been given a Sunday morning class. They are mildly more advanced than my regular kids, as they can read. I need to get the dynamic of the class down, so it’ll be some floundering on my part. Hopefully we’ll be able to settle down and have a good time. Otherwise not much to report on the break front. I am hoping to do some exploring of Chengdu, just to break up the lazing around my room feel.
Dec. 15, 2014
First Monday without class. I intended to clean my room and that most certainly didn’t happen. I instead just tidied up and rearranged a few things but overall it was a pretty lax day. I probably drank more coffee than I should have but oh well what can you do about that? I went to work around 1:30ish. I feel really bad for my tutee, she is in tutoring because her mother wants her to perfect in English, even though she has been learning it all her life. Her English for an 11 year old living in China is pretty impressive. She is starting in on the Harry Potter books in English which should give you an idea where her level is at. Her mother has demanded homework from our sessions so I decided to use the book. Every new word we find I help her define it then she will go home and write up a sentence for each word. Since often the words she doesn’t recognize are fairly complex verbs it should help her improve her vocabulary. Jesse and I walked back and stopped in to get dinner before going all the way back to the dorms. Tomorrow is the singing contest. I am singing a Chinese song, we’ll see how it goes. I practiced a bit, but I am still really nervous. We’ll see how tomorrow turns out.
Dec. 16, 2014
Today started with rehearsal for the singing contest. It was essentially chaos, because no one really knew what was going on. But we managed to struggle through it together (as is the Chinese way). Ashley and Jackie would be preforming as well. Originally they thought they were competing but it turned out that they were just fillers because Ashley was spinning her color guard flags and Jackie was singing an English song. I sang 天黑黑, which is popular, sad, slow song. Ballads are kinda a thing in China, so that’s what I sang. I needed the words because I only had about 16 days to learn a song that even Chinese people said was fairly hard. Unfortunately the microphone cut out a few times while I was singing. I also got really nervous for no reason, I just wanted to do well I think. I ended up with Third place over all and I am very pleased with that. I will try to get my performance up somewhere, but it may be a while before that is possible. It was fun day definitely something different from the usual experience. I had to miss work for the contest, but I will make up for it this week. I am covering for one of my coworkers, so yay for extra money.
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| Greeters for the Contest |
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| Ashley preforming |
So something interesting has happened. Brennan and Cassidy are looking to move out of the dorms into an apartment. They found one that is actually on campus and very nice. However, it was a little too big and a little to expensive. So they asked Jesse and I to occupy the rooms instead. The rent split between the four of us is 875 RMB a month. In the dorms I am paying 1500 RMB a month (I just payed it all up front). So over all it will be cheaper and we will be getting out of the dorm bubble. It’s been really fun living in the dorms but I think I am ready to get out of the English bubble that is the foreigners’ dorms. Internet should also improve significantly making it possible for me to commune more regularly with the outside world. I think this will be an interesting adventure between all of us. I will be moving over the next few weeks. I will keep you updated!!
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