After 2 months of freedom we're back to the excitement of ESL teaching, English corners and cafeteria food.VacationAfter all of the excitement of giving and grading 300 final exams (this is even more impressive when you can see the amount of paper work that goes along with this…and even more so when you find out its all done by hand—Excel where are you!?) we welcomed our first couple weeks of solitude with movies, books and lots of sleep. Vacation came at just the right time, since things just got colder and without central air the best thing you can do to keep from getting sick is be very very still. We hibernated in our apartment by moving all of our important furniture (T.V. and couch) into our 2 most important rooms (bedroom and study) and lived there…making a commitment to leave every few days to buy groceries and shower. It felt very strange to have such a long break, and we were constantly waiting for that call--- where are you?! You were supposed to be here…you were supposed to do this…but no such call… and after 2 months we became all too accustomed to it. We made short weekend trips to visit other volunteers at their sites, and after 3 weeks in our apartment we left for a week of interim training and 2 weeks of traveling.Training There is not much exciting to tell about training—and I wouldn’t even mention it, except for the story of getting there. The trip is usually just over 4 hours- but unfortunately this day well exceeded it. We had finished the majority of our trip and were just under an hour from our destination—when the bus started “having problems”—I would say it had broken down—but when a bus breaks down, you usually stop the bus and find an alternate form of transportation. But this little engine that could, and its driver, were determined to take it as far as it would go. After a couple brief rest stops—the bus seemed to finally give out and—rather than stopping (is that what you would expect of the little engine that could?)—we coasted along at 5km per hour. Some of the skilled male passengers wanted to try their hand at fixing the machine, so while we coasted along, they took the cover off the engine (located to the right of the driver) and tinkered around—at the sight of this debacle everyone else, reached into their pockets and lit up…cigarettes and an open engine…it just doesn’t seem right. After an hour of this we came to a toll/rest stop and the driver let us off to jump onto other buses. Hainan From training we flew to an island in southern China called Hainan. The southern area of Hainan is all beaches, and is a hot spot for Russians on vacation. Hainan has really everything you could want from a beach vacation—complete with coconut’s to drink out of on every corner. But most importantly, Hainan has—Monkey Island.Monkey Island is all the images its title evokes…all that and more. Despite being advertised on the World Wide Web, getting there was not a tour bus ride away. From our hostel we took a city bus, to the long distance bus station, to a very small city a couple hours away. At the city we were supposed to find another bus to take us to another bus station to take a mini-bus towards the island…we were told the bus would let us off and then we were supposed to walk straight for a couple kilometers. After we had walked we would come to a sky lift, which would take us to Monkey Island... That’s not exactly what we did... At the bus station we ran into a guy who wanted to use his limited English to help us get around…he didn’t so much help us as he did take us around in circles and eventually we had to break paths with him (we’re all about humoring people, but we only had a couple hours before the last bus would leave to take us back to our hostel…and we were not about to miss the monkeys). So we hopped on a 3-wheeled cart of sorts and had the woman take us straight to the sky- lift. The ride ended up being about a 1/2 hour and well worth it since we didn’t have spare time to be walking “a couple kilometers” in a “straight” direction. We bought our tickets got on the sky lift and in 10 minutes we were amazed. Since we were late in the day, there was no line to get on the sky-lift, but there was a large group of people waiting to return all waiting in line…and what was waiting with them? Monkeys. Just standing on the rails inches away from the people, monkeys. Everywhere. It was crazy. We started walking down a path when Steve got out our camera to take a picture of some monkeys on the path looking at us. You have to know now, that the day before we had a great idea to buy a bag of peanuts to feed the monkeys (to avoid hiked prices and all) and at this time I thought if we got the peanuts out we could feed them—like birds—throw a little on the ground get them to come a little closer—awesome picture. We did manage to get them closer, but no such picture. At the rustling of a plastic bag they did come closer…like birds, but in a creepy horror movie—they’re coming out of the trees and walking towards me—sort of way. When we realized what was going on, we started to slowly back away, but it all too quickly escalated and before I knew it a monkey jumped on me, attached to my side, ripped the bag out of my hand and ran off into a tree. Opposable thumbs give them way too much power. After 4 days at the beach we moved to the north to get off the island and head towards Hong Kong. At the ferry terminal we were greeted by a man who helped us purchase two tickets that would ferry us off the island and then take us by bus to Hong Kong. After buying the tickets we were given pins to wear with the companies name and “told” to wait until the ferry returned for boarding. When the call was let for all boarders, there was a mad rush to the gate. Guards pushed people into something resembling lines, and made everyone put their bags through X-ray machines…no one was actually watching the video of the bags with the potential weapons…but it was required nonetheless. Passengers had an intense urgency to get on the ferry, and while we had no idea why—the shoving and running became contagious. When we were finally herded on we realized the rush was all about finding a seat that was not located in the middle section.--the section with the bathrooms. Though we haven’t had many opportunities to travel in China, our instincts told us to divide and conquer. And we did—finding the last pair of seats in the last section. After a few hours on the ferry, we got off and waited to be recognized by someone wearing a similar pin. A helmet-clad woman grabbed us with a few other people and walked us up a hill for 10 minutes and then asked us to sit on a convenience store bench and left with the rest of the group. And that was where we waited. After a 1/2 hour or so we decided it would be a good idea to buy some food since we had no idea what the rest of the evening would have in store for us. We didn’t have many options other than the convenience store we were sitting at, the 2 on either side of it and the fish in the ocean, and after an hour we were a little worried we would be sleeping at one of these stores, but eventually the helmet came back for us. We followed her for another 10 minutes up the rest of the hill and found at the top—40 or so other helmet-wearing woman with moped carts. Now, we are actually not supposed to ride on motorized vehicles such as these, via P.C. rules—but I don’t see that we had a choice. So we got in the back cart with all of our luggage and drove for a few miles in the country, until we round a corner and were dropped off in large yard, with large penned in area for hogs and a cloister created from 4 cement walls. 3 of the walls only served to separate us from the gravel yard and hog pen, the 4th wall served as an office and kitchen. Inside the cloister, we found 10 long benches and a few other people waiting with bags. The helmeted woman led us to a specific bench and told us to sit. This bench was backless, but not wanting to be confused with people for other destinations, we sat and remained in that position for at least an hour. After an hour of no buses, we came to the conclusion that we could indeed leave our assigned bench and we took turns staying with the luggage and exploring the area and watching kids chase the hogs with sticks. The afternoon continued this way for several more hours, with the occasional traveler coming to join the small group in the waiting yard. Around 7 we found that the price of our ticket included dinner, and we ate until the buses began to come. Again, we strategized as to the best approach—there was so much we didn’t know—which beds had the most leg room, was there a ladder to get to the top bunk, or would people be using your shoulder as a foot rest every time they came up and down? Was the bathroom in the front, middle or back? All of these questions were very important, because we had 12 hours ahead of us—and most importantly, we did not want to be near the man who had provided entertainment for the past few hours by singing. So again, we went with our full proof plan to divide and conquer—Steve would stow the bags underneath with everyone else while I would run ahead and search the bus for the best 2 beds. I entered the middle door to side step the line of people who would start at the front and slowly work their way back, picking off the best beds one by one. Unfortunately, when I got on the bus I found that there were not 2 beds to save—instead of the 3 tiered bunks as pictured on the side of the bus, the bus was full of regular seats—with one exception, they were pre-reclined for us. This was a big set back, but I recognized immediately that leg room was now of even higher importance and I immediately targeted the 2 seats at the entrance of the middle door—they had no other seats in front of them providing really, the best leg room available. Unfortunately, the appearance of seats had thrown off our objectives, and I failed to notice that these seats were as close as you can get to the bathroom, and directly across from us sat the singing man…he provided a nice interpretation of the music videos that they played for the first few hours of our trip. The trip was pretty uneventful and shorter than we thought. At 5am we were woken up to get off for entrance into Hong Kong. Hong KongAfter a quick trip through customs, we exchanged our money and entered into a whole new world, where the money is colorful, McDonald’s makes better coffee than Starbucks (blasphemy) and there is a 7-eleven at every corner, metro stop and underground walkway (sans slushies) (what is going on in this place!) and you can buy Japanese Coca-Cola, Korean Coca Cola, UK Coca Cola, American Coca-Cola, all at the grocery store. We were there to visit my cousin, Steve (Miller)—but since it was just after 5am, we decided we should wait for a more college friendly morning hour. We weren’t really sure where anything was, but we decided the best option was to get into a taxi and ask him to take us to McDonalds. Before you judge us, I should tell you it is the only American restaurant that we know the name of in Chinese—and since we don’t know the name of anything in Hong Kong, it really is the only place we could ask to go (and we were in time for breakfast). Our week in Hong Kong contains a long list of culture shock, all starting with this taxi ride. First of all, the base rate for a taxi is 16 H.K. dollars, compared with 3 Yuan in Yongchuan (price comparisons such as these, went on for the rest of the week). After getting in the taxi, we asked to go to McDonalds. The driver started the car and began driving on the left side of the road (this really didn’t surprise us though, because as it is, our taxi drivers also tend to favor the left side of the road). In Chinese he asked us which one? At this point, neither of us could remember how to say- the closest one—so instead I tried saying “do you know where one is?” The driver stopped the car, turned around, and said IN ENGLISH “yes of course, I know where one is, they are here, there, everywhere. There is one on every corner. Which one do you want to go to?” Sheepishly I replied, “the closest one please.” Which leads us to culture shock number 2: Everyone speaks English. This caused a few embarrassing moments during our week since we have both lost all sense of an inner-monologue—and apparently people in your subway car aren’t interested in when you have to use the bathroom. We spent the week reacquainting ourselves with things that have become foreign to us like Mexican food, and apologizing when you step on someone’s toes. Restaurants and coffee shops were very distracting, and we constantly found ourselves eaves dropping on nearby conversations…and sometimes accidentally commenting on them (you rarely think about your inner monologue until you lose it). In addition to some necessities, like bookstores and the mall, we also hit up a few tourist spots, like the 10,000 Buddhas temple, and the “largest, outdoor, seated, bronze Buddha in the world” (now we just need to see the largest, outdoor, seated, silver-plated Buddha). To get to the L.O.S.B.B. we took a 20-minute sky rail ride… I’d like to point out here – how nice it is to have an-almost-local, who can share interesting tid-bits about the sites you visit. For example, Steve M. took this opportunity, while we were in the middle of the sky-ride, to tell us all about the many accidents that can happen on a sky rail, particularly an incident where a plane clipped a cable line, releasing a whole line of gondolas to plummet to their death. He probably thought of this particular story, because there was an airport within eyesight, and several planes flying overhead. Steve M. showed us around the city, and introduced us to the other foreigners at his university. One evening we were lucky enough to spot the filming of a soap opera—we watched for awhile and than witnessed as fans tried to catch their favorite actors and actresses for a picture—we found one girl sobbing after receiving an autograph. You can see the picture of one celebrity on our webshots page…unfortunately (especially to the dismay of our students) you can only see his legs—our view was obstructed by some filming equipment. Later that night, Steve was lucky enough to be grabbed by a transvestite. MacauDuring our visit to Hong Kong- we hopped on a short ferry ride over to Macau, a former Portuguese concession that operates similarly to Hong Kong. Macau is known for its gambling, but we had seen in our Lonely Planet that it had a few more things to offer- so we brought a few things in a backpack incase we decided to stay the night. Macau is very small and easily manageable, they have their own currency, but you can also use Hong Kong dollars. At the ferry terminal they have maps in English, including all of the busses that go to major tourist spots. Macau’s major site (after the casinos) is the ruins of St. Paul’s cathedral, and from there the list continues mainly of churches, theatres and lighthouses. After visiting a few sites, we decided it was worth spending more time there- so we started looking for a hotel. Lonely Planet had a few suggestions- and listed the former red-light district as a now safe and inexpensive area to stay. After finding a room in that area, we went out to explore some more of the city. It was really interesting, because everyone seemed to be speaking different languages. Signs were in 3 different languages, Chinese, Portuguese, and English—and then you have to throw in the dialects (mainly regarding Chinese). It was so interesting to watch people shop, because most of it is similar to the mainland, and done by bargaining. We are used to being the outsiders that can’t understand, but it was nice to know- that even those on the inside have to work to understand each other. The whole climate of Macau was very different—very relaxed and slow. It was not as dirty as the mainland, but not as sterile as Hong Kong. The most socially revealing incident came at 4am when the fire alarm went off in our hotel. Steve and I hurriedly, put on our shoes and jackets and left the room—we were at a loss for a moment, because the hotel lobby was on the first floor—but the actual rooms were on the 4th and 5th floors. We weren’t sure what was in between—because the elevator only goes to the 1st, 4th and 5th floors. Now, all of you well-trained Americans sitting in front of your computers are thinking—“Don’t take the elevator!” Well we were thinking the same thing—so we looked through the halls for a stairwell, found one and started to unlock it—when a Chinese man came out in his underwear and starting pointing and yelling—having no idea what he was saying, we decided we were still going to unlock the door. Next door to us was a group of 4 or 5 noisy Chileans, but they were not getting their act together—so we left them all behind and ran down the unlit stairwell. The stairwell ended on the sidewalk, where we were greeted by several women who I thought, were hotel patrons (Steve later pointed out that they were not patrons, and when I turned around I realized they had spread out to respective corners, and a few were being solicited as we spoke). We walked around the building to the hotel lobby, where we found the receptionist busy on the phone. We were the only 2 that had made it out of the building so far. 10 minutes later people slowly began to trickle down stairs; the Chileans eventually arrived—they had taken the time to dress and pack their bags (rookie mistake) and after a 1/2 hour of ringing, another patron finally fed up, came down in the elevator to ask what all the noise was for. Well, if there had been a fire—I’m pretty sure Steve and I would have been the only ones safe…but there was not—so after 45 minutes, the alarm was turned off and we returned to our rooms. City Vs. Cars (and other reasons our students need new text books)After a 2-month vacation we were pretty eager to start new activities and greet our students with an enthusiasm that sparked with the first signs of spring and a realization that this semester we were “in the know”—we knew the schedule of the campus, the general student routines, we had deciphered the mysterious code of our classroom computers, and wormed our way into educating our students (passed them all so they should be happy), and we could navigate the cafeteria like a seasoned waiguoren (foreigner) should. Naturally, we were met with the imploding of our hubris, as any waiguoren should expect. Monday at 8am, we were greeted with tired eyes in need of a stiff kick of coffee (tea just won’t give it to you) and as the day wore on they looked more and more overwhelmed. We found out our sophomores were all busy preparing for their national English exam (passing this determines whether they actually get a diploma or not) and 1/2 of our juniors are preparing for their last chance to pass it. In the second week I walked into a classroom with Chinese scribbled all over the chalkboard—my students told me it was a schedule of the new classes that had just been added to their classes—5 hours of Mandarin, character practice (handwriting) and English had been added to every major. It seems we were the only ones who were exhausted from resting—the teachers and staff had also had a shortened break in order to prepare for next year’s accreditation review. After a short 10-day vacation, most found themselves with 6 days of teaching. In our 6th week now, we have managed to come up with some activities that comply with the student’s new schedules—such as a study hall for the national exam and an English movie night (which they eagerly exclaim improves their oral English). When the students become more active Steve wants to start an American sports afternoon, with frisbee and football. While we don’t have a constant barrage of new anecdotes, and are more than accustomed to requests to sing—there are a few things that have surprised us in these few weeks. One of our favorite stories is about the name changes that have occurred since the last semester. On one roster sheet I realized that one male student who had previously been named Michelle—changed his name to Sue. I asked him why he changed it—and he said he had forgotten what his name was last semester, so he chose a new one. I hadn’t mentioned to him that Michelle is really a girls name (and actually my middle name) but I decided it wasn’t too late and told him that Sue was usually a female name, and actually so was Michelle. He assured me that he didn’t mind, and would stick with Sue, since it was similar to his surname Su. On Steve’s first day back one of his students approached him to tell him that she no longer wanted to be called Angel. Instead, this semester she would like to be called Devil. The World Is Your Oyster When You Have A Live Eel 2 weeks ago we went to dinner with one of Steve’s classes. Hot pot is their favorite, so we agreed (although truthfully we really have never gotten used to it). Hot pot is type of restaurant with a hole in the middle of the table, for a large, hot, pot. They fill the pot with oil and spices and you order raw food—that you then cook by soaking it in the oil. The restaurant that they chose was very popular and on a crowded second floor. After we sat down, I was a little worried to realize that these pots were heated by a gas connection in the floor, and because we had pushed 2 tables together to provide enough room for everyone, the tubing was fully extended, and connecting to the floor right by my foot. This is a tremendous amount of responsibility—to ensure that my foot didn’t twitch in an inadvertent direction—disconnecting the tube, resulting in- what I’m pretty sure would be an almost immediate explosion—but I was pretty sure I could handle it. Then, as I looked around the room I realized that everyone else had been entrusted with the same responsibility…and I wasn’t so sure everyone else could handle it--- we were at the tail end of dinner hour—and most tables were drunkenly playing cards and a Chinese form of paper rock scissors (which is very loud and seems to have much more importance than ours). I quickly strategized, that in the event of any tubing disconnection of any kind—the best option would not be the one stairwell at the other side of the room—but instead the fixed windows behind us would have to be broken by force and then jumped out of. I quietly informed Steve that he would be that force if the situation should occur. Half way through the meal—students at the other end of the table called for the waitress to come over—the student next to us—translated that their gas was leaking—I quickly jumped up ready to put my plan in action—but they told me to sit down and by that time the waitress had already reconnected it and people didn’t seem to be dying off by any poisonous toxins- so I complied... and another day passed that I did not have to jump out a second story window. The dishes continue to come throughout the meal and every few minutes you just reach your chopsticks down in the pot and hope for the best. The most popular dishes at hot pot always seem to be intestine and brain—but they are usually easy to spot and pick around. Steve and I sat next to each other and in between two female students. The one on our left, very politely, always served us before herself—digging things out of the hot oil and putting them in our bowls. We spend a lot of time with the student on our right (Snow—she may be remembered from a previous update) and she is a little more accustomed to our tastes—so with a sideways glance she knew she was free to remove the items for herself. Steve was adventurous and tried chicken foot and pig’s stomach. I felt I was adventurous when I tried what was described to me as “a thing that grows on trees when they die” (later translated as a mushroom…but still). Some students can be a little “restrictive” when is comes to their language, and are not necessarily encouraging of our learning—but this group of students in particular is a lot of fun, and we had a good time learning some new phrases and words from them. Snow is always very encouraging and pointed out that I imitated well. I was very excited about this—because imitation is key for the tones—but then she added, “like an ape.” I would prefer parrot…but I’ll take what I can get. At the end of the dinner we caught the last bus back to campus. Since it was mostly just our group on the bus—they gave short concerts of singing and one student provided applause for the few passengers that boarded between the restaurant and the school---between his applause and the 2 round-eyed white people sitting behind him—a few were frightened off. 10 Months Down….17 to goThings are going pretty smoothly—we’re becoming more adventurous, and always finding new things around our town. We still have a language tutor, and we’re both busily filling notebooks with characters—unfortunately, we’ve learned the word for nose—and now we always hear people talking about ours. We’re still looking for that coffee shop, and we are sad to report they have stopped carrying peanut butter, at all 3 grocery stores in our town (apparently due to the Peter Pan debacle). We also did not get the coveted “wall” to enclose our kitchen…and unfortunately, the construction workers in the temporary housing have found us. Now, when we are washing our dishes we can occasionally hear such things as “hello” and “nice to meet you”…from 4 stories up. The most unnerving is when we are brushing our teeth in the bathroom and we turn around- to spot a man, on the hill maybe 100 meters away—just standing with his hands behind his back…observing…us in our bathroom…brushing our teeth. But—on a high note, we have encountered- 2 major improvements. 1st—we found “mashed potato guy.” This is a man with an outdoor restaurant, who makes mashed potatoes, with onions, MSG and all that good stuff J 2nd—“DVD woman.” This is a girl about my age who owns a DVD/CD store with her dad. She was tutored with English by the last volunteer (who I finally had the good sense to e-mail—asking “seriously, where are all of the DVDs in this town”)—she directed me to their hidden store (ok, really we had walked by it maybe a 12 times) and we have since gotten our fill of entertainment, and we have someone to visit with downtown. Spark Notes VersionWe had 8 weeks vacation! We went to Hong Kong, Macau and most importantly monkey island! We had several experiences with the possibility of fire…it was not reassuring. Steve had a student that changed her name from Angel to Devil. We did not get a wall for our kitchen—but we did find a guy who makes mashed potatoes.

scroll to the bottom for a quick summary!

We’ve just survived our first holiday out of the states. Our grand plans involved refusing to do any school activities after we finished teaching for the day and eating instant Mac&Cheese (thanks to the Louisville crew!) and reruns of Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy (thanks to Jess!). Since everyday is spent having quality time together, and we watch our fair share of moderately trashy television, it was really more like an ordinary day with powdered cheese.

Highlights for Steve and I

Our first international visitor! My dad came for a short visit during a bike trip around the country. It was really nice to have familiar face around—and someone else to talk to other than ourselves—we’re slightly concerned about loosing our grip on typical conversational English—lately the only adjective I have to describe people is clever. Also he made the third for our new favorite card game that requires 3 people.

Over the weekend, he got us off our couch and we walked in the countryside behind our school. The terraced farms are really beautiful, so different from the farms we’re used to seeing. We braved the roaming dogs with the help of some locals who invited us to sit with them and listened to children shouting the few English words and phrases they knew from behind bushes.

My students had a lot of fun meeting another foreigner, hearing about his bike trip, and asking him personal questions.

On Monday night we were asked to go to the old campus for English corner. English corner is an hour and ½ of standing outside with a hundred or so students, who circle around you asking questions like, “are you used to the weather here?” It is truly my least favorite thing to do here. Every Wednesday we participate in this activity on our own campus—and generally I would never agree to go an additional night…but we wanted Dad to be able to share in as many experiences as possible during his short visit.

We had planned to give Dad a little heads up on what would go on—what kinds of questions they would ask (“how come all Americans are so fat, and you are so fit?”) and the responses they are looking for (“yes, I do think the Houston Rockets will win the NBA championship”) but as soon as we got to the old campus—the student leader took our arms and separated us to different sides of the ‘corner’ so we would talk to different students. I don’t really know what went on over on Dad’s side—but at one point we heard him leading a chorus of Happy Birthday. Apparently, he’s much more of team player than we are… we are asked to sing at least once in every English corner. I always refuse to sing, which usually results in them singing to me (its not easy to listen to a student sing Celine Dion “My Heart Will Go On” with a straight face).

Steve impersonates Johnny Cash because he knows they don’t like it and will ask him to stop.

I took Dad back to the big city to go the airport, but not before living it up on the American dollar “Posh Corps” style at the Marriott Hotel, Marriott American Buffet and Starbucks (things a volunteer just can’t afford to do).

Within 2 days of Dad leaving a couple things happened that changed our whole situation here…

I found a squeegee, which has dramatically changed the quality of our bathroom floor. It is no longer the place where crickets drown. Also, as of Dad's visit, we didn't have power in 2 of the rooms (one was his)--but now we do! Lastly, they filled the man-made lake on our campus and it now has a very high fountain—perhaps the highest in all of Yongchuan (at night it lights up). Most of the buildings on our school are finished, so they’re working on the ‘beautification.’ We’re anxious to see what it will look like by the time we leave.

Also, rumor has it that our outdoor kitchen will become an indoor kitchen before long!

Semester Class Highlights

We are very lucky to have a lot of flexibility with our classes (we don’t have to use the book ‘often’).

Juniors

In our Audio Visual class we get to show them movies relating to American culture and then have vocabulary lists and discussions about important topics from the movie. Our first unit was on education, so for the section on high school we got to show Mean Girls - which might have been more fun for us than them.

After the movie we had to spend some time pointing out which parts were for comedy and which parts were realistic. 115 midterms later—I now know that the movie stuck with them, but my lecture did not. Apparently high school students in America don’t do homework, while Chinese students study a lot.

These kinds of comments/essays are frustrating, and a lot of our job is spent dispelling myths. Sometimes students are genuinely curious to find out if what they’ve heard is true or not…but many times they just want to tell us what problems we have, like gun control, rape and racism.

This afternoon we found out most of our students believed American college students prostituted themselves to pay for their tuition. We had to spend some time convincing them that wasn’t true. “So you didn’t have any friends in college that were prostitutes?”

Some of them seem to believe us…but others are skeptical we’re here on the “American Life Promotion Tour.”

A few weeks ago we gave written midterms to the A.V. classes. We were introduced to the ramped cheating we had heard so much about, and found ourselves having to fail several students…which is hardly worth it because we have to let them all take a make-up anyway. We started each class with 15 minutes of helping them not to cheat by putting all bags up front, erasing any answers already written on the desks and assigning a seat for each person…but it was hardly worth it.

On Tuesday of midterm week one of my students called asking why we made the test so hard. “All of my friends are very worried.”

“Did you tell them what was on the test?”

“Of course I did! We live in the same dormitory. They are busy memorizing all of the answers.”

We realized as we started our classes that afternoon, that we weren’t collecting cheat sheets with words and definitions anymore—but papers written a,c,d,b,d,c,c,a, etc.

This was interesting to us because for one, the cheat sheets were never more than 70% right, and secondly—in the hour and a half between when my student called and we started our next exam—Steve and I printed out whole new tests.

Steve and Laura: 1

Students: 0

The student that had called me is actually one of our favorite students, he’s not at all shy about saying anything—and while very bright, lacking some common sense, and self-proclaimed lazy. Later that week he confirmed that his roommates were surprised to find we had given new test.

Sophomores

We have some really great juniors, but our sophomores as a whole are just so much fun to teach. They are much less skeptical of us, and think everything we do in class is so much fun. We’re some of the only foreign teachers they’ve had, so we could talk with our fingers up or noses and they’d probably still think we were the coolest.

It really is fun though— the only goal of the class is for them to speak in English. Steve and I work on finding activities that will interest them enough to speak. Every 3 weeks they give a group presentation, which either counts towards their mid-term or final exam. This is really nice for us because we don’t have to talk during presentation classes (which is good since my Oral classes are all in the morning).

One of our most interesting assignments ended up being a show and tell day. The best ‘incident’ was in Steve’s class. First you need to know that the students are divided in to classes and they take all of their courses together and have the same schedule for the entire 4 years. The good part of this as that many classes build a comradery and are supportive of their classmates who would usually be too shy to speak in front of the class. But there are some cases where the idea is less popular.

One of Steve’s students went up to the front with a set of CD’s. He began by telling the class that someone very special gave these CD’s to him as a gift. “But then, they did something that ‘shattered my heart’ –like this” and he broke one of the CDs in front of the class.

When he was finished, all of the students started clapping—and Steve thought maybe it wasn’t a true story, he was just acting very well doing some kind of unusual dramatic monologue. Later that day, one of Steve’s female students, Snow, saw me and repeated the same story I had heard from Steve. But then she said—I don’t think Steve knew, but his ex-girlfriend is in our class, and they’d broken up that week!

I told Steve about it later, and he had noticed a girl was crying—but he didn’t realize she was the ex-girlfriend.

Throughout our show and tell classes we found a ‘general flair for the dramatic’ and we’ve kind of taken that and run with it. This week they had to create short skits from a scenario we gave them. The scenarios were all about relationships gone wrong. They had a lot of fun finding words like darling, sweetheart and divorce papers. I had one group that found Pachelbel’s Cannon and the Wedding March and played them on their cell phones during a wedding scene, while reciting vows.

Culture Matters

We’ve slowly adapted to some new customs, like afternoon naptime, constant sweeping and using stairs to get to the 5th floor.

We’re still trying to embrace: the school’s scheduling of events for us without telling us.

One of our students asked us to give a lecture a few weeks ago for the club, English Association. We obliged. The next week she found me walking to my office, “Excuse me, what will the topic of your lecture be this Thursday? I would like to advertise it.”

I told her that we weren’t asked to give another lecture—and being that it was Tuesday, did not have time. She then told me that Steve had agreed to give one every week. He adamantly denies this.

This week Steve showed a movie for the Association (he showed a movie, I judged a competition…he does the dishes). Afterwards, the same student asked him what the topic of his lecture for next week would be…so we’re still working on getting the point across that we don’t plan on making this a weekly thing.

The other thing that is funny about the Assoc., is that once we agree to give a lecture or show a movie, it becomes mandatory for certain classes. Several students have expressed dislike for the Assoc. because of this.

In English corner this week, Snow (our informer) told me that I would be really busy in the next few weeks. “Really?” “Why?” She then told me about all that they would be asking me to do (and if she’s right—it sounds very busy). We’re still not sure why “they” (who? I don’t know) tell our students we’ll be doing things before asking us, but it happens a lot…the worst part is they don’t tell us where or when (month, week, date or time) it is and then seem surprised when it is the week of and we have other commitments.

Another activity we do outside of our classes is proof reading the school’s English newspaper. It’s really very nicely done—and it only requires 3-4 hours of editing once a month. This is also a great way for us to get an insight on campus happenings and the minds of our students. This month our favorite articles included a doctor giving advice to girls wanting to loose weight. Eat as many carbs as you want—the important thing is that you eat the same kind of food every day.

We try to stick to grammar corrections, but in an article about the foreign teachers—Steve read that I used to teach in a university for two years (this is true if you count dance classes at U of L, but I don’t). We crossed it out—but when the paper came out the next week the statement had returned in my bio.

Things we will laugh about in 10 years…or when its warm again:

1. Walls without insulation.

2. Classrooms without heat.

3. Pipes that are not in walls, and not indoors.

4. Tile floors.

5. Cold Power Outages.

6. Students opening the windows year around, to get fresh air.

5 months down…22 to go.

We’re looking forward to next year, when are lesson plans are already made up and we can focus more on secondary projects in the school and community. But for now, we are improving our language abilities, with 3 hours of tutoring each week. Steve has been diligently practicing characters…and I plan to start that...

Most volunteers are excited about the independent lifestyle of the P.C., but for couples its much more of a marriage camp atmosphere. There are a few things we didn’t think we would do together, like take language classes and lesson planning—but we’ve surprised ourselves by enjoying both together!

As the weather gets colder and the days get shorter, we are slowly slipping into hibernation mode. The winters here are very wet—and we’re missing clear skies as much as central air. During January and part of February, we get a nice 5 week break (interrupted by a week of bureaucratic fun, sponsored by the P.C.), during which (in celebration of senior citizens all over America) we’re planning on moving south. No plans are final yet. Until then, we’ll be coming up with something special to do for the Christmas performance. The last volunteers played the guitar and sang together, so we’ll have to find a way to either top that or hide. I’m sure whatever we do will be incredibly embarrassing and in 10 years we’ll be ready to laugh about it.

Spark Notes Version

We’ve been busy. Thanksgiving was anticlimactic.

Dad sang happy birthday to our students.

The promise of a wall for our kitchen!

Our juniors cheat, our sophomores are a delight, Americans never do homework because they are busy prostituting themselves to pay for their high tuition (now you want to read the whole thing don’t you?).

We like afternoon naptime.

The English newspaper insisted on printing that I used to teach in a University…does that mean I can put it on my resume?

The last 2 weeks I’ve taught in a pink bubble jacket and gloves…

This blog is not affiliated with the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps.