It has been a whole month! Wow. A lot has
happened and that is one of the reasons this blog hasn’t been written until
now. I am just busy and it feels like all the time, even so it isn’t ‘exhausting
busy’ it’s ‘good busy’ is there such a thing? I wonder!
So, school!
It has been good and bad and I think I am finally getting used to it. Working
with young children can be really challenging but the reward is much higher I
think. They drive you insane by not understanding after 30 minutes and by
forgetting absolutely everything you taught them in the lesson previous so it
seems like I am teaching the same lesson over and over 《breath》. BUT it can
also be great when one of them comes out and says exactly what you want with good
pronunciation and showing great understanding. What a battle every lesson. The behavior
changes so quickly, they go from excited to upset in seconds, it’s unbelievable.
AND the temper tantrums oh my god, I always thought it was lack of discipline
or something done wrong by someone but sometimes no matter what I do it just
comes on. What a racket, bring back the cane. One boy went mental because he
didn’t get a flashcard the first round of a game, 5 cards, 9 kids and his
behaviour was terrible so of course he wasn’t first pick. His mum was angry he
wasn’t getting enough attention so I got angry at her and told her lots of blunt
things and so she went to speak to the boss. No problems after for me though except
I now have to give him more attention…he he heeeeeeeeee not happening. All of
this is easily forgiven and forgotten though. AAHHHHHHHH KIDS. My school is in
short supply of cute kids. The members of staff here are excellent. They are
fun and helpful and always nice to me so I am happy to come to work. I usually
come early just to chat and although I still am not getting Chinese lessons I sometimes
try to chat with the teachers in Chinese.
I have a part time job on top of my current
one now. I work Tuesdays for 2 and half hours and Wednesday and Thursday morning
for a couple hours. Tuesday is at another training centre not far away which I alright.
Although I am teaching phonics every time which is a little boring. The morning
classes are at a BIG kindergarten in the centre of the city. This kindergarten
is PIMP. Roller skating rinks, massive play areas like with the slides and
balls pits and stuff, football pitches, basketball courts, swimming pool, dance
studio’s, like ‘fung-shui’ reading rooms and tons more shit its awesome. I
teach 4, 30 minute classes to 20 kids a time. They are so well behaved, active
and fun. It’s weird how they are sooooo different from my main school. A really
good experience and I think I can learn a lot from working there. I actually
just found out that my Tuesday jobs pay is rubbish so I am going to give that
up soon. As I haven’t even signed a contract yet there shouldn’t be a problem.
I will just make up some BS.
So now I work 6 days a week and almost real
person full time hours. I hope I will make some good money this year! Got to
start saving as the start of my new year in China was tight for money. This
month it turns out I have around 250 pounds spare….<cry>. But I can do
it!!!
Life: Because I have been working a lot I haven’t been doing all that
much. Last Monday I did a lot of fun things with Crystal. OH Halloween I almost
forgot!
I
celebrated it 3 times! Once with my school, which I planned and presented. I
give a 10 minute English presentation <can you imagine the glaze over
parents and students eyes? It was awful> and ran the pumpkin bowling for 2
hours on the night which was pretty exhausting but fun.
I also went to a
party with my part time school. Only an hour there as it was actually after my
normal job but it was tough. I got there and within minutes was walking down a
runway doing a dance in front on 400 men, women and children. You know what the
Chinese are like with cameras to so at the end of that 1 minute dance I was
having trouble seeing. I pulled out some serious disco moves and personally
though I was awesome but am probably the only one. I was supposed to be
juggling in the show but time did not permit it which was fine by me. More
stories games and candy giving later the end had come. We did some trick or treating
and this school taught that if they didn’t get candy when saying ‘trick or
treat’ it was ok to throw a hand full of flour at the person they asked. All
the kids had flour and I had no candy. I
was blinded in seconds and continually pelted with flour for the next 5
minutes. I couldn’t escape or attack them (damn kids being so small and kid
like) so I just got floured in the middle of the hall. I was so white and there
was flour everywhere with nowhere to wash any of it off so I got the bus home
looking like the recently deceased, covered in flour. It made me laugh on the bus
because no one came near me. They got on stopped in shock and just walked to the
other end of the bus. HAHAHA good times.
The third
celebration was back in my first city with my friends there. We went to the
club my friend Jam worked in and it was free drinks all night!!! OHHHHHH
MAAAAAAAAN did I drink a lot of beer. Jam spoke to some guy one minute, went to
DJ the next and then 30 cans of beer came in a box that looked like the blue
can recycling ones back home. I felt a little embarrassed to get so much free
but then I didn’t feel much afterwards because I was drunk. I met the guy who
took my job at my last school and he was pretty cool, went out dressed as a
woman and the Chinese loved. He got billions of photos taken of him. I should
have dressed up!
I also went back to Huizhou this weekend to
see Jam because he has gotten some job offers pretty far away so I don’t think I
will see him again but who knows. We just hung out and shot the shit. We did go
to a club on the second night, a new one near my old school. We walked in and
it was pretty cool and big BUT it had seven other people there so after 1
minute of looking around we walked back out. One of our group was drunk and it
took 30 minutes to convince him he wasn’t too drunk to come in. Oh well. We
then went to the most popular and busy club and had a great time! Some long
island ice teas and a couple hours of dancing. Then some ‘pork soup’ which was had
been raved about all night. And it was good. Got back to Jams at 4am and got
the bus back to Guangzhou at 6am. Home at 9 30am and straight to bed. Up for
work at 3pm feeling zombie-tastic but pulled through and here I am the next
day.
Crystal has been cooking more these lunch
times which is great because she has mad skills and it’s always healthy. Good
work Crystal! She invited me back to her home town to meet her parents this
spring festival and I said yes. So there is something I am absolutely not
looking forward to. I might just ‘accidentally’ start a fight the day before in
which she then doesn’t want me to come home. So because I said yes to visiting
her family she has promised to Skype chat to anyone in mine! Does anyone want to
chat to her, any questions? I hope someone replies to this otherwise maybe she
will be sad no one wants to speak to her!!! Crystal is also working hard now
more classes than any other teacher but for only a little more money, better
than nothing I guess!
Alright I can’t think of anything else I want
to say right now. I saw a man selling tiny puppies out a shopping basket at the
metro station exit yesterday and now I want a puppy, If only to save it from
becoming someone’s lunch. JOKING!!!
No more big events or outings or anything
planned until my birthday so that will probably be the next time I blog. I look
forward to these calmer weeks ahead but who knows it if will go as planned.
Thanks for emailing me too Ludo it was great to hear from you, the lazy bitch
says “hahaha, hello”!
Love to everyone everywhere. Time to do
some work…..bye bye J
