My Kiddies

Wow!  I feel kind of embarrassed.  I haven't even told you about the precious children that I get to teach every single day.  Teaching is the whole reason I am here, and I haven't written a post about them yet.  I would like to tell you about my home room class.  I teach Grade 1, and there are three different classes.  In the morning, I teach each of these three classes but I am in charge of my home room class.  Because of this, I spend the most time with my home room class.  I love every class, but my students are by far the best simply because they have the best teacher. :)

Kevin

 KEVIN
When I first got here, I was afraid of Kevin.  He was really difficult to handle, and he never listened in class.  He was always goofing off and he really liked to do Micheal Jackson dance moves in the middle of my lesson.  I even had a nightmare about Kevin, and I was afraid to be his teacher.  However, as time has gone on, Kevin has become a really good student.  He is extremely funny and he always makes class enjoyable.  He is also a really good artist!  The other day, the kids were making fish out of play dough and instead Kevin made a pig.  The pig had so much detail, and I was amazed that he could make something like that. 

Tiffany

TIFFANY
Tiffany is very intelligent!  She can speak English extremely well, and she even has conversations with me.  I am impressed at how well she can speak English.  With the ILP method, students are given tokens if they are speaking the correct English for that activity.  Tiffany always has the most tokens and is very proud of it.



HAL

Hal

Hal is a sweetheart.  He is very small and tiny, but is full of energy!! He has the best laugh, and loves to tease with me.  His birthday was last week, and he was so happy!  We sang Happy Birthday to him and he had the biggest smile on his face.  We also let him pick a sticker, and it was like he had just won the lottery.  He put the sticker on his hand, and through out class would point to his sticker and say, "Look teacha! look teacha!"

Jenny

JENNY
Jenny is very quiet and shy.  At the beginning of the semester, she wouldn't speak very much.  However, now she speaks all the time!  I was so happy that she started to talk more, and be more outgoing in class.  She is an extremely nice girl.  In the morning, when she walks in to class, she always runs up to me and gives me the biggest hugs!

Justin

 JUSTIN
aka Ladies man!  Justin has it going on.  All of the ladies are fond of him!  I think it is really funny because he has even told me that I am beautiful!  He speaks English very well, and he uses it to his advantage.  Justin is always happy!  He has the cutest little grin, and he is always smiling.  Like Jenny, Justin also gives me hugs.  Sometimes he doesn't like to let go, and so I will tickle him until he does.


Lucky

 LUCKY
Lucky was extremely shy when I first came to China.  She hardly spoke English.  In fact, I thought that something was wrong.  We made a new sitting chart, and Lucky changed into a completely different girl.  She now always speaks English and she will even yell the English words.  I am so glad that she became one of the students that now speaks the most.  She is such a cute girl!

Lee

LEE Lee is a stud!!  He is always saving his tokens for store, and he never wants to buy anything.  I show him all of the cool toys that he can buy, and he always decides that he wants to save!  He is a smart boy, learning to save at a young age!  For parent day, all of the parents came and watched their children in class.  Lee was so happy to have his mother in class.  He wanted to make sure that she knew he could speak English.  He was showing off a bit, but he spoke so much English that day!

Dannis

DANNIS   
During this semester, Dannis has been a hard one to deal with.  He has a really hard time focusing in class and he doesn't really pay attention.  I didn't really know how to get him involved.  It took some time, but I think that I have finally figured out how to make Dannis want to participate.  He seems to be more engaged in my lessons and I think that he now cares about learning English.
 

Alice

ALICE
Alice is a really smart girl.  She can speak English very well and she is a very fast learner.  Tiffany is her best friend and they are always with each other.  They hold hands when they walk and they always both have pig tails in the hair.  Alice is also very helpful!! She is always helping my with the other students.  If they can't understand what I am trying to say, Alice will help explain things to them.

Sky

SKY
Sky is a special one.  He is different than everyone else.  No one has said anything to me, but I am pretty sure that Sky has autism.  I have had to learn to become very patient.  I have to take things at a slower pace with Sky when I am talking to him.  At the beginning of the semester, Sky was in his own little world.  He never spoke, and he just did his own thing.  Sky now will try and participate in class.  He will repeat things that I say, and he has opened up a ton since when I first came.  I am so happy about this and I hope that he continues to grow and learn.

I love these kids so much!  I am so glad that I had the opportunity to teach them!  I hope that I have had some influence in their lives, because I know for a fact that they have influenced mine! 

2 Eventful Days

I recently have had 2 very eventful days. 

DAY 1: On Saturday, a group of us decided to go and visit those living in Guzhen.  There are a group of ILP teachers over there and we wanted to go visit them and see what their city was like.  We hopped on a bus and it took us about an hour or so to get there.  The girls were very nice to us and took us to a place called Washy Washy.  At Washy Washy, we had our hair washed and then our head massaged.  Then, they styled our hair for us.  I have not blow dried my hair for the entire time that I have been in China, and this was the first time that I have had it blow dried.  My stylist did my hair straight and it was crazy for me to see how long my hair has grown since I have been here.  I had no idea that it had grown so long.  It also was weird to see myself with my hair straight.  I was so used to myself with curly and frizzy hair because that is what humidity does to it.  Everyone in our group was in shock when they saw me.  They said that I looked extremely different and that I looked like a completely different person.  Getting my hair done was a lot of fun and it made me want to do my hair so badly!  I can't wait till I get home in America, where I can actually get ready and do my hair again. 

DAY 2: Today, right before we had to go over to teach, it started to POUR!!! and I mean POUR!!!  I have never seen so much rain in my entire life!!  The rain was coming down hard and fast.  I grabbed my umbrella and ran over to the school as quickly as I could.  After we were done teaching, Sara and I grabbed our stuff and started to run towards our apartment.  As we got closer, four very wet girls came out of no where and started to hug us.  The four girls happened to be Katie, Talesha, Shelby and Kendra.  From then on, Sara and I were wet!! I gave up trying to stay dry and decided to just play in the rain.  The rain was a good couple of inches on the road.  There were huge puddles everywhere, and we even could swim in the gutter by our apartment.  A bunch of people were staring and we got a lot of second glances.  I guess people here aren't used to a bunch of American girls playing in the rain.  It supposed to rain every single day until Thursday.  Next time, I will make sure I am not wearing a white shirt.   

 

Happy Birthday Charlie!

Today is Charlie's birthday!  and it's not just a normal birthday.. today is his GOLDEN birthday.  He is turning 12 years old on May 12th.  This is a big day for Charlie!  He now will be in Young Mens and he will be passing the sacrament this Sunday at church.  I am so proud of him!  Charlie and I have a lot of years between us but we are still very close.  I love spending time with Charlie!  He is one hilarious kid and he always makes me laugh!  Charlie is an extremely great athlete!  Charlie plays soccer, football and basketball.  I love watching Charlie play in his sports games!   I am definitely his number one fan.  Since I have been away, I have been informed that Charlie has matured a bunch.  He is now taller than my mom.  Even though Charlie is getting older, he will always be the baby in the family.  I love you Charlie!!

Happy Birthday in Chinese:

zhu ni sheng ri kaui le
zhu ni sheng ri kaui le
zhu ni sheng ri kaui le
zhu ni cheng ri kaui le

Beijing and Xi'an!‏

I am home!  Well...home in Kaiyin that is.  I recently returned from my long vacation.  It was such a fun trip and we did so much that I don't think a blog post can do it justice...but I will give it a shot!  We packed up our luggage and hopped onto a 21 hour train ride on April 30th.  I definitely was not ready for this train ride.  It was as horrible as I thought it was going to be.  We were all crammed into a tiny space and we didn't have much room.  It was hard for me to cram my 5'9" body into such a small space.  We decided to save money and so we only bought hard seat tickets.  What amazed me was that some people bought standing tickets!! People stand on a train for 21 hours!  They just stand there.  Sometimes they sit in the aisle, and even some people lay on the floor in the aisle.  Definitely not a sanitary decision. 

Our first stop was Beijing.  In Beijing we were able to see:

The Summer Palace

The Temple of Heaven

Tiananmen Square



The Forbidden City



I loved going to and seeing the Forbidden City.  I felt like I was in Mulan.  Forbidden City is HUGE!! I had no idea how big the grounds were.  We spent a good couple of hours wandering through the ancient buildings.  In case you didn't know, the Forbidden City served as the home for the Emperors and their households for almost five hundred years.  It also was the political center of the Chinese government.  It consists of 980 buildings and covers 7,800,000 square feet.  Along with seeing the Forbidden City, we were able to see Mao Zedong's body.  When Mao died, the froze his body and put it in a glass casket.  During certain hours of the day, people can come and see his body.  We weren't allowed to bring anything inside with us, besides our passport.  It was crazy to see the way that people still respect him.  When you first enter, you can buy white roses that are placed by a picture of Mao.  We were there at 9:00 AM and there were already thousands of roses laid out.  Once led inside, you are told that you can not talk and that you must remain quiet.  You then enter the room where Mao's body lays.  His body looked like it was made of wax and his face glowed.





The Olympic Nest



My favorite was probably the Great Wall of China.  It was remarkable to stand on the wall and look out on the horizon.  I couldn't believe that I was actually standing on the GREAT WALL!  I can now say that I have been to and have seen one of the Seven Wonders of the World. 

To see the Great Wall, we did a tour with our hostel.  We had to take about a two hour bus ride through winding streets until we reached the entrance of the Great Wall.  I thought that you would see the Great Wall along the tops of the mountains miles away, but it wasn't until about a half an hour away that we could see the first images of the wall.  At the entrance, you had the choice of either taking a ski lift to the wall or hiking to it.  We decided to hike.  We didn't think that it would be that bad, but after about 20 steps I thought that I was going to die.  I definitely was not used to the altitude change.  We had to take breaks often...but eventually we made it!  As we drew closer, I decided to start running for the last stretch.  And then suddenly I licked the Great Wall of China... yeah I don't know what happened to me.  It was absolutely beautiful!  I couldn't help but think about how many long hours and work were put into building the wall.  Thousands of people died and were buried there as well.  It is such a historic landmark and now I can say that I have been there. 

Katie, Sara and I at the Great Wall

Another fun aspect of Beijing is the shopping!  In Beijing there is the Pearl Factory and the Silk Market.  Both places have brand named clothing, accessories, basically anything you could think of.  The Silk Market is six floors tall jammed packed of things to buy.  The first floor is ALL shoes and purses, the second and third floors are ALL clothes, the fourth floor is ALL jewelry, the fifth floor is ALL sunglasses and the last floor contains antique chinese items.  We spent a good amount of time shopping!  I have become a professional barterer and got some sweet things for such a good price.  For example, I bought four pairs of toms shoes for only $23 USA.  I also bought a Northface Coat for only $26 USA.  The other items I bought have to be kept a secret!

We left Beijing on May 5th and jumped on another train headed to Xi'an.  This time the train was only 15 hours long.  Even though it was shorter than the first train we took, it didn't help the cause.

In Xi'an, we were able to see:





The Muslim Quarters



...and the Terracotta Warriors.  Which was freaking sweet!  The Terracotta Warriors is a collection of sculptures depicting the armies of the first Emperor of China.  The sculptures date back all the way from 210 BC, and were discovered in 1974 by a local farmer.  There are three different pits that contain the Terracotta Warriors.  The current estimate of the three pits combined is  8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses.  The most interesting thing to me was that the figures all looked different because they each represented an actual human being.  The figures varied in height, roles, clothing, and weapons. 

The Terracotta Warriors

Our vacation was a success!  I had such a great time!  We then had to catch ANOTHER train to come home.  This time the train was 28 hours long.  I spent an entire day sitting on a train and I am not kidding.  I think towards the end we all had gone crazy!  It didn't help that our train happened to be 2 hours late,and because of this we missed our bus home.  Instead, we found a sketchy little van that was willing to cram ten people inside.  The driver had no idea where he was going, and we pulled over multiple times.  Luckily, after a good hour or two, Katie and I recognized where we were and we helped the driver by pointing which way to go.  We eventually made it back to our apartments in Kaiyin! 

Just a side note... I may or may not have eaten a scorpion and donkey meat!  On the other hand, I had wonderful street food including a CREAM PUFF, strawberries on a stick coated in sugar, and a ton of different little pastries.

Only 45 days left!! 



Vacation Time!

That's right folks...tomorrow I am headed to BEIJING!  I know my last post was kind of depressing, it was a sad day for me.  But things are looking brighter because we have a ten day vacation.  We are headed to Beijing and then Xi'an.   Within the next week, I will have been to and seen:

The Great Wall of China
Tiananmen Square
The Forbidden City
The Silk Market/ Pearl Factory
A Chinese Acrobat Show
The Temple of Heaven
The Terracotta Warriors


And lots more!  I would keep going with the list, but I don't want to make anyone jealous.

I must say.... IT TOOK A LOT OF PLANNING.  I never imagined how much time, and planning it took to figure out a vacation!  We had to purchase train tickets, bus tickets, find accommodations at a hostel, figure out expenses, plan the details of everything we wanted to see, and so forth...

All I can say is that it will be totally worth it!  I am extremely excited, and a tad bit nervous.  Okay.. maybe way nervous.   
 

Empty

It is crazy how fast things can change in the matter of seconds, minutes, and even days.  Before we came to China, we had a training with ILP down in Provo.  At this training we learned about the ILP teaching method, and how we would live once we were in China.  I remember the Director telling us that every single semester, someone in each group is robbed of their personal belongings.  I told myself that this would never happen to me.  I wouldn't let this happen to me.  I have been living in China for almost three months, and so far so good.  No one had anything stolen from them and we all had been safe.  This is no longer the case.  Yesterday, I was robbed. Yeah me!  The girl who promised herself that this wouldn't happen to her.  In a matter of seconds, my wallet had been stolen.  Everything in my purse... gone.  This is how it all happened...
We were all out and about getting ready to buy our train tickets to Beijing.  We went to the train station and we were told that we couldn't buy our train tickets yet and that we had to wait until the next day.  So instead of buying train tickets, we decided that we were going to go shopping on "walking street".  Six of us girls hopped on a bus and we were on our way.  We got to "walking street" and found ourselves shopping in a little mall.  The mall had vendors up and down the sides of the small building.  We had previously found these leather belts there that we all really liked.  I was at the vendor's shop who had these belts for sale.  I found two belts that I really liked, went to buy the belts, reached to grab my wallet from inside my purse and it was gone.  My purse was empty.  It had just been there seconds before.  Someone had unzipped my bag, and had stolen MY wallet.  My stomach dropped and I have never felt anything like what I felt at that moment.  I was completely shocked and frantically started searching everywhere.  I was trying to talk to all of the vendors, wishing that they knew where it may have gone.  However, because of the language barrier, they had no idea what I was trying to tell them.  All of us started searching the mall.  While we were searching, Katie and Sara had met some girls who spoke a little English.  They led us to a security guard who called the police.  The police showed up and we were told to follow an officer to the police station.  By this time my heart was pounding, my hands were trembling and the tears started to form.  Why had this happened to me??  We were led to a neighborhood where the police station was hidden between houses.  Eventually we made it to the police station where we were told to sit on a bench and wait.  The officer who had led us there had left us alone.  After waiting for probably 15 minutes, a teacher walked through the doors of the police station.  We asked him if he could help us and fortunately he was an English teacher.  He talked with the officers and told me to follow him.  I was lead to a desk where I had to give my report to an officer.  The officer spoke very little English.  It took a while for me to give my report and for him to understand what I was saying.  He then had me sign my report and he took my finger prints.  I couldn't believe that I had had my wallet stolen, had to give a report to an officer, and give them MY fingerprints.  The whole ordeal made me feel violated.  I was a complete mess by the time we got back to our apartments.  I knew that I needed to talk to my parents as soon as possible because I needed to cancel my debit card.  I didn't know if my parents would answer because it was 3 AM back home.  I crossed my fingers and prayed that someone would answer.  Alissa, in our group, let me use her Skype credit and I was able to call my family through our computer.  I called our house phone, my mom's phone and Jesse's phone.  They all usually have their phones next to their beds and so I thought it might be my best luck.  Lastly, I decided to call my Dad.  He never sleeps with his phone by the bed and so I didn't think he would answer.  The phone rang a couple of times, and then I heard, "Hello?"  My dad had answered!  I told him to get on Skype and that I really needed to talk to him.  I was really upset and he could tell that something was wrong.  Immediately, both my parents were on Skype and they were there willing to help me.  Right then, my dad called and canceled my card.  By this morning, my dad had called my bank, the school, the DMV and had notified them of what had happened.  My mom called ILP and asked them what needed to be done.  They both made sure that I was taken care of.  I am so grateful for my parents and for their willingness to help me fix this huge mess.  I love them both very much!
So even though, this horrible thing had to happen,  I have come to the conclusion that even though a lot was taken away, I am grateful that they didn't steal the things that were most important to me.  I am safe, my family is safe back at home, my whole group is safe, and I still have my passport!

Oh Happy Day!

Yesterday was a good day. 
I got my package from my family!!
It came at the perfect time and it made me extremely happy!
I am so grateful for my dear mom who got everything together for me! 
Inside my package was:

• Sandals
• Girl Scout cookies
• POP TARTS  (I have been craving these, especially brown cinnamon sugar)
• Oreo Cakesters
  
• Crackers
  
• Fruit Snacks
  
• Trail Mix
  
• Gum
  
• And LOTS and LOTS of candy
  

I think we have enough candy to last us an entire year! 
We also got a package from Katie's mom.
My package + Katie's package = pure happiness. 
We LOVE moms! 

A funny story that happened today: 
Every Friday, Sara, Katie and I teach at a different Kindergarten that is interested in starting the ILP program at their school.
Today, we went to a Kindergarten that was about an hour away from where we live.
We had never been there before and we were excited to see what it was like.
It happened to be a really nice school and the kids were so behaved.  I was impressed!
After we were done teaching, it started pouring rain!
And by rain, I mean lots and lots of rain.
Huge droplets.  We are talking about a couple of inches of water on the street.
Our bus driver, Sparky, picked us up and was going to take us back to our apartment. 
We got stuck in a huge traffic jam, not a single car was moving.
Sparky decided that he wasn't going to sit and wait.
So instead, we ended up driving on the sidewalk.
You heard me correctly... Sparky took  our school bus on the sidewalk!
We ended up driving past every single car that was stuck, for a good 10 or so minutes.    
The best part of it is, no one did a single thing about it.  It was like everything was normal. 
In China there are no rules when it comes to driving. 

AND IN A WEEK FROM TODAY WE ARE HEADED TO BEIJING!!! We bought our train ticket to Beijing yesterday!  Unfortunately, the sleeper seats were all sold out and so we had to buy hard seats.  We will be taking a 21 hour train ride on a seat not a bed.  I guess it is all worth the experience!