Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
WED 27 AUG 2008
The next morning there were a lot of people looking worse for wear. I was feeling considerably better than the morning before, and I did my class to the Chinese students first to get it out of the way.
It went ok, it was pretty easy for them but it went quite smoothly.
The rest of the morning went slowly I was so tired, and so was the rest of the class and there was always various sleeping teachers including teacher Jon.
That morning we finished late because we had to fit in all of the classes, and the afternoon lesson was delayed even later.
In the break we said good bye to our Chinese students, then good bye to David who was going to study in Korea. Andy, Matt E and Richard got into the minibus with him, we all thought it was hilarious until it drove off. Luckily it turned out it only went a bit further around campus haha.
Just after David left, Sam and Aggie arrived.
During break me and Matt E walked to the gate to get some stuff from the supermarket, which was a nice relaxing walk even though it was raining a little, it made it cooler.
That afternoon we had our final class, which was a revision lesson.
After class a few of us took Sam and Aggie to cafe milo for some food, it was nice and we didn't finish too late and head back for about 9pm.
When we got back the apartments, Sam's friends Chris and Tom had arrived so we went to meet them before I decided to catch an early night.
I was tempted to try and do some revision for the TESOL exam the next day, but I was tired and I decided since it was an open book and open notes test, I would probably be better just sleeping.
THURS 28 AUG 2008
The following morning we were up even earlier to catch the minibus into town to check our medical certificates. Some of the group had to have a full medical, others like me who had had the medical exam done at home, found out we had to have an ECG and chest x-ray.
Basically the whole thing was weird... the place was old, and ti was all a bit chaotic. We had to register, then just go to the allocated rooms for each part of the medical so there was people running about everywhere.
Jonny fainted when he had blood taken, which caused a lot of aumsement but unfortunately I missed it!
On the plus side it was much cheaper to have done in china, my x-ray and ecg only cost 109RMB (about £10) in total.
After the medical, we got dropped off at the uni gates and went to cafe milo for dinner. There were too many of us to fit in a room by ourselves so we went into the main restaurant and split onto separate tables. The chairs were like hanging garden swings with fake vines and flowers decorating them. They were pretty cool and cheesy, and very comfortable rocking backwards and forwards!
I think that dinner time everyone was missing western food, I had a good spag bol (if slightly sweet) and there were a lot of steaks floating around the place.
On the way back to the apartments, Ruth, Martin and I looked through some shops for clothes and presents. I was looking for some jeans but I didn't really know what size I was, so we didn't hang around for that long.
We walked back and had about 10 minutes before the exam, when I realised I needed to pick up my book from my room! I hadn't taken it to the medical so it was a good job I remembered and didn't go straight to the classroom.
I arrived at the exam bang on time, and worked my way through the paper. It wasn't too bad especially with all our notes.
After the exam I went back to my room, showered and Elisha, Ruth and I shared the three beers we had left whilst we ot ready to go out. I had my music on and was feeling pretty chilled and happy to have finished my course. Elisha wasn't so sure about my dancing!
For tea we went to a street with lots of night food vendors. It was cool and chaotic, a busy street full of vendors and people buying food with the occasional bus and cement mixer running people over is always going to be interesting!
We had lots of spicey things on sticks that I reeeeeally couldn't eat, even though I tried because they were yummy, and a bowl of noodles which was also too spicey. Eventually I gave up and bought a packet of crisps! Throughout the evening, the mega cheap beer was also flowing, and once we had finished eating we decided to go back out to the clubs.
Teacher Jon had joined us for the night food and informed us that everyone had passed the TESOL course, so we were all in the mood to party!
As we were getting ready to leave we had some drunken chinese guys come over to us, with lots of shouts of Gan Bei! Afterwards they started a cake fight so we left sharpishly before it got too messy.
We walked to the gate and caught some taxis to the city centre. Not everyone came out into town, we lost Sam/Anna, Matt J and Sam/Aggie.
After an argument with a taxi driver about somebody breaking his door, we went into Soho (the very busy R7B club). It was too crowded and we couldn't get served any drinks so we left and went next door to the slightly quieter bar. It was pretty cool in there, Ruth and Elisha started chatting up chinese men and learning how to play the dice games. I had a good ol' boogie and everyone was in good spirits.
Towards the end of the night, as usual, things declined getting everyone home was hard work. We got back to the apartments about 2am and, surprisingly, most people followed not too much later. The evening didn't end there though, and there were some dramas before bedtime (which for me and Elisha was about 4:50am).
FRI 29 AUG 2008
Friday morning we all somehow mangaged to crawl out of bed ready for the taxi to take us to Yuelu Mountain at 9:30am. Some people were looking worse off than others, and there was a jar of fresh coffee being passed around the bus.
We arrived at the mountain and it was HOT. Not the easiest hun over activity but everyone did pretty well! The mountain was beautiful and there were lots of temples and tombs all the way to the top, where we found a very spectacular view of the city!
At the top there was also a Daoist temple that sold ice creams. The woman did not speak english, but I have a feeling I was done over for my 15RMB ice cream... especially since most people paid 3RMB. Some people paid 6 or 12 though as well so I think I was just unlucky, and I decided it wasn't worth arguing over about £1.30 and they could take it as a donation for the temple!
On the way down Amy flagged a bus to speed things up. When eveyone finally caught up and she explained it'd be 10RMB each, Martin, Elisha and Matt E thought it would be a better idea to run down. After a short distance they got back into the minibus since it was hot and quite a long way. If nothing else we would be waiting a while for them at the bottom!
We got back into the mini bus and head out for a meal. We went to a restaurant and had a really fancy meal which was very nice. We were introduced to a man, who I'm not sure who he was, I think he might have been Amy's boss.
I had some beer with my meal too, and a combination of that, the previous night, hiking and too much food made me not feel too great. I decided to skip the museum, which was a shame because I really wanted to go, and had a bit of a nap on the bus whilst everyone sorted themselves out. Amy then took me, Elisha and Andy back to the apartments in a taxi and I just got straight into bed and slept.
When I woke up I showered and did most of my packing for Yiyang. I also put a copy of all my pictures on Matt E's memory stick which was then passed around to various laptops.
Once we were sorted we went out to the street for night food again. This time I managed to order noodles without chili! I also tried the round ball things in a bowl which turned out to be boiled potato that the woman mixed with spices, it was the best thing ever because the only other potato I'd had in china was fries from KFC!
I got to know Tom and Chris the new guys a bit better that evening, and me and Tom went in search of some other food. I had some more things on sticks which thanks to Tom, were less spicey than the previous evenin and just about edible!
After we had finished eating everyone was pretty tired and we went back to the apartments. I sat around talking to people for a while but then things started to chill out an various films and tv shows were appearing on laptops so I decided to call it a night.
SAT 30 AUG 2008
My final mornin in Chansha started early. Elisha was already up when I awoke, but she informed me there was no water or electricity and she had been packin in the dark!
After not too lon, the electricity came back on and I was at least able to see what I was doing and make a coffee. I finished packing everything except what I would need for a shower, and luckily the water eventually came back on and we were able to get clean.
I was all ready and packed to leave by about 8:30am and read my book for a while until I started to hear more people up and about and just wandered around annoying people with my camera.
Tom and Chris had already left by the time I heard from anyone. Amy was pretty upset the whole morning I think it wasn't one of her favourite days.
Me and Richard turned out to be one of the earlier people leaving, which I prefered instead of hanging around all day. I said goodbye to everyone, and a very tearful Amy, before getting into our nicely airconned mini bus and headed out of the city with our new friend, Lisa.
The drive to Yiyang was... interesting. The scenery out of the city was beautiful, but I wasn't so keen on the driving once the traffic wasn't slowing things down. Our driver decided he didn't want to wait for a lorry to overtake another one on the dual carrigeway and proceeded to go into the fast lane of the other side of the road, driving head first towards a coach. Hmm.
We survived the journey though and Lisa took us out for lunch with some Chinese teachers. It was very nice, and afterwards we went to the uni to find our new homes.
Our apartments were not ready so we have been put into temporary ones for the first week. They aren't great, the kitchen is best not used, I don't have a western toilet and it's pretty small, but there's a hole in the wall for internet so I'm hapy enough :)
Lisa took us out onto campus to get a chinese mobile sim card, and then we had a walk around to find the teaching buildings and she gave us our teaching shedule and text books. We walked back to the apartments in the rain then we had an hour or two to ourselves before she met us and we went to the canteen to get take away tea and a short trip to the campus shop.
We were then left to our own devices and me and Rich ate our very tasty "rice and stuff" before we had a rest on our own. I had a good internet fix and got all of the pictures onto the internet, it was a nice relaxing night after the busy-ness of Changsha.
SUN 31 AUG 2008
The next morning we woke up and met Lisa who took us to the old campus in another part of the City. We caught the bus which was really interesting because we went through the city centre. At the new campus we waited for Lisa to organise some documents in the office, then we went to dinner with some other foreign teachers. It was a nice meal and the food was amazing again. We met a Pakistani woman and her two children and an American man and his Chinese wife. They are both English teachers at the university. It was very interesting to listen to them talk about the job and the students, and quite helpful for us knowing what to prepare.
After dinner, Lisa took us back to our apartments and me and Richard started to plan our lessons. It went pretty slowly but was broken up by a knock on the door by a chinese man called Peter. He was very friendly although we were both pretty confused and weren't sure what he was doing, we think he was in charge of getting our other apartments ready.
After Peter's visit, me and Rich ate some left over dumplings and then had a bit of a rest. I had a cold shower because we couldn't get the heater to work, and I managed to wash some clothes which was nice!
Afterwards we went for a walk to the shops. We had a little bit of an explore before heading home. We called it a night and I finished my lesson plan and had a chat with people from home before getting some sleep ready for my first lesson the next day!
MON 1 SEPT 2008
I have finally caught up on my blog!
This morning I woke up at about 6am and got ready, had breakfast and had a run through of my lesson plan and read the news on the internet before heading to my lesson at about 7:30am.
My first lesson was the third year Chinese students, and was due to begin at 8am but when I got to the classroom nearly half an hour early, the class was almost all there.
I was terrified, I wasn't really sure about the level of their english with them being Chinese students and I had planned and over planned for my hour and a half lesson.
When class started, the first half went well, I told them some things about myself, answered lots of questions and passed around things about home.
Hardly any of my 24 students had an English name, so for the start of the lesson I had to run around naming lots of girls. I started to run out of names, but I wasn't mean enough to name anyone "Dumpling" or "Apple". They came up with them names by themselves... I also have a guy called Godfather, it's hard to keep a straight face.
The second half of class went much less smoothly. The lesson was too basic and they flew through it. Even with expanding it slightly we finished about 20 mins early, and I just filled it up with a long winded game of hangman until the lesson ended.
I guess I will learn for next time, I better get some planning done.
After my class I met Lisa outside the building and we went to get Richard and walked to the police station. We know have a new temporary residence permit and it will be updated to a full one once my foreign experts certificate has been organised. It all sounds very important, I'm not really sure what it all means!
On the way back home we stopped at the canteen but it was stupidly busy so I bought a pot noodle type thing. I ate and had a bit of a chat to some of the Changsha crew. It was nice to catch up on how people were doing, some people had taught and some were still settling in.
After I had finished my noodles I decided to nap, and woke up again pretty late. I managed to have a (warm) shower before me and Rich braved the canteen again. This time it was much quieter and we managed to order some more "rice and stuff", which is actually pretty tasty. We went back to the apartments and ate, then had another quiet night on our own. We are so not hardcore.
We have a day of exploring planned tomorrow, so hopefully it should be interesting, and I have another lesson to plan...
My blogs now will probably slow down, I just wanted to keep track of these first few weeks. Zaijian!
- comments