Well I have just finished my 2nd week of classes. The senior ones at my school are extremely intelligent. I am starting to come up with plan for the semester. Trying to tie it in with their books! I am doing a fairly good job. I am doing one lesson on Halloween, which is important! The 1st week of classes, I had them pick an English name. I gave them a few to choose from. A shout out to my dad, I put Tom on the board. I have 7 Toms in one class. A shout out to my brother I put Sam, I have 2 Sams in the same class with 7 Toms. No Colters yet! The problem is, that none of them know each others English names. So I am going to have to carve out a section of my lesson and go over all their English names.
My second lesson was on directions, I started out with a map. Asking where countries were. Some classes were amazing at geography even in their second language. Only one class found Djibouti though! I have some students who are amazing at English, other students who can't understand me when I say "don't sleep in my class." So I am going to have to make sure my lessons are scaffolded. But enough about teaching, more about Chinese culture.
Their buses are amazing, I don't like facing forwards though, I am afraid I will see the bus run over someone. The traffic flows without any real rhyme or reason. It is intense to ride the bus, but the buses run every 5-10minutes. They are pretty efficient. But they all end at different times. I took two buses to get to the west side of Changsha, to meet Momo! She took me to Yunan food! They give you noodles, veggies, cilantro, meat, and egg. Then they bring out boiling hot broth and mix everything together. It is delicious, similar to the Vietnamese soup in the states. But less flavorful. Then we walked to "The Fifth Tone", a fantastic coffee shop. I walked in and the coffee shop smelled like coffee, real coffee. Not just milk, sugar and a hint of coffee. Real coffee.
Then a walk down the riverside, beautiful! The west side of Changsha is truly beautiful. We went to the university, and we were walking through throes of students in military uniforms. 1st year juniors, 1st year seniors, 1st year university students go to military training. We walked past a huge group of students standing and singing. I ran into English corner, and was cornered for 20minutes. All the students were excited to practice their English. I will have to go back there. Words cannot describe how much I love this town!
I got a gym membership today 799rmb for 10months. I also got a free bag, a jump rope and a towel! Sorry this post is all over the place. I was listening to the thunder and rain! Which has finally passed
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