This week has been quite busy but good. For starters, I went to the Great Wall today! Needless to say it is pretty great. Sorry my humor is lacking at times…really though the Wall is amazing. I loved going today. It was a bit cold and unbelievably windy and I wasn’t thrilled to go on this particular day because I was thinking I could go another day. But once we all got there and were up on the Wall my attitude changed a lot. I am so glad we went and I had a blast. If you have ever thought about going, you should. It is truly an experience and I would highly recommend it!
Other things of interest this week would include our Harvest Party, ShiYi’s first week of teaching class, and being recording for the junior’s test this coming week.
We have a party every year during the week of Halloween and have fun carnival games students can come and play and give away candy. There were pumpkins to carve, costume competitions, games, candy…what more can you ask for?! I had a lot of fun. My game was Coke bottle bowling. I took 2 liter bottles and filled them with water and then set them up as bowling pins. I had a large, light ball students threw (they were suppose to bowl…) and knocked down the bottles so I gave them candy. I dressed as a cowboy and had lots of fun. I think they students enjoyed it as well. Many liked my hat and I let a few have my hat take some pictures with them. (being a teacher is pretty sweet sometimes) We had a night for junior students to come and then another for seniors to come. Being young and inexperienced I set the bottles far too close the first night, juniors. It became a game to see how fast they could knock the bottles over and get more candy. It really was not a contest and by the end of the evening, I was tired of picking and setting up 10 bottles every 15 seconds. So the good news is I wised up for round two. Seniors come and the distance has greatly increased and there is a new rule. You knocked the bottles over; you pick them up or no candy. I am glad to say that it worked quite well. I was proud. The game had a new suspense because it was quite difficult now to knock the bottles over but it was ok for seniors, whereas this approach would have been unsuccessful with impatient juniors. I like our Harvest Party.
I had the opportunity to record a portion of the test for Junior 1&2 students on Friday. I read test questions and paragraphs along with Ann. It was quite funny hearing my voice and thinking my students are going to be hearing this next and trying to figure out what I am saying! Ann and I had fun and are glad we did it. I found out it is challenging to read test questions when you didn’t write them and they are written in a slightly awkward manner. One of the more exciting times was when there were back-to-back male lines. The nice Chinese lady encouraged me to use a second voice and make it interesting and just sound like another person. It was good. I know you wish you could know what I did but I won’t tell you.
Thanks as always for checking in on me.
