Things here are really good lately. Knowing that I only have about 2 months left has made me appreciate so much more of what I have here and at home. Even the mundane everyday things—I am so grateful that I have had the chance to get used to the everyday things here and turn them into something somewhat normal to me. Of course there are surprises every once in a while (like seeing a huge spider, maybe the biggest I’ve ever seen and having to ask the man upstairs to come and kill it for us), but for the most part, I have become comfortable here and made it my home.
I had the chance to go to Guilin last weekend and unfortunately I missed my train because of my inability to speak Chinese (even though I arrived an hour early). It was an older train station without English and I should have been making more of an effort to show the attendants that I need help. I hate asking for help, but being here has made me realize that it’s ok to let others help me, especially when I really need it.
My teaching has improved so much since being here and I understand so much more even after just 6 months experience teaching. Every day I feel a little bit closer to my students and find different ways to motivate them to speak English. So many of them were shy at the beginning, but they have found their voices as we laugh and become more comfortable with each other. I have made it clear that it’s ok to make mistakes and it’s not ok to make fun of others mistakes. With different topics, games and activities, more students are coming out of their shells and are improving a lot. I have had a couple difficult classes and I find the classroom management at this school is often on two extremes—either the teachers ignore them and let them sleep or skip class (and tell me to ignore them), or the teachers are so strict that the students fear them but have no respect for them. One class in particular is really testing my patience and my ability to teach, but I actually appreciate them for this. About half of my students in this class do not speak English, but they do enjoy speaking to each other. It means that I constantly have to stop and tell them to quiet down and often I am taking cell phones or tablets away from many of them. They are keeping my on my toes though because I am working hard right now to develop a way to get through to them that this behaviour is not acceptable. I will not be yelling above them, I do not appreciate one boy constantly telling me to speak Chinese, and I will not be playing games or giving them prizes if they can’t show me respect. I wanted to implement some sort of system where every time I need to stop, they get a letter or a point and once they get to a certain amount, they lose something; problem is, I don’t have anything to take away. I have already taken away listening to music or playing games a couple times, but they don’t really seem to care about that. Any suggestions would be helpful! For now, I have talked with their head teacher so we'll see if they improve next week. It actually makes me so much more excited to go to UOIT though and learn more about techniques like this to make me a better teacher.
We went to Guangzhou on Saturday to hang out with our friend, Laura, who’s been living in Dongguan. We hadn’t seen her in a really long time and we finally got to meet her boyfriend, Joe, after almost a year! It was fantastic to shop, talk, and just wander around. We ended up at a pub called The Happy Monk and stayed for a few drinks before heading back to Chenzhou that night.
The next day, I went to Suxian Mountain with one of my students, Scarlett. She has been asking me to go for almost a month now, but the weather always seems to be against us. It was sprinkling a little, but it meant that less people were there so it ended up being a good day. When she said we could climb the mountain I thought it would be more relaxed and just a little path going up. Nope. It was a steep set of stairs going up and Scarlett decided that we had to go at break-neck speed in case it started raining harder. Alright, maybe not actually that fast, but I was dying after like 10 minutes of solid stairs and she made fun of me a little for having to take so many breaks. It was definitely worth it though and I was all smiles when I finally made it to the top! It was great to get out to some fresh air and see some more of the natural beauty that surrounds Chenzhou. From way up there we could see the city on one side and the mountains and rural areas on the other side. It was absolutely breathtaking and I 100% am going to go again and as many times as I can before I go home.
At the top of Suxian Mountain
We have another vacation coming up from June 5-12 and we're meeting up with Laura again to head to Zhongjiajie (where the inspiration for the floating mountains from Avatar came from). I may head to Guilin before or possibly to Vietnam depending on timing! I think this was (and is) the best time to travel and I am figuring out who I am and who I want to be. I really could laugh at how everything has worked out just the way it was supposed to and has been perfect for me.
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