Today we had our first day of actual lessons at the school. It was really fun. At first we went to Phys Ed class where we learned how to do a traditional Chinese dance with waist drums. It was hard but fun. We did that for 2 hours so by the end i was really tired.
When we finished with that we went back to our room and there were about 10 chinese students waiting for us to take us to their English classes. So we split up in to 2 groups and one group of five American students went to the English class i went to. We went to a 7th grade class and they had an impressive welcome speech and they can all speak English so well! And just think in comparison around this time in America most students are in their first year of a foreign languge learning how to say basic phrases! It was crazy, this one 12 year old played the violin and it was equivelent to a senior in high school playing the violin. Then after their welcome speech we split up into groups so that one American was sitting at a group of maybe 12 kids. Oh yeah and the classes are huge too- about 60 kids. All the kids asked questions about America. One repetitve question was all about Michael Phelps- i was amazed that they even knew who he was all the way on the other side of the world. Then again i guess he was really impresive and they did have the Olympics in China this year. They were also interested in the NBA and the holidays we had. The kids were very nice, and they all gave little gifts, which was sweet. I felt bad because i brought alot of pens, but i didn't think to bring them with me to the class, so i had nothing to give them =(
They also have a thing called morning excercises, where all the students from the whole school gather on the soccer field to do stretches after their second class. Wow, it was quite an amazing experience. There were about 4,000 students all crammed onto the soccer field. Oh, and the 4,000 students was just for 2 grades!
Then we went to lunch. Usually we go to the cafeteria but today the superintendant invited us to dine with him at a restaurant. There were about 40 people that went to this fancy restaurant where they have private rooms for groups. It was really cool they had lazy susans and a whole bunch of food at every table. The food intimidated me at first but i made a vow to try everything and i soon found things i liked, like sticky rice, fish, beef and these noodle things, and snappeas. I took pictures and tomorrow Bethany said i could borrow her photo uploader that'll let me upload photos so by tomorrow night(morning for you) there will hopefully be pictures up(fingers crossed). Then we had this really cool soup where they first gave us the round bread patty sort thing but it's really thick and there's no air in it. They told us to tear it up in tiny pieces, and then the waitress took all of our bowls and they made a soup out of it. It was soooo delicious! It was my favorite part of the whole meal.
After lunch we went back to school and i went to computer science class with a girl i made friends with. It was really interesting to see 60 people in a room, all with their own computers. The teacher talked and talked but none of the students listened and they were all on qq( equivelant to facebook) or doing their own thing. I asked if they did this everything, and they said yes. I found it quite amusing how the teacher didn't care.
Then we went to technology class where we made a plane that i haven't finished yet. The teacher said it was simple but i don't agree.
We took the taxi home with Lisa and Harven and Jack, and let me note that the driving here is so different than the driving in America. It's more like drive at your own risk because everybody drives like they've been drinking. Also the fact that people walk right in the middle of the road doesn't help. When we got back Lisa and I went to Haagen Daas because I was really wanting Icecream. It was good. We came home and ate dinner which was tofu, dumplings, rice and chicken wings. I can't say i really like tofu, but I did try it.
Tomorrow the schedule says that we'rew going to see the terra cotta warriors. I'm pretty excited.
When we finished with that we went back to our room and there were about 10 chinese students waiting for us to take us to their English classes. So we split up in to 2 groups and one group of five American students went to the English class i went to. We went to a 7th grade class and they had an impressive welcome speech and they can all speak English so well! And just think in comparison around this time in America most students are in their first year of a foreign languge learning how to say basic phrases! It was crazy, this one 12 year old played the violin and it was equivelent to a senior in high school playing the violin. Then after their welcome speech we split up into groups so that one American was sitting at a group of maybe 12 kids. Oh yeah and the classes are huge too- about 60 kids. All the kids asked questions about America. One repetitve question was all about Michael Phelps- i was amazed that they even knew who he was all the way on the other side of the world. Then again i guess he was really impresive and they did have the Olympics in China this year. They were also interested in the NBA and the holidays we had. The kids were very nice, and they all gave little gifts, which was sweet. I felt bad because i brought alot of pens, but i didn't think to bring them with me to the class, so i had nothing to give them =(
They also have a thing called morning excercises, where all the students from the whole school gather on the soccer field to do stretches after their second class. Wow, it was quite an amazing experience. There were about 4,000 students all crammed onto the soccer field. Oh, and the 4,000 students was just for 2 grades!
Then we went to lunch. Usually we go to the cafeteria but today the superintendant invited us to dine with him at a restaurant. There were about 40 people that went to this fancy restaurant where they have private rooms for groups. It was really cool they had lazy susans and a whole bunch of food at every table. The food intimidated me at first but i made a vow to try everything and i soon found things i liked, like sticky rice, fish, beef and these noodle things, and snappeas. I took pictures and tomorrow Bethany said i could borrow her photo uploader that'll let me upload photos so by tomorrow night(morning for you) there will hopefully be pictures up(fingers crossed). Then we had this really cool soup where they first gave us the round bread patty sort thing but it's really thick and there's no air in it. They told us to tear it up in tiny pieces, and then the waitress took all of our bowls and they made a soup out of it. It was soooo delicious! It was my favorite part of the whole meal.
After lunch we went back to school and i went to computer science class with a girl i made friends with. It was really interesting to see 60 people in a room, all with their own computers. The teacher talked and talked but none of the students listened and they were all on qq( equivelant to facebook) or doing their own thing. I asked if they did this everything, and they said yes. I found it quite amusing how the teacher didn't care.
Then we went to technology class where we made a plane that i haven't finished yet. The teacher said it was simple but i don't agree.
We took the taxi home with Lisa and Harven and Jack, and let me note that the driving here is so different than the driving in America. It's more like drive at your own risk because everybody drives like they've been drinking. Also the fact that people walk right in the middle of the road doesn't help. When we got back Lisa and I went to Haagen Daas because I was really wanting Icecream. It was good. We came home and ate dinner which was tofu, dumplings, rice and chicken wings. I can't say i really like tofu, but I did try it.
Tomorrow the schedule says that we'rew going to see the terra cotta warriors. I'm pretty excited.
No comments:
Post a Comment