3/17/2016

Dear Mom and Everyone Else, I'm doing well, I think. I hope Natty had a good birthday. Chicken pot pie and Oreo cheesecake sound awesome. Of course, I'm doing pretty well with Chinese food, including the free cafeteria food. Payday was the fifteenth, which means I have a little money now, though not a whole lot, as it was only for the last week and a half of February. I went to the ATM to check that I had money on my kuai card last night. It was the only errand that I set out to make, but I also remembered that I needed to do shopping, so I came home with a bunch of stuff. That's how it goes, isn't it? Teaching is going all right, I think. It's a little frustrating that I only get each class once every two weeks, because how am I supposed to know how to teach them effectively if I can't get more used to them. It is what it is, I guess. I survived the first two weeks and perfected my introduction lesson plan for each age group, but then on Monday I basically had to start all over again. After two weeks, I had forgotten that my third grade class on Monday is the rowdy class. Like, extremely rowdy. I haven't had problems like that with any of the other classes, but Monday two weeks from now, I'll have to change tactics and do something different for them. I've been getting so frustrated with myself as a teacher, not knowing what the kids would or wouldn't understand and having lessons that didn't go as well as I wish they would have. But, then, I think I had the exact same frustrations the first time around, and it took me a couple more days to get over it than it did this time. Today, I finally feel like I've got it. And then, Monday two weeks from now, we'll start all over and see if I can catch on even faster. I've been teaching them about Easter/springtime. Or, trying to. I made a lovely PowerPoint to show them. I don't like the idea of relying on technology in class (for good reason), but I think it's good for them to know about English-speaking culture, as long as I stick to the Easter Bunny, and not get into the other stuff. They seem to enjoy it. They go crazy over the pictures I found of jelly beans and chocolate eggs. For Grade 1, I just don't think they'd understand well enough, so I made some cute visual aids of spring animals, and also some baby animals. Then I say, "Is this its mother?" And they say, "NOOOO!!!" They're very enthusiastic. Then, there's the classes that just don't go as planned at all. Like the one where we couldn't get the PowerPoint to work, so the teacher said, "I have lessons I want to teach them. So, bye." And then, today, the PowerPoint didn't work again, so I did the springtime lesson that I used for the first graders and modified it for third grade. I was actually quite impressed at how well I pulled that off while thinking on my feet. Also, they do really well with "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes." Yesterday was an interesting day. The principle, Mr. Chen, invited me to go on an outing in the morning with two other teachers. We went to a lovely park around Stone Lake, which is so pretty with all the blossoms, and then we went to a famous Suzhou restaurant for some more fancy food. I got the leftovers, and will enjoy them quite well. It was great. But, then I had to come back. I had missed one class because we took longer than planned, and one class we had an issue with PowerPoint (see above), so I only got to teach one class. And, it was only an okay lesson, so it was, overall, an up-and-down sort of day. Today I didn't do anything too St. Patrick-y. As you might expect, they don't do St. Patrick's Day in China. I did wear my pretty green sweater that I found on sale, and, coincidentally, one of the teachers in my office brought some special green dumplings for Qingming Festival, which is coming up soon. They're colored bright green, but they're really sweet and delicious. I also got to observe a music class today, just for fun. It was kind of like Miss Swallow's music class, but not really. It was more Chinese. The teacher had me perform a song for the kids, so I played and sang "Scarborough Fair" cold turkey. It must have been okay, because they liked it. After my last class, the music teacher, Miss Peng, and I played the piano together and had fun. And, all my classes went well, so I'd say, overall, it was a lucky sort of day. I've been wondering about things back home. How is Grandpa Wadsworth? How is Marie doing with Bodie? Do they miss me at school? And, how are Grandma and Grandpa Frehner? And anyone else you can think of that I might want to know about? Happy St. Patrick's Day! I love you! Love, Chelsey*:x lovestruck