Birthday, back to teaching and a new job!

Hello!

Sorry it has been so long since the latest post. There is a lot to tell.

Well, as you know, I am back in China and have been back in Chengde for a couple weeks.

The classes at the university are basically the same. Same classes, same students, same problems at the school. Our schedules changed a couple times because the teaching department decided to change aroun the student's schedules without telling the English teaching department. Well, it's kind of hard for students to learn Chemistry in Chinese during the time that their Oral English class is supposed to be happening. I told my waiban that I would comprimise and the other teacher and I could work together, thus making the class English Conversational Chemistry...but no such luck. At least, I hope, our schedules are now set. Meghan and I, this term, are also taking some Chinese classes. It is a little challenging, becuase we are taking the class with the international students from Pakistan that are much more advanced in Chinese than we are. So, we have some catching up to do. However, it's cool that the university is alright with us joining the classes. It meets three times per week, and we've attended most of the classes so far.

I am also teaching at a private school. I am teaching three classes there, possibly four. Two of the classes are of older students (upper middle school), so 5-7th graders. Then one class is very young students mostly second and third graders. They are alot of fun! I will tell more about the classes once they get going. I have only taught one week at this school so far. Things seems to be great there, and the students are a lot of fun. They haven't tested my patience too much, yet.

The birthday here was a lot of fun. I spent the weekend before my birthday in Beijing with some of my Chinese friends. We did some KTV, went to dinner and hung out. It was a great time. Then here in Chengde, on Tuesday (my birthday) we went to tree restaurant. We got some great spicey foods including chicken wings, spicey mutton, bucket of fried rice, egg plant and potatoe dish (which I think is the best in the city), salad and then these rolls (half are steamed and half are fried) that are served with sweetened condensed milk to dip it in. It was great. Cecilia, our Chinese friend who was with us, ordered me birthday noodles too. There are pictures of me eating it. It is tradition on your birthday to get a very long noodle that you must try to slurp, basically and it's like attached to a hard boiled egg in this hot water. This is to signify a long life. So, it was fun having that Chinese tradition at my birthday. Then we went to OK Bar for a couple drinks and to use their free KTV machine. While we were at OK Bar, there was a very happy drunk Chinese guy who danced with all the females that came with us. He was very funny, and was not innapropriate with the girls the way that some Chinese guys are. We later found out that it was his birthday, too! One of the highlights was singing the YMCA at the bar (on the KTV Machine). We were all dancing and doing the arm motions and yelling while the Chinese people in the bar just stared at us like we were crazy. It was rather entertaining. The bartender, because this is the only bar that we go to in the city, brought out a birthday treat too. A large bowl of fruit with a candle in the middle of it for me, then the bar sang "Happy Birthday". It was very fun.

Oh, and jumping to earlier in the day, I had to teach two classes on Tuesday and then also attended the Chinese class. In my first class, they found out it was my birthday somehow, so they had the chalk board decorated for me and the entire class sang "Happy Birthday" when I walked in. Then at lunch, when we were eating with some of our favorite students, they sang "Happy Birthday" in the dinning hall to me. Luckily we were eating off in a corner, so not everyone was able to hear this and cause a big scene! Overall, it was a good birthday!

Here are some pictures of the past couple weeks, too:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2058742&id=34000178&l=84af2

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=2058741&id=34000178

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2058209&id=34000178&l=d1331