Ni Hao Ya'll!
Well...I am back at it. Blog guilt has set in. I do have the desire to share, but not the desire to sit down and write. It's a pickle, I say.
That reminds me how much I miss pickles!
Okay, so how can I sum up what has happened in the last month quickly for everyone? Today I am choosing list style because I busted my proverbial butt in the yard at Ikea trying to cut through from the street where the taxi dropped us off, tripped and fell, jacked up my thumb and twisted my knee. Typing is less than glorious at the moment. So list style it is!!
- I rode a bus for the first time in China last week. There were at least four people touching me at all times, so my aversion therapy to confinement is well begun. We got the flow of moving slightly towards the back each time until our stop. It was very amoeba-esque. We were with a chinese friend, thank God, or we might still be making the loop. The great part is any ride in the city is only 1 RMB, or about 16 cents US. Holla!!
- We were shopping in Ikea a few weeks ago having a lovely Swedish/Chinese fusion lunch and as we left a woman took her child into one of the trolleys carrying the used dishes and had the kid pee in a bowl. Nobody noticed but us. We have noticed that public urination is not a big eyebrow raiser for natives. John even broke down and peed behind some bushes one night because we couldn't find a bathroom. I told him when in Rome...or Texas or Louisiana...he is a redneck boy. ;)
- Northern chinese food is not a good weightloss plan. It is delicious, however everything truly is fried and covered in sauce. Luckily we have produce selers on our neighborhood street every day so we are cooking more at home and buying vegetables there.
- Apparently, we left the outskirts of Baytown and a "rural life" to move to the outskirts of Shenyang to a "rural life" only this time you can actually see the pig processing plant on your drive in. I am still adjusting.
- Tai Tai is the mandarin word for wife. Now anytime someone asks John to go somewhere he doesn't want to go he points to his ring and says, "tai tai" and they laugh and walk away. Apparently the power of saying, "my wife, sheesh!" works in both worlds.
- Our shipment came in and we are ecstatic. We realize now that we did not need to bring a years supply of deodorant or feminine hygene products, but we are still glad to have them. Everything made it all the way here unscathed, except the box I dropped carrying up the stairs to the apartment because I was moving things in house shoes. Halfway around the world unscathed and yet I bust crap carrying it up one flight of stairs.
- We discovered a new restaraunt where evrything was cooked on kebobs on a grill out front. Someone ordered one of the fish out of the tank. They caught it in a net, took it outside and unceremoniously power-thwacked it on the road. One hit did it. I was mortified. Our food was good though.
- Don't be surprised when people come into your house and put your shoes on. I was, but now I'm over it. Its customary to have pairs of slippers or house shoes for people to put on as soon as they come in so they can take off their street shoes and not be barefoot. I am, though, less concerned with tracking in dirt than letting in the killer mosquitos that, I swear, are worse than Texas. There will be some benefit to the deep freeze about to commence. At least it will kill those buggars.
- My cat loves China. She's actually halfway nice here. Go figure.
- Squirt now has developed separation anxiety after the airplane flight and sleeps in our clothes hamper when we are at work. Apparentl what's good for the cat isn't always good for the dog.
- We have gotten used to not being able to flush our toilet paper. Apparently the chinese plumbing system does not handle paper flushing well. One gets used to the special garbage can in the bathroom that you MAKE SURE has a lid. And its polite to alwasy empty that particualr garbage before guests are expected...just in case you werent sure.
Welllllllllll...there's a ton more I could tell but I will try and get better about updating more often. Basically, we love it here, work is getting better and we are blessed to have a chance to see the world. We miss and love all of you!
M&J
Friday, September 24, 2010
8/25/2010 (or 25/08/2010)
Things are starting to move along with school. There are tsill a lot of issues between the owner and the school director in terms of who is conrolling what, but they are working through it. We are working on Understanding By Design for our curriculum development, which is a lot like our scope and sequence at home, but much more advanced in terms of the overarching ideas we want kids to maintain over the years from the course. What we call enduring understandings. I am working witht he social studies department during large group meetings and have written all of my stuff for music on the side. I am getting help to check over the music stuff. Should be fun!
Much of the school buildings are not finished or up to par that they need to be, so we are housing everything on the first floor of the main building since our first class will be so small. That being said, the library I am supposed to run is about the size of two large classrooms put together. They ordered over 3000 individual books for me to shelve, along with about 1000 books worth of classroom reading sets that the english department doesnt have room for, so it should be fun! We do not have a library management system software program so I am not sure how exactly they want me to organize this bad boy, unless we go back to the old card catalogue system ( no way!!) so I am trying to speak with someone my director got me in touch with about getting things up and running. Again, it will be an adventure.
Along with a very small class of freshman (I think we have three so far...lol) we may be picking up one tenth grader. This will be fun because it means I may get the opportunity to teach one class of geography (possibly). It should definitely be interesting.
John brought home takeout yesterday that was a fantastic dish of noodles and potatoes in a spicy sauce...with chicken bones all through it. I figured this out when I plucked the head of the chicken out of the dish. This is the second chicken head I encountered here in a dish so I was a bit more prepared for it, although it was still a suprise. Needless to say we mostly just ate the potatoes out of that dish...lol. We are starting to have our cranky issues because the toilet seat keeps breaking and it takes clothes forever to dry by hanging up, but otherwise...we are still enjoying ourselves. I'll write soon!!
Things are starting to move along with school. There are tsill a lot of issues between the owner and the school director in terms of who is conrolling what, but they are working through it. We are working on Understanding By Design for our curriculum development, which is a lot like our scope and sequence at home, but much more advanced in terms of the overarching ideas we want kids to maintain over the years from the course. What we call enduring understandings. I am working witht he social studies department during large group meetings and have written all of my stuff for music on the side. I am getting help to check over the music stuff. Should be fun!
Much of the school buildings are not finished or up to par that they need to be, so we are housing everything on the first floor of the main building since our first class will be so small. That being said, the library I am supposed to run is about the size of two large classrooms put together. They ordered over 3000 individual books for me to shelve, along with about 1000 books worth of classroom reading sets that the english department doesnt have room for, so it should be fun! We do not have a library management system software program so I am not sure how exactly they want me to organize this bad boy, unless we go back to the old card catalogue system ( no way!!) so I am trying to speak with someone my director got me in touch with about getting things up and running. Again, it will be an adventure.
Along with a very small class of freshman (I think we have three so far...lol) we may be picking up one tenth grader. This will be fun because it means I may get the opportunity to teach one class of geography (possibly). It should definitely be interesting.
John brought home takeout yesterday that was a fantastic dish of noodles and potatoes in a spicy sauce...with chicken bones all through it. I figured this out when I plucked the head of the chicken out of the dish. This is the second chicken head I encountered here in a dish so I was a bit more prepared for it, although it was still a suprise. Needless to say we mostly just ate the potatoes out of that dish...lol. We are starting to have our cranky issues because the toilet seat keeps breaking and it takes clothes forever to dry by hanging up, but otherwise...we are still enjoying ourselves. I'll write soon!!
8/18/2010 (or in Chinese style 18/08/2010)
Well we are still moving along. Although we love the country, the school administration dysfunctionality is starting to take its toll. As a start-up school we are struggling with our direction. It is interesting to see the power struggle between the school owner and the school director. Who has purchasing power, when are orders getting done, etc. Construction is behind schedule (of course) and it is interesting learning to adjust to how the Chinese do business. Schedules are definitely flexible!
On a better note I have found a great grocery store called Metro that has lots of identifiable western brands. I found several cheeses, old el paso salsa (the only brand but there it is!), worchestershire sauce, montreal steak seasoning and Jack Daniels! Anywho, that has made life a little better, because we eat local at least five times a week, which we are really enjoying, but being able to cook a few
meals for ourselves keeps you connected to your home culture. There are a few dogs here on campus that belong to the workers, and Squirt is actually tolerating them!! A co-worker Holly named the little one Gizmo, because he looks like a mogwai!
John has found a group of guys who play basketball at 6 every day and has played with them twice. He is not the tallest guy there! He is enjoying that, and I am enjoying getting the house together.
Soooo...other than crazyness with work, life is going well! Keep us in your prayers. Love you all!
Well we are still moving along. Although we love the country, the school administration dysfunctionality is starting to take its toll. As a start-up school we are struggling with our direction. It is interesting to see the power struggle between the school owner and the school director. Who has purchasing power, when are orders getting done, etc. Construction is behind schedule (of course) and it is interesting learning to adjust to how the Chinese do business. Schedules are definitely flexible!
On a better note I have found a great grocery store called Metro that has lots of identifiable western brands. I found several cheeses, old el paso salsa (the only brand but there it is!), worchestershire sauce, montreal steak seasoning and Jack Daniels! Anywho, that has made life a little better, because we eat local at least five times a week, which we are really enjoying, but being able to cook a few
meals for ourselves keeps you connected to your home culture. There are a few dogs here on campus that belong to the workers, and Squirt is actually tolerating them!! A co-worker Holly named the little one Gizmo, because he looks like a mogwai!
John has found a group of guys who play basketball at 6 every day and has played with them twice. He is not the tallest guy there! He is enjoying that, and I am enjoying getting the house together.
Soooo...other than crazyness with work, life is going well! Keep us in your prayers. Love you all!
8/12/2010 (Or in the Chinese style 12/08/2010)
Hello all!!!!
We are officially moved in to China and now have internet access at the school. We have lived here
about 12 days and we are loving the country! There has been so much happening it is hard to tell it
all, but I'll try. Our flight was relatively un eventful, though we were stressed about the possibility
of needing to re-check our bags in Bejing. A very nice young man helped us and we made it through
all right. We were delayed in getting from b eijing to Shenyang a few hours but we made it in fine,
and SPA (Shenyang Pacific Academy_ staff were there to meet us. We made it back to our on
campus housing and slept there that night.
The next several days were occupied with dealing with issues in our apartment of broken and
non-working things (sometimes construction here can be very fast but not always very good) and
trying to find our way around our neighborhood and to get food. We laughed at ourselves a lot and
fumbled through ok.
There was a lot of uncertainty and confusion as we first began here, with our school director not
being on campus and there being little to no communication or direction, but after our initial anger
and confusion at that, all has since worked out. We have attended a huge media event announcing
the school, with television and radio as well as other media outlets here in China, and will do more
of those in the future. We are enjoying the food and people tremendously, and have also found a few
spots in the city where you can get a little taste of home (including air conditioning and toilets
where you can actually flush the paper instead of having to put it in trashcans next to the toilet.
I SUCCESSFULLY USED A SQUAT TOILET (which happened to be when I had to pee in a cup
for our medical screening) so I feel confident I can do it again when necessary and not fall over and
die.
Our pets made it in safely, though we had a lot of stress and fear in getting them here as the drivers
did not speak English, we do not speak Mandarin, it was very late at night and our school is in a
part of the outskirts of the city where addresses are somewhat subjective. We have shopped at local
stores as well as WalMart, Ikea, TESCO, and even gone karaokiing at a KTV. Overall, we are loving
it, and I'll update soon now that I have some internet access. It does happen to be only in one room
in our school, but it is better than nothing! Love you all and I'll post again soon!
Hello all!!!!
We are officially moved in to China and now have internet access at the school. We have lived here
about 12 days and we are loving the country! There has been so much happening it is hard to tell it
all, but I'll try. Our flight was relatively un eventful, though we were stressed about the possibility
of needing to re-check our bags in Bejing. A very nice young man helped us and we made it through
all right. We were delayed in getting from b eijing to Shenyang a few hours but we made it in fine,
and SPA (Shenyang Pacific Academy_ staff were there to meet us. We made it back to our on
campus housing and slept there that night.
The next several days were occupied with dealing with issues in our apartment of broken and
non-working things (sometimes construction here can be very fast but not always very good) and
trying to find our way around our neighborhood and to get food. We laughed at ourselves a lot and
fumbled through ok.
There was a lot of uncertainty and confusion as we first began here, with our school director not
being on campus and there being little to no communication or direction, but after our initial anger
and confusion at that, all has since worked out. We have attended a huge media event announcing
the school, with television and radio as well as other media outlets here in China, and will do more
of those in the future. We are enjoying the food and people tremendously, and have also found a few
spots in the city where you can get a little taste of home (including air conditioning and toilets
where you can actually flush the paper instead of having to put it in trashcans next to the toilet.
I SUCCESSFULLY USED A SQUAT TOILET (which happened to be when I had to pee in a cup
for our medical screening) so I feel confident I can do it again when necessary and not fall over and
die.
Our pets made it in safely, though we had a lot of stress and fear in getting them here as the drivers
did not speak English, we do not speak Mandarin, it was very late at night and our school is in a
part of the outskirts of the city where addresses are somewhat subjective. We have shopped at local
stores as well as WalMart, Ikea, TESCO, and even gone karaokiing at a KTV. Overall, we are loving
it, and I'll update soon now that I have some internet access. It does happen to be only in one room
in our school, but it is better than nothing! Love you all and I'll post again soon!
4/25/10 11:44 am - Home, Old River-Winfree TX
I am currently still messing with the website, trying to figure out how to make
the site viewable to people in the best aspect ratio for the most computer
screens, which are now of all different widths and heights. Woo fun!
Oh yeah...and John is getting onto me about not working on my class and all I
really want to do is go outside and see this beautiful day!
I am currently still messing with the website, trying to figure out how to make
the site viewable to people in the best aspect ratio for the most computer
screens, which are now of all different widths and heights. Woo fun!
Oh yeah...and John is getting onto me about not working on my class and all I
really want to do is go outside and see this beautiful day!
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