food food food

It seems like my China experience revolves around food.

So Friday after discovering I'm a terrible teacher, I had an uneventful night. Stayed in, convinced myself I would unpack, organize and clean, and then did none of the above.

Hannah, John and Felice in
front of their Uni

navigating the dirty street

Felice's apt building

some street food

Saturday afternoon Jesse and I met Felice, Hannah, and another foreign teacher from their school at their apartments. They teach at the Agricultural University of Hebei (i think?) and are in a much more central, busy location. We walked along their street, where clothing, shoes, street food and a variety of other junk was being hawked. We stopped at a Western style coffee shop and had ice cream (I had a hot fudge sundae just like mickey-D's. man was that good!). We checked out Felice's apartment (only about 3 times bigger than ours, and about 100 times less supervised.) Met another teacher from their school -- Maggie -- who it turns out taught at A&M the first year I was there! Small world, huh?

Felice and some Sichuan
food. Yum!

the walk way on the
street past my school

Then, we acted on Maggie's recommendation and the five of us (4 CIEE-ers and Maggie) went to eat at an amazing Sichuan place. We must have ordered well because there wasn't one dish we didn't all love. Of course, the oily, spicy, delicious dishes my taste buds love aren't the ones my digestive system loves, so I need to find a happy medium there. Then me and Jesse, worrying about our 10pm curfew (even though it was nowhere near 10 pm) grabbed a cab back to the EBS (eastern bilingual school).

so  many kinds of ramen

the park (DFM park i
think)

Sunday morning I really tried to sleep in, but was unsuccessful. Jesse and I had been planning to meet up with the other CIEE-ers at a big park a couple kilometers away a little after lunch. We decided we would walk, so we left a bit early to explore the area around us. It only took us about 20 min, not a bad walk at all, so we were there earlier than expected. It was a beautiful day, and the park was really lovely. Clean, well maintained, huge, and mostly empty.

cheesy lobster chips
anyone?

Underneath the park is a huge shopping center. Giant supermarket (which was an adventure in itself), clothing stores, and much more. We got a couple groceries and walked back to EBS.

I took a nap, worked a little on lesson planning, and then we left again at 5 to cab it over to the Agricultural University people's area. I need to figure out what part of town that's in exactly, and street names. We had decided to have donkey for dinner, since Baoding is known for it, so we headed to a popular local chain restaurant known specifically for its donkey meat. We all (all the foreign teachers incl. John, Maggie, Dennis, a Japanese teacher who's name I can't remember, Dennis' Chinese gf, another american guy, and the 4 CIEE-ers) braved the donkey burgers (kind of like a pulled pork sandwich on fresh hot bread). They were pretty delicious, not gonna lie I'll probably be eating that again. Then we treated ourselves to more ice cream (not a good habit...). Then it was back home where I was in bed by 10.

Back to Teaching

Today I'm half way through my classes. They are going a little bit better thanks to many tips from Felice, and so many other people (keep them rolling in, folks).  I need to get so many more materials -- speakers for playing songs, posters and pictures and other visuals, i need to find a place I can print handouts, and I need markers or crayons, etc.


One of the most difficult things for me is that I'm teaching 20 classes of about 40 students (not including kg which I haven't gotten a schedule for). That is 800 students! I see each class for only 40 minutes, once a week. How am I supposed to learn students names and assess their level when I have so little time and so many faces!

view from my window

Names is another interesting thing. Many have already been given English names by past teachers, but many have asked me to give them one. The ones that already have names can be called anything from Bacon, Yellow, Grease, Juicy, to Tom, Peter, Paul, and John. I've been taking inspiration from people I know in naming them, so my classes have many Jims, Tims, Toms, Mikes, Marks, Carsons, Kristens, Sarahs, etc.

view from my room