It's Sunday night, and I'm once again mourning the fact that I didn't get anything done this weekend. Back to the daily grind, and to a new schedule. Again.
Recap: There have been schedule changes galore with the holiday for the mid-autumn festival and the addition of International classes. Today, while out with friends in Baoding, I received notice that I've been assigned 3 more classes a week, starting tomorrow! These classes are kindergarten, and are only 20 min each. It shouldn't add much to the work load, but now I have to figure out which building to go to for the KG classes tomorrow (OK shouldn't be hard, there are only 6 buildings on campus).
Current total: 25 classes. about 900 students. and somehow this all only adds up to 16 class hours a week (which is what my contract stipulates, so even if I wanted to, I couldn't say anything). The petty, lazy, easy-way-out side of me is a little (ok a lot) jealous of the other CIEE-ers only teaching 40 or 50 students max, and working under 10 hours a week. But it's ok, I'll shut up about that.
Things are going well. I'm so lucky to be here. I'm so spoiled to have a very sweet staff willing to work with me, help me get things fixed as fast as possible (even though, lets be real, that isn't that fast), and help me figure out what exactly I'm supposed to be doing. The other teachers are so sweet, so helpful, and genuinely care about my well-being. Even though they have practically been baby sitting me, and I most likely get paid similarly to (or more than) them, have free accommodations, and am completely unqualified to be a teacher, they are much kinder to me than I would be in their shoes. So I can't complain.
But I will.
I have to admit how shocked and disappointed I am in myself to realize that I'm not as adaptable as I had thought. I'm not as flexible, I'm not as patient, and I'm certainly not as adventurous as I had convinced myself. I have this awful nagging voice in my head telling me how much easier, better, and simpler it is back in Texas. I'm not sure if it's homesickness or the-grass-is-always-greener syndrome, but I feel so small and useless here. Hopefully that, along with my debilitating feeling of inadequacy, fear of loneliness, and inability to digest Chinese food will pass.
To move past the thrilling self-analysis:
Today I went to see the Lotus Pond, which is one of the few well known (ish) sights in Baoding. It was nice, although I imagine it's pretty breathtaking when the lotus flowers are in bloom. Here are some pictures from that:
Also, my attempts at pawning off meat or red-bean filled Moon Cakes (Yue Bing 月餅) on unsuspecting taxi drivers has been moderately successful. Well actually highly successful seeing as even when these delicious treats (ha!) are turned down, I just leave them in the cab. Our Waiban gave us a box filled with them, and unfortunately they are not well suited to my discriminating American tastes.
Recap: There have been schedule changes galore with the holiday for the mid-autumn festival and the addition of International classes. Today, while out with friends in Baoding, I received notice that I've been assigned 3 more classes a week, starting tomorrow! These classes are kindergarten, and are only 20 min each. It shouldn't add much to the work load, but now I have to figure out which building to go to for the KG classes tomorrow (OK shouldn't be hard, there are only 6 buildings on campus).
Current total: 25 classes. about 900 students. and somehow this all only adds up to 16 class hours a week (which is what my contract stipulates, so even if I wanted to, I couldn't say anything). The petty, lazy, easy-way-out side of me is a little (ok a lot) jealous of the other CIEE-ers only teaching 40 or 50 students max, and working under 10 hours a week. But it's ok, I'll shut up about that.
Things are going well. I'm so lucky to be here. I'm so spoiled to have a very sweet staff willing to work with me, help me get things fixed as fast as possible (even though, lets be real, that isn't that fast), and help me figure out what exactly I'm supposed to be doing. The other teachers are so sweet, so helpful, and genuinely care about my well-being. Even though they have practically been baby sitting me, and I most likely get paid similarly to (or more than) them, have free accommodations, and am completely unqualified to be a teacher, they are much kinder to me than I would be in their shoes. So I can't complain.
But I will.
I have to admit how shocked and disappointed I am in myself to realize that I'm not as adaptable as I had thought. I'm not as flexible, I'm not as patient, and I'm certainly not as adventurous as I had convinced myself. I have this awful nagging voice in my head telling me how much easier, better, and simpler it is back in Texas. I'm not sure if it's homesickness or the-grass-is-always-greener syndrome, but I feel so small and useless here. Hopefully that, along with my debilitating feeling of inadequacy, fear of loneliness, and inability to digest Chinese food will pass.
To move past the thrilling self-analysis:
Today I went to see the Lotus Pond, which is one of the few well known (ish) sights in Baoding. It was nice, although I imagine it's pretty breathtaking when the lotus flowers are in bloom. Here are some pictures from that:
Also, my attempts at pawning off meat or red-bean filled Moon Cakes (Yue Bing 月餅) on unsuspecting taxi drivers has been moderately successful. Well actually highly successful seeing as even when these delicious treats (ha!) are turned down, I just leave them in the cab. Our Waiban gave us a box filled with them, and unfortunately they are not well suited to my discriminating American tastes.
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