Monday marked the beginning of the first full week of classes. Prior to that, I only had 1 class a week. That was a beautiful schedule. That 1 class was a sophomore oral English class made up of French majors. How about that? They are super cool! So, now my schedule is completely full. I have 8 classes. That brings my total hours per week to 16 hours. I have the most hours out of the Yichang 4. However, I can't complain too much. I only teach 3 different types of classes. The 1st one is the sophomore French majors. The 2nd one is 4 classes of freshmen oral English. The 3rd one is 2+2 oral English. These 2+2 students will study in Yichang 2 years and then go to Britain. My job is to meet with them 3 times a week and pretty much prepare them for travel abroad. Mind you, I know nothing about Britain. I guess we'll see how that goes.
This full schedule means that each week I need to do 3 class preps. I woke up this morning and planned the classes in my head. It took maybe 25 minutes. Now I just have to get comfortable with standing for 4 hours each day. That wouldn't be a problem except that all I do is walk. Everything I do requires that I walk long distances. Yes, they have taxi's and buses, but I have never walked so much in my life. I better come back to the states in the best shape of my life.
So, enough with the boring stuff (for now). This last week included a lot of work, but it also included a lot of fun things. We had a movie night on Wednesday. We watched Sabrina. I wanted to watch the Omen but one of the girls doesn't like scary movies (ahem, BETH). Thursday, I played ULTIMATE FRISBEE!!!! It was so awesome. Some of my Chinese students came and played. My friend Katie and I had been looking forward to this day for several weeks. We started playing and I realized that it was too early to play. I haven't run like that for years. I am so out of shape. Also, Thursday night brought us another English Corner. If you don't remember what that is, it is a time where all the English majors come and practice English. They love it when foreigners come and talk to them. I had a group of 15 around me for an hour and a half. It is so interesting trying to get them to practice their English when all they want to talk about is me. (I don't like that.)
This next thing deserves its own paragraph. Thursday night after English Corner, we went to Kim and Katie's for.......TIM TAMS!!! If you have never had a Tim Tam, you are missing out. However, even if you have had a Tim Tam you have never experienced goodness until you bite off little pieces from the opposite corners and suck coffee into it and then eat it. Oh....delicious. Delicious. Delicious. Delicious.
Friday, was an even neater day that Thursday. We went out for Indian food. Indian Food! In China! It was so good. The establishment was so cool. We then went to ShangKe. This little place is a 50's diner type coffee shop. I had a Reese's Shake. So good. We stayed there for hours playing games and listening to people play guitar. These 2 Chinese guys dueled and accompanied each other. They were awesome. The whole time, I was trying to find ways to make them famous. We left so late, that we got someone to bring us home. All 20 of us piled into this guys trip. (See picture below.) That was a fun ride home. (Mom, I made it home alive. Don't worry.)
Saturday was a fun day. I woke up at 6:30 to watch my students compete against each other in basketball. The girls were pretty funny. The referees barely enforce the rules because "they are girls." Maybe if the refs hold them to a higher standard they will learn the rules and become better. I don't know. The guys were really competitive. My 2+2 guys recruited some other kid to play for them. He scored all their points. I guess you have to do what you have to do.Saturday night, I went dancing. Yep, we all went to the Indian students' dorms. They had music and lights. I learned the Cha Cha and some waltz moves. It was a blast. Brad and I did interpretive dancing. I hope none of those videos or pictures make their way into the world wide web.
That's all for now, folks. I'll do better next week.
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