End of the Year

I forgot to mention in my last post that I did finally make it to Beijing!!! I flew there early on Wednesday morning (Xmas Eve), and went straight to the US Embassy (well that's a lie - I stopped at Starbucks first, a girl's got needs). I spent a few hours there, waiting, filling out paperwork, getting lectured for losing yet another passport, and finally getting my new passport. The new one is crappy, as it only has 4 pages and has warnings all over it which basically screams "search me and all of my stuff!!!", but it will get me where I need to go. It's only good for a year, and then I will have to shell out more money for a new passport when I return home. Oh well, glad to have it. Actually I only had it for one day before I sent it off to Qingdao for my residence visa. After I get that I still need to get my Vietnam visa, and I leave Jan. 10th. You may ask, "Amanda, how are you going to get both visas in time for your trip?" Good question.

I taught my last two college level classes this weekend. One on Saturday night, one on Sunday afternoon - same kids. On Saturday night we just played games for 3 hours. Some games that they knew and then some that I decided on. We played charades, which they liked, and we played duck duck goose, which they loved. I explained to them that it was a game for little children, but they thought it was a blast. It was hysterical watching college freshmen play a child's game. On Sunday we just sat around and talked. They asked me questions about America and I asked them questions about China. They were mainly interested in what college life was like in America and how it compares to China. Here they have a curfew - they must all be in their dorms by 10:30pm. If they are late, as I found out on Friday night/Saturday morning, they sleep in McDonald's until 6:30am when they can take the bus back home. Just one of the differences, among many. There are a lot of similarities as well though.

I have another day and a half left of teaching at the Korean school before our 2 month break. I'm so excited. I've started getting sick again and I'm convinced it's because of how cold the school is all the time. It will be nice to have a break and regain some energy soaking up the sun in Vietnam and Thailand.

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Celebrating Christmas in China has certainly been a different experience than celebrating it at home. While there are the decorations, there is not the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. No Christmas parties, no Santas on every corner and no rush to get some last minute shopping in. I missed being at home with family and friends and everything that goes along with the holiday season.

That being said, I still had a nice Christmas. On Christmas Eve I went to a party with lots of friends. Not too different from most other nights, except that there were some Christmas decoration and I sported a Santa hat. Fun nonetheless.

Of course I had to work on Christmas day. It wasn't quite the same waking up and having to get ready for work as opposed to rolling out of bed, showing up at my parents(still in pajamas), gorging myself on the amazing breakfast my mom makes and then sitting back and letting it all digest as we rip through the mound of presents beneath the tree. We did however, have a Christmas feast. We called ahead at a decent, albeit overpriced, western restaurant and secured ourselves a couple of turkeys. We had to call ahead, as the turkey seems to be non existent here in Asia.
In total, 17 of us met to partake in my first Christmas away from home. We had turkey and gravy, fish, mashed potatoes, salads, the oh-so-traditional Christmas nachos and cheesecake and tiramisu for dessert. By the end of dinner, we all basically had to be rolled out of there. There were people there from all different parts of the world: America, England, Australia, China, Korea and Holland. It was cool to celebrate with new friends and that we could all get into the spirit of the holiday with each other, even so far away from home.

Winding Down

This week the students have been taking finals. I'm not really sure how fair the testing process is though. As teachers we were told to make a 25 question test for each of the grades we teach. We divide the number of questions we need to write by how many teachers teach the same grade. However, we all teach from different books. So now, the students are being tested on material that they weren't necessarily taught. Does that make sense? NO!! We are trying to change some things around here so that each grade will be taught from the same books. There is a constant flow of teachers in and out of the school so it's hard to keep some things in place. New people come in with their own ideas and change things around. Also, sometimes it feels like what the native English teachers want is really not taken into account and that we are here so that on some transcript somewhere students can write that they learned English from native English speakers. I hope teaching doesn't always seem so futile.

A couple things from the past week or so:

Last Thursday was Alexis' birthday. We all went out for hotpot and then some drinks afterward. Lots of fun. We let a boy do all the food ordering and we ended up with a ridiculous amount of food. We had three carts of meat and three carts of vegetables, all for 9 people.
Yesterday we had a teacher lunch to say farewell to the teachers that are not returning next year (the new year here starts in March). We went to a really nice Chinese restaurant. Instead of ordering they just bring a ton of food out. We all sit at a giant circle table and the food goes in the middle and is just rotated around the table. I love that everyone everywhere in China just shares food. Since eating off other people's plates is one of my favorite things, I fit in well. I tried almost everything, although there were some things that just looked gross. The most interesting thing I tried was sea cucumber. It's really expensive here and is supposed to be very good for your health. It looks like a black, spikey slug, covered in goo. I wasn't so sure about it, but had to try. It tastes like cartilage. Not something I would ever order, and I didn't finish it, but significantly less gross than I had thought going in.

The lunch concluded at karaoke. I'm becoming a regular. It's not pretty.

Road to Recovery

I looked down and realized all of a sudden that my god! It's December!! So, I thought I would post. I have been here just a little over 3 months now. And I would like to say time is flying, and really it is, but I had a very loooong last week.

On Monday I began feeling sick and by Tuesday afternoon I was in the nurses office with all of the sniffling students trying to take a nap. Luckily another teacher offered to cover my afternoon classes. But that was the end of it for me. Things only got worse. I didn't go to school the rest of the week (although Friday was a snow day, not that I would have gone anyway). By Wednesday I was begging a friend, my Chinese tutor Jack, to take me to the hospital. Let me tell you, being sick in a foreign country is not good. Being sick in a foreign country where they do not speak English, even worse. Being sick in China - miserable. I hated that I could not explain exactly what was wrong with me or what I wanted and I could not understand exactly what was being said. Having a translator with me was nice, but still not ideal. Although I don't know what I would have done without him.

It seems that the Chinese cure for everything is to hook you up to an IV. The sicker you are the more you get. So, my itinerary for the next several days was 2 IV's each day for 3 days. You should see my poor hands, so black and blue and sore from being poked so many times. I'm not sure what finally did the trick, but on about Saturday, I began to have hope again that I might make it through this. It must have been a combination of the IV, the drugs that I forced them, through the magic of tears and a little bit of wailing, to give me, some Chinese herbal tea that Jack swears by, and good old fashion bed rest. I feel like a new woman today, although everyone keeps telling me how sick I look. That can't be a great sign, but things are definitely looking up.

Now I have to begin to deal with my passport situation as I'm supposed to leave for Vietnam in a month and I have neither tickets nor a passport. It turns out that since my residence visa is in Qingdao my paperwork also needs to be processed there as well. There is no straight forward answer to any question in China, and this whole thing is taking an obscenely long time. So I have to now send all my paperwork there and wait and see what happens.