so last night at 1 AM I hear my dorm mates scream. a cute little light brown newt had climbed out from the window blinds and was chillin on the wall. they google how to get rid of it. "Turn the A/C to below 65 degrees" it says. too bad the A/C can't adjust temperature. the window is stuck so we can't open it.
so what else do we do? They tell me to grab it with a pair of chopsticks and shove it in a plastic bag.
oh Americans. how spoiled are we. we freak out if we see a spider and here, it's like "here have 10 lizards, 13 cockroaches, and 5 spiders with a side of dead wasps."
it ended up climbing through a hole in the ceiling but after we saw that one, we started noticing them everywhere. they make these squeaky noises and so we looked on all the windows and each had about 3 HAHA. commence more dorm mate screaming.
On Sunday we practiced for 4 hours our opening ceremony performance. it was a blast.
touring
Monday. Day 1 of teaching. Holy fudgemuffins.
Class starts at 8:30. once a week, students go to school at 8:00 (this morning, we heard students outside our dorms in front of the school at 6:30) to sweep and clean the campus. each grade has an assigned section they have to clean.
the opening ceremony went great. see video. I imitate Justin Bieber.
justin Bieber imitation...
our school coach dancing Gangnam with us
my class.
then Class 2 started, where we actually separated into our classes. Nametag making was chaos. coloring materials were scarce, so only 2 markers per child and they had to switch off.
Class 3/Class4- recess. played the Asian version of dodgeball. the teacher we're staying with is the PE teacher so he has authority ;) and he helped us. also, our military men (yeah now we have 3, one for each class. they're really cute...) took part. last game was teachers vs students. it got very intense....
Lunch. THIS was interesting. I think all Asian schools do this. there's no official cafeteria, but about 6 students from each class go down to the school's kitchen to get pots of food- today we had soup, rice, tofu with beans, chicken, and cabbage- and carry them up to the classroom. food is put in the front and each student brings his/her own bowl/utensils and sit and wait for the teachers to give permission to get food. then they sit and wait until everyone has food and the teacher says they can eat.
wow.
then naptime. yeah, that didn't happen. my class is the most basic group, so generally the youngest. mix hyper little kids with the calmer, older kids whose English is more basic so they were put into Class A. get older kids who want to rest being disturbed by hyper little kids. thus begins one flustered teacher who can't get kids to stop running around and another "bad cop" teacher who yells at kids.
guess which one I was.
yep I yelled at them. got 10 minutes of relatively quiet room.
this is our youngest student, a preschooler. she volunteered to erase the chalkboard but couldnt reach anything XD
Class 5/Class 6- conducting pretest. Listening, Speaking, Writing, Reading. and we learned exactly what English level our students were, which ranges from none at all (we have a preschooler who is just there because her sister is) to proficiency in ABCs, basic commands, colors, etc.
how do we teach so many different levels?
anyways, there's one kid in our class who spent ALL DAY at our dorm yesterday and after school let out today, came back to our dorm to chill. maybe we're cool? IDK. I definitely heard one student in my class say to his friend that he didn't like us though- but he's the class troublemaker. and I didn't come here to be liked. :D
also, the classrooms have no air conditioning. it's alright, and being here makes me realize how much America has.
oh also, every single student, no matter if I am his teacher or not, greets me in the hallway or if I go into other rooms to visit. "Hello, teacher" echoes like, 30 times everywhere we go. even at the convenience store.
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