First day officially teaching

I was just about to come on here & tell you all about my first day of teaching & plan some more lessons for this week... and then I had a technology panic attack and cursed myself for purchasing a mac that come without a manual 'eject' button on it. I was going to try out one of the CDRom's that came with the English package, when it got stuck! Definitely not formatted for my computer, as my computer wouldn't even read that there was something in it. With a mac you can't just press eject on the computer & out it comes. Anyways... long story short, I just spent the last 2 hours searching my computer's help menu & the apple website trying all the many ways to get this thing out!! (most of which using terminology that I will never understand, thank goodness they make attempts to somewhat dumb it down for techno-illiterate people like me). Result - I got it out!!! YEAH!

Today was our first official day teaching, and I planned as though the teachers were giving me the full reigns. Thank goodness I did this because that is exactly what they did. It was fantastic! My partner teacher (Miss Woo) & another support/translator (Miss Jeung) did however stay in the classroom and helped out with everything I was doing! My first lesson was with P1 (Karate kid!!) & we were starting chapter 2 of their English textbook. When I had met with Miss Woo last week she had said that she would prefer it if for now, that I try to do the lessons exactly how she does so that the transition is easier. Because my understanding of cantonese is extremely limited and her English (it's pretty good... but I'm sure we miss a lot of what each other is trying to say), anyways I really didn't get a full understanding of what exactly she does in the classroom. So I went with what I thought was going on. Another boat that I missed during our conversations (actually both Hong & I didn't get this), but I guess Mondays & Wednesdays, they have 'oral class'. It's a complete 1/2 hour devoted to speaking. So today was Monday and although my lesson did include speaking... it wasn't a full half hour of only speaking. Unsure of how exactly I'll plan for this?? It just seems forced to remove the speaking from all of the other areas of learning English. & not to mention what the heck are we going to talk about for 1/2 an hour?? Another boat that I missed (man, I was really stuck in the middle of the ocean on this one!) was that I didn't assign the kids any homework. Miss Woo came up to me after & said - "I'm a little concerned that you didn't assign any homework"... and I was thinking to myself - I'm supposed to give them homework?? They're 5!!! I guess they receive homework in each subject every day, so I will need to start taking that into account. whoopsies! There I go again, carrying Canadian assumptions of homework etiquette into Macau. Can you imagine if we assigned homework to Grade ones in Canada? Parents would be livid!!! & not to mention it wouldn't actually get done!

I then had another lesson with the Kindergarten class (K1). These kids are about 3-4 years old. They were learning the letter P this week so I chose a song to go along with this. We sang the 'Peanut butter & jelly' song with actions that I made up & then played 'pass the peanut butter' with a jar of PB that I brought from home. I think they were a little disappointed at the end of the game when they didn't get to eat it! Anyways, they had a lot of fun & were super cute. Any suggestions of any P-letter, pig, pizza, or peanut butter related games that I can do with them on Wednesday??? Oh boy! This should be interesting.

Now that I've procrastinated the day away, I'm going to get to work!

Finishing off the reading break

On Thursday, Virginia wanted to take us to mainland China so that we knew how to get there safely! Also, they did not want to tell the VP that we had gone to Thailand, as his view of a 'Reading Break' varies from that in North America! Whoops! You receive an entry slip every time you come into Macau & we originally thought that this would say 'Bangkok', so Virginia & Helen wanted us to get another one that said 'China' or 'Hong Kong'. Turns out it didn't matter as the carbon copy of this slip doesn't reveal that information! Either way.. it was good to know how to get to mainland. It's so easy! You take a bus that is just around the corner from us, walk to the border, go through a few custom windows & then you're there! In & around the actual border gates is quite sketchy. Virginia gave us some tips on not how to get ripped off. She says that the robbers will try to distract you with something, so don't fall for it, always have your bag in front of you (& be careful that they don't slice it to get the contents out), & never help anyone with anything, even if they ask. She says that these thieves are very fast, aggressive & skillful! I think that as long as we're smart, we'll be ok.

She showed us a couple of places to get some good deals, & the areas where you bargain & those that you don't. Having just returned from Thailand, we were very disappointed to see how expensive things seemed in comparison. We'll just have to sharpen up our bargaining skills a little more. One thing that China is not short of - rip off designer goods! Oh my goodness... everything you could imagine! Gucci, coach, converse, abercrombie, rolex, etc. It was everywhere! It is however illegal to bring these goods out of China. So we've been told that as long as you're not obviously carrying pirated goods, then you are fine. I really don't know how much of this stuff I'll buy, and I'd be terrified of getting into trouble!! (like the nerd I am:) Going through customs on the way back, they were so picky about all of our stamps on our passport. They kept me at the window for about 10 minutes & then when Hong went through, they actually asked her questions about why she's in Macau for so long. They usually never utter a single word to you.

Luckily, the next day we were scheduled to meet the VP to go to the Immigration's office to sort out our visa documents. What a waste of the morning! We get there, they tell us that it's not ready & that we can stay in the country for 20 additional days anyways because we had been across the border the day before. So, we have to go back on the 24th of March to hopefully get our visa this time. We went back to the 2/3rd school to meet Virginia as she needed one of us to record a few passages for a General Knowledge English contest that they are holding. It was about 9:50am and we couldn't do this until 11am, so Hong & I had to hang around for a while waiting for Janice, who had the recording device. Normally, we would have just gone wandered around, but it was pouring buckets of rain out! Virginia even mentioned that the weather might progress to 'black rain'... which is a really heavy amount of rain where the city just shuts down, most people return home, but if it's not safe to do so, then you have to stay where you are until it lets up. With black rain follows mudslides, typhoons, etc at times. Scary! My umbrella kicked the bucket the other day, and Hong's was on its way out... so we really had no choice but to stick around. After the recording, we went out for some Chinese/Portuguese food with Virginia & she FINALLY let us pay for it! Our mission after lunch was to find new umbrellas & boy, did we ever! We didn't skim out on cash this time & bought a superman strength umbrella. The only problem is, it's really big & when it rains everyone has an umbrella out & it's just like a jigsaw puzzle getting through the crowds with all of the umbrellas. I even got dragged a few steps one day, as this girl's umbrella got stuck in my hair & she didn't notice (not even after I screamed and followed with her umbrella poking into my head)... ouch!

The next couple of days were devoted to getting work done! We fell behind a little while in Thailand, so I've just been getting some reading done & writing some papers. It's raining out a lot... so it isn't so bad being inside. Tomorrow, I will focus on planning some activities for the grade ones & kindergarten students - should be fun!

Thailand

We had originally planned to head for the airport at about 2am Friday morning so that we could make our flight in time (we have to take a ferry & then an hour bus ride to the HK airport), but we got a phone call from Andrew (who is living in HK) that evening so we decided to head over to his place at about 8pm, stay over and then go to the airport in the morning. Friday morning, we woke up at about 4:30am to catch a cab to the Airport Express for 5am. We were going to take the 24 hour shuttle bus, but Andrew said that the express was much easier. So, we got to this express train station, but it was completely empty, no one in sight & finally heard a recorded message saying that the first trains don't run until 6am. Darnit! That wasn't going to work since we had to meet our group at 5:45am. So, instead we wandered around until we could find a cab at that time in the morning & headed to the airport in a cab. over $300 HKD later, we arrived at our meeting spot. Oh well.. at least we got there in time!

The flight was about 2.5 hours & then had to take our tour bus to our first destination. We went to an "Amusement Park" about an hour outside of Bangkok and about an hour or so away from Pattaya. I wish I had known what this "Amusement Park" actually was beforehand as the English translation paints pictures of rides, candy & fun in my mind. I won't go into details because I would never wish for anyone to experience this place. All I can say is that my initial impression of Thailand was that it was animal exploitation to the extreme, filled with 'Monkey shows', elephant "rides", and shooting ranges. We were expected to tip everyone that we encountered and I may have been the fun ruiner, but there was no way I was willingly encouraging this establishment any further. Anyways...

We drove for about another hour to get to Pattaya where we checked into our beautiful hotel & relaxed by the gorgeous pool. Because we are on a tour, all of our meals are set and paid for, so when we go to a restaurant, we're just given a set meal. We were told that on a Chinese tour, you will always go to a Chinese restaurant and receive 8 dishes & one soup as the meal. We were also told that Chinese people can not handle Thai food nor do they like the spice, so unfortunately while in Thailand, the majority of our meals were exactly the same, from one Chinese restaurant to the next :( However, Hong & I did get a couple of opportunities to have some Pad Thai & Mango sticky rice. Mmm Thai food is so yummy!

That night we went to a Magic Show - Thai style. Very interesting. & then went to 'Mike's mall' which is essentially a giant market inside of a building. We tried out some of our rusty bargaining skills at this place but failed miserably. I think their rent must be much higher than in other places, because prices were too high & they were less willing to budge in price. So, we didn't buy anything there. We were absolutely exhausted by the end of this day & slept very well in our quiet hotel. It's odd that a hotel is so much more quiet than our appt in Macau!

On Saturday we woke early to take a boat ride to another island in Pattaya. Our first stop was just off shore where dozens of companies gave Parasailing rides. This was the sketchiest thing I have ever seen!! I have some pictures of it.. there were literally about 50 boats zooming around very close to each other, tugging a parasailer behind them. & how the rider is attached to the parachute is very different from anywhere else.. you are hooked on by two small carabeaners and dangle from the attachment points. Needless to say... I did not feel comfortable trying this... but Hong was willing to be the guineapig! She loved it!

We continued our boat ride to the beautiful beach where we just relaxed by the water all morning. There are lots of people around trying to sell you stuff & take you on jet ski rides, etc.. but overall it was pretty nice. There was only one unfortunate incident where an old man from Nepal had approached Hong & I separately & was asking to take pictures of me .... it was really odd & uncomfortable. I said no, repeatedly, as I was in a bathing suit & thought that he was very creepy.

We had lunch at a restaurant just up from the beach, & had the usual Chinese 8 dishes & one soup. One constant that no one ever eats is the fish. It really doesn't look good. We were told that when you get fish that is deepfried or pan fried & covered in sauces (spicy sauces), that means that the fish was most likely dead for a long time before it was cooked & they deep frying & sauce is a cover up for the fishy smell & taste. It wasn't recommended that we eat it. Hong tried a little & said that it didn't taste good at all. Right after lunch we took our boat ride (about 1/2 an hour) back to the mainland Pattaya. This boat ride was quite the adventure. We were flying over massive waves & crashing down to the water like it was no big deal. I felt like I was on a half hour roller coaster.

We then went to a Massage place to get a 2 hour Thai massage. Quite the experience. We were all in a huge room with multiple beds, and many of the people in our tour fell asleep except for Hong & I... we always had one eye open because of how different this experience was. The two ladies were just killing themselves laughing when we would squirm or giggle when they manipulated our limbs, etc in odd poses. One shocking moment was when they are working on your neck & head area, they twist your head to the side & crack the whole top area of your spine & neck... it surprised the heck out of me! & then I thought, you can definitely kill someone that way. I was just hoping that they knew what they were doing!! After the massage they wait in the little changing area with you until you give them a tip. So we gave them $50 B, which was the amount that was suggested by our tour guide & my masseuse gave me the nastiest look & then her & Hong's lady just started yelling in Thai. We didn't know what we did wrong... but I think they were expecting more from us.

That evening we went to the 'Lady Man' show. It was neat... but I think I expected more. The costumes were great & the men really looked like women, but the dancing was awful & the lip synching was even worse. They have to do these shows multiple times in one evening, so I can understand that the enthusiasm and pizzaz would fade pretty quick. I was fascinated by how much these men resemble females... everything about them was so feminine. Almost all of them have had some form of surgery... it's quite the transformation that they must go through in order to qualify for this lifestyle.

We left early Sunday morning to go to Bangkok (a.k.a in Chinese - "Munhkok" meaning traffic jam). On our way there, we stopped at this dry/preserved foods store. Everyone in our tour went crazy over this stuff! Some people bought boxes & boxes of dried food. Hong & I just bought some snacks to try some things. My favourite was Tamarind, which is a fruit, but it was dried & then sweetened. It was sour, spicy & sweet all at once, so delish! Next was the Chinese herbal/medicinal shop. I wrote a little bit about it in my pictures, it was quite the experience. They sit you in this private room, make you watch a video which just spews out the ingredients of the products that they have, and then some man comes in & gave us a shpeal for about half an hour (in Chinese) about the products. It was really awkward after the talk because they kind of just stand there... don't let you leave.. almost as if they are waiting for you to buy something before you can leave. Hong & I didn't get anything though, we had no idea what was going on!

On Monday we went to the 9 Sacred Temples (/Buddhas), the other temple where we had to take a boat ride to, & also saw the four faced Buddha. I feel like an idiot writing about all of the things we saw because I know nothing about them, and I don't even know what they are called because everything we went to, they spoke in Chinese about it. I'll just have to do some research.

Tuesday was a short day as we were flying out that day. We went to a "Honey shop", which was strikingly similar to the Chinese Medicinal shop. After that we went to Baiyoke Hotel, which is the tallest tower in Thailand. This was lots of fun and is much like the CN tower or Calgary tower. I found this sign, but unfortunately didn't take a picture of it & on it, it had a list of the tallest towers & buildings in the world. But the CN tower was no where to be found!! At first I thought that maybe it was only a list of the tallest buildings in the world, but then I noticed many other towers listed... but still no CN tower :( Poor Canada, we were left out.

After a long trip... we had to catch the 10pm ferry to Macau, for an hour ferry ride. We were exhausted by the time we got home, but it felt good to be back!

Short day in lessons & Macanese food

We had quite the slack day today as we were only scheduled to be at the school by 2:20pm & there for about an hour. Virginia had invited us out to lunch, so we met her at noon at the 2nd & 3rd school. Helen & John (Dr. Wu, Helen's husband) joined us as well. As we were approaching the restaurant, Hong poked me & said 'knock on wood that we're not going to that awful Portuguese place' & guess where they took us???? YEP! The place where I had said earlier that I had eaten the worst lunch ever in my life. We played it off as though we had never been there before (I even recognized some of the men eating there, the ones that were staring at me as I struggled with my shrimp with my hands), I didn't want to say anything as I had talked to Virginia the other day about the worst meal we had in Macau, but without revealing the location. They ordered for us & we had a bunch of dishes to choose from. It was actually quite tasty, maybe we just didn't know what to order? (I noticed that the chinese menu was far more detailed than the English/picture menu, many more choices). Over lunch we got some pointers of where we should travel... we are motivated to go to a travel agent on our day of to finally book something!! I can't wait! :) (We have to book through a tour as it isn't recommended to travel on our own..)

We then went over to the first school where we were scheduled to meet with both Primary 5 classes to introduce ourselves. As we were walking towards the gates, we decided to look at the posters that were made for the open house. We saw many familiar faces of students, and of the foreign teachers from the U of C from last year & then... I saw myself. In about 6 different pictures. How the heck did they make up these posters so fast?? We've only been here for 2 weeks! We then looked at the posters a little closer & it was quite funny because there was at least one 'token white guy' as Hong calls it, in all of the posters. & what's even worse - Hong isn't in any of these!! She is so lucky!! They aren't the most flattering poses as well... I think they were trying to capture 'teachable moments', but this didn't work out so well as we're closing our eyes, in the middle of saying something, or when we tell the students to put their hands on their heads to be quiet! haha not lovely.

We joined 5A & 5B for a few minutes in the afternoon. Each day, when they return from lunch, the whole school does 'eye exercises' in their classrooms. It's quite similar to the brain gym that we used to do at Ranchlands, except they only do mini massages on their own face with their eyes closed. It was really neat to see some similarities in strategies to get the students focused for the rest of the day. The students then did some introductions of themselves, basically just saying their name. The first student who introduced himself (side note: & why is it always the first student to introduce themselves in these classes that seem to cause some trouble... hmm), anyways, he said my name is "Cecillia" & the whole class burst out laughing, except for this one student whose name is Cecillia. It wasn't funny. This poor little girl was obviously upset & then put her head down on the table until it was her turn to introduce herself. I understand that kids will be kids & kids are sometimes mean... and I don't want to judge the teacher, but she did nothing to diffuse the situation or deal with this boy that had just humiliated this poor girl. I don't know if it's because these teachers are nervous to have us in their classroom, but even with that student that said he likes to kill us, the behaviour is waved off. I don't understand it. I think that I'm being too judgmental and bringing assumptions into these situations, but it's very difficult not to.

Hot Pot & CDSJ Open House

Last night, the English club, some teachers, Hong & myself went out for Hot Pot! It is much like the fondu that my family & I used to do growing up with meat, veggies & beef bouillon to cook the food. In Hot Pot, each of the tables has a flat stove element in the middle & they place a large wok filled with soup broth on it to boil. The broth is apparently made with boiled meat bones, some herbs & fruit. You then order various types of food (which Hong & I didn't do because everything was in Chinese) & throw it in the soup, let it cook for a bit & scoop it all out & chow down. Some of the types of food that we had were watercrest, romaine lettuce, mushrooms, chinese pumpkin, corn, beef, pork, fish, liver, japanese tofu, tofu, meat/japanese meat/pork/fish/prawn/caviar/cheese balls (they LOVE any food in a ball form), noodles, yam, spring rolls, etc. There was so much food there last night I can't remember it all! My favourite was the cheese ball. It's really strong/stinky white cheese inside of a ball of processed squid. It was very good! Cheese is very hard to come by here, so I haven't had it in a while. I couldn't stomach the liver though... it reminds me of the blood clots that are very popular here. It's typically the blood of duck & it's somewhat like gelatin, but it doesn't cook... it just stays looking like a jell-o ball of blood. So liver, uncooked, looks much like this, and I just can't get over the thought of it. I would like to think that I eat and have tried many different things.. but I don't think I will get over this one. We also tried lots of different drinks, many of them cold teas. One of them, no one would let us try because they think that it will not be good for our digestive system. Finally, they let us try it. They call it 'Chinese tea or Chinese beer'. They use it to counteract the effects of hot pot. Because hot pot if very warm, it cools the body & prevents things like pimples & kanker sores that you get from hot pot. I thought that it tasted very good... but they think that it's not very good, but have to drink it anyways during hot pot. We all had a great time & I was very thankful that everyone got together so that we could have this experience.

Today (Sunday) was the open house for CDSJ. I was unsure going into this what the main goal of this event was, but I asked around again today & found out that the 'purpose of this event is to attract new students'. This is their first year putting on such an event, I think they are fearful that their numbers are falling. The junior high & high school have many students, & grades 5 & 6 at our school are doing just fine, but kindergarten, grade 1, 2, 3, & 4 have very low numbers. I'm really not sure how many new families came to the event, most of the students that I saw are currently attending the school.We had lots of centers set up & prizes to give away. It was somewhat like a mini fair. I was so impressed by all of the technology that suddenly appeared today! There were some smart boards (which look much more advanced than our at home, You know the kind of chalkboards that slide back & forth to have more writing space. Well instead of them all being chalkboards, there is one that is a smart board). As well as these smartboards, there were these large computer screens that essentially did the same thing, but were smaller in size & black. They were HPs, but I don't really know what they are. It was kind of odd though, because at the end of the event, as soon as everyone left all of this technology got taken away! & I don't know where it was going or even if it belonged to the school?

On the way home, Hong & I decided to get some Bubble Tea. Patricia taught me how to order it last night in Chinese, so I wanted to try it out. I was so proud of myself because the guy working actually understood what I was saying!!! :) I think I enjoyed my Bubble Tea even more because of this.

Starting Thursday, Hong & I have a week and a half off... any suggestions of where we should go??

Disneyland & English Concert

On Thursday, Hong & I went over to Hong Kong to go to Disneyland. It is a fairly straightforward trip, but took a very long time. Luckily we met an Aussie after the ferry & she directed us to the Central station where we would start our train journey. She recommended that we purchase food before we get to Disneyland as she said food is highly over priced & doesn't taste very good. We were shocked how much food cost in HK. Usually in Macau, we spend about $30 MOP on a meal, but in HK for lunch, we spent about $70 each! We were so excited getting off of that train... they have quite the display, everything is Disney themed, even the train was all decked out in Disney attire!! Once we had purchased our tickets & were excited to get the day started... we were told that we can't bring outside food into the park. Since we had spent so much money on lunch, we bitterly sat outside of the gates in the rain & ate our food. :(

Despite this, we were optimistic that we were going to have a fantastic day! The highlights of our day included Space Mountain (where we went on it multiple times & made funny faces at the camera each time. Our fellow Space Mountain riders had great fun chuckling at us after they saw the pictures!), The Lion King show was fantastic, & the Disney parade. We were going to stay for the fireworks, but Disneyland HK is quite small... & we had been there for so long already, so we left around dinner time.

We met up with Andrew Rizkalla (my friend from high school) after Disneyland for dinner. It took forever to find each other!! Although we had a cell phone (luckily), neither of us know HK very well... so our descriptors of our location were quite vague. HK is quite unique... lots of people around all the time & there are so many foreigners!! I don't know how people afford this place, it's crazy! A beer at the bar can cost about $80 HK which is about $12 CAD. Isn't China supposed to be cheap? Luckily Macau is. We didn't stay for very long that night, we were pooched & couldn't wait to get home.

Today (Saturday) we went to the English Concert at the 1st school. Each grade had a song/chant/play to perform for parents & teachers. It was very cute. We also found out that for tomorrow, the school's 'open house', we are supposed to have centers where we do activities with the kids? I don't quite understand what this event is about. We keep hearing many variations... one being that it is to recruit new students & another is to showcase the school for current families? Another is just to entertain anyone that wants to stop by? I don't understand. Oh well.. we will find out soon enough.

After the concert, Hong & I wandered around, closer to the 2nd & 3rd school to find somewhere to eat for lunch. We spotted this portuguese place which had lots of people inside & had pictures on their menu. A must! Our hopes were high. & then crashed... I will honestly say that this was the worst meal I have ever had in my entire life. I feel sick just thinking about it. It was noodles, some veggies, & shrimp. Sounds good right? No. The shrimp tasted as though I was drinking liters of sea salt water & the sauce tasted much the same. The meal wasn't cheap either... so mostly because I was hungry, and because I was spending money on it. I ate it anyways :( Yuck!

Going to post some pictures from today! I hope everyone who's reading this is well.. I miss you all!!

Meeting my students & English club welcome party

This morning we had 2 very short periods to meet our students (P1 & P2). We first met Hong's class of P2. It is a very small class, there are only 10 students. This class seemed very sweet. There was one boy however, that had a temper tantrum when he first walked into the class and then continued to kick things, make noises & wouldn't participate for the rest of the class. The teacher tried to include him a couple of times, but her efforts didn't work very well. Poor thing, I don't know what had happened during gym class (the period before), but he was not a happy camper.

We then went next door to meet the P1 class (the class that I will be teaching in). Oh my, there are some interesting fellows in there. During the introductions, the teacher had asked the students (12 in total) to complete the sentence "I like to..." with their introduction. The very first student that she had asked to do this, wound up with a karate type stance & yelled "I like to KILL YOU!!!" hahaha I couldn't understand what he had said at first, but then it clicked. That activity soon stopped. I think the teacher was quite embarrassed, but he was just being a kid.

We walked over to the 2nd & 3rd school for our welcome party from the English club. They had lots of baked treats & some iced tea for all of us. It was great. The students who are a part of this club put it all together themselves. Wherever we go, they ask us to 'Say something to the students'... etc. I think I should start planning out an introduction, it's always so awkward. I usually make Hong talk :) They are planning a Hot Pot night with us & the rest of the English club students for this Saturday. I'm very excited!! It's going to be about triple the cost of any other meal we usually eat, but we get to try lots of yummy food, so it will be worth it!

I think we miss the boat on a lot of what is said.. or it's assumed that we are filled in by someone else, but I always find there are surprises! For example, while we were in the P1 class, the teacher that we went on the English camp with to BBQ the other day came into the class and pulled me out to talk to me. She started with... "For the report that you & Hong are writing.." and I didn't hear the rest because I was just thinking - what report?? Oh well... I will learn the art of flexibility here soon enough.