Saturday was my usual 3rd grade/7th grade routine.  I’m starting to warm up to the 3rd graders, but they are still pretty chaotic in the classroom.  I have one student who is 6 years old (yes—in my 3rd grade class).  He just got back from living in the states for two years.  His oral English is surprisingly clear and he would put any American 3rd grader to shame with his reading skills.  However, he has zero attention span!  I just don’t know what to do with him!  He actually reminds me of my middle-schoolers from last year.  It’s funny to hear a little Chinese boy insert “like” between most of the words in his sentences.  I think he does this when he is nervous.  His personality also surprises me.  He is very outgoing.  I will definitely keep you posted on him.

My 7th  graders surprised me with their written English skills.  They struggle with a few sentence structure items, but their thoughts are awesome!  I can’t wait to read more of their writing.  It’s easy to assign a lot of writing when: 1. you know the students will complete it—all of it, and 2. you only have seven students’ work to read.  We had some fun discussions about The Secret Garden.  They devour books like they are going out of style.  Who would have thought that I would be teaching the same thing in China as I was in the states? I certainly did not!  During class last Saturday, they wrote letters to American 7th graders.  We are going to try to start a pen-pal activity with some of my former 6th grade students from Watertown.  My Chinese students are very excited about communicating with an American student.  At first, they didn’t know what to write.  So we brainstormed ideas of what to write about.  I can’t wait for the Americans to get the letters.

On Sunday, we had our morning service. This was the debut of my trumpeting in Beijing!  We Beijingren 北京人 like to change things up in our services.  For Sunday, I played trumpet for three hymns (one with piano, one with guitar, one solo).  Afterwards we had lunch as a group and then another teacher and I went for a brisk walk in the park!  The park was busy with people walking (forwards and backwards), sitting on benches, playing random instruments out of tune, and babysitting grandchildren.  We’ve had quite a few beautiful blue sky days.  Anticipation of these days makes the other ones much more bearable.

My Sinopec men continue to work their way into my heart.  My heart still aches for them because they are so far away from their families.  They seem to be making the best out of their situations. They have really warmed up during class.  At first I was hesitant to try games and activities with them.  They seem to enjoy some of the ‘silly’ things that I try with them.  Yesterday I shared my Peanut Butter M&Ms with them.  They said they liked them, but I wonder if they were just being polite.  They are also very punctual.  I give them two ten-minute breaks during our three-and-a-half hour class.  They always come back in exactly ten minutes! However, yesterday they were ‘hanging out’ on a rooftop area having a very animated discussion in Chinese.  The time slipped right by them!  I had to go looking for my usually punctual students!  They sort of giggled (if you can imagine grown men giggling) when I came to find them. 

During the break time, while my students were hanging out on the roof, I was watching out my window at the window-washers across the way.  It seems like their method is so unsafe.  I’ve included a picture for you to see.  I also have a picture of the cars that they covered up because they didn’t want to get them wet. (Actually, this is an assumption of mine, but why else would they put what looks like a really big sheet over them!?!)  Also included in the pictures is one of the Sinopec ‘campus’ where I teach.  The photo was taken from my classroom window across to the dorms/cafeteria.

This week we finally welcomed the family that was missing from our group in Beijing!  It is so nice to have them here.  It feels like our group is complete now.  It was also fun to see their reactions to things happening on the way home from the airport.  I am sure that is what I looked like when I first arrived, and that was only a month ago!  So much has happened in the last few weeks that I feel like I’ve been here for a very long time already.  I hope that we can help them adjust as quickly as we did!

Update on Beijing Extreme Biking: I feel more and more confident as the days go by.  This may or may not be a dangerous thing!  Yesterday I ran into a guy on a scooter because there was confusion as to which way each of us was going.  I feel like this is going to happen more and more.  At least I now know that it doesn’t hurt that bad.  Also, (not really biking related) I got a ride with the other teachers from Sinopec to the subway yesterday. When I was getting out, the driver kept inching forward and the back wheel got my ankle.  Thankfully, I was able to pull my foot out before the tire ran over it! 🙂  I may have to change it from Beijing Extreme Biking to Beijing Extreme Transportation-in-general. 

Highlights of the week: Sunday service, practicing using a spoon and a fork with my engineers (and one of them turning them around to use them as chopsticks!), welcoming the Krauses, and visiting the post office by myself to mail an envelope back to America (Meiguo) 美国 and having a conversation with the clerk with gestures only. (She wanted me to write the characters for America 美国 on the package and I sort of looked like a little kid that wants something so she giggled and took the envelope back to write them for me.) I am going to be so good at charades when I get back!  I also think that I should probably learn to write the characters for America.

Enjoy the photos!  Until next time…

View of Sinopec from my classroom window

Covered cars...so they don't get wet?

Window Washers

View of the whole building. They are all the way up there with only two cords and what appears to be a tree swing holding them up.