The weekend in Beijing seemed to go rather quickly!\u00a0 It was also not without adventure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Friday morning, a group of the foreigners and a couple of Chinese friends\u00a0helped move boxes and boxes of books into the new office of the FOC school.\u00a0 The three teachers (myself included) are very excited to have a place to store books and such and also a place to ‘debrief’ after the school day.\u00a0 It’s amazing the tremendous joy that comes out of small things!\u00a0 HE definitely provides!\u00a0 We had school on Friday evening and Saturday.\u00a0 I only taught on Saturday.\u00a0 I feel a little more comfortable with the 3rd grade class.\u00a0 It was a little different than what I had expected.\u00a0 The 7th graders were awesome!\u00a0 It’s funny how my opinion of different grade levels changes depending on my location and how much experience I have.\u00a0 This particular group of 7th graders impressed me.\u00a0 Since they have all lived abroad for some time, (Hai Gui \u6d77\u9f9f) their oral English is pretty good.\u00a0 Their written English is also pretty impressive.\u00a0 One of my students, the only boy, was born in the states and lived there for seven years.\u00a0 He’s a great kid!\u00a0 I admire him for putting up with all of those girls.\u00a0 This particular group of 7th graders is excited about reading some challenging books this year.\u00a0 Two books that we will read that I can think of off the top of my head are To Kill a Mockingbird <\/em>and Of Mice and Men.\u00a0<\/em>What a great year this will be!<\/p>\n Today (Monday) had a few lovely surprises!\u00a0 I found out yesterday that I would’t be starting at Lin Da \u6797\u5927 until next week.\u00a0 So I have this whole week off to explore.\u00a0 The next time I teach will be on Saturday.\u00a0 One of the other new teachers does not start until after that so we went for a jog in the beautiful little park today.\u00a0 The weather was so nice for it. (by nice I mean cold enough to not be sweaty all the time)\u00a0<\/p>\n After that,\u00a0we biked up to where most of the rest of the teachers live to hang out for a while this afternoon.\u00a0 On our way up there, I looked to the west and saw the mountains for the first time.\u00a0 It was not sunny today but there was no smog and visibility was pretty high.\u00a0 I almost stopped to take a picture and kind of wish I would have.\u00a0 Beijing is just full of lovely surprises when you least expect them.\u00a0 I can’t even being to imagine what else is in store for me!<\/p>\n Another surprise, (which was probably more of a shock) was this: I found out today that next week when I begin at Lin Da \u6797\u5927 I will be teaching executives from Sinopec \u4e2d\u56fd\u77f3\u5316, <\/span>which is a Fortune Global 500 company ranked 9th in the world.\u00a0 Talk about pressure!\u00a0 I’m very excited about it!\u00a0 I even did a little reading about Sinopec so that I know a little about the company.\u00a0 Tomorrow we meet with Mr. Wang to find out about the details and to\u00a0get our textbooks.\u00a0 (If only I can remember how to get there)\u00a0 Mr. Wang will probably be driving us from Lin Da to Sinopec tomorrow, and you know how I feel about riding in Mr. Wang’s car!\u00a0<\/p>\n I feel like I should also update you on Beijing Extreme Biking!\u00a0 I stopped keeping a tally of the number of times I’ve almost been hit by a bus.\u00a0 It usually happens once or twice a day and I sort of lost track.\u00a0 I have hit one pedestrian on my bike.\u00a0 I had the choice of going that direction or the other (which was right into a bus) so I figured that choice was the safer bet.\u00a0 I’m sure the woman was just fine.\u00a0 It was not that hard of a hit.\u00a0 My new favorite thing to do while biking is to bike at an angle across a major intersection.\u00a0 Imagine you are on the southeast corner of an intersection and you want to be on the northwest.\u00a0 Instead of waiting for green, going north, waiting for green again and going west, you just wait for the green arrow and travel through the lanes of traffic that are turning in opposite directions.\u00a0 The first time I did it I was a little freaked out.\u00a0 But I realize now that it is still safer than biking with the busses.\u00a0 I don’t miss driving at all!<\/p>\n As I write, it is late Monday evening and two of the other\u00a0teachers just left our apartment after a good supper and great company.\u00a0 Once again, I see how HE takes care of me.\u00a0 I know people have told me that there will be times when I feel lonely here.\u00a0 I still have a hard time\u00a0believing that because of the large number of us living in Beijing.\u00a0 I am thankful for the fellowship with the others.\u00a0 Praise HIM for his goodness!\u00a0<\/p>\n Highlights of the weekend:\u00a0 Sunday service with the teachers and not missing too many notes on the piano, 7th grade, biking through the rain to go to game night, and talking to family and friends on the phone from across the globe!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The weekend in Beijing seemed to go rather quickly!\u00a0 It was also not without adventure.\u00a0 Friday morning, a group of the foreigners and a couple of Chinese friends\u00a0helped move boxes and boxes of books into the new office of the FOC school.\u00a0 The three teachers (myself included) are very excited to have a place to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions\/109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}