Tuesday was my first day with the Qinghua group.\u00a0 I met Ms. Fan at the subway station in the morning so that she could show me where to go.\u00a0 We went to her office first so that I could make the copies for my class.\u00a0 She asked me if I drink coffee, to which I responded, “Yes! I like coffee!” Little did I know that this response would lead to multitudes of cups and free coffee (instant) in my classroom.\u00a0 She also told me that if I have any handouts for the class that I could email them to her or another person and they would make my copies for me and have them ready for me in my classroom. \ud83d\ude42 How great is that?!?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n My students are great!\u00a0 One man in my class asked if I was married and when I said no, proceeded to tell me that he was also single. “We can be friends!” was his response to this.\u00a0 I shook his hand. \u00a0He came to both of my classes on Tuesday and both of my classes on Wednesday even though he is only required to go to one of them.\u00a0 I may have to watch out for this one.\u00a0 He said to me, “you are not as old as I am.” So I responded by saying, “How old are you?”\u00a0He said, “24.” I said, “I am older.” \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n After the introductions on Tuesday, one of my students asked me to tell them a little about myself.\u00a0 So, I drew a map (drew is really a relative term here…) on the whiteboard to show them where I was born, where I went to college, and where I had been teaching for the past four years.\u00a0 They were very interested in anything I had to tell them.\u00a0 Ms. Fan wants me to teach them English songs.\u00a0 I think that I will have a hard time teaching silly songs to people who have degrees in business!\u00a0 Someday soon, I will bring in pictures of my hometown, my family and other pictures that I have from the states.\u00a0 They want to know as much as possible about Meiguo \u7f8e\u56fd! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Wednesday’s class was also very fun.\u00a0 I am really going to enjoy teaching my Qinghua students.\u00a0 After class on Wednesday, I decided to explore the Qinghua campus on my bike for a while.\u00a0 It is very beautiful!\u00a0 I took a few pictures of the “lake” and the waterfall.\u00a0 There was a large open lawn near the auditorium on the campus.\u00a0 Around this place there were hardly any people, which is so un-China-like!\u00a0 Maybe I will come back to this place to do some reading or writing.\u00a0 It was very peaceful!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n My lessons are coming along more quickly than when I started because I know what to expect.\u00a0 I kind of feel like a competent Oral English teacher now!\u00a0 I know for sure that I will learn a great deal about Business English and am excited to do so.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Other happenings of the week:\u00a0 Kevin (from the train to Taishan) invited me to attend a violin recital of one of his friends at his school (Central Conservatory of Music \u4e2d\u592e\u97f3\u4e50\u5b66\u9662).\u00a0 He met me at the subway and then showed me around the campus.\u00a0 This school is very small population-wise.\u00a0 He said that there are only about 2000 students!\u00a0 The campus isn’t anything spectacular.\u00a0 It’s pretty small and most of the buildings are ‘normal.’\u00a0 We went into the auditorium\/concert hall quite a bit early because the tour of the campus did not take as long as he thought it would.\u00a0 He told me he would go get me a program.\u00a0 So I stayed in the auditorium to listen to the violinist warm up.\u00a0 Awesome!\u00a0 It was taking Kevin a really long time\u00a0to get a program.\u00a0 When he finally came back, I realized why it had taken him so long.\u00a0 He was having someone translate the whole thing into English for me!\u00a0 It was all hand written next to the Chinese!\u00a0 The recital was fantastic!\u00a0 After it was over, Kevin introduced me to the performer.\u00a0 I told him that his playing was excellent and he said, ‘thank you,’ and that was the extent of our English conversation.\u00a0 After the performance, Kevin and I and another one of his friends went to get some food.\u00a0 It is interesting\/frustrating talking to him because I don’t speak Chinese and he speaks only basic English.\u00a0 There won’t be any intellectual conversations between the two of us any time soon.\u00a0 He is going to be coming to a concert this weekend with me and a bunch of the other Meiguoren \u7f8e\u56fd\u4eba.\u00a0 When I told him that there would be about eight other Americans with me, he made this gesture that signified confusion (waved his hands by his head)!\u00a0 I assured him that there were a few who could speak Chinese much better than I can.\u00a0 He just smiled!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n My love of China continues to grow day by day!\u00a0 There are so many little things that make me smile when I take the time to think about them…the ‘Chinese chalupa’ lady who\u00a0knows exactly what I want when I come to order from her and her assistant who does all his cooking with chopsticks!, the copy man at Sinopec who doesn’t speak English but has had multiple ‘conversations’ with me about copies\/flash drives\/pdf files\/etc., the pink-haired stylist (male) who works on our street who says ‘hello’ every time we bike past and even took our picture with his phone one time, old Chinese friends who come to evening studies and share the same love of HIM, new Chinese friends who are learning of HIM and HIS SON for the first time.\u00a0 There are so many more things that I could mention.\u00a0 It’s difficult to put into words all of these ‘little’ experiences that are part of my day to day life! (Including being hit by a car on my bike!)\u00a0 If only you could come and experience this as well….. \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The lake on the campus<\/p><\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Close up of the waterfall<\/p><\/div>\n Jeffersonian Architecture on the campus<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Finally, I began my first week of my full teaching load.\u00a0 I still maintain that I have the greatest job in China, although others will disagree with me.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 I have Sunday and Monday off, which is a great blessing because I am able to be refreshed in HIS word and enjoy the day with […]<\/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\/200"}],"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=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":228,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"http:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/IMG_53621.JPG\" "\\"IMG_5362\\"")
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