Chapter 19: Which Reveals the Author's Top Ten List

Top Ten Things I Love About Teaching Middle School in Qingdao

10. View from my classroom: ocean. View from my office: mountains.

9. Taking Chinese lessons (this isn't a middle school thing, but I do still love it!)

8. The students can understand what I'm saying the first go around. I don't have to repeat myself very often.

7. I get to use powerpoints on a daily basis. While this is also a LOT more work, I just enjoy having a tool that helps keep me on track and not running down every single rabbit trail I see.

6. The students are super well behaved. It's just great to see how respectful and hard-working they are while still keeping the fun of being in middle school. It's cool how balanced most of them are.

5. Working with the middle school teachers. They're really great and so dedicated to what they are doing. It's very inspiring to see.

4. My principal. He's awesome and so encouraging. Also, he's Australian so I'm enjoying learning about that culture a bit more.

3. Block periods! I love having so much uninterrupted time to teach and work together.

2. Middle school students laugh when I make a joke. Not sure what this says about my sense of humor.

1. The kids are at an incredibly awesome and slightly awkward stage in life which makes them a lot of fun to be around.

Chapter 18: Being a Rather Large Nutshell of the Author's Busyness

So much has happened since I last posted! None of it violently thrilling (or even peacefully thrilling), but busyness has been my theme this week. In thought and in deed.

At the end of last week I was busy with the IT conference and spending all day (three days in a row) helping students log in to websites, mail, skydrive clouds, and all other manner of e-problems. Friday afternoon was a relief.

Sort of. As soon as I got home, we had a British friend come over. We went to a noodle joint run by Chinese Muslims. Basically the best noodles for the fairest price in Qingdao. If you could have fajita lamb with onions and peppers and noodles, you'll have a good idea of what it tastes like. So we got to know Joel, our British friend, and it was great.

Immediately after that, we had two guys come to shoot a promotional video for our school system. These guys are great and they were a lot of fun to hang out with, but they stayed with us and it was a lot more work than I had been expecting. But our apartment and we will be in the promo video now for people looking to join the company. So that's pretty fun! (Completely random side note: We have a water tower with potable water and every once in awhile it will have a sporadic release of an air bubble even if no one has been near it for hours. Such a thing just happened, and in my empty home it made me jump a bit too high. Ridiculous.)

Monday I started Chinese classes. I'm really excited about this, and my teacher is very good. We got through 6 lessons in one session, which was twice as many as he was expecting! So I am going to start learning the Chinese characters as well as the spoken language. Exciting!

Last night we (for future reference, "we" will usually refer to Zack, my roommate, and me) had an invitation to dinner with a great family at the school. The dad is a few years older than me and he and I are quite similar in many ways, so it was fun to be there, even though I was pretty wiped out at this point. But his son is 5 and reminds me so forcefully of my own nephew that I couldn't help but be amazed at the similarities.

And on top of all this "normal" life craziness, I've been trying to get caught up with my teaching.

Overwhelmed. But getting better each day. And now for a night in with nothing to do but a bit of work and a bit more relaxation.

Chapter 17: About Ayi's First Day

Yesterday, I felt a little like a rich brat.

We had an ayi come to our apartment for an interview. For those of you who are not familiar with the word, "ayi," it's basically a house helper. She comes to clean, cook, do laundry, etc. It's like having a maid. (Most people had these in Nigeria as well.)

Because we didn't plan very well, we had Ayi come yesterday for an interview with a wonderful Filipino interpreter who was translating fluently between two languages that were not her native tongue. The poor planning comes due to the fact that we've been having a middle school technology conference these past two days. Utterly and exhaustingly draining.

So Zack's and my thoughts were on the IT Conference and not on the fact that we had to have the house somewhat clean with cleaning supplies marked or in obvious places.

Ayi came while we were at school. She was evidently overwhelmed. I can imagine what she must have thought of Zack and I as she was cleaning. "How did these crazy foreigners get this place so dirty in just three weeks here?"

But she seems like a really nice person, and she is certainly a great cook! Hopefully she doesn't get scared off by our initial mess.

Chapter 15: In Which the Cultural Differences Between East and West Become More Apparent

I have about a million things to post about, but since it's the most important, I'll post about my first week of school. It. Was. Awesome.

I love middle school. I love these students. I love this school. I know it sounds too early for me to be using the "L" word, but I can't really explain my feelings using the word "like." So the slightly over-dramatic "L" word it will have to be.

There are already some fairly large cultural differences between the Eastern-minded and Western-minded students in my classes.
In general, the Eastern-minded students are more reserved. I have had to tell every single class so far that when I ask a yes or no question that is not rhetorical, they should either nod or shake their head. It's something I never really anticipated having to teach to middle-schoolers.
In general, the Western-minded students are a bit more vocal in class and much more responsive to questioning.
Obviously there are exceptions to both generalizations (especially the Eastern generalization), but it's just something I noticed so far. It will be an interesting shift from my last school where students were really responsive to questions, almost to a fault. There's just a lot to get used to.

I am greatly looking forward to this weekend: eating out and games tonight, time to plan lessons, Settlers of Catan, fellowship, and general nonsensicality. 

Chapter 10: Being a Riveting Account of Extreme Culture Shock and Amazing Weather Systems

In the week since I left the U.S., I feel as though I have experienced enough things to fill up a month. I've started learning Chinese (fun, yet challenging), I've eaten some amazing food, met some even more amazing people, been a good neighbor, and started planning out my school year.

Chinese lessons have been really fun. So far we've learnt simple phrases and sentences like, "Wo qu Baishan xuexiao. Wo yao ban ge ping guo." I am going to Baishan school. I want eight apples. Nothing too impressive yet, but still rather fun. We've been focusing a lot on the tones. It's a challenge to constantly think about the tone of your speech. I thought that part would be easier. I'm sure it will be one day.

The food here is just wonderful. So far the hot pot from my first night has been my favorite, but we've also had Korean barbecue, chuare (beef, lamb, or squid on a stick. I had all three), lots of jiaoci (dumplings), and noodles. I'm excited to keep trying new things!

The teachers at the school are so great. I already feel as though I'm in a fantastic community, and I'm really looking forward to getting to know these people more. Also, they have some great insights and stories about living in China.

Like State Farm Insurance, I have been a good neighbor. A coworker lives two flights below Zack and me, and she's currently cat-sitting for a family on vacation in Thailand. Last night the cat got out and so we spent 45 minutes trying to corral this dumb cat to a place where we could actually catch it. We laid traps, tried being sweet, bribed it with food, but nothing worked. Eventually we just gave up and hoped that it would be in a more catchable mood today (It was. It has now been caught).

And finally this week I've started planning out my school year. I know now what classes I'll be teaching: one class each of 6th, 7th, and 8th grade math, and one class of 6th grade social studies (ancient history through the Middle Ages). I'm pretty excited about it. There's a lot of prep time available for me, even though some of that will be used up with Chinese lessons. I'm looking forward to this school year.

OK, well, I have to admit that I may or may not have created a misleading title to make you more interested in this post. Don't be mad.