NO new post until back form the holiday.

29 Sept 2006

Well I let the mouse go as he had started to bit.

I got a train ticket.

As to the day, class one started bad but after a lady came into the class twice I asked her to sit in the class, this turn the class in to a good. The next class was OK.

At lunch I desided to let the mouse go. I talk with Ulla and we would meet after school.

The afternoon classes were great. I got brouth in to the pricnable office because he wish to say happy holiday and know my plans. Then Give me me train ticket.

I meet up with Ulla and got my hair cut. We went shopping and then out to pizza. When I got back I let the mouse go and then packed.

28 Sept 2006

I love it when the Chinese teacher sit in on my lessons for the student behave. In the first class Lucy set in so it went great. In the second class no one set in was the last ten minutes where bad but I tried. Then I was asks for panda picture by one of the Chinese English teachers so I made the prints. I went out shopping of a small bag and folders. On the way in to the supermarket I stop where two men were doing Chinese writing and the wall were covered in hanging of Chinese writing. They did me a page for free and a girl came up to help me with my shopping. We then parted company and I got a mid size duffel bag for 25 yean.

Well if I sit in the home office long enough then a meal is cook for me. I feel bad about eating all the food for I make about 3 times what Miss Da makes, yet I am putting in no money to the household.

27 Sept 2006

It is raining as it has been off and on for over a day. Be the rain is nice and clean and removes pollution for the air.

I had a Chinese teacher in both of my grade one classes, so the students stayed in their sets and learned. In the break between classes Ulla and me were informed that we would not be teaching this afternoon. The girl one have start a writing book for did the page and returned the book to me.
I did two more page for the Chinese girl to do. When I give it to her lots of the other kid thought that they should get something as well. I hope that I do not make problem for her, I am only truing to help her learn. The note book has 36 page if you count each side as a page, at this time we have used 3 pages.

Well nothing makes you feel more like a fool than forgetting that you have a class to teach. I did that to today with the teachers English class. At five on Wednesday Ulla and me give the teachers at the school a English class. Well Lucy is part of the teaching set, Ulla get the class to repeat a new work and Lucy tells them the meaning in Chinese, while I write the word on the board.

Well the research put in for travel is good. I have learned that I came not go to one of the places on my plan for to spend 24 hours there, I need 20 hours of train and would get back at 4 AM. Not something that I can do as a teacher, so that is off the plan.

26 Sept 2006

Well the grade 2 students got a brow beating yesterday for today both class paid attention to the lesson on body part. As I have learned I can get them to get out note books I can not get them to draw. I think that they don't know the word draw.
After the afternoon classes with grade 1. We, Lucy, Ulla, another lady and me, went to the bank. Where Lucy and the other lady opened bank accounts. At that time we got paid and got ATM cards, I thought that it is very good that they issues ATM card then for I want to have access to the money for Holiday.

25 Sept 2006

Memory
You know how to play, now try to explain to Chinese students, in English. Well about 50% understood and all could put the cards out on a table. The game of memory had body parts cards.

In the afternoon class went bad. Half way thought the second class the principle walked by and then sent in a Chinese teacher, at which point the paid attention and learned the lesson. I was a very dry lesson on numbers and shapes.

I went shopping in the evening and I got three 1000 piece puzzles. I had dinner at KFC.
Then planed lessons.
I also started my book.

24 Sept 2006

Lots can be said for sleeping in and relaxing. That was my morning.
I went out to the new supermarket, it is huge, I found butter knifes. I also got a puzzle.
I came back had lunch, chicken noodle soup from only basics, chicken, noodle and soup powder, but it was not very good. I think that tossing the chicken in the pan and stir until cooked was not the right was to get a tasty meal. Then lesson planning.

23 Sept 2006

I got up late and then went on a small bike ride in search of a mono-pod no luck.
I went to diner with LaVelle, Nick and Justine, we had pizza. We walked by the pizza shop three times last night. We thought that the store front would be big but it was small. After ordering I went and got a drink for dinner. The pizza was very good.
After dinner we went to LaVelle flat where I picked up books for reading. We then had tea at Rubems flat that was fun. Me and LaVelle left and we walked together to my school for LaVelle want to know where my school was.
I turn down to fishing outing tomorrow for I don't like going fishing.

22 Sept 2006

I had class 2 grade 1 and someone had made them good again. We had a lesson on the numbers 1-5. The class 1 grade 1 was out of control. I told one of the girls that I will try to help her with her English.

After lunch I had grade 3, both of the classes were watched and the kids were very well behaved. The lesson was on the clock and numbers, they had fun and were learning as well. I read them The Fisher and the Golden Fish. I learned how to use the TV projector for the story reading.

I went out to dinner with Ulla, Nick and LaVelle. We had planned on go out for pizza but could not find the pizza shop. We had a Chinese dinner of three main dishes and noodles with three beers and one orange juice of 61 yean. I good time was had by all.

21 Sept 2006

Today I had only two classes that went very poorly. I do not know if I am a bad teacher or only a new teacher. One of those has to be true and the cause of my poor classes. After school a read a e-book and planned lesson for my classes tomorrow. The planning of lessons is hard for me because I want to give good classes but still have lots of discipline problems. I am learning that discipline in a classroom is hard work and that teaching is viewed as a easy job, well if you think it is easy you should give it a try.

20 Sept 2006

I had grade 1 this morning and in one of the two classes had a Chinese teacher sit in. The student behavior is like night and day, with and without the Chinese teacher. The Chinese teacher is not teaching the class only needs to sit in and the students behave. At time this makes me mad.

At lunch time I went out shopping and got some ice cream.

After lunch I had the grade 3. The second class was like cake for the students understood what I wanted and they did it.

Went to Ulla to talk about the lesson for the teachers at 5:00PM. I feel shy in these classes so Ulla does the main teaching and I write on the blackboard. Then we both go around and talk with the teachers to help them practice their English.

After the class we went to dinner where we meet the doctor Zhu. She is a lovely lady who seems to be a very good doctor. She is very good at English, so I should be able to see her with out Lucy. The dinner was Chinese so lots of food with no dish being finished.

19 Sept 2006

The classes this morning when OK. I need to learn more on how to teach.
This lunch I went shopping with Ulla and got some canned pears.
After lunch I had the grade 1 classes. I can see in them that I am no where near where I need to be in teaching for I can not get the classes under control. After the classes I talked with Ulla on how to go about making the classes better. Lucy came to Ulla flat with two men who fixed Ulla's DVD player.
I then went be to the flat and sat around before trying to go running. I am a bit shy of running on the roads in town so I went up to the track or where the track was. The school is redoing the track so I could not go running there. So I tock I a 50 minute walk. I like the new bowl that I got for soup, it worked really well. As I have soup about every other day, I came to the conclusion that I need a good soup bowl.

18 Sept 2006

I had class this morning. The lesson was one of the best that I have had. After the first class a girl gave me a bracelet. The next class with the same lesson when pretty well.

At lunch I went shopping for I was out of oats and honey, what I eat for breakfast, go and healthy along with fully and fast to make. Well back to the shopping. I bought me a mouse to help me fell less lonely. So I came back with the mouse and then out and food shopping.

Then I had grade 2 with a lesson plan on telling time which was made while I had forgotten they only count to ten. So the telling time lesson when over very poorly. So I changed the lesson to counting to 20.

I came home to the cute little mouse that had the sweetness to act like him was happy to see me. Then I made lesson plans in thirty minutes and read an online book.

17 Sept 2006

I went out this morning to do some filming. One block from the school in a soccer field I filmed a group of students in military drill. The students where still learning, but I fear the thought of all high school students having to learn military drill. After a good ten minutes of filming I was off again. To good see the country and take some film of people framing. I rode out for a long time and then trued around after pulling out my camera. I had never thought though how to film on a mountain bike. As such the filming turned out really bad, so I will try again to film the harvest.
After I go back into town I went to KFC for lunch and it was really good. At KFC I filmed the kid that where playing on the small play ground in the KFC. There had to be 20 kids on it at times, they were so happy that I had to film them.

I got back and went to Ulla for all five of the teacher from Buckland where planning on meeting this afternoon but two are sick so the meeting was canalled. Me and Ulla went to the book store and than out shopping.
I got a house figure that is very nice,
I got jam, all of 4 jar of jam. We have had a large problem finding jam so now that I have 6 jar of jam I feel that I will not run out for a long time.

China

In China there are a lot of extremes. I live in Ankang of 200,000 people, yet in one hour you can ride a bike out of the city and be in the country. The city has lots of people but people have the time to say hello and greet you they have this time not only for people that they know but total strangers. This is not only how they treat the foreign but also how they treat each other. This is the view that I can see when looking out of my home office window. Would not the US be better if people had the time to say hello to each other the time is not what we lack in the US but the will. People do not mind if you stop to watch a game of chest that is being played on the sidewalk. People can understand that you don't understand what they say all the time. People have the time to talk with each other when shopping.



The framer work hard but they have the time to tell you which way to go as you walk on their path thought their land. Yet they are not mad at you for the time you spend on their land. The people in and of them selves find no need to get mad when people only want to know about how they live and what they do. The picture was taken last Saturday.

Flowers

In China living is nicer in way I got flowers for a arragement for 20 yean or about 3 UD. If we did that in the US we would see flower all over. But if you look at the wage of the Chinese household to price of flower it may maybe that flower cost the same to a Chinese family as to a America family.

The Chinese family makes about 1000-2000 yean
so do the flower cost the same to the Chinese as the US.

IF you live where the cost of living is low so are the wages when you look at them next to the wage of a place where the cost of living is high. So how much thing cost is only in the eye of the beholder.

16 Sept 2006

Today I went to the meat market. Well time one in I went on the bike so I went all the way thought and came in again on foot. Well if was an experience, the meat I did get was not the great. The meat was still on the hide. So Ulla and me had a bit of a job to get the meat off the hide and with out fat.
When we need meat again we will look for another way to get it.

Then I went to an art store, it was not what I thought it would be so I will try for an art store again when I am with a Chinese lady.

15 Sept 2006

Hello

I have been in China seen 23 Aug 2006. I first went to a teacher training and now I am at Guoyean Primary School in Ankang China. The has about 2000 student that are divide into 27 classes. A bit of math points out that these are big classes. I teach 18 lessons a week, to 2 classes of grade 1, 2 classes of grade 2 and 2 classes of grade 3. I see each class three times a week, for a 40 min lesson. I need to work on the respect that the students give me in grade 1. After 1 and a half weeks of teaching I stated the I need someone to come into those 2 classes for I could no control the students. There is a second foreign teacher at this school called Ulla.
I live in a three room flat with a older teacher Miss Da, I have two rooms in the flat where I send most of my time when home at the flat.

15 Sept 2006
I had another teacher in one of the grade 1 classes.
I had a large cleaning spare in which I cleaned both my room and my at home office.

I feel I need state which office for I have use of two offices. One is stared with four other English teacher including Ulla. Each one of us have a desk and there is a computer with internet access with out a printer in the office. The office at home(the flat) have a computer on a desk with internet aces, printer and scanner. The office also has a bookshelf, a sofa, and a second desk. I use the a school office as a break between class. I use the home office for all other office/computer needs.


I go shopping every other day or there about. I need food and shopping in China is fun I use the street vendors and shops. I only buy a little on these trips that way I do not have lots of food going bad on me.