My First Few Days

My first few days in Qiqihar have been interesting to say the least. If anything it has made me realize just how disorganized and chaotic this school system is. It might only be the private school I am at, but everything is so last minute and unclear.

If you set a time to meet with someone either they will show up 5 minutes early or not show up at all. I showed up yesterday and they tried to get me to play with this three-year-old boy who just cried when he saw me. Fail. Then I watched a lesson with one student in it. They said that because it was the first day of school yesterday there were no students but that seems a little strange to me...

I have been told three times that I may be teaching lessons tomorrow or later in the day. So far I have taught zero lessons. Earlier this morning they brought me downstairs to try and play again with the three-year-old crying boy. I had no clue if they wanted to teach him things or what, when I asked they just said to play with the board. I did that until he started crying again.

I should mention the curriculum they use here for the Kindergartners. It's a completely touch-screen interactive program with each unit planned out. There are games, conversation activities, dialogues, and songs for each unit. Its a great idea in practice but the screen only works half the time and it constantly plays this really annoying music. The poor kid can't even reach the top of the screen to do some of the activities. I have been told that I will be teaching at the university on Thursday and Friday (three 1.5 hour classes each day) but we will see if that actually happens.

In other news I have successfully done my laundry for the first time and made a solo trip back to RT Mart for a few more things. Today I tried the jiaozi shop across the street but accidentally ordered shrimp and vegetable jiaozi. Not a fan. I am semi-friends with the security guard downstairs. The lady at the convenience store still seems wary of me but knows who I am by now. I watched Midnight In Paris last night which was a great movie. Unfortunately I can't stream videos here because the internet is too slow but I did download the last two Breaking Bad episodes. I'm trying to put off watching them but know I will break in soon (not to be punny).

I've skyped more with Imogen and my parents in the last few days than I probably did during my last few months of college combined. Its really nice for me because no one on my hall is here. The public schools in the region typically don't have the resources to hire a foreign teacher so what ends up happening is these private companies (like the one I'm at) kind of loan out there teachers to other schools. It ends up that almost everyone on my hall is away teaching during the week. Right now there is only me and one other teacher. So yeah, I'm pretty much being super lazy and boring. I can't really prepare anything because I don't even know when/who/how many people I will be teaching.

We'll see if things change in the next week or so because as of right now I don't even have a teaching schedule. When in China.