Get a real job, Keep the wind at your back and the sun on your face

well, i sucessfully got through my first day in the classroom. although i don't know if it really counts since i was really teaching anything today. i mainly did introductions. i had a soph. listening class, and those kids were awesome. really adorable and energtic. and i had a junior writing class which was also filled with some characters. in both classes i started by telling them about me and passing around pictures of my family and kutztown. then i had them go around, tell me their chinese and english name and one thing about themselves. many of them talked about their home town and even offerd to take me there. then they wrote out all their contact info for me. then came the fun part. i had them write down what they hoped to get from the class, their goals, any suggestions, and anything else they want to tell me about themselves. for the writing clas i also had them write about their favorite part of going to Yantai University. They wote AMAZING things. many of the sophomore papers refered to me as "dear sweet teacher" they wrote about my smile and one girl told me that i "have a smile sweet and innocent like a child, i hope you smile like that when you are an old woman" the really funny thing was multiple kids in the listening class wrote to me saying that they are uncomfortable talk to foreigners, but liked me because i looked more chinese then american. one boy even stood up in class and told me his first impression of me was that i looked like a "beautiful chinese lady"
The juniors kept more on track with the writing, but i did have a boy named zippy (yes, zippy) write and tell me that if i have any problems i should call him and he'll get all the boys together to take care of it. nearly ever letter mentioned something about hopefully becoming friends.
they are all about giving compliments.

After they were done writing we took a 10 minute break. Then in order to help me learn their names, i took all of thier pictures. They LOVED it. As soon as one was done the next person would literally run up.
at the end i allowed them to ask me any questions they liked either about my background or about america. The sophomores asked very personal questions (have you ever been in love) where as the juniors were more interested in what it was like for me to be an american in china.

I really enjoyed talking to the students in both classes. and they were all eager for me to have office hours, which is strange to me because at kutztown it seemed like nobody ever came to profs office hours. i also had students ask if they could see me outside of office hours, because apparently so many people tend to show up for office hours that not everyone gets one on one time with the teacher.

So i had a really great day...but again...i didn't really teach anything. all of the students expressed strong desires to improve thier english, i really hope that i do in fact help them.

over the weekend, dale jessica and i were take to a buddhist temple by a very nice student named jason. this kid was a wealth of information. and the temple was amazing so in typical barbara fashion, i have LOADS of pictures. but blogger is being a pain...and i'm rather sleepy so all those pictures may have to wait till tomorrow. Wed. is my day off so Jess and i are gonna hit up the market AND we're gonna go to a chinese music class that we are allowed to take for free!



P.S Dad, i watched CSI dubbed in chinese tonight for you! * sigh* if only i had a piece of peach pie.