Oh My Lady Gaga!

I had a wonderful first hour of teaching this morning. I taught a Small Stars Green class which is just a class for five-year-olds. I had a lot of help from the teaching assistant, too. The children all take "Western" or "English" names, which I don't like because I wouldn't want to take on a Chinese name, but I know I would utterly butcher their real names, so in that way, I guess I am grateful. Some of the students pick some fantastic names more akin to Outdoor School names such as Apple, Tree, and Frog. I spent some time learning their names and asking how they are. Most of the children replied that they were "fine" or "happy" but one little boy jumped out of his chair and said, "wonderful." Totally cute. I hope over time I will fall in love with this city, but for right now, I've already fallen for these kids. We reviewed fruit names and I taught them the words "stem" and "leaf." My true objective of today's class was to introduce the students to clothing vocabulary. Belt was the hardest word for them to say or understand. I'll have to work on explaining that better.

I chatted a bit more with my boss later this morning, and she was in a much better place, and I hope I will like her. She has been working for EF for over two years and has taught in numerous places around the globe. Someone ordered a vegetable and rice dish for me for lunch and I tasted lotus root for the first time and it is so good!

I observed my mentor teacher, Amy, teach a High Flyer's class. The High Flyers are students in elementary school but are placed by English speaking and reading ability. The class I attended seemed like they were around age nine or ten or so. They were learning sports vocabulary and basic past, present and future tenses. One girl in the class, Princess, would exclaim, "Oh my Lady Gaga" whenever something surprised or astonished her. It was pretty fantastic. I spent the rest of the afternoon working on "training worksheets" and rifling through the reference material for future lessons.

One of the local teachers took me to dinner at a Japanese fast food restaurant in a shopping center close to our school. It was fun to talk to her and not eat the bad hotel buffet food again for dinner!

I did see quite a few sad, skinny horses pushing carts outside of the school tonight after work near the cars whooshing by at break neck speeds and the sound of the subway rushing past in the distance. Beijing is so modern, but there are still traces of the old ways of life peaking through.

Captain's Log: Day 7. I made it through my first week!