Under Construction

Beijing 3 is under construction! Workers started to remodel our demonstration room Thursday afternoon. Everyone was walking around with face masks due to all the sawdust floating around. One classroom was put out of rotation because it was holding so many sharp and dangerous tools. The teaching team was pretty upset that they were being stored in an unlocked room.

We did get to have our weekly Friday academic team meeting at the little park across from my gym. Laura bought us ice-cream! I'm loving this Spring weather! It was officially announced that half of our teaching team is leaving EF between May 20th and June 7th. Nick is leaving on May 20th, Joyce and I are leaving on May 31st, and Marie and Cindy are leaving on June 7th. The school is going to go through some big changes. Luckily the person who is taking over my classes will be here in early May so I will have time to help her get settled into my classes... well her new classes. I am excited to hopefully pay forward some of the kindnesses that were shown to me when I first arrived in Beijing to her.

The best class I had this weekend was my highest level class that is composed of all young women. We spent the first hour working on book work and the curriculum I needed to cover, but during the second hour we went on a little field trip. We walked to the little park. I had gotten permission from Laura and the students' parents the day before. The girls were giddy to get out of our windowless classroom! We sat out in the sun on a patch of grass and we talked about how to write haiku poems. Then, I had the students find a spot where I could still see them and just reflect and write what they were feeling for about five minutes. Most of my students told me that this was the longest time they had been with "nature" in years! They were so happy just spotting two butterflies! I was so proud of the beautiful/funny/touching haikus that they wrote. I loved having an hour to teach outside. I think we would have been all happy to stay there all afternoon, but they had to get home to studying and I had a class of little ones to get to!

After our last set of classes, we all spent the next two hours moving all our teaching resources and computers into storage. It was a bit of mass chaos with not enough tape and boxes, and the boys clamoring to show off who could lift the heaviest box! It's not going to be pretty figuring out where everything is when we get back into the school in three weeks.

We all went out to dinner to celebrate the end of Beijing 3 as we know it. It's ironic that they school is going to be all shiny for the last month I will be there!

Tomorrow, I am Beijing 2 bound! Cindy, Miles and I will be located out of that school during the remodel. Miles is only going to be there for a few days before he is off to get ready for his Chinese wedding. Cindy is going to take over the OPT shifts for the school and i am going to be pitch hitting for another foreign teacher and planning Beijing 3's new student conduct code. I know I'll miss my friends, but I'm excited to work at another school with some new people for three weeks. It's all a part of the adventure!