Hello Everyone!
So, yesterday we had a big meeting on campus and were given a tour of our classrooms and offices. I am splitting 7th grade with a guy named Iain from Scotland (he seems very nice) and Thomas is teaching 4th grade. We were given textbooks that we need to teach from 70% of the time but we can also teach some of our own material as well. The campus is super nice! Class starts Wednesday so we will take pictures sometime this week. All of the other teachers finally made it so we've made a lot of friends. It's been very fun but tiring as well. We are still getting over jet leg. That's all for now! We'll post more later... love and miss you all!! Hope you are all doing well!
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Pictures of Nanjing...
I can't seem to add a slideshow of pictures due to the fact that we are using a proxy in order to get onto blogger (blogger is blocked in China) so I am giving you all a link to Shutterfly.com so you can view my pictures. Let me know if this works! There are pictures of our rooms on campus and of the city. Enjoy! Hope this works:
http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=c471bb4ab0cad91c2a944dfefaeb216b&sid=0AZs2jlo3cNGLkI
P.S. In order to see the pictures from the link I just posted you need to open a new window and then copy and paste the link in order to view them. Sorry about the extra trouble!
http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=c471bb4ab0cad91c2a944dfefaeb216b&sid=0AZs2jlo3cNGLkI
P.S. In order to see the pictures from the link I just posted you need to open a new window and then copy and paste the link in order to view them. Sorry about the extra trouble!
We Made It!!!
Hi Everyone!!!
We made is safe and sound! I am so sorry it took us this long to add a new post. When we first got to school the internet was down and then everything was just so busy all week- we haven't had a chance to blog. I apologize!
SO!! The flight here was great... except Thomas and I almost missed our flight from Beijing to Nanjing. We were sprinting across the Beijing airport in order to make the flight on time! It was a bit stressful, but we made it. And then, the school forgot to pick us up. But we took a taxi and made it with ample amount of time to unpack and enjoy the city! Nanjing is beautiful and filled with history. Ian (an American teacher who has taught in Nanjing for a year and speaks a fair amount of Chinese) has been showing us around and getting us aquatinted with the city. Nanjing has 7 million people and we are right in the heart of the city- it's so big! We've done so much with in the last few days. We don't start school until this weekend so we've had time to explore the city and get used to the time change. We've walked to city wall (which was built during the Ming Dynasty) and ate at a restaurant that was 100 years old. But I think the best thing I've had so far (food wise) was from a Muslim restaurant- fried bananas! So good... Thomas and I went to a traditional tea ceremony today and bought a huge thing of our favorite tea- Pu'er. Traffic is crazy in the city- but not as crazy as the kids that just drop their pants and poop on the sidewalk- whenever and wherever! No joke, it's acceptable, and we saw it on our first night here! The city has the most beautiful parks along a bunch of lakes and canals- and all of the streets are lined with trees and native plants. One of our favorite places to eat is a little whole-in-the-wall place that is known around here as "the rice guy." He's got the best fried rice around. They like to eat chicken feet around here too but dog is not common in Nanjing- thankfully!
In terms of teaching, we have one prep. In other words we teach one lesson to about 16 different classes (roughly 300 students). We live on the main campus but travel to a sister campus about 45 minutes away to where we are actually teaching each day. We start teaching next week. We are both excited and nervous but we have plenty of help from other teachers. We are adjusting pretty well and plan on taking Chinese class as well as working with private tutors to help learn the language.
Here are a few fun facts:
They call cell phones "hand machines" and the term for window shopping literally translates to "Riding on a horse I glance at a flower." Kind of cool!
Okay, I think that's enough information for you all! Things are AMAZING here and we are loving every minute. I hope everyone is well in America! We love and miss you all... we'll write again soon!
We made is safe and sound! I am so sorry it took us this long to add a new post. When we first got to school the internet was down and then everything was just so busy all week- we haven't had a chance to blog. I apologize!
SO!! The flight here was great... except Thomas and I almost missed our flight from Beijing to Nanjing. We were sprinting across the Beijing airport in order to make the flight on time! It was a bit stressful, but we made it. And then, the school forgot to pick us up. But we took a taxi and made it with ample amount of time to unpack and enjoy the city! Nanjing is beautiful and filled with history. Ian (an American teacher who has taught in Nanjing for a year and speaks a fair amount of Chinese) has been showing us around and getting us aquatinted with the city. Nanjing has 7 million people and we are right in the heart of the city- it's so big! We've done so much with in the last few days. We don't start school until this weekend so we've had time to explore the city and get used to the time change. We've walked to city wall (which was built during the Ming Dynasty) and ate at a restaurant that was 100 years old. But I think the best thing I've had so far (food wise) was from a Muslim restaurant- fried bananas! So good... Thomas and I went to a traditional tea ceremony today and bought a huge thing of our favorite tea- Pu'er. Traffic is crazy in the city- but not as crazy as the kids that just drop their pants and poop on the sidewalk- whenever and wherever! No joke, it's acceptable, and we saw it on our first night here! The city has the most beautiful parks along a bunch of lakes and canals- and all of the streets are lined with trees and native plants. One of our favorite places to eat is a little whole-in-the-wall place that is known around here as "the rice guy." He's got the best fried rice around. They like to eat chicken feet around here too but dog is not common in Nanjing- thankfully!
In terms of teaching, we have one prep. In other words we teach one lesson to about 16 different classes (roughly 300 students). We live on the main campus but travel to a sister campus about 45 minutes away to where we are actually teaching each day. We start teaching next week. We are both excited and nervous but we have plenty of help from other teachers. We are adjusting pretty well and plan on taking Chinese class as well as working with private tutors to help learn the language.
Here are a few fun facts:
They call cell phones "hand machines" and the term for window shopping literally translates to "Riding on a horse I glance at a flower." Kind of cool!
Okay, I think that's enough information for you all! Things are AMAZING here and we are loving every minute. I hope everyone is well in America! We love and miss you all... we'll write again soon!
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