Two Scoops of Peppers in Every Bowl

One of the things that folks kept telling us is that we’d be losing weight over here. This would be true if every meal the school lunch room made wasn’t smothered in peppers. Now before you think you’d be able to handle it, think of it a different way. Your food will be spicy, you do not have the option to not have it spicy. Getting tired of it very meal? Too bad, its the only way it comes. So needless to say we’ve already grown tired of it, so we go home and eat junk food. Mostly because its the only thing we’ve been able to identify. Despite having a microwave we haven’t been able to find anything to microwave. Other than hot pots and anyone who has been on the ramen diet can tell you, it too gets old fast. However, our selection is limited as once again, most of the hot pots are spicy because its what folks like here.

So on the one hand, I could lose weight just by starving myself. But there are plenty of chips, oreos, and coca-cola to keep that from happening. If we could find a good resturant to go to that might help, but the school isn’t located as close to the city as we’d like. On the flipside, I’ve finally managed to figure out where we are on google maps. Well, a rough guess as the school itself isn’t actually listed. So if you want a peek here you go.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=29.622993,+111.778271#=1&vps;=2&jsv;=271c&sll;=29.633237,111.758702&sspn;=0.621666,1.024475&hl;=en&ie;=UTF8&geocode;=FdECxAEd35mpBg&split;=0

I believe the other teachers who came to the town with us at the the Number 1 Middle school just on the north side of the small river. We haven’t met back up with them yet, but now that I know how close they are we might try to meet up. We’re still trying to get a routine going and we’ve already learned our schedule will change next Monday morning.

Speaking of classes, my largest is 62, all girls. The next is 52, 16 of which are boys. It happens to be the flight attendant class and the only class in which I have a real text book to use. Its also the one that I teach 10 periods a week in so I’m glad I have a book. Then I have a small class of 32 with only 3 boys in it, all of whom are troublemakers. I may need to split them up. My all girl class is also giving me trouble in a different way. I think they are competing for my attention among each other. If I shake one of their hands then I have to shake them all. Today it was signing autographs after class. Here are some pictures:

Here I am trying to get a picture of the room while the girls were out getting physicals done. However, when a group would get done, they would rush back to see me and make sure I hadn’t left the class. The paper being held is the form the doctors on site were to fill out for each girl.

Here is my view of the classroom, what I look at when I’m teaching. What you can’t see is the fact that the room is wall to wall desks. A row of desks, followed by a path to walk down, then two rows of desks. Also keep in mind each desk seats two, so the folks on the alise seating have to get up to let the students in the middle, or up against the wall, out.

This is what the walls of the room look like. You can’t really tell from the shot above, so I zoomed up close. I wanted to get more shots of how everything typically looks, but I was mobbed by more students.

Another thing about teaching in China. China does not believe in the “No Child Left Behind” policy. In fact teachers are encouraged to figure out who are their best students and teach to them, ignoring the rest of the class. China seems to understand that not everyone is going to grow up to be businessmen, doctors, lawyers, or flight attendants. Someone will need to flip those burgers and supersize those fries and if a student doesn’t want to learn, or is unable to learn, well… there are students who want to learn, and can learn, focus your efforts on them.