(no subject)
Dear diary,
It was my first day of school yesterday and I sat between a black guy and aJapanese guy.
I only attend classes for two hours everyday, 10-12nn so I have to do other things to keep me from getting bored. The scholarship grant that was given to us is ony for 6 months although we all thought it's going to be for a year because it's in the guidelines. I guess TECO Philippines change scholarship guidelines on a whim. But I want to stick it out here for a year at least. It's possible if I save enough from the scholarship money. More possible if I have a part-time teaching job.
Anyway, there are only 8 of us in the class but that's the maximum number of students that can be acccommodated in one class. Again, there's the Honduran kid, Haitian guy, 2 Japanese guys (both can't speak English). From the girls there's me and another Pinay who married a Taiwanese, a German girl and another girl from Belarus (it's a European country. I'm kind of ignorant of other countries. I even thought Haiti is in Africa.
The lesson was fun. I already have a Chinese name. I thought it's going to be Zhang Ziyi or Zhao Wei or something similar to that but my laoshi (teacher) gave me the name An Zhifan (surname first). Here in the language center, we have a small international students community. I hope to get to meet the others from the other classes during our breaktime, too.
Teaching in the private school is another matter. I don't know if I can still go on for a week or perhaps I'm just getting used to it. Although the kids are cute (there are 17 of them), their ultra short attention span is the biggest challenge of all. I have to be their class clown or their minds will wander somewhere. I don't know if this is worth it. If this doesn't work for me I think I can still have private tutorials. I'll try to network through the other language classes soon.
Love,
Anne (that's what they call me here so I'm using this one)
It was my first day of school yesterday and I sat between a black guy and aJapanese guy.
I only attend classes for two hours everyday, 10-12nn so I have to do other things to keep me from getting bored. The scholarship grant that was given to us is ony for 6 months although we all thought it's going to be for a year because it's in the guidelines. I guess TECO Philippines change scholarship guidelines on a whim. But I want to stick it out here for a year at least. It's possible if I save enough from the scholarship money. More possible if I have a part-time teaching job.
Anyway, there are only 8 of us in the class but that's the maximum number of students that can be acccommodated in one class. Again, there's the Honduran kid, Haitian guy, 2 Japanese guys (both can't speak English). From the girls there's me and another Pinay who married a Taiwanese, a German girl and another girl from Belarus (it's a European country. I'm kind of ignorant of other countries. I even thought Haiti is in Africa.
The lesson was fun. I already have a Chinese name. I thought it's going to be Zhang Ziyi or Zhao Wei or something similar to that but my laoshi (teacher) gave me the name An Zhifan (surname first). Here in the language center, we have a small international students community. I hope to get to meet the others from the other classes during our breaktime, too.
Teaching in the private school is another matter. I don't know if I can still go on for a week or perhaps I'm just getting used to it. Although the kids are cute (there are 17 of them), their ultra short attention span is the biggest challenge of all. I have to be their class clown or their minds will wander somewhere. I don't know if this is worth it. If this doesn't work for me I think I can still have private tutorials. I'll try to network through the other language classes soon.
Love,
Anne (that's what they call me here so I'm using this one)