(no subject)
(Posted on www.rapturina.com last night)
The Chinese really seem to love fireworks, mostly the noisy kind… Today is the last day of the Chinese New Year’s (CNY) celebrations and there have been fireworks going off everywhere for hours now, it’s really crazy. And if it’s not fireworks, it’s car alarms being set off by the fireworks (to give you an idea of how loud it is!). I just read online that two weeks after CNY the Lantern Festival takes place, which officially concludes CNY celebrations, but I haven’t really seen any lanterns today. I don’t think they really do the lantern thing here, just use it as an excuse to set off more fireworks. Mind you, they have been setting off at least a couple of fireworks, all day, every day, since CNY started two weeks ago, so you’d think they’d get tired of it by now, but apparently not!
Anyway, it’s kind of strange, I’ve only been in Yantai for a little over a week now, but it feels like it’s been much longer! I suppose the first couple of weeks in a new place are always kind of slow. I’ve seen most of my students by now, and taught my first lessons. For most classes not a lot of students actually showed up (and the classes are pretty small already, my biggest class has 10 students in it), but at least I got to do some teaching and test the waters. I teach several different age groups. The youngest are 6 years old and are going to be quite a handful. I have to teach them for 2 hours on Sunday mornings and even at that hour they are wide awake. They’re very cute and sweet (they keep hugging me all the time), and like to speak English, but they are very loud as well. My other classes are mostly kids between 10 and 12, and one class with teenagers (13/14 years old). I have one adult class too, but they’re all younger than me (though one only by a few months!), which is kind of depressing. :D Anyway, so far, so good. I’m struggling a bit with how to entertain the really young ones, and general lesson planning, but I think that’s normal for someone who doesn’t have an awful lot of teaching experience. I think it’ll be a pretty steep learning curve, but I’m optimistic things will get easier at some point!
Today Simone and I took the bus to downtown Yantai for the first time. Where we live is sort of a suburb of Yantai proper, and it takes about 20 minutes to get to central Yantai. It was quite an adventure taking the bus as we didn’t really know where exactly to get off the bus, but we managed in the end. I had already checked out the busroute on Google Maps beforehand, so I had a vague idea of what we could encounter on the way, which helped a lot. Downtown Yantai is not particularly exciting, but it has more shops (even a Walmart!) and it was nice to see something new and just walk around for a bit. There are a few sights in the city according to my Lonely Planet, but I think I will save those for when the weather gets better. There’s not a lot to see, and I’ve got all year to do it, so I’m taking my time. :D
The Chinese really seem to love fireworks, mostly the noisy kind… Today is the last day of the Chinese New Year’s (CNY) celebrations and there have been fireworks going off everywhere for hours now, it’s really crazy. And if it’s not fireworks, it’s car alarms being set off by the fireworks (to give you an idea of how loud it is!). I just read online that two weeks after CNY the Lantern Festival takes place, which officially concludes CNY celebrations, but I haven’t really seen any lanterns today. I don’t think they really do the lantern thing here, just use it as an excuse to set off more fireworks. Mind you, they have been setting off at least a couple of fireworks, all day, every day, since CNY started two weeks ago, so you’d think they’d get tired of it by now, but apparently not!
Anyway, it’s kind of strange, I’ve only been in Yantai for a little over a week now, but it feels like it’s been much longer! I suppose the first couple of weeks in a new place are always kind of slow. I’ve seen most of my students by now, and taught my first lessons. For most classes not a lot of students actually showed up (and the classes are pretty small already, my biggest class has 10 students in it), but at least I got to do some teaching and test the waters. I teach several different age groups. The youngest are 6 years old and are going to be quite a handful. I have to teach them for 2 hours on Sunday mornings and even at that hour they are wide awake. They’re very cute and sweet (they keep hugging me all the time), and like to speak English, but they are very loud as well. My other classes are mostly kids between 10 and 12, and one class with teenagers (13/14 years old). I have one adult class too, but they’re all younger than me (though one only by a few months!), which is kind of depressing. :D Anyway, so far, so good. I’m struggling a bit with how to entertain the really young ones, and general lesson planning, but I think that’s normal for someone who doesn’t have an awful lot of teaching experience. I think it’ll be a pretty steep learning curve, but I’m optimistic things will get easier at some point!
Today Simone and I took the bus to downtown Yantai for the first time. Where we live is sort of a suburb of Yantai proper, and it takes about 20 minutes to get to central Yantai. It was quite an adventure taking the bus as we didn’t really know where exactly to get off the bus, but we managed in the end. I had already checked out the busroute on Google Maps beforehand, so I had a vague idea of what we could encounter on the way, which helped a lot. Downtown Yantai is not particularly exciting, but it has more shops (even a Walmart!) and it was nice to see something new and just walk around for a bit. There are a few sights in the city according to my Lonely Planet, but I think I will save those for when the weather gets better. There’s not a lot to see, and I’ve got all year to do it, so I’m taking my time. :D