Classes Begin

Monday marked the first day of classes for me. While you were all enjoying the Labor Day holiday (and I hope you all did) I taught my first Conversation class. It is really a misnomer because it is just 55 kids piled high in the class room and me at the front commanding things and trying to get 55 kids to speak in English leads to chaos. I was well prepared and the kids were enthusiastic and well motivated. Our first lesson was about Labor Day. They felt sorry for me that I had to work on my holiday, nice of them. As the class started my nerves melted away and I relied on the material the other teachers and I prepared beforehand and things went swimmingly.

One thing that is required of the kids in English classes here is that they pick an English name. They rarely pick conventional names and that makes for a lot of fun. Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about: Cyclone, King (a girl), Milk, Arm, Smell, Hot Sauce (like the And1 basketball player), and last but not least Allen Iverson. I have Allen Iverson in my class. He wont let me call him just Allen or just Iverson, but the whole thing all the time. I really get a kick out of it. I think it is kind of awful that they are forced to change their name. They do it so that the foreigners (in this case, me) have an easier time addressing them. I encountered this in the classes I taught in St. Louis and was somewhat horrified by the reasoning for it then. I thought that maybe I should get a Chinese name and make everyone refer to me by it, but I think its better to not rock the boat.

My FEC class is a whole lot more intimate with only 18 kids. These are the kids I'll see every day until spring festival break in early February. I have some Korean kids in this class and they have excellent English skills when compared to their Chinese counterparts.

As I said before my schedule is pretty light. I have 5 FEC classes a week. Today I have to present my idea for an elective course to be taught by me and my teaching partner. We are going to submit a curriculum for a geography class. Props to Larry, Rachel, and Lee Hamilton for supplying me with a plethora of books on the subject. That class (should it get approved) will meet once a week and will be comprised of kids who have elected to take an extra class of their choosing. This should be a lot of fun because they will want to be there and should be pretty excited about the material. They don't know much about life outside of their home towns let alone across the planet. They want to know all about the US and my family and friends. I have prepared a lesson using pictures from home of all of you, so whether you like it or not these kids are writing essays about you. It should be fun.

Observations and Notes:
I have seen very few birds here. It seems that the birds have been replaced by bats. Bats everywhere, its almost surreal.

The weather is gorgeous here now. Initially it was very hot here but now it is very nice, blue skies too.

My teaching partner's name is Brynne (brin). He's from Hull in England. He is hiella. He loves the NBA so lets start thinking about Fantasy Basketball again. He has me doing fantasy soccer. Should be interesting.

Soccer is on TV all the time here. Premiership, Euro 2008 qualifying, local leagues, men, women, under 18, whatever. Badminton is also on and as you all may or may not know I love badminton. There are courts all around my campus populated constantly by kids and teachers alike. Fencing was on TV the other day. Now that I think about it there are many Olympic type sports on TV here. Either they always follow these sports or this is a warm up for the people ahead of the games in '08. Sports are hiella.