A Different Sort of First Day of School

Hey Everyone! Sorry it has been a while since I last posted a blog entry. I have been pretty busy with the start of school, so I havent had too much time! Right now I am sitting in my office at the school, waiting for my class after lunch. The students here get 2 hours for lunch, so on Thursdays, when I have a class before lunch, and 2 after, I just decide its easiest to stay here. My school schedule is pretty nice. I have 8 classes a week, and each class lasts 40 minutes. All the students in the classes are from ages 12-14, so they are at the sort of "annoying" stage of their lives. I have 1 class on Mondays and Wednesdays, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have 3. So far a few of the classes have been good, but some of them have been pretty bad (naughty as the Chinese say). In addition to the classes I teach here at the Middle School, Zoie and I are thinking about taking up a few classes at the Kindergarten. They want to pay us a little extra dough to teach 3-6 year olds. They are going to be so cute, but I cant imagine babysitting. Oh well, we decided that by teaching, we could each get a free Teppanyaki All You can Eat meal every week. Those are really popular in China, and it is basically all you can eat and drink at a Japanese restaurant where they cook the food in front of you. So...Cute Chinese babies and free Japanese food? Sounds awesome to me!

Last weekend we met our friends in the city, and about 25-30 of us went to KTV (Chinese Karaoke). We had a blast, although cramming 25 people into a room is not the most comfortable of situations. Later that night Zoie and I crashed at our friends house, and woke up early to spend the day shopping for a few essentials for our apartment. We were so excited to begin our day, because a DUNKIN DONUTS just opened down the blog from our friends apartment. Of course, we get there, and the Chinese man working the door had to explain to us that Dunkin Donuts in China opens around noon..... we were not happy, but that didnt stop us from getting a donut before we headed home that day. We also took a trip to Wal-Mart. It was much needed because Zoie and I really don't have a big place in Yantian to shop. There are a few small stores/markets, but no place to really buy things we needed. Zoie bought her essential item (a hairdryer) and I bought mine (speakers so that I can watch football and basketball games on my computer throughout the year....loudly). Which reminds me....for those of you I have yet to tell, my parents hooked me up with slingbox! This basically means I now have FULL control over one of the TV's in my house. Although at first I think Zoie may have been a little upset thinking that I was going to spend all day and night watching Sportscenter and Wisconsin sporting events, she is now extremely excited because she can watch Gossip Girls, Greek, Monk, etc... We were both excited to find out that we can DVR shows as well! Needless to say, we are both extremely excited about the fact that we can keep up with American TV as well as have something that reminds us of home every now and then. Anyway, that was a little off topic....So after wal-mart, we went with our friends Greg and Maury to eat Dim Sum. Although we were a little late, we found some great cheap dishes! Following lunch, we went back to Maury's to watch Madagascar 2, which was quite a fun movie. After we finished the movie, Zoie and I decide to head back to Yantian, but not before picking up several DVD's. We found a cheap DVD store near the bus stop in Luohu, that sells 9 kuai (approx $1.25) dvd's which are actually great quality. We picked up several movies, and then headed home. Later that night Zoie cooked our second meal in the apartment. She mad a Vegetable stir fry and put that over some spaghetti. It was very good, even though we need to buy something to give it a little more flavor. Its not easy to cook here. They dont have stoves or ovens in China, so we are forced to use a hotplate to cook all of our meals. If you have any good ideas or recipes, feel free to pass them along. Its crazy what China will do to you! My favorite foods here happen to be veggies. I didn't really eat eggplant at home, and every meal I see myself ordering it. Oh about meals, I forgot to say earlier...Zoie and I had subway the other night in Luohu, and although it tastes SLIGHTLY different than America, it is still VERY good (and refreshing).

I know this may be the most boring of blog posts, but maybe some of it is interesting to some people.....or probably not. What other things have I yet to mention? OH, this weekend there is a Full Moon Party here at the beach where we live. We are very excited because we are expecting a lot of our friends and people from the program to attend (and we don't even have to take a bus!). I personally am excited for the party, but I am more excited for what is to come after.... My alarm will be set to 6:45am so I can wake up and watch the Wisconsin game at 7am here. I know I can DVR it and watch it later, but no. I want to watch it live, and for the people that are staying at our apartment, they have to suffer all morning when I play the fight song and the whole game through my new speakers! The party itself is all you can drink from 8pm-3am, so I may not get much sleep, but that will not keep me from watching Wisconsin begin its road to the national championship (wishful thinking? maybe but who cares). Other than that, thats about it. Next Monday, Zoie and I may try out one of the restaurants at a nice hotel here in Yantian, just so we can relieve ourselves of a day of Chinese food. The food here isn't bad, but eggplant, spicy greenbeans, dumplings, fried rice, and beef, get a little bleh sometimes. But I must say...with free lunches at our school, and a thing of dumplings and rice at our favorite restaurant around the corner, we can easily spend less than 3 dollars on food for one day! China is pretty awesome in that sense.

A few funny teaching stories before I end this extremely long post. 1) Some Chinese students have some pretty funny English names. Some include: Forrest Gump, Piggy, Kobe, Blue, Monkey, Bubble, Bob, No Name (yes, he said that IS his English name), Angel, Kuki (pronounced Cookie), Love Fish, Michael Jackson, Heesica?, and many more. 2) Some students are SO eager to learn,and some students could care less. But, it is so refreshing to know that even 1 kid in the class is excited about learning English. In every class thus far, I have had a least 1 student come up to me and introduce themselves to me and tell me how much they want to learn and how much they want to progress. That makes this experience worth it! 3) When I arrive in class and when I leave class, the students stand up and say "Good Morning/Afternoon Mr. Daniel" and "Goodbye Mr. Daniel" except for those little shits in class 5 (pardon my Chinese). The also salute you a lot of the time when they see you walking the halls, and when they are late to class, they stand at the door as ask for permission to enter. Its pretty need to see how disciplined they are in that regard, but I can promise you this: for those of you who thought I would not have to deal with discipline problems, you are wrong. Regardless of what you think, they are still 12-14 year olds, and they are going to act like it. Supposedly classes 5-8 are smarter and better than classes 1-4, so I am hoping that this afternoon is gonna be better (I have classes 6 and 8). We will see. Anyway, I guess I should head to class. Only 2 more today, then I am done for the week! Ill keep you updated on the rest of my week and weekend! I hope everyone is doing well, and I hope to hear back from you soon. For those of you who have emailed me, I am SO sorry I never emailed back. Now that I have a little more time to use the computer, I will be better, I promise. Talk to everyone soon! Love to all!

Mista Daniel

oh and.....Go Badgers!