I can't believe I've been here in my new apartment for about a week. I've never had so much space to myself in my life and so many appliances! Nearly everything in here is new too! I have a tv and my liaison told me that CCTV4 is the international channel. They seem to keep replaying a program on ice dancing but I also saw a program that follows a Chinese man and a non-Chinese girl as they travel around China. It has English subtitles and reviews some of the grammar used in the program so I'll have to see about watching that more often to improve my Chinese. I seem to be getting a little better at reading everyday. I'm sure I'll be a master at recognizing radicals by the end of the year from counting the strokes so I can look things up in the dictionary. This is the non-tech option for people like me who are too proud to get a convenient app or tablet that allows me to write out the character. It's actually not too bad, and I think I've actually managed to internalize and understand the characters a little better since I have to take them apart to find the pinyin and then play with the pinyin to make sure I've got the right character. I've started keeping a list of the characters I see. I write the pinyin next to the word then write the character 4 or 5 times. I can now confidently ask for a bottle of Sprite, a watermelon smoothie, a Cola, and a few fruits. Mostly though, I've been getting by through pointing and saying "zhi ge!" ("This!") or "na ge" ("That!"). My new challenge is the settings on the washing machine. The only one I can figure out is wool or knits. It's easier for me because I know the character for sheep, but the picture of a ball of yarn was kind of a dead give away too. I really can't figure out the rest since the translations I've received are: "big opponent", "normal", "monodesilyation(?)", "drift off", and one more set of characters I have to search through. It's like when I was struggling to learn the difference between cuts of beef in Italy and the US all over again. I still don't know which part of the cow is the "fin".

It's been a busy week too. I moved in on Monday with the other WT volunteer two floors below. The first couple of days we had to get our foreign expert certificates, set up a bank account, and get a cellphone all set up. We also had people running in and out nearly everyday to set up the internet, set up the television, change the locks on the door, or bring in more furniture. Just when I thought we were done 3 people showed up with 4 chairs and a dining table! Thankfully, we live in a pretty central area so everything is within walking distance or we can hop a bus. We actually live across the street from a shopping center called Vanguard which has everything from a large two-floor market to KFC and Pizza Hut, a donut shop, a coffee shop, a KTV, a movie theater, a bunch of clothing shops, some children's recreation area, a few drug stores, a cell phone store, and a jewelry shop. I may have missed a few there. Basically, just about anything I could want is across the street if I can make the crossing or within walking distance given that there are a ton of shops around the train station too which is just down the street. I feel incredibly spoiled given that I came in thinking I should be ready for anything I see. Instead, I have a well equipped kitchen, a room I never use because this is more than enough space for me, and fridge. I guess you know you've been living on your own for a while if the idea of having your own kitchen is really exciting.

We met the other teachers at our school too. They were extremely eager to get our input and work with us. I felt sorely unprepared since I have no idea where my office is or what my schedule even looks like. I'm just prepping this week's lesson plan to be clear on class rules and keeping students accountable for misbehavior. I'm going to double-check about whether I'm supposed to be giving grades or not. It didn't sound like it, but I don't want to be caught at the end with nothing to show either. I'm excited because I'm finally here and doing what I came to do (and the stupid pun I used for my blog name is finally applicable) and I made my mistakes during practicum so I have a firmer grip of what to expect than when I first arrived in the Changsha airport at 1AM. 14 classes of around 60 students each...It's almost like if I went back to California and took all of Redwood Middle School on as my students. I'll do my best to reach out to all of them since my job is never really done until I've gotten through to all my students.

It's almost time to leave Changsha. Tomorrow is our last night and Monday morning we leave for our sites. Today we left for Orange Island with our Chinese teachers. It was quite a walk and I've never tanned this fast before. I think I even got a sunburn. I can't say for sure because I've only been burned once before, the rest of the time I've been careful about sunscreen or covering up. It was a really wonderful day out. We had a blue sky instead of a hot grey day. It was a real workout and my congestion started to kick up in addition to my constant sweating. I could totally see myself going back though. I liked it a lot.

On another note, I finally got a taste of chou doufu (stinky tofu) which I've been meaning to try for so long. I've heard it smells like garbage but when I got it, it just smelled really vinegary. Then again, my congestion may be preventing me from experiencing it in its full stinky glory. It was good. Maybe not the amazing food I expected given how much high praise I've heard for chou doufu but I spent all day thinking about going back and buying another since I thought the textures and everything were really wonderful. She fried it and covered it with cilantro and other toppings so it was fresh out of the wok when I got it. I have a feeling that I'm going to be a full participant in Hunanese food culture even if I'm not the biggest participant in Changsha's ever active nightlife.

I surprised the woman selling the doufu though. She told me I looked Chinese after she heard me talking to one of the other volunteers in English and I told her I was American but my family was from Guangdong. It's the best explanation I can give with what Chinese I have. I was told I would have different expectations from other foreigners because I'm  part Chinese but so far people seem to understand that I don't speak Chinese and seem receptive to the idea that I've been away from China my whole life.

Today was long and difficult. We had to lead two classes. I got off easy since my second period was an activity period, but I couldn't decide at what point it was reasonably noisy for an activity and at what point it was too wild. I think accidentally gave out a red card to a kid who tried to say sheep but I thought it was "shut up". I feel really awful now knowing that I gave an unwarranted card out. Ugh. I want to be a better teacher, I want to hear better and not make mistakes like that again. We wound up playing hangman. Again. Like everyday except the first day I taught and my first period earlier today. My sense of time for these activities and for learning is pretty off. At least I haven't just walked out of the classroom when I had no slides left. I take that responsibility pretty seriously. And I'm being observed tomorrow. It wasn't supposed to be that way and I wasn't supposed to know, but due to some scheduling issues I am one of the last to be observed. My final class is tomorrow and I'm sure I have confused them a lot, though I hope they learned something. Whether that be "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade", "It's all a mystery to me", a fun new game involving action instead of words, ways to begin and end a letter in English, I just hope that they find it useful someday. Here's to a good last day of practicum, stepping into the classroom with a smile and becoming an incredible teacher and manager by the end of the year.

Jia yo!

So I made it through my final day of practicum. It could have been better, but it wasn't the worst day I had either. The first day was really rough. The projector stopped working so I had a little improv to do. It worked. I even got one of the boys in the back to read me his story about aliens and not finding good Chinese food. It was really exciting to see that though I should have done a little more to make sure everyone was working on the assignment and that the assignment was understood. Some students seemed lost until I told them "Once upon a time" was a good way to start a story. Not going to lie, they were all adorable. They stressed me out and brought me out to feeling like I really wanted to reach all of them because I know they are good kids. It made me so happy to see people volunteering who were not the girls in the front. I know they are all smart and capable so I always feel frustrated when I can't reach all of them. I realize that's a tall order when I'm leading large classes 16 times a week but all the same I want to know and I want my students to know that they can do it.

It was actually really funny when the projector wasn't working and our field director stepped in to help. All the girls in the front row got really excited about being close to him.

Basically, I got a crash course in how difficult and rewarding this next year will be. I doubted myself before, but my goal for everyday will be to reach everyone. I only had my students for a week but I really liked them. Even the "difficult" students are really good kids and often just didn't understand what was going on because I asked them to do something very difficult. They were really adorable and really were doing their best to improve their English. It's just that sometimes they were afraid to make mistakes or were intimidated. I used to be the really quiet kid in class so I can understand. Hopefully my own middle and high school experiences can help me with my students since I know how perfectionism can freeze someone who wants to do everything well and be the absolute best all the time. I will miss my students sorely but I am looking forward to working with my students in Zhuzhou soon!

Well, after yesterday's disaster I did much better today though I still feel I have a lot to improve upon. I'm struggling to involve everyone and to not go through material so fast. I ended too early again today and played hangman with my students using the words we covered in my lesson about mysteries. However, I found out that this made things too easy for them since they counted out how many letters there were and just guessed the word based on that. They didn't even guess letters and just went straight for the throat. Wanting to involve as many as possible, I decided to institute a few rules: I will only take guesses involving letters until we have half the word figured out and instead of volunteering I drew names from the name bag. I even got one of my really shy students to give me a few letters today. I'm so afraid that I'm just picking on him all class because I really want him to be involved but getting him to respond is hard. It's less scary when you're with a partner or a group so I'm planning on doing more small group activities to ensure he works with me. I'm still struggling with the final culminating activity I want at the end of class, but I think I have it down for tomorrow.

I haven't been observed by the field directors yet so I'm nervous for when that happens, though there isn't much I can do by that point except what I planned for class so I guess I can't be too nervous. I felt awful after yesterday, but can you imagine if I didn't have this experience right now before walking into a much bigger classroom? And for 16 times a week? Instead of feeling terrible about confusing 26 ESL students I'd really feel bad about misleading and confusing 600 students! I feel like I'm learning to incorporate more and more everyday as I make my mistakes and try to adjust myself for what feels like a wide range of English skills for one class. I only have them until Friday, so I guess I shouldn't take it too hard but I still want to do well and ensure my students are learning. Only having them for a week is not an excuse.

So we've just completed our first day of practicum. In some ways, it's nice to have it over with. In other ways, I'm really depressed with how poorly I presented myself and managed the classroom. Yes, this period is about learning what it is like to be a teacher in a real classroom environment and I know that I shouldn't get too down about it. But I can't shake the feeling that I've made every mistake we went over during training. And I have this cough now too that I've been trying to get rid of. I get really warm and then it fades and I feel fine again. I can't help wondering if I'm at all qualified to be here. I want to do this, and I want to do this well. That's why it hurts so much when I felt so ill-prepared and I realized that I ran through my lesson plan much too fast. Everyone's saying it's OK, it's still hard to forgive myself for inadequately addressing the differences in speaking proficiency, for finding a way to make shy students more comfortable, for being clearly nervous and at times coming off as hostile (I guess I rolled my eyes a few times but I didn't notice...). I'm just angry with myself and it's going to take some work to bring myself into my next lesson plan in a much better mood and more appropriately paced. Maybe it just wasn't fair to expect so much of myself on the first day. Maybe I should have rehearsed more. It could be worse I guess. After all, this is practicum so it is a time to be practicing before being released into our actual classrooms and to take in feedback and things we should address before leaving. No real rest period until Friday evening. I feel bad that I haven't gone out to KTV with everyone or bar hopping much but I didn't want to stay out all night or cut too much into time I could spend on my lessons. Maybe I have been overthinking some of my classroom objectives and assessments.

I decided to take this on because I felt that with my background and experiences (having been a foreign language student so many times over and going from language being a subject I did well to a tool that broadened my world and allowed me access to so many new friends and resources) I could take something I enjoyed and was interested in and help someone else. I've also wanted to see China for a long time. However, I also want to know that I have done my job and done it well. Looking at my confused students today really dealt me a blow and though I will go through with this because I have made this commitment, I've begun doubting myself. I just can't let that doubt show through tomorrow when I do this again...

It has been a busy week since I last posted. As I mentioned before, orientation has been intensive but I am really happy to have that support, guidance, and network with me as I find my footing around here. I have started having more moments when people turn to me and start speaking rapid Mandarin so that I can translate for others and one moment where a confused boy said I wasn't American but I haven't been bitter about any of them. I guess my time at Franklin served me well in many ways. At least I won't have to worry about weird men yelling "Hey China!" out here.

Anyway, to get to the more positive side of this past week (since my experience thus far has been nearly all positive) I got the opportunity to visit Kaifu Temple (開福寺). I'm not wholly sure what kind of temple it was, there were 3 Buddhas you could ask blessings from and towards the back it seemed like a row of 7 or 8 gods of luck. At least, the elderly man holding a peach was very familiar. All the detail is incredible, and it has to be the first temple I've walked into with colorful electric lights inside. Unfortunately, I don't have many good pictures of the inside of the temple as people were there praying, chanting, and going through a number of rituals around me. I didn't feel wholly comfortable with the idea of walking into a group of people and taking photos of their religious spaces when they were using them.

It was certainly a different side of China than what I had seen walking around YOME, YiZhong, and Martyr's Park. There were many stands for telling fortunes, selling incense, and a lot of people begging in front of the gates. One of the volunteers gave money to one of the beggars in front of the temple and we all got swarmed as a result which was a little overwhelming at first though they left when we made it clear we were moving on.

After our visit we had to come in for lesson plan debriefs, but it was nice to have a day that was more free than any since we've arrived. We're starting practicum on Tuesday and I'm nervous to actually be in front of the classroom and to see how well my lesson plans will work, but as I said before I'm glad that the field director and assistant field director have done such a good job of pushing us on towards working in an actual classroom before releasing us. Now that I'm more used to the process and we've spent so much time going over discipline and enforcing a good learning environment I'm much more confident and aware of the things I can do as an authority figure. I did take a little time to ask for a good academic year so I suppose even my free time is going into my job.

Some of the advice we received during our first week was to write down a China moment of the day. I haven't wholly figured out what makes a moment a China moment, but I can say that today was the first time I witnessed a man drive past on his motorbike with all these live chickens and geese clucking and honking from the back where they were hanging upside down. I can also say that today when I gestured toward a family and told them they had beautiful children, one of the mothers ran her thumb over my arm and felt out all the hairs since my arm wasn't completely covered. I'm nearly two weeks into this and I feel like I've taken in so little even though I've done well at finding my way thus far.

I meant to put a photo up at the top of the page but I seem to have done something strange where I can't put pictures up there. So I did the next best thing and uploaded a photo of Changsha on a day when the sky wasn't quite as heavy or overcast. I think I've adjusted to the humidity very well. I'm actually not feeling it when I'm out and about despite being a little sweaty. This is near The Little Pearl Restaurant where we've been eating every night so far, though we're sharing a meal there for the last time tomorrow. I have to turn in my first lesson plan for critiquing as well. I'm nervous because I want to do my best but I am happy that I'm in a program that takes the time to train its volunteers in teaching methods, discuss culture shock, and give them a practice run of working in a classroom before sending them on to their locations. I think I'd be pretty nervous about having no support or information at all. I like all the people I've met and many have traveled before or are interested in development. It's a little like being at FUS all over again, though I do feel a little like the one thing people remember about me now is that I went to school in Switzerland. We even had a visit from the Consul General from the consulate based in Wuhan today which really made me feel like I was back.

My limited Chinese is returning and growing everyday. I've been getting a lot of practice at a tea and coffee shop (Seven Teas)  across the street from the middle school where we've been doing all our training and classes. They do not speak English there, but they do have an English menu with Chinese characters and pinyin so I am building my vocabulary one cold drink at a time. As we have Chinese class from 8-9:30 and the rest of our training from 9:45-5PM, it's a welcome break in the middle of the day. Oh, and have I mentioned that the middle school we're all doing orientation at is beautiful? And there's so many things in easy walking distance from us: Martyr's park, bakeries, a city museum, small shops... though just walking around demands a lot of attention. People everywhere, cars, bikes, and motorbikes moving along on the sidewalk have surprised me a few times. It may just be that Saratoga was so quiet, but the other two times I've been to Asia the activity on the streets amazed me. There's so much going on at 6 or 7 AM with dance and exercise groups going on and a few individuals simply doing their exercises alone where the streets have less people.

In short, despite my initial nervousness I am warming up to here though I am sure that when the group disperses and I settle into the school year with another volunteer working at my school I will encounter challenges. I haven't yet had too any of the issues I've heard Chinese American people sometimes report when they come here. Sometimes people expect me to understand more Chinese than I really do and just keep talking to me, but I've met a lot of people too who will speak to me in English if I ask. In time, I suppose.

I'm at the end of my first full day here in Changsha but I've been mentally taking down notes and impressions since catching my connection from the Incheon airport. I woke up at around 9 and not long after heard firecrackers going off, though I couldn't see anything from my room so I don't know what the occasion was. Some say there's a local holiday going on. As far as what various guidebooks and others have told me and the expectations I've built from what I've heard, the traffic isn't as chaotic and it actually hasn't felt too crowded. I've only been here Saturday night and all of Sunday though so it may be different tomorrow when I begin the first of my training sessions.

The language barrier has certainly been more prominent than at other times when I've traveled, but it hasn't been impossible to get a little help in English either. As far as the local cuisine goes, I am definitely getting my fill of spicy food. I think I'm handling it well. It helps that I  like spicy foods but I have noticed that I am sweating by the end of every meal so maybe I shouldn't be consuming all the peppers that cover a lot of the dishes I've seen thus far. The humidity is incredible too, when it rained today the water was warm. Very different from dry California right now.

I admit, that at times this transition seemed too fast and I was still questioning this decision up until I left. Now that I'm here and with so many others (most of whom have recently graduated from college though some have come returned after working with this program before and others have left their jobs for this) I think I can do this. After all, part of the reason I chose to do this was because I really felt that this was an opportunity for mutual exchange: I wanted somewhere to use my education and experiences as well as practice the public speaking skills and other intercultural skills I picked up at school and China will certainly teach me a lot in turn.