Well, it has been longer than expected for this update. Because of an earthquake near Taiwan, we have had major internet problems. And now that we have internet back, it has been terribly slow. These last few weeks have been a blur as we have been finishing up classes and preparing for our break. I am leaving tomorrow for Thailand and have a ton still to do so this will be an abbreviated post. Here is a short summary of the last few weeks.
Christmas
We had a great Christmas. My friend, Susanna, from Hohhot, China came to visit for the weekend and that was fun to see her and hang out. Her and my friend, Erika at a different university in Harbin came to spend the night on Christmas Eve. (After our big banquet our team went to with all of the Foreign Language (foreign and Chinese) and Foreign Language students). Christmas morning was great as Erika, Susanna, and my team cooked a spectacular brunch (omelets, pancakes, bacon, bananna bread, fruit, toast-wonderful). We all got each other presents so after eating we opened all of those and gifts from our family. That afternoon we worked on lesson plans as we all had to teach the next day and give finals. That night we went and ate pizza and saw snow statues downtown and came back to watch a Christmas movie and eat cheese dip we got sent from america. It was a really fun day and great to have team to celebrate with.
FINALS!!!The next two weeks were filled with giving finals, compiling and typing in grades, filling out tons of forms for classes, printing lesson plans, etc. I never knew how much work it is for the teacher too to give finals! They were a fun few weeks, but busy. The week before finals in my Masters Oral classes we talked about Christmas and the classes did a whole class role play to find out about the Christmas story. It was fun for them to act out adn try to find out what all happened on the first Christmas! Many students had really great questions and have expressed interest to learn more so that has been really encouraging! This last week was fun in my oral classes as they just watched the movie
Elf for the last week and then took pictures all together!
Ice Festival!
Earlier this week we were able to go to the Harbin Ice Festival. It was so fun to finally get to see. We bundled all up in all our warm clothes (or in my case, also my teammates' warm stuff-monica's coat and preston's gloves and neck warmer!). It was spectacular. Huge buildings and structures made of ice. Definitely not for those who arent good at walking on ice-part of it is all ice steps up to the top of this structure-a little slick! It was fun though. Check out pictures on my flickr in Ice Festival folder!
I know this is real short, but it is hard to go back and pinpoint everything that has happened in the last month since the last time I posted. It is incredible how fast the weeks have flown by! I can't believe that it is already time for me to head out for our Winter Holiday and my first semester in China is completed. I have really enjoyed it and really know this is where I am supposed to be. I love my students and the Chinese friends I have made. I am also really excited for next semester. I feel like I have gotten a hang of schedules and teaching prep so that will be easier and I hope to continue to develop friendships I have begun this semester. I also really hope to continue my study of Chinese. I have an INCREDIBLE Chinese tutor who is really driven and she is doing a great job of teaching and I hope to really study a lot more next semester to really improve and become more confident.
I am leaving for Thailand tomorrow morning. I will be sightseeing for the first week and then taking 2 weeks of Masters classes in ChiangMai and then a week of conference with all teachers in China and then traveling around Cambodia before heading back to cold Harbin! I am really looking forward to this chance to rest, warm up, and get renewed for the upcoming semester. I will be returning to Harbin around February 22 so it will be a long holiday. Classes start back March 5. Thank you all for your thoughts for me as I travel and try to keep in touch with students I have been studying with.
Make sure to check out my Flikr!!! Internet is too slow to upload pictures on here. I have updated many new pictures and you can see better what all I have been up to!! New pictures are in the December 2006 and Ice Festival folders!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chinamegan/
Comments (1)