Well, you may have noticed that I gave this space (the word "blog" really bothers me for whatever reason - as do most recently invented words) a little makeover. I have no delusions of being any sort of visual artist, so if the colors don't look right, I apologize. I just was really sick of my old look so I clicked on random colors until I got bored, and this is what I ended up with.
I don't have a whole lot to say. In fact I'm really tired and considering that it's now after 9, I think I need to be heading off to bed any moment. But I wanted to quickly post and update, as I might not get the chance for a while. My holidays were good, it was definitely weird to be so far from my family, but in the end it turned out all right. Nothing too eventful, as Christmas really isn't celebrated here. Much more popular is New Years. My students all had parties in the classes, and afterwards the teachers put on a talent show (you can see more pictures of these events than you probably care to in my picasa album). The seventh grade at my school consists of 11 classes of roughly 50-60 students. Each class is split into an A and B, so for some classes (example math) the students will all stay together. However, the A and B split into different classrooms for English class, so I'll teach 25-30 students of class A, and then teach the rest of the students of class B the period afterwards. Once put into their class when they enter 7th grade, the students will stay with these same 60 students for a total of three years until they enter high school. Not only do the classes stay the same, but they have all the same teachers that will follow them as they move to 8th then 9th grade. This is very different than in the U.S. and gives the teachers the wonderful responsibility of teaching new material for 3 years. Anyway, for the students the New Year was very special, as it was also celebrating the first year of their class. So each class had a birthday cake to celebrate their one year birthday with their class. Of course there were also slide shows and speeches (which I obviously couldn't understand but appeared to be touching based on the numbers of tears elicited from the emotional 12 year old girls). Good times. New Years is also a popular time to give gifts. I myself received from various students a beautiful silky scarf thing, and two throw pillows, which were a lot of fun to manhandle home on the bus with me. I actually really like them, and am hoping I can figure out a way to maneuver them unnoticed onto the plane home with me. One of my students also gave me a notebook, in which she wrote "Happy New York!!" on the first page, which I found to be quite adorable and couldn't find it in my heart to correct her. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling well, and had to wake up early the next day, so I didn't even make it until midnight on New Year's Eve. Guess that's what happens when you get old.
On new year's day, we had the day off so I took a short trip to Luoyang, which is a city about an hour and half away (by train, 3 by bus) from Zhengzhou. It is home to the Longmen Caves, which were quite incredible (also see photos). It was a beautiful city filled with lovely parks, and I really want to go back in the spring when things are a bit more lively. The highlight of the trip was the fact that one of the teachers from my school is from Luoyang, so I was able to spend the night with his grandparents while I was down there. They were an incredibly sweet couple who fed me like I was starving. Luckily the food was really good, but they kept insisting I eat more and more, physically picking up food and putting it on my plate in front of me. They didn't speak a word of English, but I loved them (because I love most old people...the friendly ones at least). Of course I interact with and consider many of the Chinese teachers as friends, but mostly I just see them in the context of school or when going out, so it was nice to be invited into some one's home and experience another side of their lives. Though this, in part, is due to the fact that Chinese teachers are not allowed to have lives, and those that are unmarried mostly live at the school along with the students. My school is a boarding school (as are most schools of quality in China), so the students are all either in class, study/homework sessions in their classrooms, or scheduled exercise from 7 am until 8:30 pm, at which point they are released to their dorm rooms to finish homework and go to bed. The teachers, consequently, have very similar hours, so many of them live in dorms on the campus too. China has a lot of people (in case you haven't heard), so it's hyper competitive for any sort of job, and this is what is required to make it. I'm not going to lie, I'm so happy I didn't go to school in China. Though, these kids are also a million times smarter than I was in 7th grade, that's for sure.
Anywho, sorry for the tangent. Luckily for me, I will have a break from all this school, school, school for 6 weeks! Huzzah! My break starts Friday! Just two more days until freedom. On Saturday afternoon I'll be hopping on a 24 hour train to southern China, then a flight to Thailand, then three weeks of travel around the beaches/islands of Thailand and Cambodia, then hop on another flight to Beijing then another flight to Xi'an, and then my whirlwind tour will be over and classes start again March 1st. Hopefully I'll have a chance to update you all of my goings on during this time. If not, surely when I get back. Again, hope all is well at home. Happy winter! I'll be thinking of you from my sunny beach in Thailand...
