2nd full week in China

I went through my apartment and got rid of a lot of things. I threw them in the trash and turned around to find many people pulling the trash out of the trash cans. We are finally learning our way around this crazy city.

We found that there is a Wal Mart in China but it is a pain in the butt to get to. Carly really wanted rollerblades and that was the only place that I could find them. She rollerbladed everywhere until her wheel popped off. I lucked out when I went to a store and they had a spare repair pack. I told her that she should only ride on smooth surfaces from now on. The roads are too bumpy and we will end up ruining her rollerblades.

We also found a really neat park called Chaoyang Park. It is Beijing's largest park. It is about 3 km in length and 1.5 km in width. It has flower gardens, a fairground, swimming pools, and many exercise courts. It is on the site of the former Prince's palace.

Monday was Teachers Day and I got flowers and many gifts from the students. The school even handed me $500 dollars in cash. The gift came in a red envelope called a Hongbao.

This week was my most stressful work week. The school planned it so that I needed to do DRA assessments and MAP assessments on the same day. The school did not train us well on DRA assessments, but I had thankfully gotten trained on this at another school. DRA assessments are to measure a students reading fluency and comprehension and it is a long process. I have had to take the tests home to finish the work.

I also had a few parents coming in to personally meet me and talk to me about their child. The parents do speak English, but it is not very good and it takes some concentration to figure out what they are saying. I am finding that parents are a bit more needy here and want to communicate with me in all times of the day. I have to turn off my messages after I leave work. I also have a kid in my class with autism and another kid with depression and ADHD.

I did figure out how to pull out money from my account in the US. All it involved was finding a good ATM that accepted my card. Thank goodness!

Public restrooms are taking a while for us to get used to. They are called squat potties and involve squatting in a hole.

Carly and I found a really good Chinese restaurant around the corner from us. We couldn't figure out how to order and a nice lady came up and translated everything for us. We have been back since and they know us and what we want. We love their dumplings.

We are starting to pay attention to the cars on the road and we are finding a lot of these little mini cars. They look so cute! I am still not sure how anyone drives in this city. Carly and I are finally getting used to crossing the street without feeling like we are going to die.

I found a little gecko on the ceiling of my class this morning. The kids kept screaming for me to kill it. I told them that he was cute and won't hurt them. I wanted to keep him in the class.

We also joined a gym. Carly is able to exercise with me. They have a pool, dance classes, weight rooms, treadmills, ellipticals, and massage rooms.