Christmas is back on
For me, Christmas has come early. There is power back in our apartment! I've had an ultra busy week, but everything ground to halt yesterday when our electric board short circuited. It took two days to get an electrician in and its finally been fixed.
I've been resorting to the daylight and in the evening candle light to find my way around the apartment. It was ok though I got to catch up on my book 'Freakconomics' which has now been subsequently finished, wrote some letters home and went for a bike ride wearing my new motorbike style helmut.
Tales from the last week
Here is a bit of a summary then of what's been happening.
Today has been busy enough. I taught three 90 minute inside classes. Following that I did some promo work for the intensive courses coming up in January, we were targeting children which made me feel like the child snatcher as I offered them the free ruler and pencil which came with our brochure, Meanwhile our Chinese staff hounded the parents. Freezing cold, Alex and I headed to my apartment and we got the electrician round. Talked travel plans with Alex. Fixed the problem. And finally 10 minutes after that had happened, taught my first tutorial lesson, which was scheduled for six o'colock and it went really well. I felt a lot more comfortable when knowing someone was openly paying for my time.
So other things from my week.
Last Saturday. A little worse for wear from a night at a club dancing to a DJ set from Caspa. I entertained kids at our Christmas party dressed as none other than Santa Claus. Jamie as Mrs Santa/Santa's helper and I danced, sang, played games for about 75 minutes. Tough work with a white beard on. I'm not sure what the childen got out from our celebration of Christmas. A few parents wanted photos with me (Santa Claus) at the end of the night suggesting they have an appreciation for it but on the most part the children were more excited by what was in my sack than my 'Ho Ho Ho's but then again who isn't?
Following this Sean, Darren and I went to a apartment floor party. It was decently attended with lots of different nationalities and a keg of beer. I love meeting people from around the world and Shanghai is a great place for this to happen.
Monday. First lesson of my Mandurin course. I arrived part way through the course and it was the last lesson of the phonics bit of the course, which the other class mates had been doing for 3 weeks. In Mandurin there are four tones, a high flat, rise, fall-rise and a fall. They hold a lot of significance and its quite frustrating when you are saying the word but the tone is all mixed up. There are four meanings for the word 'ma' for instance 'mother', 'hemp', 'horse', 'scold' or its most common usage as a question marker if it has a fifth neutral tone. I did not thus mind missing these lessons as my linguistics background helps me to understand these tones a bit better.
After the lesson I met up with a Swedish girl I'd met at the floor party, Starbucks and the movie Life of Pi were on the cards. It was quite relaxing to experience a normal date again.
Wednesday. I thought I was in for a lucky day after getting out of Yili Road in 3rd place. However, I was tricked by Lady Luck, that cruel mistress.
It was in the first lesson of a six lesson, two school day. I was off to a cracker, entertaining the children etc, when suddenly reaching down to pick up a dropped piece of chalk I heard a pantomime style, onomatopoeic rip. Surely no. No you cannot be serious. Oh dear Lord I thought as I reached to the back of my now ripped Matalan trousers. There I felt a tear which quite literally went straight down the middle of my trousers. Looking around I checked to see if the children had noticed. I paused for thought, then hesitantly continued the lesson.
This all happened in the space of probably a few seconds. I had to hold out for a while more. But through a number of stealth manoeuvres around the board, and tactical wear-age of my coat, I got through the rest of the morning's classes and then bought a new pair of trousers on my way to the next school with just enough dignity intact. Sorted.
P.S I'm fairly sure the kids didn't notice.
Friday- After a big night celebrating my bosses birthday on Thursday I managed to summon up the energy to go on a second Chinese date the night after. Keeping it short it was as equally as stressful, we took a bus again to a very remote place in Shanghai. This time the docks. There we went to this End of the World party, which was way overpriced and under attended. Night was salvaged by finding a cool cafe in our complex after trekking home where we played board games with the cafe owner and this ancient Japanese dude called Konishiwa.
Shanghai continues to amaze and surprise me. So I endeavor keep up the blog posts. My aim is to write about my teaching methods and lesson styles soon, keeping in touch with home, transport and pets to name a few topics.
Now I am going to enjoy having power back in my apartment.
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