First off, I am apologizing for not writing last week. This blog will be like week 10 ½ because it’s catching you up on a little bit more than a week. Because of this, plus it being a really eventful week and a half, it might be a pretty lengthy blog. Prepare yourself.
Let’s start off with the beginning of last week! Because of covering extra classes for Christine during her vacation and not getting my full 2 days off, I was able to get last Monday off. I spent the day with Chris and Nate and had a grand time. Nate left back to the states last Wednesday so Monday was my last day to hang out with him. We were originally planning on going to Happy Valley which is a large amusement park in Shanghai, but the weather was looking not so great and we didn’t want to risk going all the way there and having the rides be shut down due to rain. So instead, we met up for lunch at People’s Square and had some delicious Dim Sum, or at least I think that’s what we had. It’s meat dumplings with hot liquid inside that can scorch your mouth off if you’re not careful, but are really tasty. It took us a while to find the specific restaurant that Nate wanted to go to so we wandered looking for it in the back streets of People’s Square, which were pretty cool. After lunch we headed over to People’s park. We went to the Pixar exhibit in the park and it was pretty fun to see things like original sketches and models for all the Pixar movies. Most of the exhibit didn’t allow cameras but we got a few pictures with some of the large Toy Story statues.
We enjoyed the park for a bit after the exhibit, which is so beautiful and green. We saw old men playing chess on the tables under the trees, people sleeping on benches, children playing in the water trying to catch fish, and even a beautiful waterfall (man-made of course).
While walking through, a young girl and young man stopped me and asked in broken English if the girl could take a picture of me with the boy. I was surprised, as I had never been asked to take my picture with complete strangers before. Nate and Chris said they get it all the time, just because we’re foreigners. I politely declined because I felt uncomfortable having my picture taken by and with complete strangers. Chris and Nate gave me slack about it and I felt a little bad because you could tell the people were disappointed, but I still would’ve felt weird. But anyway, while enjoying the park, we decided to venture on over to the other side where they have some fun rides. They have fun things like a merry-go-round, bumper cars, and some small rides.
There was actually one that was pretty big (sorry I didn’t get a picture of it) that swung like a pendulum while spinning at the same time. So we rode the big one and bumper cars to make up for our cancelled Happy Valley plans. The big ride was so much fun! We were spinning slowly so you could still see the beautiful skyline of Shanghai while swinging so high that we were upside-down and above all the trees. Everyone around was staring at us and I think got a kick out of our screaming and having such a fun time on the ride. As we were waiting in our seats before the ride started, Nate heard a kid tell him mom, “Wow! Look! Three foreigners in a row!” ha-ha it was fun. We then moseyed on over to the bumper cars. Right as we were about to go in, some other foreigners asked us where to buy tickets. We told them and then told them we would wait for them because we were the only 3 in line anyway. So then a few other foreigners and a couple locals joined us in a fun round of bumper cars. We talked with the other foreigners for a while, they were pretty cool. They were all from different parts of Europe and here in China for a short internship, but they were in a different part of China for the internships. They were just going through Shanghai before they headed back to Europe, as their internships were over.
After the park, Nate decided he really needed to see my apartment before he left for the states, I’m not sure why. So we headed back to my apartment to just hang out and rest after lots of walking. Nate and Chris were a little surprised when they realized I wasn’t joking about living down the street from brothels. We pass two just coming from the subway to my apartment. I was not anticipating any sort of company so before they came in I had to go in and clean up a little bit and take down some laundry that was hanging up to dry. We just rested and talked. It was nice to sit down on a couch in air conditioning and drink some cool water after a day walking in the hot humidity. Even though it was cloudy and raining lightly on and off all day, it was still so humid and unpleasant outside.
After hanging at my place for a little while, we went down to find some dinner. We walked around and went down a street that I had never been before. There were lots of delicious looking restaurants and Nate picked a good one to eat at. I wasn’t really hungry and was still feeling a little sick from riding the rides after a big lunch, but the food was good so I had a little. Chris and Nate then walked me back to my apartment and I said goodbye to Nate. I’ll miss hanging out with him here in Shanghai; he’s a cool kid. Hopefully, in December, when Chris and I return, we’ll get together with Nate and Austen again and have lunch or something.
Tuesday I worked half day, well a little more than half due to the trainers coming. Trainers from Home Office came to observe our classes and give us feedback. They observed my Music 2 class and my Play Level 6 class. Music went...so-so. To be honest, that is my worst class of the week. The kids are a little crazy and the parents don’t follow at all, nor do they care about controlling their kids. They just sit there and the kids scream and it’s just not so great of a class. It was like that before I was the instructor, so Christine warned me. It’s gotten a little better since I’ve taken it over, but it’s still not that great. My Play class went pretty well. I actually didn’t think it was too great because the kids were really distracted that day and didn’t participate as much as they usually do, but the trainers said it was a great class.
I usually leave at 1 o’clock on Tuesdays, but they started giving feedback at 1:00, so I didn’t get to leave until 3:00. The trainers said the structure of my Music class was pretty good, but I need to remember some key exercises and need more classroom control. This is mostly gained by speaking with the parents individually before and after class, gaining a relationship with them, and educating them on how to deal with their kids in class. Sadly, most of the parents don’t understand English in this class, which is another reason it’s my hardest class. The trainers gave me good feedback though and I will work hard to improve. Like I said, I didn’t think Level 6 went too well, but they said it was great. I asked for individual feedback and they just said to be more pro-active and involved with the kids during a certain part of the class. Besides that, both Jo jo and I did well together. I love teaching with Jo jo, we work so well together. In class the other day, she was so funny; she kept saying in class to the parents what a super assistant I am and how she loves me because I’m a “super assistant”! Haha she’s so great.
Last week was also voting. Every two months we give the parents ballots after class with out names on them. They then rate their satisfaction with you as an instructor but putting their ballot in the voting boxes, marked 1 to 5 stars.
Before the week, we had to write down our goal for voting results. Since I was still a brand new instructor last voting, this was my first time and wasn’t sure what my goal should be. Other instructors said I should go for a 4.5 but I was worried that it would be shooting high and I might get disappointed. Well, the results came in on Monday and I got a 4.6! Yay! So I was happy about that and hope that next voting I will maybe even get a 4.75! That would be way cool, but we’ll see.
So we have been preparing for the annual Musical Festival. This is a big deal with Gymboree where lots of centers get together and put on this big event for parents and their kids. We, as instructors, but on this big show for them where we sing and dance. This year’s theme is Star Trek. It really has nothing to do with Star Trek, but is about Gymbo going to different planets in the universe and seeing new sights. It’s actually supposed to be based of the book The Little Prince, but I don’t know how well it connects. Anyway, we had picked our song for the dance we were going to do for our assigned planet. Christine had hired her friend to choreograph and she started teaching everyone the dance on Monday when I had the day off. No worries though, because I wouldn’t have missed much. They had recorded the dance practice to show me and I asked where William was. They said he was recording and didn’t need to learn this part because he would be dancing with me...yeah. Apparently I lucked out and got the solo and would also be doing a duet with William during the dance. Awesome.
Oh, after we submitted our music to home office to be approved, we found out that the Pudong Center had submitted their song just a few hours before we did, and they picked the exact same song! Of all the songs in the world, they picked the same one as us. So we were planning on changing and picking a new song until today, when we got an email informing us that the Music Festival has been cancelled. We were in shock! They do this every year, we’ve already started advertising, planning, selling tickets, etc. I’m not even sure why, but I guess as of right now, everything is cancelled. Crazy. So we’ll see what the news is on that in the next few days.
Last Thursday I was planning on going to Yuyuan Garden with Sherry on my off day, but it was pretty rainy, so we postponed our plans and are planning on going this Thursday. Thursday evening is when my Chinese tutor Cathy comes. She was a lot more organized and prepared this time. She actually gave me a lot to work on, more than I’m comfortable with, but I guess you don’t learn by being comfortable. She is supposed to come for two hours, but ended up staying for three. It would’ve been two, but she kept getting distracted and wanting to just talk about random things instead of focusing on the Chinese lesson. She still only charged me for two hours though. I think she wants to hang out and teach me to cook and stuff, but I don’t have a ton of free time, especially with my online courses possibly starting this week (I’ll explain why “possibly starting” later on). She’s cool though, so maybe we’ll hang out sometime. But on to Friday!
As you may or may not know, Friday was my birthday! Yeah! I’m 20 years old! Man, I forget how young I am sometimes. I’m only 20? That’s it? But it was a really great birthday, let me tell you about it! First of all, I got online before I headed to work and was surprised by a beautiful Skype call! Mom, Christopher, Ariana, and Morgan called me and sang Happy Birthday to me, or I should say, sang Ju ni shun er kuai le! Yep! Mom taught them how to sing happy birthday to me in Chinese and they were harmonizing and everything (like normal for my fam) and it was just wonderful! I loved it! It was still Thursday evening for them, but they wanted to make sure I had a good morning since it was Friday already for me. Once I got to work, I was surprised once again! Sherry is such a doll, she got me a present! I wasn’t expecting anything from work except for maybe a couple happy birthday wishes, but I got so much more! Sherry gave me a super fun, sparkly fedora and gold sequins on it. Man she must know me, I love it!
Christine sang me happy birthday in Cantonese and did a little dance with it too. I recorded it but am not sure how well I can upload the video. I don’t think you can put videos on the blog, but I might post it on Facebook, so keep your eyes open. The word spread that it was my birthday so everyone was telling me happy birthday all day, it was so sweet. Consultants and SA’s and everyone kept popping their head into the instructors’ office to wish me a great day, they’re all so sweet. Jenny also heard it was my birthday and ordered me cake! Jenny is the center director by the way. It was a small, individual cake, well two actually. The cake here is so mild, not very sweet at all. I like it though. So Leona, Sherry, and I shared the cake, as Christine headed to the Hospital to get her eyes checked (they go to the hospital for everything here – even just to get your eyes checked). I was supposed to take over Christine’s Music class in the afternoon and Sherry took my Play Level 4 class but the Music class was canceled so I just had a lazy afternoon. It was really nice.
After work I rushed home to clean up my apartment. Sister DeVries was coming over to bring me my cake and presents that mama had sent over with her the month before. Mom sent a cake mix but Sis. DeVries offered to make it since I only have a toaster oven and not a full size one. She and her husband were going on a double date with Bro. and Sis. Larkin so they all came over to my apartment to visit and drop things off. My apartment is definitely not fit for company with how small it is, but they didn’t complain.
We chatted, I opened my presents (mom sent me two books – Where The Wild Things Are and Oh, The Places You’ll Go, as well as a card and a USB drive with 3 CD’s by Parachute Express and some Music from Chris by Suburban Legends. Thanks again for the gifts mom and Chris! Love them!), and Sis. DeVries lit the candles and they sang to me. I was so happy from having such a great day and being around such great people that I forgot to make a wish, but that’s ok. The cake was so good! Mom sent one of my favorites, carrot cake. And Sis. DeVries decorated it do beautifully. We actually didn’t have time to eat any cake as they were going to dinner and I was supposed to be meeting up with Sara and roommates. The DeVries and Larkin’s were supposed to be at my apartment at 7:00 so I planned to meet up with friends at 8:00 for dinner, but they didn’t show up until 7:30ish so we were a little rushed.
I was a little late meeting friends for dinner, but it was fine. I met them at the mall at Zhongshan park just one subway stop away. I actually wasn’t planning on meeting up with them but Michael texted me in the afternoon to see if they could take me out for dinner and give me a present. So I rushed over and met them and we had a great dinner! I offered to have them come over to my apartment to eat the cake that had not yet been touched and they excitedly said yes! Sara explained that they were hoping I would invite them over because the present they wanted to give me would be better given in a personal area, instead of at the mall. They were giving me hints about my presents and were a little disappointed when I guessed correctly during dinner ha-ha. They were saying things like “You can see it, but you can’t hold it or feel it really.” I guessed a video and was right. So we then took some taxi’s over to my apartment.
When we got back to my apartment Lincoln pulled out his laptop and put up the video. They didn’t have a real camcorder so they just used a digital camera that would only record for up to 3 minutes at a time. The whole video was maybe 10 or 15 minutes long, but in many segments. It was such a great video though! They had stayed up late the night before making it in their apartment. They put up an old mattress as a backdrop with a paper tapped to it that said “Happy Birthday” in marker. It was basically like a talk show about me. Sara was the host and after talking about how much she cared about and loved me, she invited “special guests” to come and talk about how they felt about me. She would ask them questions like “So, what do you know about Alyssa?” and “Why is she special to you?” Oh it was so precious! It was hilarious and so touching at the same time. They also sang Happy Birthday to me in both English and Chinese. Michael even got out his Guitar and plated a portion of a song for me. The video was William's Idea and was their “fearless director” they said. It was very, very sweet. I gave Sara my USB drive to put it on so I could keep it but she hasn’t brought it to me yet. I loved it so much though and am going to keep it forever! They kept saying in the video how they hope I will stay for a whole year and not leave in December. It was so touching. I love them so much; they are such dear friends, especially Sara. I love that girl so much. After the video we served cake but I realized I don’t have enough plates and utensils to serve 6 people, so we used everything like forks, spoons, knives, and people shared plates and bowls or just ate the cake straight off the tray. They had to eat very quickly though and then leave to catch the subway before it got too late.
After they left I Skyped with mama and she could tell what a wonderful day I had from the big smile on my face. It was such a fun birthday, way better than I every could’ve imagined.
I had lots of left over cake and knew there was no way I could eat more than half a cake by myself before it would go bad so I took it to work with me the next day. Everyone was so excited to try the “American cake”! Haha it was fun. Some loved it, and others didn’t so much. Pretty much everyone liked it but thought the frosting was too sweet. They thought the cake itself was really sweet too, but they liked it. Lynn, one of the consultants who doesn’t speak much English, told Jo jo to tell me that the cake tasted like it was made of magic! I’m glad she liked it :) Monday we had our monthly center meeting and Jenny bought yet another cake! So much cake this week. Jo jo’s birthday was the day before mine so they sang happy birthday to us and had a traditional, bland Chinese cake. It was pretty good though, just not as good as carrot cake.
Later that day all the instructors headed over to Home Office for a special training for instructors who would soon be leading. I don’t know why, but Christine and Yo yo wanted everyone to go, not just the ones who are preparing to lead. The Home Office didn’t want all of us to come, but Yo you talked them into it. We all headed over, got there early, and helped set up. The training was pretty boring and all in Chinese. Sara translated some important stuff, but I was mostly trying to not fall asleep. I got some good notes from the PowerPoint (as that was in English) and so it was a little worthwhile. Christine and Yo yo wanted to go to KTV (Karaoke) after the training, but no one else did, including me. They were a little bummed but I wanted to go home and prepare for classes the next day. I also saw Paulina while at Home Office and we got to talk for a little bit. She told me about how things are going with UVU and trying to get more interns from there. She also told me she’s noticed that I’ve lost weight- Yay! I like being thin and in shape again. She’s really great though, I like Paulina a lot.
Oh, church was good Sunday, by the way. Chris gave a talk and it was really great. All the talks were, I really like my branch. I signed up to substitute for Nursery, so I might get called to do that every once it a while, that should be fun. There is a branch activity this Saturday, but Chris and I can’t go. Bummer. We also had a really great lesson in Relief Society. Last week I didn’t recognize the woman who taught Relief Society, and that’s because she and her family only come once a month. They live way out in some tiny province outside of Shanghai and it takes them like 4 hours one way to get to church, so they have to leave their house at 4am to be on-time. They come once a month so she can teach and to pay tithing, but other Sundays they just have church at home. I think that’s kind of cool :)
So Christine asked me the other day about staying for the whole year. I sadly had to tell her no, as it’s really important that I finish up school. I really need to get more done before I leave on my mission. Sara was very sad to hear that even though I’ve been telling her for the past week or so, but it was official when I told Christine. I was a little bit sad to hear me say it too, even though I know it’s what is best. Christine then told me that even though she knows I need to go back to the states, how much she appreciates me and how much they all like me and will miss me. I will miss them too. I can’t believe I’m almost on the downward slope! Sad!
But speaking of finishing school, I’m feeling a little frustrated with my online classes and things. First of all, the person over interns at UVU changed positions so now it’s someone new. He is requiring a lot more of us and now I will have to write to him twice a month on how work is going and how I am doing on completing my objectives. I also had to re-fill-out the internship learning agreement and rewrite my objective. I finally got that done and sent back to him today after getting signatures and things.
As for my distance education classes, I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to do them. One of them requires I purchase packets from the bookstore and the other requires I take the exams in the testing center. Apparently I can take the exams through other University testing centers if approved and stuff, but I doubt I will be able to get that done in China. Obviously these people don’t think I’m very distant, even though it’s a “distance education” course. I’ve emailed the professors and hopefully I can get things worked out. Either that or I’ll drop the classes and just get back into classes next semester. Even though it would be really nice to get these classes out of the way, it would also be nice to not have to do them while working 40 hours a week and taking Chinese lessons and getting distracted by the wonderful-ness of China. So, we’ll see how it works out.
I got a lot of birthday wished via Facebook! Thank you for those! I really appreciate it. Also, happy birthday again to Elaina and Ashley! My darling niece and beautiful sister-in-law. Other random notes: I have so many mosquito bites and lost my anti-itch cream! No fun! My neck has also been hurting and been giving me headaches. I think it’s from a cyst or something, so that’s not fun. Hopefully the pain goes away or I might have to go see a doctor and get it checked out. My cooking is getting a little better, so that’s always good. Hopefully I will learn to really cook someday, like my mother, instead of these cheap meals like fried rice. A meal is a meal though, right? What else? Oh, I have recently fallen in love. Well, not really. There are two boys who sing and put videos up on YouTube and they’re pretty amazing. Michael Henry and Justin Robinette – check them out if you want. I can’t stop listening to them. They have great voices and are really fun.
I’m glad to hear that my brother and sister-in-law are proud survivors of Hurricane Irene! I’m so glad you guys are safe. I’m also dying to know the sex of your darling little baby so hurry up and open the envelope! I’ve decided that if it’s a boy you should name him Charles, or Charlie. Either one. I’ve been enjoying your blog Jodi! It’s awesome, not nearly as boring as mine. As to my friend Jillian Newell! I love reading your emails! Haha she just arrived in Weihai, Shangdong Province, China to teach English. It’s pretty far from Shanghai, but beautiful I’ve heard. I’m on her email list and love reading about her experiences. They make me laugh and so much of it is what I went through and was shocked by when first arriving in China. I read her emails, laugh, and say to myself “Yep! Welcome to China!” You’ll love it though Jilli! I promise :)
Wow, so I think that’s it. There is probably more to say but I am sick of typing and you are probably sick of reading. Thanks for reading anyway though. I love you all and hope you have a great week!
Love,
Ge Li Sha
Alyssa Nicole Escalante
