Week 3

Hello you wonderful people you!

First off, I just want to say thanks for reading my blog and caring :) I’m doing great here in Shanghai! I’m learning just a little bit more and more Mandarin every day. I plan on going to a Chinese class tomorrow offered by one of the sisters in the branch, but it’s at her home and I still haven’t received the address yet, so we’ll see how that goes.

I now have Internet in my apartment! Yay! The guy came over last night with a new modem and now it works. I was able to Skype with Mom and Chris and Ariana for a while last night, it was pretty fun! I feel like I’ve been here much longer than just 3 weeks. I feel comfortable here in China, like I’ve been here for forever. Anyway, now that I’m living on my own I’ve been teaching myself how to cook!

It’s really great! I just make simple meals, but meals, none the less! I will upload some pictures of some of the things I’ve cooked so far.

For those of you who know the extent of my cooking skills, you will be very impressed! For those of you who don’t, you might just think I’m lame for making such simple meals, but that’s ok.

Work has been going well. I have training next Monday, the official one, up at head quarters. This week I’ve been trying on (meaning I just teach a small part of the class, along with the instructor) some Music classes. They are fun, but more challenging to teach than Play. Christine is putting a lot of pressure on me to pass the Music test next week so I can go to Music training. She really wants me teaching some classes on my own by middle of July. Music classes aren’t as entertaining for the kids so it’s harder to keep them focused, especially because they’re so repetitive. Also, there’s only one teacher, so I won’t have a translator. I’m a little nervous to teach Music because of these reasons, but Christine believes in me.

Play has been going well. This weekend is going to be crazy though. Jo jo has been taking a lot of classes lately to make more money, but she has this weekend off for vacation. Since she’s gone, Sara and I are supposed to take over her classes. Monday, however, Christine informed us that there is a Marketing activity on Saturday so Sara will go to that and I will take over all of Jo jo’s classes on my own. Ugh. Weekends are so crazy busy! All the classes are packed full, and I have to teach 7 classes on Saturday! I’m the assistant so I only have to teach the last 20 minutes and assist the lead for the first part, but it’s still a lot! I’ve only been teaching 1 or 2 classes a day so far, so 7 is going to be a challenge, for sure. Sadly, I will not be able to go to church on Sunday because I have to take over Jo jo’s morning classes. Christine said it’s just for this Sunday though, and definitely not going to be a regular thing. I’ll let you know how my weekend goes with all these classes.

Today and tomorrow are my days off, and today was so fun! Sara is so sweet and invited me to come hang out with her and her friends. She met me at the Subway around noon and we went back to her apartment for lunch. She cooked a lovely meal, I should’ve taken a picture of it, but I didn’t. It was very traditional Chinese food: rice with red bean, edamame beans with chicken, fried pork, tomato and egg, tofu, and fish soup. Yum! We stayed at the apartment for a while, just enjoying each other’s company. Oh! It was the 4 of us; Sara, Lincoln (Sara’s boyfriend), Michael, and I. Side note: My friend at church, his name is Wesley. The other American intern for Gymboree, his name is Chris. And now my new friend who I met through Sara, his name is Michael. It’s pretty awesome, haha. Now I just need to meet a Jeremy and Morgan! (For those of you who don’t realize, my brother’s names are Michael, Wesley, Chris, Morgan, and Jeremy.)

After a nice lunch at the apartment, we went to Old Shanghai. It’s a famous part of Shanghai that has a lot of history, a lot of old buildings, and a lot of shopping. There we walked around, window shopped, and enjoyed the area. We took lots of pictures; I have some on my camera that I will upload, but a lot of them are on Lincoln’s camera that I’ll have to get copies of later. We also went into the large Apple store. There we enjoyed playing on the iPads and playing games for a while.

It had a little drawing app, so Michael was teaching me how to write some Mandarin. I now know how to write hello in Mandarin!

He taught me a few other words, but I don’t really remember them. I’ll have to keep practicing.

After the Mac store, we headed to The Pearl.

It’s a big building in Pudong, near The Bun, but on the other side of the river. Oh, funny story. On the way to The Pearl on the subway, a lady basically tried to hire me to tutor her daughter for English. Lincoln translated for us, and he’s just too nice. I was basically saying no. Not only because I don’t think I could teach a high school student English very well, but also because in my contract, I’m not supposed to have other jobs without Gymboree’s permission. He was too nice to tell her no though, so he exchanged numbers with her, and so he might invite this random lady’s daughter to come hang out with us so she can hear us speak English and learn. It was really random. Anyway, on with the day. We had dinner at McDonald’s and then walked around some more. We went to this huge mall and chilled in a store called MUJI, for a while. It’s a very nice, simple, Japanese brand. I love it! Everything is very simple, all very calm, natural colors, and it’s all so nice. When I get some more money I’ll have to go back and buy that lovely scented humidifier and that gorgeous cardigan.

After the mall, we headed to the river. There we took pictures, enjoyed the view, and listened to the music. People play guitar and sing for money, and it’s quite lovely. We had quite a fun and lovely day. But the humidity is so bad. By the time I went home tonight, I was just wet. I’m getting more used to it though. Sara and her roommates are all really awesome people and I like them a lot. We plan to hang out again soon, and often. I’m excited. It was such a fun day.

Tomorrow, I plan on having a nice long day to study and cook and clean my apartment and do laundry and rest and keep to myself. That is unless Wesley calls me and wants to go to lunch. He said he’d let me know.

Oh, yes to Uncle Eric! The DeVries are in my branch! But they are going home for the summer, they just left and will be back in August. That’s kind of nice for the connection though, because now I might have mom send some stuff back with them for me.

Well, that’s life right now, and it’s pretty good! I love you all so much and miss you too! I do enjoy hearing from you as well, so feel free to email me. It was nice to get the family newsletter and to read about how everyone is doing. It’s getting late and I’m tired and my feet ache from a long day of walking, so I think it’s time for bed. I’ll write again soon. Wo ai ni! Which means, I love you!
Thanks for reading!
Love, Alyssa.

Note from Deb: Sorry about the sideways pics - they are correct in Iphoto - if anyone knows how to fix them in blogger, let me know. Thanks!