Well, I gave in finally. I did it. I plugged in my TV. Not because I really wanted to watch TV, but because I really want to learn Mandarin, and watching TV will definitely help. I’ll be hiring a tutor to come once a week to get extra help. I’ll also have my co-workers be helping me as much as possible. I think being able to speak Chinese will only be helpful in life and my future endeavors. Today was my day off and not feeling too social, I stayed home for the day. I had TV on in the background the whole day so I’ve been listening to Pokémon, Sesame Street, ABCD, and strange game shows all in Chinese. I’ve also been cleaning, cooking, Skyping with family, doing lesson planning for work, writing my summer internship paper, napping, and of course, reading Calvin and Hobbes. Life here is fun but busy, busy, so it’s nice to be able to have one day a week where I’m able to take a nap and do some relaxing things. I was able to Skype with Ila (Grandma Escalante) this morning before she heads back to San Diego. That was way fun to see her and talk with her, as well as practice my Spanish, which isn’t so great. I guess that just means I’ll have to move to Argentina for a year to improve and practice my Spanish ;)
The past week has been busy with work, but it’s been fun. I think I mentioned in my last blog that we’ve hired a new instructor, our first male instructor. His name is William. He’s a nice person, he is ...but pre-training has been rough for him. I’m thinking that our center was in desperate want of a male instructor and so they hired the first one that came along. I’m don’t think he’s the best person for the job, but since he’s here, the other instructors and I have been working hard with him to prepare him for the training at the end of the month. I especially have been working with him on his English. I guess if being an elementary school teacher doesn’t work out, I could always fall back on being a speech pathologist, as I’ve been enjoying helping him with his English. Chinese culture is interesting though, even if he doesn’t pass training I think we’ll continue to do pre-training with him and send him to the trainings until he passes. Even though the bosses kind of realize now that he’s not the best fit, Chinese culture is to save face, so letting him go isn’t likely, which I find strange.
Classes are going pretty well. I find myself quite busy with Play, Music, and getting Yoga ready, so I’m not looking forward to the fact that Christine expects me to be leading Play in another week or so. I guess it will be a good challenge for me though. With more and more Music classes I’m finding myself having to learn more Mandarin, which is good motivation for me to study and practice. The next theme for Music is Pacific Isles so I’ve been learning a lot of fun new songs from Hawaii, Samoa, and New Zealand. After learning these songs, I realized what a cool language Samoan is and how much I’d like to learn it! That’d be way cool if I went there on my mission, then Grandma and Grandpa and I would be twinners!
There’s a new YSA guy in the branch. His name is Matt, and he’s pretty cool. Tuesday was my half-off day so after work we met up for some Sushi and went to the Bund. Even though I’ve already been twice he really wanted to see it, so we went, but of course he forgot his camera, so it seemed like a little bit of a waste, but I’m sure he had fun. He’s here working for Disney English; I didn’t even know Disney taught English, but apparently they have schools all over the world. Cool.
This last weekend there was a ward get-together at the Farnsworth home. They are a really nice family. We’re not too closely related, but Philo T. Farnsworth is also his great-great-uncle, so it’s cool that we’re related back a ways. Saving myself a couple of trips, I was able to stay over-night at the Larkin’s after the party. The Larkin’s are so great. They were worried that their spare bed would be too hard, but, compared to my bed here in my apartment, it was heaven.
Also, on my off-day last week, I had a really fun day. I went with Chris and Rick to an old city outside of Shanghai. I wish I could remember the name of it.
The town is 1700 years old so the buildings are pretty awesome. We went on a boat ride to see the town and it was lovely, but quite hot.
Our boat guide was cool and let Chris and me try to row the boat. It was a lot harder than it looked.
We also ate lunch there, did some shopping.
We were a little bit confused by the name until we realized that it’s famous for buying little fish and then you go to the top of the bridge and throw them off, or let them go. We then found the name pretty amusing. We, of course, bought some fish to throw off. I was brave and grabbed the live fish with my bare hands and threw it off into the river. Haha, it was quite an experience.
After a hot day, I went home, rested a little, and then went to Nate’s apartment where he let me use his Internet to get on Facebook. It’s nice to have friends here in Shanghai to take me to old cities and let me use them for their Facebook access :)
I keep thinking I’ll get used to the weather here, but I don’t know if I ever will. It will be blazing hot with the sun shining in the morning, and pouring with thunder by the afternoon. Either way, it’s always humid, so I can always count on that. Oh! There is so much fruit here that I’ve never heard of or even imagined. It’s so crazy looking and quite delicious. My favorite right now is called Huolong guo, or Drangon fruit. It’s so crazy looking! I’ll have to attach a picture. It really looks like something you would see in a Dr. Suess book or something.
Happy Birthday to my beautiful sister-in-law Lauren! Hope you have a wonderful day! Glad to hear that Mike and Jodi are enjoying their long trip to Connecticut. I love getting the family newsletter and hearing about how all the families are doing! I’ll be honest, I never read the family newsletter before because I was sure that if something important was mentioned, mom would just tell me. Now, I really love reading about how everyone is doing halfway across the world. I’m still undecided about staying for a whole year or being done after 6 months. We’ll see...
Well, thanks so much for reading and for your support! I love you all so much!
Love,
Alyssa
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