Week 12

Ni hao again dear friends and family,

Well, another week has come and gone and it’s almost frightening how quickly the time slips through my fingers, and yet it’s exciting at the same time. Although I am sad that my China adventures are half way over, it’s exciting to think about what else will come my way as I continue on in this journey of life.

I have started online school but am still waiting for things like books and school packets to arrive before I can really start. My professors have allowed me some extra time to turn things in due to my unique circumstances. Even though these are distance ed. classes, most people aren’t quite as distant as I am. Chinese lessons have been going ok. I changed the day that I have them so now I have a full off day on Thursday with no obligations of any sort. My tutor says that my pronunciation is great, but I need to practice and remember the tones. I think she’s a pretty good teacher, but always tries to cram too much into the lessons. It’s not very ideal and I can’t really retain all the things we go over because it’s so much. The lessons are supposed to be for 2 hours, but she usually ends up staying for 3 because we get distracted just talking about whatever. She’s pretty cool so it’s easy to get caught up in talking about other things. Classes at have been fine this week. In music the theme has been Elvis, which was way fun. I’m not sure how much the babies and toddlers are benefiting from a theme like “Elvis Presley”, but it’s still fun to learn about it in class. Next week is Latin so I’m learning a lot of Spanish and Portuguese songs right now. It’s almost painful to hear the other instructors’ attempts at Spanish. They have sung these songs before, but they learned them from another Chinese instructor, who obviously had no idea how to pronounce Spanish correctly. Even now that I have corrected their words, their heavy Chinese accent makes it sound very funny. I am going to try on leading for Play tomorrow. I’m a little nervous, but glad to be getting it over with. Christine is really pushing me to try on leading, but honestly, I know they don’t have any classes for me to take over, so I’m not sure why she wants me to try on so badly. I will be trying on Level 4, which is about the easiest Level for leading, but it’s a big class so we’ll see how it goes. I’m continuing to work with William. I keep hoping to post about how much he’s improving but...well, he’s improving a little. He still struggles so much though, I don’t know how he’ll do at training next month. We have given him a new nick name at work – Fa Mier. His Chinese name is Fa Ming, but he tends to put an “er” on everything he says, in English at least. He always says words like umbreller, undernear, or feer,  instead of umbrella, underneath, and feel. His English is improving though, slowly but surely. He’s starting to get the format of classes down, but still needs to work on class control, time management, and most importantly, his confidence. That, sadly, is something we cannot teach him. He is always so nervous in class, I hope he gains more confidence soon. Also at work this week, we set up the second Play room that has not been in use. 

We still don't have enough enrollment to be using it for classes, but they will be needing it for training's that happen at our center. Oh, and the Gymboree Annual Music Festival has officially been cancelled, which is pretty depressing. Bummer.

This weekend is Mid-Autumn Festival. I don’t know much about it, I just know it’s about some fairly lady in the moon that makes moon cake for everyone, so there is a lot of moon cake being sold lately. Cathy (my Chinese tutor) brought me some moon cake, a few different flavors. They are always very small, just bite size. They’re ok, but it’s very Chinese tasting cake, which isn’t very sweet and often a weird texture. It’s not too bad though. This Sunday after work, we will have an event at the center in the evening for kids and parents. We will put on a small performance about the Mid-Autumn tradition and then have something fun like a magic show or something. I lucked out (being foreign) and get to be the fairy moon lady and come out with my bunny (a Gymbo doll with rabbit ears) and sing some song in Chinese. Then all the other rabbits will come out (the other instructors also wearing rabbit ears) and we will dance, or something like that. Haha, oh what silly things you do when working with 0-5 yr olds.  Monday, most people will have work off, but we still have to work half day. We will come in the morning and then probably leave around lunch time. After we go out for lunch, we’re going to go and play bad mitten, so that should be fun! But, I really should stop telling you about what is going to happen next week, and tell you about what happened this week.

I got a calling at church! Yay! I am the new music conductor in sacrament meeting! Fun stuff. It will be all official next week. Hmmm...What else happened this week? We had another big training but it was at our center this time. It was for all of the instructors in Shanghai area and it was about how to improve our Art program. Chris (the other intern) is so interesting. I saw him at church on Sunday and all was great and dandy. We sat by each other in sacrament meeting and Sunday school and chatted and were just being friendly people, you know? But I saw him at the training and said hi and he sort of blew me off, like he didn’t want to acknowledge me as a friend or something. Weird kid. Oh well. This training was mostly in English so it was easier to stay awake than the last one, but I hate that they all start around 1 o’clock, right after lunch. It’s so hard to stay awake while digesting and sitting in a dark room staring at a projected screen.

Today was really fun though! Let me tell you about it. I was looking forward to sleeping in, but plans changed late last night and I ended up waking up around 7 AM this morning, so I didn’t get to sleep in at all. I had to go shopping and shower and clean up my apartment before meeting up with Sherry at 9:30. We went to Yuyuan, or Yu Garden, this morning. It was quite beautiful. We had a fun time, I really like Sherry, we get along great. 

Once again, people asked to take their picture with me, just because I'm foreign. I agreed this time though. I figured it doesn't matter too much, and it's nice to say yes. We had lunch afterwards and did some shopping too. I bought some sunglasses, super cute chopsticks, as well as some presents for some friends/family, so I won’t mention what those things are. My new chopsticks look like turquoise colored pencils! They are just darling. We had lunch at a buffet sort of place, that was obviously for the tourists. We spent the whole morning walking so we got tired pretty quickly. We were done around noon and went back home. I picked up a few more groceries on the way home, chatted with some people online for a bit, and then crashed. It’s always nice to be able to take naps, that’s why I love off days. A do (Michael) wanted to hang out so I felt bad that I fell asleep while texting him. He actually was texting me about it the night before and I wasn’t so sure how it was going to go. Between texting just being a poor way of communication and his English being not so great, I was feeling like it was going to be a little awkward, thank goodness it wasn’t though. He works fairly close to where I live (maybe 20 min. away) and taught a class in the morning and then not again until 7pm, so he wanted to hang out in between then (oh, he is a Yoga instructor by the way). He came over to my apartment and I wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to do. We had never hung out just us before today, and usually we’re in a big group going somewhere and doing something exciting, not just hanging out. It was actually really fun and chill though. We just ended up talking and hanging out in my apartment for a few hours. I made a light dinner (he didn’t want to eat too much before his class) of sweet cooked carrots and marinated chicken. I thought it was pretty good, if I do say so myself, and I think he enjoyed it. We just talked and ate and had a really good time. He was over for more than 3 hours so that could’ve been really awkward, but it was fun, he’s way cool. Oh, he also brought me some corn. I’ve only had corn once here in China and it wasn’t too great, pretty bad actually. I didn’t really want it when he gave it to me, but I didn’t want to be rude. Thankfully, it was pretty good. Definitely not Utah Valley sweet corn, but still good. They obviously don’t eat it with butter and salt like us, they just cook it in water, and of course, oil. They cook everything in oil, literally. Over all, it was a real fun day. I still need to do some Chinese studying tonight and get ready for tomorrow though.

I have been exploring my neighborhood more, I don’t know why I haven’t before. The grounds of my apartment complex are a lot bigger than I had thought, and quite beautiful. Once you get back in there, there are fountains and statues and ponds, it’s very peaceful.  Lately, I have been getting off at the subway stop just before mine, even though the walk is a little longer. This way I get to come in the back way and walk through the beautiful apartment grounds. There is a large stage/gazebo area and every morning some older folks do their Tai Chi exercises, so it’s fun to see on the way to work. Sometimes in the evenings, they even have some traditional dancing going on. My friend Jillian Newell (who is currently living in Weihai, Shangdon Province, China teaching English) just informed me that she will be coming to Shanghai this fall! That is pretty exciting and I hope I get to spend some time with her while she is here! Oh, and I told Sherry that I would really like to go to Beijing but don’t have anyone to go with. She would really like to go with me, so we’re going to talk to work and see if we can get that worked out. That would be way fun. Also, Michael has been telling me about some of the places you can go that are very close to Shanghai. Other cities that you can go to by bus, only an hour or so away. I would really like to travel a little more and do more site-seeing. It’s so beautiful here in China, I just can’t see enough of it.

Well, that’s that! I love you all, and most importantly, I love my Savior and am blessed that He gave me this opportunity to come live and grow in China. Zai Jian!

Love,

Alissa Laoshi (What the kids call me - Teacher Alyssa)

Ge Li Sha (Chosen Chinese name)

Alyssa Nicole Escalante 

P.s. I always put up more pictures on my Facebook, in the Shanghai and Gymboree albums, so feel free to check them out!