Where are we?

For my 3 weeks in Beijing, I'm living with several friends in a neighborhood in the suburbs.  I've found a couple aspects of our housing complex quite interesting.

1) Gas, water, and electricity all are charged on separate cards.  This means that, when any of these start to run low (or run out), in the house, the resident must go to a place in the center of the neighborhood with the specific card (whether gas, water, or electricity) and "charge" the card by paying money to have credit put on it.  It's like gas, water, and electricity credit.

2)  At least once a month the electricity and water for the entire neighborhood is cut off.  This is because one person did not pay their bill.  Neighbors go and yell at each other until the bill is paid and the water and electricity is restored. We were here to experience one of these days.

Oh man, it's just so NOT America.

On the bright side, "our" house has pretty grape vines and an apricot tree.

The Power of the Suburb

Maybe this post will be somewhat controversial. I had friends at Moody would scoffed at living in the suburbs like it was for the weak at heart.  Let me admit now, then: I am the weak of heart.

For these 3 weeks, as I study in Beijing, some of my Wuhan friends and I are staying at a lovely house in the suburbs.  The center where I'm taking classes is also in the suburbs.  I never knew how much the city wore down on me until I stepped away.  To wake up to the sound of birds or even weird cat howls is a great improvement to honking horns, poorly functioning ancient vehicles, construction, and people hocking loud spitballs out their windows.  On one of our rides to another part of the city, I contemplated why this is.

I think there's something one has to close off or become hard to while living in the city. If one lets it all in, it will grate and annoy.  It takes a lot of energy to close all that off.  Outside the city, especially in the country, there's a release.  You can open up because what's there is beauty and peace.

So I guess I discovered why I don't like cities.  

Changes

Some people really like change.  Honestly, I don't know if I know myself enough to know whether I like change or not.  I think I like it except for right before it happens.  Now, I haven't been all around the world, but I think China may be one place that change happens faster than anywhere else.  After three years in Wuhan, I want to document some changes in life since my first year here.

1) Suburb--city: I live in the least developed of 3 parts of Wuhan.  Up until this year, the area I live in and the school have been almost in a suburb-like area.  There hasn't been much traffic and I used to be able to look out my window at an open field where people would grow veggies.  I don't have a before and after photo, but I do have this photo of what is used to be like across from my apartment. In fact, my first year I went there to dig up soil to try to grow veggies on my deck (which was an ultimate FAIL, but the way). For the now photo, just imagine huge buildings, probably 20 floors high, in the construction phase, with waving dark green nets on them that make them look like death.
Speaking of death, as traffic increases, it gets more and more difficult to maneuver my way to school on my bike. Sometimes it feels like a video game.

2) Prices:  I know prices have changed all around the world, but for some reason the change seems more dramatic here.  Our favorite milk tea place's price has risen 50% (ok, that just means 2RMB to 3RMB, but nonetheless). Milk has risen probably 20% since my first year.  Crazy!

3) Availability: I now live no more than 20 minutes from a Subway (the restaurant).  In the next year, we will also have a Starbucks. The grocery store now has liquid detergent.

All this to say, I'm starting to feel like I actually live in a big city... Change.  Some of it I like, but some I don't.

Tie Your Laces

In the midst of all the craziness of the end of the school year, there is one thing that helps me remember why I am still in Wuhan.  I truly believe that our students are better than anywhere else.  Here are a couple reasons why:

1) Lock-ish in: Our middle school had a lock-ish in a few weeks ago. It's a lock-ish in because it only goes from 3-10 pm, not all night (which of course I love).  The middle school STUCO, which I facilitate, plans the whole night.  What I most loved about this night was that almost everybody came and everybody participated in everything.  We had a nasty drink game and Wii Dance, but even the most "cool" and the most shy did it all.  I was amazed to see all our guys get up and dance away, no matter how silly they looked.  Even the students who don't say a word in class "shook their tail feathers." :) I wish I could post a video, but I probably shouldn't.  One student, when asked what their favorite part of the lock-in was, answered "definitely the drinking game and dancing."  What are we teaching our students?

2) Community: We recently had an assembly looking back on the year.  Our theme has been "Better Community, Better WYIS" which is based off of the Shanghai Expo theme.  In this assembly, students drew pictures of ways our school has shown this motto.
Here are some of the pictures people drew.  They're quite entertaining.

It's hard to tell, but this is a picture of people playing the drink game in which they had to roll a dice to decide which drinks would be mixed together for them to drink (soy sauce and vinegar, yogurt, and ketchup were all options)

This is a picture of the Wii dancing from the lock-in. It's especially meaningful since it was drawn by one of our quietest Asian students. 

The "fit in together" part so perfectly illustrates how our students have come together despite ethnic and religious differences.

I love this because of the "x alot" part.  We do get a lot of new students throughout any given year and our students do well at welcoming them in.

Ah, the practicalities of living in community.  

My favorite, just because it looks so cool.

Ting Bu Dong

Leo (fake name used to protect identity), my newest Japanese student, is the sweetest kid, super hard working, and very smart, but he sure makes me feel inadequate. Here's a glimpse into a situation that happens at least once a period.

Students are working on their English quizzes.  Leo finished his quickly because it is modified for his language ability (and shorter).  When he is done, he doesn't know what to do.  Now, instead of the usual middle school child, who would, at this point, pull out some random object and transform the desk into a battlefield or something of that sort, Leo wants to make sure he knows what he is supposed to be doing, or at least that's what I think he wants to know.  He comes up to me with his Japanese/English dictionary.  What will the first word in our attempt at communication be? 

"What".  Okay, that gets me started.  He wants to know something. He slowly types in another word, then changes it to English.  "Send."  Now I'm totally thrown off.  Send? I'm quite confused at this point, so I wait for the next word, "something."  And that's it.  What, send, and something, and he points to himself.  From this, I must guess at what he is asking.   Maybe I need to send something to him.  Maybe he wants to know what to send?  I throw the words out to the class, because sometimes the other ESL students have some insight, but today the closest anyone could guess was that Leo wanted to ask if he should send the quiz to the ESL teacher. That didn't really make sense to me.  So, I just gave him something to work on and he seemed fine.  What send something?  Who knows?

 
At least today I learned one thing about Leo through my periodic attempts at communication. He is writing using sentence patterns like "I like" " I don't like", etc.  One sentence I just could not figure out, though. "Horizontal bar is bad for me."  So I asked him to draw it.  What do ya' know? It's a gymnastic bar, that is, of course, horizontal.  And apparently Leo thinks it is bad for him, though I'm pretty sure he thinks "bad for me" means "I dislike it." Oh, the adventures of ESL...keeps me on my toes.

By the way, in case you didn't know, "ting bu dong" means "I hear, but I don't understand" in Chinese. I don't know it in Japanese. Maybe I should learn.

Smile!

7 things that made me smile today:

1) I slept like I was drugged, but I wasn't.  This is a miracle considering my allergies have kept me up every other night this week (while I was drugged).

Prince

2) This guy, my Prince.  Apparently if I kiss him enough he will be transformed into a real prince. Thanks Jenny (she made him by hand)!  I love him and will kiss him until he is transformed (I'm hoping soon).

3) Poetry with my students.  We read "In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound and they got into it and understood (love it when that happens).  It's only two lines; enjoy it here: http://www.bartleby.com/104/106.html

4) The smell of freshly cut grass. It only occurs twice a year: at the end of winter and at the end of summer (and they do the whole area with a weed whacker).

5) Music night tonight. It hasn't happened yet, but live music never fails to make me smile.

6) Wind.  Never underestimate the delight brought by wind in a humid and hot city... and if I close my eyes, I can almost pretend I'm in an open field with wildflowers surrounding me.

7) Writing a vocabulary quiz in Japanese. In an effort to somehow help my new student (whose English vocabulary consists of "homework, yes, no, good, ok", and the days of the week), I created a vocabulary quiz in which he connects the Japanese words to the English.  I was quite proud of myself.  Thanks Google Translate, and I hope you know what you're doing.
Okay, the truth is that, in reality, I was merely procrastinating checking some essays (which is my absolute least favorite teaching activity), but at least it was a beneficial procrastination time.

As a dear friend would say: "Ah, life's pleasantries."

This is it.

So this is it.  I started this blog for my Technology Course and now it’s almost over.  Thus, we all know that it is the duty of the last post to look back and review.

What have I learned?

1)      I learned how little I know.  There’s a vast amount of fun, educational technology tools out there.  I can’t use all of them at this point, but with unlimited accessibility, the sky is the limit. Did you know there are actually little boxes hidden throughout the world that you can find using the location coordinates and a GPS.  There’s even one in Wuhan somewhere.  How fun!

2)      Technology doesn’t have to be difficult.  Even with what is easily available at WYIS, we can use technology to encourage creativity in the students and excite them about learning.

3)      My PLN is invaluable.  A PLN is a Personal Learning Network.  I have connected to several useful blogs and the information and ideas I receive from them are so helpful and fun.  I know there is hope for me to keep caught up with changes by following these blogs.  By the way, if you have a blog that I don't know about, please comment. I want to follow you:)

What has changed?

1)      I want to use technology in unique and fun ways in my class.

2)      I regularly use Google Reader to stay connected with my PLN (and of course, family and friend blogs).

3)      I’m a little less reluctant to be creative with technology.

Goodbye to this course is not goodbye to technology...or this blog, so keep reading :)