Rent and such…

So this morning I woke up early because my landlord was coming over to collect rent. He is a nice guy but it was a bit painful because over here you pay rent 3 months at a time. On the up side he consolidated our payments and had us pay him for gas and water for the last 3 months. I was really pleased with how little that was. So far I have paid about $50 total for utilities (Gas, Water and Electric). For 3 months I feel like that is good.

Lets see, the internet in my apartment has been out for a week so I have ended up spend a lot more time at school because I cannot work at home. I have started taking Chinese classes at school because I felt like I was progressing too slowly on my own. I am going 2 times a day and then am doing private tutoring 2 times a week. I am starting to feel a little more confident after just a week.

I had kind of a bad week with some parts getting better at the end and others getting worse. I got told that I might not get my passport back in time to go home for Christmas (it is at the police station getting my visa changed) but then I got the great news yesterday that they think I should get it on the 19th after expediting the process. Another bad thing that happened, while grading homework I found that for one of my students, copying someone else’s homework was just too tedious and cumbersome so he had broken into the copy room and made a photocopy of someone’s homework that he then turned in for my to grade. I was very upset and gave both students Zeros on the assignment. I began to realize just how widespread this cheating problem is yesterday when I was giving a test. I have 2 versions of the test because my room is so small I can not separate. Every other student has a different test. Yesterday I watched as one student held up their test so that another student could copy their answers and then trade tests with the person next to them to complete his test. I could not believe what I was seeing but I decided not to stop them and then I gave them all zeros for academic dishonesty.

I am getting observed in that class next week which could be interesting. Anyways, I am going to continue preping for my lessons next week so I can do well (students willing) on my observation.

In Case you Thought I was Dead

Well, I feel like I have not had the time to post anything here in a long time. I thought of it today after I got a little ahead on lesson planning and thought I would put up at least something. When I got into the program I use to write my blogs I found one that I had started about a month ago that was half finished and made no sense.

Lets see, a lot of what I have been up to lately has been school work. I have been pushing my Chemistry students really hard and we are about to finish Chapter 10 of a 24 chapter book. I guess I will have to start thinking about what we are going to do when the end of June comes around and we are out of book.

This past week the school celebrated Thanksgiving with the “Festival of Nations.” Each of the Advisories was assigned a country (my kids got Argentina) and we had to turn our classrooms into the embodiment of  that country. I found it really stressful because none of my kids wanted to do any work for it because it was not a graded activity. Finally I told them the principle was coming around to judge and I was not going to do the work for them. We did get something done in the end but lets just say we did not win any of the awards.

I got to talk to family on Thanksgiving (Midwest time) which was really great. I am really looking forward to getting home at Christmas to see everyone. and then I spent the rest of my long weekend in bed with the flu. Not the most fun but at least it happened when I didn’t have to take one of my 5 sick leave days.

Hopefully I will find some time to post some more happenings soon but for now I need to get to bed.

The Great Wall and Beyond

Hello everyone,

Again it seems that I have gotten a bit busy and behind in my blogging. I am going to post links to a bunch of pictures from the last few weeks to help update you all on what I have been up to. First is some random ones including the pictures from field day.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dignst01/RandomChina

http://picasaweb.google.com/dignst01/FieldDay

Field day was basically a giant track meet and our team really cleaned up. I was really proud. One of the teacher put together a really great video that I am trying to get a hold of so I can put it up hear so you can all watch.

The day after field day was National day (happy 61^st birthday China) and one of my co-workers, Stu, hired a van and a bunch of us went out to the great wall here are the pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/dignst01/GreatWall

It was a really great time. I plan on going to a couple of other places on the wall but I really liked the part I went to and feel it is a great one to start at because it is not the part that has been extensively repaired and really fits my image of what the Great Wall should be like. I am going to try to get to the section that is here in Beijing (maybe next weekend) which is repaired quite a bit so that it is “how it used to be.”

Then there was a regular week of classes nothing too exciting. I gave a test. After that it was time for our delayed golden week (golden week is the week that follows national day). The first day of break, I went down to Wodaoko for a surprise birthday party for Laura planned by her husband Stu. We went to a placed called Grandma’s Kitchen and had an American style brunch. It was a really good taste of home. The best part was watching Philip, the Chinese staff that helped me get my apartment, eating with a fork for the first. He claimed that it was much harder then eating with chopsticks. That night I was able to talk to some Luther people on their way to home coming. It was really strange to think about homecoming and not being there.

Sunday I went back to the electronics mart with someone who needed to get a USB thumb drive. I really enjoy it over there and like wonder in it and see what they have to offer. Anyways, the friend I brought with me (he had never been) found a USB drive for 100 RMB (about $14) and I thought it was a great deal so I decided to get one as I had been thinking that I could use one. They ran my card but instead of hitting the 0 button on the machine, they accidently hit the 00 button charging me $1500 or at least they would have if the credit card company had put the out of country notice on my card like I had asked them to. Instead they had put it on only on my debt card and so the purchase flagged the fraud prevention and stopped the purchase. I then got angry with the woman selling me the USB drive and got her to give it to me for half the price so 2 failures (credit card company and stall worker) ended up with a really great deal.

I then stayed up late watching coverage of the Chicago Marathon and looking for texts of when my sister passed major milestones. I was so proud when she finished that I had trouble getting to sleep but as I needed to get up at 3 AM the next day I tried my best.

Monday, I got to the school at 3:30 AM to commence my role as school trip chaperone to Inner Mongolia. I should have know it was going to be interesting when the other chaperones started arguing with the volunteers organizing the trip but I stayed optimistic. That optimism faded slowly throughout the trip. One chaperone immediately accused them of violating the contract that I know he never read so how did he know that? Overall, I really enjoyed the trip. It was a little disorganized but the kids were mostly good and once I tuned out the wining teachers I enjoyed it.

The trip was switched to be by bus instead of train last minute and as a result, all the Chinese kids dropped out of the trip. We all thought they were over reacting until we got on the road. We had a van and a bus and I was riding in the van. There were many portions of the trip that I literally had my hands over my eyes. We were zig-zaging between semis and using the shoulder as a lane. All the the roads are tollways that can get kind of pricey so there were portions that we left the highway to use side roads. At one point we ended up on a dirt road dodging semis as we looked down the side of a mountain. I really was thankful to get home alive.

We spent the first night in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia at a traditional yurt village. They served us bijio (moon shine) as we got out of the vehicles as part of a traditional welcoming ceremony and we were told that if we refused it would be really offensive to our hosts so all of our kids had some alcohol. Not sure how that will go over with mom and dad… Then they gave us a traditional meal of roast goat (I didn’t eat any) and we had a bonfire while they played us some music. I slept in an unheated yurt which got very cold when it dipped below freezing that night. In the morning we rode horses (they were small and more like ponies) in the grasslands.

We then drove across Inner Mongolia to the edge of the dessert with a stop at a factory that made all things Mongolian for a tour and shopping spree. At the dessert we got in some vehicles that reminded me of sand cruisers from Star Wars and went speeding across the dunes to where we could ride some camels and go Dune sledding.

After the dessert we dinned and slept in a four star hotel but I am unsure how it got its rating seeing as I did not even have hot water. The next day we explored Ordos, a city with only 3% occupancy. China seems to have taken a field of dreams approach to the city but he has not yet come. We saw Asia’s largest musical fountain (it wasn’t on) and Genghis Khan’s Mausoleum before heading back to Beijing.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dignst01/InnerMongolia

Well, that is all I have for now. I hope all of you are doing well back home. Congratulations to my amazing sister for completing a Marathon. I am so proud I keep telling anyone who will listen. 

Catch UP

I must apologize for my long hiatus but thing have been crazy/I was sick. I would like to start with prayer request; my grandmother, Kay, was in the hospital again this week with more complications with her hip. If you can, please remember her.

Let’s see, I have not posted in something like 3 weeks so there is a lot to put up. I will start with the weekends and then go into classes. I went to the Silicon Valley of Beijing, Zhongguancun, a few weekends ago. My roommate wants to get a netbook and I wanted to get an idea prices on electronics here. There are 4 huge malls 7 or 8 stories high filled with small stalls selling everything electric; cell phones, cameras, computers, computer parts, full size copier machines… I have been thinking about getting a IBM Thinkpad Tablet because of how useful the one I used in Singapore was far teaching so I started bartering with a guy for one. He started at 22,000 RMB and I talked him down to 9000 and I think I could have gotten the guy next to him even lower because his only had vista instead of 7 on it. In the end I felt really bad walking away after I had made the guy work so hard bartering. From there we went to CarreFour, basically the French version of Wal-Mart and I was able to find breakfast cereal which has basically made my every morning since then.

Last weekend I got up early Saturday to meet some other teachers (who were late) at the school and then we went downtown to the embassy area and to an expat hang-out area. I found a few DVD stores and got some great deals. Basically it is about $1 a DVD so I got the entire series of West Wing, some random movies and then Planet Earth (to show in class because the kid are studying biomes right now). We also ate brunch at an American Restaurant (kind of like eating at a Chinese Restaurant in America). I had French Toast. It was not quite the same as back home but it was still really good. We went back to one of the other teachers apartment and watched The Blind Side. Sunday, I did a bunch of planning for the week and then went downtown to where Ben (another teacher) lives and he help me to buy a bike. It is a Chinese bike but a nice one with fenders and not a fixed gear. I looked at the Giant store but they were a lot more expensive (I got mine for like $85 and they adjusted it and threw in a bike lock). I then biked it back home and it felt really good to get a really good ride in (I have not biked that far since like…last spring).

This weekend I was getting over the flu so I did not get out as much. I skyped with my parents yesterday which was really nice. I was starting to really miss home (I thing being sick contributed to that) and seeing faces (before the internet connection got bad) and hearing voices from home boasted my spirits greatly. Then I waited around for the cleaning lady to come. She had to come in the evening because of holidays this week (I will explain further down). It is really funny to be here when she is here because we barely understand each other. I am reminded of the English guy and Portuguese women from Love Actually but with out the love interest part (she is at least 20 years older then me). Once she was done, I met up with some people in Wuduoko for Korean Barbeque (well I didn’t eat the BBQ but others did). I took the bus by myself and was really proud of myself but then it got dark and started raining and I could not see my landmarks so I got off about a mile early and so I jogged the last part.

Today, I slept in and then my roommate and I went downtown to the Old Beijing area and then planned to walk over to Tien Amen but walked the wrong way, then the right way a block the wrong way and ended up in the forbidden city (don’t worry it is not forbidden anymore as long as you pay the entrance fee) anyway I walked around that and never got to Tien Amen square like I planned, maybe next week.

Classes have been going really well. Thursday I had someone give the first test in my Chemistry class (someone else because that was the day I was out sick with the flu). The average was little lower then I would have liked but I think a lot of it was problems with the English not content. I am trying to think of ways that I can overcome that. Wednesday/Thursday this week were Mid-Autumn Festival which I missed a lot of the celebration of because of being sick but I did get to eat some good and not so good moon cakes. The Chinese school we are attached to had both days off and as a result had school on Saturday and Sunday which is why the cleaning lady who cleans and the school could not come until the evening.

I feel like I have more to say but I need to get the powerpoint for tomorrow’s class done so I will end here. Hope you are all doing well.

Drivers in Beijing

I am going to focus this post on drivers in Beijing.

They are crazy. I cannot believe how they drive. That said, yesterday was the first time I saw an accident. I went with Nick and his wife to IKEA yesterday so that I could get a desk chair for my room. It is kind of a drive from the school and it was more or less rush hour. An observation I made the first day I was here and I still think seems to be true is that the larger thing always has the right of way here. But by largest thing I don't mean actual size. Whoever acts the biggest has the right of way. Pedestrians have no rights but if you act like a car or better yet a 2 ton military truck, you can walk wherever you want. The important part is holding your hand in a certain way that says stop or I will run you over. My favorite is cars will use this commandeer one of the lanes going the opposite way.

That is another thing I have noticed about drivers; there are no real lanes. They come and go randomly and most of the time are shared between many impatient cars. Even with all of this craziness, like I said, I have only seen one car accident. The drivers are aggressive but they are also aggressively defensive. It is a matter of pride to be a "safe" driver. If you get into a cab and put on your seat belt the driver gets really offended because you do not trust him as a driver. Welp, I am going to finish up my lesson plans for next week. It has been a good first week, long and tiring but I finally felt today like I can teach these students.

On a side note, here are some pictures of my apartment:

http://picasaweb.google.com/dignst01/ChineseApartment#

Start of School

Well, I just finished my third day of classes. Overall, I really like all the kids. They are really quite which is strange to me and hard to get used to. I have 2 chemistry classes and 2 general science middle school classes. In chemistry I have tried to dive in, getting through the first chapter this afternoon and then working on lab safety stuff tomorrow. They want us to do some pretesting to get a base line so I am planning on doing that on Friday, rounding out a great first week. The General Science I have been a little slower in the reason being that the 7th period one became the dumping ground for ESL students. The class swelled from 3 students to 22 and today I got a level one ESL student (there are three levels and then the students reamed.)

OK, I am really tired so this whole post has been so scatterbrained so here in the middle of it I am going to apologize.

My first class is Chemistry with 12 students, the second is General Science with 7 and then the third is Chemistry again with 11. I then get a break until 7th period where I have the class I already described.

The Other teachers here are really great. I am going out with them in a little while to grab some dinner. I really enjoy spending time with them. Tomorrow I am going to go on an IKEA run and I am going to try to get a chair for my desk.

So, I was trying to be really clever when I came up with the title on my blog. I the inspiration from a website for expats in Beijing called the beijinger. The only problem is that today I was looking around and I found out there is a guy blogging under the same name. Now I feel really unoriginal. That is all.

Alright, I am really not doing well with the concentrating thing so I will leave it here. Hope everyone back home is great. I miss you all

Random Stories

So I don’t have internet yet (the guy comes this afternoon) so I am writing this in word to post later. It feels like I am Creed from the office. The episode where Ryan helps him to set up a blog but does think idea are fit for the internet. Anyway…

I figure I would type up a few stories that happened while I have been settling in.

Story 1: Getting an Apartment. The group of new teacher got taken out by various members of the Chinese staff to look at apartments (so they could negotiate the contract for us). Personally I looked at 9 different apartments that ranged from gross and in disrepair to amazing but outside my price range. After looking at the only single bedroom place the realtor could find, Alessio and I decided to room together. There is one that we really like and thought was a great deal since it was only 3200 RMB a month and our stipend is 3000 RMB each. We told Phillip that we would like to rent it and he set up an signing appointment. Then we got to the meeting and the landlady had thought that she was renting to the female teacher who had seen the place with us and did not rent it to us because we would be too messy. The situation was made even more awkward when she offered it to the couple who had come along to the meeting with us because they were going to see another apartment after. After much arguing I did not understand, Phillip got us the apartment.

Story 2: Moving in. I had been living at the school for a few days when, to save money, the school put another new arrival in the same room as me. He snored really loud. Therefore when we got t apartment I wanted to move out right away so I could get a good night sleep. I packed up all my stuff back into my bags (One giant rolling duffle bag that is exactly the maximum size allowed by the airline, one rolling suitcase, a medium size duffle bag and a backpack) and went to try to get a cab with Alessio who had about the same amount of luggage. None of the cab drivers would have us because they thought we wanted to go to the airport in the middle of rush traffic. Finally we convinced one that we only wanted to go down the street using a great deal of hand waving and pointing but just when we thought we had him ready he drove off. Frustrated we started walking the three quarter miles to our apartment (looking like fools dragging all our stuff.) We go about a block when the cab driver we thought had left us showed up again with a second cab right behind him. It turns out that he had gone to get another cab so that all our stuff would fit. This brings me to an observation: if this had been America, they would have been complaining about how we didn’t speak English but instead the people here try there best to help us.

Story 3: Cleaning Lady. The apartment we moved into had not been lived in for 3 years so it was disgustingly dirty. I was thinking that we would just clean it but Alessio wanted to hire a cleaning lady. We asked Phillip about it and found out she would only charge 15 RMB and hour (about $2) so we have hired a cleaning lady to come once a week and clean. We did not have any cleaning supplies so through Phillip we told her to buy whatever supplies she need and we would pay her back. She showed up yesterday with 1 bottle of soap and 3 rags costing 4.5 RMB. It took her 5 hours to clean because it was so disgusting but the placing is amazingly spotless. I think she did not want to spend out money though so I am going to get her a broom and mop for next week.

Story 4: Toilet. The first morning we were here, Alessio came out of the bathroom with the report that the toilet had backed up. I went in and said we should go and get a plunger. Alessio says that he does not think a plunger will cut it and that it needs to me snaked. He has experience working construction and doing pluming and all that so I figure he knows what he is talking about. The next day we have Phillip call the landlord who calls us a plumber who comes with a plunger and fixes the toilet. I bought us a plunger.

I think that is all the stories for now.

I am here.

I will start off with a post summing up what I have been doing since I got here.

As most of you know I made it to my job in Beijing and have been getting settled in to the school, preparing lesson plans and what-not.

I went and got my government issued physical on Tuesday. It involved a blood test, ultrasound, chest x-ray, ECG, vision test, blood pressure, height, weight, and some other tests. Good news is I was deemed physically fit enough to be in China. With that out of the way, I can apply for permanent resident status; hopefully soon.

Two days ago I signed on an apartment. I will be sharing a 90 square meter (almost 1000 square feet) apartment with a fellow teacher, Allessio. He is an interesting guy who was born in Rome and then spent his life bouncing between Rome and New York. The place is about 3/4 of a mile from the school and a 1/4 mile the nearest grocery store (Wu Mart).

OK, I need to get focused and finish up the syllabus so that will be it for now.