Holiday over

The week long National Day holiday is over now. It was nice to relax but also get a little work done. One day I rode around the city taking pictures (http://picasaweb.google.com/simachangbin); another day I rode with some friends to a park; I got a little frisbee in, watched some movies, read a little, and did some lesson planning. Oh, I also played with Calvin a lot. We play rough; I've got quite a few scratches on my arms.

Back in the classroom

Today was my first class, the sophomore oral English class. It was a fun and relaxing first class, much of the time being spent getting familiar with each other. They responded well to my questions; many students spoke up in the class. Hopefully that isn't just a "first class" anomaly but will continue the whole semester. They seem like a great group of kids.

Calvin keeps eating, growing, and being more hyperactive. He discovered the glory of playing with a pen / pencil on the tile floor. It's quite entertaining to watch him. He prefers laying on the dirty floor instead of on his blanket, so sometimes he looks more gray than white.

I need to plan some literature lessons.

surprise

I'm back in good ole Hohhot now. The past summer was a splendid time, a time of seeing friends and family, riding my bike, reading, relaxing, and enjoying nice, little, American amenities.

I've seen a few students since being back, but not many. I will teach two classes of Senior Writing, one class of American Literature (also seniors), and one sophomore Oral English class. Right now is the second week of class, and the seniors don't start their classes until the fifth week because they have a teaching practicum up to that point. In other words, I only teach the one oral English class for the next three weeks, and then my full schedule begins. The literature class is packed into ten weeks, so it will end a few weeks before the other classes. Unfortunately that puts more pressure on me to try to cover all the essentials of American Literature in a short time. There's so much I want to teach them but so little time.

Since I don't have many classes right now I'm spending my time planning, trying to get ahead. I'm also taking time to ride my bicycle when the weather is nice - like today: clear, sunny, breezy, and 72.

Thanks to one of my students, I have a kitten now! I was planning on getting one, and the day I arrived in Hohhot one of my senior students called me and said she had bought a cat and wants me to take care of it. He's a little over one month old. The first few days I had him he was sick, always throwing up his food half an hour after eating. A student and I took him to the vet, where they gave him a shot. Since then he's been much better, improving every day. He recently started playing by himself; he's much more active. I named him Calvin. He better grow up to be a cool cat; otherwise, I'm definitely throwing him out. Just kidding.

Home

I'm home. All my grading did indeed get done. And I got a 50 mile bike ride in before I left.
Here are some pictures of my classes. More to come later.

students

Seniors
Junior Science 2 (writing)
Junior Science 1 (literature)
Junior Art 1 (literature)

unfortunate

It's been a while. Unfortunately, the situation has reverted and I can no longer view my own blog again. I'll give a quick update, though.

This is my last week of teaching. Next week is exams. I fly home on July 4.
I'm glad lesson planning is done with; now I just have to get all the grading under control. I've graded four of six senior research papers (each about 25 pages); I have twenty eight journal notebooks to peruse and mark; this Thursday and Friday my 70 literature students will hand in papers; and then next week the literature and writing exams to grade. The exams will be relatively easy to grade, though.

It's been cloudy for the last week and the last two days it's been rainy. The rain is great because it cools everything down. My apartment doesn't have AC, so it can get pretty warm when it's sunny and hot out. I'm not going to lie, though - I really miss the sun. Ever since I got my bike the weather has been cloudy, not sunny. Oh well. I can't have everything I want. Maybe if I complain about it more it will help things.

The opening ceremony of the sports meet. The 3rd flagpole is the one that fell over; it fell in the direction the wind is blowing (go figure). I'm taking a picture from the section where my students are sitting.











The tire race. Rollin' rollin' rollin'....keep them tires rollin'...






The designer styling her model's hair.






You can't see them all, but designers are on the left, models on the right.

another 'nother week

A lot has happened in a week. First, my college had its annual sports meet. My teammates and I went to the opening ceremony. It lasts two days, so the next day I dropped by as well, but I came right as they were letting out for lunch; I did happen to catch the tire push race, though. That was cool. On Thursday it was so windy one of the flagpoles got blown over. I wasn't there, but my students were sitting near the pole; it didn't fall on anyone, but came close.
I used those two days off - Thursday and Friday - to shop for a bike. I finally bought one. I've been long overdue for having a bike. I'll probably only have time to ride twice a week - maybe three times if I'm lucky - but that's better than nothing. I bought my bike at a tiny little place near several other bike stores. A little ways down the road from the shop where I bought my bike, however, is the town's nicest bike shop - they have nice parts, components, clothing, and other accessories. So the day after I bought my bike I rode it to the nice bike shop and bought some necessities - pump, helmet, computer, etc. - and by the time the shoes and pedals I ordered arrive I'll have spent more money on bike accessories than on the bike itself. Funny how that happens.
On Sunday the school had a fashion show of sorts. It was cool but long. There were fifteen models - three sets of five. Two sets modeled shirts designed by students, the other dresses. After the initial modeling, the designers had twenty minutes to cosmeticize their model - put on make-up, style their hair, etc... After the models showed off their new and improved look, the designers had to answer two questions. Then the designer and model came out together for one last showing. I liked around four of the fifteen models / designs. Some were pretty crazy.

This week in literature class we're doing my favorite - George Herbert. Unfortunately, I don't think I did a stellar job explaining one of the poems I had my students read - "Redemption." Later this week we'll do another Herbert poem and begin Paradise Lost. Good stuff.

My senior students have three days to turn in their research paper. One of them turned in her second draft today, so I need to finish reading that as quickly as I can and give it back to her. Another student gave me her draft last Friday, so I read it over and discussed it with her today. Then tonight she handed me her final draft! She wanted to get it done so she can go home for a while before returning to give her oral presentation in mid-June.

It rained here today! I think that might be the third or fourth time since I returned from winter vacation. I'm not exactly sure.

Try the link to the cat story. I think I fixed it.

Another week

I guess another week has passed. Funny how that happens. It's been more of the same here. On Saturday my friend Jed (he teaches at the Teacher's University down the street) and I threw the frisbee around on my university's soccer field. It was a lot of fun, but quite challenging, considering the wind was around 15-25mph. There were a lot of students there practicing a performance for the upcoming sports meet (it's this Thursday and Friday), so while they were taking a break some of them came over, intrigued by the strange flying discs we were throwing. We threw the frisbees around with them for a while, though I use the term "threw" loosely. It can take some people a while to get the hang of it.

As I mentioned, the sports meeting is this week, so we don't have classes on those days. We don't have to make up the classes either, which can be good and bad. We don't have that many weeks of class left.

This week in literature we're doing John Donne's "The Flea" and "Holy Sonnet 10." Most of the students got it today. It's hard to explain the complex metaphors and paradoxes.

I need to look over one of my seniors' research papers.

KTV

at KTV







sing it






two sweet pairs of shoes, if I may say so

in the classroom

just look at how studious they are!
writing a test for Romeo and Juliet








think!

Has it been a month?

Wow. I don't know what has happened in the last month.
Romeo and Juliet. We did the play in my literature classes. The students had to perform some sections of the play. Some groups did an amazing, hilarious, creative, and wonderful job. It was fun to watch.

This next week we'll be doing John Donne and George Herbert. I'm so excited!!

We had this past week off of school for China's Labor Day. I didn't do much except grading. I had all my classes turn in papers the Thursday and Friday before our break, so I had about 95 papers (all essays - one class of writing essays and two classes of literature essays) to grade. I finally finished them last night (it took about 5 days in all). Now I just have to look at the research paper my senior students recently gave me. I'm advising three seniors as they write their research paper; the papers are about 16-20 pages long, so I need to get started on those now. Fun fun fun (it actually is; I enjoy grading - it's just that it's a little time consuming. But hey, I'll do anything for the kids).

I did do some sight-seeing yesterday with some sophomore students (though I don't teach them this semester). My teammate and I also went to KTV to sing songs with some of our junior students. That was a lot of fun. I love doing that; I love trying to sing the Chinese songs. I honestly don't know a lot of the American songs. The selection is slightly random.

I recently discovered that I can now view my own blog! I'll try to do better about updating it.

take care,
.....marty

Kitty

I love cats. Click on the link; it's a great story!

Lunacy

The moon kindly positioned itself outside my porch window a few nights ago.

Strange

I can edit my blog but not view it. Well, I can preview it from the editing page, but I can't actually go to it. Fun.

In with the new

Hopefully this will work for a while. We'll see.