Lesson Up in Smoke

So to start the day off with an adrenaline boost, I exited my room this morning in search of the vacuum cleaner to clean the apartment for my new roomie who will be arriving tomorrow and I am greeted with a meek “hello” that made me jump about three feet in the air and wonder if my heart was still lodged firmly in my chest. I guess they forgot to tell me that my new roommate was actually moving in today. Shelley, the name of my morning heart attack, is very nice. She will only be here for a few days, but we have talked a bit and it seems that she is a University computers teacher who is looking for a job. Her boyfriend works for EF which is why she is temporarily living with me (somehow this works in Chinese logic, but I am still a bit foggy on the details). So that is the roommate status folks.

Now to the title of the post. I went into work today at noon (I didn’t have a class until 6:15) because I had to open a new bank account so my first pay check (wow, I’ve been here almost a month!) is coming at the end of the week, and the lady who helps us set them up could only help me at noon.

I could go off onto the story of how a few weeks ago I discovered that my ATM card had been stolen/gone missing and had to close my account and have been living with all my cash in a stack in my dresser drawer, but I will leave this run on sentence as the only discriptor of that incident.

Anyway, went into work early, got account settled, and I still had a HUGE amount of time before I had to teach my class. So, been a good dedicated person like I am, I started working on my lesson plan for class. It was my first time with a group of 4-6 year-olds and after purusing the past records of this particular bunch I realized that they were working on animals, colors, shapes, the usual kindergarten things.

In a momentary flash of genius I decided to use the book “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See” as the lesson’s central element because of how nicely it ties in with colors, animals, and the grammar point of “I see a ...” which is the next thing the class is to study. Smiling at my ingenuity, I spent the next few hours patting myself on the back at coming up with such a cohesive solution and constructing a completely illegal version of Eric Carle’s book (please forgive me oh copyright people, isn’t there a clause exempting people from punishment if it is for academic purposes???).

So as my class draws closer, I am putting the finishing touches on the book. I have recreated the text, located pictures, printed the pages, colored them by hand (we only have bw capability), backed the pages on stiffer paper, and am just sending them through the laminator when smoke starts issuing from the laminator. This is when I realize that my paper isn’t coming out of the other side. I go to put the machine in reverse when one of the Chinese monitors comes in, sees the smoke, and panics and turns the machine off so my paper is left on fire in the machine. I force the machine back on and wrench the paper out, but by now my “Black Sheep, Black Sheep, what do you see?” is all brown and crinkled, and my sweet lesson has literally gone up in smoke. After switching off the offending machine, I turned back to my desk faced with 10 minutes in which to recreate an entire lesson for a class I have never taught before. This is when another monitor comes in and decides to yell at me for breaking the laminator (I didn't do anything wrong, this is a typical occurrence here, I have seen three machines blow up since I got here, so lay off it missy), and the missing evaluation sheet I have been asking for all week is miraculously found and thrust upon me.

In the end we did a lot of unconnected review activities which the kids thought were the best thing since sliced bread and I managed to accomplish my main objective which was to get a feel for the class and assess their level and how much they remembered from before their weeklong vacation.

The rest of the evening continued through a Life Club with adults about “Things that annoy us.” I would like to state for the record that yes, it really does irk me (one of our phrases) when no less than 12 cell phones go off during my class, which is only an hour long. It’s called “vibrate” folks, learn to use it. I also got to meet the new teacher, Andrew, from Texas (I’m no longer the newbie!!!!), and see a procession carrying leafy branches and an orange paper-mâché bull walking across the 6 lane busy street on my way home. No, I can’t explain the bull. Go China!