Mei Laoshi hao! 梅老师好!

I've been working in China for one week now. I know, I never mentioned it to some of you. My mother knows, seeing as I called her frantically, feeling super overwhelmed after my first day of class. So a week ago last Thursday, I got a phone call from a preschool asking me to come in for an interview. I went thinking that's all it would be. Instead, it turned out to be more of an on-the-spot orientation, with me sitting there thinking, "wait, wait, I haven't even said yes yet!" So I walked out of there with an assignment to teach English lessons to seven preschool classes daily for the next two weeks. And with no lesson plans or materials. And it was to start the next day. Time to start stressing out. As Eric can tell you- I am very good at that. This is where the frantic emails and phone call to my mother came in (who is an amazing elementary school teacher).

That first day was definitely hard. Each class is only 15-20 minutes but who knew 15 minutes could ever feel that long?! Add to everything the fact that I speak next to no Chinese. Really. None. So here I am, standing in front of 20 toddlers and their teachers, none of whom I can communicate with. For the first couple of days, I made a huge vocabulary list with words and phrases that would help me in communicating what I was saying and wanted them to do. That tactic didn't seem to quite work. Either I would forget all the words I had just memorized or they would not understand me when I said them. That first day I came home feeling like I was going to cry.

But, as all things do, it got better, The children seemed to actually get excited when I came and the teachers began to at least attempt to communicate with me. Today as I left the last class, three or four of the little girls ran up to give me hugs. And every time I enter a classroom the children yell out, "Mei laoshi! Mei loashi hao!" (Teacher Mei! Hello Teacher Mei!) Teacher Mei is what they call me since Kiersten was way too hard for them to say. The kids are really adorable. There is this one boy in one of my classes who, every time I ask or say anything, gets a huge smile on his face and shouts, "Bu zhi dao!" (I dont know!) Its really cute.

It's been interesting working here. Definitely different than in America. For example, the lunch breaks here are super long. Its not uncommon for places to close for a couple hours during lunch time. But do I get a two hour lunch break? Oh, no, I get FOUR hours. Why they think I need four hours to eat lunch I don't know. All I know is that it means that I am stuck at this place that is close to absolutely nothing and way to far for going home. But the children must have their nap I suppose.

This next week is China National day. Everyone is required to get eight days off from school/work. But as we have discovered, this is not like normal vacation in the states. Here, you have to make up some of those days that they 'give' you off. What that means is that today- Sunday- I had to go into work and the Saturday after the break the teachers have to go in to work again. Isn't that crazy? I would much rather have six real days off instead of the eight.

But besides those few oddities, it hasn't been that bad. It's been fun actually. I've been able to relearn some of the little kid songs that I haven't sung in years and I get to jump around in front of cute little Chinese kids and pretend like they are getting an English lesson out of it. And they pay me for it. :)