Well I'm at school right now. It's 8:27 on Wednesday morning and I'm about to start class. Luckily they do journal for the first 15 minutes so I can update my blog. This is the best part of class because it is the only time the kids are actually quiet. I can't believe I only have three days left of teaching. I'm actually kind of glad because the kids are getting restless which makes teaching a big pain in the butt.
So last Sunday Ally and I decided to go to the late English service at the big church here. It is about 1500 people and starts at 11:30. We had gone to the church before with Becky and Tim but had gone to the 9:30 Bilingual service with only 200 people. We got there a little early so we could get a seat and all of a sudden who did I see but Lauren Hart! Wayne Barnard from ACU has brought a group of 10 ACU students up here to work in an orphanage and then all of a sudden there they were at church. Lauren is one of my friends that was here and so that was a nice surprise on sunday. After church we got to take Lauren and her sister Julie, who is also here, out to eat and then back to our side of Beijing where we showed them a fun shopping market. After that we put them in a taxi so they could head out to the pearl market.
Anyways this last week has been pretty busy so far with everything going on and I'm ready for the weekend. On Sunday my family will be here so that will be a nice break from everything. Hopefully my plan is that while they do all the sightseeing thigns I have already done I will just stay at the hotel, sleep in, and relax since I have not slept past 7:30 since I have been here. Side story: Sun keeps scratching his butt today and when I say scratching his butt I mean hand down the pants and everything. Gross. Just thought I would share that. Today I am meeting up with Ally's class so I will hopefully get a picture of the whole class so that I can post that soon and Ally and I took pictures on our bikes this morning so also something to come soon.
Last thing: who is owldog1? Someone who has commented on my blog but I'm not sure who that is. Thanks.

The worst day of our lives!

Well Ally and I have been planning for awhile that today (saturday) we would go to the Foridden City. We have been looking forward to it because that is one of the main things people talk about seeing in China. Let me just tell you about our day.
We decided to sleep in till about 8 and start our day off a little later than normal. We were excited because we could pick up the bus right outside our apartment complex so we didn't have to walk anywhere. We got on the bus and it was extremely crowded. Now we have been on some crowded buses but not like this. This was okay and so we just stood on the bus for about an hour. As soon as we stepped off the bus we started walking in what we thought was the general direction to the Forbidden City. All of a sudden this girl, Lin, started talking to us. She was a student at the University and for awhile we just thought she must be practicing her English on us (which people do alot). So we let her walk with us and she asked us where we were going. We told her the Forbidden City and asked her to point us in the direction. She informed us she was going there too so she would walk with us. Then she tells us that this is the Art Festival right now and she was a painter so would we mind looking at her work. We said okay because we thought well it is on the way that is fine. 20 minutes later we go up to her studio and she trys to sell us paintings at a ridiculously high price. Well we are somewhat offended because we are thinking we bought some of these already for like 1/10 of that price, no way are we paying that. So 30 minutes and 2 paintings later we finally are able to escape and she points us in the right direction. So we walk for about 30 minutes and realize we have no idea where we are. It has now been 2 hours since we got off the bus and we are hungry for lunch. We decide to go back to where we started because we saw a mcdonalds there.
So we eat lunch and then call our friends who have already gone and they tell us which way to go. We start off and not even 15 minutes after we started walking another girl comes up to us and starts talking. Now don't ask how we fell into the same trap because we have no idea either. She walks with us and is just talking away telling us about the history of China and showing us some really neat things along the way. She walked us through the garden and then all of a sudden we were on this side street. So I ask her "Are you sure this is the way to the Forbidden City?" And she is like "Oh yes just down this street" Then all of a sudden we are at her store and she is a painter too!!!! We were angry now and got out of there quickly. So finally 3 1/2 hours after exiting the bus we finally made it to the Forbidden City. By now we had been in two shops, gotten lost twice, and eaten lunch. Our feet were killing us and we were dripping in sweat. Not fun so far. So we see this big Chinese looking building and assume we are in the right place. We don't know because there were absolutely no signs that said Forbidden City or Tianemen Square. So we see a place to buy tickets and just decide to buy it and assume what we are doing is right. By now we are in bad moods and tired and hot. So we get in the Palace Museum and rush through everything because now we don't even care we just want to go some place cool and sit down. So Forbidden City turned out to be a bust. Then we went and rested for ahwile before getting back on the bus. So we are on the bus and it is even more crowded than before which we had not thought was possible. Now here comes the worst part for me. So we are standing there for another hour and we are all in annoyed moods but trying to make the best of it by joking about our day. We get off the bus and I check my bag because we stopped at a restuarant and my camera is GONE! It got stolen on the bus! I mean there is no way it just fell out of my bag so that is the only logical explanation and I would not have felt it because everyone is touching you on there! So now we sit down and I'm about to cry because all my pictures are lost and my camera and I just bought a new memory card and everything for the trip so I could fit all my pictures on there.
So to sum up the day, it wasn't our best day here.

Temple of Heaven

Well I know it's been a long time since I last posted but the internet at our apartment has been having problems.

This past Thursday we finally went to the Temple of Heaven. The gardens are beautiful there and at one part there was this really old lady singing in Chinese and this other lady dancing with a fan. Neither of them were talented in this area and so it was hilarious. I took a video but blogger won't let me upload it which is too bad because it is really good. Anyways it was so hot that day and the Chinese females always use umbrellas to shade themselves on the hot days. Well it was supposed to rain that morning so I had come prepared wtih my umbrella. I decided to go Chinese and use it to shade the sun and while everyone else got burned I didn't even sweat that bad. I think Americans should really consider the use of the umbrella on sunny days. After that we decided to make another stop at the pearl market because they are right across from each other. And if we rode for an hour on the bus why would we not go while we were there. The main reason we went was because Ally had gotten a list of things her mom wanted her to buy for their relatives. I told Ally I wasn't going to buy anything and so I would just sit with her while she picked stuff out. Well about 2 hours later I had bought 11 necklaces and 2 rings!!! Ok try to hold your judgement because some of them are gifts and some are for me. Also they were all really cheap and I figure I will never have the chance to buy real pearls for so cheap again so I better get everything I will ever want right now.

Last wednesday we had an extra long snack period because it was raining and we couldn't go to the playground. Well my kids were getting kind of rowdy and I kept having to calm them down because they were being so loud. I was sitting at my desk talking to a few of the girls when one of the more shy boys, Edwin, came up to me. This was what he whispered to me, "Teacher, Paul touch me down there." Now you should know that Paul is the kid in my class that I borderline hate. As soon as he told me this I was like, "oh gosh, what am I suppossed to do with that!?" So I called Paul over and talked to him and right in the middle of me talking to him he just starts walking away. Now this is not uncommon for korean students. I don't understand it and it just makes me mad so they get punished worse. I sent a note home to his parents just saying that Paul is not obeying the rules and was put in time out. So on thursday it happened AGAIN! I was so angry. I mean Paul, seriously! This time though Edwin was semi-laughing when he told me. I don't know what that's about. I hope this story gives you something to laugh about. It made me laugh alot when I got home but at the time I just disliked Paul more.

Ok one last story. Ally decided to give me my birthday present early and took me to get a traditional Chinese foot massage. It was fantastic. We had a 90 minute massage and they not only did our feet but also gave us a back, leg, and arm massage. By the time we were done we were so relaxed that we could barely stand up. I recommend this for any of you who ever come to China.

The lady that was dancing with her fan

The temple

Quotes from my students!

Ok well this past weekend's homework was to write a paper about yourself. I just finished grading them and here are a few funny quotes that I came across.

~My blood type is O.
~Me best friends... I mean super best friends are
~My father is handsome, strong, and tuff.
~My brother is tallest in my house, then mom, then father, then me. My father is short.
~My mother, she is very beautiful and nice. But when she's very angry, she becomes scary and mean.
~My favorite story from Bible is Adam and Eve. I thinks nobody like Hell, but like Heaven.
~I would describe myself.
1) Eye. My Eye is black (as deep as sea)
2) Height. I am as tall as my cello.
3) Foot. My foot is as big as bear's.
4) Hand. My hand is as strong as giants.
I love myself.

Ok well I hope those make you laugh because I thought they were pretty funny.

Well, this past weekend we were supposed to go to Forbidden City but that did not happen so no pictures or stories about that. We plan on going next weekend though so hopefully that will work out.

So last Friday as Ally and I walked home from school we saw a girl wearing a shirt with English writing on it. That is pretty common here except there is always sometime misspelled or a little off. This time the shirt said, "That's is a Virgin". Now a few things wrong with this 1) why would a shirt making such a bold statement about virginity 2) Is she saying that she is a virgin or is it whoever reads it like "There, that is a virgin" or like "I am a virgin" we aren't sure. 3) That's is. Does not make sense. Maybe this could be our new club shirt... what do ya'll think?

About 10 minutes down the street we saw our first obese Chinese girl. At least we think she was a girl. Good thing I had my sunglasses on because my mouth literally dropped. It's not that she was more obese than people in the states it was just that she was obese and lives here. Everyone is a stick here and the only people you see that are even a little chubby are a few of the old people and even they still have skinny legs. If someone is chubby they are hardly ever a woman. So that was a shock to us. It actually shocked us into silence.

Ok best story yet. Yesterday Ally and I went to church with Tim and Becky McDonald. We went to the early service and since it is smaller they had everyone that was a guest stand up and introduce themselves and tell what they were doing in Beijing. So we stood up and said where we were from and all that jazz. After church Ally and I were chatting while Tim and Becky talked to some of their friends and then these two American boys came over to us and introduced themselves to us. They were from Texas and since we were too they wanted to meet us. Well they are a year older than us and they are helping build the new US Embassy here. They have been here for the past year so we just talked about what they have done here and how they are ready to go home. Well it was funny because just on the way to church Ally and I had discussed how we get annoyed with those people who are obsessed with Texas and have too much Texas pride. That was these two boys. The first thing they said was how much they love Texas and never want to live anywhere else again. Then they went on to say words like "Ginormous" and to do rock paper scissors over whether or not we should go to Hong Kong or Thailand (we aren't going to either). Real cool guys as you can tell. I believe one of them is a big dork personality trapped in the body/mindset of someone who thinks they are "hot stuff". Well they asked us out but we were with Tim and Becky and so we said no we couldn't. Then they got our number and they were like we really want to take ya'll around and show you some neat places. Even though we don't like them and one of them is borderline annoying... we will still say yes. We just want to say we want a date in China and get a free meal and some site seeing tours out of it. More to come later.

Today was the half way mark for us. We have four weeks of teaching and we have already completed two, though we have been here for three. A few interesting things have happened this week.



1) I now have a Chinese name. I asked two of my kids to give me a Chinese name this week in class and so they named me Bae Sujin Moon. Two reasons. Bae Sujin because one of them had a teacher that was the smartest, funniest, and kindest person she ever knew and I reminded her of her... Now I thought I was mean in class but I guess I'm doing something right, and Moon because they like that name. I would also like to add that from now on I will only be answering to this name so please commit it to memory.



2) Yesterday Sun was wearing a shirt that said EXCITING, COMFY, ROMANTIC stitched really big across the front. I thought that was really funny... look below for a picture of sun (sorry he isn't wearing the shirt in the picture but you will finally know who I am always talking about).



3) Yesterday Ally and I went to the Sunny Gold Market and I was talking to this girl because Ally was trying to buy a wallet. It is always bad to be the one not looking because they all jump on you and try to sell you everything else. So this one girl started complimenting me on everything I had on and what not (they all do this and I choose to believe I'm just really cool here and not that they are trying to butter me up so I'll buy something) anyways she loved my earings and when they like your earings they always want you to take one off so they can look at it, then they want to know where you got it and for how much. So then she was like "May I?" and I didn't know what she was talking about so I said "sure" and she started putting my earing back in my ear for me. It took her like 3 minutes and it was very awkward. She was really excited that she got to do that for some reason though and kept thanking me like I did something nice for her.



4) Yesterday Ally and I walked outside our apartment and a 1-2 year old was squatting down and peeing on the floor. Now we've seen tons of babies with those pants on that have no crotches/butts but we hadn't actually seen them in use yet. We wanted to take a picture but used our best judgement and decided that wouldn't be appropriate. I will however try to slyly get a picture of a baby with the pants on for everyone's enjoyment. Anyways that was a nice way to start our day at 7:30 in the morning.

The crowded buses

Check out the man in the window

Ok Sun is in the stripped shirt on the right. The boy in the middle drives me CRAZY!

Two of my good girls. The one of the right was the one who named me Bae Sujin.

I told them to smile big! The one on the left is the one who named me moon.

Well the second week is almost half way over and nothing too exciting has happened lately. Last Saturday Ally, the two other ACU girls, our friend Megan, and I all went to the Dirt Market. The Dirt Market is basically this outdoor market where you can buy Chinese antiques, pottery, shoes, clothes, purses, jewelry etc. Ally and I had walked that morning at 7:30 to the school. Megan had told us that it takes about 20 minutes walking to get to her house from the school so we were planning on walking. We were supposed to be there at 8:30 and since it takes about 30-35 min to get from our house to the school we figured we were giving ourselves 5-10 minutes extra time to make sure we were turning on the right streets. Well needless to say Megan was wrong about how long it took. She takes a taxi every day to school so maybe that’s what she meant, but it took us about an hour just from the school! We showed up at her apartment at 9ish all sweaty and disgusting.

From there we took a 10 min ride in a taxi to the dirt market and then got out of the car to sweat some more. I seriously don’t know if I ever been so sweaty and disgusting as I was this past Saturday. We split up once we got there and Ally and I just walked around looking at everything and not really buying. The whole thing is in a small outdoor area and there are like a million people there so everyone is pushing up against you and you just have to push people to get them out of your way, but no one even gives you a second look if you shove them out of your way. After 2 hours of shopping we decided to take a lunch break. I decided to go the safe route and get Chicken Curry. It came out and was basically lime green with chicken bones all in it. I’m sure ya’ll are shocked to here that I ate one bite and then just pushed the food around my plate. It was sick. After lunch we went back out to sweat some more. Now here comes the best part of the day. We were walking down this aisle fanning ourselves with the only thing we had bought (a fan) and this Chinese guy starts fanning me so fast with his fan as I walk buy. At first I just turned around to see what just happened and this Chinese guy with long hair past his shoulders was giving me like this “come hither” look. I was like “What!?” so then I started cracking up laughing and Ally turned around to see what I was laughing at and started laughing too. I think we may have offended him. Oh well.

Anyways every day I feel like the mean teacher in class. These kids seriously do not know how to obey directions. I feel like I have never been in such a talkative class before. I’m not sure if it’s just because of cultural differences or what but I have to repeat every thing I say like 4 times before they actually do it. I have this one girl Sophie who is probably my smartest and most well behaved student but the only thing is that she is so shy I can’t hear anything she is saying. When she talks to me she whispers and covers her mouth with her hand so I can’t even attempt lip reading. Then when I’m like “sorry Sophie I couldn’t hear that can you repeat it?” she gets all silent and won’t say anything. It’s like she becomes self conscious and so I just have to guess and then she just stands by me for like 5 minutes because I obviously didn’t get what she said but I mean really how am I supposed to know.

Today this kid farted in class and it seriously smelt up the entire room. I was afraid that one of the kids had had diarrhea in their pants because it smelt that bad. All the kids started laughing and being like who did and then all of a sudden this one girl just burst out into tears. I turned the attention back on me right then but I felt so bad for her. Plus she is one of my favorites. Don’t worry though no poop in the pants, just a fart.

Well hopefully my life will create some better stories for my next blog! Until next time.

Well our first week of school is over and it flew by. Here are a few highlights of the week.
1) One of my kids, Jason, bowed to me yesterday. He was like "Melanie!" (like all surprised) and then put his hands on his stomach and bowed almost to the floor to me. It was great! Of course I bowed back and he thought that was hilarious.
2) Yesterday on the back of Sun's test that we took during class he wrote the coordinates for London, Tokyo, Paris, Beijing, and Soul in Korea. I thought that was hilarious. He loves numbers but other than that doesn't know alot of other things.
3) Wednesday's homework was on Nouns and on one of the worksheets Dr. Pepper was a noun that was used. Then at the bottom of the page they had to use some of the nouns in a sentence. I kept getting these ones that would say "Dr. Pepper is tall." "Dr. Pepper is good looking." The whole time I was like these do not make sense and finally on the last one a little girl wrote, "I visit Dr. Pepper." It was then that I realized they all that Dr. Pepper was a person!

So the other day Ally and I were at the supermarket and of course we were looking at everything because 1) we were trying to find stuff to buy and 2) we wanted to see all the weird stuff. So we were looking at chips trying to figure out the flavors and realized that we were about to buy shrimp flavored chips!! We were disgusted and put them back and then sure enough the next day a kid in my class brought those for snack and kept trying to get me to eat them. Apparantly they are pretty popular here.

Also yesterday Ally and I decided that even though no one told us to we should probablly clean the turtle tank at our house. First of all it's just funny that they have a turtle because it is gross and we have to feed it. Second of all the entire tank was filled with poo. In fact after we cleaned out the tank the turtle still had poo sticking all over it. We were took sicked out to actually touch the turtle so it is still covered in poo. We figured the note said, "Feed the fish and turtle if they are not already dead." so we guessed it wasn't too important if it was clean.

Ok last story, today we went to the Pearl Market after school. We took a bus for 50 minutes, no air condition, no seats, and people pushing all over you to get there. But i was only about 19 cents so it was worth it. Then we got there and it was HUGE! 5 stories of stuff to buy. We made some friends and got some pretty good deals. Well at least we think they are friends but they probablly don't like us as much because we paid about 1/10 of what they asked for. Then we asked one of our new friends where we should eat dinner. She directed us to a Chinese resturaunt not far from there. When we got there it looked really cool but no one spoke English. Apparantly in this part of Beijing Americans are like gods. Every waiter in the place was surrounding our table. In fact about 6 of them just watched us eat the whole time and smiled and laughed whenever we tried to talk to them. They asked us our names by pointing at themselves and saying there name and then every time we tried to take a picture of just us they would try to put bunny ears on us... these are my kind of guys! They were really funny and we have a picture with two of them but it is on another camera so look forward to that!

Mine and Ally's newe Chinese boyfriend

Some of the waiters that crowded around our table the whole time we were at the resturaunt.

Me and Ally outside the Pearl Market

Sun

Well Ally and I just finished our third day of school and it already feels like we have been doing it forever. Really nothing has happened that is too funny but on Monday I had the kids do this activity for homework that was a paragraph telling me about them and Sun's (the boy who gets so close to me) first sentence was, "Hi my name is Sun and my best love is my mother." I thought it was so funny that he wrote my best love because it was supposed to be my best friend. Then he wrote, "Every day for breakfast I drink 7 glasses of water, .01 oz of milk, and .02 oz of orange juice.".
Anyways today I started out as the mean teacher because yesterday they were so bad. So I went over the rules and told them how upset I was and their journal was for them to write all the rules, tell me why we have them, and what is their favorite rule. haha. No one has a favorite rule. Then they were almost perfect today because they looked at me the whole time like I was this really scary person, but don't worry Sun is still disobeying everything I say. First day he was so funny and now he is just annoying. Although he did give me the peace sign today when he jumped off the merry go round during recess... that almost made up for it.

This is a picture of Ally playing the bongo. The house we are at has like an entire band upstairs and so whenever we are bored/every morning/every night we play the instruments, listen to music, and dance around. Now I wish I had a bongo back home!

This is a picture of Ally at our favorite Chinese resturaunt. It is so good and we have already gone there four times... in fact it is the only Chinese resturaunt we have been too because there are so many other types of places to try and it is right next to our school. Also we eat there for under $5 total every day.

This is a picture of the master bed that Ally and I sleep in. The reason I put it up is to express to ya'll the stuffed animal craze in China. For some reason they are EVERYWHERE. We went to the mall and among the racks of clothes they are just sitting around. We passed a car that had probablly 25 animals in his back window. It is strange because it is the adults who love them.

Until next time...

This is just a picture of our neighbors door that we thought was funny. Alot of doors in our apartment look like this!

Well me and Ally just got home from our first day of teaching and it was a success! The kids are all Korean and my class is third grade intermediate and they all speak English very well. Today I just did my lessons pretty much from the book but now I'm planning on either making up some stuff or finding other things online because the kids need some tougher lessons. They can also all write and read it so this will make it easier.

My class is extremely talkative and I am always having to ask them to stop talking. They are so funny though because today we were having introductions and they were asking me questions about myself and one little boy raises his hand and is like "Can we start learning now?" We had only been in class like 15 min and I was planning on thirty for introductions! Of course I said yes and just had to make up some games at the end of the day to make up for the time. Then they are like begging me to give them tests tomorrow but I have nothing to test them on yet. Tim (the principal) told us we do not have to give any tests but I guess I will now because they want them so badly. Also when I tell them to do a problem they each started shouting out "FINISHED" when they were done... I had to stop that pretty quick because it got annoying. One boy I have, his name is Sun, he always raises his hand to ask a question then runs up and presses his body against mine and shouts the question. I was like "What the heck just happened" the first time it happened. Most of the kids in my class have English names and one of the other teachers from ACU, Danielle, has a kid in her class named "Red Sonic". I think that is the coolest name I have ever heard and wish I had a kid named something like that.

So many of you have probablly been wondering if Ally and I ever got our bikes. The answer to that is yes. Tim found us some people from the school who would loan us their bikes for the summer. This should probablly have been our first warning that riding a bike in Beijing is not something we should take up if the locals are so willing to give us their bikes. Our second warning should have been everyone's shocked faces when we told them we wanted bikes, followed by the question, "why would you want to do something like that". We ignored these looks because we also get them when we tell people we are walking to school. So today after school we decided we would venture out and ride our bikes home. I have borrowed one from the school's driver, Ching Ming. I believe this bike was made in 1901 and probablly in Africa. It does not steer straight, it does not have brakes, and there is no bell. Also, the cars do not stop for you and the people do not move. Surprisingly enough no one could understand me when I was shouting "GET OUT OF THE WAY!" My next word to learn in Chinese is going to be "move". At one point we were going down a hill and a car was coming at me. I felt my life flash before my eyes and my feet were skidding on the ground as I tried to stop the bike. I feel bad not riding it though because it was a gift to let us borrow it... but I feel more like it was a gift from Satan. I will put up pictures of me and the bike later... I know you will all look forward to that.

This is a picture of me in front of my bulletin board on the first day!