One thing about Jia Jia Yue

Finally, the weather is beginning to warm up! It was a beautiful sunny day, complete with blue sky. Today we took our usual Saturday 2-mile walk down the road to check out the new DVDs at our friendly DVD shop, and check out the pastries at the popular Korean bakery, Panamie. One DVD, a couple of pastries, (and two coffees for Zach) later, we squeezed onto the bus to head back towards home. We stepped off the bus next to Jia Jia Yue (pronounced "jah-jah yu-ay"), our local supermarket, to get a few items before completing the circuit back home.

One thing about Jia Jia Yue is that no matter what time of the day you go there, the staff is always restocking or rearranging the store. You have to navigate around boxes and carts and the busy staff members in the narrow aisles. Today was no different. :-) Zach and I were going to the second floor of the store to get some cleaning items first. However, barring our way to the escalator was a most amusing sight. On the first floor, one worker was unloading a pallet of boxes of beer, and sending them--box by box--up the escalator to another worker waiting on the second floor. It was a little, orderly parade of green boxes of Tsingtao and Yantai beer ascending up the escalator. My imagination supplied some tinkly circus music to accompany this curious spectacle, and I just had to let out a good-natured laugh. It was one of those common, everyday goings-on that, at the right moment, can be so uncommonly funny!

Kite Day!

Every "Spring" (it's still cold here!) the students of Yew Wah walk down Tianshan Lu in a great parade of flags and kites toward the beach. (Except for Grade 1 and 2, who get to take the bus on account of their short, little legs!) Many of the students have been working on designing and decorating their own kites in their art classes for this day. There is a competition for the (handmade) kite that flies the highest. Of course, in addition to the humble handmade kites, mothers have made sure to send their children with the biggest and best store-bought kites for this day. Many of which ended up being carried by we, the Grade 1 teachers, as some were as large or larger than the students themselves!
Rain was forecast, but when the day arrived, we were met by beautiful blue skies (not gray!) and a promising breeze. We took a short drive in our small school bus down Tianshan Lu, and tumbled out onto the large sidewalk above the beach. We walked down the stairs to the sand, traversed a small downwards slope of sand with much nervous squealing by the girls, walked through a break in the sand screen, and emerged onto the beach.
Immediately, a chorus of well-spoken "Can you help me"s from my students filled the air. (This is a question that we recently learned in English class, which my students have really found a use for lately!) Thankfully, we had a beautiful wind, and the students' kites (with their teachers' help) rose up into the air with very little effort, and no running starts. You simply had to release them, and they flew as if they were airborne fish on a line fighting to sail deeper into an ocean of sky.
It was a happy and amusing afternoon to say the least. Left to their own devices, many the first graders ran every which direction, and got tangled up in each others' kites again and again. We just laughed together every time this happened, and did our best to help each other figure out the complicated mess of kite strings. We laughed as one kite escaped and I took off down the beach to chase it down. We laughed together when my coteacher found herself trapped in a tangle of string (how that happened, not even she knew!) The teachers chuckled together when our students tired out and found employment elsewhere...working together to bury volunteers in the sand. We smiled at one group of determined students who began helping each other, working hard to get their kites back into the air. These students just laughed together when their kites chose to careen back to the ground rather than maintain their height. Everyone was happily exhausted by the end of the afternoon. We all carried back a piece of that beach day with us in our hearts--and in our shoes.

More than I can chew?

Monday I was called into the principal's office. I was asked to drop in after school when I had time. That left me anxious and in wonder at just what had I done for that school afternoon. When I stepped into her office, the principal and I sat down into the comfy chairs of the seating area, and she began, "We have a problem." This was it. I WAS in trouble. But what had I done?
Following this statement was an explanation that instantly dissolved my fears.

But first, I must give you a bit of background story. Our third grade English teacher, after much thinking and consideration, had decided that it was best for her and her husband to move back to California. They are expecting a baby, and decided that having the baby in Yantai was going to be too difficult (for many reasons). They were going to move back home this Wednesday.

Now we return back to the office.
The principal explained that the school had interviewed and offered the third grade position to a teacher from (somewhere--I didn't ask); however, that teacher had not decided whether he/she wanted to accept the position. Leaving Grade 3 English in limbo. Of course Grade 3 English does have its excellent, bilingual co-teacher still teaching the students during this time, but the parents are unnerved and unhappy about there being no native speaker in the classroom. This is where I was to come in, the principal explained, if I was willing to help out. It would be just teaching three more classes a day-- for topics like speaking, writing, and grammar. The bilingual teacher and another teacher would take care of the rest. And hopefully this would only be for a month.

Man, I hope she is right.

I agreed to help. It didn't sound too difficult outright.
Now, however, Thursday evening, after trying to last-minute plan for the remaining classes this week for Grade 3, keep up with my own Grade 1 classes, and fulfill other obligations, I am tired. It's not so much a physical tired (although that is present) as mental tiredness. At work I feel that I cannot turn my brain off. Today I put my head down on my cool desk for a moment to rest, but knew that I had to keep going, and popped back up again after 30 seconds. (Forgive me, it is not my intention to throw a pity party with this post. Just adding some imagery to make this better writing.) I know that I will make it through, and that I can do this. I think I can, anyway. I tell myself that it will be better after this weekend when I have time to plan for these new classes.
.........Right?

Gray Skies and Winter Blues

While I am ever-thankful to have a job that well-provides, and for that job to be teaching, living here abroad, in Yantai, can be difficult at times. Especially now. The winters in Yantai are long, and cold. The skies are often gray, obscuring the sun in the blurry haze. It is depressing for many of us.
However, today, to circumnavigate this depression of spirits, I have decided to make a list of some of the things I am thankful for and the things that brighten such days as this.

1. (As I mentioned already) I am working, and working in the field I enjoy and prepared for.
2. Mangoes! It is mango season, and the short distance between China and the Philippines means that these mangoes are rich and delicious!
3. Great reads, such as The Hunger Games trilogy, which may be attended to more faithfully during the cold weather that keeps one inside.
4. The days when we do have blue skies.
   
5. My amazing and wonderful students.
6. That Zach and I are here together.
7. For my loving family back at home.
8. For God's living water, freely given if I just but ask Him.