I hate Saturdays! The one day that the rest of the world is enjoying as a day off is now my busiest day. Busiest isn’t the word for it exactly. Its non stop mayhem from early morning to late evening. I just got home and feel like I have run some kind of marathon. All I want to do right now is fall into bed and its barely after 7pm!

I was over at the school at 9 am this morning to observe Teacher Lewis’ TB3 Class. Teacher Lewis is the vet that sometimes is a bit bitter about the school, so I try to filter most of what Lewis does or says. But in the end, Lewis is a good teacher, is well respected by his students and builds good repoire with everyone he teaches. He led the class on a treasure hunt today, aided by clues that he hid around the school. The “treasure” was Fanta Orange Drinks which the kids adore. All in all, great fun! The kids then created a treasure hunt for Lewis and I to follow leading us to the “prize”, a string of Mardi Gras pearls, broken of course! I am not sure what the lesson was, but the kids sure had a good time with it.

I leave tomorrow to Shanghai via bus and I have been a little aprehensive to go buy my tickets, so one of the TA’s, Jackie, volunteered to take me to the bus station and assist me in buying my ticket. So between classes, we jumped into Jackie’s black Honda Accord and made our way into the streets of Rizhao. Jackie was born and raised in Rizhao, but admits that he barely left his neighborhood until he went away for college and knew nothing about the other side of the city. He did know where the bus station was, so for that I was very grateful. After dodging busses, cars and people, we made our way to the zoo, er..bus station.

Chaos! True and simple chaos is the only way to describe the Rizhao Central Bus Station. The station is large and there is a big parking lot in front for busses. At the time we were there, there were about 25 or so busses in the lot, bound for destinations all over China.  There are street vendors everywhere selling anything from boiled sheep’s liver to sparrow on a stick. There are taxis and city busses and hordes and hordes of people coming and going in every direction. All the signs are in Chinese and I told Jackie that I didnt know how I would ever know which bus to get on and he told me the conductors will help me. Uh huh, right! Even if they told me in Chinese which bus, I will not be able to understand it. I hope I just get to Shanghai, but right now that is still up in the air. The next time I blog may be from Beijing! Anyway, we made our way to the ticket window and stepped up to smiling one tooth ticket window lady. “Ni Hao”, “blah, blah, blah, blah, ma?” said Window Lady. Jackie had told me he was only here to help and would let me buy my own ticket so I looked at window lady squarely and said SHANGHAI! “AH, ah, ” said ticket lady and “blah blah blah blah or blah?” Jackie looked at me and said that I knew the answer. Heck I didnt even know what the question was! So I said “tomorrow at 12:20″. Ticket lady frowned and looked at me. Apparently she was just on the Shanghai part of this deal and I was way ahead. “Blah blah?” she asked. “Yes”  I said, hoping I was right. Neither I nor toothless ticket lady had no idea what we were saying to each other. She held the higher card though, as she had the ticket and I didnt as of yet.  In the end, Jackie had to step in and buy the ticket for me other wise I would be bound for Inner Mongolia or something. He also took me into the huge terminal, showed me the baggage check and where to board my bus tomorrow. I am all set, I think. It should be of great fun to see how I make out tomorrow. I am still a bit nervous at the thought and trying to get through this mayhem. What scares me most is if this is the way the bus station is in little 2.8 million person Rizhao, HOW IN THE WORLD WILL I EVER COPE IN 17.9 million person Shanghai?

As a payback for Jackie’s favor he did for me, I treated him to lunch at McDonald’s. Jackie tells me that Chinese do not like McDonald’s that much ( I always see tons of Chinese when I am there) as they prefer the health benefits of fried chicken to beef. He told me China has no cows except Milk cows and the Chinese have never really developed a taste for beef. Indeed, Jackie ordered a McChicken sandwich while I scarfed down a Big Mac. It was very interesting talking to Jackie, getting the Chinese perspective of the US and me giving him our perspective of China.  Many Chinese watch pirated American movies, so Jackie tells me that they picture life as portrayed in Hollywood movies.  There is not much taught about American History in Schools  and the Chinese really don’t know all that much. What they do know is NBA. They are NBA fanatics and indeed the Houston Rockets games are broadcast here in Chinese! In general, Chinese love basketball. There is a league called the CBA, Chinese Basketball Association. It is shown on TV and has teams called the Shenyen Dragons, the Linyi Lizards, the Beijings Beavercocks and the  Shanghai Trainwreck. The teams are made up of mostly African Americans. The crowds have these huge styrofoam sticks that they beat together when their team scores. Its so funny as there is mostly dead silence in the crowd except for the sound of these lightweight sticks clapping together. I wonder what the American players think of all this. Occasionally there is a Chinese player or two, drawfed by the others. I watched the Dragons take on the Beavercocks the other night. Dragons won by 20 and its hilarious! Anyway, I do have a new found respect for the Chinese people. They are hard working but have all the food and necessities they need. Indeed, the stores here are full with the latest fashions and the supermarkets are running over with food.  This is in such contrast with other Communist countries like Cuba. I suspect this society is really more capitalistic driven than they would ever admit.

I got back to class about 1 oclock for my 1:30 class. Poo-Al, the school administrator asked if he could sit in on my class. I really didnt care and he was there for the first half. My first class are mostly angels or maybe its because I am not worn out yet, but it always seems to go well. Two hours is a long long time to be on a stage and when you have three classes, six hours is extremely long to perform. Somehow I muddled through the 1:30 class and had just 30 minutes to prepare for the 4:15 class, or as I like to say, The Class from Hell!

As good as my 1:30 class is, my 4:15 is as bad. They are a bit older and a bit more in the “I dont want to” stage and dont want any adult telling them what to do. There are 16 of them, the majority girls. They are as bad and ill behaved kids as I have ever been around. I have to admit, the second hour of my class, I just conceded the loss and they were in control. There was nothing that I could do to get them in line; threats, punishments, etc. just do not work with them. We spent the last 20 minutes of class bowling, which as long as you are playing games with you, they will attempt to work with you. However, bowling did not relate to my class work at all and I dont feel like they learned much today. I vowed to be more prepared, be more stern and just get the bad ones out by next week. I probably exaggerate here, as they did learn a few new things, but I did not cover my entire lesson plan. I do have to do a better job with them next time and avoid letting them get the best of me. I just dont know how to handle preteen girls who latch on to each other for support and just refuse to do what they are asked to do. In the end, they do get report cards so their parents will know just how they are doing. I will not spare any words when it comes to reporting.  Jackie was my TA tonight and I could tell he was disappointed in me. I was disappointed in myself.

We are having a Christmas Party for the kids and parents. The School wants each teacher’s class to prepare a 15 min presentation to be presented at the party. OK, food for thought. How can I ever teach these kids to sing “Silent Night, Holy Night” or “Deck the Halls?” First, they do not speak English well. Secondly, I do not sing well. Thirdly, I have only one more class to get this done in….MISSION-IMPOSSIBLE!!!! I guess we will just get on stage and bowl for 15 minutes. This seems to keep them greatly occupied.  Really, this is a requirement and I have NO idea what I am going to do. I just don’t even want to think about it yet and maybe this will all go away. Since none of the parents speak English, it may be ok just to tell the Night Before Christmas Story. How will they even know if I make a mistake?  Jackie tells me that the Chinese are now discovering Christmas and most kids know who Santa is. McDonald’s did their best to put up a tree; it was one of those shiny aluminum trees and had pink and yellow balls on it! Merry Christmas from China, McDonald’s style. I assume it was ALL MADE IN CHINA. As much as we have in the USA that is made in China, just imagine what its like over here. I have yet to see another “made in anywhere else” sticker on anything. But when you have the largest labor force on earth, who needs to import anything?

So, now I am finally home, eating my last piece of leftover Pizza and thinking about going to bed soon in order to get up and do this all over again tomorrow. Plus I have an eight hour bus ride (more or less Jackie tells me, usually more) tomorrow as well. I will be happy to get to Shanghai and get some R&R. I will have my laptop with me, so expect some blogging.

Peace out for now.

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