Dec. 10, 2016
9:00 pm
Beijing, China
Hey guys,
I’m sorry for all of the “quick post” messages you’ve been getting lately. If you haven’t noticed, this past week or so has been a bit tough. A lot of work and not enough sleep. I think the adrenaline has started to finally wear off. While I still love my job, it’s not “new” anymore. It’s still really exciting to work with the kids and teach the lessons. I promise, I’m not complaining at all about my job because I really do enjoy it. But it is exhausting and a lot of hard work. Hopefully the next few days will give me time to relax and recuperate, especially now that I don’t have to worry so much about whether I’m passing probation.
That’s right! I had my probation meeting today. It actually went really well, which I was not expecting. I thought the class my regional manager watched did not go well, by her standards. While I believed I had taught the kids and gotten through the lesson fine, I was afraid that it wouldn’t meet her expectations. Turns out I didn’t need to be so worried. She did have some critiques, but for the most part she thought it went well. She also said that the class was more interested and engaged in the topic than she would have expected, even with an experienced teacher *fist pump*! We also talked about how I was fitting in at the center and how I was feeling about EF. I tried to be honest and, in the couple of instances where my experiences hadn’t been great, give constructive feedback. At the end, we briefly discussed my career goals. Although I don’t plan on making EF my career, I do want to strive to attain a lot of experience here. It was nice to talk to her about all of those ideas. So, in the end, I all but passed probation. Technically I don’t pass for another 8 days, but she’ll be out of town, so Adam will have the final meeting with Brian and me.
Aside from that meeting, today was fairly uneventful. I had a class this morning. It’s a great class and we had an assessment (test) lesson. Everything went well until I went to actually give the assessment and our Interactive White Board/computer stopped working. Unfortunately, for that age, it’s almost impossible to give the assessment without a working computer. I ended up having to go grab my laptop and access the material through it. That was a bit of a mess, but it turned out fine. Probably the biggest challenge I’ve had with EF is the technology and lack of timely attention to IT problems.
After a long day at work, most of the teachers and Emily went out for dinner. It was a “goodbye Gretchen, hello new teachers” dinner. Mostly, it was a “goodbye Gretchen” dinner. It’s so hard to believe that Gretchen will only be here for 2 more days. I only just met her, but I’m going to miss her a lot. As you read this, please take a moment to ask Abba to be with her as she moves on to the next journey He has planned for her. His path has her heading to Saudi Arabia in a couple of months. So please say some quick p—yers for her safety and for His guiding hand to continue to point her in the right direction. The dinner itself was really fun. We had some great conversations, some funny toasts, and some serious toasts, but mostly we had a lot of laughter. It was great to interact with my coworkers in a setting like that.
Talk to you tomorrow,
Kristen
Quick note: (last time, I swear)
My dad mentioned that some people showed interest in sending me Christmas letters. Unfortunately, letters are a little tricky here. They don’t always get delivered correctly. As a result, my parents are collecting letters for me at their house and then sending them over in a package all at once. The package is going out on the 15th, so have your letters delivered by 12/14/16. The address is:
Kristen McKell
PO Box 1869,
Chillicothe, OH 45601
You can also scan your letters and send them to me via email at kristen@mckell.com. Finally, you can send your letter to me personally if you have it delivered in a UPS-type envelope. My center is the best place to have stuff shipped to since everything in China has to be signed for, but they don’t accept letters. A UPS-type envelope or a physical package is okay, though. The address is a bit tricky. For all US forms, use this address:
Kristen McKell
EF Kids and Teens Yizhuang Center
3rd floor, West Zone, Hualian Shopping Center,
No.8 Ronghuazhonglu, Yizhuang,
Daxing District, Beijing 102600
China
That address will only get the package out of the US, so you also need to have the Chinese address written in characters. Copy and paste the following address and phone number onto a word document and make the font fairly large. Print it out and put it on the package where it will definitely be seen. If the Chinese postal service does not see this address, they will simply throw the package away. Also, if you fill out customs forms, make sure to put that the package is worth somewhere under $100, otherwise I have to go pick it up at the airport. As you can see, it’s a lot of work to mail me a package. So, if you have a Christmas card for me, just send it to my parents and let them do it all at once.
Kristen McKell
英孚少儿英语
华联力宝购物中心3层西侧
荣华中路8号
亦庄经济开发区
大兴区
北京市电话18310226231
