November 5, 2017
3:30 pm
Beijing, China
So this update is really overdue. As many of you know, I have finally made it back to Beijing. It took way longer than I or my new school suspected it would. We were all under the impression that the visa process to get me back to China would take approximately one month. Instead, it took almost exactly 3 months! While I definitely enjoyed having that extra time with my family, I’m very happy to finally be back. It’s now been exactly 3 weeks since I arrived in Beijing. I’m sorry it has taken me so long to finally write a blog post, the last few weeks have just been so crazy. Believe me, I’ve tried to start multiple times and just ran out of time or energy.
I arrived back in Beijing at about 9pm on Sunday, October 15th. By the time I got back to my apartment, it was nearly 11. After a quick shower and a quick phone call to Mom, I immediately fell asleep. Bright and early at 6am Monday morning, I woke up and got ready to start my new job. The first couple of days were spent shadowing Keri as she taught both of the kindergarten classes.
Okay, let me stop for one minute and say a huge thank you to Keri! While I was gone, we did not have another foreign teacher to teach my kindergarten class. Originally, my department head was going to cover, but then an unforeseen situation turned into her taking over teaching one of the PreK classes. So, in order for my class to be taught by a foreign English teacher, Keri, the other kindergarten teacher, graciously agreed to teach both classes. She taught one class in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Not only did Keri teach for me, but she has been super welcoming and has quickly become a very good friend. She deserves so much thanks and I’m not sure what I can do to ever repay her for all of her kindness.
So after a couple days of shadowing and following Keri around, I finally got to teach my class. It’s been 2.5 weeks of teaching and, so far, I absolutely love it. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely some days where the kids drive me bonkers and I’m exhausted, but I really like this job. Everyone in the English Kindergarten (EK) has been so welcoming. I was a little worried that there would be some negative blowback from being so late, but they’ve just let me slip right in. It’s been the perfect transition. It’s like I was always supposed to be here.
My class team is awesome. Each classroom in the EK has 4 teachers. The homeroom teacher is the English teacher. We’re supposed to be like the lead teacher, but in my class it’s definitely a team effort. I have way too little experience to be the lead teacher, at least in the way the job description seems to suggest. The homeroom teacher teaches in the morning completely in English. The kids have a morning circle, an English class, and then a science, math, or art class depending on the day. In the afternoon, the classes are taught in Chinese by the Chinese teacher. The Chinese teacher works very closely with the homeroom teacher and is probably the most knowledgable person in the classroom (or at least in mine). Liza is my Chinese teacher and she is amazing! She is a great person and knows so much about teaching. She has been very helpful to me and has taught me a lot. Liza has been super and is more than willing to let me make some changes to the classroom, which I’m really excited to do. It’s nice to kinda make the room fit for me. The Teacher’s Assistant is exactly what you’d assume. She helps the teachers throughout the day and does a lot of the heavy lifting. The TA in my classroom is Grace. She is seriously the sweetest person ever! Grace is always willing to do whatever whim comes to my mind and she never has anything but a smile on her face. The last member of our classroom team is the Life Teacher, Miss June. The Life Teacher is basically what the Chinese call an aiyi. She is responsible for cleaning the room and being the nurse. Miss June is so nice. Unfortunately, she speaks less English than I speak Chinese, so the two of us can’t really communicate on our own. I’m hoping that my Chinese will get better so that I can get to know her better.
Even when not teaching, my weeks since coming here have been super busy. Brian and Taylor left for the US the Friday after I arrived, so I spent as much of that first week as possible visiting with them. I really miss them both and want them back! If either of you are reading this, COME BACK!!!!!! I need you! The first Saturday, we had Sports Day at school, so I was working my first weekend back. The next week was just exhausting. I hadn’t had time to recuperate from my trip, so when I wasn’t at work, I was just interested in eating and sleeping. The second Saturday, I took a trip to the Great Wall with the school (no students, or at least no students whose parents didn’t come). I had a great time with my coworkers and got a ton of exercise.
This past week has been really crazy. My lease on my apartment expired at the end of October, so I decided to find a new apartment closer to work. Thanks to some people at school, I was able to find a really nice apartment about a block away from work. It’s only about 150元 more than what I was paying and much bigger than my old apartment. Most of the furniture is brand new because the old tenants owned most of their furniture and took it with them when they moved out. The apartment is really nice, but I haven’t really moved in yet, because it needs a good cleaning before I actually move all of my stuff into it. I moved in on Tuesday night and have been slowly trying to clean everything up. Unfortunately, I’ve been so exhausted the last couple of days that I haven’t really done much. The plan after I leave Starbucks (where I am currently writing this blog) is to walk home and give the wardrobe a thorough cleaning so that I can put away my clothes.
So far, the apartment seems really nice. It is on the first floor, so there isn’t a ton of natural light, but there is enough to be good. I found a couple of roaches on Wednesday, but I’ve put out some bait traps and haven’t seen any since. There was also a problem with the shower leaking, but my super sweet and very nice new landlord came over and fixed it right away. After a week living there, I really like it. Like I said, my new landlord has been so sweet. (I know, I keep saying that everyone is sweet, but, seriously, I have not met a single person with a mean bone in his or her body so far.) He apparently doesn’t know about the translate function on WeChat yet, so he keeps using his 10-year-old son–who is a student at my school–to translate for him. When he came to fix my shower, he brought his son with him. It was so cute! Anyway, the apartment is really nice and I’ll try to attach a video to show you.
The best part about this new job, by far, is that I have the weekends free. What this means is that I’m actually able to attend ch—ch! There is a really great community of believers down here. My team is full of believers (except maybe Miss June, but I don’t know). A lot of the school’s foreign teachers are believers, as well. I’ve gotten to know a great group! There’s now a branch of BICF (the international ch—ch) down here, so I’m able to go every Sunday. I’m hoping to get involved in a B—le study soon, but I haven’t found one yet. It’s just been so great to be in a strong community again, something I was sorely lacking last year. I p—y that this is where Abba truly wants me to be because so far things seem to be just about as good as they could possibly be.
There are so many more stories that I could tell you, but I think I will save those for another time, since this post is getting so long. I will try to update more often (maybe this will turn into an every Sunday sort of thing). I’m also planning to write a blog to tell you a little bit about what happened back home, because I had a great time this summer. Anyway, I will plan to talk to you all soon!
Abba Bless,
Kristen
