well, usually there's just going to be a lot of crying...

Today was my first day of school! I'm an English teacher contracted out by a company in Shanghai that uses a curriculum designed for Chinese kindergarteners. There's a lot of singing, dancing and repetition. The idea is that the children learn intuitively through fun activities like learning sweet songs.

By the way, two-year-olds go to kindergarten here. They are expected to learn and do "homework". These kids are still not potty-trained and they are in my classes. It's insane. Hence my blog title, a statement made by one of the experienced teachers. Some of the kiddies are so stressed by the appearance of a large foreign person they just burst into tears. I witnessed this in the morning while I was observing a colleague, with one class of three or four sobbing toddlers. Luckily, my classes were pretty clever and happy.

Currently my schedule is a set of three afternoon classes at a very nice school called Yishu. I teach from three different books, but preparation isn't too hard. You kind of just wing it with singing, dancing and flashcards. I was nervous and a bit too sweaty, but I walked into the little baby class and the kids were super stoked that I was a meinu, or pretty lady! It was adorable. They are darn cute!

I upload all the songs and translations onto my iPod and play them with an awesome little speaker I bought here. It's convenient to tote around and I feel like a badass with my tiny speakers.

 

Mine are green. :D

 

In a later blog post, perhaps I can give you a better overview of what I'm doing. It's sort of hard to explain. There's a ton of improvisation and me butchering commands in Chinese. Ha!

This afternoon, I went with a couple of homies to IKEA to get some more home things. I hope I can ship most of this stuff home or use it for longer than ten months. It's irritating but there are things you need when you live alone in an apartment, like rags and a lamp. I'm over it but I'm still missing key things like house slippers (no shoes inside please).

In addition to wandering the mazes of IKEA, we stopped for an early dinner at the food court. Swedish meatballs!

I also saw a fork for the first time in a couple of weeks.

The night ended with a one kuai ice cream cone and a cab home. I'm currently contemplating the laundry hanging above my head in my "sun room" and what to do about the two shirts I lost out my window. I know, I know I should've secured them better but I just didn't think they were going to fall. I can easily grab one from a bush down there, but the other seems to have landed in my neighbor's gated garden thing. That will be fun to retrieve...

Anyway, I miss my dryer.

Love,

ellen