Sigh, I thought I would get better at updating this blog more frequently but I look at the last post date and I didn't do a very good job :(
Well, I am in my 7th week of classes here in Wuxi! I cannot believe how fast time is flying. We haven't had a 3-day weekend or any breaks since school has started but next week we have the entire week off for the Chinese October holiday! I know I speak for all of the teachers here when I say we are ready for it! It's hard to believe that when we come back from break we will start working on Christmas music in all of my classes which means I've been picking out music these past few weeks. I love Christmas music but I usually at least try to wait until Thanksgiving to start listening to it! Unfortunately we can't wait that long to start rehearsing for our concert so we have to start now. I have chosen a very difficult piece of music by Straight No Chaser for my high schoolers. It was a request of one of the students but I'm not sure with our numbers if we'll be able to pull it off. I decided this week would be our "trial-run" to see how we progress. Needless to say we spent a majority of our class period today singing the arrangement of "What Child is This?" and yes, it is September!
Our Father is continually showing His love to me and those around. I feel so much closer than I ever have to Him and the hope, joy and peace He brings. I wish I could go into details but I'll save that for when I come home next summer! Btw....I know I told some of you that I would be gone for two years without coming home but my family has used frequent flyer miles to buy me a ticket home! I'll be home for 3 weeks in June (unfortunately that's all the time off I get for the summer...the rest of the time I have Chinese language lessons).
I've started my Chinese lessons as of last week! Apparantly my pronunciation is unusually precise which I'm really happy about, but there is definitely a lot of work to be done to learn even the basics of this language! I just want to be able to communicate with those around me and understand what they say when they speak to me.
Anyways I need to head to sleep soon...tomorrow is a school day! I miss you all and I hope you are doing well!
-Rachel
PS-Happy (day early) 17th Birthday to my baby brother, Caleb!!! (I cannot believe you're that
OLD!)
"
Monday, September 24, 2012
Thursday, September 6, 2012
If you love to travel, live in China!
These past couple of weeks have been crazy but so much fun! My roomate and I had to go to Hong Kong for visa purposes but we had to wait for a few days before we could get our passports back....so that meant 2 days of experiencing Hong Kong with free accomodations and airfare! :) I love how European the city is (except for driving on the left side of the road...I almost got ran over a few times!). We walked for probably 14 hours straight one day just experiencing the city and of course shopping in Western stores that we can't find on the mainland (did I mention that we bought 7 bags of chocolate chips??). Now don't get me wrong, I love teaching, but if someone were to pay me to travel it would be a very tempting offer!
After that experience we came back for a few days of school and then I decided to go to Shanghai with a few friends over the weekend. We were able to stay with our school's city manager and his wife in their apartment which was wonderful (and free!). People were kind of suprised that I wanted to go seeing as I had gotten back from Hong Kong 3 days prior but I'm glad that I did because it was a blast!
This weekend I will be staying in Wuxi but I will be biking with a friend to the large lake that our city sits on (I have yet to see it). I'm very much looking forward to it and am hoping for great weather! We will also visit the orphanage on Saturday and I get to see a little girl who is stealing my heart. She has a "sick heart" and I am hoping that there is something that can be done. Her little fingertips are blue and so is her tongue (a circulation problem I assume). She also gets winded very easily. Despite all of this she always has the cutest little smile and seems like a very happy, content little baby. I'm not sure of her exact age but she can roll onto her back and I assume she's very close to being able to crawl on her own. Please keep her in your thoughts!
On the teaching front things are going quite well although I know within the next month I'll start to feel the stresses of our Christmas concert and planning for it (it's crazy to be thinking about that already!!). The high school students played for the school a few days ago in their "band" that we've started in class. It was so neat to see how excited they were to play the kind of music that they were playing. What started out as my biggest stress during the first week of school (only having 4 boys and 0 girls in high school choir) turned out to be the biggest blessing! There are times when I feel stressed though because I wish that I could've done something better in one class or taught something a different way in another. I know it's all part of being a first-year teacher but I really want to be good at what I'm doing. The peace that I have found through this is in the fact that I know I'm fully equipped to do the job at hand since this is the direction I've been lead. If I wasn't capable of doing this then I believe that I would've felt called to do something else at this point. I have to keep saying this to myself otherwise I become overwhelmed with feelings of doubt and inadequecy when things don't go well in class or if I can't think of a good way to teach something. I think the best thing for a first-year teacher is to just take things a day at a time...it's what I am having to do everyday! On the bright side though I have (almost) finshed 4 full weeks of teaching and I know it will only get more and more comfortable as the weeks go by!
Well that's about all I can think of for right now to share. I hope to have more interesting stories to share soon!!
(Traveling through customs to get to Hong Kong....gotta love the "backpack baby" style! It was worth it though because I didn't lose any cash!)
After that experience we came back for a few days of school and then I decided to go to Shanghai with a few friends over the weekend. We were able to stay with our school's city manager and his wife in their apartment which was wonderful (and free!). People were kind of suprised that I wanted to go seeing as I had gotten back from Hong Kong 3 days prior but I'm glad that I did because it was a blast!
This weekend I will be staying in Wuxi but I will be biking with a friend to the large lake that our city sits on (I have yet to see it). I'm very much looking forward to it and am hoping for great weather! We will also visit the orphanage on Saturday and I get to see a little girl who is stealing my heart. She has a "sick heart" and I am hoping that there is something that can be done. Her little fingertips are blue and so is her tongue (a circulation problem I assume). She also gets winded very easily. Despite all of this she always has the cutest little smile and seems like a very happy, content little baby. I'm not sure of her exact age but she can roll onto her back and I assume she's very close to being able to crawl on her own. Please keep her in your thoughts!
On the teaching front things are going quite well although I know within the next month I'll start to feel the stresses of our Christmas concert and planning for it (it's crazy to be thinking about that already!!). The high school students played for the school a few days ago in their "band" that we've started in class. It was so neat to see how excited they were to play the kind of music that they were playing. What started out as my biggest stress during the first week of school (only having 4 boys and 0 girls in high school choir) turned out to be the biggest blessing! There are times when I feel stressed though because I wish that I could've done something better in one class or taught something a different way in another. I know it's all part of being a first-year teacher but I really want to be good at what I'm doing. The peace that I have found through this is in the fact that I know I'm fully equipped to do the job at hand since this is the direction I've been lead. If I wasn't capable of doing this then I believe that I would've felt called to do something else at this point. I have to keep saying this to myself otherwise I become overwhelmed with feelings of doubt and inadequecy when things don't go well in class or if I can't think of a good way to teach something. I think the best thing for a first-year teacher is to just take things a day at a time...it's what I am having to do everyday! On the bright side though I have (almost) finshed 4 full weeks of teaching and I know it will only get more and more comfortable as the weeks go by!
Well that's about all I can think of for right now to share. I hope to have more interesting stories to share soon!!
(Traveling through customs to get to Hong Kong....gotta love the "backpack baby" style! It was worth it though because I didn't lose any cash!)
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