A Good Kind of Busy

 

Thought for the day: Act as if what you do makes a difference.  It does.

Today was a jam-packed day.  All the teams taught their morning classes.  Mary and I continue to be impressed with the students’ eagerness to do a variety of activities.  Today we played vocabulary games, talked about the lectures that Leon and Lester gave, talked about what makes a good teacher, taught some idioms, and did some song preparation for this afternoon’s activities, among other things.  Today we also got to know a bit more about our students by having them introduce each other.

We came back to the hotel and had another delicious lunch together.  We were then able to rest a bit before heading back to campus for afternoon activities.  Since this year’s group is so large we divided the students in half.  Half the classes listened to Michael’s lecture on “What American Students Study When They Study China and Chinese”.  The other half did songs and dances under Dixie’s and Nancy’s very capable leadership.  After about an hour the students switched sessions. 

We got back to the hotel at 5:00.  Some of us prepped a bit for tomorrow’s classes before going out to dinner.  We went to a nearby restaurant where the specialty is a large fish that is turned inside-out to reveal a fluffy sweet-and-sour treat.  We also had many other dishes.  There was really a lot of food!

We also discussed where to go this weekend with a van that the school has graciously offered to furnish.  If it can be arranged several volunteers will go to Stone Village and Stone Forest on Saturday.  Temporary plans for Sunday are to go back to a hot springs park that some of us went to last year.  It will be a very relaxing way to spend the weekend after our first week of teaching.  It was a busy day.  But it was a good kind of busy!

-Jim