I'm Trying

Hi Everyone,
I don't know if I explained this or not in the previous post, but obviously we do get blog spot. To get it, we had to find a way around the censorship, and the website we are using still has problems. It doesn't load the website fully, so I don't have an Icon to download photo's, which is really bugging me, especially since I had to figure out how to put the pictures on this computer using the Chinese characters (very frustrating) . And for all the Facebook friends out there, I can see your status' but that is about it! No more leaving my own status updates, or commenting on others. This all makes me sad. One of our American friends has a different website that we need to get and hopefully it will let me put pictures on! so Like the title say's, "I'm Trying!"

So here is a picture-less update:

We survived our first week of teaching. I have 4 kindergarten classes that I go around too. 2 classes have 18 kids that are 4-5 years old, one class has 30 kids that are 5-6 years old and the last class has 18 2-3 year olds. I only get that last one once a week while Michael is teaching P.E. to the first graders! To say the least, it has been a very interesting week full of simple words and a lot of songs!

Michael's classes are similar but he doesn't have the older kids like me he only has younger ones, except twice a week he teaches P.E. to the first graders which he loves because it is P.E. and the kids are older. I keep telling him he can have my older kids and I'll teach his 2-3 year olds all week.

We were also invited to represent the foreign teachers from the U.S. for an Opening Ceremony. We didn't realize how big of a deal it was. They had very important people there, like the president of the university, and people high up from the City. Here in China I guess it is a big honor to be seated on the front row of anything, and that is where we sat during the ceremony. We sat through about 1 1/2 hours of speeches (all in Chinese) and then were asked to take photo's with these high and mighty people. Later that night, we went out to eat with most of the people in this conference. All the foreigners were seated at one table. In china, when you eat with a lot of people, they put a lot of food in the center which has a rotating lazy Susan type thing in the middle and you all share.We started out with a few things, and the waitress's just kept bringing more and more and more and more... you get the idea! We ended up tasting about 25 different dishes. During all of this eating, we kept getting interrupted by different people for a toast! Each time, we would have to stand, and clang the glasses, say cheers, the whole bit. Sometimes we would even have to do "bottoms up". Lets just say I am glad I had sprite, and not the wine or beer, and I think I was more full of juice than the food by the end of the meal. We had to have had about 20 toasts by the end of the night! All in all, it was a Great night, and it was an honor to go! ;-)