From the Desk of R. Dori Goldman, Esq.

OK, I know I said I'd have more time to update once I stopped school, and while it's true that I've had more time, I clearly haven't kept my promise. In my defense, my internet stopped working like 5 days ago, and on top of everything, my firewall jumper isn't working well right now.

But enough excuses. I have lost absolutely all concept of time, so I don't even know how long its been since I've updated. Since my internet isn't working, I'm currently sitting in a bookstore/library/restaurant/bar I've been to a few times, and really enjoy. Plus, the free wifi is nice, too. It's Sunday night and I'm super exhausted- this was my first full teaching weekend. Last weekend I had a busy Saturday but an easy Sunday, so it doesn't count. This weekend I filled in for another teacher who had to go home for a few weeks. I don't know how he keeps this schedule: 9am-8pm on Saturday and 9am-6pm on Sunday. 1 hour off each for lunch. That ended up equaling 6 90minutes classes on Saturday, and 4 90minutes classes (plus 2 30 minute demo classes for potential students) on Sunday. I'm beat, not going to lie. But the beauty of it is that I only have 5 hours of teaching over the next five days, so plenty of rest.

While I don't have my own classes, that's pretty much what my schedule will look like : super busy weekends, and an easy week (my weekend is Tuesday and Wednesday). So how have I been filling the time? Well, I moved into my new apartment in Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP), and I've been getting myself situation, buying very important things like a toaster oven. I've been doing a halfway decent job of keeping it clean, although I can obviously mess it up in like 1/200 of the time it takes me to clean it.

I've also enjoyed having a kitchen so I don't have to eat out all the time like I did when I lived in the hotel. I haven't cooked much, because, frankly, like 70% of what I cooked for myself at home was some sort of Asian stirfry, and the point of cooking is to escape Asian food. But I make pasta or steak, and it comes out fine. I've been invited to a potluck dinner by another teacher tomorrow night, and there is like absolutely nothing I know how to make that has ingredients available in China, so ...we'll see, I guess! But I was super excited to find that not only can I get normal tasting peanut butter in China, it's actually the brand I use from home! So I eat a lot of peanut butter sandwiches. Like every day or two. But it's a small reminder of home :)

So, what else? I'm getting more comfortable on the bike, although I've already managed to break one of the batteries (duct tapes works wonders!). One of the other teachers at Sunflower took me on an e-bike tour of SIP last week, and I saw a lot of places I'd never seen, so that was really cool. It was also on that ride, where I followed around a much more experience biker, that I really became comfortable on the bike.

I've also hired a young Chinese woman named Vivian to be my tutor. She comes to my house twice a week to teach me, and so far, so good. Oral Chinese is a fairly straightforward language grammatically (especially compared to English), but the pronunciation is a nightmare for me. Hopefully thee private lessons will give me the push I need to really focus and learn it: both for survival, and because I'm interested. But studying Chinese has given me a decent understanding of what my students are going through learning English.

But back to the important stuff: teaching. I guess it's easiest to break it up by school. Monday and Friday afternoons I teach 4 30minute classes at a nursery school about 20 minutes away. I do these without a Chinese TA. The first three classes have about 30 students, around 5 years old. They're really cute and very well behaved. Because the class is so short, we don't have time to do much besides learn a few words that they yell back at me. I run around a lot and get all red in the face. I feel like a clown, falling on the floor and doing funny things, but I actually like it a lot. But I had my first real embarrassing moment: I was given 6 words to teach the students, and I didn't know 2 of them. These kids haven't even progressed to vocabularly yet- the words they work on are chosen just for sound and pronunciation. But I kid you not- 2 words. Mete and Dene. Google them. I had to.


My last class at the nursery is the itty, bitty babies. They can't be more than 2 years old, and they don't speak Chinese yet, let alone English. While I just meet with the older kids once a week (3 on Monday, 3 on Friday), I meet with the babies both days. The first two times half just burst into tears and the rest just stared at me. Since then, though, the think of me as a bean bag chair. They literally just jump on me- in my lap, on my arms, and on my back. I've found that stickers have worked well to keep them under control, and that singing Itsy, Bitsy Spider 5 or 6 times puts them in a hypnotic state. And now, only like 3 or 4 cry when I walk in the room. Progress!

Thursdays I have one 40 minute class at a public school. The kids are about 7, and there are at least 40 or 50 of them in the class. But, oh my goodness, I'm like a celebrity there. The kids at my other schools come from wealthy families, and are used to seeing western people. But not these kids. When I arrive it's usually the end of recess, so they're all out in the yard, and they all run up and stare. They follow me around and gather at the windows of the office to peak in at me. It sounds crazy, but I swear it's true. The kids in the class are just so excited to have a western teacher that they're very well behaved and eager to participate.

And then that leaves the weekends at Sunflower. Kids comes for 2 hours classes- 90 of which is with the Western teacher and Chinese TA, and the other 30 with just the TA. Teachers pretty much just jump from class to class, and are handed a lesson plan, and GO. Ages range from from 3-15, and I've found I already strongly prefer to teach the younger kids, like ages 5-7. The smallest kids are fine, but are exhausting, and the older kids are can be really poorly behaved. Plus, working with the younger kids requires more creativity and fun, while the older kids just read from a book. But it's also nice to have a mix to break up the really long days.

OK, I'm beat, and I still have to ride my stupid bike home. I'll do what I can to keep in touch, although I hear it may be bad for the next few weeks.

EDIT: So when I went to post this blog, of course the firewall thing wasn't working. There has apparently been a big crackdown on these things. I found an alternative. Although it is in Dutch, it seems to be working well enough to get the blog up. Unfortunately, it won't allow me on Facebook, so to those of you have left me messages on that, I'm sorry I can't respond right now.

Love you all!

RDG