Day 2 of Surprises... I mean "Teaching"

I woke up ready to go at 5:30 am. Then thanked Him it was 5:30 and I had another half an hour or hour depending on what I thought. My only class today was at 1:30pm and I was suppose to have an hour and half in my office each day sometime. I decided 6:15 was better after the musical siren went off at 6:00am (as it does every morning) and they started to reroof the roof starting at 6am. (For some reason a jack hammer is needed. From the sounds of it, they are working hard, at least very busy at making lots of noise - but it didn't irritate me, just something funny.)

So after getting take the morning slower and getting to spend some quality, unrushed, un-paniced time with Him, I tried to Skype my family to show them my new apartment. Some technical difficulties lead to me getting a text via skype from my team leader at 8:26am saying the school just asked us to cover a class that started at 8am. "Sure, I'll give it a shot," I said. ... Perhaps a bad decision was made there. It was a pretty rough class. I got there 5 minutes before the break and the second half was rushed, out of whack, powerless, and... I got ran over. So I learned the importance of planning ahead, giving directions properly, and being authoritative at the beginning. After class, I attempted to get my office hours in but couldn't find my office. I didn't know what to ask for to ask anyone either. I did find the Japanese Department, Korean Department, and German Department though.

Lunch time and we GOT OUR LUGGAGE! (the journey of the traveling pants is complete!) Thank You! I spent some time surrendering the next class to Him and just admitting my incompetency. I also asked to speak with the authority that He has, for my students to be interested and actively participating in what the class was doing, that they would respect me, and that I could be friendly and loving and still professional. ---- Man, the class went like it was designed by His hand (because it was) It went so good. They put up name tents on their desk which helped a huge amount. They were very attentive and active the whole time. They listened, laughed, talked, and their English was good. At the break, a few students came up and asked if I was sure I wasn't going to be their teacher for the semester. They were upset when I said, "No, just today. You're new teacher will be here next week." So that made me feel good, like I was doing a good job. One student asked when my English corners were and if he could come. I feel like He did a most beautiful job shining through me. Very excited to see those students around campus. If my actual classes go like this afternoon did, I might kinda like this teaching stuff.

Afterwords, I found my office and was moved into another office. I'm now in a room with maybe 6 or 7 other ladies. The assistant dean who was moving me said, "You are the only male. Very lucky. haha." and I thought "...or very unlucky. haha." They seemed nice. One lady even looked like she had the good book on her desk, but I couldn't quite tell. ... It's gonna be a good year. :) When I left at 4pm (16:00) I walked very slowly looking around a lot to find my way back again.

No class PLANNED for tomorrow, just meetings, but we'll see what opportunities He'll bring Wednesday in China.

First Class

I had my first class this morning at 8a.m. We walked over to the buildings, they handed me the book at 7:56 and I walked into class at 7:58. Woah. Fun time. It was quite the experience. He showed up and helped keep me calm and the students active. In an introduction activity to help promote students to start talking again, I put up 8 things on the board that described me and let them guess what they meant. Example: S (for Superman fan), Mountain Lion (for Concord University), I - 3 (for Isaac my brother is 3 years older than I am), Bug (for my VW Bug), etc. One student guessed that I kept a mountain lion in my house as a pet - so I was much more dangerous than I thought. Then I went over two rows and one girl said, "We all know that girls are scared of little crawly things like insects, and I know that you are a guy, but I think you might be scared like a little girl." hahahahaha. I said, "Well, alright. Good guess." They were pretty impressed with the picture of Isaac and of the Bug.

My class was about 33 girls and 2 guys. It was two 45-min sections with a 10 minute break in-between sections. In an activity called "Summer Surprise", student shared things they did this summer that might surprise their classmates. I had students share everything from going to Beijing, to winning the lottery and going to America to take a shower, to one girl even put that her ex-boyfriend got married and she was driven mad by the alcohol. I decided not to read that one allowed in class. I had each of the students answer a few more in-depth "about me" questions at the end of class that I look forward to reading and learning about them. I'll have that class next Monday also, then there teacher will get here Monday evening and take over.

I did get my books for my Freshman English classes. I'll teach 5 classes in the English Department and 1 class in the Bilingual Department. (The only difference is the type of student I'll have, the lesson will be the same.) I got my office today and share it with 3 other ladies who seemed very nice. Once the English Department gives me my schedule (hopefully tomorrow and not in 2 weeks), then I can tell the Bilingual Department and get the other class I teach. I'll also be teaching 2 English Corners that start next week (I'll tell you what those are later, when I find out what they are.)

Another positive for the day, I successfully ordered lunch in the cafe (which is all characters). It was the same thing as last night, but I got it down. Also, the sun is shining here! It's a perfect day at about 75 degrees with blue skies and white puffy clouds. It's amazing, (except the part where I think about this is the head of summer... it's gonna be cold soon.) I think we're going to go explore and find out more of campus and I'll try to take some pictures and share them soon. I also have pictures of our apartments which are very nice. Thank you for all of your thoughts and encouragement.

Game Time.

A lot to tell you, please read this this morning.

After getting up at 4:45 this morning we got to the train and made it early. The train ride went smooth and made it to our school about 3:00pm. It’s really nice campus and our apartments are awesome. I’ll post pictures and tell you more about it later. Our two team leaders (guys team and girls team) had a meeting with the administration today about our classes and all. We went to eat at 5:00pm and found out this news.

We’re teaching tomorrow. We have only seen our dorms and the dining halls. We saw the stadium and a local campus store where we were able to get laundry detergent and breakfast food. So… the freshman have 3 weeks of military training on campus so they’re academic classes don’t start for 3 weeks. Everyone else starts tomorrow. Jessie, Tom, Kelsey, Tannah, and our team leaders (Dave & Monica) are teaching sophomores and they start tomorrow. Since Ashley, Jordan, and I are teaching freshman and they’re classes don’t start yet, they asked us to cover some of the junior level classes this week until the other teachers get here. So, we’re all teaching tomorrow. Classes start at 8. We’re headed over to the different departments to get our class schedule (a.k.a. when we teach and who we teach and where) and our books and curriculum tomorrow at 7:30 am. Classes start half an hour later. The good news is for those of us teaching junior level classes, we know when we’ll be teaching. My first and only class for tomorrow is at 8:00a.m.
Our wonderful team leaders scrambled to help put together lesson plans and first day activities (we had wrote general lesson plans for freshman/sophomores but hadn’t had time to go over them and adapt/fix them yet, and they wouldn’t be suitable for juniors. So they have just put together some things, and we’re about to all go over there and brainstorm and find out what an idea is for tomorrow. I ask that you lift us up because we’re teaching at a university in China in the morning… we haven’t seen the classroom buildings, or our text books, or our class schedules, and have only been on campus 5 hours. It’s going to be awesome! I’m counting on Him showing up because I know He will. I just had to laugh because earlier this afternoon it was somehow mentioned about the possibility of teaching tomorrow, and I knew we were going to. He’s got it under control. I need to go prepare for the lesson for tomorrow, but I ask for control, confidence, joy, and for Him to show up and Shine through.

Thank you so much. I can’t wait to tell you about how He shows up and everything else He’s provided. As you wind down toward bed time, we’ll be starting the beginning of something beautiful. Thank you so much!

T.G.I.F. – Culture Week

This week has been mainly a week of culture training. We finished up most of our teaching practical’s last week (week 2) and we had an instructor come in for cultural training. She did a really good job. It was very practical and very helpful as to what’s going on around us and how that affects us. She actually came with the same organization as I am 26 years ago. So she has been here for a long time and experienced much of it.

One thing I thought was interesting that if you’re from a foreign country and you come into America, you live there, you work there, you learn the language, you adapt to the culture you become… an American. If you come to china, live here, work here, learn the language, adapt to the culture you become… a foreigner whose still in China. No matter how long you’ve been here you’re always a guest. It brings up many interesting points of how we interact. I’d like to share those with you on perhaps another post. Maybe on a day when there’s not as much interesting things to write about will I share those. As I learned today though, “There’s never nothing that happens in China.”
We finished up our training this morning and have been enjoying some restful time this afternoon before our commissioning ceremony tonight. All teachers from all throughout China have made it in now. The full time people often go home during the summer for support and R&R. We’ll all meet at the big office and have our commissioning ceremony which involves some singing, vertical thinking, and just dedication. Afterwards… ice cream!
We did get to eat at a western restraint on Wednesday night and I got some ice cream (milkshake)! We ate at “Peter’s Tex-Mex.” Oh it was soo good. They had pancakes and tacos and milkshakes and oohhhh. It was good. WAIT! The absolute best part was FREE WATER! OHHH FREE WATER! There’s no such thing in China. It’s such an awesome thing we have in America when we go out to eat that you can get water for free! Most of the time, we even get ice in America! It was the best thing, especially after we had walked around for 5/6 hours at the Forbidden City/Tiananmen Square (pictures and stories to come later). Most of the time in China if you get water, it’s usually hot water (like tea, minus the tea.) They think that the temperature of the water should match the temperature outside – so hot water in the summer, cold water in the winter. “It will help keep you healthier.” I appreciate the thought, but I really enjoy a cold glass of water on a hot day.
Right now, we have the afternoon off (Friday afternoon for us, Friday early morning for you) and we are packing up. We’ll send out our luggage tomorrow morning by railroad, and our team leaves Sunday morning at 5a.m. to head to our school! I’m very excited about that. I love the community we have here, but I’m really ready to get going and get started. I think most of my fellow teachers feel the same way. I try to update every two days or so, but the next few days will be very, very busy getting to our school on Sunday afternoon. Unpacking, seeing the school, getting paperwork filled out and ID’s made and all before classes start on Wednesday. Oh, and between Sunday and Wednesday we need to find out what classes we’re teaching and what the curriculum is and all of that stuff. Haha. Apparently, as North Americans we highly value planning ahead and are all about information. Other parts of the world don’t make plans way head of time and usually the foreign teachers are the last to know. So if you would like to remember all of us in traveling this weekend, we’re headed to our schools and need to find out what exactly we’re doing. They said the next few weeks will be much more intense than these last few so… Lace up your shoes, we’ll be hitting the ground running. Also, that our team could really support each other – as guys we have a tendency to try to do it ourselves and be very independent and are more susceptible to things.

Thanks for hanging in and reading this all. Sorry for making it so long. I’ll work on being more concise. Love you all.

How big is China?

For some of you math minded people, you'll love this post, for others you might get confused. My roommate, Justin, and I were talking about some facts and figures and it blows us away. Most of these numbers are approximate, so just so you know.

On the face of the Earth, currently, right now, there are approximately 6.7 billion people. In the country of China alone, there are 1.2 billion. That's not one area that's one country. One team at the Olympics. One flag on a chart. Just one. You might say "We'll China is huge so that's why they have so many people. Here's a map of China overlapped onto the United States:

 We're about the same size. China by square miles is a little bigger. But get this, out of there 1.2 billion people, 96% of the population lives in the east (the equivalent of east of the Mississippi River). Packed into this area. In Beijing, the city I'm in right now, there are estimates of around 20 million people in the city and the outskirts. 20 million. For those of you trying to imagine that (like I am) that means if you took every person in the state of West Virginia and put them in one city ten times, it would be about the right number! TEN West Virginia's in one city! That straight blows my mind.

If you add in this other country not to far away from China called India then the numbers get astronomical. India has 1.13 billion. Now put those together and you have 2.33 billion people. That means that 1/3 of the people in the world live in these two countries in Asia. Do you know the ramifications of that? Stop. Don't think fearfully, think vertically. Wow. You want to change the world... these 2 countries look like a good place to start. You want to spread some Love around, this would be the place it seems. Wow it straight blows my mind of what kind of love could be spread here.

Justin said that according to historians (he's a history education major) that there have been approximately 10 billion people who have walked the face of the Earth. From Adam and Eve kicked things off with some gardening tips of things NOT to do, to a giant boating incident, to Inca tribes of Indian, Columbus discovering a "new world", through both World Wars and onto now you and me now staring at computer screens - there has been 10 billion people here on Earth. Ok, that sounds good. Begin to realize how deep this goes, how many people this entails, but if there has been approximately 10 billion people on the earth since it's existence started - that means that 12% of every human who has ever existed on planet earth is living in China right now. . . . . Need a minute to process that? I did. I still do. The country I'm sitting in holds 12% of the Earth's total population expanding all of time.

Wow. I never knew China was this big. I never thought about it. I knew it was big, but whoa. This amazes me. How much Love there must have been in One Man to do what He did. THAT is what blows my mind.
I was on the subway tonight and just thinking about the hundreds of people packed in there with us and how each one is so uniquely special, so uniquely made, so individually Loved that the whole world was changed.
I forget to breathe at this thought. Amazed I stagger back, close my eyes, and weep a little at the sheer thought of overwhelming Love. So much there, yet still so much unknown about what True Love is.

Each day, I feel like I get to gain a little bit more of the picture just by getting to see so many individual people. Not groups of people, or crowds, but individuals who each have a different story, who have a different mind, who have a different finger print, who have different dreams, but who have one thing in common, Love is searching for them. Throw the calculator away, it's not able to be simplified down to numbers. It's a lifetime worth of learning, to get to the end and still realize how far off we are. But so glad by the Answer that we have.

Sunday - Dad's house.

Kinda funny how rich our Father is. I mean we think celebrities are wealthy when they have a house in the Caribbeans and in California. Shoot, our Father has houses all over the world. This morning we went to one of them as part of a cultural class we're taking. It was much different than what I had expected. I think we have a very different view of how things are in the west.

To be honest, it wasn't that much different than a time in the states, (aside from it being in a different language.) We had massive headsets to wear and a lady in the back translated the majority of it for us. Our group went to two different places this morning, ours was about a 40 min bus, subway, and walk away. When we got there the outside was packed, then they opened the doors. Apparently we were number 2 of 4 meetings that was happening there. There was probably 300+ people in the one we went to. It seemed to be a mix of Catholic and Methodist style. They used hymns and most of the ones I know from back home were in their hymn book. We even sang Lilly of the Vally, I sang in English, them... not so much. The message was pretty good, a little hard to follow. I was surprised by the amount of people coming in and out. Not much time to talk or get to know people, it was kinda in and out, but when your 3rd time starts at 10:00 am, you've got to be busy.  After talking to someone later on who knew a little more than I did, I found out that we had went to the oldest protestant fellowship in Beijing. It was origionally started in 1860. (not always in the same building though). They also said that their biggest limitation now is just space. They had the old school auditorium type that we were in and then a side room built on, and another building with screens in it. It was pretty cool. A little different. Not quite like Africa, but still pretty cool.

The Great Wall

Yesterday was our big day at the Great Wall. It was pretty awesome. I uploaded pictures to facebook and have opened it up and posted the link below so that you should be able to click and view the photos without having a facebook account.

Click For Great Wall Pictures

It was pretty awesome. I was very suprised by the complexity of it. The whole wall has a slight slant to it with a drainage ditch on the downhill side to help clean the run off when it rains. It's not too much that it throws you off or that I've ever noticed in pictures. But it's pretty smart thinking if you ask me.

We got to the wall about 8:15ish am. and left about noon to get back. We got to see a good bit of it and kept moving the whole time. I was hoping that the fog would clear out throughout the day but it was more of rain clouds that settled in.We got sprinkled on a few times but nothing major. We were suppose to take this slide/ride type of thing down off of the mountain, but due to the rain they shut it down, so they transferred our tickets to a ski lift. Not quite as exciting but saved lots of steps back down.

At the Great wall there were Chinese and French and Germans and Americans and all sorts of people there. It kind of got me excited about my school and all of the different nations that will be represented there too. I also learned that Tom one of my teammates is very very afraid of heights. In a few pictures, you'll see him holding onto someone or even holding on to a back pack strap because he was so sick and nervous of being up that high. I didn't think it was that high but he doesn't do too well with heights.

On the way back after walking around all morning and in the rain, I fell asleep on the hour bus ride back. I woke up to most of the bus singing "A Whole New World" from Aladin. It was the most magical alarm clock I have ever had. Jordan asked how it sounded when I woke up and I told them my room number and what time I wanted to get up if they wanted to come sing to me and wake me up everyday. haha. Apparently, somehow a sing-a-long got started based off of our cultural understanding from the Disney movie, Mulan. Then it just transpired into every Disney movie song they could think of. Pretty awesome.

The teaching yesterday went well. I know different places that I can improve on and different things that I think went well. Classroom management needs some improvment and being able to write substance filled lesson plans and instruct well could be improved. We did have good participation and interest in the students. They seemed to enjoy it and focus in well as to what we were discussing. I'm still waiting on Him to give me a teachers mindset so that I can be the best I can. I know He will get me by, and I know that He's going to make sure I admit to myself and to others that it's Him giving me the ability and nothing on my own.So that will be good.

I know this is a long post, so I appreciate you reading through it and checking out the pictures. I'm sorry I couldn't get them up earlier. I love and appreciate you all and your comments on the posts too.

The Great Wall

Yesterday, we got to go to the Great Wall of China. It was about an hour away from our hotel. They said it was a 30-45 min hike up to to the wall and after following my roommate from Colorado, we made it in 15 min and covered in sweat. The wall was really amazing. Magnificent I think is the best word to describe it. It's not very wide, but it is long and high off the ground. I tried posted on picture of me with the wall in the background, but it wasn't working. It was pretty foggy so we couldn't see too much at a time and it ended up raining on us, but thats ok.

I'll try to post more pictures up tomorrow and tell you a little more about the wall and the trip back. Right now, I'm finishing up my first lesson plan. We're micro-teaching this morning. So we've written our own lesson plan and are to teach 20 minutes of it infront of the other teachers. (It's our student teaching experience.) So if you want to remember me, and well all of us are pretty nervous about it as you head to bed, we'll be up and teaching. Thanks for your love and support.

Seeing is believing... sort of. (Captions)

Here are the captions for the pictures I posted before. I don't know why it wouldn't let me put them together, but I was having some issues last night and tonight making them into one. So now they are two. Pictures below.

Plane Window: A side aerial shot of Hong Kong. We had a delayed flight which put is here for 5+ hours but the stewardesses were kind enough to help us get new tickets and give us vouchers to eat lunch for free. we didn’t have to worry, but were definitely Taken Care Of.

5 Guys: Have you seen these good lookin’ guys anywhere? My team and I stopped for a group picture in the middle of our Amazing Race through Beijing. It may have turned into more of a tourist adventure than a race though. Haha.

Group Sitting Around Table: Up for a game? Many times you’ll see a group of men sitting around a table like this playing some game or eating food. Our first night in Beijing we went on a walk (which it’s extremely safe here, no one worries or is in fear as they walk along), but we also went with the appropriate authorities, and there were probably 25 different little tables in one block all eating or selling food. It was like a Fourth of July BBQ in the middle of the city.

Teammates Eating: HOT POT! Our first Hot Pot meal which is more of the cook your own food type of style. They give you a table with a Bunsen burner in the middle, a soup type of seasonings of your choice to go in the middle, and then you pick what meats and vegetables to cook in it. This was our first HOT POT experience, and from some of the choices we made, and some of the results of the food on teammates…we might be waiting a while before we try it again.

Kids Playing Game: Game On – Junior Edition. These cute kids were on the street trying to play as we came out from eating supper tonight. As a side note, children don’t really wear diapers around here past a certain age, so their small children wear these special shorts with no butt area in them so they can just squat down and go whenever is needed. Handy little trunks to have around… I think.

Pagoda Picture: I figured this is what many of us imagine when we think of China. This is an old temple for… I’m not sure what. There are a few of these around but not nearly as many as you would imagine, I think in all of our adventures I’ve seen maybe 2 or 3 that look like this. They’re not very common in Beijing, but are still cool to look at.

Seeing is believing... sort of.

Say what?

It's Friday evening after a few days of training. It's a lot to take in, but it's going good. I'm learning so much about being a teacher (props to all the teachers out there, especially for lesson plans), about this new language (apparently each letter doesn't make the same sound in other languages), and about relationships and sharing our lives with each other and the fun stuff that I enjoy. Many of my preconceived notions have changed due to China and it's culture and people. I'm learning that this year will be growing in my patience of what I had planned for Us to do. Perhaps much slower pace than in the states.

The language is different, but we're working learning it. Dave, my team leader, said it wouldn't be as big of issue once we get to our school, but here in Beijing, it's heartbreaking not to get to talk with the millions of people around us. Literally, millions of people. It's not packed like your always jammed in somewhere though, there are just always people out driving, walking, riding, sitting on street corners - and walking a block or two you pass about 50 people, but you keep walking and there's another 50 people. This is just a small section. It hurts that I can't find out there stories. My Mandarin is so limited/non-existent.  My current goal was yesterday I successfully asked where the bathroom was, and today I asked for the check at the restaurant. Granted those who have been studying it for years told me what to say and I practiced it first, but either way, I celebrate the small victories. I will be working on that and trying to determine how much time I should invest in learning it - to be able to see if I need it alot at my school or just some and to invest my time in other ways. So if you want to join me in asking for help with learning the language, I'd appreciate it.

That really makes me appreciate Him even more. Knowing he can speak ever language, in every dialect, with the right tones, accents, and rhythm, but not only that, He speak them all at the same time, while simultaneously listening to our requests, celebrations, and breaking hearts... and respond appropriately to each. Wow. He's good. I Love him even more for that.

Love you guys too, and I'll talk to you soon.

Ni Hao!

Hello beautiful people,

I just wanted to let you know that we made it here successfully last night. (Tuesday morning for you.) My computer currently isn't quite able to do updates here yet. I can do emails, but not blogs yet. Once they help me get my computer hooked up and fixed up right I'll be able to put updates on here more often.

As for now, some ABC's of our travel here. (40+ hours with our delays and missed flights.)

A-ll our baggage made it here and safely and we had no issues at all leaving
the airport. Talk about him opening doors, we handed them our paperwork,
collected our luggage, and walked out the open door. No hassle at all!

B-eijing has very rich smells to it, sometimes like a 4th of July BBQ, other
times, wood smoke, other times dog poop, and sometimes… well not sure what
it is, but you realize it.

C-hinese for what I’ve talked to are excited to talk to you. With a smile
and a Ni-Hao they smile right back and offer a friendly hello. Although,
after attempting to one guy on the plane, I learned that apparently my
accent is thicker than other people’s on the team. Got to do some work on
that.

Thank you all for caring and thinking about us as we’ve traveled over here.


Today was our first day of training and adapting to the culture. I'm going to go study teaching some and attempting to learn some of the language as today provided to be a great motivation source to learn the language. I love you all and appreciate you so much.


Abram

New Blog

Sorry about all of the confusion. This will be the blog I'll be using while in China. Updates soon to come.

Some helpful information:
I leave this Sunday, August 8th, and will have training in Beijing until August 29th then head to Changchun.

Blog:

http://AbramsInChina.blogspot.com

Twitter:

AbramInChina

Email Me:

to get my address & other information.