Better City, Better Life - World Expo 2010

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the World’s Expo with some friends. I didn’t really know what to expect initially, but it was definitely worth going and is something I would really like to do again before it ends in October. For those of you that may not know much about the World Expo (previously known as The World’s Fair) it originated in Paris as a national exposition to display the culture, beauty, and fashion industry in France. Other national expositions followed in Europe, but it wasn’t until 1851 that London held the first international exposition to showcase industrialization, cultural exchange, and images of various nations through pavilions.

The theme for this year’s expo is “Better City, Better Life.” The slogan combines traditional Chinese philosophy with Western utopia ideals for a better union of rural and urban life. “Better City, Better Life” strives to portray an identity where technology, science, economic development, human space, and culture exist and thrive in harmony. –Graham Land (Shanghai World Expo 2010 Better City, Better Life?)

From what I've gathered, the pavilions are set up by the country to showcase their nation and ways to become further developed and improved for “a perfect world.” The pavilions promote the nation and encourage tourism while frequently highlighting typical life in that particular country as well as pointing out things the country is known for. The Spain Pavilion, for example, had a flamenco dancer performing, while the pavilion for Greece had herbs, wine, feta cheese, and olive oil on display. In Venezuela there was an entire room of hammocks to lay on and relax, in the Netherlands there were bright flashing lights and signs of “Happy Steet.” I was there for over 5 hours and still wasn’t even close to seeing everything I would have liked. It was a wonderful experience and I can’t wait to go back again soon.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Mid Autumn Festival, also known as The Moon Festival, is one of the biggest and most important holidays in China each year. It is held on the fifteenth day of the eighth month in the Chinese, Gregorian calendar, when the moon is at its fullest and roundest. It marks the new harvest and is traditionally a time to spend with family, worship the moon, and eat lots and lots of mooncakes while welcoming the new harvest. Well, being in China during this time and celebrating the moon festival was great. Many of my students gave me gifts for the holiday and we even had off from school Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. But, after trying a couple different mooncakes, I think it is safe to say I will never try them again. One of my students gave me a box of 6, all different varieties. Looking at the outside, one would expect a normal cake but OMG the surprise you find once you bite into it for the first time. They are all filled with different things ranging from fruits and nuts to meat and other surprises. The first one I opened was dark green with pinenuts inside. Another was brown with nasty stringy looking things, another was lemon, and I think the other was red bean. Other fillings that I’ve heard about include lotus seed, pumpkin seed, watermelon seed, ham, egg yolk, and even lard! Moral of the story – I don’t think I will be bringing any of these home as souvenirs!

The Smartest Kids in School!!!

This is William, he is a second grader at my school. I saw him sitting in Ms. Davies' class yesterday with this awesome shirt so I obviously had to get his picture. He told me he was a huge State fan! What a smart kid!!!

Yesterday, our morning writing journal topic was, "When I grow up, I want to be a ________."

Some of my students wrote about being astronauts, doctors, artists, bakers, and fire fighters, then little miss Irene said she wanted to be Ms. V. -Precious!

Home Sweet Home!!!

yayyyyy After nearly a month of deciding on furniture and figuring out how to get it delivered and assembled, my apartment is now complete! Words can honestly not describe the excitement and relief I now feel. Having everything put together brings this amazing sense of homeliness and comfort. I love my new couch, coffee table, rug, and adorable pillows and matching blanket! They're all so cheery, so colorful, and SO ME!!! I can't wait to start having my new friends over to relax and hang out! (And start having visitors from home! hint hint...) Happy Wednesday!

Touring the Old City!!

After such a fun and exciting night last night, I was ready to continue the thrill and tour more of Shanghai. I went with three other girls and took the metro to the Old City. Instead of sky scrapers and modern architecture, we were taken back in time to a place of ancient buildings and lifestyle. It looked like your typical Chinese town with small streets and alleyways and vendors selling just about anything you could ever imagine. From purses and watches, to hair accessories, dresses, shoes, and household items, they had it all. It was truly amazing and the buildings were beautiful! We had a wonderful time walking around, taking pictures and site seeing. It felt like an entirely different and new city from downtown Shanghai. I loved it here and can’t wait to go back soon!

Happy Teacher's Day

What a wonderful holiday! Some of my students made me cards and others brought me flowers and gifts – so sweet and such a nice way to end my first full week! My kids had their first tests today, and for the most part I was very pleased with their performance. We had a little trouble with some of the spelling words (bad, had, mat, hat, can, pan) but now I know to put more emphasis on them for next week!

The school put on a very nice banquet for us Friday evening to celebrate Teacher’s Day. A lot of the teachers play instruments, sing, dance, etc. so, towards the end of the banquet those teachers performed. After the banquet, a lot of us went to this really cool new bar. It was a lot of fun since we had all just come from the banquet and were able to relax and have a good time. The owner of the bar was absolutely hilarious! He introduced himself as Steve but wanted me to call him “Big Steve” since I told him I had a brother named Stephen. What a great man – he serenaded us with Elvis, as well as traditional Chinese songs and proceeded to dance and hang out with us all night. All in all, Teacher’s Day was a huge success!

"Never Pick up Food has Fat"

Today, for Social Studies class we learned about different rules, and the importance of having rules. After the lesson, I had the kids choose their favorite rule (or what they thought was the most important rule or make up a new rule) and design a poster with the rule listed on the top and a big illustration in the middle. I was thoroughly impressed with the rules they chose as their favorites and the rules they came up with themselves, some included; “Always Eat Your Vegetables,” “Hold the Banister When Walking Down the Stairs,” “Ask Permission to get out of your Seat,” “Always ask before Leaving the Room,” and “Make New Friends” just to mention a few. But I must say I think my favorite was when one of my girls got the wording a little wrong on her poster and instead of writing, “Never Pick up Food that has fallen on the Floor” she wrote, “Never Pick up Food has Fat.” It was hilarious and her picture was just priceless.

I'M OFFICIAL!!!

Well I must say these last two days were VERY successful! Yesterday, after a wonderful day teaching, I went to Best Buy with a few friends and bought blank CDs for ballet class, and a USB cord for my camera (yayyy for uploaded pictures!) On the way back to school I rode the subway BY MYSELF (man, am I growing up quickly in this city) and, believe it or not, saw a 7/11 (Shanghai really does have everything!) After a quick dinner, I was off to my first Chinese tutoring session. We worked on pronunciations and learned a few key words and phrases – twice a week for an hour should really pay off soon, especially if I study and work hard on what we learn in class!

Then today, I BOUGHT A BIKE!!!! I feel so Chinese! I LOVE IT!!!

These are photos from today's Show and Tell lesson. We have been reading the story, "Max, the Cat" in class this week. After reading the story, I had the children draw pictures of their own "Max." One by one the children came up to the front and presented their drawings and told their own version of "Max, the Cat" - if you can imagine, I had some VERY interesting variations of the story! Some including "Max, under the Sea" and "Max living with Sharks" We had a great time!

"I don't think I really want to do this dancing thing..."

The long anticipated first dance class is completed and checked off my list! Man was I nervous! With my only prior dance experience being Cornhuskin' and Jazz 1 at Meredith, I have to say, I was TOTALLY freaking out about how this class was going to go. Last night around 10pm I really began to panic.... I already had a lesson planned but since I've ever taught a class like this before I really had no idea what to expect! So, like any 23 year old teacher would do, I immediately began googling, hoping, and praying that I would find more fun ideas and activities for my students to do in class. I came across some really great websites that gave very specific lesson plans, including music, dance moves, and counts - What a lifesaver. I ended up changing my whole lesson around which was definitely for the better!

I started off by laying down the law (explaining the rules and expectations of the class) I had a few boys tell me, "Ms. V. I don't think I really want to do this dancing thing.... " and "Ms. V, I REALLY don't want to wear dance shoes... I think my shoes will be fine." (ummmm no they won't! You WILL wear the dance shoes I give you! You WILL dance! And you WILL have fun doing it!... TRUST ME! - that's me telling my students what's up!) So anyway, my first activity was a Jungle game! I had all my students spread out, think of their favorite animal and act it out. After a few minutes of acting out as a class, I called on individual students to stand in the center and act out their animal, while the rest of the class guessed. I ended up with a room of full of just about every animal imaginable, from cats and dogs to monkeys, elephants, pandas, snakes, fish, birds, giraffes, lions, and even a few dinosaurs!

Later, I had the kids follow along as I performed a pre-choreographed dance to "Rockin' Robin" and was even able to use some Michael Jackson warm-up activities that I learned last year in Jazz 1! Both of these were a huge hit that had the kids laughing, moving around, and having a great time! For our final activities of the day, we played a version of Freeze dance, and a round of London Bridges Falling Down! By the end of dance class I really think everyone (even the reluctant boys) had a great time! I can't wait until next week when we can do it all again!

a weekend of shopping and exploring!

This weekend was a lot of fun! Friday night I went out to dinner with 10 other teachers to a Muslim restaurant up the street from our school. We ordered about 15 or so dishes (most of which I really enjoyed) that ended up being way too much food but only $10/person! A few of the teachers that taught here last year were with us too, so it was really awesome to hear everything they had to say about the ends and outs of living and traveling in China! They offered some great advice on how to get around, must see places, and even were to find snacks from the US.

Saturday a big group of us went to explore Tainkang Lu. which if you've ever been to Greece, reminded me a lot of the Plaka area. It was filled with tons of great souvenir shops, cashmere and silk shops, photography and art galleries, restaurants, and plenty of spots to take scenic pictures of old Shanghai! Later that afternoon I ventured out to downtown Shanghai to go to one of the many amazing malls called, Cloud 9. Like the other mall I went to last week for our Banquet, this one us just as huge and amazing (9 floors high with literally hundreds of stores, and restaurants.) I'm not sure if I'm ever going to get used to shopping in places like this!

Sunday morning, I was able to finally sit down and talk to my parents for a while! It was so nice to catch up and hear about whats going on and how everyone is doing! Although, I'm having the time of my life here it's hard not to miss everyone back home! So Sunday afternoon, I went out for the first time completely by myself! I took a trip to TrustMart (which was recently bought out by WalMart and will be soon changing their name) to get a few things for my apartment. I was able to find bath mats, coffee mugs, hangers, a new umbrella (just in case another Typhoon creeps up) and a few grocery items. I will admit, I was a bit nervous about venturing out in the city alone, the crowds of people are always insane, and can become very overwhelming and annoying at times but I'm glad I did it and I think I'm finally beginning to adjust and do as the locals do!

I teeech yuuuu Chinese!

Happy Friday! Not only did I survive my first typhoon this week, I also made it through my first few days as a first grade teacher! My adorable little students learned classroom procedures, rules, and the daily schedule along with having their very first lessons in English, Math, Social Studies, Art, Chinese, and PE. For the most part, they are all very well behaved with the exception of a few that never want to stay seated and continually ask me questions in Chinese. Since the school is international, we have students from all over the world ranging from China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore, to Italy, Germany, France, and even the US. I have mostly Chinese students in my class, but I also have a couple Koreans, and an Italian. It’s truly amazing that some of these children are able to speak 3 languages fluently only being in the first grade - It makes me wish I grew up learning more than one language at a time!

During lunch today, I asked some of my kids to teach me Chinese, one of my little boys replies with, “duu nuut worry Ms. V, I teeech yeuuu Chinese!” So, the rest of the lunch period he proceeds to try to teach me Chinese, while my other students begin quizzing me on numbers and little words while giggling because I can’t seem to remember anything or get any of the pronunciations correct! It was HILARIOUS to say the least, and everyone had a great time! I think it’s especially good for the children to see me struggle with their native language and show them it’s ok to make mistakes. I hope by doing this everyday they will be more apt to speaking in class and not be so nervous, knowing that I am going through the same thing (and sometimes making a fool out of myself in order to learn!) All in all I had a wonderful start to the school year and can’t wait to see what the rest of the semester will bring!

Typhoon Fever!!

What a letdown – I finally feel like everything is going perfectly when the government decides to cancel all classes in the city of Shanghai!!! Yes, that’s right, the first day of school is officially cancelled (this seriously must be the first time in history - I’ve never heard of postponing the first day of school) well anyway, what I thought was going to be a day of sitting around twiddling my thumbs turned into the perfect opportunity to have grade meetings and make sure everyone was on the same page! I went around to the other 1^st grade teacher’s rooms and organized a meeting for all of us to share notes, ask questions, and tie up any loose ends. It ended up being extremely beneficial for everyone – we were able to make necessary copies of all the assignments and worksheets for next week, finish planning lessons, and get fully organized for hopefully a REAL first day of class tomorrow (weather permitting.)

This is my first time ever experiencing a typhoon, and I must say, it’s INTENSE! One minute you’re walking to lunch with some friends under a beautiful (or should I say beeuutifalll) blue sky and the next, the sky is completely black and it’s pouring! -but not just pouring as we would typically expect – it’s more of a solid stream of constant water EVERYWHERE – to the extent that even with an umbrella and rain jacket, you’re still bound to get wet! Thunder booming and lightening striking, I must say it’s a bit unsettling. Luckily, as quickly as the storm came, it went as well. After about 30 or so minutes of constant rain, the sky cleared up again and if it wasn’t for small puddles and water everywhere, you would have never known it rained at all!