I have been quite busy since coming to China and apologize that I have not started blogging sooner. Originally I thought I would have plenty of free time, but so far I have not even had spare time to pursue my favorite hobby of reading. 

Currently I am teaching Senior one and Senior two Middle School students at the Baiyin Experimental School in the city of Baiyin in Gansu province. My students are the equivalent of sophomore and junior students in America. I teach 20 different classes a week and have over 1,000 students. It's strange to be treated like a celebrity on campus. I walk about beaming and saying hello to students. Some of them, especially the Senior 3 students (who do not take oral English because they are studying for their college entrance exams which only test English grammar, reading and writing), looked shocked and don't reply. Others say "hello" first and some boys love to shout "Hi!" from the third story windows. Sometimes groups of girls in two or three sidle up to me quietly along the walk to the main teaching building. Occasionally I don't notice this until I hear soft giggles and then one of the girls bravely say, "Hello teacher" and ask a few questions. I have learned to be very patient in conversations with people here in China. I often need to wait for 5 to 30 seconds for them to think about how to express something and finally spit it out. 

In class many of the students are very shy. Baiyin is a small city in Northern China where the only other foreigners are three fellow English teachers. Most of the students have never had contact with a foreigner before. I am very glad that a few of them who are very excited to learn English are also brave enough to speak in class. I am starting to get used to being the most popular person in the school. My colleagues are very friendly and helpful, sometimes overly so!

Pictured above, from left to right are Mark (the head of the English department), Mr. Wu (a Chemistry teacher bent on improving his oral English), a Chinese teacher, and Lisa, a Senior 2 English teacher. The photo was taken at a fancy hot pot restaurant Mr. Wu treated me and the others to. During my second week Mr. Wu surprised me by paying for my vegetables at the nearest street market from the apartment building we both live in. He simply said, "You're my English teacher". Lately he has been coming into my office, pulling out a few dried dates or other little goodies for me and then presenting one of his yellowed English textbooks from college. He'll point to the chapter headings and ask me to read words he is unsure of how to pronounce. He has a cute habit of nodding his head once vigorously and saying "Thank you" with force every time I teach him how to say a word. He will also say this at inappropriate times during conversations due to his lack of vocabulary. 

Backtracking to cover the month and a half I have been in China will take too long, so for now I will cover some recent events. Today the school held it's first English corner. In class I feel quite confident but I was completely unprepared for this. I was notified just two days prior and told that the students would simply ask me questions and that I did not need to plan anything. However, when I arrived the teachers expected me to have games and activities prepared! I was feeling rather tired from a lack of adequate sleep which hampered my creative and improvisational skills. I felt that the two hours was mostly wasted because I was not prepared. There were some highlights, however, such as when a few students dared to sing some English and Chinese songs for me, and the young man who instead of asking about my favorites, as most of his peers did, asked boldly, "What do you think of me?" The only response I could think of was, "You're too young for me" to which he answered, "Yes, I think so too" as his classmates giggled.