Thanksgiving ends in the back of a police car

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Julie and I are back home and wrapping up our first non-US Thanksgiving and don't worry we are  very  full after a big meal featuring poultry.

Holidays have proven to be good teaching topics, so we have been teaching Thanksgiving all week.  It has been an unusual week.  Monday started off with our afternoon classes being cancelled, but we didn't know they were cancelled until we got to our empty classrooms. That was fortunate for us because we both needed to spend more time on our lesson plans for Tuesday as we were going to be observed by all the English teachers from the main school and our branch schools.  Well that is what we thought.  Later that afternoon we were told our classes were being pushed to Wednesday as most of the teachers needed to get physicals on Tuesday, and then I lost my motivation to work on the lesson plan.

Tuesday started off normal with my two 6th grade classes.  Those lessons were very good learning opportunities for me.  Judging by my track record I have very little ability to fully appreciate my students level of English.  Isn't it better that I keep over estimating their ability than underestimating it?  After the first class I had ten minutes to simplify the lesson for the next class, I was mildly successful.  I taught it for the third time today and I am starting to get there.

Well after those two 6th grade classes I was told I would only be teaching one of my afternoon classes because Julie would be teaching that class on Wednesday morning (for her observed class) when that class normally has math, so they would have their math lesson during my class.  Thanks Julie!  I was teaching 4th grade for my observed class so I couldn't return the favor.  Sorry Julie.  Don't worry she is letting me go standout in the cold tomorrow morning to greet the students for her.

Come Wednesday (my easy day) all the teachers observed Julie teach Grade 2 at 8 am.  This is my class normally and we were later informed that the students like Julie better, when asked why they said because, "she is beautiful."  Smart kids, they must have a good teacher.  I was up next in my 4th grade class which I normally teach on Wednesday afternoons but it was moved up so all the other teachers could observe at the 8:50 class period.  Both our lessons went well and the other teachers gave us many compliments.  As we have said on many occasions they are very nice to us.  It was by far the best behaved class I have ever had.  It is amazing how those students transform when certain Chinese teachers walk into the room.  Julie tells me that that is how the students always behave at her branch school but given how my students at my branch school behave, I just can't understand.

Since my 4th grade class was bumped up my teaching day ended at 11:45 am on Wednesday.  It's been a rough week.  Oh yeah, and I was told my two afternoon classes on Friday would not be held this week either.  I have an ominous feeling they are setting my for some terrible task.

Thursday's bring our weekly trip to the branch schools.  Julie teaches little angels, so she says, and I have delicious food with something different every week.  We are taken to the branch school by an administrator and so far someone from the branch school brings us back.  This has occurred without failure every time we've taught at the branch school, so why would one worry about.  Well I wasn't until at 4:45 one of the teachers ask who was coming to pick me up.  It is times like these that not being able to speak the language really makes you feel borderline helpless.  Luckily I am well taken care of here and they arranged for someone to come get me before too long.  This was crucial because one, we were headed out for a Thanksgiving feast and two, I didn't bring all my warm clothes and it's kind of a long walk and today was not warm.

We made it to the restaurant and had decided that we would feast on duck as turkey doesn't seem to be available in Mentougou.  We also feasted on squid, fish, spicy hot pot, some sort of eggplant dish, a cold gelatin with hawthorn berries, spinach and about ten other things (including corn) that I can't remember.  It was fun sharing some of the history of Thanksgiving with our fellow teachers and we all took turns saying what we were thankful for.  After dinner we head out the door and there was a police car.  Julie was instructed to get in and was mildly curious about what was going on as no one else was getting in.  I had quickly walked down the street to get my brief  case from another teachers car so I couldn't tell us that the man driving us home (the boyfriend of one of our co-workers) was a police officer.

We pulled up the school with the lights blazing and I'm sure the security guard (if we haven't mentioned there are gates on the school and we have be let in an out by a security guard, which can be problematic if they have left the gate for some reason) was quite surprised at the sight.  Some good pictures were taken at this point and we'll be sure to share them once we get them.

Happy Thanksgiving and eat a little extra  for us.
-Ryan