This is the three of us (Nhu, Jenna, and me) at the Hengyang County Foreign Teacher’s Appreciation Banquet, which was on September 24th. Nhu and I h
ad to sing two songs IN FRONT OF EVERYONE – Right Here Waiting by Richard Marx (Wherever you go, whatever you do, I will be right here waiting for you…) and 月亮代表我的心 (Yueliang Daibiao Wo de Xin), an old Chinese song that you can youtube if you want to see how it sounds. The music was all off and we came on after this really awesome Chinese woman singer and it was just the most embarrassing thing ever. But we got through it and everyone laughed and told us we were good sports. Other performances included a mime show, a bunch of foreigners singing another song, a soccer demonstration (lame), a Beijing Opera changing faces one man show, violin, and some ghetto hip hop dance that was really scandalous, haha! These little girls presented the flowers to random foreigners who won awards.
This is me holding my wannabe hamburger that I was really excited to eat, but ended up sucking really bad. Hahahaha… In my town, we get teased a lot --- like we get our hopes up about stuff only to have them c
ome crashing down. And that’s okay, that’s life. Man, I was so excited for this hamburger. My town has no Western food whatsoever, but on this day, Nhu, Jenna and I were in the next town over, 30 minutes away, and it’s bigger, and we thought maybe they would have a good hamburger. TEASE. Oh well, though, it wasn’t bad, actually. :) Other teases in our everyday life include the school telling us we can get paid on a certain day, but then the office being closed; that we have a holiday on a certain day, but then the day getting changed after we have already made plans (:( Indonesia); people saying they will come visit us but then plans falling through; our families sending us packages but then them taking forever to get here or the post office not being open or something; the electricity going out in our apartments; tons of last minute changes and random decisions; and the list goes on. It really isn’t bad, and we’re getting used to life here, lowering our expectations, and just going with the flow. It is what it is. :) I'm happy I'm here. :)
This is me playing basketball against the army! WOOOO! I am fouling s
omeone, as usual. J Haha… the guy in the yellow is like the
These are some of the English teachers at our school after the Halloween party that we put on. Nhu, Jenna, and I organized a party (read: 320 students in an auditorium where everyone had a n
umbered ticket and if their number was called they got to come up and play a game). I emceed and it was SOOOOOOOOO FUN! We set up games like the balloon stomp (balloons around kids’ ankles and they went around stomping them and the last person with an un-popped balloon won), three-legged race, rice sack relay (like potato sack, except here it’s a rice sack haha), etc. It was soooo fun! :) All the kids had a really good time, and we gave out candy and prizes. The teachers said it was a lot more orderly than last year and that they felt it was more successful. Here at OYY, everything is compared to previous years (it was kind of strange at first to be here with all of the expectations that everyone had because of the past volunteers – like in Mexico, I was the first volunteer the community had experienced, in Yunnan last year, I was the first – but now I’m used to all the references), so it means a lot when the teachers or students say that we’re better than previous years. Haha…
1 comment:
don't forget to workout while you're in china ;)
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