You may have noticed that we haven't been posting here. Since blogspot is blocked in China, we've been using Livejournal. However, I'm going to try to start double-posting entries here and there, in the hopes of making everyone happy!
The last two months have been pretty eventful (read: stressful) at work, and unfortunately Lauren and I have been letting it effect us at home as well.
In June our children had their English exams, so the month leading up to that was basically us drilling them and making sure that they would perform well in their tests. Last time, we were 2nd place, and we think that they could have come in first. The head of our English department, Grace, heads the English exams, and causes us no end of stress with her attitude and behavior. Without spending too much time on her, Grace is lazy and responds inappropriately to suggestions that something be changed. Therefore, instead of testing 6 children from each of our classes, this year only 6 children from each age group was tested. Lauren and I have about 450 students, so we asked if maybe we could test more students. This led to a big argument and no change from Grace, but Grace yelled at Bella about controlling us better. Apparently we are her subordinates, which was never told to any of us. In the end, our kids did very well, but we placed 3rd.
After the English testing, we got into the full swing of preparing ourselves and our Galaxy classes for their performances and graduation ceremony, which culminated in this morning being spent at Beijing University's auditorium, performing for about 2-3 hundred parents and all the other Venus-brand kindergartens in Beijing. Our taiji performance was done with the Galaxy student's kungfu, and it was fantastic! Our other performance was done with all the foreign teachers from the other Venus kindergartens, except for one. The one left out was because the performance was spearheaded by Grace, who has a poor relationship with the principal at a certain campus, so that principal refused to send her teachers. Grace, again, caused us a lot of stress and ended up hurting our performance.
I think I should step back. Several weeks ago, Grace came and told us that on the next day, all the other foreign teachers would come to prepare our foreign teacher performance. This was a surprise to us, and the next day we found out that they hadn't even been told why they were coming here. Grace tried to get us to perform a Beijing Opera, and we quickly put together a plan that was at least feasible. I rewrote the song "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus to "Party in the PRC" and we decided to sing that. For your amusement, here are the lyrics:
Party In The PRC
I hopped off the plane at PEK
with a dream and my cardigan
welcome to The Middle Kingdom, (woah)
am I gonna fit in?
Jumped in the cab,
Here I am for the first time
Look to the right and I see Tiananmen
Why is the air so dirty?
Everybody seems so youhao(friendly)
My duzi(stomach) turnin and I'm feelin kinda home sick
Too much pressure and I'm nervous,
That's when the siji(taxidriver) turned on the radio
and a Jay Chou song was on
and the Jay Chou song was on
and the Jay Chou song was on
CHORUS:
So I put my shou(hands) up
They’re playing my song,
And the butterflys fly away
Noddin’ my tou(head) like yeah
Moving my yao(hips) like yeah,
And I got my shou(hands) up,
They’re playin my song
I know I'm gonna be ok
Yeah, It's a party in the PRC
Yeah, It's a party in the PRC
Get to school in my taxi cab
Everybody's lookin at me now
Like “na ge waiguoren shi shei?” (whos that foreigner)
She gotta be from out of town”
So hard with pengyou(friends) not around me
Its definitely not a Nashville party
Cause’ all I see are stilletos
I guess I never got the memo
My duxi(stomach) turnin and I'm feelin kinda home sick
Too much pressure and I'm nervous
That's when the D.J. dropped my favorite tune
and a Yao Chen song was on
and the Yao Chen song was on
and the Yao Chen song was on
CHORUS:
So I put my shou(hands) up
They’re playing my song,
And the butterflys fly away
Noddin’ my tou(head) like yeah
Moving my yao(hips) like yeah,
And I got my shou(hands) up,
They’re playin my song
I know I'm gonna be ok
Yeah, It's a party in the PRC
Yeah, It's a party in the PRC
Feel like hoppin' on a flight (on a flight)
Back to my hometown tonight (town tonight)
Something stops me everytime (everytime)
The DJ plays my song and I feel alright!
CHORUS:
So I put my shou(hands) up
They’re playing my song,
And the butterflys fly away
Noddin’ my tou(head) like yeah (Oh, nodding my tou(head))
Moving my yao(hips) like yeah, (Ooh Yeah)
And I got my shou(hands) up,
They’re playin my song
I know I'm gonna be ok (gonna be okay)
Yeah (huh huh), It's a party in the PRC (Yeah)
Yeah, It's a party in the PRC
So I put my shou(hands) up
They’re playing my song,
And the butterflys fly away (flying away)
Noddin’ my tou(head) like yeah (nodding my tou(head) like yeah)
Moving my yao(hips) like yeah, (moving my yao(hips) like yeah)
And I got my shou(hands) up,
They’re playin my song
I know I'm gonna be ok (I'm gonna be okay)
Yeah (Yeah), It's a party in the PRC
Yeah (hahaha), It's a party in the PRC (Party in the PRC!)
Anyways, at every step of planning Grace sidestepped answering our questions or getting us the needed materials to do anything (like building an 18-foot taxi cab) resulting in us having the worst-looking performance there. I think we made it work with our enthusiasm, but the other performances had background decorations, videotaped introductions and professional lighting, all things we asked for at the beginning but never got. The fact of the matter is, we were put in a stressful situation, and we let it affect us too much. If we didn't back up from preparing this we may have hurt our taiji performance. The one thing that astounds Lauren and I is how much school we have had to miss for these things. I haven't even seen some of my students in weeks! I only taught 4 days these last 3 weeks because of all the rehearsing and prop-making.
Lauren and I have come out of this with a life lesson though. We know now that we have to take these things in stride. There was nothing we could have done to improve this, because we tried our best to get help and change the mistakes that were made. Instead of letting this stress us out and keep us from posting, we should have taken it and rolled with the punches. Semper Gumby and all that.
!!!Big News!!!
-Lauren is quitting our school in September and starting school at Beijing Language and Culture University, taking a 20 week immersion course. At the end of that, we plan on returning to America and beginning our job search there.
-Will and Jane (Greg's dad and stepmom) will be visiting in the beginning of August, and we are extremely excited to see them and show them what we love about China.
-Lauren will be coming back to visit America after they leave! I believe the dates are August 13-28, but don't quote me on that. I will make Lauren post up a planned itinerary so you can all plan on seeing her. Be sure to buy her dinner guys, since plane tickets are EXPENSIVE!
We'll try to post more, especially now that we should be coming home a little more relaxed. Love ya'll!
No comments:
Post a Comment