Building GA9 Apartment#202, sounds homey right?

I decided it's time to put up some photos of our little apartment.  Our place has two bedrooms, a pretty spacious sitting room and a tiny kitchen.  We have yet to decide whether we're going to put the money and energy into buying wall decorations for the year we're here, so currently all we have up is a map of China, a LOVELY Mickey Mouse clock that we were fortunate enough to inherit from the previous tenant, and a Michigan football calendar.  Apparently there is a weekly market just outside of campus that sells plants and rugs and other such items to make our apartment seem a little less stark.  Our only problem is we can't seem to figure out when this alleged market is, we were told by a Chinese student that it's every six days "just like church", however it's not on the same day each week.  Once we figure out this whole market business we'll probably find something to cover up our stained and scratched walls, so bear that in mind!

This is one of the apartment buildings for foreign teachers, there are 10 apartments in each building but I think ours is only about half occupied.

(our place is on the left side, second floor)

 

That's our door on the left side (notice- no doorknob, it's quite a task at times to get in)

The view right when you open our front door, WELCOME!

A different view of the room, I wanted everyone to see our map

Right when you come in the front door this is the view if you look to your left

This is our second bedroom, we have turned it into a study/storage/laundry room

Our tiny kitchen

The refrigerator was in the sitting room when we first got here, I'm not sure why we're the only ones who thought it was more logical in the kitchen.  I suppose it does take up about 1/4 of our counter space, but it was definitely worth moving!

Since we can't drink the tap water we bought a water cooler, next to the water cooler is our washing machine.  There is no dryer, and the water pipe for the washing machine needs to be attached to our sink faucet and then there is a separate pipe that empties out mid-cycle into a lower sink that is hidden to the right of the washing machine.  Our first laundry attempt was quite a debacle; I didn't realize the water was constantly being emptied out of the washing machine and all of a sudden we heard a huge rush of water, I ran into the kitchen to find the entire floor covered with water.  Lesson learned.

This is our 'stove', making dinner is quite the task

A closer view of the washing machine

Our bathroom

Jordan and I each have our own closet this size.  We were pleasantly surprised to each have our own space, since neither of us are good packers and probably brought way too much.

The new Snuggle Cove

Weekend Update

A combination of factors have affected my ability to post here over the last week or so. First, the internet in our apartment went down last week Saturday and did not start working again until Tuesday. Then, Megan and I became busy with lesson planning for our classes and doing the actual teaching. Finally, I have on 3 occasions tried to post a 2-minute video of our apartment here but even after waiting 15-20 hours for it to upload it has not worked. Unless I figure out a solution to that problem I probably won't be putting up video here anytime soon.

But now I have some time so I thought I'd update. Last week Saturday Megan and I received our schedules and they were lighter than we expected. I am teaching 12 hours and Megan is teaching 10. We both have Wednesdays off, so we can lesson plan and grade for the second half of the week at that time. So far it has gone pretty well, but it is difficult to come up with enough activities to fill 2 hours, especially when students are hesitant to participate.

My first class I decided to introduce myself to the students by playing a game. I broke the classes up into four teams and then I would show a question about myself on the powerpoint. After each team gave an answer to the question I would click to the next slide which would reveal the answer. I do not think I have ever seen such pure joy from students in a classroom than when I would reveal an answer. They loved the competition of it and also liked to learn about me (where I've lived, my family, my hobbies, etc). It was a success. 

The second class I decided I should actually start teaching something. I referenced a textbook that Megan and I had bought to come up with some activities and a grammar point to teach. The activities went fairly well. I had the students prepare a dialogue using the grammar pattern I taught and then asked some of them to share their dialogues. They did pretty well, although their spoken English is still very weak and they basically had to read what they had written on their sheets verbatim.

I suspected the grammar I taught them was too easy since grammar is the one thing the students do have a very strong grasp of, yet it was impossible to tell because the students are so unresponsive to questions that I don't know if they do not understand or if they are just shy. Well, I guess they are just shy because I did get an email from a student (Subject line: "hello,my dear teacher") that said the grammar was too easy and that they needed practice speaking.

I was glad someone was brave enough to tell me this because I would have continued to do the same things I had been doing. Now I just need to figure out how to get them to speak in English.

Here are some of my students responses when I asked them to write what they liked and disliked about their English class last semester and what they think might be the most useful activities to teach them English:

• "I dislike examination. It give me strain."
• "The most useful activities is gives us more free time."
• "The most useful activities, I think, is more choice to speak in english and debate in english. The reason is so simple that everyone knows it."
• "Playing game is the most useful activities. Because I can learn English with a happy way."
• "Activities: talking about something wonderful in English."
• "Useful activity: Interactive teaching, because it can move our positiveness."
• "I dislike exams, I think exams have no sense."

So, About This Teaching Thing...

The internet at Megan and my apartment building has been down for about 48 hours, leaving all the foreign teachers who live in this building in somewhat of a panic. With class starting in about 3 days, teachers are realizing how difficult it is to lesson plan without the internet. Oh well, it is working now so everyone should be calmed down a bit.

We have learned a few things about our teaching responsibilities. Megan will be teaching undergraduates in the College of Foreign Languages and I will be teaching graduate students. From what we hear from other teachers, the students Megan will be teaching will be English majors so they will be at a higher level and will also have more interest in the subject, whereas my students will be taking English because they have to and will have a wider range of abilities. We will be teaching at most 16 hours a week, however with roughly 72 hours until we'll start teaching we do not yet have a class schedule. We were assured that we would get our schedule by Saturday, because we "need time to plan our lessons." Apparently one day will be sufficient for that. Just go with the flow.

Some other things of note since the internet broke down:

• We met the other 2 teachers who are here from CIEE, Kerstan and Karen. They are a couple who are probably a year or two older than us and they are very eager to help with our teaching and show us around. They took us out to dinner and have shared a lot of teaching tips. It'll be good to have them around.
• We played Scrabble at our neighbor Courtlandt's apartment and learned that "sluice" is a word. It has something to do with gold mining.
• We got cell phones. 250 RMB each, which is about $35, and then we just pay for what we use. We were hesitant at first but I think they'll come in handy.
• We got our Foreign Experts certification. I'm not sure what we're experts at, except maybe being foreign.

That's about it. Things have been slow but they'll pick up once we start teaching. Also, I will put up a little video of our apartment before we start teaching.

I looked out the window and two things were apparent: the students are returning and they're doing laundry. Good to know. This photo was taken from our balcony.

Trip into Town

First of all, Qingdao is an awesome city. It is modern, but it has fascinating history. The roads are wide, well maintained, and clean. New buildings are sprouting up all around the downtown area. It is bustling, but not overly crowded. It even still has the glow of a city that has recently hosted the sailing events of the Olympics. Maybe it was just the sun talking (while we were walking around the city it was one of the first times we have seen the sun for an extended period of time since we've been in China), but I really enjoyed Qingdao.

While we were enjoying it, however, I had conflicting emotions. I was glad that I liked the city so much and that I wanted to spend a lot of time there. It is close enough that we could make excellent day or weekend trips there. On the other hand, I was bummed that it is just far enough away that it isn't convenient enough to go in an afternoon or just stop by for a visit. If we are going to take the trouble to go there, we would have to stay for the whole day. Megan and I kept talking about how we kind of wished we were living in town. Oh well, at least we're nearby.

All in all, it took us about an hour and a half each way from our apartment into the city. We had to take a bus (about 30-40 minutes) to a ferry terminal, buy tickets, wait for the ferry, ride the ferry (15-25 minutes) and then take a bus or a cab into town on the other side. The way home took a bit longer because the wait for the ferry was about an hour.

The ferry on the way home was a bit of a nightmare. Well, the ferry itself was fine, but the process of boarding the ferry was awful. Imagine a room about the size of a high school gymnasium filled shoulder to shoulder with people waiting to get on a ferry. Then, after an hour of waiting, imagine that when a ferry arrives all of these people bottlenecking into a space about 3 feet wide to show their tickets and get on the boat. Then, imagine that all these people have the Chinese mindset that no one matters but them and that they will get onto that boat by any means necessary. Chaos. People climbing over chairs, pushing, shoving to get in. I had to box out about 3 people at once to create space for Megan to get through. It was very unpleasant. Nevertheless, I think we'll be going to Qingdao quite a bit, especially when the weather warms up.

The back half of the room before the chaos.

People shoving through to doors to the boat. This doesn't do the situation justice.

Anyway, here are a few of our photos. Click for larger.

Qingdao.

Megan on the boardwalk thingy. Those tents behind her were all little shops.

I wish I had that stroller when I was a kid.

The "May Breeze" Statue.

May Breeze again w/ some of the skyline.

This sign says "Huge wave is dangerous. Don't be closer please."

A Michigan sweatshirt in the wrong color that we saw being sold on the side of the road.

This Campus is Large

When you have 2 weeks with nothing to do before starting work days tend to seep away with nothing productive coming of them. To combat that, Megan and I have tried to have at least one goal for each day we have free before school starts. Yesterday our goal was to explore the campus of the school we're teaching at. We succeeded.

Shandong University of Science and Technology has 35,000 students, but unlike most American schools that I have visited that are about that size, this school doesn't blend into a city. There isn't a "college town" feel. The entire campus is contained within walls with gates, and there isn't much else within those walls. Roughly half the campus is dedicated to housing and half are for academic buildings. There is a road down the middle that divides these.

The campus is nice and very pretty in spots, but I got the feeling that all the buildings were thrown up in a great rush so that they could get started on the next one. Much of China feels that way in fact. Megan said that she thought that China is so busy building things that they don't have any time to maintain things. This is true of the campus. I counted about 50 basketball hoops around the campus, not one had a net (that always bugs me). That said, everything is still fairly new so nothing is in that bad of shape. Many of the buildings are extremely large and impressive from the exterior, so hopefully they're nice on the inside too.

We took a lot of photos while wandering around, so enjoy. Click on the photos to enlarge.

A pagoda on campus.

The pagoda across part of the pond.

Megan walking by some of the dorms.

Everything is closed for the holiday.

A town near the campus and some gardens.

A hoop (w/o a net!) in the shadow of the mountains outside campus.

They had a little courtyard with a bunch of statues of famous thinkers. This is Einstein. None of the statues were of Chinese people.

Megan with Newton.

Some of the dorms across a field. I think the campus will be nice in the spring.

Megan looking at the ice in the river/pond thingy.

The main gate of the campus.

My favorite building, the first one you see when you enter campus.

The foreign languages building, where we assume we'll be teaching.

A closer view.

The view right when you enter the main gate. We're not sure what the use the big screen for.

Some gate inside the campus.

Qingdao/Huangdao: First Impressions

We arrived at our new home on Saturday after a short one hour flight from Shanghai to Qingdao on Shandong Airlines. The weight of our bags finally came back to bite us as we had to pay 400 RMB, about $60, because our bags were overweight. They could have charged us more, so we had to count our blessings. Also, our flight was delayed about an hour due to fog in the Qingdao area. I guess with the proximity to the sea fog is fairly common around here this time of year. 

In case you can't read that, it is a sign that says the airport is certified as a "Civilized Airport."

We were met by Fan, our contact at the Foreign Affairs Office at the university, and after a quick lunch we were brought to our apartment on the campus of the university, which is about an hour outside of the city of Qingdao. The place looked like it hadn't been touched too much since the last person moved out, and as a result it was quite dirty and the furniture was not arranged to our liking. The ceilings were high and the white walls were bare. It was cold both in temperature and appearance. 

There is, however, quite a bit of space and with space comes potential. We have a decent sized living/dining room, a galley kitchen, a big bathroom, and two rooms that could serve as bedrooms (although only one has a bed.) We have already been to three different department stores (2 in the downtown Huangdao area, about 15 minutes away) and one in Qingdao when we went there to get some medical tests that are needed for our Foreign Expert cards. Each time we looked ridiculous with how much stuff we were buying. We have bought some blankets and a space heater for the cold (we technically have heating but it is not very effective), some dishes and cutlery, some lamps (otherwise we just have super bright fluorescent bulbs in each room), a drinking water dispenser (can't drink the water), and countless other daily necessities. We do have a washing machine, but no dryer, so we bought a laundry rack to hang our clothes on. It has been an adjustment to wait for a day before things are dry, so we basically do one load a day. I'll post a video tour of the apartment later.

Our main living area when we arrived, it looks different now.

Making breakfast the first morning.

The school itself is big. There are around 35,000 students but all of them are on vacation now for the Chinese New Year/Spring Festival holiday, so the place feels like a ghost town. We still haven't explored most of the campus except for the area around our building. Our apartment is near the outdoor basketball courts and track, so we plan on using those quite a bit. Also, there is a long road of different shops and food stalls inside the walls of the campus that is less than a 5 minute walk away. Those are all closed with the exception of 2 small grocery stores, so we'll get a better feel for how useful those will be when the students return. Mountains surround the campus on at least two sides, and apparently there is some decent hiking we'll have to check out.

Other than that we seem kind of in the middle of nowhere. There are big roads with 3 lanes of traffic each way on all sides of the campus, but the roads are almost always empty and we barely have to look both ways before crossing. Planning for the future I suppose. One of our neighbors mentioned that it is really nice and quiet if you can stand the isolation. I definitely did not expect to feel isolated while in China, and since we have each other I don't expect we'll ever feel too lonely. Also, the pace of life can only pick up from here since no students are around.

Yesterday we ventured into the town of Huangdao for the first time, which took about 30 minutes by bus and cost us 2 RMB each, or about $.30. Not bad. We took a cab back which probably took half the time but cost 20 RMB total (about $3.00). We decided that most times we go to town we'll take the bus one way and a cab the other. I feel okay about spending less than $4.00 for both of us to get to and from town. In town there is a Starbucks, Pizza Hut, and a few KFCs, but that is about all that is familiar. There are a few good department stores though and I did see a few karaoke places we might have to try out (I'm only kind of kidding). Almost anything we would ever need we could get there.

We have yet to try to get into Qingdao on our own, but that is definitely a priority. When we were in Qingdao for our medical tests we talked about how nice it would be to live in an exciting city like that, so we'll try to visit as much as possible. School doesn't start for over a week and a half so we'll probably go into Qingdao twice, and maybe stay the night one of the times.

Anyway, those are the first impressions. Keep in touch with us! If you want to Skype my Skype name is jordan.bloem and Megan's is meganwaugh44.