The days are passing so quickly. This morning Athena and I set out to walk to work from our apartment. We don’t have a specific time that we have to be there (everything is super flexible here), so we set out with the goal of arriving in 30 minutes. Well, that didn’t happen, but we did find the nearest hospital, which is about a 5 minute walk away. We arrived in about 45 minutes, so we did not discover a quicker route as we had hoped. We did stop for a cold drink on the way—I accidentally picked up pear flavored tea that I thought was apple flavor. Surprise in my mouth!
For lunch today we had Indian—good Indian food. It was a splurge because we finally have an income. By splurge, I mean like $12 US when the fancy drink was included. I had Mango Lassa—a sweet yogurt drink, Chick Pea Curry (which has some other fancy Indian name), and a large plate of white rice (because they force you to get bread or rice with your curry). Delish—and kept me full for a long time. Tonight I had vegetarian dumplings because I wasn’t very hungry even 8 hours later.
Quick other synopsis: gum on my shoe, purchase of Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jam, did laundry, went grocery shopping, proposed to a box of cereal (because I love it), and danced in my room thinking I might actually burn off my horrible free breakfast buffet overeating from last week (come on, it was free food).
I also visited the elementary school where I am teaching 1st and 2nd graders. I went with a trainer at MPI who is originally from Maryland. She told me that when I had called her she picked up on my accent and asked me where I was from. Accent? Please, y’all, I ain’t go no accent.
I was really glad Sharon went with me to meet because the teachers I work with have poor English and the culture of Macau is much less forward, so you have to ask everything in several different ways and kind of be forceful about what you want. All they had told me to this point was the grade level and to focus on phonics. I had no books, no idea what number of students I would have, who I would be working with. Fun. Today I got 2 books, found out I will have 35 non-native speaking 6 year olds in each class to teach letter sounds for 40 minutes. I’m learning I will need the diligence of a maid, the patience of a praying mantis, the creativity of a circus performer, and the evil eye of…my mother to pull this off. Let’s just say I will deserve a lot of gelato at the end of the day on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. J I’m okay with that. Actually, I’m excited to work with these kids—and they are SOOOO cute. But if you have any tips on teaching young ones and English through simple games, please share.
On the way home from the school I passed a little girl waiting with her mom at a crosswalk. She must have been between 4 and 6 years old. At first, I made eye contact with her and noticed her eyes were growing rapidly larger as I approached. I smiled at her, letting her know I was a gentle giant… Surprisingly, compared to mainland China, white people are not as much of an abnormality/specialty. There are many Americans and Europeans that live here, so I can understand why.
The funniest thing that happened today was when Ray was mistaken for a Chinese high school student. Ray is Vietnamese-Cambodian mix and he speaks fluent Chinese. Many people mistake him to be younger than he is as well. So today during lunch when he got off the bus, the truancy officers that were monitoring the high school students that get to leave their campus for lunch freaked out on him for trying to skip school and go work at the casinos. Haha. If you knew Ray, this would be even funnier. He’s been identified as a young native Macau resident more than once.
That's about it besides the fact that Chupa Chups suckers are really popular here (which I know you were wondering). I cant say I've bought any here, but the name has always simultaneously excited and puzzled me.
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