First day of class!

I did it! I successfully (I think) made it through my first classes. It wasn't without panic though...

When I walked into the first class, everyone stood up and clapped. I was a lil intimidated... but I recovered. Sure does make you feel good about yourself when you get applauded for entering a room the day after multiple people tell you look like Jennifer Aniston ('You look like Rachel!! From Friends!!... I kid you not. Is that like all white people thinking asians look the same?)...

So I had icebreakers for the students to do, both introducing themselves and introducing their classmates, stuff for me to get to know their names and for them to become comfortable speaking in fromt of the class. Some of them were pretty shy but I got them all to do it. Their english is good in that they can read and write, but in general speaking is the hardest part for Chinese people studying english. After about 35 minutes I was looking good to end the class in ten minutes like I planned, and I was having them ask me questions about Amercia and 'my hometown' and such. Then the bell rang, and I told them I would see them next week, and they kindly informed me that no, this was actually a five-minute halfway break in the class.

I wasn't quiiite expecting that.

So I stalled for 45 minutes. It actually went pretty well, considering. I asked them to tell me words that they knew they had trouble pronouncing ('orange' among them...) and we practiced making the sounds. They actually catch on pretty quickly, I was excited. I managed to keep that interesting for the whole of the 45 minutes, even though sometimes I had to stare back at them like they were staring at me (It was really funny, they were all really nervous and just sat there grinning at me).

The second class I was waaay more prepared for the whole hour and a half thing, and stretched the icrbreakers out a little more and had some examples of hard stuff to say. In both classes, they asked me to sing. I was mortified, as anyone who has ever asked me to sing knows. I told them I didn't want to, and that I wouldn't know what to sing even if I did, and they told me I should sing 'My Heart Will Go On'. Like, from Titanic. I was afraid of rebellion the way they were clapping and yelling... so I did it. Definitely one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. and it happened TWICE. Independently. Nobody from the first class was in the second, and they both came up with the same song. You all are lucky I even chose to write that part down.

Anyway, I lived. It was fun. The students are really nice and once they get over being shy, I can understand most of them. These were sophomores, so I didn't have to give anyone an english name, but with the freshmen i probably will. So, its entirely possble that I may name a chinese student after you if you are reading this. Consider yourself warned. That being said, one of the sophomores told me her english name was Jelly. I had to ask her to spell it cause I thought I herd her wrong. Nope, J-e-l-l-y she said. Fair enough.

I'm going to go study me some Chinese methinks. I'm pretty sure I don't have class again until next Wednesday, since most of my classesare freshmen and they don't start until the 15th of September. Yay free time.