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hi all! sorry about my silence in the last few weeks, i got horribly complacent =D first amusing thing to happen to me after my last blog - i accidentally emailed my last blog to a whole heap of gap people. horribly awkward. fortunately i hadn't said anything bad about anyone!!

earthquake: as i'm sure you're all aware there was a horrific earthquake in sichuan province on the 12th of may. the first i heard of it was when my aunty cat emailed me asking me if i was ok - carina and i never turn on the tv and hadn't been on the computer that day, so we we're completely ignorant. no one in our area felt a thing.
its been amazing to see the outpouring of grief in china. i had a senior 3 student come to me in tears because she was so upset about it. she said she thought it was terrible that so many students her age had died just before they had their national college entrance examinations, and before they had a chance to live their lives. at the beginning of every class students would ask me if i knew about it, and start relating survival stories they had heard. they school asked the students to donate money for the relief effort, and they donated all the money they had, despite the fact that most of these students are the children of poor families. walking down the street in nanning the week after we were invited to sign a banner bearing a good will message to the people of sichuan.
just last week we saw some people writing messages of hope for the victims and releasing it into the sky. it's not that the chinese people are more upset then people in any other country would be, but actions like this set them apart.

weather: tis summer time in china, which means wet season =D rain will come from no where, and will last for hours, flooding the oval and basketball courts and making rivers everywhere. it rains so much here - it's rained everyday for the past 6 days. but its pretty awesome rain. walking in it is so much fun!! giant raindrops soak through your clothes in a matter of minutes, leaving you looking like a drowned rat. but everyone carries on as normal, mostly because the rain provides some relief from the oppressive heat.

senior 3s: senior 3s recently completed their big college entrance examinations - three days, four exams. all of them were reeeeeeeeally stressed. everyone in china takes these exams seriously - the senior 1 and 2 students are sent home for the duration of the exams, surrounding streets are blocked during exam hours, and everyone in the town does all they can to support the senior 3s.
carina and i went away for the exams - we didn't want to disturb the girls living above us - and when we returned most of the senior 3s had left =[ fortunately they have to come back for an oral english exam, so we got to say good bye to our friends. it's so weird with out them, our building is silent, and the school is a lot quieter with 1000 less students. we're defiantly going to miss the senior 3's. they were so friendly and always willing to help us when our chinese failed =P they were great company, and we miss talking to them =[ we've given out our email address though, so hopefully some will keep in touch. we see them one more time on the 24th of june when they come to chose their colleges =D

junior 2's: the principal of hengxian no. 1 junior school invited us to come and teach two junior 2 (year 8) classes as part of their open day. i think it was an open day for senior schools to come and poach the top students as opposed to the junior school inviting people to come and look around. so not only did we get to teach, we also had to talk to some of the junior 3 students - foreign teachers are rare in hengxian, and therefor the schools affiliation with gap is a huge drawing card.
having only ever taught senior students, carina and i were rather apprehensive about teaching junior kids, especially since we found out that not only would the classes be 3 times bigger then what we are used, we would have a whole group of teachers and parents watching. turns out we we're teaching in front of over 100 people. we we're a tad nervous, to say the least!! we spoke to other gappers who teach this age group and worked out some lesson plans, and had forewarned our link teacher she would probably have to translate, but we still didn't feel prepared. so we rocked up, sat in the principals office for a bit, all the while being stared at by curious students who were returning from their lunch breaks, and were then dragged off to perform!!
first lesson was an epic failure. the lesson plan wasn't long enough, so we had to ad lib for 20 minutes, which is not easy. the students were horribly shy and not used to our voices, so they spent most of the lesson looking like stunned mullets =D
second lesson was a better lesson plan, and we pulled it off nicely. even the teachers who were watching got involved, it was awesome! for the second lesson we did body parts, and played simon says with the students, they were very good at it and squealed when we gave them small koala key rings as prizes. all in all i think we made a good sales pitch for the school.

finishing dates: carina and i recently received our finishing date, after a bit of confusion about when we finished teaching and when we were allowed to leave. we now finish teaching on the 27th of june, but have been asked to hang around until the 30th so the school can throw us a party ^_^
the finishing date has elicited mixed emotions - im really excited about continuing my wondrous journey and catching up with my friends, but im really sad about leaving hengxian. i've had an amazing time here, and made so many friends, its going to be hard to say good bye. i'll miss being a teacher, and i'll defiantly miss my students. i now only have four lessons left with each class =[
i cant believe we will be leaving so soon. sometimes it feels like i've been here forever, sometimes it feels like i've just arrived. it hasn't always been the greatest fun - been bored a lot lately because the students are busy studying for graduating exams, and all the senior 3s have left, and this town is tiny - but it's certainly been interesting, to say the least =P



until next time citizens!

claire. xo.