Sunday to Monday

On Sunday we were invited to our head tutor, Jasmine's house. We had a lovely afternoon, we visited Jasmine's local village market and when we got back we made dumplings for our dinner. We made what felt like thousands of dumplings and were expected to eat 20 according to Jasmine. They were tasty but a little repetitive as this was all we were eating. This seems to be quite a traditional thing in China you just eat one type of food, where as in England there are many contrasting flavours so you don't get bored.

We were still starving when we got home and Jeremy, our friend, dropped by with some mucas cough syrup from Australia to help clear my chesty cough. Despite Jasmine giving me various medications for it I'd rather have something where I can actually see the instructions or know at least what it is. He was an absolute star and brought us pizza from pizza hut too.

Monday morning 6.15 wake up call was horrendous to say the least all because Kate and I were modelling some horrific hats. The good news came from the photographer saying we would be done within the hour. £40 for 1 hours work, tremendous, thats our break in Shanghai paid for. By 9am we were home so I was able to prepare for my 2 english classes that afternoon, and even had time to squeeze in an episode of The Only Way Is Essex.

For my first class, we had arrange to discuss various foods and had got the students to prepare a presentation of their favourite food which they could discuss in English. The class was quite a success but I do feel they are rather shy when wanting to speak in English. This became more apparent after my second class of the afternoon.

On Friday, Jasmine said another department had asked if anyone would be willing to teach their Animation Design students. It appeared I had free time, despite having tons of work to do for placement. I wasn't particularly looking forward to the class but in the end we had a right laugh. The students were slightly younger than my first class, aged 18-20 but far more confident. I got everyone to come up to the front of the class and their English was quite good. Gave a few people English names which was funny and I felt really at ease teaching them. Whereas in my previous class its slightly like getting blood from a stone. Towards the end of the class the Animation Tutor and another man (later found out he was a Swimming Tutor) joined the class just in time for me to ask the student if they had anything they wanted to ask me. First question "do you have a boyfriend?" always get asked without fail. For some reason the Swimming Tutor mustn't have been listening then he came up and asked if I was married or single, what? Really he's supposed to be professional...the class was in uproar saying stuff in Chinese I think they were telling him to ask me out but thankfully he was shy and ran to the back of the class to his seat.
One of my students had a pet Squirrel which I found very strange, is he waiting to eat it ? It might not even be a Squirrel...who knows, cute though.