I må undskylde de ikke eksisterende opdateringer på hvad der sker her i Kina-land, men har bare travlt med at nyde livet :D
Her kommer så et par opdateringer!
torsdag den 16. april 2009
tirsdag den 3. marts 2009
smogy fog
The school is a bit outside the center of Beijing and it's practicly been sunshine and blue skyes all the time we've been here. It's amazing how just an hours travel makes such a big difference! It's quite nice to be able to see the sky and wake up in the morning without a grey blanket hovering over the city.
If you look around you can quite clearly see in which direction the center is, just from the amount of smog covering the horizon.
Anyway woke up this morning and there's something in the air.. Can't quite figure out if it's actual fog or if it's stupid smog.. It's probably a mix of both, smogy fog! But I'm gonna pretend it's real fog and that the air is clean!
I think someone told me that being in Beijing on a bad day was like smoking 17 cigarettes? Or maybe it was more...
By the time I get home I'm sure I'll be a serious second hand smoker, just from being here..
And on to the big news! I've got classes! Wuuhuuu! I finally got classes this week and onwards. 8 hours a week, which I know isn't alot compared to the others, but it's something to do other than being on Facebook all day.
Though it's not "real" classes. It's IELTS speaking classes. IELTS = international english language testing system. IELTS is a way to test how good your english are if you're gonna study or work abroad. And my classes are just like miniversions of the actual IELTS speaking test, they're gonna take later this year. The test is shaped like an interview, so that's what I'm basicly doing, from a book that gives the topics and questions. Meaning I don't really have any preparation to do!
But classes! Weeeeee
If you look around you can quite clearly see in which direction the center is, just from the amount of smog covering the horizon.
Anyway woke up this morning and there's something in the air.. Can't quite figure out if it's actual fog or if it's stupid smog.. It's probably a mix of both, smogy fog! But I'm gonna pretend it's real fog and that the air is clean!
I think someone told me that being in Beijing on a bad day was like smoking 17 cigarettes? Or maybe it was more...
By the time I get home I'm sure I'll be a serious second hand smoker, just from being here..
And on to the big news! I've got classes! Wuuhuuu! I finally got classes this week and onwards. 8 hours a week, which I know isn't alot compared to the others, but it's something to do other than being on Facebook all day.
Though it's not "real" classes. It's IELTS speaking classes. IELTS = international english language testing system. IELTS is a way to test how good your english are if you're gonna study or work abroad. And my classes are just like miniversions of the actual IELTS speaking test, they're gonna take later this year. The test is shaped like an interview, so that's what I'm basicly doing, from a book that gives the topics and questions. Meaning I don't really have any preparation to do!
But classes! Weeeeee
søndag den 22. februar 2009
Not doing office work on the office computer!
...
Don't have anything to do yet.. Haven't got a class yet, but Boris(my boss/supervisor) assures me that I'll get one soon. He just can't tell me when soon is
Am going to go see if I can get internet in my room at 3, when the internet guy gets back. We should be able to get it, since they told us it was free and someplaces wireless, we just had to sign up. When we got here we thought we would have to pay for it, so it's quite nice that we don't have to after all!
The others, who are here too, are teaching right now. Their first lesson! Am waiting excitedly to hear how it went, 'cause it didn't go that well for N+K apparently this morning. Haven't spoken to them yet, as they're in another school(still on the same campus though). The students was very naughty and acted up the whole lesson it seems. Crossing my fingers that my students won't be like that.
Hopefully them starting late is a sign that they actually want to be here? Heh, they've prob been forced by their parents in reality...
Education seems to be very important here in China, and the students seem to spend all day studying. They have class for most of the day and then they've got a huge pile of homework to finish too. I can understand why we've been warned not to be surprised if the students said sleeping was one of their hobbies!
But I can understand why education is important, you need an education to get anywhere in life it seems these days, and with 1.3 billion other people trying to get succes, the competition is hard!
So far all the chinese we've met have been real friendly, and just wants to talk to us. Some of the others have even been offered shoes and things in return for english lessons at the Silk market! Which for me just shows how much the chinese wants to be a part of the international world. Though it's a shame that it's seems they're aiming more for copying western life than developing their own. I think some of the cultural things gets lost in the consumer focused westernization, but then again, I am a westerner who have all the things they want.
Don't have anything to do yet.. Haven't got a class yet, but Boris(my boss/supervisor) assures me that I'll get one soon. He just can't tell me when soon is
Am going to go see if I can get internet in my room at 3, when the internet guy gets back. We should be able to get it, since they told us it was free and someplaces wireless, we just had to sign up. When we got here we thought we would have to pay for it, so it's quite nice that we don't have to after all!
The others, who are here too, are teaching right now. Their first lesson! Am waiting excitedly to hear how it went, 'cause it didn't go that well for N+K apparently this morning. Haven't spoken to them yet, as they're in another school(still on the same campus though). The students was very naughty and acted up the whole lesson it seems. Crossing my fingers that my students won't be like that.
Hopefully them starting late is a sign that they actually want to be here? Heh, they've prob been forced by their parents in reality...
Education seems to be very important here in China, and the students seem to spend all day studying. They have class for most of the day and then they've got a huge pile of homework to finish too. I can understand why we've been warned not to be surprised if the students said sleeping was one of their hobbies!
But I can understand why education is important, you need an education to get anywhere in life it seems these days, and with 1.3 billion other people trying to get succes, the competition is hard!
So far all the chinese we've met have been real friendly, and just wants to talk to us. Some of the others have even been offered shoes and things in return for english lessons at the Silk market! Which for me just shows how much the chinese wants to be a part of the international world. Though it's a shame that it's seems they're aiming more for copying western life than developing their own. I think some of the cultural things gets lost in the consumer focused westernization, but then again, I am a westerner who have all the things they want.
lørdag den 21. februar 2009
The school
I'm now at my new school, the one I'll be staying at for the next 4-5 months!
I haven't got internet in my appartement yet , 'cause the IT department doesn't open before monday. I do have one in the office though, and it's the one I'm using now.
The school is an international school, it looks like a stereotypical amerikan/australian school (I'll post pictures as soon as I can!) and all the courses are in English.
This means that to go here you have to have a certain level of English, which is what we're here for. We'll be teaching the students before they go to the highschool/university here, so they can actually take the courses and understand them. This probably means that the students are quite good!
We're not going to be teaching them much grammar and stuff thank god, instead we'll be having speaking lessons with them, focused on pronunciation and getting the students to practice speaking English.
I don't have any classes yet, which is a bit odd, and I'm going to have to talk to Solaro(manager for the TTC course) to find out if this affects my teaching certificate..
The reason why I don't have any classes yet, is that the school apparently takes on new students all the time, meaning there will be another class for me to teach in a months time! So far I've got no idea what I'll be doing in the mean time though.. I have to be in the office from 8.30-17.30, maybe they'll have something for me to do, and maybe I'm just gonna sit here and read a book, I don't know yet.
The appartement is ok, it's got some flaws that they're working on fixing, but overall it's actually a quite nice apparement. I'm sharing with my roommate, M, from UIBE (where the training took place).
In the appartement there's an ok big livingroom, with standard stuff like sofa, tv and shelves. There's also a small table and chairs for eating. Beside the livingroom is a small hallway with doors to the bathroom(flooded all the time, they're working on it) and two bedrooms. One of the bedrooms are bigger than the other, and it has more light too, that's my bedroom. But M and I have agreed to switch after about 2 months, so she can have it too.
There's a small kitchen, so we can cook if we get tired of the canteen food
The school and the appartement is fine, but I would have liked to go to a chinese school, so I could get a bit more of the "real" chinese experience, and not so much of the "fake" western one(exaggerating a bit). As an international school, they've got a lot of foreign teachers and I would've loved to live in a more chinese area, but I'm sure this is gonna be great too!
For some reason this school has got 3 terms, which means that the first term finishes on the 3rd june, then there's a short break before second term begins again. But since our contract ends on the 30th of june, we'll only be here for two weeks of the second term, and there's no reason for us to be teaching then. So we won't be teaching from the 3rd of june. We might have to work a few days more to finish up reports and stuff, but it seems that we basicly finish from the 3rd of june..
I haven't got internet in my appartement yet , 'cause the IT department doesn't open before monday. I do have one in the office though, and it's the one I'm using now.
The school is an international school, it looks like a stereotypical amerikan/australian school (I'll post pictures as soon as I can!) and all the courses are in English.
This means that to go here you have to have a certain level of English, which is what we're here for. We'll be teaching the students before they go to the highschool/university here, so they can actually take the courses and understand them. This probably means that the students are quite good!
We're not going to be teaching them much grammar and stuff thank god, instead we'll be having speaking lessons with them, focused on pronunciation and getting the students to practice speaking English.
I don't have any classes yet, which is a bit odd, and I'm going to have to talk to Solaro(manager for the TTC course) to find out if this affects my teaching certificate..
The reason why I don't have any classes yet, is that the school apparently takes on new students all the time, meaning there will be another class for me to teach in a months time! So far I've got no idea what I'll be doing in the mean time though.. I have to be in the office from 8.30-17.30, maybe they'll have something for me to do, and maybe I'm just gonna sit here and read a book, I don't know yet.
The appartement is ok, it's got some flaws that they're working on fixing, but overall it's actually a quite nice apparement. I'm sharing with my roommate, M, from UIBE (where the training took place).
In the appartement there's an ok big livingroom, with standard stuff like sofa, tv and shelves. There's also a small table and chairs for eating. Beside the livingroom is a small hallway with doors to the bathroom(flooded all the time, they're working on it) and two bedrooms. One of the bedrooms are bigger than the other, and it has more light too, that's my bedroom. But M and I have agreed to switch after about 2 months, so she can have it too.
There's a small kitchen, so we can cook if we get tired of the canteen food
The school and the appartement is fine, but I would have liked to go to a chinese school, so I could get a bit more of the "real" chinese experience, and not so much of the "fake" western one(exaggerating a bit). As an international school, they've got a lot of foreign teachers and I would've loved to live in a more chinese area, but I'm sure this is gonna be great too!
For some reason this school has got 3 terms, which means that the first term finishes on the 3rd june, then there's a short break before second term begins again. But since our contract ends on the 30th of june, we'll only be here for two weeks of the second term, and there's no reason for us to be teaching then. So we won't be teaching from the 3rd of june. We might have to work a few days more to finish up reports and stuff, but it seems that we basicly finish from the 3rd of june..
mandag den 16. februar 2009
Nu sner det nu sner det
It's snowing! I love love love love love it!
Woke up this morning and saw it was snowing, it's so brilliant XD
Woke up this morning and saw it was snowing, it's so brilliant XD
torsdag den 12. februar 2009
Rain
It's raining today! Weeeee
It started out as just a few drops every few min when we came back from teaching(I'll tell you more about that later when I have the time) and turning into normal rain for a few hours and now it's back to dripping again. But it's raining!
Apparently is hasn't rained for more than 4 months here in Beijing. The air has been so dry, that everyone has been running of to buy lotion and lip balms all the time. Just being out for a few hours a day dries up your skin in no time. And when we first got here my hair was electric all the time.
I didn't really notice how much I've missed the rain until it actually rained, it's so nice!
You can feel the moisture in the air and it's so nice and cool on your skin.. really really good. There's big puddles on the streets though and got splashed by a car, but it's raining so I don't really mind.
I'll take some wet and dry pictures if it's still raining tomorrow of our campus.
It started out as just a few drops every few min when we came back from teaching(I'll tell you more about that later when I have the time) and turning into normal rain for a few hours and now it's back to dripping again. But it's raining!
Apparently is hasn't rained for more than 4 months here in Beijing. The air has been so dry, that everyone has been running of to buy lotion and lip balms all the time. Just being out for a few hours a day dries up your skin in no time. And when we first got here my hair was electric all the time.
I didn't really notice how much I've missed the rain until it actually rained, it's so nice!
You can feel the moisture in the air and it's so nice and cool on your skin.. really really good. There's big puddles on the streets though and got splashed by a car, but it's raining so I don't really mind.
I'll take some wet and dry pictures if it's still raining tomorrow of our campus.
tirsdag den 3. februar 2009
New years eve the chinese way - sun 25th jan
Earlier on the day we had been given a card with the address where the new years party would be held, so we could show it to the taxi. He still brought us to the wrong place so we couldn’t follow the map..
For the bar name we had just been told that it would say Heineken on the outside. And the place we were dropped of did have Heineken on the outside, but when we went inside there were no people there, no one we knew anyway. So we tried the next door and the next door, 3 bars with Heineken on top of, still not the right place. We met some of the earlier participants though who called Hannah for us so we could get directions. Finally we did find it.
It was a bar just big enough to hold us all without us feeling like there was too much/little space to move around on. And there was free drinks until 1, but they ran out around 12 something. But it was great, and we had a lot of fun. Just sitting and talking to people and having fun with the Chinese karaoke!
At 12 we went outside for the fireworks and it was brilliant! They just went nuts, BAM! BUM! All the time, almost enough to make you deaf, apparently the Chinese likes it when it makes a lot of noise.. And it just kept going, that was the oddest part, it made it so intense. It went on and on and on with the same amount of lights and noise as at 12. In Denmark you go out, fire of a few things for 15 min and then you go back in again. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to find new years eve fireworks as special anymore. The Chinese way just knocks you of your feet! In the end it was like a fog had settle over the area because of all the smoke from the fireworks! It was insane but incredibly fascinating and intense.
Afterwards we went to a bar next door, but we were tired and didn’t really stay for long. It had been a long but eventfull day. And it wasn’t even a problem to get a taxi as some people had claimed, we just went 20 m down the road and voila a taxi! It was fun and I slept very good that night despite all the fireworks still going of.
Pictures coming later!
For the bar name we had just been told that it would say Heineken on the outside. And the place we were dropped of did have Heineken on the outside, but when we went inside there were no people there, no one we knew anyway. So we tried the next door and the next door, 3 bars with Heineken on top of, still not the right place. We met some of the earlier participants though who called Hannah for us so we could get directions. Finally we did find it.
It was a bar just big enough to hold us all without us feeling like there was too much/little space to move around on. And there was free drinks until 1, but they ran out around 12 something. But it was great, and we had a lot of fun. Just sitting and talking to people and having fun with the Chinese karaoke!
At 12 we went outside for the fireworks and it was brilliant! They just went nuts, BAM! BUM! All the time, almost enough to make you deaf, apparently the Chinese likes it when it makes a lot of noise.. And it just kept going, that was the oddest part, it made it so intense. It went on and on and on with the same amount of lights and noise as at 12. In Denmark you go out, fire of a few things for 15 min and then you go back in again. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to find new years eve fireworks as special anymore. The Chinese way just knocks you of your feet! In the end it was like a fog had settle over the area because of all the smoke from the fireworks! It was insane but incredibly fascinating and intense.
Afterwards we went to a bar next door, but we were tired and didn’t really stay for long. It had been a long but eventfull day. And it wasn’t even a problem to get a taxi as some people had claimed, we just went 20 m down the road and voila a taxi! It was fun and I slept very good that night despite all the fireworks still going of.
Pictures coming later!
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