A Step-By-Step Guide to ...

A Step-by-Step Guide to Running an Errand for my Job.

1. Accept the mission to get enough chocolate for 150 students by tomorrow.
2. Realize this will consume my evening and regret my willingness to help.
3. Talk with my husband about which store would be the best to go to.
4. Ask others opinions about the best store to go to.
5. Decide on my own where I want to go.
6. After dinner and a few moments of quiet, I grab the necessary items: walking shoes, keys, purse, shopping bag, iPod, phone, gloves (still chilly), and plenty of money.
7. Walk to the bus stop.
8. Look at time. Create goal of being back in 1 hour.
9. Get stared at while walking to bus stop.
10. Wait for bus, while reading my library book, looking up every 3 or 4 sentences to keep aware of the buses coming and going.
11. After 7 minutes, realize I don’t have any 1 kuai’s on me… only 100s.  This won’t do.  Call my husband to meet me half-way to give me some bus money.
12. Take a moment in my head to mourn the loss of my 1 hour round-trip goal.
13. Run half way.  Meet husband. Husband makes fun of me in a loving way.
14. Run back, see my bus, run after it, yelling in English, “Hold the bus” and realize no one can understand me.   Miss it by about 20 seconds.
15. Get frustrated and try to flag down a taxi.
16. No taxis are available.
17. Pull out my book and wait for next bus.
18. 5 minutes later, the 382 Bus arrives.
19. Get on without problem, find a seat.
20. Drive for 10 minutes.
21. Arrive at Leader Shopping Center.
22. Walk through the center trying to find the down escalators. 
23. Ask a jewelry saleswoman, “Nihao, wode zhongwen bu hao. Jeige (point to escalator and point up), wo yao jeige (point down).”  Translation: Hello. My Chinese is bad.  This (pointing), I want this (pointing).
24. Saleswoman smiles and points to the down escalators.   I thank her and move on.
25. Get to the grocery store, and wonder where the heck the candy is located.
26. 5 minutes later, find candy and do some math on the best deals.
27. Look around and realized I have no idea where I am in the store.
28. Ask a shopper, “Nihao, wo yao mai. Zai nar?”(Hello.  I want to buy.  Where?)
29. Shopper stares at me.
30. I repeat the phrase slower, and with correct tones.
31. Shopper points to the check out center.
32. I stand in line for 5 minutes.
33. I buy my items, thinking it will cost 300 kaui, but it comes up to 150.
34. Realize I should have bought more.
35. Pay and locate exit.
36. Walk to bus stop
37. Wait for bus.
38. Bus arrives much quicker than expected. And I even get a seat.
39. Arrive back in my apartment complex in 1 hour 20 minutes.  Not too bad!

High School Banquet

The high school spring banquet has been my life for the last month.  This event is the equivalent of an American school’s prom!  There is much to plan for, including communication with the hotel, deciding on decorations, shopping & purchasing items, printing and receiving back permission slips, keeping track of money, having performance auditions, among many other things.

My wonderful teachers and chaperones for the evening.
The high school principal is on the far right in the back.

This semester, the student council has been faithfully working on the theme, decorations, schedule, performances, and games for the evening.  Throughout this process, for me as the student council advisor, there have been many handholding opportunities, many redirecting moments, and several times where I get to stand back and watch them work out the problems themselves.  The student council has been a joy to watch grow in this way! 

I had mentioned in my last blog about the hic-up with the hotel earlier last week.  While we were setting up for the banquet, there seemed to be a few more of those, unfortunately.   Damian and I got to the hotel by 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, and after some persuasion and clarification in Chinese, we were able to use the underground parking and private elevator to carry all of our music equipment and decorations to the 5^th floor banquet hall.  We had hen duo dongxi (a lot of stuff)!  

The lovely president and vice president of student council.

By 2:00, we got all of our equipment to the right place, but the previous banquet was not finished.  There were still people eating (and smoking), and the tables were just then being cleaned up.  All of my helpers arrived on time, but the hotel just was not ready for us. 

Set-up went from 2:00 – 5:00, and in some ways, all the way up until students arrived at 6:00.  During this time, there was a payment issue with the hotel that was resolved by the hotel literally saying, “Ok, you can do that this time, but maybe not next time.”   To which, I smiled as I realize everything works out in China. 

Damian, being silly for the camera set up.

These boys ALWAYS make me laugh. 

Sam! Our awesome tech supporting teacher for the evening.

At 6:00, students arrived to the Candyland Banquet.  They were greeted by a colorful board game floor, which met them at the elevator, and navigated them through the hallways.  They were welcomed by a beautiful photo-backdrop, and a large banquet hall, complete with color, candy, and an international buffet! 

Our BU FAY! As my Grandpa Mancuso would say.

The Jazz Band!!

Some 10th grade girls!

The opening game decided which tables would eat first.  During and shortly after dinner, there were performances by the school’s jazz band as well as students singing Korean and American music.  The intermission was a life-sized Candyland board game that could have been chaotic, but the student council pulled it off well. 


Then we had round 2 of student performances, including some crazy yo-yo tricks!  After this, there was chubby bunny, and the winners of “Princess Lolly” and “Lord Licorice.”  Lastly, there was the abstract by fun “runway” game, where students had to dress in crazy outfits and accessories to win a prize.  It didn’t really fit the theme, but everyone seemed to love it.  The evening ended at 10:30, with some extra picture-taking and snagging some last minute candy. 

With the help of student council and the chaperoning staff, we were able to be cleaned up, packed up, and out of there by 11:00.   On my way out, Damian caught me to congratulate me on an evening well done. 

In his words, the event was perfect and much improved on by the student council.  As someone who likes affirmation in my work, that’s all I needed to hear to know that I did a good job, and that student council’s work had really paid off.

Some Freshmen Girls

However, I am very glad that the student council was able to learn so much from this experience, and that my part in planning the banquet paid off.  I am also very glad that the students had a fun and memorable time at the banquet—the last banquet for many students whom I’ve come to know and love.  

I’m thrilled to say that the evening was much better than expected, and even more so… that it’s over.  I can now focus on the other parts of my job that suffered because of the time spent on the banquet.  

Each table was named after a certain candy.
Here, Hannah is showing off her
larger than life size Nerds!

We had a couple birthdays to celebrate also,
so the hotel brought out a couple cakes!

What's The Real Issue?

Today, I was able to talk to a student about surface issues vs. core issues.  Yes, the surface issues are mostly easy to identify and most practical to work on, however, if we never understand or work through the core issue, the habits and surface issues will always come back.  I created this visual today, although I'd like to have an actual sphere that the student could hold and interact with.  Thoughts? Resources? Help?

Qingdao Pictures from Dec-March

This is me near the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center. 

Ben and me at May 4th Square.

Olympics

Our school used to be in this building.
This is in downtown Qingdao, rather than 30 minutes east of downtown.

A Very Cool Sculpture!

My good friend Kathryn on the far left, and my friend/co-worker MiMi in the middle.

The group of us that went on the walk!

A nice view of the ocean at sunset!

Bowling with the families during Christmas time.
This is Carl, Ben's principal.

This was our Murder Mystery that we attended, just a few weeks ago.
I played a French man, and Ben was a news reporter.  The killer is amongst us... any guesses?

A Full Day of Learning

Today was a day of learning and communicating. My morning was packed with unfinished business regarding the High School Banquet that is scheduled for this Saturday.  During the early morning, I prepared some contracts and documents that needed to be ready for the afternoon, (more details further down). 

During my middle school homeroom time, we discussed and debriefed about an assembly that we lead the day before.  We came up with a topic, Bible verse, speaker, and game, and the students led it all, in front of the entire middle school.  It went fairly well, although these 6^th and 7^th grade girls were very nervous, especially about praying in the microphone with everyone listening. During the debrief time, they all thought it was awful and could have been better, however, I thought our topic on “Serving God with our Talents” was very clearly communicated and I thought they did much better than other groups. :)  But, I love these girls dearly, so maybe I’m biased!

At 11:30, my student services team left the school campus for a work lunch/coffee.  We drove to a Hong Kong restaurant, where we “weren’t allowed to talk about work.”  So we had fun discussing family and summer plans. 

Let me tell you a bit about our team: Student services consists of 4 other staff besides myself.  Damian is the head of our department, an unorganized but brilliant Australian.  He’s lived in China for 10 years, has wife with 3 young kids, one of them is adopted from China.  Bean (real name is Larry, but no one calls him that) is our college counselor who is a corky American who has lived in China for several years and before that lived and taught in Israel with his wife.  They have 3 adult children.  Patrick is the middle school counselor.  He’s got a sensitive spirit and a great sense of humor. He and his wife are from Hong Kong and they have 2 young children.  Mimi is our elementary counselor.  She and her husband are Korean-American and have taught/done ministry in L.A., California for a number of years.  They’ve been in China for around 6 years and have 2 girls in middle school and 1 boy in elementary school. 

After “not talking about work” during an amazing lunch, we hopped over to a Starbucks, took over a large table, and hammered out some documents about creating a culture of transition in our school.  Because of the international community that we teach, there is always transition, and our school is just starting to understand how to support, help, and provide resources for these students and families that experience so much change.  We worked hard for 4 hours in that Starbucks and I think we now have a much better idea of the next couple steps our department can take in this area. 

Afterwards, Damian and I drove to the hotel where the High School Banquet will be held this Saturday.  The traffic was getting pretty bad by this point in the evening, so we had a while to chat. I asked about the similarities/differences of Australia to the U.S., to which his answer was basically that we have the same “mono-cultural” view of the world, the same arrogance and individual ideas, but Australians are more vocal about it. :)

We got to the hotel and had a quick, but rather frustrating meeting with the event coordinating staff about the contract we were to sign regarding using their services and facility for our banquet.  Sometimes things get lost in translation, or important needs are ignored altogether.   There, I watched Damian tread the line of being clear, straight-forward, and borderline rude in order to get what we were paying for.  I’m still learning this culture, whereas sketchy contracts would never fly in the States.

So today, through working with my homeroom, my team, my boss, and a Chinese hotel, I was able to learn more about myself, other cultures, and about being a professional in our school.  This was a day well spent!  Plus, I got a free lunch and coffee!!