This week was definitely a blur... which I guess can be a good thing when it's work. We had inservice days Monday through Wednesday, so I only had to teach Thursday and Friday. Not a bad deal!
Well, the swine flu has officially hit Xiamen. Um... this doesn't really scare me. I still hold that it's "just the flu" and that the world is overreacting. I even read the other day that the UK had developed a vaccine that is up to 96% effective. So what gives?
As any typical Chinese school would do, we have to jump on the bandwagon of "precaution". We've had several meetings about it this past week, but basically the government has mandated that we check temperatures of students twice a day. What I'm really excited about is all of the mercury thermometers the school has purchased to do the job... and that we get to waste 15 minutes each morning doing this protocol. "Until further notice" I have become a homeroom teacher of grades 11 and 12. Why? Because I need to supervise the girls as they stick a thermometer under their arm for 5 minutes and then write down everyone's temperatures thereafter. We are supposed to be taking our own temperatures at the same time... and if anyone has a higher temperature than 37 degrees Celsius, they get sent home. I'm highly considering letting my temp "get" above normal... I wouldn't mind a few days off.
We got a couple of new "reject" fish from Yvonne's aquarium. She had a bully guppie and gourami that were not working in her aquarium environment, so she sent them to us, aka the purgatory tank. The gourami has survived for 3 days now! Maybe he has a chance? The guppie has begun schooling with the rainbowfish... aquatic interaction definitely intrigues me.
Thursday after school Ian and I went with a Chinese guy from the school to buy stuff for our science classrooms. He took us to this place that was no bigger than a garage... with bottles and bottles of chemicals lining the walls and glassware galore! It was like a science teacher's shopping spree heaven! Everything is so dirt cheap, as always. Ian found some gas syringe that he hyperventilated over, and told me that in America they were over $50 each to order... these were 5 kuai (about 75 cents). Insane.
Later Thursday night, Rex and I went over to Ian and Yvonne's to play this board game they were all raving about called "Settlers of Catan". Ben, who lives one floor down from us, brought the game over and we spent a few hours eating strawberry-filled Oreo cookies and learning this strange new game. In the end, it was pretty cool... just nothing like you think of when you think "board game".
Last night a group of teachers went to eat Korean food at a little hole in the wall place across town. The Korean teacher showed us the place. It was really neat because the tables were more traditional, with them being only about a foot off the ground. There was a big hole underneath the table and you sat on a pillow on the floor (but your feet hung down into the hole). Not sure if that visual I painted for you makes much sense, but it was really neat! The food was awesome, as always at Korean places.
This morning we had a small breakfast to save room for "eating with the monks" at the big Buddhist temple nearby.
Well, the swine flu has officially hit Xiamen. Um... this doesn't really scare me. I still hold that it's "just the flu" and that the world is overreacting. I even read the other day that the UK had developed a vaccine that is up to 96% effective. So what gives?
As any typical Chinese school would do, we have to jump on the bandwagon of "precaution". We've had several meetings about it this past week, but basically the government has mandated that we check temperatures of students twice a day. What I'm really excited about is all of the mercury thermometers the school has purchased to do the job... and that we get to waste 15 minutes each morning doing this protocol. "Until further notice" I have become a homeroom teacher of grades 11 and 12. Why? Because I need to supervise the girls as they stick a thermometer under their arm for 5 minutes and then write down everyone's temperatures thereafter. We are supposed to be taking our own temperatures at the same time... and if anyone has a higher temperature than 37 degrees Celsius, they get sent home. I'm highly considering letting my temp "get" above normal... I wouldn't mind a few days off.
We got a couple of new "reject" fish from Yvonne's aquarium. She had a bully guppie and gourami that were not working in her aquarium environment, so she sent them to us, aka the purgatory tank. The gourami has survived for 3 days now! Maybe he has a chance? The guppie has begun schooling with the rainbowfish... aquatic interaction definitely intrigues me.
Thursday after school Ian and I went with a Chinese guy from the school to buy stuff for our science classrooms. He took us to this place that was no bigger than a garage... with bottles and bottles of chemicals lining the walls and glassware galore! It was like a science teacher's shopping spree heaven! Everything is so dirt cheap, as always. Ian found some gas syringe that he hyperventilated over, and told me that in America they were over $50 each to order... these were 5 kuai (about 75 cents). Insane.
Later Thursday night, Rex and I went over to Ian and Yvonne's to play this board game they were all raving about called "Settlers of Catan". Ben, who lives one floor down from us, brought the game over and we spent a few hours eating strawberry-filled Oreo cookies and learning this strange new game. In the end, it was pretty cool... just nothing like you think of when you think "board game".
Last night a group of teachers went to eat Korean food at a little hole in the wall place across town. The Korean teacher showed us the place. It was really neat because the tables were more traditional, with them being only about a foot off the ground. There was a big hole underneath the table and you sat on a pillow on the floor (but your feet hung down into the hole). Not sure if that visual I painted for you makes much sense, but it was really neat! The food was awesome, as always at Korean places.
This morning we had a small breakfast to save room for "eating with the monks" at the big Buddhist temple nearby.
Nanputou Temple in the middle of Xiamen Island.
We went with Yvonne and once we got there started asking around to find out where the restaurant was. We had heard that you had to be seated a little bit before 11am because lunch started at 11 and the monks we wanted to eat with were in and out very quickly. We bought our tickets and walked into a room... that had pink table clothes and totally looked like a restaurant. No monks. 11am rolled around, vegetarian dishes started being brought out to our table, one at a time... still no monks.
Yvonne and our vegetarian feast.
We finally just decided that we must've gone to the wrong place, which upon further inspection was totally correct. At least the food was good if not mysterious, and we got to explore the grounds of this beautiful temple after we ate. On the positive side, we found the place we need to go to eat with the monks for next time!
The monks washing dishes after their meal... that we missed.
The big harbor cruise was tonight! It was totally not really a cruise... we rented a little fishing boat looking thing for a few hours and potlucked snacks and drinks.
Rex, me, and 20 colleagues loaded in and were having a great time seeing the island where we live from a new perspective... and then the boat stopped. Not because it was broken, but because the driver just decided that this would be a good idea. From that moment on, we were motion sick, which sucked because we would have loved to keep going for longer! We weren't the only ones and soon convinced the driver to take the sickly people back to the dock and continue on without us. It must have been strategy to save gas or something.
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