• Tricia Hall (aka Jon’s Mom)
• Jenny Dalton
• The Breeden Family
• The Mann Family
• Margaret Adler
• Sacred Heart School and Trinity Episcopal School in New Orleans

Check out the below pics of some student rummaging through the stock in the new, pristine “English Room”.

Rummaging through the goods

Happy

Where is CiLi?

One of my favorites

Here is a simple 11 step guide:

1. Make your request to someone with power.  Make sure this individual speaks English and Chinese.
2. Wait for your request to go unanswered.
3. Remind individual of your request.  Ask him/her to go to a higher authority.
4. Wait for the higher authority to reject your request.
5. Have initial contact try to set up a meeting with said higher authority to discuss your request.
6. Wait for higher authority to approve your request because he/she does not want to meet with you.
7. Find a room.
8. Wait for approval and subsequent rejection by another higher authority to use the room.
9. Approach first higher authority without notice to discuss request and rejection…try again and again until you can actually surprise him/her.
10. Get pushed off onto another authority figure (lower than first, but higher than second) who finally throws some muscle to get you a room.
11. CELEBRATE AND HUG EVERYONE AROUND YOU ONCE YOU SECURE A ROOM

*This process will take at least 2 weeks, but possibly up to 2 months.

If you cannot tell from this post…WE GOT A ROOM!!  Today, I had some students from Class 379 help me clean up the room.  We still have a lot of work to do, but we are on our way.  Going to pick up 9 boxes of books waiting for us at the Post Office tomorrow!  Click on pictures for larger version.

The Cleaning Crew with their Head Teacher (Ms. Zhu)

Going to work on the thick layer of dust on the floor.

Making Progress

Lots of dust

Bring in the mops!

Window Cleaners

Sally!

Jeff!

Frank brought some students over from English Corner to check out the progress!

Lily was a rock star.

Tired, but excited! Still much work to be done, but at least the room is clean.

See the Announcement here!

Dear Friends of the United States,
I am a student from Cili County in Hunan Province. My school, Cili Number One High School, has a long history and gathers students from all over the county who have good grades. But, in the county English is very poor for some students. We hope you can help us to establish an English library. We truly want to learn more about English.
To you, a book may be insignificant, but we crave it. Please help us.

Sincerely,
Eunice

Thank you to:
Guy and Lindsay Brown: 20 Books and 3 Magazines!
David and Mattie Azurmendi: 25 Books!

We are on our way to our goal of 500 Books/150 Mags
Current Status: 126 Books/3 Mags
Still Need: 374 Books/147 Magazines

BOOKS!!

My Sunday

Today it’s Sunday. I don’t have morning class, so I get up at 7:00AM. Then, I brush my teeth and clean my face. At 7:30AM I wait for the bus to go to school. Usually, I will meet my best friend on the bus and we will talk about some things. At 7:45AM I go to class. Then I ready for my four classes in the morning.
At 12:00 I leave school and go to the street. I usually go shopping and have lunch with my friends. I love buying clothes and books. Then I go home at 3:00PM. I sleep for two hours to relax. At 5:00PM I go to school for night class. Usually, it’s boring.
At 9:15PM, we go home after school. Usually I will walk with some friends. I love talking with them about class, life, friendship and love. Then, I get home at 10:00PM. I usually have another dinner and take a shower. Last, I will go to bed and have a sweet dream!

As expected, I received many interesting questions:

1. “I want to  know how to make a girlfriend.” – Courtesy of Mimy.
2. “I want to learn popping because it’s crazy” – Thank you, James  (Popping is a type of hip hop dance)
3. “Can we play NBA Live 2009, it’s a great video game.” – Oh, Lewis
4. “Can we play tennis?”  An interesting response from someone named Potato Chips…

Those answers were just a few of the, “I’m sorry, maybe we can work on those outside of class” questions that I had encountered.  But the students had hundreds of great responses that showed just how curious they are about the outside world.

It can be summed up by Hamburger in her basic statement, “Basically, I want to learn more about American culture.”

Among the most requested topics to study were food, sports, and music.  Of course, everyone likes eating, and learning about American food is something that students have continuously asked both me and Jon about.  Sports are something that all high school students across the world are interested in;  unfortunately, the students here in China have very limited time to take part in many sports.  Mostly, they all play basketball, but they are still enthralled by the idea of major sports across the world.  And finally, music is something that everyone listens to.  Everyone has a different taste in music, but all of our students seem to love Western music.

Those are some of the lighter subjects that the students are interested in.  However, we do have those students who want more than just an ESPN magazine.  For instance, Tina expresses her hope to be a doctor.  “I want to save one’s life.”  While they are in so many ways different than students in America, they still have the same hopes and dreams.  Frank George and Lake represent some of the history buffs who are interested in world history.  Cherry even gets specific enough to say she wants to learn more about the Cold War.

All of this taken into consideration, any donation you are able or willing to make is greatly needed.  There are over 3,000 students at Cili Yi Zhong with over 3,000 different interests.  If you can send an old history book—fantastic.  If you have cookbooks you have memorized—we’d love them.  We will take anything you have to offer.  We realize that being here, we are not just representatives of America but of all Western life; the students ask us about all life outside the borders of China.  What kinds of books do people read?  What is daily life like?  They want to improve their English so that one-day they can experience these differences on their own.  If you can in anyway help to donate some books, our students will be eternally grateful.

For my seven classes this week I decided to simply have a discussion allowing them to ask me any question they could think of – this would also test their ability to think in English, formulate those thoughts in a coherent question, and gauge their speaking confidence (a major issue when learning a foreign language).  I am proud to say that it was one of the best classes I have had all year.  My students were so into it and asked some great questions-aside from the less intense “When was your first love”, “How many girlfriends have you had”, etc – some of the most intriguing questions are below:

• What will you do if China and America ever go to war?
• What do you think of the relationship between China and America?  Is it better than before?
• Why is the American education system so strong?
• What was your high school life like?

Of course, none of these compare to the incredibly heart-wrenching question “Do you have to leave China this summer?” followed by a collective sad sigh and “Why?” after the inevitable response of “I am sorry, but yes, I do”.  It is amazing that in only 40 minutes, I feel infinitely closer with my students than an entire semester last year…maybe that traditional teacher-student relationship is a little antiquated.