Busy week

This week has been really intense. Mid-terms, KTV, job interviews, soccer game...

I found an English teaching centre that was looking for English teachers, native or "experienced European", and I wanted to consider myself experienced. I was booked for an interview and when I got there I had to make a demo class for 20 minutes! "You can take 5 minutes to prepare". I had no idea what I was doing but it went well, asking my demo students (3 adults judging my teaching) to repeat the sentence "I got to school by bus", etc. Suddenly they asked me if I could start teaching 5 hours/week at a middle school with 40 pupils per class. I considered it to be too much responsibility, so I politely declined. Then they referred me to another centre, called "Easy Best English", that needed on-to-one tutors. I just got back from an interview with them and I now have an appointment with a 7-year old Chinese boy on Sunday!

Tomorrows appointment is an audition for recording 20 children songs. They were looking for "a young, bright but schooled voice" and I volunteered immediately. For my audition I was requested to perform "Twinkle twinkle little star". They say that you're always supposed to audition with pieces that you know very well so... If they want me the recordings will take place next week. Interesting!

What I also forgot to mention is that I got a new room mate! (Again, and not the Colombian one). This time a Taiwanese girl knocked on my door, and she moved in the following day. At first she came with a suitcase. And then with another. And then one of her friends brought some books. Followed by another friend with more books. Followed by my room mate with bags of food. So suddenly three Taiwanese girls were arguing in my small room. They started to unpack and clean her desk and wardrobe, and after an hour I had to leave for an interview, and asked her if I could take the key and I could, because she had got one as well. I left her with piles of stuff that covered all of her bed. When I returned two hours later, she was gone. So was all of her stuff. NOT A SINGLE ITEM OF HERS WAS LEFT IN THE ROOM: What do I do to scare room mates away before they have even moved in?

After the room mate mystery no. 3 I continued my life as usual. On Wednesday night I went with a couple of friends to watch a soccer game, which was interesting. It wasn't the best game in history, the level was barely Allsvenskan (the Swedish league), but it was an enjoyable evening! We were all cheering for the home team, our Beijing Guo An's, when they won by 2-1 against the visiting team. Jiayou!

Worker's Stadium

Mike, Robin and I in our supporter scarfs

Fragrant Hills field trip

Today my alarm was set on 6 am. The bus to the Fragrant Hills left at 7.30 and it was a cold morning, so I wore several layers of clothes, something I later regretted. It took us about 1 hour 40 minutes to reach the top, it felt like a million steps but it was really beautiful. I took a lot of pictures and you can see some of them below. We took a cable car for 50 yuan on the was down, it was just like a ski lift for 2 people and it was an amazing view! The trip took the whole day and on the way back all of us took a much needed nap in the bus.

Parts of our class with Zhao Laoshi

At the top

Amazing view from the cable car

The test is over!

The test yesterday went well, which is a relief. Since I had studied a great amount before, I didn't find the test too difficult. The listening test was definitely the hardest part.

When the test was over we watched a Chinese film, which was interesting. It was a comedy, and I found the humour geeky, but I have to admit that the whole thing was pretty weird and funny. While we were watching the film, called Crazy Stone in English, Zhang Laoshi corrected the tests and handed them in to the school administration. I asked her when we would get the results back, and she answered that we could get them right away. "Chen Lisha (which is me) had the best result in the class. Fu Rui (Rachel from U.S.) was number two."

That was all she said. It was not exactly what I asked about, and when she said "right away" I thought she meant she could tell us one by one in private. But no, that's apparently not how it works in China. But I'm so happy!!!  It was such a relief to hear that the test went well and to have the best result in class felt amazing!

Last night we definitely celebrated that the test was over. It was my classmate Max's birthday, so a group from our class went out together to KTV and sang and had a lot of fun. Today we started a new book on the next level, that is a bit tougher. It's just to start prepare for the final exam!

Study study study

I don't have very much to write since my life is'nt very interesting at the moment. All I do is study, I just got home from a 3-hour study session at the Hope café, an international style café/restaurant at campus. The test is on Monday and after that we will celebrate doing fun stuff. I want to go to KTV, we have been talking about going for a while now and after the test seems to be a good time. KTV is a kareoke place you can find everywhere in China, Chinese people love kareoke. It's a good concept; you get your own room with TV, microphones and a huge selection of songs; both Chinese and western, then you can order in food and drinks. This is what I'm looking forward to while studying. 加油! 

Mid-terms coming up

I'm back again after even more internet trouble. My new and hopefully last solution is a VPN-tunnel. I can't explain how it works because I don't know but I pay 150 SEK for 3 months and then I can reach my blog and Facebook.

The room mate announcement might have been a false alarm. She told me that she would move in tomorrow, and now it's been 5 days since tomorrow. But you never know...

My workload is starting to get heavy. Zhang Laoshi told us that we have mid-terms next Monday. Or, to correct myself, she answered our question when we asked if we weren't supposed to have a test sometime soon. I just love the advance planning. We have no idea what the test looks like, we only know that it will take the whole day. Thus far we have completed two books with a total of 28 chapters and approximately 500 new characters. I have a lot of study to do.

Yesterday it suddenly got cold. Really cold. It's hard to describe it, but it's just a different type of cold than at home. The trees have beautiful colours though; red, orange, yellow.. But the cold is killing me, and mostly when I'm inside. My dorm is freezing. I have to sleep in a fleece and ski socks and I don't want to remove the comforter in the morning. If it's like this now, how bad will it be in one or two months?! I should probably ask if they can put on the central heating.

And so it happened at last

I was on my computer writing an email this afternoon when someone knocked on the door. It was a Colombian girl who asked if I was living alone. She is living on the 4th floor at the moment and she didn't like her Russian room mate because she's too quiet, so she wanted to change rooms. Then she stepped inside and saw that my stuff was all over her side of the room. I apologized and she didn't seem to care about it. I have been living in this room for 6 weeks without a room mate, and I have kept all my belongings on my side. When I got back from Shanghai I thought that if nobody had moved in yet, I would have the room for my own during the rest of the term. But apparently not.

All I know about the girl is that she is from Colombia, and she seems very nice and friendly. She is probably a good room mate, but it's just that I'm used to living on my own now! Somehow I also look forward to having a room mate, since that is what you are supposed to have. I hope that we work well together and will become friends! I'll keep you updated.

Voting for 班长

Today was an ordinary day in school. Until Zhao Laoshi told us that on the 27th of October we don't have class because we are going to Xiang Shan, the Fragrant Hills, north west of Beijing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangshan_Park <--- Link to Wikipedia here

When travelling in a group in China one needs to have a well-organised structure and good leaders. Therefore, the main event of today's class was to choose who would be ban zhang, which literally means class chief. I was put in charge of the votation, and our Laoshi was very excited about this important election. I made everyone write two names on a piece of paper, one girl and one guy. Then I carefully counted the votes during complete silence. We were all about to burst out laughing, this felt so silly when the average age of the class is 22.

Eventually the results showed that Max from Canada and Rachel from America became the ban zhangs. This was hillarious since Rachel just before the votation asked Zhao Laoshi if it was compulsory attendance on the trip. It wasn't, but now she has to go. Anyway, that was the main event of my day. Something that would be very important before a class trip, if we were all in middle school.