We had another good meeting. In attendance were Cheryl, Mark, Katherine, Sophia, and our family. It was nice to see Sophia again.
9/24 English corner
We all made it to English corner this Monday despite events conspiring against us. I went out to get dinner for me and the kids. I ended up standing at a food window for 20-30 minutes waiting on food. I watched as people came, ordered food, received their food, and left. Some folks even ordered exactly what I ordered and got their food. Meanwhile, I still stood there waiting and growing impatient.
Eventually I was the only one left. The lady inside came to the window and told me to wait a moment. So, I kept waiting. I watched as they did nothing inside the shop. There was no cooking or anything. They were looking in freezers, breading raw meat, but not cooking. They came to the window again and told me to wait again. Finally they went over to the fryer and stared at it. They came to the window and told me that they couldn't fix the food. They gave me my money back and then I had to go and stand in line somewhere else to get dinner.
I was in a bad mood, but I was determined to go to English corner anyway. The 3 of us walked slowly to Teaching Building 1. When I got there, I still hadn't finished my food. It turned out to be okay though. There was no one there; no students or teachers were there. I got to stand there for a while and eat some food. Then one of the new teachers showed up. We chatted for a bit.
Slowly some students showed up. We got to talk for a bit, but I didn't have any in-depth conversations.
I met some brand new teachers. One is an older lady named Fiona. I think she's in her fifties, but I'm not sure. The other is an older man named Mr. R. His real name is German and he refuses to tell people what it is. I almost feel like he's hiding it from embarrassment or something. He claims it's too difficult to pronounce, so he won't tell anyone. Our buddy Mark talked to Mr. R and found out that Mr. R is a Christian. I'm not sure if that's true or not. It's difficult to know because most Americans will claim to be Christians when in fact they aren't living a Christian life, don't go to church, and don't really tell others about God. As usual, we'll accept it at face value and time will tell.
Freshmen
The freshmen arrived about 2 weeks ago. They've been doing their military training. The students are absolutely everywhere. The dean called us into his office on Sunday. He gave us our new schedules. I got 4 more classes, but Colonel didn't get any extras. I got Business English students, so now I have to plan out 2 new lesson plans instead of 1. It's a pain. I'm really tired of teaching English. I start next week.
Honestly, what is business English anyway? I see lots of people in other countries asking for business English classes, but that's not really a thing. Business English is just jargon and understanding business situations. Just learning English in general will help with people who want to learn this so-called business English.
Update
The rain has finally stopped. We've had several days of sunlight and beautiful weather.
In the evenings our family usually prays out loud with each other. We all take turns. As a last resort in dealing with my children's bad behavior, I decided to pray out loud where they could hear it. Each night I ask God to help them care for each other, to say kind words, to be peaceful. It seems to be working. We've had 2 days of a mostly peaceful home. There's been an occasional disagreement, but the kids are starting to handle it without screaming, hitting, or just saying ugly words. They're getting better.
We got paid! Yay. It turns out that the school never paid us for one month last semester, so we got 2 paychecks. It was much needed as we were down to our very last RMB. Thank God!
Colonel’s hip is recovering quickly. He’s walking around like an old pro now. I’m glad to see him doing well. We’re starting to fall back into our routine again.