It's finally fall in Hangzhou and campus has been really pretty, with leaves falling everywhere and turning red!
I went to my favorite bakery on campus (Dr. Bread) to grab a pastry for breakfast! I'm here almost everyday. It's a really popular spot for international students and just a quick walk across the street from my dorm. :)
All the dan tarts I could ever dream of and each for just 3 yuan (around 50 US cents!)
It's a pastry wonderland! I also like the one in the top middle that looks like a sandwich- doesn't look like much but it's yummy pieces of bread layered with pastry cream in the middle and sweet fruity (apple?) glaze on top with small pieces of fruit- I think it's pineapple or apple.
I've noticed Dr. Bread (and I think Chinese bakeries in general maybe) like lots of french toast-like pastries and also sweet pastries with red beans on top or in the middle. I've actually grown to like the red beans haha.
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I went to teach my english class yesterday too! These pics are from a couple weeks ago. This is the center where I work.
I found the job through an ad I saw posted in a cafe near my university and sent them my resume via WeChat. It was looking for native English speakers who could also speak decent Mandarin and who were willing to teach 6-7 year old students very basic English.
I teach every Friday for an hour and a half! The commute is an hour each way by bus so it's pretty much my whole friday afternoon but I really like it. The kids are very sweet. :)
I had to learn how to navigate the public transportation system, following bus stop maps like this one.
My classroom
And right outside the classroom there's this cute jungle gym the kids can play on during breaks.
A couple pics of me teaching :)
The kids love playing this bat game where they stand back to back, and when I say a word from the lesson they have to find it and slap down on the flashcard.
It's not as easy being a teacher as I might've expected. The kids are so cute but have short attention spans. They're very young, and sometimes I forget that and don't talk slowly enough. If we do anything other than a game, they get bored and distracted. Basically I have to try to think of as many games as possible to keep them entertained.
I've been incorporating the lesson book material into fun games I made up! We played red light green light for the lesson on movement (running, biking, surfing, etc). The kids liked the Hide and Go Seek game I made up, where I hid the flashcards and had them find it and say the word in English. We also explained who was in our family by drawing pictures of them.
Quick add-on regarding the election:
Trump became US president on Nov 8, 2016. I mostly remember the day after the election our Tufts group was sitting in culture class, and the atmosphere was so somber. It felt so so weird to not be at Tufts or in the U.S. during this time. It was one of the first times I became so aware of the little bubble we were in, only being able to see my US friends' reactions through facebook posts. I remember face timing friends at Tufts. My friend Amy said the atmosphere on campus over the past week was as if someone had died. I wished I could be there to comfort my friends back in the states and for us to comfort each other. I'm glad we had our Tufts-in-China group to lean on each other to get through this.
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