Friday 23rd August
Last day to prepare any school work before the start of term, again mostly left to get on with my own things. Sorted out the first lessons for Monday, just a recap of Y10 work before we get into new topics. The pupils here appear to have plenty of class time and are capable to digesting a lot of work. A quick run down of lessons had me finishing GCSE by Christmas, so I decided to pack out the year with some recap work at the start, a few more assessments and some practical lessons to space things out somewhat.
In the evening several of us new teachers met up with some other expats in the Tianjin area to go out to a Korean BBQ place. There are approximately 70 of us in the shared WeChat group, but Tianjin in a large place... The first of us was introduced to the group simply by one of the current members spotting them as foreigners in the street and inviting them to join. We’re all outsiders here, and if you don’t make those connections, you’ll probably find it very lonely.
I’m told the Korean BBQ is a thing you can do in the UK, but it was still a new thing for me. The meat was excellent, with spices and onions wrapped in a lettuce leaf and awkwardly stuffed in your mouth.
On the at home we went into a cake shop and I got what can be described as a very soft, sweet jam sandwich topped with eggy custard, delicious.
Saturday 24th August
I’m still a bit restless in the mornings for having a lie in, maybe its the hard bed, and went other to colleagues’ (I should say friends now) flat to play games in the afternoon. We mostly played the Fantasy Flight Lord of the Rings game. Like their other games there’s a campaign to work through, we lost both but will no doubt press on for another game sometime soon as everyone enjoyed the system. Times flies, the last of us didn’t leave until 2am.
Sunday 25th August
It was always going to be a write off as we had to be in school for the afternoon. Killed time in the morning, put on a suit and walked over to the school, the meeting was two hours. We largely got lectured about our medical insurance (just emailing the presentation would have done, it was far too much to read take in) and then a talk from an official about regulations for foreigners. I hoped this would be rather more useful than it was. Instead of going through common day to day cultural/legal mistakes that foreigners should avoid, they chose to go through the documentation for various administrative matters, so I didn’t feel much better informed and will just have to stick to doing what I hope seems reasonable.
Monday 26th August
First day of school was a mixed start. Booted up the laptop first thing, all looked good for my lesson. We all went out to see the flag raising and opening ceremony. We stood for the national anthem, had a series of speeches in Chinese, much of it was lost on us, it was surprisingly hot and humid for 8am. When I went back inside I found again my laptop has suffered blue screen of death, taking my lesson materials with it. Ideal for the first lesson of the year, only 15 minutes away, I hastily wrote down the key points of my Y10 recap lesson, grabbed some whiteboard markers and made the best of it by keeping them drawing and writing things to see what they could remember. The pupils here are delightful, if anything I’m hoping they will talk a little more as they are very quiet!
Popped out for lunch to a Korean restaurant, and had a fried chicken dish. The luxury of having a lunch period long enough to eat out! UK schools barely give you the time to cram the food down.
Another surprise, I headed for my afternoon class (pens in hand, still no laptop) and arriving 5 minutes early saw the classroom was full of pupils at their desks. It wasn’t another class as I first thought, it was MY class that had arrived, sat down and set themselves up before me. This is something you will NEVER see in the UK, likely they wouldn’t even be allowed into a classroom alone anyway but the motivation to do this is not something I’ve seen before in anything but a minority.
When I got home I couldn’t get into the flat. As if I hadn’t had enough ups and downs in the day now I was locked out of my own home. Then after a bit, I realised I was in the wrong building and currently had my key in some stranger’s door. All these buildings look identical, inside and out...
The evening I tried making something more authentic, of course I ended up making far more than I could eat but even with the lack of correct ingredients I was happy with it. What I have noticed is that processed foods of any sort are fairly costly in local terms, crisps, cakes, pots of noodles, etc, but raw vegetables are far cheaper than the UK. Recipe attached...
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