Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

I was ready to go to the ARC office by 8am, I knew Sam would be late so I took my sweet time waking up and getting ready. He really couldn’t be late because I had to be at the school by 10am. He got to my place at 8:15, only 15 minutes late. I asked if it’d be ok if we could get coffee at some point before I go to the school and we ended up making a stop before the ARC office. We went to another 85 degrees but this location was way better. It was a full bakery and coffee shop. I got this AMAZINGGGG pastry. I swear it was one of the best things I’ve had. It was super fluffy but still tasted like a really good blueberry bagel from a homemade bagel shop, and it had some walnuts in it. It was great. The coffee was good too. They only have whole milk everywhere except Starbucks so that kind of hurts my stomach, but it’s still good. The ARC office didn’t take too long, once I have that card, my life will be in order. I will receive paychecks and have medical insurance. I was a little worried for today’s lesson plan because I only had one regular class and then the two I have in the afternoon back to back, are English club. So I need to plan different things for that class. It’s supposed to be a fun class with some English related projects and what not. I created a Human Bingo game for the kids to get to know each other, but I needed to make copies before hand.

When Sam dropped me off, he mentioned that we can go get a cell phone anytime this week. We also talked about a big group dinner happening again which makes me excited because that’s my only social interaction outside of the school. Sure enough, when I get inside the office and want to make my copies, the copy machine is broken. There’s a lady in the office who is the copy lady, she’s handicapped, not that it matters, but she’s in a wheel chair and it’s probably not nice to be like, “hey can you go get these copies printed real quick for me..” Mark noticed I was concerned about not making copies and I said, “Well I didn’t know how many kids would be in my English club and didn’t have copies made, I can go do it myself if you show me the room.” But nope, he sent the lady to go do it for me. I felt bad. 

English club went well for the first part. The bingo game was fun and I had a little lesson on Moon festival for the second part, but the second part fell super short and I had about 15 minutes left of class. I tried wingin it but it wasn’t turning out well. I ended up showing a music video of Michael Jackson’s moon walk, they liked that. (Moon walk..moon festival, I swear there’s a connection.) Me and Sam were exchanging a few messages back and forth about getting people together for a dinner tonight actually. I got really excited. He said Lien would probably come and Andrew Liu so It should be fun. My co-teacher for English club is really nice, her name is Beryl. She’s younger and she’s also brand new to the school. She really wants to collaborate and work together on projects and lessons for English club which I’m excited for. In a lot of my training they mentioned to not let the co-teacher take over or even give them more than a few responsibilities, but they also never mentioned you’d have about 18 classes and over 600 students to worry about, so I will take Beryl up on her offer. She also knew more about the requirements for the students than I ever knew. She said there’s a showcase at the end of the semester where we need to show some of their work and she said each kid has a portfolio to build up. I’m like..wow please keep telling me more, because I didn’t know any of this. Beryl invited me to her apartment some weekend for tea and I told her that would be fun. 

Since I got dropped off at work by Sam, I planned on taking the bus back to my apartment but Mark offered to drive me home. He said that he could show me a safer street to ride my bike on my way to school. I forgot to really pay attention to what streets he said. During our conversation, he asked if I’ve ever lived in another country and if my family wanted me to come out here. I told him they were a little worried but then knew it’d be a great experience so they told me they wanted me to. He said that after our interview, he was afraid I’d turn down the job offer, but everyone was excited I accepted. He probably sensed some hesitation. Once I got into my apartment, Sam told me to hurry and catch a bus to the Dewey offices because the restaurant would be around there. I took my sweet time showering and getting ready because I know how late everyone else would be. I googled the bus to get an idea of how long the trip would be  and it said about 30 minutes and I also remember Sam saying 3 weeks ago that it was 15 stops away from my apartment. Thank god I got on when I did. I was fortunate to have a seat but this bus got soooo packed, I was shocked that it could even accelerate. It reminded me of the Huskie Bus during the wintertime and how you would freeze your ass off waiting to go to class and if the Huskie Bus was too packed it would just zoom by you..then you would say, screw it I’m not going to class it’s too cold, and go back to bed..well at least that’s what I did. I counted the bus stops on my fingers which I’m glad I did because it was so crowded that there’s no way I’d be able to base where I’m getting off by looking out the window. My finger counting and keeping track of time was pretty accurate. The bus also started to empty out towards the end of the trip so I could see that bright beautiful green Starbucks sign that indicated where the Dewey offices were. 

Jim from orientation, Andrew, Adrien, and this guy Jeff who works with them, were all waiting by the building. Sam was already at the restaurant saving seats (shocker) I had to ride on Andrew’s motor bike which was so scary at first. He had a helmet for me and I was just like..terrified at first. He asked if I’ve ever ridden on a motor bike and I said I rode on my uncles motorcycle when I was real little, I think I was braver back then. The restaurant was really close though and it was cool looking. I guess it was a Japanese BBQ place and it was called “Goat Horn.” It was all you can eat for 2 hours and you would just keep marking more and more things off on the list and they would bring a ton of food out. I had a lot of sushi/strange seafood and then meat that you would cook on this little grill at your table. You had to take off your shoes before you stepped up onto the seats..like you had to walk on seats to get to your table. It was pretty good, about the same price or a little more than hot pot but I like hot pot better. It was also Jim’s birthday and he lives kind of far out from everyone so I’m sure it was good for him to get out and do something. Andrew Liu told me he likes my skin tone and I had to ask him something that I heard . A guy in our orientation group found out that the reason people cover themselves up completely in the hot sun is because the darker your skin, the more unintelligent people think you are (it must date back to dark skin indicating you have a hard labor job) but ladies seriously keep their skin covered and fair out here when it’s 90 degrees out! Long sleeves, pants, gloves, umbrella. I’ve seen it all. So I’m out here walking around in tank tops trying to get a good base and they’re wearing their best autumn attire. I asked Andrew if people look at me and think I’m an idiot or something because I have darker skin, he told me that this is a very very old belief, and the older generation may still follow it, but the younger generation doesn’t do this anymore. So people my age like tanning too? I dunno, I just don’t want to walk into a classroom and have people look at me and think, oh she must be a dumbass.

Sam took me to a stationary store after the restaurant so I could get some paper and then drove me home so I didn't need to take the bus back which was cool. His scooter driving scared me a little. I watched an episode of It's Always Sunny- The Dumpster Baby one and skyped with my mom before bed.