Christmas is coming!!

We are preparing for a christmas performance here at our school. We are teaching the students rudolf the red nosed reindeer and we ourselves are learning a chinese song. I am sending you this link to listen to the song we will sing in front of the school. Its really difficult!! This is a parady on the song and in the video its actually two boys. By the way they act they could be our students though.
http://gb.cri.cn/6851/2005/06/22/Zt1525@593155.htm

In other events: Rudolf is a big hit!!! For the performance day Joe and I will sing most of the words to the song and all the students will sing the added words. Like a light bulb, etc. I have changed some of the words to make it more chinese though for example, Instead of like pinochio i have changed the words to like zhu ba jie ( a charector they know on tv) and Instead of monopoly they will say majong, Last but not least we have Chairman Mao instead of George washington.!!! I love it. George is rolling in his grave!
The kids are really excited about it.
Lets see whatelse, oh I am teaching them about christmas. Probubly the first and last christmas lesson I will be able to give and talk about Jesus in, if I become a teacher back in the states.
I play the song O holy night for the students and ask them what they think the song is about. first though I explain that jesus christ is his first and last name and its called christmas because it was his birthday. They listen to the song and some look bored and others are reading along with the words i have provided.
Some of the opinons are great and really melt my heart. I haven't relized how much I really miss being home and going to weekly mass with our family until the students spoke. I am not allowed to talk about religious stuff at all, but I was teaching them about christmas, so I had to mention something. These are the students opinons.
SOme say its too slow, you cant dance to it, or its too difficult. but I had a few that gave me the best answers. The first one was a girl that stood up and said "This song is about jesus' birthday, It tells us to love one another and that Christ is the lord! ~I almost fainted!
Then another girl screamed out when I was showing them a nativity scene oh thats jesus's mama, Mary!! Then just today a student said that he liked the song only so-so because it was nice to listen to, but it made him want to cry! I am not allowed to teach about religion or anything and I wasnt trying to. I was just showing them that this is what the first christmas was about and why its called christmas. I also taught them about santa claus and how we decorate the tree and hang lights outside, but those answers really made me want to cry!

The sunday before last,

I forgot to tell everyone about our great speech!! The sunday before last Joe and I had planned on having a normal sunday, we even invited another volunteer over in hopes that we could try and make hamburgers, from ground steak meat!!! ( thats right ground steak)
We Thought we had everything ready when he heard banging outside the apartment. When we went to look there were many people setting up a stage right outside. I guess we were going to watch a performance given by some disabled people. I asked why are they performing and the students said because theyre disabled and thats what they do. So as the day went on the stage got bigger and bigger, and more people arrived dressed in nice clothes and makeup. Joe and I went to take the trash out and theres this man with one log and a crutch playing badminton with a student. Let me tell you he put tiny tim to shame! This guy was all over the place, you wouldn't ever know he only had one leg. The show is about to start and Joe and I are justing hanging around outside watching all this go on and talking to a student when a mob of men comeover, one of them looking like hes wearing harry carey sunglasses says to the student that he wants us to give a speech and the student will translate. The group of men just walk away then and tell us we go on after the 1,000 hands dance. "Great!!"we think to ourselves , what are we supposed to say?? This is a performance given by disabled people and in America if you say one word about disabled people you get looked at bad, soooo what are we suppossed to say?
A midget women rolls her wheel chair over to us and in perfect english describes that these people are all disabled, some no legs some no sight some cannot hear, and we are to talk about how hard they have worked to over come there ailments and come and perform for the students. "Sweet!!" we think as we walk around still not knowing what to say , this is all very awkward because we defiently don't have disabled people performances in America. We defiently dont put them on display like monkeys to dance around the stage.!! And this is what we are thinking as the student helps us to formualte a plan within minutes of the show starting.
We finally some how came up with some hoop la about how great disabled people are and how the students should always remember them when they are down about there studies. Some sort of motivational speech I guess. We waited and watched the rest of the performances which included acrobats, singing, dancing and many skits. Then there was the 1,000 hands dance , which is very popular at spring festival and symbolizes the buddah. We knew our turn was up next. As the dance was finishing Joe and I were both shaking in terror. There had to be 5,000 plus students, teachers, parents and officials watching. Plus there wasn't enough room for everyone on the basketball courts , so They filmed it and the performance was shown live in some of the classrooms. Did I mention it was freezing cold out too?? Some of the students just sat huddled together watching.
After the dance is finished we make our way to the stage and our liason is handing me a million bouquets of flowers. I'm supposed to hand them to the dancers. What I didnot know was that there were 15 bouquets, so they all start to tumble out of my hands as I handing out the first one. Everyone laughs, and Im in shock that this is happening. We take pictures and are thanked and almost rushed off the stage when the student says, wait there supposed to give a speech!! Ahhhh Man we almost got out of it and he had to remind them!!! ~ is what we are both thinking. Then they hand me the microphone and as I'm looking out into the crowd, I can't see anything. The lights are so bright that I couldn't even see one face. This made stumbling over a speech I just thought up 10 minutes ago a little easier. I tell all the students to close there eyes and to remember the faces of the disabled people. Its straight out of a movie. Joe then gives his speech and the student helps to translate. When its finally over my adrenaline is pumping and I can't believe I just did that!! I haven't given a speech since freshmen year of high school when Mr. Hall counted how many times I said "Um".
After it was over we were both really happy, we had the student over for burgers too. It was really cool getting to know him too, He is 20 and in Senior 3 , He actually spent a year and a half in amercia and even graduated from american high school. His name is Billy, he went to a school in Los Angelos and by some of the things he says you'd know it too. He sounds a little like a surfer when he says things like "Hey Man" and " What are you doin Man?" Hes really great! He even explained to us how different america was for him. Espiecially girls. He said it was amazing that cheerleaders could wear such short skirts and do flips and show off there underwear!! I never laughed so hard in my life!

Finally we are writing on here, I know thats what you are thinking. Well we have been a little busy, Running around day after day wearing 3 layers of clothing and buying whatever we can to stay warm. My new favorite drink........ HOt water.. mmmmm.
Actually its really not that bad. Things could be worse right? The only time that its bad is when you have to take a shower. Actually its really only bad when you have to take off your clothes or some how touch the floor with your bearfeet. Otherwise its not so bad. I have bought huge moonboot slippers, and wear about 4 pairs of socks at a time.
Heres what we've been up to.

First, After our little thanksgiving party we traveled to HuiHua. A city on the western border of our province. There is another teacher from WorldTeach that is there and she invited everyone for thanksgiving. Her name is Rachel and she had 2 extra apartments free!! wow was it nice. Nice city, amazing school!! I guess the school is owned by the Railway company. I found out that most every city has a railway company school, and there always the richest schools.
Only about 10 people were at thanksgiving so it made for a nice quiet foreigner type thanksgiving. One friend of ours Dan, had his girlfriend send him stovetop stuffing mix and apple crisp in a box. Wow! it was just like at home!! we even found a toaster oven under the sink of one apartment, Rachel was so happy!!
We just added a ton of carrots and celery to the stove top and it went a long way! We also bought 3 ducks , made mashedpotatos and had deviled eggs again. We also made egg salad just because we could!
It was so nice to hang out with other foreigners and just find out new ideas for teaching. Sometimes you get alittle down and feel like you just have nothing new to pull out of your hat. But with the help of the other foreign teachers we got some new ideas for the spring.
We also met another foreign teacher living in our friends town. He has been here for only two months. but he was probubly the craziest person I have ever met.
Which leads me to believe there are two kinds of people that leave america to do this sort of volunteer thing. One, people that want to learn about the world and are sane. and Two. Guys like this, that were basically treated really bad in high school and want to feel popular so they go to another country, where you are stared at and made to feel like a movie star, always being on display. This guy was crazy. Always saying the crudest thing at the table and always trying to get a reaction out of you. Made for hmmm a very well...... american type christmas. This guy made us nickname everyone at the thanksgiving table. He was "the crazy Uncle". Our friend that is also crazy and seemed to be friend him was "the crazy uncles son". Then Joe and I were "Mama and papa Gro". (this is now our nickname for the worldteach group, since we are the only married couple) . Mary claire was "the aunt thats always telling everyone to be nice". Dan was "the ADD neighbor kid that is coming over for more food, after his own families thanksgiving", (theres always one of those), Then the rest were different family members and we even had the shy girlfriend that doesnt say much but brings mashedpotatos!
It was a great weekend.

Other news:

I ( emily) have been given a teaching award. Well actually I haven't received it yet, but I guess I am getting it soon. My liason tells me last week that I will receive an award. He actually told me that he got 1 award and I need to decide who will get it, Joe or me. Then he says well since joe is in class right now, you will receive it, because we need to take the photos now. I am then rushed off to a photo booth and told I need to fill out the application. I ask, well why do I need an application if I have already won? He tells me, its because everyone still needs to apply, I will just be the winner. Hmmmm This is were you must relize Living in china is like being inone of the godfather movies. Everything is done over a nice meal. I found out that my liason had dinner with the judges and was able to somehow get this award for one teacher at our school. See its all about publicity, and if our school has the award winning teacher, more parents will send there kids here. I am now recieving an award that is sort of fake. Not only because of the whole application process, but I guess he also said that I have been here for two years and that I have an english degree. Sweeeeet!!!! So I'll let you know what it entails, maybe i'll get a little trophy or something, or maybe I will just be able to put "fake award" on my resume. hmmm which is better?

A look into our classroom:

Heres what we have been teaching. Last week we had taught the kids about thanksgiving. We talked about the pilgrims and how when they got to america they had to name the settlement "Plymouth". We then had the students come up with there own countries. In groups or individually, Give the country a name, have laws, draw a flag , and so on.

heres some of the funny ones.

Female Country: You must be female to live there, You cant ever get married, if you want to you have to leave the country

Country of Class 251: (This one boy did this on his own) He said he was the king and all the students must obey him, also he said no gay marraige, hmmm This came outta left field?????????

Death Country: You can shoot whoever you want and kill all the time. I said, well who would be alive in the end?? they said, ummmm and sat back down.

The best
Frog Country: Some girls came up with this one, The 4 boys they didnt like in the class were the kings, frog kings and the laws were that they must hop around 6 times a day. Then the second law was that if they saw a pretty girl they had to keep the saliva inside there mouths. (I love when they get the dictionary out and find words, like saliva!!)

Also in our town there is an accent, for some reason people put an "ahh" sound after everything they say, like when they say thank you they say "xie xie ahh".
Some of my students started doing it in class, but with english words. They asked me " can we watch a movie ahh?" SO I made fun of them and sayed "Noahh"
Now its a running joke that when teacher emily comes in talk to her in englishhua, just like rongjiawanhua.

last but not least this week we are teaching about technology. The activity is that the kids must think of new ways to use ordinary objects. For example a toothpick could be a hairpin, or a bag could be a hat.
The three items are a toothpick, a plastic bag, and a sock.

Heres the best ideas:

toothpick:
minnie chopsticks
knitting needles

sock:
hold fish after you catch them
a wallet
a hat
for xmas presents(like a stocking)

Plastic bag:
cat's rain coat
hat
umbrella
parachute
rain boots
best of all : a terrorist hat,????