Adoption story - link

We are in close contact with a half-dozen families here who have, or are trying to adopt Chinese children. We know of many other foreigners in town who have done likewise. We have learned through them that adoption is no easy process - though there are many children, the paperwork and the expense is tremendous.

This article from the AP confirmed what we already knew - the process is slowing down for Americans to adopt Chinese kids, unless the kids are labeled "special needs." Unfortunately, one unintended side effect of China's reproduction policies was that parents become more choosey when giving birth to kids who are less than "perfect"...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i-t5F4Xn2dj_Fcu74hNv5SAr9ClwD9END8Q01

I am thankful for those parents I have met - foreign and Chinese - who are willing to adopt. Kids in orphanages simply need the love and attention that only a parent can provide.

-alan

Oh the places they'll go!

This past weekend, 3 of our students - fresh off their 2nd consecutive victory at the regional science fair - traveled to Beijing to take part in the filming of an award ceremony put on by Phoenix Television, a Hong-Based satellite TV station. The students were awarded the "Most Influential Chinese" award, and were given honors among 10 other groups for their achievements in 2009-2010.

This link takes you to a 10-minute segment of the show, during which the students were presented with an award and interviewed. It is all in Chinese - but you can understand the format: introduction, video montage, present the award, students thank their parents, and a few questions from the hosts.

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/aDA6BPNzkro

I still do not know the full story about how they were selected, but from what I have heard and seen, the kids were treated like true VIPs despite their young age. They had a fancy hotel, limousines to drive them around, received real gold trophies, staged a press conference, were constantly surrounded by reporters and autograph seekers, and even had a woman come up to them with a cell phone, asking them to say some inspiring words to her children. It was a big honor for them, and good potential publicity for our school - but even more, it is amazing to see the talents and accomplishments of the students we teach.

-alan

Good news from TJ!

Some of my students are in Tianjin this week, competing in the regional qualifying tournament for the Intel Science and Engineering Fair. For the second year in a row, these students were awarded the "Best in Tournament" award, meaning they will be flown to California in May for the Fair.

I would like to take credit for their success, but their project is related to computer science and has NOTHING to do with AP Biology. So I do not know how well that will work...

Two more days of school left until spring break! There is a middle school party on Friday after school - it was supposed to be a lockin, but was changed abruptly yesterday to a party. The kids are disappointed. I would be lying if I said I was also disappointed...

I also have a phone interview tonight - just a preliminary interview, nothing to get too excited about.

[**Note - I rode to school to call the school, only to receive a recently sent email canceling the appointment. Sigh. Time to ride back home...]

-alan

Dust issues

The news reports are coming in - the latest dust storms are racing across China. All the major papers are showing some interesting pictures of Beijing and other cities to the north and east, such as the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/22/AR2010032200676.html

The north of this country is well known for its dry climate and rapid desertification. Thus, the occasional dust storm is no surprise.

But for a science teacher, this is a nice teaching moment!

Thankfully, the dust is all well north of here. Though we are going through a drought as well, for the spring rains have yet to show up. I can count on one hand the number of times it has rained here in the last 6 months. Yet the air is not dry. Funny climate!

-alan

Check out our new place!

Though there may be a few formalities yet to be completed, we have agreed to a lease starting July 1 for an apartment in Chicago.

It was quite a find; I had come home the night before from the 30-Hour Famine being held at school. The kids all ate at midnight, but I left early and went to bed. So I really fasted for more like 36+ hours, including sleep. As a result, I woke up feeling terrible - nauseous and weak as a kitten. It took all my strength just to get to the kitchen and pour some juice. Rachel was still at school at this point, because the kids slept over...so no one was around to help me.

In my weakened state, I popped in a movie and plopped down on the couch, munching on crackers. By 11am, Rachel was home but I was still in no mood to do anything strenuous. So, in a moment of mental weakness, I surfed on to Craigslist to search for apartments in Chicago.

I had previously forbid Rachel from doing this exact thing, because it is senseless to search for apartments more than 1 or 2 months ahead of your projected move-in date. [though she did not really listen] All that will happen is that you will see nice apartments that you just cannot have. This happened to us in 2006, when we ended up leasing an apartment 3 months before we actually wanted to move.

Apparently I was wrong.

Because after looking around a bit, I saw a new post for a 3 bedroom apartment in Armour Square...available June 30, 2010. What timing! Rachel had not seen it, and probably would not have found it. So I showed it to her, and she emailed the landlord...

...who happened to be a Chinese woman from Xi'an. They struck up an email correspondence, and we eventually decided to take the apartment. Our new Chinese friends will live upstairs, as our landlord and neighbor. Rachel is quite excited.

The apartment is technically in Armour Square, a sliver of a neighborhood east of Bridgeport and west of 90/94. US Cellular Field (home of the White Sox) is in Armour Square, though most would just call the area we will live part of Bridgeport. Chinatown is just to north. It is a good location and good price.

So though we were not really looking, God provided for us!

View Larger Map

-alan

Science Olympiad

As promised, I am uploading some pictures taken from last week's Science Olympiad. I organized 10 events, of which students participated in 4. The favorites were Egg Drop (build a delivery system for an egg to protect it from cracking, with limited resources) and Bottle Rocket (design a plastic bottle to pressurize and blast into the air for as long as possible).

Chinese students from the school next door run in the background, as Storm the Castle competitors set up their catapult to launch.

These students will learn in chemistry class to not smell unknown chemicals so closely.

Safety goggles are in use for bottle rocket!

3 stories below is the target for Egg Drop.

Students work furiously in the math quiz bowl to get their answers in.

I think the kids had fun, and most of the feedback was positive. I was proud to see all the impressive-looking projects that they created. Almost none were disqualified - which was a huge improvement over last year, when they obviously did not read directions well enough.

Thankfully, I was supervising detention the past two weeks, so I had lots of help setting up/cleaning up thanks to this forced labor group.

-alan

Update?

It's been a week since we have been on the blog, and I feel a little ashamed! (Rachel was once told by a friend..."tell your husband to stop being lazy and start updating the blog")

Things have been....hard to describe. A lot of big stuff has happened in the last week, and though it has not been stressful, I have not had much opportunity to come online and type about it.

We connected with a landlord in Chicago - and may have an apartment already lined up. Crazy, right? I will let Rachel tell the story.

I also had a job interview on Monday. It was with Christ the King - a new Jesuit school in Chicago's Austin neighborhood. It is probably the only non-public school that I would consider, because even though it is private, 100% of its students are classified as low-income and most are from the poor neighborhoods of the West Side. I interviewed for an environmental science position. We shall see what happens!

I will post some pictures from last week's Science Olympiad later today....maybe? The weather has turned beautiful. More trees are blooming, and we are getting sunshine (gasp!) and warmth. It is nice to have an early spring!

Time to prep for classes.

-alan

no break...

Yes the title of this blog could refer to our lives the next few weeks with a string of many many events....

but not, it refers to my foot NOT BEING BROKEN!

Yeah!

-rachel

It's been an overwhelming kind of week.

1) Science Olympiad is this Friday. All 6-8th graders will compete in a series of science competitions, and I am in charge. I have been working furiously to make room reservations, creating rosters of students, copying rule sheets, making schedules, coordinating with competitors from other cities, assembling and testing apparatuses, and doing the other easily forgotten things when one is hosting such as event. It's almost here, and I'm almost ready.

2) Science Fair is this Friday. All 9-11th graders are competing in Science Fair this Friday. I am less directly involved, but since I am the 9th grade Biology teacher, I have been guiding my students through the process. Today they showed off their boards and gave presentations. Rachel thinks the projects were on the level with her old Chicago public school. I did not see those projects, but I think better of our students than that.

3) Rachel's foot is getting better. She returned today to the doctor, who gave her confirmation that nothing is broken. It is just massively swollen and bruised. Yes, she's got a club foot. I think it is okay to make fun of her, now that I know it is not broken...right?

4) Tuesday was literally a "newsworthy" day at school, with the camera crew to prove it. Two of our students will travel to Beijing soon to be taped for some TV news program (related to the science fair project they did last year), so the crew flew in today for some background footage. So there was a camera following one poor student around all afternoon. Here he is explaining their old project...

I have not fully seen this year's project yet. But I am pretty sure it is good.

So anyway - if you happen to be watching Beijing TV, you can look for me and my students. They heard me talk about some RIVETING topics related to embryological development in animals.

-alan

Gift from the US?

After waiting for a new copy of a tax form from our bank, I finally filed our taxes last night. I say "finally" because despite the fact that the deadline is not for awhile, our taxes are quite easy; thus, I feel it is better than waiting.

When I finished, I did a double take at the computer - we were really getting a return? Our low income, tax credits for retirement savings, and stimulus funds seemed to coalesce together to form a tax return....despite our not having US taxes withheld!

I checked and double checked - the numbers add up. But I still don't really understand.

But I am not complaining!

-alan

oh the rumor mill...

To add insult to injury, this week was also the week that we announced to the other staff that we were leaving at the end of this school year. It was hard to tell them, even though a few already knew. I cried through it and thankfully Alan did most of the talking.

Anyway some of the other teachers told there students they were leaving and said there were a lot others. So the witch hunt began. Students tried to figure out who will stay and who will go. I didn't intend on telling the students this early but I guess my hand was forced. I'm not going to lie especially when others are hinting at our departure.

So today I told my 2 AP classes. I cried through the first announcement but kept my cool in the second. In the first, many the students hadn't heard yet so they were shocked and kept asking why I was abandoning them, thanks. I explained our reasons and that we want to work back in the city. They understood more, but it was still tough.

My favorite thing that came out in this exchange was what they said or asked about Alan. Some asked if he would leave too, and others shared a most interesting rumor that I never heard before. They said they thought the US government sent Alan here to be a scientist and that was what he did in all of his spare time. I don't know what kind of scientific research he was supposedly doing, but one student was really sad that the rumor was a lie. He said "I thought he was cool."

So we haven't been on a secret mission here in China and we aren't leaving to go back to be spies in America. We just feel like now is the right time to leave and will really miss all the wonderful students we will leave behind. It will not be easy, but we really feel like teaching in Chicago is where we need to be.

-rachel

Toughing out the Year of the Tiger...

The year of the Tiger began without any problems, we were on our vacation and enjoying the wonderful weather in the Middle East. After returning to China, I same down with a cold presumably from the shock in weather changes on my system. The cold was not too bad and I only missed half a day of school.

AND THEN TUESDAY CAME....

As I was riding to school, my scooter's battery started to die. I timidly grabbed on to Alan's scooter and let his bike tow me to school. I was nervous, but finally felt like i was getting the hang of things and even said something like I'm doing this so well! You know that pride comes before a fall and it did in a big way.

Before I knew it I was on the ground screaming with a downed scooter and pieces of our lunch littering the scooter lane. It was scary really scary. I could tell that I wasn't really hurt and I didn't not hit my head at all, so when Alan came to ask what hurt, I screamed MY PRIDE.

From that point on I started making less and less sense. I think some form of shock came over me. I became super overheated and all I wanted was water. I also couldn't see very well. Our friends Zack and Kira stopped and tried to help the situation. Alan took me to school and Zack went back for my scooter.

Alan drove me up to the elevator and I got inside. Evidently I didn't push any buttons and ended up sitting on the ground in a semi-awake state. I just remembered thinking I just had to get out of there but I couldn't reach the buttons. I finally got myself up and walked to my classroom where Alan was unlocking the door.

After laying on my couch a bit I was feeling better and we assessed the damage. One scraped up knee and one very sore top of a foot (where the scooter landed). Alan was great and took good care of me even as the students started coming in and looking in horror at their traumatized teacher.

That day my left foot was obviously damaged but I walked around a bit. It was mostly on ice and elevated for the day. In the night though I woke up in more pain and my foot was obviously swollen. I couldn't put any weight on it at all.

Yesterday I went to the doctor and they wrapped it up and told me to stay off it for a week. Wow! I had no idea what that sentence meant. Walking on crutches is ridiculously hard and every muscle in my body is aching. Today I resorted to using my rolling chair to jet around school for most of the day. It is really hard being impaired for a person who loves running around the school doing this and that.

The hardest challenge so far has been our seemingly insurmountable stairs leading to our 5th floor apartment. Yesterday I had a 20 minute head start on Alan and was only on the 3rd floor by the time he got home (he carried me up the remaining 2 flights). Today I had a go at it all by myself. I was so tired and sore I thought I was going to just collapse.

So now I'm doubting my whole situation. My body aches way more than my foot ever did. Is it worth it to be in this agony? Will I build up any muscles? Will I ever drive with a low battery again?

-rachel