Things you don't hear everyday

The AP Biology test is coming up in another week, so my class is down to the end in terms of preparing for the test. We ended the year with a physiology unit, so I made arrangements to do some dissections for the purposes of comparative anatomy.

Previously, we dissected a cuttlefish (similar to a squid) and a pig kidney. Today, I wanted to dissect a mammal, so I asked my Chinese co-teacher to buy a rabbit (easily available here).

Last week, he asked, "Do you want the rabbit alive, or dead."

After giving it some thought, I replied, "dead."

This morning he left to buy the rabbit. He returned during my 9th grade biology class, which was taking a test. He said,

"I got the rabbit. It is in the lab. I will kill it later."

I'm not sure at this point if I want to go see the poor rabbit or not...

-alan

Stress!

We are approaching the end of May, and things are heating up. 5.5 weeks in China to go!

In a little over 2 weeks, we will head out on our spring trip, to Yunnan province. We have the locations and activities mostly set, but there have been a series of barriers and glitches that have prevented us from getting some of the transportation details finalized. With the trip coming so soon, and our urgency to notify parents and get itineraries set increasing, the stress comes with it. We have a meeting with a travel agent tomorrow, and I remain optimistic.

I have also been watching the news from Chicago closely - Illinois faces a huge budget deficit, and is cutting education spending. There is talk of thousands of layoffs in Chicago. Eek. I'll keep plugging away at those interviews!

In other news, Rachel has been visiting the Golden Sun Migrant School weekly with her Service Club to do English language lessons. The teachers there are overworked, which is evidenced by the speed in which the classroom teacher bolts for the door when Rachel arrives. Some games they play are a struggle for the Chinese students, who are conditioned to learn through memorization and recitation - thus making their imagination an underutilized tool in the classroom. In addition, their behavior is rowdy (to put it mildly) but definitely enthusiastic - so the "naughty" kids are still willing to be loud in a constructive way.

I'm glad she has a chance to do this!

-alan

MUNISC 2010

We are in day 2 of International School of China's Model UN conference, otherwise known as MUNISC. The conference is being held at the Shangrila-Qingdao, a swanky 5-star hotel downtown. It is a wonderful thing - great breakfast, soft beds, nice towels, etc.

More importantly, the students from CDIS are proving themselves to be shrewd debaters, making their presence felt strongly in all committees. Most of the students are main submitters of resolutions and are influencing other delegates effectively.

Go pandas!

-alan

Monday morning drowsies

Lately, Sunday nights just have not seemed as restful. I am blaming it on the fact that I can sleep in a little more on Sunday, so I am not as tired when 10pm rolls around. Both Rachel and I suffered some bouts of sleeplessness during the night. My dream involved flying to Detroit, but forgetting to get off the plane when we landed.

I usually like to start my day by trolling the headlines for any important news that I can incorporate into the day's classes - but Monday just contains the leftover Sunday news in the US, which tends to be disappointing. Furthermore, I do not want to see the sports scores, because I intend to watch the Red Wings game when I get home tonight.

This week is MUN week for the Allmens. The International Schools of China MUN tournament is in Qingdao starting on Thursday, so we will be flying with a group of students Wednesday after school.

-alan

A first - rabbit stew!

We wanted to try someplace new for dinner last night (by our new rationale, we remind ourselves that is a lot cheaper to try something new in China than in the US). It is fairly easy to get into a rut, and go back to the same restaurants for the same food. We know we like it, the owners know us, so it is comfortable. But especially on a weekend, having something different can be a treat.

So we walked over to a fairly new restaurant outside our complex gate called Bahotu. The "tu" in the name refers to rabbit, and when we walked in and asked what kind of food they have, they told us plainly - rabbit meat!

So we sat down at a table and ordered a standard pot of rabbit. They brought out a huge cauldron of soup, filled with mushrooms and rabbit meat. It was analogous to hot pot, except without the chili oil. The meat was boned, which Rachel loved, and fairly good. Not an excellent flavor, but good. We ordered some lotus root, potatoes, and tofu to throw in the pot, and ate until our hearts content. There was a lot left. It was really rabbit stew for 4, not for 2...

Then we came home and watched Food Inc., a documentary that was suggested to us on the American food industry. It paralleled Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, which I read last year, so it was nothing new to me. It was a bit of a shock to Rachel, especially given our imminent reentry into American society. The idea of the mass-slaughtered meat made her shudder.

Funny that she would feel worse about that than the alley-slaughtered, meat-hook stalls we have in our neighborhood.

It's all a matter of perspective!

Tonight we go to see the CDIS school play - The Importance of Being Earnest.

-alan

Nightly Roundup

Before heading off to bed, I thought I should check in on the blog...

Our standardized testing has interrupted the normal flow of this week. The students do not really like it - for obvious reasons - and parts of the test are American-centric, making the task of interpreting results difficult. But there is no perfect test for this group, so...what to do? From the teacher side, it has meant less teaching time. And AP tests are coming up!

There is still work to be done (I hear mostly from Rachel) in prepping for the MUN conference next week. From what I have been able to see, there is room for growth. I am excited to go back to Qingdao - the sunshine will be a welcome site. We are staying at the Shangrila, which is a nice perk!

We will also need to meet with a travel agent tomorrow regarding our spring trip - the price they quoted us was too high, so we need to renegotiate. I hope that we do not have to rework the plan too much. I should be looking forward more to the trip, but Rachel has been doing most of the planning.

Still keeping an eye open on the job front. A couple more applications in, and I should have 2 interviews in the pipeline. Patience!

-alan

it's official!

We got our tickets to come back to America!

Monday, June 7, 2010
China Eastern Airlines # 5402
Chengdu (CTU) to Shanghai PuDong (PVG)
Departure (CTU): June 7, 8:00 AM CST (morning)
Arrival (PVG): June 7, 10:20 AM CST (morning)

LONG LAYOVER IN SHANGHAI!

Monday, June 7, 2010
China Eastern Airlines # 8821 Operated by: AMERICAN -- AA 288
Shanghai PuDong (PVG) to Chicago O'Hare International (ORD)
Departure (PVG): June 7, 4:10 PM CST (afternoon)
Arrival (ORD): June 7, 4:40 PM CDT (afternoon)

SHORT LAYOVER IN CHICAGO!

Monday, June 7, 2010
United Airlines # 248
Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) to Detroit Wayne County (DTW)
Departure (ORD): June 7, 6:55 PM CDT (evening)
Arrival (DTW): June 7, 9:15 PM EDT (evening)

Jobs!

On the China side, nothing much to report. This week we have standardized testing and tech week for the play, so several of my classes will be canceled. We leave in 8 weeks, so not including exams, there are 7 weeks of classes left. Oh, and the spring trips. So 6 weeks of classes. Hmmm. I need to reassess what I can and cannot finish in that time.

But most of the weekend was spent job-hunting. I have already applied to a dozen different schools. (For those of you who are interested, they are: Chicago Bulls College Prep, Christ the King, UIC College Prep, Lindblom Math and Science, Kenwood Academy, Perspectives Charter, CICS Ellison, North Lawndale College Prep, UofC Charter – Woodlawn, Ogden International High School, Senn HS, and Brooks College Prep.)

Those schools all either posted openings, or are expanding to add new jobs. I have more schools on my short list, but it is early in the season and I need not worry yet. I do notice, however, that there are far more chemistry jobs available than Biology or Environmental Science. I have not decided yet if I should just go for one of those...

-alan

Tomb Sweeping Day

This past Monday was a Chinese holiday - Tomb Sweeping Day. This day, formerly downplayed by the government, has been re-recognized in recent years.

On Tuesday, we traveled out of the city and happened to stop at a bathroom beside a mountain cemetery. The place was a mess, because it was surely crazy busy on Monday...as people drove out to their ancestors' burial ground to tend to the graves and offer sacrifices of burning money and paper houses.

Needless to say, the vendors were curious in seeing white faces but quickly flocked to other cars when they realized we were not interested in their wares.

-alan

Pictures from the Videtich visit

Here are some select pictures from my sister's visit. They collectively took far more pictures than I, but there are a few good ones!

This picture shows the lanterns and bridge reflecting in a pool of water on Jinli "Ancient" Street.

Looking at the Oreo Blizzards above, you can see that is not quite ancient!

Our visit to the bulk market was a much longer adventure than I expected. We did come home with a $100 worth of silk, though!

Hot pot was yummy. Matt and Sharon did not think any of the food was too spicy. I guess we let them off easy!

Just to prove hot pot was fun, take a look at the mess Rachel left behind!

Rachel doing her best Mao impression.

We saw lots of cool architecture while on a hike up the Daoist Qingcheng Mountain.

-alan

End of vacation...

Rachel and I took a day off yesterday to visit Qingcheng Mountain with my sister. It had an adventurous start, but ended up being a nice walk on the mountain in the end.

But it is now Wednesday morning, and the first teaching day back from vacation.

No fun!

-alan

Spring Break!! (part 2)

The second half of spring break is officially over - I am in school, wearing a suit. Unfortunately, we have parent-teacher conferences scheduled from 8am-7pm during my sister's visit. Let's see how many parents I get! (not many, I am guessing. It is a Chinese holiday, and many families will probably use this as an extension of spring break)

So what have the Allmens and Videtiches done so far?

- walk the neighborhood

- see the Sichuan opera

- take scooter rides

- shop at the bulk market

- shop on Jinli street

- eat Tibetan food

- go to Chinese mass on Easter

- take pictures of Mao at Tianfu Square

- watch street performers and drink tea at the People's Park

- eat Western food at Peter's

Today while we are at school, they will go to see the pandas and do some shopping at the antique market. Ironically, since it is a holiday, Rachel's Chinese co-teacher, Solomon, has the day off and will accompany them for part of the day.

-alan

Spring Break!! (part 1)

Spring break.

What a wonderful time of the year!

I have been looking at some Chicago education blogs (which are getting ugly, thanks to all the budget problems and proposed cuts) and one topic that continually comes up is whether teachers are underpaid and overworked, or overpaid and spoiled. After all, they get an endless stream of vacations, with spring break being just one prime example.

While I could go more into this debate - I am on vacation! So right now, I am going to shut my brain off, sleep in, and enjoy the ride.

This spring break will definitely have 2 parts - the first part will end in a manner of minutes, when I leave to go to the airport to pick up my sister and her family. We will be helping to tour them around during the next few days of the trip. The rain kicked in a couple days ago, and the weather forecast looks soggy. No fun. I will post pictures in the next few days!

So far, we have been doing many things...3 games of Catan, a trip to the bulk market for Rachel, going downtown for Thai food, a trip to Happy Valley, and other fun errands.

The break was actually kicked off with a middle school party. The student government (for which we are sponsors) planned a lock-in for last Friday after school. The principal switched it to a party ending at 9pm at the last moment. We breathed a sigh of relief, because I do not believe I would have had the stamina for it.

Here's a picture of one of the silly games they played - it actually looked more fun than it turned out, because the kids were not very good at it. You were supposed to swing the sock-filled stocking around until you twisted it with your opponent, at which point you try to pull their stocking off their head. Very few were successful.

The night ended with a rousing game of Capture the Flag, which the 7th graders dominated. There were only a few tears and bruises, so considering the circumstances, I call the evening successful.

In Catan news, Rachel won today, and I took 2 second place finishes out of the last 3 games. It feels funny not to win...

But the main highlight of this post, in terms of pictures, is from Happy Valley. We have made little use of our season pass in recent months, mostly due to weather and time constraints. So our trip this week, though somewhat short (because we also saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D at the theater attached to the park - our group was 7 of 12 people in the whole theater), was fun. And since we have our new small camera, we took some pictures.

The center of the park has a man-made lake, and the rides are organized into thematic sections (carnival, bird park, Szechuan, Mediterranean, water park, etc.) around the exterior.

The biggest rides are the two roller coasters. We like the red one. The yellow one is a little too bumpy - it rattles your brains.

The red one is called "Dream of the Mediterranean" and it has a giant replica 1940s-era plane hanging out front. You can also pose a cool looking pilot!

Another one of our favorite rides is the tower - I really do not remember the name! You can be launched up (like the one below) or dropped from the top depending on which line you wait in. This line was shorter - we do not like having to wait longer than 5 minutes!

The park definitely is infringing on various Disney trademarks - notice the dwarf-like creatures in the background below. It is also funny to see Chinese ladies dressed up like Southern belles. There is no unified theme, like you would see at an American park - it is more like take anything that is remotely "Western" and throw it together.

The landscaping is great - there are ALWAYS flowers blooming, because they place the flowers that are blooming in individual pots.

And finally, here are the adorable....ants? This is their mascot. You see them walking around the park....though they are mischevious! We saw one trying to steal a woman's bag!! [in jest]

Ok, time to go to the airport!

-alan