CHINA china china china :)
HI EVERYONE! =) i got picures up from china (about almost two weeks late lol) and it took me a long time so i really do hope you read and learn. =)
and.. action!
this is a picture of the school we visited. the group of us (11 kids in total a few adults) stayed on the fifth floor so we all got a big workout when we wanted to get up to our rooms. :) in comparison to other places it actually is quite a nice middle school building. the community is a very poor place but it's getting better. years ago the middle school would've been like a small mud shack.
street vendors, the street was really disgusting and the vendors didn't bother to clean up after themselves. their merchandise in general was dirty and cheap, although they were a good place to get fireworks ;) (see some picture below)
the first day we climbed a mountain to a buddhist temple. the buddha symbol thing is like a backwards swastika which i thought was pretty interesting. except maybe you guys already knew that and i am just not as smart. :P
these are the students cleaning up the trash in the yard in the morning like they do every day. basically they have to sweep for a pretty long time and dump all the stuff either in the river or in a huge pile of junk.
this is a rural farmer guy's house.
and his cow =)
abandoned farmer's house, made out of baked mud. it was SO disgustingly bug-infested and holey i freaked out and ran out. :P
fireworks :D we bought them every night (sweet deals too, like 8 american dollars for a box of 600 firecrackers, 4 american dollars for sparkly shooter fireworks) they were a lot of fun to set off at midnight =)
we rode on this small boat for awhile on this HUGE lake, a fisherman's community. that small tiny shack-like thing in the middle of the water in the second picture up is the house of a fisherman. it has maybe like one room made out of wood boards and straw, and it was perched on fishing nets. there were a BUNCH of these types of houses and they made me really sad to see. if you wanted me to describe this whole region's financial situation i would say they are borderline-poverty-stricken, although some families are much better off than others, but the bottom line is that they all struggle pretty hard just to get by. it is really eye-opening when you actually go there.
this was the school for the fisherman community. it was on a small island and the kids that go are like probably kindergarten to second grade aged. when they are older they most likely either stop schooling or they take the entrance exam to the middle school that we were teaching at.
and this is a girl that i found absolutely adorable =) she literally did NOT ever move, while all the other kids were running around and screaming she just sat in that spot for the whole time with the exact same expression on her face. (you'll see her in a picture a little later and she pretty much still looks the same :P)
this is one of the classrooms. in total at that school there might've been 2 or 3 classrooms and the desks are all falling apart. the wood is rotting so you can pretty much just pull it apart.
we brought the kids snacks and they just absolutely STUFFED themselves, it was cute but they are all incredibly messy eaters. ;p
and there's the girl again :D
this was one of the classes that my friend and i taught. there were about 50 kids and these kids are in seventh grade. =) we mostly taught seventh grade but sometimes we'd also teach 12th grade, which was fun and less wearing-out because they were much more mature and laid-back. in contrast the seventh graders screamed until my ears bled, seriously. you had to yell a TON to get all of them to hear because they were just so much more energetic.
this was on the last day, and we had to make speeches to all 2000 of the students and for probably 1500 more on the area's tv. i spoke first and it was SO nervewracking! (sp?) but i got through it and it was fun :) later that day when we left we all got foot massages! (and since it was china it costed like 4 american dollars in total. YES! :D)
this was the room where we all lived. the floor was stone and it was super dirty. the blue bed was mine :D
and this is me and my new penpal shan-shan. :D she was the first person i met and she's really outgoing as opposed to like, the other 1999 people in the whole school. =) she looks a lot smaller than me but she's almost as old as me. all the people there were pretty short (first time i've ever felt tall in my life! yes!)
and i do believe this is the best picture i took, lol! it was an advertisement on a huge ice-cream vendor's cart in the city. we all cracked up when we saw it lol, chinese knock-offs what can i say?
that's all i uploaded it and i hope you enjoyed. =) otherwise, today was pretty hectic and stressful. a friend and i were doing a book project together (which was due today) and we worked on it for 9 hours straight yesterday and didn't finish (it's a really major grade :p and i am a loser) and so we brought it to school today and tried finishing in the morning. but, we didn't so we both skipped first period by asking to go to the nurse ("feeling nauseous") and then we met in a girl's bathroom and spread all of our work out on the floor and finished maybe like 5 minutes to the end of the period, and then we went to the nurse's office anyway in case one of the teachers called the nurse, and then her spanish teacher did end up calling the nurse and she was like, "wait.. i sent her down 35 minutes ago!" and the nurse was like well she's only been here for 3 minutes....
so the assistant principal got involved and basically now my friend has an in-house suspension and i got away with it for now. but i am scared now! because if it becomes a big issue then my french teacher will probably tell the assistant principal that i went in the beginning of the period too and i would have to talk to the assistant principal and that wouldn't be good because we do not get along because i've gotten in trouble with her before a few times. so i am nervous now but i am also happy that we finished the english project and saved ourselves from getting an f. :) !!!
good day in general =) ok bye much love!
geena
and.. action!
this is a picture of the school we visited. the group of us (11 kids in total a few adults) stayed on the fifth floor so we all got a big workout when we wanted to get up to our rooms. :) in comparison to other places it actually is quite a nice middle school building. the community is a very poor place but it's getting better. years ago the middle school would've been like a small mud shack.
street vendors, the street was really disgusting and the vendors didn't bother to clean up after themselves. their merchandise in general was dirty and cheap, although they were a good place to get fireworks ;) (see some picture below)
the first day we climbed a mountain to a buddhist temple. the buddha symbol thing is like a backwards swastika which i thought was pretty interesting. except maybe you guys already knew that and i am just not as smart. :P
these are the students cleaning up the trash in the yard in the morning like they do every day. basically they have to sweep for a pretty long time and dump all the stuff either in the river or in a huge pile of junk.
this is a rural farmer guy's house.
and his cow =)
abandoned farmer's house, made out of baked mud. it was SO disgustingly bug-infested and holey i freaked out and ran out. :P
fireworks :D we bought them every night (sweet deals too, like 8 american dollars for a box of 600 firecrackers, 4 american dollars for sparkly shooter fireworks) they were a lot of fun to set off at midnight =)
we rode on this small boat for awhile on this HUGE lake, a fisherman's community. that small tiny shack-like thing in the middle of the water in the second picture up is the house of a fisherman. it has maybe like one room made out of wood boards and straw, and it was perched on fishing nets. there were a BUNCH of these types of houses and they made me really sad to see. if you wanted me to describe this whole region's financial situation i would say they are borderline-poverty-stricken, although some families are much better off than others, but the bottom line is that they all struggle pretty hard just to get by. it is really eye-opening when you actually go there.
this was the school for the fisherman community. it was on a small island and the kids that go are like probably kindergarten to second grade aged. when they are older they most likely either stop schooling or they take the entrance exam to the middle school that we were teaching at.
and this is a girl that i found absolutely adorable =) she literally did NOT ever move, while all the other kids were running around and screaming she just sat in that spot for the whole time with the exact same expression on her face. (you'll see her in a picture a little later and she pretty much still looks the same :P)
this is one of the classrooms. in total at that school there might've been 2 or 3 classrooms and the desks are all falling apart. the wood is rotting so you can pretty much just pull it apart.
we brought the kids snacks and they just absolutely STUFFED themselves, it was cute but they are all incredibly messy eaters. ;p
and there's the girl again :D
this was one of the classes that my friend and i taught. there were about 50 kids and these kids are in seventh grade. =) we mostly taught seventh grade but sometimes we'd also teach 12th grade, which was fun and less wearing-out because they were much more mature and laid-back. in contrast the seventh graders screamed until my ears bled, seriously. you had to yell a TON to get all of them to hear because they were just so much more energetic.
this was on the last day, and we had to make speeches to all 2000 of the students and for probably 1500 more on the area's tv. i spoke first and it was SO nervewracking! (sp?) but i got through it and it was fun :) later that day when we left we all got foot massages! (and since it was china it costed like 4 american dollars in total. YES! :D)
this was the room where we all lived. the floor was stone and it was super dirty. the blue bed was mine :D
and this is me and my new penpal shan-shan. :D she was the first person i met and she's really outgoing as opposed to like, the other 1999 people in the whole school. =) she looks a lot smaller than me but she's almost as old as me. all the people there were pretty short (first time i've ever felt tall in my life! yes!)
and i do believe this is the best picture i took, lol! it was an advertisement on a huge ice-cream vendor's cart in the city. we all cracked up when we saw it lol, chinese knock-offs what can i say?
that's all i uploaded it and i hope you enjoyed. =) otherwise, today was pretty hectic and stressful. a friend and i were doing a book project together (which was due today) and we worked on it for 9 hours straight yesterday and didn't finish (it's a really major grade :p and i am a loser) and so we brought it to school today and tried finishing in the morning. but, we didn't so we both skipped first period by asking to go to the nurse ("feeling nauseous") and then we met in a girl's bathroom and spread all of our work out on the floor and finished maybe like 5 minutes to the end of the period, and then we went to the nurse's office anyway in case one of the teachers called the nurse, and then her spanish teacher did end up calling the nurse and she was like, "wait.. i sent her down 35 minutes ago!" and the nurse was like well she's only been here for 3 minutes....
so the assistant principal got involved and basically now my friend has an in-house suspension and i got away with it for now. but i am scared now! because if it becomes a big issue then my french teacher will probably tell the assistant principal that i went in the beginning of the period too and i would have to talk to the assistant principal and that wouldn't be good because we do not get along because i've gotten in trouble with her before a few times. so i am nervous now but i am also happy that we finished the english project and saved ourselves from getting an f. :) !!!
good day in general =) ok bye much love!
geena
posted by Geena! at 4:19 PM
5 Comments:
AHHHHH!!!! Those pictures are all so amazing!!!! It must have taken an ETERNITY to upload them. You look amazing in that one you're in. Older, you know. And kudos to you on that giant speech thing and this whole teaching experience in general. Props to you.;-D
I think I cried when I saw the picture of the little kids stuffing themselves. And my heart broke when I saw the close ups. Life is so unfair to them... Like we worry about stupid things like detentions and guys; these kids have to survive home life and attempt to get an education!! How did you survive this Geena? I love you and respect you so much for doing something so nice like this. It's so you. :(
those kids are so cute :) must have been a lot of fun teaching them, and its great that you helped them out so much! and omg geena you and your penpal look so cute! plus i like the cow ;)
Wow! That must have been an uplifting experience!! Props to Geena for doing something amazing!
Geena, these are timeless, beautiful photos. You are very lucky to be able to travel and see the world like you have... the perspective you've gained is invaluable. You should think about writing something down now so you don't ever forget what you've seen. :)
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