Charity Concert & Thanksgiving 2 in China

This has been a LONG, exhausting, STRESSFUL, sleepless week.

Still there was some big events this week to look forward to! One of the student clubs put on a concert and of course Thanksgiving (no days off in China)

The Charity concert was Wednesday during the last period; some of the senior students organized it for the volunteering club (Angel Club). They had a bunch of students sing and the foreign teachers too--With no musical talents I just sang with everyone at the end. Its amazing to see how talented these kids are--there was an A cappella group, some duets, a foreign teacher sang in French and Chinese- very entertaining, and the best act--one of the kids rapped "We Own it"

Two of my students

A Cappella-- The kid on the far right was beat boxing

Hilarious--this kid rapped "We Own It" from Fast & Furious--2 Chainz

Someone like you

Some of the foreign teachers--Take Me Home Country Roads (all Chinese people know this song)

The last song--two of my very talented students!

I have videos of all the songs--hopefully I can figure out how to put them up

It was interesting to see some of my students wearing normal clothes--its crazy in America how much easier it is to get a feeling for each students personality by the way they dress--here all students wear uniforms

Well my Thanksgiving last year was quite a bit different than last year...

Last year a big group of friends went out to an all you can eat Japanese Tapenaki...a lot of food, a lot of alcohol, and a lot of friends.

This year I was extremely busy and had a lot of other things going on...but all in all it was a good day. On Thursday/Fridays I see each of my class for two class periods; one on Thursday and one on Friday.

So we had a Thanksgiving Party. I made them some "traditional" Thanksgiving dishes (I told them I might do this a few weeks before and they did not let me forget...I don't think it will ever happen again)

Thank goodness you cannot find Turkeys in Jinan because I don't thnk i would have been able to cook a Turkey correctly...on the menu was stuffing, sweet potato casserole, deviled eggs, pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes.

I didn't really think that this was too much to take on...I was wrong. Mashed potatoes did not make it to the party.

In America everything is SO much simpler when it comes to cooking, here I had to hand-make everything, chop everything myself (no pampered chef tools), and then wash all the dishes by hand (since we don't have dishwashers)

A little chaotic...

What I learned:

I now know how to make stuffing and pumpkin pie from scratch

I also know where every supermarket in the area is located and what products they have

Cupcake tins are $30 at the imported store

Toaster ovens are a pain in the ass to cook with

Without family and other people helping, it takes FOR EV ER to cook all these dishes--

Also the kids LOVED stuffing (which I personally think is gross) and did not really prefer sweet potato casserole or pumpkin pie because it was too sweet and creamy


Naturally after we talked about Thanksgiving, ate, and said what we were thankful for I taught them how to play football. I gave them a list of vocabulary words and tried to define them.

I had students come up and be the "offense" to show them how to score points and how to get a "First down" then I used video clips to show them--they really enjoyed the clips of fat defensive linemen's intercepting the ball and running it and guys fumbling the ball. Overall I think it was a good way to end the week :) Once my kids post some pictures ill steal them and put them on here

We went outside to pass the ball afterwards--I let them run out a play--they picked boys verses girls really quickly--where each team scored a touchdown--this made me extremely nervous--luckily there were no injuries

And finally...as much as I conveyed to my students how ridiculous Black Friday was and how it is ruining the values of Thanksgiving and American people...I participated in some online black friday deals today. I miss shopping in America! 

Ohio State verses Michigan tonight at midnight!