Where troubles melt like lemon drops...

Grief. A tiny word. Too tiny to describe the unsurmountable pain and saddness which comes from losing a loved one. It should be a bigger word.

"Mommy didn't make it". Those words are too big to fit into your tiny ears. Instead, they bash a hole in your head, and keep hammering until your human brain explodes. Once inside, the words help Sadness and Longing to set up home in the pit of your stomach. As the months and years go by, you see less of them. But they still pop in for a visit on the holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and for any milestones which you pass in life. Sadness and Longing never leave the neighbourhood.

It's been two years since my dear, sweet mother left this earth. Everytime I think about it, I still cry. Talking about it is difficult. Everytime I try, the emotions well up inside me and it feels as though my chest will explode.

Mommy and I. Christmas 2008

I'm not alone in this. I am (un)fortunate to have beloved friends and family who are also members of the DMC (Dead Mothers Club). People say the loss gets better with time. But is that possible when your mother is prematurely ripped from your life? One of my dear friends still tears up whilst talking about her special mom - and she's spent half her life without her. It doesn't get easier, you just exist in the fact that "this is how it is". It sucks.

Me and my mommy

 Whilst packing up my old life to start my new life, I came across a poem I had written for my high school year book. I was 15. The poem was entitled "My Mother the Wizard of Oz" (yes, I was obsessed even then!)

The poem is about the death of a mother and how this event puts out a light in her daughter's life. Her world, the Emerald city has lost its magic and its sparkle, because her mother, the Wizard, no longer lives there.  She has gone to a better place, somewhere over the rainbow.... I love the smell of dramatic irony in the morning!

My mother was a loving, caring and beautiful woman. She was the kindest person to ever walk this planet. Those who were lucky enough to know her would agree.

She loved life. She loved her family and friends.

Mommy and her sister, Christine. My lovely auntie.

Mommy, Auntie and the cousins: Kathleen and Anne

The Girls: Auntie Christine, my beautiful Nan and Mommy

She had a wicked sense of humour and an infectious laugh. She was a fighter.

If I could be half as good as my mother, then I know I've done her proud.

My mom and I: The last Christmas, 2009.

Now on the second anniversary of my mom's death, I can't believe all the things that have happened in my life, and in the world. Has she missed them all? 

A small part of me wants to believe that our loved ones never really leave us. That there is still a little part of them attached to this Earth. Attached to us. This is probably the only thought that holds all my pieces together. "Somewhere (over the rainbow). She knows."

The thought does help to mask the anger and self-pity I feel on a daily basis, but it doesn't make it better. It doesn't fix the problem. Nothing will.

"Mommy didn't make it." Those words will be burned on my brain for all eternity. 

"Mommy". When she dies, that word is stolen from you forever.

xxx

School Ties

We are in our second month in Wuhan, and have finally settled into a routine - albeit a shitty one.

We are still at the school for 8 hours a day - with only a couple of classes to keep us busy. Which means most of the time we are still bored stiff.

Due to it being a new school, they are trying to build the student component. In order to do this, we need to perform demo classes to prospective students and their parents. I am so sick of doing these, I could vomit just thinking about it...

Anyway, to date I have 9 classes a week (soon to be 10), and Liesl has 2 (soon to be 3). My classes are a good mix from 3 years old to 14 years old. Liesl only has 3 year olds - which sucks.

The older kids are much better than the young ones (generally), and they are more inclined to participate in class and pay attention. Compared to the younger kids who have the attention span of a stapler and prefer to lie on the floor, put buckets on their heads and drool on their books.

It's very difficult to keep the little ones entertained - and trust me they want to be entertained! 90% of them are spoilt little creatures who are so used to getting their own way, they expect it from everyone. Which is not conducive to a classroom. On the flip side, I truly believe that 3 years old is far too young to be learning English - they should be colouring and playing in a sandpit, not being required to understand Shakespeare!

But anyway... we do what we are told.... 

My first class was the Phonics class. This was made up of students from 7 - 14 years old who were mainly my boss's kid and his friends. So you can imagine how FUN this class was. 

Activity time in class

The Phonics class and my TA, Rainbow 

Phonics focusses on pronounciation of words. So most of the kids know the words, I just have to make sure that they SAY them properly. Turns out that Chinese peeps have no problem saying "r"... that's the Japanese! BUT, Chinese people can't say "v". They say "w" instead. So for the longest time I was trying to figure out what one of my friends was trying to ask me when she said, "do you watch Wampeer Diaries?".... She meant "Vampire Diaries"... and I don't watch it.

Lily, Lisa, Rainbow, Coco and Tim

Me and the kids

Second is the CP class - which is the 3-4 year old group.(This is the level of all Liesl's classes, so she is ready to pull her hair out). The class consists mainly of 3 year olds, who like to stare at me in blank amazement, because they have no idea what I'm saying or what I am asking them to do. They think I'm an alien.

Activity time - Jerry and Mary

Notice how ALL the kids like to take part in the activities...

So far we have learnt the word "block", which they pronounce "black" - when they remember it; we have learnt the colour "red", which they think is green; we have learnt the word "doll", which they can't remember at all, and if they do they shout out "DOOR!", we have learnt the colour yellow, which they can surprisingly all remember and say. So 1 out fo 4 is not bad. Also bearing in mind that most of them don't know their  own names - mainly because they were only given their English names at the start of this course.... Next week we learn the word "bat"(the sports bat not the flying kind)... so here's hoping!

Rainbow and Cherry

For security purposes (as in, I'm not sure who reads this), I will refrain from using the kid's actual names in the description... instead I will just number them.

#1 - who likes to stare off into the distance and daydream, and occassionally yells "YELLOW!" when she feels the urge. 

Then #2 - missed the first class because she wouldn't stay without her mother and she kept crying. Subsequently, she has managed to stay in class knowing that her mother is sitting just outside the door. She opens the classroom door periodicaly (read as: every 5 minutes) to check that her mom is still there.

Then #3 - who also missed the first class... and I'm not sure why he is in this class, because he has absolutely NO idea what's going on. He has the personality of a deck chair. He doesn't understand a word - I don't even think he understands Chinese. Even if the Chinese teacher asks him to do something, he gets it wrong. I mean how hard is it to put yellow blocks into a yellow bucket - ALL the other kids can do it... except this little guy who picks up blue, green, strawberries and rabbit puppets and puts them into the yellow bucket. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this kid...

Then #4 - I'm still not sure about this one. She pays attention - when she's not giggling or staring at me with a blank expression. She's like Rainman. Knows her shit, but acts mentally-challenged...

Lastly we have #5. He's a sweet little guy. Very good in class and can remember most of the words. He always helps me pick things up and put them away. If any of the other students throw toys around etc, he runs after them picking them up and giving them to me. Sweet little thing. He even remembers his name!

Cherry and Mary

I have two CK classes. These are for ages 5 and 6. One class is ok, the other class is sent straight from hell. The two classes could not be more different from each other! I don't know if it has anything to do with girls vs. boys... One class is all boys except for a girl, and the other is mainly girls with two boys. The mainly girl class is a thousand times better than the mainly boy class....

The CK classes are generally a lot better than the CP. Mainly because they are a bit older, so can understand a bit better.

So far we have learnt colours: red, yellow, blue, green, orange, pink. Mostly they remember yellow and pink. They have no idea what orange is (and pronounce it oranggy). They get green and blue confused and NONE of them can remember RED. I find this very odd seen as the colour RED in China is extremely prominent. It's seen as a lucky colour, there are A LOT of red things in China - flags, lights, store names, logos, clothing, bags, shoes etc etc... so the fact that none of them know red is very surprising...

We have leart numbers 1-5 - they have no problem with this seen as most of them can do basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division by the time they are 3! We learnt table, chair and door. Seriously, these kids can re-programme a launch pad at Cape Canaveral, but can't remember the word "chair" or "table".... 

The "Girls Rule" class is fun on a good day. The girls are all incredibly cute, and smart. They remember most things I teach them, have fun playing all the games and participate in everything. The little boys in class are also quite fun. One of them is extremely bright, and the other one has finally agreed to stay in class without his mother. It does take about 10 minutes for him to settle in, but at least he stays now!

Winston (or Wenston, I'm not quite sure) and Oscar

Cherry and Rainbow

The CK Class and me

Angell (that's how they spell it)

Crystal - the little giggler

The "Boys Drool" is quite possibly THE WORST class I will ever have to teach. If it gets any worse than this, I'm quitting! Mainly because of one individual student.

The "other" CK class

All the other kids are interested, and participate in the activities and manage to learn something - well, except for when the little girl insists on pulling her dress up over her head while I'm trying to teach the colour "pink" or sing the "Goodbye" song. There is always one who ruins it... he is such a little shit. Every single teacher knows how terrible this kid is, and that he is IMPOSSIBLE to get through to. He doesn't listen, he never sits down, he tries to hit and kick me - as well as the other kids - he cries and sulks when we doesn't get his way, or win a game (assuming he participates) AND in the last class that we had he actually URINATED in one of my buckets! I have no idea what to do with this kid. I'd rather suck my eyes out through a straw in my belly button, than teach this little fucker...

Tong Tong, Sweety, Bay (or his name is Able, I'm not sure because I can't understand him when he tells me), Winston/Wenston and Leo

Anyway...

Our classes are either 1 hour or two hours - depending on the day. We have to sing songs, colour in the pictures in their books, learn words and colours from flashcards and play games which incorporate all the language elements that they have to learn for that day. (PS, it's quite difficult to explain the concept of aunt, uncle, cousins etc, because most of the students are only children, who come from parents who are also only children, so they don't understand the concept of extended family).

The school system in China is extremely rigid. The kids go to normal school from 08h00 - 16h00, then they come to our school for after school activities, such as art, maths, science and English, until 21h00. If there is a public holiday during the week, then the kids have to come to school on the weekends to make up for the day they missed! The teachers at our school also don't have it easy. At least Liesl and I get two days off a week, but the other teachers only get one day a week. They are only allowed an hour lunch break - no other breaks during the day, and they don't get annual leave. So if they want to take a holiday somewhere, then they have to work straight though to save up their one free day a week... 

The Sticky Ball. Also known as The Teacher's Best Friend

Teaching is quite easy to do, in terms of delivering the syllabus. We have course guides and teacher's books which outline each lesson, what we have to teach and how we have to teach it. It's all pretty straight forward, until the activities in the teacher's book falls flat... because the kids are too tired or too bored to participate in the game... which means you have to change the plan halfway through the class to try and get things on track again... otherwise they start rolling on the floor, climbing on the tables, putting the buckets on their heads, throwing the ball around and spitting and screaming at things. It's what happens when a good class goes bad... and it's not fun!!

One of the kids drew a picture of me....

More fun and games in China...

Due to the fact that the government likes to control everything, Chinese law requires that all foreigners register at their nearest police station within 24 hours of arrival. Which means that whenever you go anywhere for more that a day, you have to register at the nearest police station to where you are staying, then when you go back home, or move on from there, you have to register at the police station again. This is a totally stupid and annoying law.  The hotels in China automatically register you at the police station when you check in... so when we arrived we had no problem with this. When we moved to Wuhan, we asked the school to register us at the police station. However, they said that seen as we were applying for our working visa and permanent residence in Shanghai, we would have to register at a Shanghai police station - because as per our paper trail, we were "living" in Shanghai. So we have been registered in Shanghai since we've been here.

We now have our permanent residence, so the school said we should  register in Wuhan. Which we attempted to do... except our lease agreement and employment history shows that we have been living in Wuhan since the 1st of July 2012, and we have not registered here at all. So the police informed us that we had violated Chinese Law. Yay us!! Which meant we had to go to another police department, and sign all sorts of statements in Chinese, which we can't read or understand, so that they can sort out the registration. The school also has to pay a fine (well, technically we have to pay a fine for "violating" the law... but the school will be covering it). So hopefully that is sorted now.

Oh but wait, there's more... the police also informed us that our residence and work visa are only valid in SHANGHAI! So now we have to re-apply for everything again in Wuhan. Yes, you are correct, the school has absolutely no fucking idea what it's doing! We will probably end up in prison.... send cake (and biltong).

The school also attempted to open bank accounts for us - let me just say at this point that we have been here since the 16th of June 2012, and have not yet been paid. Supposedly, because we need an account.. Anyway, we eventually received our bank cards last week, and were told that we have to personally go into the bank to activate them. So off we went... except when we got to the bank they informed us that we couldn't do anything with the cards because the school had opened the accounts with incorrect information. On the application form, they neglected to include our passport numbers, AND our surnames! So naturally, the information they have on record for the accounts, does not match our passport info.... so we had to wait for the school to send more documentation to the bank to correct the mistakes... three trips to the bank later and we finally got our bank cards. They are still not for the correct account, but at least we can use them while the school sorts out the mess with the bank... and hopefully we have now been paid!

Yes, you are correct, the school has absolutely no fucking idea what it's doing!


In other news...

A couple of weeks ago, we had to go to Shanghai for the day to apply for the aforementioned permanent residency and work visas. It was a lightening quick trip. We left on the overnight train on Tues night, arrived in Shanghai on Tues morning, went to the Embassy, applied, went shopping, and back to the train station and Wuhan all in one day. We were completely exhausted!

Liesl in her bunk on the train

However, we did make the most of our "stay" in Shanghai... we went straight to Marks and Spencer for lunch, and stocked up on all good things food which we cannot get in Wuhan. It was awesome!

My fish and chips lunch at Marks and Spencer!

Our loot which we smuggled back from Marks and Spencer. Sometimes, we really do feel like refugees....

Shanghai Train Station

Meanwhile... back in Wuhan...

I bought these little rabbits for our TV cabinet. They are so cute.

This is the little stream and sitting area outside our apartment building.

This is a rock that plays Chinese music in our complex... it's weird. They have them "hidden" all over the place so it sounds like a Zen Garden when you walk home.

We finally found olives and vodka at Metro Supermarket!! So it was Dirty Martini Time!

Olympic festivities at Guanggu

On a clear day you can see forever.... this doesn't happen very often as usually the sky is grey with pollution and humidity.

Singin' in the rain 

 We found a nice little restaurant across the street from our building which serves Chinese food, but they have an English description on the menu - this makes ALL the difference!

Liesl pouring her coke - this is not a common occurrence in Chinese restaurants as they don't usually sell sodas... only 4million different types of tea.

Inside the restaurant - a view of the bar

Happy me

That's all for now...

Will post more when we have more news.

xxx