Vi's New Job

Sorry about the lack of blogging lately but it's been a pretty uneventful couple of weeks. I'll start with the big news that just happened a couple minutes ago...Vi has a new job!!

She hasn't been happy at her job at the American company and has been looking for something else. She's been doing the job of a business AND personal assistant, sourcer, salesperson and host for visitors. Her boss has been in America the last month or so and she's been quite bored at work. She also doesn't like the environment at the office because it's mainly guys and she doesn't have any friends there. Also, it's about a 40 minute commute everyday for her.

Anyways, she just got back from an interview where the boss hired her on the spot after a couple minutes. There were even people waiting to interview after her but the boss didn't need to meet anyone else, Vi was her girl (she wanted to make sure I mentioned that). It's a Turkish company consisting of 3 women in the same field she's been in, exports. The best part of this job is that it's across the street from our building. It's not even a 5 minute walk from our door so that's great. Plus, I'm no longer tutoring during lunch so we'll both be able to come home for lunch everyday now.

She starts on Thursday next week and now she's building up the courage to call her boss and tell him she quits...this phone call should be interesting. She'll write a blog after a week or two to tell about her new job.

In much smaller news, school starts Sept 1st so I'm looking forward to getting back to school and the kids. I realized that I haven't really explained how's the summer been here so I'll tell you how the summer break was. I spent the summer teaching private lessons rather than resting and vacationing. I taught 3 or 4 classes most days but on Tuesdays 6 or 7. When school starts, I'll continue with some of the private lessons which is nice because I'll be making a lot more money than I was last semester.

My schedule, starting next week, will start with me at the preschool from 7:50-11:30, then a lunch break. I'll actually teach more this semester because I'll be teaching an extra class. I'll have my class, INT2A (INT means international, which means they get a foreign teacher, 2 is the level and A just means which 2 level class) and INTK4. Last year I taught K3 for 30 minutes; this year I'll teach K4 for an hour. Last semester I had a private lesson during lunch but this semester I won't so I'll be able to go home during my 3 hour lunch break and have lunch with Vi...also a little nap. I have to be back at the school at 2:30 and teach from 3:00 to 5:00. My actual classes will be from 9:00-9:30, 9:40-10:10, 10:15-10:40, 10:45-11:10 and 11:15-11:30 in the morning then 3:00-3:30 and 3:35-4:00. At 4:00, we just wait for the parents to come pick up the kids. I'll also have a 1 hour private lesson after school everyday, except Tuesday when it will be a 2 hour lesson. Needless to say, I'll be making $1,000 more this semester than I made last semester so I'm very happy about that.

The last update is that we're taking a trip to Thailand (Bangkok and Phuket) in October for my birthday. I'm now tired of writing so I'll update more on this when it happens.

Street Fooooooooooood!!!!

First things first, VIVI'S GOT A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She'll be an assistant to Ernesto Tovar, the Chief Executive of Gambe Group, a trading company based in Miami, Fl. This means she'll be speaking English all day and all night now. That's kind of funny because English was the class Vivi hated most during all of her days in school, including college. Now, her boyfriend and boss only speak English, how ironic. We went out to a Cantonese restaurant Saturday night to celebrate and had some great beef and chicken. She has been so excited the entire weekend and she's looking forward to tomorrow morning.

Today we woke up to absolutely beautiful weather so we decided to head back to Dongmen to eat street food for lunch and enjoy the weather a little bit. My favorite taste is spicy tofu on a stick, it's great and it's only 1 RMB, about 15 cents. Vivi's favorite food are these cream puff things that have a little bit of seafood in them, although I can't taste the seafood at all. They're also very good. They drizzle this cream sauce over top and some green flakes, I have no idea what the flakes are. The other great options are the sticks of meat. There's a ton of different types to choose from. We had some spicy chicken and some beef meat balls this time, the chicken was excellent but the meat balls were just so-so.

By far the most popular item is a bowl of spicy noodles. Vivi had these today and I usually do but passed on them for the meat on a stick. The noodles are so good and so popular that the tables are all taken and people have to just stand around and eat their noodles standing on the sidewalk (you can see this in one of the pictures). The noodles are great and of course, cheap.

We walked around for a short time because it was just too crowded today, again, check out the pictures. We found a 2 RMB shop (their version of the $1 store) and I found some great toys and prizes for my students. I bought a police car that the boys will love and some of those toys that have water inside with balls and baskets that you press a button that shoots air inside and makes the balls float so you try to get the balls in the basket. I think the kids will love it. I'm going to tell them that all the kids who can sing the song on their own, read the book and know all of the new words and sentences at the end of the week will get one. This gives them a goal and a reason to try harder, for those you usually don't. Also, anytime they're acting up this week, I can pull out the toys to get them back on track.

That's all for now and Vivi's going to write a little something at the end of the week about her new job.