Beijing in Bloom

Spring has arrived in Beijing and I am thoroughly enjoying the warmer weather and beautiful cherry blossoms blooming across the city. I continue to be amazed at how hard the students work here at our school, even at the primary level. There are things about their work ethic that are admirable, but when I ask my students "what did you do this weekend?" and all they can say is "I did my homework and played computer games," I just want to take them outside to enjoy the weather and focus on something else besides school. If only I could have class outside! I can't believe I only have one more unit to teach before my year of living in China is up- we have a lot to do before then, including midterm and final exams, but some fun things like a field trip and a Children's Day performance and day of fun as this is a big holiday in China.
I am sure more unexpected things will happen as well, such as this past week when I got asked to teach "open classes" with one of the Chinese english teachers. As the school is recruiting new students, they allow kindergartners and their parents from different parts of the city to come for visits so they can experience classes and life at our school. I was told I would be teaching these classes the night before the lessons would take place, but last minute decisions no longer phase me after living here for 9 months! We taught "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" along with other body parts in fast-paced 25-minute lessons to about 120 kindergartners in the past two days. The parents and grandparents were in the classroom as well, snapping pictures the whole time, so I am sure I will be in some of these families photo albums for years to come!
Next week I get to teach about Easter! We will be following up from our Christmas lesson and look more at His life and the hope he has given us. I am excited for this opportunity, especially for one of my students that I just found out has a parent that is very sick. He is one of my higher level students and I just started a written conversation journal with him. I hope to be able to encourage him through this.
One funny story from this week was that I found out I've been saying something wrong in Chinese this whole year. To ask someone for help, you should say "Ni kiye ban wo ma?" and I often have my students help me set things up when I arrive to the classroom so I will ask them in Chinese. However, I've been pronouncing it "Ni kiye bao wo ma?" which means "Can I hold/hug you?" Of course they are so adorable and I love giving them hugs anyways, but my students have been gracious with me in my language learning endeavor. They get very excited whenever I speak Chinese in class and I love to shock and awe them with the little Chinese I know. Zai jian goodbye)!