Pizza Party
Halloween
Halloween was a two night event at our school. While I was in Beijing Halloween night jobs were assigned and I ended up with Halloween bowling. Apparently no one else wanted it but I didn't see the big deal. The real torture of the bowling room is having to set up the pins after each turn and I had TA's for that so it was pretty smooth sailing. We were told to download some kids Halloween music but I had to listen to it for an hour and the kids only had to listen to it for 10 minutes so I put Thriller on repeat and called it a day. The parties went well, but I discovered that Chinese children aren't much for dancing. A couple of times when I lined the kids up to change rooms they had to wait a minute while another group walked in the hall, so during the downtime I yelled "Dance Party!", started dancing, and encouraged them to do the same. Most stared blankly at me. A couple did some half-hearted jumps. Only one really wiggled his body and as he was wearing a dinosaur costume and has the cutest smile it was a true joy to see. I may start making dance parties a regular part of my classes because clearly my students need more opportunities to move. |
Regional Conference
Anyone who has ridden in a car with me or sat next to me in church knows my voice leaves something to be desired. My mother's friend once asked her if her kids were good singers. My mother's response: "Conor has a good voice. Sarah has the joy of singing." So a recording studio is the last place I would expect to be, and certainly the last place anyone would want to find me. And yet, I ended up at a recording studio with Chinese lyrics in hand, headphones on, a live mic, and NO AUTO-TUNE. I had been roped into helping with our school's performance at the regional conference, and that meant going against all that is good in the world by purposefully recording my voice for others to hear. The recorder man (what are these people called?) only spoke Chinese so when he gave me feedback (which was often) it was like a bad episode of Making the Band. He would talk to me, I would nod my head, and everyone else would forget I didn't speak Chinese so I would have to turn to someone else and say "What?" before anyone would remember to translate. All in all, the experience wasn't overly mortifying. The finished product is fine and some of our better singers sound good. In summary, it won't make your ears bleed but no one is going to say "Play it again!" |