Second BIG update!

Hello everyone!

Sorry it took so long for us to update you on what has been going on since our first blog...things have just been a little hectic around here, but they are finally settling down I think.

OUR CLASSES:

Since our first blog we have started teaching in our own classrooms. There were quite a few switches and changes to our schedules which made it hard to get a routine going, but I think our classes are finally set, which makes it easier to plan and prepare. Josh and I are both teaching two classes: one intermediate class and one low level class each. At first they were going to give me a class of 26 low level students, but after my first day I knew it would be close to impossible to give attention to everyone of them like they needed, so I fought to have the class split in half and shared between Josh and I. Since the split the students have shown a lot more confidence in speaking up and asking questions and it seems as though they will be able to learn so much more since the students will be able to get more individualized attention with the smaller class sizes.
These classes have proved to be quite a challenge, especially the low level, because most of the students' have very very limited English comprehension skills when it comes to listening and speaking. So we are trying our best to communicate with our students through pictures and modeling. The students are great though, they are so eager to learn and are very respectful to us as their teachers. It is so awesome to see our students' faces light up when we see them outside of the classroom! It's so great! Overall I think it is going to be quite an enjoyable and rewarding experience for the both of us.

THE BIG PERFORMANCE:
















Well the big performance finally came and went this past Thursday. The four of us had been preparing for a few weeks to sing a portion (yes including solos!) of China's Olympic Song, "Beijing Huan Ying Ni" which means "Beijing Welcomes You." None of us know how we were signed up for this gig and all of us were in denial that we were going to be singing in front of thousands of people for the University's 50th anniversary celebration! As the date of the performance came closer, we each became more and more nervous about the performance because we began to see what a big deal the celebration was when we saw the campus going through a whole beautification transformation before our eyes! There were ladies scrubbing the steps of the buildings, tons of decorations, and truck loads of flowers being planted all around the campus.
















The day of the performance we all four had to go in four hours before the performance to get our hair and makeup done by some of the fashion students of the college. (Yes even the boys got makeup!) Once we got all done up all of the students lined up to take pictures with us like we were movie stars! Finally our time had come and we all belted out our tunes barely even understanding what we were saying. But the crowd loved us! There were fireworks, smoke machines, bubble machines, the whole works! The experience will be seared into our memories for a lifetime! (There is a video of this on our Youtube link! Check it out!)

LOOKING FORWARD TO:

This next week is what China calls its National Holiday, where the whole country gets a week long vacation! We are so excited to get a rest after these crazy past two weeks. We plan on using this time to do more sight seeing in Dalian and do all there is to do in our city, that way when the long vacation comes we can use that time to see the rest of China.

So far we are having a great time here, but miss everyone at home immensely! We love you all and appreciate all of you so much for following our updates and watching our videos. It makes us feel very comforted and loved to know that we have all of you at home thinking and talking to Big Papa for us! We love you all soooo much!

Love,
Ashley and Josh

P.S.
Happy belated birthday Nick! And happy soon to be birthday Anthony and Jordan! We love you!