China

Hello World, from Hong Kong!

3 things:

1. We are in Hong Kong for just a couple more days, and then we all split to our respective schools. Chris is going to Changsha, spicy-food central! Annie is going to Xiuning, rural rural rural (and poor).


2. There are apparently shops that sell bread in the shape of different types of butts.


3. Last night we ate pigeon heads.


For realsies...
Chris and I both teach middle schoolers (American high school freshmen), and last week, we taught a practice lesson together. Let's just say... it was a learning experience. Things didn't exactly go the way we planned. We asked our "students" (aka our fellow Fellows) to act like 14-year-old, beginning English speakers. As a result, we had to work with unexpected discipline issues or timely questions. For example, when we asked the "students" to read their sentences aloud, a girl raised her hand and asked, "uh-lowed, like permission?" So we had to stop our lesson to explain the difference between aloud and allowed--an important distinction, but multiplied by 20... not so good for productivity.

We received pretty good feedback for our intentions and what we did accomplish. We showed "Lifted," the Pixar short (which preceded Wall-e) about two aliens trying to abduct a farmer. Our lesson was about the effectiveness of non-verbal communication. I talked a little about sign language, and Chris talked about Paul Eckman's finding of the six universal emotions (Psych 110 flashback!). Our last activity was supposed to be basically scenes from a hat, and the students had to act out the scenes without dialogue. It would have been fun, but we ran out of time! C'est la vie.

We send our love! Expect posts about our new lives after we get settled into the next two years!

Love,
Chris and Annie