First two days of school
I just finished up my first two full days of teaching elementary school. I am teaching K, 2, 3, 4, and 5. This is two more grade levels than I thought I would be teaching. I've quickly discovered that I really enjoy 3-5. They have a funny way of looking at the world. K's, I need to figure out how to handle. Their attention span is very short. It's a nice change to teach the little ones. They all love art and are really happy to be there, except for this little kindergarten girl. She was so upset about meeting the new art teacher that she came into my class sobbing hysterically. I eventually calmed her down after convincing her that I needed her help with passing out the sketchbooks. Kids can be so easily disatracted sometimes.
On a sad note when we were driving into the city this evening we saw a horrible accident. A truck had hit a man on a bike. The bike and the man must have bounced off the windshield and landed in the middle of the road. I'm sure he was dead. There was blood everywhere. It was one of those sights that will be forever etched into my memory. I've been sick to my stomach ever since.
One of the strangest things about Shanghai so far is the driving. There is no way I would ever attempt it here. There are strange traffic rules. For instance, if you want to make a left hand turn you have to get all the way over into the right hand lane and wait for the light. Then you have to cross several lanes of traffic in order to make your turn.
People are terrible drivers and riders., but it's almost like a double negative. When you have bad drivers drivers sharing the road with bad pedestrians, bicyclists and moped riders they cancel each other out. So I guess "bad" + "bad" equals "good driving" in a strange way. Despite the amount of bad drving that we have seen there have been very few accidents. I guess there is some method behind their madness. There must be otherwsise more of them would get killed.
I learned two new things about the drving culture. Supposedly if you don't make eye contact with a driver you are free to cross the street. If you do make contact then the driver thinks that you are letting them go. This will be a hard one for me. I'm so used to giving oncoming cars the evil eye so that they will stop. Secondly, taxi drivers are rated from 0-5 stars. The more stars on their taxi ID sign, the better drivers they will be. You can really tell the difference between a 0 and a 3.
On a sad note when we were driving into the city this evening we saw a horrible accident. A truck had hit a man on a bike. The bike and the man must have bounced off the windshield and landed in the middle of the road. I'm sure he was dead. There was blood everywhere. It was one of those sights that will be forever etched into my memory. I've been sick to my stomach ever since.
One of the strangest things about Shanghai so far is the driving. There is no way I would ever attempt it here. There are strange traffic rules. For instance, if you want to make a left hand turn you have to get all the way over into the right hand lane and wait for the light. Then you have to cross several lanes of traffic in order to make your turn.
People are terrible drivers and riders., but it's almost like a double negative. When you have bad drivers drivers sharing the road with bad pedestrians, bicyclists and moped riders they cancel each other out. So I guess "bad" + "bad" equals "good driving" in a strange way. Despite the amount of bad drving that we have seen there have been very few accidents. I guess there is some method behind their madness. There must be otherwsise more of them would get killed.
I learned two new things about the drving culture. Supposedly if you don't make eye contact with a driver you are free to cross the street. If you do make contact then the driver thinks that you are letting them go. This will be a hard one for me. I'm so used to giving oncoming cars the evil eye so that they will stop. Secondly, taxi drivers are rated from 0-5 stars. The more stars on their taxi ID sign, the better drivers they will be. You can really tell the difference between a 0 and a 3.
posted by kimnyc at 12:35 PM
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