Vital Signs

The hot, sticky blue dot there is Chengdu. This summer it’s the city where I live. My time here, as well as the air pollution, has taken my breath away. But you know that already since I haven’t squeaked out an update yet.

Well open your pores. Time to pump a trickle of life back into this blog. From training to food to spicy swamp butt, here’s the quick and dirty.

Pre Service Training (PST)

Ivy League

My baby steps with Chinese have largely been taken in and around this building. It’s Sichuan Normal University and it’s where I, along with 22 other trainees, have been studying to become teachers and volunteers in China. Pre Service Training has been full. On Friday we completed our 20th day of language study averaging around 3 hours of classroom instruction and 15 new words each day. Peppered into the mix are field trips to the marketplace and dialogue practice.

I am feeling confident so far and am excited to speak Mandarin (or a version of it) at site! We have also had training on how to Teach English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). Alongside language and TEFL there are sessions on Safety & Security, Culture and Health.

In China rabbit brain is a dish cooked and eaten straight out of the skull. The Peace Corps spared no expense or culture in that respect when designing our training.

You’re gonna get that culture.

In an unforeseen twist of fate since high school I found out that upon completion of our TEFL training we will be certified ‘foreign experts’ in English. I always had a hunch that I knew how to speak English good. Confidence is king and its’ no different in grammar.

For budding Peace Corps TEFL teachers the world over there is a rite of passage that happens during PST called Model School. It requires a heavy dose of creativity and a willingness to fall on your face. A little over one week ago we completed ours. Were we cut out to be teachers? Model School answered that for us. It’s a time when we had to design and teach our own Oral English course with a partner for real Chinese students. Garett, a lawyer from NYC, and I taught about “How to Succeed in a Job Interview with a Western Company”.

It was a ton of fun!

Here are a few other pictures that offer a broad taste of PST:

: Health Session

: SNU Confucius

: MS classroom

: View from the bathroom.

: Random Easter Holly

: Safety & Security

: Chinese

: Garett & I

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Food

Sichuan Province in China is world famous for food. One local person described it to me as ‘Hot, Hot, Hot’: “It’s Hot in temperature, it’s spicy Hot and it’s Hot when it comes out.” They are not wrong.

All this heat culminates into one dish literally called Hot Pot. It’s a wholesome, boiling broth of oil and water and spice and blood.

Best eaten with an army of friends, this meal is an exercise of plunking in raw meat and vegetables, struggling with chopsticks and burping. Each time I’ve tried it has been a two hour buffet of taste and laughter. It’s delicious and the only danger comes the next day, so you don’t really have to worry about it in the moment.