A Chat with Dave

I had a chance to talk with Dave on Skype today and thought I'd share:

School has been good. We both have a few crazy classes but most of the students are good, and they are so cute. I teach 10 different classes, usually about 2 times a week, and Shan teaches 4 classes but sees them more often during the week.

Tyson loves school. He is so cute. The kids wear uniforms and he got his two days ago. He was so excited when he brought it home he had to wear for pajamas to bed. Then when we dropped him off at class he was totally strutting around and showing off. I even heard a few "oh yeahs' from him. ...

When I have breaks in my classes I usually go peak on him. He has a girl in his class who is totally taken by him, and when they go on walks for class, she is always trying to hold his hand....its so cute....he usually will break it off and take off somewhere else.....not into the whole girlfriend thing, and if we ask him if he has a girlfirend he gets quite mad.

All the other students speak Chinese, but the teacher addresses the class in English....so he is getting both. The teachers have said that other students who did not speak mandarin picked it up really quickly just from the interaction with the other students....and he is trying to learn it. We have ice age 2 but found it was only in Chinese, and he asked to watch it yesterday. We told him it was only in Chinese, and he said, "Well, I want to learn my Chinese..."

We are bringing a swimsuit for him to class today....there is a cute little wading pool for the kids that they go to sometimes....I happened upon it yesterday and saw that Tyson was out swimming with his class in the nude. Yeah I saw his bare cheeks from a long way off.....He wasn't alone though, about 6 or 7 other students didn't have their suits on either....the rest of them were in their undies....this is totally typical Chinese though. I told his teacher, yeah, we just don't do that in America! We'll be bringing him a swimsuit from now on...

Little Savy though has some rough moments. She hates when we drop her off, and kicks and screams, and tells us, "I don't want to go to school." Its heartbreaking, but we don't know what else to do. She calms down after a few minutes and is fine the rest of the time, its just the dropping her off that is hard. She has a teacher who speaks english in class ,but most of the class is taught in Chinese. So she will probably pick it up the fastest....

We get a huge 2 and a half to 3 hour lunch, and we have been picking the kids up from their class and taking them home for lunch. Its been nice. Our Aiee, makes us food while she is here cleaning and doing laundry, and we always have lunch ready for us when we arrive. At lunch we have also been working with Tyson ourselves on his reading. He always acts like he can't do it, but when he actually applies himself, he does quite well...

So we are getting along just fine. We will both be excited when the cooler weather gets here. The heat just zaps us. The classrooms are kept cooled but you have to leave the classrooms and its hot. Some of my classes are on the 4th or 5th floor and its all stairs.