a Christmas to Remember!

I just want to quickly update the blog to tell you all about my very special Christmas. It's no longer Christmas here, but it's still Christmas over there in the U.S. as of the writing of this blog, so perhaps this entry will add a little more joy to your holiday.

Well, just like on Thanksgiving, I was especially busy today. I had all of my four regular classes. In addition, I had to teach 4 more classes to make up for some of the classes that I missed while I was in Chengdu (I will tell you about Chengdu in future blog entries). I ended up teaching only 2 extra classes, though, because the other 2 classes were taking an exam. So in total I taught 6 classes today...

Like any teachoholic, I prefer this. I like to be in the classroom. And on Christmas Day in a foreign country, when your alternative is spending the special holiday in the company of your apartment walls, the classroom is the right place to be.

So today was a day of numerous "Merry Christmas!"s, "Happy New Year!"s, and "Happy birthday, I mean, Happy Christmas Day!"

Some of the classroom had prepared special surprises for me. One class gave me a gift... an apple with the words "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays" [both written in Chinese] STAPLED into the apple in the fashion of a piece of contemporary artwork fit for the Guggenheim. One class sang jingle bells as I entered... another class sang a "happy new years" song... another class had decorated the back chalkboard with a special Christmas mural and message. There's a photo of this below. I'm standing with the artist (in bright pink) and her deskmate:


And yes, that's a Santa hat on my head... I get goofy with it sometimes...


I also began to prepare for the evening Christmas party. I and 20 selected students would wile the night away... err, I mean, linger over a 40 minute slice of their self study time... eating,talking, and laughing together.

Here's all the food we had... apples, pears, cakes, cookies, crackers, muffins, candy, bananas, peanuts, oranges, some other weird nuts/fruits, Cola, strawberry yogurt milk, walnut yogurt milk, and a GIANT cake from the school that said "Merry Christmas" and had a funny looking Santa Claus perched on top... a LOT of food!


Group photo!




One of the students wore a Santa Claus outfit... I love these kids!




Throughout the day, students and teachers gave me gifts. Here is the collection. I love these people!

The best gifts of all, however, were the letters that students wrote to me. Let me share three of them:

(I have copied them exactly as they are written)

Mr. Peterson.

Uh.... I just know I'm happy with your teaching and I hope that somedays I can help people as much as you do.

A merry Christmas to you.

Class 4

Dear Mr. Peter Son,

Happy Christmas!

I'd like to thank you for teaching all of us Grrade 1 so much English knowledge. Thank you for giving our class 1 so much special care as well.

I am a common student from a poor village in China. When I was in primary school in Grade 5, I became interested in English and foreign countries' culture. I am so interested at it that I studied English hard in order to go aboard by myself. But the resources in our village is very poor. At that time, I only learned English by reading and listening. I had never talked! So my English grow up slowly. I have thought that my dream couldn't come true.

Since I met you, things have change a lot. You helped us on many ways. I have had a lot of chances to talk, my English improved rapidly.

Though you are from America while I am from China I never regard you as a foreigner as most people do. As I see, you are my friend. You help me in English whenever I want. Thank you!

America and China became friends in 1979. They have been friends for 29 years this year. People in two countries become familier with each other. They also built good friendship with each other. I am very pround of it. I hope our friendship between two countries will be forever so both of two countries can develop in a healthy way. Also I welcome more and more people like you come to China.

In a word, I hope you will be happy all your life.

Happy Christmas!

Yours Faithfully

[name]

Dear Mr. Peters<3n.

I know that the Christmas is equal to our New Year. So you can't enjoy it with your family members or your friends is a big pity. But you're not alone, our school mates and teachers all very love you. We think you are a nice person and you're very firendly to us, you're warm-hearted as well.

Every week, after take your lessons, we often can learn a lot. And I love your games very much, you're also a good friend to us. From your game, I think you're very intelligent.

I'm also thanksful to you because of you offer help me correct my compositions. With your help, my writing skills make a great progress now. You're also very humorous often make the class active. We really like to listen to you tell stories and take lessons for us.

To be honest, I was used to be very shy when talking to foreigners. But now I have already don't afraid to speak English in public. So I'm very thankful to you.

And I think you just come to China by yourself, the spirit is deserved to admire. And if I have a chance to go to foreign countries when I grow up, I may learn you to go there by myself, I think it may be very exciting.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year ! ! ! I hope you can enjoy this journey of came to China. And I wish you Happy F<3rever.

Best wish for y<3u.

[name]

Well, that was my Christmas, folks. Let me end by wishing joy to the world, to everyone everywhere... I have certainly had mine today... :-)