Everyday Life

Posts are slowing down! That's because the school days go like this:

Leave hotel at 7:30am and take a cab to school (4 people in a cab comes out to $8HKD per person)
Get to school around 7:45am and get ready for the day.
Be in classroom for 8am in case of extra help students and set up for class.
Period 1, recess 10 min, Period 2, lunch 40 min, Period 3, recess 10 min, Period 4. Class is over at 3:30pm
Depending on the day I will leave at different times. On the first day we had that 3-minute turned 1.5 hr meeting so I didn't leave until 5pm. The second day I had a girl who was sick on the first day come for extra help so I didn't leave until 4:30pm. Today no one stayed around so I left at 3:40pm.

I finally took pictures of the school a bit.

My classroom, the grade 10 side

My classroom, the grade 11 side

 HK is sooo nice with technology. It didn't take a good picture of it but I have a computer in my desk. Not on, IN. I'll try to take another picture tomorrow. I also have what they call a visualizer. In TDSB, it's called an ELMO. Again, I'll take a picture tomorrow. I have a mounted projector too.

The school hallway is open air so very humid outside the classroom

The basketball court

My go-to ice breaker activity: everyone makes a piece and I put it together.

 

I was still getting used to the workload and how long it would take me. The first day there was a lot of prep work to do just because we finally met our students so we could assess them. Like I said, mine are nice but super weak in math. The grade 10's are fun and the grade 11's are boring. Last night I came home, marked the 3 quizzes they did that day, then went out at around 7pm. It was already getting quite dark. I walked over to Kowloon City that all the teachers told me to go to. I didn't quite see the charm they saw in it. I thought it was kind of ghetto. But I did find a Crocs Outlet and egg waffles (雞蛋仔) but they didn't really taste that good.

Today I tried a different routine. I went with some colleagues to Lok Fu Plaza and we had afternoon tea. Then we hung around until it was 6pm and went to buy discounted food for lunch. I got some shanghainese noodles for $13HKD. I also found this:

Vitasoy Low-Sugar Red Bean Drink

I didn't drink it yet. I hope it tastes good. Vending machines here are confusing. You have to first "select your price" by using a small discrete button that will take you through a small selection screen that has all the possible prices used by that machine. Then you swipe your octopus card. Then you press the button for your drink. I made a mistake because I pressed the button for the red bean drink which cost $6HKD but the price selection had defaulted to the cheapest drink which was $4.50 HKD. So when I swiped my card, it already credited the $4.50 and there's no way to get it back. So I ended up picking an apple-mango juice box that cost $4.50. Then I tried again.

Anyways, today is a busy day. I have 2 tests and an assignment to mark. I'm still not done yet...boo. Tomorrow evening all the teachers are going out to dinner together. Good thing too because they're doing some pesticide work at the hotel and have told us all to clear out until 6pm.