Today we had a 4 hour orientation for Stepping Stones. It was a pretty fucking long orientation I must say. It was interesting and stuff, but it was just really long and dry.

We were taught how to be a teacher basically - positive reinforcement, getting the kids attention, dealing with behavioral issues, etc. Then we had a French beginners lesson where we learned how to count to 10 and say hello, my name is blah, what is yours? It gave us a little insight on how elementary the lessons should be, how much girth to actually include in a lesson, hand gestures, and different types of punishment and reinforcements. It was pretty informative. The program requires us to go to the migrant school once a week or bi-weekly. So it's not too bad in terms of time commitment, but it's just a little frightening because I never taught academia to children before, I only taught them how to play games and small activities. It reminds me a bit of Cameron house in that sense, but totally different because I don't know the culture and can't use a lot of references that I otherwise would use back home. Seems like I was there the whole day, but I'm glad I went. I want to give this a try, I think it'll be a really rewarding experience.

On a side note, I had dining hall food today and it's really good actually. It's not that expensive either so it's now the number 1 place I eat at. I started to look at my budget and it's starting to get tight.. =\ We have to travel to the migrant schools and because we're volunteers, they don't help subsidize any of the travel expenses. So it's about 80RMB each week for this program in terms of travel costs and that kind adds up. I really want to be able to save a little money to help pay for your ticket Chantal, if you are able to come. I really hope you can come