Friday was a busy day due to all the events going on. Kerry and I walked to the bus in our suits because we were asked to dress formally for the reception. "Look smart!" One Chinese man said to me, and gave me the thumbs up. Another Chinese woman gave me a broad smile.
To begin the afternoon, Kerry and I attended our first beginners' Chinese lesson. There were about nine of us, total, from countries all over: Thailand, Japan, India, Italy, and Spain. The instructor focused on pronunciation of vowels and we practiced them. She briefly went over some family words (father, mother, etc.) at one point, but at the very end she went over numbers 1-10 with us. This was probably the most useful part for me. I understand her desire to teach us pronunciation, but to me it's more useful to learn words and expressions. And numbers, of course.
After this, Kerry took off on his own and I had to attend an orientation in the "British Conference Room," which Guillermo, the Spanish instructor, just happened to find on our own. We sat around a table and listened to some background on SISU from the International Studies Director, and then Grace and Christine went over several things in the International Faculty Handbook. There was then a break for cake and coffee, during which I finally met the university president--a quiet, unassuming (fairly young) man.
Then came the most formal part of the afternoon: the "welcoming" from the President. He was accompanied by a woman named Betty (her last name escapes me), but she was retired SISU faculty, born in Shanghai and raised in Scotland...84 years old! I got to chat with her a bit later on...very interesting person. So after we all introduced ourselves (there were about 20 of us), the President welcomed us, Betty gave a speech, and then four of us (including me) had been selected to give brief speeches. The first was from a woman from Greece, who gave an impressive speech in which she quoted Alexander the Great. The second was me: I just had some notes in front of me, but I spoke about how kind and friendly the people at SISU had been, as well as the Fulbright mission and what I planned to do there. I received applause, and a couple folks afterwards complimented me. Not bad for not preparing much. Third was a post-doc faculty from Korea, who spoke in Chinese--Grace interpreted for her. She sat next to me. I introduced myself to her at one point. "Sorry, my English is not good," she said. That may have been the case, but I feel a lot of these foreign faculty do a lot of apologizing for their English when it's fine to me. The last speaker, a Polish teacher, spoke with me afterwards and said he was "nervous" about speaking. I complimented him on his English, but he seemed embarrassed. "It's the universal language," he said. This strikes me as so interesting: I think we in the US take the fact that we speak English for granted. We don't have to learn other languages. I learned today that SISU graduates MUST learn "English and one other foreign language" before they graduate! Wow. Talk about global education.
After the "welcoming," we had a reception in the courtyard: beef filet, pizza (fruit and meat), salad, egg rolls, and watermelon were among the treats I dined on. Little snacky things. I located Kerry and he and I dined together. He also found a stray cat, to which he gave many pettings. It had a very loud, harsh "MEOW." But Kerry liked it just the same. "She's had kittens recently," he said. I got a chance to talk to one of the International Studies Directors, Steve, from the US. Very nice guy, very friendly to me and Kerry. Once the event was over, we took the bus home.
Saturday not much happened--just prep mostly--and Kerry cleaned. We had leftover spaghetti for dinner. One really cool thing happened, though: almost within an hour after sending our curriculum vitae to SFLS, we received a response from the principal interested in hiring Kerry, for either volunteer work or employment. They want him to teach a class on essay writing, and they'd like me to give lectures (of course voluntary) as well. Very cool! We expect more to happen Monday and Tuesday, so maybe I'll write again one of those days.
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