Phew…migrant teaching must make up like 50% of my stressfulness here in Shanghai. At least the company one has now been concluded without any painful ordeals.
The migrant school my company volunteers teach at is in a village. Not too remote as it’s still somewhat within the city limits, even though there are no bus links. I was quite stunned the first time I went though. We turned off the main road at a zebra crossing into a PATH. I was like omg what if another car happens to be coming out? The path, as seen, is wide enough for maybe one car. The last time one of the volunteers drove us out, she somehow managed to squeeze past a rickshaw parked at the side. all i can say is, thank god i don’t drive in shanghai.
Came out for a walk once while the volunteers were teaching and managed to observe a tiny bit of village life, haha.
ducks just ambling around on the road!
There’s a guy fishing on the bank. When I was there, a girl was running towards him yelling “Pa!”Aww…
Oh well, that’s one programme concluded. Now another one to get through with the GIP mates which has its own sets of trials and tribulations. We’re all enjoying ourselves and more NTU volunteers show up every week, such that the teacher student ratio is almost 1:1 haha. It’s just such a pity though, the only time we can come is sunday and that’s the worst time for the kids cos their parents want them to be at home/go to market with them, etc. And finally, next Sunday we’ll have good student attendance cos Sunday’s a school day in lieu of Fri cos of public hol this thurs…and all the NTU ppl are zhao-ing to go on holiday or need to work. Bah! And of course, I’m one of the few who are going to be there, so I really hope we survive this Sunday.
I just realised that I’ve been typing in proper caps every sentence. Must be a by-product of blogging at work.
Anyway, I’ve finally visited a doctor about my 3-week old cough. he sent me for an x-ray and diagnosed bronchitis. i know it sounds quite serious but actually it’s not, even though my bronchitis is somewhat above what would be considered moderate. haha… well, it’s a change to have something apart from throat infection. anyway i’ve discovered that expat places here are out to con people’s money, based on my one experience going to an expat hospital and what i’ve subsequently read on forums that led me to decide to save my money and go local. clue 1) expat hospitals offer to charge direct to your insurance company. clue 2) they can charge above SGD$100 for 2 packs of antibiotic drips. it’s kind of sad how these people work…they assume that the insurance covers everything so they just qiao1 to their heart’s content and continue to provide lousy service because the poor expat doesn’t know chinese and don’t have other choices. china is a sad sad place.
i quite like the hospital i visited in the end though. went there cos it’s near my workplace and it’s quite ulu so it was empty and i hardly had to queue. doc was nice, and consultation was only RMB10.50 (which is like SGD2.50) and x-ray RMB60(SGD13). on the downside, medicine cost RMB160 (SGD 35) which was quite a shock, but guess it can’t be avoided. oh well, at least i didn’t end up spending RMB1000 in some lousy expat place.
anyway…it’s almost june!! the weather is still quite nice, occasionally hot in the day time when there’s sunny weather but still always so cooling at night that i can open the window and not need the fan. and….i can countdown to the end of gip in terms of weeks and not months! 6 weeks left (not counting last week cos i plan to skip part of it) yeahh!!
