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Aug 1, 2006 4:59:54 GMT 7
Post by George61 on Aug 1, 2006 4:59:54 GMT 7
Woza17's Weight Watch Pogrom. First, the good points..... The company. Prog, Ruth, ND, Stil and I had a great time together. This is one of the best things about this Forum, it attracts great people. We enjoyed each other's close company for the three weeks. It was the first time we had met Stil, and I gotta say he is a great bloke, who has risen above his obvious disadvantages. The campers. Mostly great kids! Some dickheads, but overall, a great bunch of kids. The location. Accommodation was good. Rooms adequately equipped, and cleaned nicely everyday. The Gate Guards sometimes vanished late at night and early in the morning, which led to some necessary wall-climbing. Get into your heads a picture of Ruth climbing a 10-ft wall in the early hours of the morning.....with assistance from ND, Stil and George! (no pics available.) The activities. Swimming....great pool in a luxury resort sort of place. Golf...nice driving range. My first hit in 35 years went straight down the middle for 100 yards then hooked a little to the left. Honour retained! Fruit Farm.....it rained, otherwise could have been a good day. Adventure Park...good place for kids, so we all had a good time! Science Museum..I thought a bit boring, very few of the working things worked.
The BAD POINTS. The food..correction, swill! We figured the Kitchen was playing both ends against the middle...IE. they were getting paid per head per meal per day, and cutting costs. Then there was the contract with the local Pig Farmers Association. They were getting paid per Kilo of swill at the end of the day! The Camp Director. My Mother taught me that if you can't say anything nice about someone, don't say anything at all. The weather. Being in a Steam Room all day is not fun!
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Ruth
SuperDuperMegaBarfly
God's provisions are strategically placed along the path of your obedience.
Posts: 3,915
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Aug 12, 2006 16:20:54 GMT 7
Post by Ruth on Aug 12, 2006 16:20:54 GMT 7
I've finally returned from my travel- and camp-imposed internet hiatus. It's good to be back.
I need to make clear right from the beginning that I did NOT lose weight while at camp. I also need to make clear that my butt ascending and descending the wall could not have been a pretty sight from the guys' vantage points. Nevertheless, they were gallant. Kinda took away the relaxation from the foot massage we were out getting, but memories are made from such as this.
Good points are pretty much as George described. However, I loved the Science Museum and so did my kids. Lots of hands-on stuff and things to explore. It was an excellent bonding experience while I played with my kids. My only belly-ache about that outing is that my group did it on the second day at camp and my kids had no visible means of identification (such as camp t-shirts or even name tags) at that point, nor did I know all of my kids yet. I was counting heads constantly and never sure if the heads I was counting all belonged to me. We lost a girl for about 10 minutes. She had the presence of mind to stay at the doorway of the large room we were in, but it could have had a more serious outcome. She was crying by the time I found her (and then I almost cried).
The food - I expected mediocre fare, given that it's difficult to cook food well for large groups, but some of what we were served was truly inedible. I'm not being a picky foreigner here. Those days were obvious by what was left on the plates by the students and the steady business in instant noodle meals that the mini shop did. I'm not sure how much control over the menu and the cooks the camp directors had. Probably none. To be fair, the two Chinese bosses of the company sponsoring the camp ate many meals at camp, so they weren't expecting us to do anything they weren't willing to do. A refrigerator and toaster oven were provided for our use in the teachers' lounge. This was wonderful as we were able to keep beer cold and supplement the swill that was offered. However, these supplements came at our own expense. Given that the food last year was awful, and the director had that foreknowledge, it would have been nice to have been warned before we arrived (or even as part of the decision-making process before we signed up). It did eat (pun intended) into the salary more than I had anticipated. The camp director used her own time to purchase food for us from a list so that we didn't have to spend our time shopping. That is above and beyond the call of duty, I think.
I am quite possibly severely anal about being organized and having a need for control and order. China is slowly beating that out of me, but I still have huge issues about it. I realize that summer camp should be a fun experience. I realize that others had a plan for activities and that I need to go with the flow. However, as a teacher - allegedly one of the 'leaders' and expected to 'control my kids' - it would have been nice to have been included in some of the plans ahead of time. Purely informational stuff in a timely manner so that I could prepare myself, my TA's and my kids. I squawked about this after the first week and things improved somewhat.... Until the day when a driver came to my classroom and asked the students - in Chinese - whether they still wanted to go swimming even though it was raining. The class erupted in chaos and I remained clueless as to the reason. "Oh, don't mind me. I'm just the teacher. I'll go along with whatever you all decide." The bosses heard about that one while I was still hot under the collar.
The TA's - I was assigned two because my kids were the youngest. Both of my TA's were lovely young ladies and did a great job with 'active boy control', breaking up punching episodes, and having the kids ready for activities on time. It was towards the end of the first week before I realized that one of my TAs didn't have a great command of the English language. If English is the true focus of the 'English Summer Camp' (on the T-shirt logo), then perhaps all the people working with the children should be speaking English whenever possible.
We were given extra days' accommodation at the camp both before and after. This was a huge perk and totally unexpected. Getting us from Guangzhou to Dongguan on the evening of our arrival proved to be a huge deal when our taxi driver got lost. One of the owners worked with the driver via cell phone as we toured Dongguan - round and round and round. All I can say is thank goodness for cell phones and that the owner didn't give up on us. We were also assisted with transportation arrangements when leaving Dongguan. I was driven to both the bank and the post office on separate occasions and assisted at both places by the drivers. All of these little welcome services helped to make the camp experience a positive one.
By the third week I had sorted personalities of my students and was actually getting concerned when they were having 'off' days. Just in time to say good-bye and never see them again. Sigh.
Glad I had the experience. Gave feedback at the farewell luncheon as to how I think it could be improved upon next year. Overall - a great three weeks.
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