Thursday, April 14, 2016

Chinese Competition

Today was a crazy day!  There was a language fair at BYU.  Jorja's class went.  I volunteered to be a chaperone.  My email said to meet at the middle school and follow the buses down or meet at LOT 20 in the Marriott Center at BYU.  Jorja apparently is embarrassed by me now and didn't want me to come.  Mostly she said I would make her nervous.  Too late, I had already signed up.  I decided to meet them at LOT 20.  I was there right on time.  There were so many buses!  So many people!  After awhile I saw a bus that had our school district name on it dropping people off at the curb.  I ran to catch up.  I couldn't see Jorja, but it looked like it was a bus full of middle schoolers.  I followed them.  I soon realized it wasn't Jorja's class, but I wasn't sure what to do.  I followed a lady speaking Chinese, but they got lost.  They were looking for the Tanner building.  I left and found it myself.  There were signs about the Chinese fair outside.  I went up to the sign in desk and asked if they knew what schools had already checked in.  They weren't writing them down, but told me Jorja's school had arrived.  I looked everywhere for her.  It was hard because the place was crawling with kids.  I finally sent Mr. Chen an email from my phone telling him I was at the Tanner Building but couldn't find them.  I didn't know if he would see it, but I wasn't sure what to do.  I didn't have his phone number to ask.  Soon after I got a text that said, "Hello mother we are in the Jesse Knight Building"  Whoops.  No wonder I couldn't find them.  That building was across the street.  That is where the competitions were being held.  The things in the Tanner Building were more just for fun.  When I got there, Jorja was already competing in the character bee, so I didn't get to watch.  She was happy about that.  I helped a few students get to where they needed to go until the different competitions were over.  Then I just followed Jorja and Natalie around while they explored the activities in the Tanner Building.  It was fun for them to run into their Chinese elementary school friends.  Half of the elementary went to a different middle school.  We heard Jazzie was there, but Jorja never saw her.  I left after lunch and before the awards were handed out.  There were five 7th grade immersion classes competing against each other.  Jorja's school won 1st place!  They were pretty excited about that.
Jorja & Mr. Chen
 Natalie, Jorja, Mr. Chen, Ella, Carley
 Jorja's class
Mr. Chen is going to be teaching at a different school next year.  His wife has now finished and they both have jobs as the Chinese immersion teachers at Butler Middle School.  That will be nice for him to be able to work with his wife.  Jorja has had Mr. Chen for three years.  It will be good to have a change.  She has really liked him, but I think they are ready for something different.  Hopefully she likes the next Chinese teacher.  I heard they will be getting two new ones.

I got home from BYU in time to get Stockton and take him back to BYU for diving.  I spent most of the time getting trained on what I need to do for the diving competition coming up at the end of April.  BYU is hosting Regionals and it is quite a big deal.  I am in charge of making signs and lanyards for the coaches/divers.  I can't start on them until the deadline for signups has past though.  I'm hoping Stockton can help me put them together.  That way he can get service hours for NHS.

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