Qingdao University Teacher's Fun Run

On Thursday, December 17, 2015, Gary and I were invited to join the Qingdao University Teacher's Fun Run along the beach. Gary was unable to attend because he needed to create 7 different final tests for his classes, so I went without him. I took a university bus with some of the teachers in the Foreign Language department. We started at Shilaoren Beach and walked 7.4 km to Qingdao Polar Ocean World.

As you can see there were a lot of people there to walk and run with us. Each department of the college carries their own flag.

 

This is the flag of the Foreign Language department. I found out that we are now a college, too. 

 

Some of the teachers from our college. 

 

My friend's Kathy Wang and Gretchen Li. I love these ladies. We all teach English in the post-graduate department. I teach speaking and listening. They teach reading and writing. We may be doing a class together during the 2016-17 year called Learning American Culture Through Games. The three of us and one other teacher, Hannah Liu, who could not be there with us, go to lunch every Tuesday together. We talk about a lot of things. It is fun. Instead of taking the bus home, I rode home with them. We have become good friends.

 

This is Dean Li and I. She is the head of the Foreign Language English Department, both the undergraduate and post-graduate. She is such fun.

 

So this teacher is young and she carried our flag. She is very competitive, so she wanted us to run. I ran with her most of the way, but could not run at the end. I think I probably ran 5 km. I am so proud of myself because I don't like to run. With about 1 km to go, I let her run ahead. She ended up getting their first.

What a fun afternoon this was with this wonderful group of teachers. I felt so good afterward. It reminds me why I need to get out and walk every day. They do this every December and I hope to be able to do it every year when we are here. What a great way to support my colleagues and the University who hired me.