9/13/09
After a stressful, frustrating, but overall satisfying week, I’m starting to have some mixed feelings about China. The way they do things around here makes no sense to me. The school system especially seems inefficient and just plain bizarre. I mainly get these feelings due to my ridiculous schedule. I work at seven different schools five days a week. Most classes begin at 9 AM, but the commute time is an hour, so I’m looking at waking up at 7 AM most mornings. We have about a three-hour lapse of time between our morning and afternoon classes. With that absurd and inconvenient time frame, I eat lunch at school everyday and hang out at my married teacher friends’ house (Josh and Becky) in between classes. My day usually ends around 4 PM, but I don’t get home until 4:30 or 5 because of the extensive time I ride on the metro. This past week I’ve been too tired to do anything after I get home. Hallie and I go to the grocery store, cook, watch DVDs, prepare for the next day, and go to bed by 10-11 PM. I am old.
One of the many joys of teaching young Asians is getting the sweet pleasure of knowing their English names. The best my class has to offer is a certain boy named “Sun.” In China it’s cool to have symbolic names, so I guess this is the reason for these gems: Elf, Boots, Pretty, Fish, and Pink. These are all real names of children that attend kindergartens that we work at. However, I have many Williams, Roberts, Charlies, Cindys, Amys, and Carols. And I also have the borderline names that always give be a good giggle: Bennie, Yvonne, Angel, Calvin, and Robin…for a boy. Johnny, one of my students at Zi Wei, gave me my very first teacher’s present. It was Teacher Appreciation Day and he gave me a sweet card that read, “Best Wishes to My Dearest Teacher. Just for You.” Precious.
On Wednesday night we went to eat dinner with a bunch of our work buddies. Everyone is starting to miss certain American foods and high on the list is Mexican food. So, we went to a half price night at a place called Taco Popo. Yeah, Tex-Mex in China. I ordered a huge plate of nachos and they were pretty good. Other items on the menu looked pretty good, so I’m sure we’ll be back. A funny fact about Taco Popo: We had to take an elevator from the street to get to the restaurant on the 3rd floor. What was on the second floor you ask? Just a club….that was rocking out to Michael Bolton.
Thursday couldn’t have come any sooner. Elliot (fellow CIEE-er who teaches about 30 minutes outside of Shanghai) came into town and we made dinner. Noodles, vegetables and Oreos. We looked up some drink specials and ended up at a questionable bar that we decided not to go into. We ended up meeting up with Josh and Becky (most fun married couple ever) and went to a bar called Mural where we had Carlesburg beer for 50 kuai all night. We had a really fun time together and made friends with some hilarious Asian guys whose dance moves were a mixture of the Robot and someone having a back spasm.
Friday we said goodbye to Elliot and made our first IKEA run. It was huge and overwhelming. But, I got a new blanket and enjoyed a one kuai cone of ice cream. Hallie and I decided to try and go out and make friends on Friday night. Not sure if we’re going to the wrong places or if the expats here just don’t like us, but we’re having a hard time meeting new, normal people. We sat at a table with a bunch of German guys and they were about as boring as Accounting 311. Hopefully we’ll get the hang of this new-friend-making-business soon enough!
Saturday we went to see Thomas Verity play in a rugby tournament. It was pretty much an all day affair. It took about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the fields in Pudong, but was well worth the trip. I enjoyed a large hot dog and was exposed for the very first time to the sport. While I got in over my head in upper man thighs, which is a part of a dude I’m happy without ever seeing, Hallie and I cheered Thomas and the “Shanghai Hairy Crabs” to victory. It was really fun to watch, especially because it was the best looking crop of boys I’ve seen around China since stepping off the airplane (still looking for the cute guy sitting across from me on the airplane…). What was interesting about the tournament was that there was a girls division….scary and weird? Yeah, I think so.
That brings me to today (Sunday). I had my first Sunday classes that took up my entire day. To give you a brief overview, I had an all boys class of about ten 8 year-olds from 8:45-10:15 AM. A boy named Hans, yes another crazy name, was eons above his age group. From 10:30-noon I had my first “Side-By-Side” teaching session where I had a Chinese teacher who translated the whole time. These classes are catered to older students who are learning more than just vocabulary. My first class of SBS was filled with pretty young kids and I felt like I didn’t really know how to teach them the concepts. However, Louie, a brilliant know-it-all, shouted out every correct answer even if I didn’t call on him. Not only did he spit out the answer, but he also spelled out every word he said. After he spelled the word “restaurant” without hesitation, I was pretty impressed. The kid was only 8.
I had lunch with a bunch of Asian teachers who jib jabbed in Chinese while I just sat there, kind of hating life. I was exhausted and was only half way done with my day. Then, I was scooped up by my new SBS teacher, Christina, who took me to my next location. We took a taxi to Gao An where I found my brightest group of students yet. It was so nice to have the book just for reference, because these little kids could have full-on conversations with me in English. They had great questions, we got to talk about interesting topics, and they could READ. Amazing. One of my student’s mothers took Christina and I to Hong Hui for my final class. It was my first time in a native’s car. Best part: the music choice. I don’t think it could have gotten more random than Radiohead’s, “Karma Police.” I mean quite the jam. My last class was awful. The kids were silent and I was so tired. The hour and a half is too long for a bunch of little kids to sit still.
After the class ended, Christina gave me some obscure directions to get to the metro. I wandered around for a solid 30 minutes before I came up to one of many Line 1 metro entrances. I was mad and relieved at the same time. The rest of the night is filled with lesson planning and hoping to get a better night’s sleep. Most of my dreams have involved crime, not sure what that means. Hope for something more pleasant tonight.
I am not re-reading this post due to lack of motivation/my attention span is DONE for the night. My apologies if there are any typos.
Songshu guiyu: Squirrel-shaped Mandarin fish
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