Out of My League

9/20/09

Today my kids all wore funny t-shirts. One read, “I’m the cat’s meow” (a Hello Kitty shirt), “Blame My Parents” (my personal favorite), “Love Mouseo for Breakfast” (with a cartoon image of a mouse and cheese), “Brilliant Summer Day” (with a cat and bunny holding hands on a beach), “Applause,” (with pictures of apples across the chest), and “Tricky” (in Halloween colors, not sure if they even know what Halloween is…). We learned about apples, bananas, and coconuts today. Not sure why they need to know about coconuts, I mean who even eats them? “A is for Apple, B is for Banana, C is for Co-co-nut. Apple, Banana, Co-co-nut, they are good for you and me.” I sang that song 10-12 times today. And, I get to sing it tomorrow too. Joy.

It’s interesting to see the dramatic academic difference in kids who are the same age. The classes vary in level. Hallie and I think that schools group them according to level. That, or they have really terrible or awesome teachers. Jazz (the institute we work for) is letting us have a little freer reign when it comes to going to the schools and finding our way on our own. Today they let me hop out of the van and said, “Bye bye Buffy, good luck!” I was like…hm which way is the school? I kinda like when they let me go by myself though.

The whole teaching experience has been pretty bizarre, partly because of the language barrier and also because of the cultural differences. I’ve found myself royally screwed with my scheduling in relation to all the other teachers. Everyone has at least one afternoon off and most have a morning or day for “lesson planning” in addition to days off. What little break do I have? NADA. I’m ridiculously overworked (compared to my co-workers) and I’m having a tough time conveying that to Touba, our waiban. Most teachers teach anywhere from 10-15 hours. I work 19. WTF. (This does not include commute time (an hour each way) and silly time in between classes where I don’t have enough time to do anything worthwhile) All I think is that, this would happen to me because I have the worst luck ever. So, I will not stop until I get a hefty raise or classes cut. My negotiation skills will be put to the test…..re-thinking law school? Just felt my parents get excited. Not going to law school though… =( Need to get on grad school apps though! Eesh…prioritizing my life would be nice. Just because I’m in China does not mean I can forget about my future!

On Tuesday between classes, I bought some gummy bears and was going at them pretty hard, until I realized they were a little stickier/tougher than American gummy bears. I swear I felt a shift from my back, right molar. (For those who don’t know me THAT well, I have a veneer in place of a back molar I lost my sophomore year of high school. Most painful experience getting a route canal, and have had issues in the past with my tooth, well, coming out of my mouth. Funny stories when it happened in Austin, NOT funny if it happened in China.) So, I immediately stopped eating them and was pretty bummed. I guess that’s when you know you’re having a rough day. To finish off our long day, we met up with Thomas and his friends at a wine and tapas place. It was much needed and fun. And prepared us for another day of teaching.

After a ridiculous day at school and schedule negotiating, I just had arguably the most scarring 45 minutes since being in Shanghai. I hop on the metro, like I always do after my last school, and turn on my iPod. A group of high school Asian guys were staring at me, as usual. (Staring is an everyday habit for the Chinese.) While I listened to music, I pondered what they were talking about. Although I can’t understand Chinese, I often think they are talking about my shoes or my freckles. (I am an avid Chacos supporter, and I think Asians think they’re funny looking or something.) While I’m having some alone time, I somehow miss my stop. I swear the metro passed it up! I ended up two stops further than anticipated and by some miracle ended up getting to the other side of the station to board the right metro, going the right way. I get off at Shanghai South Railway Station, aka the correct stop, and go nuts on the free “Mister Donut” samples. (Was definitely feeling sorry for myself.) The most shocking thing happened as I was walking home. I’m walking down Liuzhou and hear chickens clucking. I think huh, this is pretty normal until I see a huddle of Chinese men around them with knives, cutting their heads off. (Just got sick to my stomach writing that.) There was a bowl of blood and my jaw dropped…it stayed that way until I got home 15 minutes later. So disgusting, I mean down the street that I live off of….yuck, yuck, yuck!

Hallie and I woke up early on Friday morning to hit People’s Square. We took the metro there and got to walk around and see the scenery. It was a cloudy day, which was a bummer, but it was a little cooler so that was nice. The greenery was really beautiful there. The only annoying thing was the “Tea House” scammers were out on the prowl. We read about them in our guidebooks, but had yet to have an encounter with them until Friday. They are young Asian girls who say, “Hello, where are you from? You so lovely.” Apparently they take you to tea houses and try to charge you a lot of money. Well, we were prepared and not having any of it. I felt kinda rude though giving them the cold shoulder. We ended the day at the Shanghai Museum. It was really nice and fun to see all the different types of art from ancient China. It made me think of how old China is in relation to young America. It contained a collection of sculptures, calligraphy, paintings, currency from over the years, jade pieces, and furniture. After the museums, we took a picture with the Yao Ming wax figure before hopping back on the metro. And THAT was awesome.

Two teachers who have taught here for a year, Emily and Paige, invited us to a house warming party and we went to that on Friday night. Hallie and I tried to teach everyone “King’s Cup” and it didn’t work out too well. The crop of people here are just plain random. Most of the teachers are really nice, but friends of friends start getting really foreign and pretty bizarre. Anyway, we had fun and it was nice to have people to share our frustrations with.

We polished off Season 5 of “Weeds” and I just started “The Time Traveler’s Wife.”

Sanmingzhi: Sandwich. I want one so bad.