In which I wax eloquent about stuff of very little import...

The other day, G-man and I were talking about how China is safer, in many ways, than America is.  At least it is for me as an American.

At least, the dangers are different.

See, I'm not worried about things like walking across campus by myself at night.  (Partly because there are guards at the gates and students' curfew is around 9:45.) 

On the other hand, there is always stuff like your van nearly driving into one of the supports for an overpass when you're on a holiday trip to Shenyang.  Which could happen in America too, but is more likely to occur in China, I think.  Or your bong bong could drive into -- well, anything -- and be obliterated.  Which would not happen in America, because bong bongs would never make it onto the road.

However, tonight I figured out the real danger of China.

Pieces of my kitchen ceiling flake down whenever I boil water, loosened by the steam.  In the event that I happen to leave cup without a lid sitting out on the counter, it's entirely possible that said pieces will fall into the cup.  It is also possible that I will later be extremely thirsty and forget that a chunk of ceiling has fallen into the cup, fill it up without looking, chug most of the liquid, and then realize that maybe the odd taste was connected with the suspiciously soggy plaster-like substance that was adhering itself to the bottom of my cup.

Yeah, gross.

In other news, two things that make me question how much my identity is changing...

1)  Tonight I found myself thinking, Wow, this hook would look good affixed to my door.  The backing for the hook is shaped like an apple.  And is sparkly.  And has a smiley face on it.  I haven't stuck it there yet, but I'm still thinking about it.  This is how the new teachers end up inheriting apartments covered with random hooks all over the place, I guess.

2)  I used to not be able to do an Asian squat (feet flat on the ground) at all, even though it can be maintained for way longer than the American squat.  And then suddenly, one day, I realized that I was doing it without really having practiced or meant to.  And now it's feeling more and more natural.

I would love it if the language kicks in in the same way.

Some weeks are crazily intense, with all of us trying to catch each other up on stories of students asking questions that we were shocked by.  We call them Philip moments.  That was this past week.

And then there are weekends.

Today we had a seder dinner, which was awesome.

And ate the best goubarou (a pork dish) in Changchun... which is saying something, since that is a specialty.

And went grocery shopping.

And watched Les Miserables.

And hung out with a Chinese bro who's back for the weekend, catching each other up on the past few months, retelling old stories, and making ourselves laugh until we were nearly in hysterics.

I love my job.

Happy Easter, y'all.

Fun note:  The Chinese word for "Easter" is "fuhuojie" -- "return to life holiday".  

Two things that make me laugh

1)  Conversations that I hear in passing that go like this:

"Chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese  chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese chinese oh okay."

2)  The fact that, when time is announced, the announcement starts with "Beijing time is..."

The entire country (minus perhaps some few very out of the way rural areas) is on the same time zone.

Best of... Answers to a quiz talking about families.

One thing that you learned from your family:

Speak Chinese. [Well played, Autina, well played...]

My father don't say many words but he always take care of me and love me.

My parents taught me something. [I felt like this lacked a certain specificity.]

One thing you appreciate about your family:

Because of them, I understand what is love and how to love.

My family have advanced minds.

When I was in trouble, my family give me a warm "harbor"

One thing you'd like to change about your family:

I want to fed a dog but my father disagree. So I want to change it and have a dog.

I want my parents don't give my two younger sisters too much homework.

Making the house bigger and my family members healthier.

My family have four dogs. I don't like it. Because they are so many, I want to have one dog in my family.

Nothing, I think it's perfect.

More communication and less loudly speaking.

I want to make our family have more topic.

I want to eat more dilicious food.

I'd like an animous in my hourse. [I am pretty sure that this was talking about a pet...?]

Just eat it anyway!

What to say...

It was quite a weekend.

There are no shortage of stories, everything from an impromptu English Corner in one of the sketchiest train stations I've ever been in to the most awesome ticket collector I've had the pleasure of being served by.  

It made me feel like an adult... and like a real teacher... to be able to travel during the weekend and go see friends in another city.

It was great to get out of my own city, off of my own campus, for a day and a half.

It was a very China-ish weekend too, full of very little in the way of plans and things somehow working out and a lot of everyone getting to meet friends of friends and eating.  

It makes me appreciate my team a lot more, too, to find that after being gone for such a short period of time I was still super excited to get back and see them.  (And super props to Mel for going along with me to hang out with people who she didn't have much connection with!)

It was fun to feel like I was in the middle of the group, older than the CSP students and able to remember my experiences with what they're going through now; younger than the two men who have spent more time in China.  

There were plenty of challenges and things to think about, plenty of laughter and new memories as well as retelling of old stories.

It was a good weekend.  And now it's time to launch into week 4 and looking towards Easter.  

:)

45 minutes

In the course of 45 minutes today, I...

Discussed science, surgery, and Grey's Anatomy with my student Quinton, as well as arrangements for his homework for the semester.

Clarified details about next week's presentation assignment with Coco and Mary.

Heard about Blair's internship that she got over the winter holiday.

Eaten lunch with my students Sosy, Sky, and Wendy... and had their plans for their afternoon class explained to me, which involved how they would sit so they could copy answers from each other.

Ran into my student Allison, who didn't really answer my question... not sure if that was because she was thrown by speaking English outside of the classroom or because today is suddenly very cold and she was freezing to death.

Ran into Luther and Peter... and decided that apparently Peter only believes in English in the classroom.  Which is odd, because it's not bad there.

Seen my student Antonia... and been thrown a bit off kilter myself by her hat which was sporting a bold design of what is definitely a marijuana leaf.

Set up plans with Bridge for dinner this evening.

It's a busy semester!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

And in celebration of the green, the grass (such as it is) has appeared outside!  It's FORTY-FIVE degrees here and people were actually sitting on a bench outside talking.  

Amazing.  

Crist dom imdegail indiu ar neim, ar loscud, ar bádud, ar guin, condom-thair ilar fochraicce. Críst limm, Críst reum, Críst im degaid, Críst indium, Críst ísum, Críst uasum, Críst desum, Críst tuathum, Críst i llius, Críst i sius, Críst i n-erus, Críst i cridiu cech duini immumrorda, Críst i ngin cech oín rodom-labrathar, Críst i cech rusc nonom-dercathar, Críst i cech cluais rodom-chloathar.

I'm thankful for qq videochat and this girl...

for friends who I lived with for a semester, but who I'd cross oceans to see.

She makes me practice more Chinese than any of my other friends... probably because she lived with me when I was studying it...

And I love her so much, but it's so hard to know how to get to her heart when we aren't living in the same room or even the same city.  Aiya.

A few highlights from this week

"We had pet chickens. And we thought that we need showers, so the chicken need showers too." (Some of my friends say really unpredictable things in what was, up to that point, a relatively normal conversation... things that leave me crying from laughing so hard.)

"But in India – do you know in India? – they have a religion that believes in many gods!" (Proof that conversation prompts in class [what are traditions in your family?] sometimes go unexpected places.)

"She is chatting with her boyfriend. Video." [a few minutes later] "Now she is cutting bangs."  (One of my students narrating to me over qq (internet chat) what her roommate was up to.)

"What superpower would you want?"

"Controlling people!"

"Taste all delicious foods."

(Lunch time conversations with students. Honestly, I never know what I'll get from some of them.)

"I forgot who I'm having lunch with..."

"Oh, I will call them. Wait a moment."

(So I was standing around in one of the four dining halls, hoping that my lunch buddies would happen to show up... and eventually asked one of their classmates. Fortunately, she actually knew who I was supposed to be meeting... and called them.)

"Mostly girls like this TV show... so he is a.... very special."

"It's because there are mostly girls in our class, gives us things in common to talk about, so I can understand them!"

(Lunch time conversation with two male students about a historical drama that one of them follows.)

"...but her boyfriend is not like those things."

"Yeah, true."

(Conversation with a few of my girls about what characteristics are important to us in a man and their current boyfriends.)

~~~

This semester is full and crazy, full of conversations about anything and everything.  It is exhausting... and it is a lot of fun, and a lot of opportunities to go deeper with my students.

I miss these kids!!

Captions

Since for some reason my captions like to vanish...

The first picture is my HR class, which has about 37 students.

The second picture is my accounting class, which has about 47.

The third picture is a sign in one of the departments.  Really, one of the highlights of living in China is that you get to be baffled not only by signs in Chinese but also by signs in your native language.

The fourth picture is of one of my office mate's desks.  :)

--
overcome evil with good

Photos :)

HR -- about 37 students

I love GK Chesterton so much.

I just read The Wisdom of Father Brown, a chapter at a time here and there.

Here were the quotes that I actually liked and remembered to highlight

~His theories were extremely complicated and were held with extreme simplicity.

~"What we all dread most," said the priest in a low voice, "is a maze with no centre  That is why atheism is only a nightmare."

~We...said and thought we were in love with each other; at least he certainly said he was, and I certainly thought I was.

~The travellers looked at it with that paradoxical feeling we have when something reminds us of something else, and yet we are certain it is something very different. 

~He could not help, even unconsciously, asking himself all the questions that there were to be asked, and answering as many of them as he could; all that went on like his breathing or circulation  

(This reminded me of several people that I know. my youngest brother among them.)

~For we human beings are used to inappropriate things; we are accustomed to the clatter of the incongruous; it is a tune to which we can go to sleep  If one appropriate thing happens, it wakes uד up like the pang of a perfect chord.

Two Things That Confuse Me

1. When I am crossing a busy road and the group of Chinese people around me decide to use ME as the point person for when to cross. I'm not sure if I should be flattered that apparently I look like I know what I'm doing as much as anyone does, or concerned that I'm the first penguin to be shoved off the cliff. 

2.  When the wonderful water delivery men deliver the two 18.9 liter bottles of water that I ordered... and leave them up against my door that opens OUT. If I had ordered much more water, it would have been a serious challenge to get out of my apartment. 

Which I guess is when I could call a friend. 

:)

Hopes for this semester

I'm asking for a really hard semester.  

Yeah, that sort of seems like a bad idea.

But I want this semester to be hard enough for all of us that our students and co-teachers know that we aren't getting through this on our own strength, so that we have more opportunities to talk about why we're here even (and especially) when it's hard.  I want it to be hard so that we really are forced to rely on Him.  We can do the living-in-China thing most of the time.  We can fall back on our team.  And if we can get through everything on our own... maybe that's not hard enough.

I want it to be a hard semester for my students.  Hard enough to expose the hollow things they believe in as hollow.  Family and self and grades and success are not going to cut it for them throughout the course of their whole life -- and I'd rather have that reality driven home to them sooner rather than later.

So hard is one thing I'm asking for this semester.

The other thing is that it would be full of joy.  That we would be so crazy full of joy in the middle of hard circumstances that the people around us would want that.  

Hard and full of joy.

And in an unrelated update, it is 39 degrees here.  THIRTY NINE.  We have two feet of snow or so... it's gonna be a muddy semester.

Civerlization and the first day back

I'm super excited to be back with my students!!!

And while I love them, it's only day one of the spring semester and already, they make me want to laugh and groan simultaneously. This week they're doing "class evaluations" – which means telling me what they like about learning English, what they don't like, what they want to learn, etc. It's a survey, not a poll. :)

But here, read for yourself, and maybe you'll see what I mean about mixed responses.

What about learning or speaking English are you most excited about?

"...in the class we are very active and practice our oral English."

"Maybe you can make the class more interesting rather than boring talking."

"The class is real fun..."

"I can get a better understand of western culture or even civerlization [sic]."

What about

 learning or speaking English do you like the least?

"learning English"

"Grammar, I hate it."

[this is funny to me because she also said she wants to learn more grammar this semester...and a lot of her classmates listed grammar as one of their favorite things about learning English.]

"I don't like the strange words."

"Grammar. (I guess so does each language!)"

"I like least is learning English." [same kid wrote, "I most excited about speaking English."]

Any other questions/comments

"New term. New expectation."

"I'll work harder this semester."

"You helped me a lot in public speaking. Thank you!"

"Don't want to make speech anymore!"

"I really really really couldn't remember new words."

My thoughts:

Sometimes I get really discouraged because teaching oral English classes is like chapel at Geneva. Most students are dissatisfied with how it's done at least a good chunk of the time, and a good number of the ones who are dissatisfied are vocal about it. Getting the surveys back is good for getting the overview that maybe at least they're not unhappy because it isn't balanced, but because it is. From the same class I got feedback saying that they dislike doing argumentative/public speaking type English, and asking if they could do more.

I rest my case.

For the students who asked me if they can watch films in class/if they can not do public speaking this semester: No. Sorry, you can watch films on your own time or find time to watch them with classmates or with me, but that would be a great way for me to get myself fired. Also, the focus of their class is public speaking... so I'm afraid they're out of luck there too.

It is incredibly encouraging to be thanked by students... especially at the beginning of the semester and not as they walk in to take their final. :)

Sometimes at the end of the day there is not much to say but Oh, civerlization.

Lists

Things I'm excited for in this coming semester:

Spring coming

Tempestt teaching some of the same students who I teach

Getting to teach with more idea of what I'm doing

Spending more time with my students

Laughing with my teammates

Learning more Chinese

Getting the winter coat out of my room!

Not having any classes on Tuesdays.

Things I want to learn to do when I'm in the US:

Drive

Play guitar

Slackline

...more languages.

Things I am not excited about:

Teaching 8 am classes four days a week.

Having 3 classes on Monday.

The fact that there's still about two feet of snow.

Things I'm avoiding doing by making this list:

Cleaning my apartment.

Procrastination works the same way even in China.  :)