Life application?

We were on an extremely bumpy and loud bus driving through the city, across the aisle from each other.

"Hey, Hannah!"

"Yeah?"

"This morning I was reading in Psalm 68 or 69 and it was talking about how the rebellious live in a dry land... but He makes it rain on the land where His people live."

"Oh?"  I wasn't sure where this was going or if it was just a report.  We both had pulled out devices at this point and were looking through the Psalms trying to find exactly what he was talking about.

...the rebellious dwell in a parched land...

Rain in abundance You shed abroad,

You restored Your inheritance as it languished,

Your flock found a dwelling in it.

(Ps 68:6, 9, 10)

"And I was thinking," he said, "how that's like today.  We were going to go camping but instead it's raining and the ground is all wet.  But we're His people.  It's like that."

I was still scanning the passage around those verses.  

"Hopefully Psalm 69 isn't for tomorrow.  Save me! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, wehre there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me."

Today we're going camping, hopefully without swimming lessons.  

:)

Reasons I love my HR class...

1.  They are so easy to scandalize.  The first time they came over, I fed them raw broccoli (which I still hear about sometimes when we eat in the dining hall...)  Tonight, it was being barefoot outside.

2.  They all tell me how cold it is.  ARE YOU KIDDING??  It's 54 degrees!!  That's about eighty degrees warmer than it is two thirds of the year here!

3.  When my dvd player would only play movies in Chinese with Chinese subtitles, they decided that we should do something else.  Like play games outside.

4.  They are the only class that I trust to leave in my apartment while I over a stairwell and up six flights of stairs to get a frisbee...  with just the instructions, "Lock the door when you come out!  I'll see you outside!"

I'm pretty fond of them.  ^_^

Still not sure how to feel...

Last semester I blogged about how my classes make me think of the song Seven Things, especially the line, You make me laugh/You make me cry/I don't know which/Side to buy and it is still true.  Tonight a bunch of students from one class came over and set a record for how soon I said, "Okay, thanks for coming, goodbye!" (about an hour.)  

On the one hand... there were a LOT of them.   Twenty six or so, I think.  They're rowdy in the best of circumstances.  Several of the guys have good English with a surprisingly extensive vocabulary, which includes a lot of swear words.  The students in one room were playing a version of truth or dare which is really just dare, and the dares were getting out of hand.  The other room was playing a slapping game, which is okay in some settings but not the best in an apartment where other teachers may not appreciate that much noise.  

On the other hand, after I left, I found that they had written notes on my kitchen walls with the whiteboard markers -- "I love you!" and "你最美" (you're beautiful).  And they are the first class to decide to use the post-it notes and sharpies hanging in my hallway.  So now, on the wall along with all of the notes of things that I'm thankful for, there are notes from some of my students.  Good health, hood cheer, best wishes for you and The first time I have a good time with my classmates and foreign teacher together, really... thanks and of course, from the girls, I love you.

So they make me bananas sometimes, but they're also the same students who wrote some of the best deepest fear poems.  They can be punks, but they're also my punks this year.  

And that, my friends, is life.

Deepest fear part 2

These are from my last class, broken up by which student wrote it.  The last one is very... different.  I'm very curious about what goes on in that student's head.

My deepest fear is someone I care leave me away,

and I got no reason,

I don't know why the person leave me away.

I afraid to ask anyone for help,

because I think maybe someone I asked unwilling to help me,

and don't care me.

It happened long ago.

You know the life is lonely

because people is a one not many.

My deepest fear is that my friend don't care me.

My deepest fear is my love be hurt.

My deepest fear is lose my friend.

It's very terrible.

I can't stand it.

But I love them.

My deepest fear is that I say something but no person can understand.

My deepest fear is that I haven't know about myself.

My deepest fear is that I am not aware of my behavior.

My deepest fear is that people like families and friends

can't understand me for my strange thoughts.

My deepest fear is that my friends leave me alone.

My deepest fear is that people I love don't need me now.

My deepest fear is that my parents are ill.

My deepest fear is that stay at darkness alone.

It has happened before, but I can't do anything.

I can only let it has its swing.

My deepest fear is that I will grow up.

My deepest fear is that I have no friend.

My deepest fear is that I still here alone

My deepest fear is everyone are very happy,

but only me at a sad corner.

My deepest fear is because of some of my words

hurt the people who I love.

My deepest fear is that lots of cars

go across me when I stand in the center street.

It may be one car can make me die.

My deepest fear is that my parents is getting old.

My deepest fear is that someday in the future

I will live alone.

My deepest fear is that I don't have power to fight

Against with dark.

My deepest fear is when I say something is true

People don't believe me,

But when I tell a lie

They will believe.

My deepest fear is that I don't know how to do.

It happened, everything will be out of control.

My deepest fear is that my love leaving from me.

My deepest fear is that nobody company me

Leave me alone in the darkness.

My deepest fear is that the word I want to tell you

But I am fearing.

My deepest fear is that I think everything is wonderful

But true is not like that I want.

My deepest fear is that the distant between you and me.

My deepest fear is that we meet again finally

But we don't know to talk something.

My deepest fear is that the disappointed eyesight from your eye.

My deepest fear is that I regret.

My deepest fear is that my word will hurt you.

I'm hard working and hard working with improve.

Do you believe it or not?

And I'm ugly and short and don't good at sport.

But who care about it?

One day, I can be the one.

Or just evil.

Who can tell me what is most success?

I afraid, afraid that I have nothing.

And lonely forever.

Don't care. Maybe I just a cheater.

Deepest Fears

This week in class we're talking about creativity, risks, and fears that hold us back. So I stole an activity from Tempestt, writing "deepest fear poems." I wrote about one of my deepest fears – seeing someone I love be hurt and not being able to do anything about it, about my responsibilities that go along with that, and what I hope in when I'm afraid. After I read that, then my students had the job to write their own.

Here are some excerpts from today, a compilation of pieces from one class of sophomores.

My deepest fear is that someone will ask me for help, but I can't go.

It has happen.

My deepest fear is losing my relatives.

It has been occurred before.

But I can't handle the fate.

My deepest fear is that someone I love disappear in my life forever.

My deepest fear is betray, leaving.

My deepest fear is that I get a high education but I can't find a good job.

My deepest fear is that I can't know what should I do.

But I'm just a little girl.

I can't know something that is bad for me.

My deepest fear is making my friends hurt.

My deepest fear is that I was not brave.

My deepest fear is that facing difficulties not brave enough and I always escape.

My deepest fear is that I see ghastful movie.

My deepest fear is that I was alone very late at night.

My deepest fear is lost someone I care.

It has happened before.

Sometimes, I recalled them, but no relation.

Just missing.

My deepest fear is that I don't make my parents have a good life.

My deepest fear is that make my mother sad.

It has happened before.

In that time I was afraid of many things.

I was so young and there is to many things

I don't understand and I don't know how to deal with it.

My deepest fear is that I will be lost in a strange place.

My deepest fear is that someone will need me and I won't know.

My deepest fear is let the people get hurt that the one loved me

But I can't help or do something for them.

My deepest fear is that my friend don't speak with me

And I don't know what happened.

My deepest fear is that my brother become bad.

My deepest fear is that I won't stay together with my boyfriend.

My deepest fear is that my family needs me

But I can't go home together with them.

My deepest fear is that I hurt the people

Who love me and care me.

My deepest fear is that I want to help others

But I don't know what I should do.

My deepest fear is that my best friend deceive me.

It has happened before.

She cheated me seriously ever.

For benefits, for honor.

At that time I was hurt severely.

But now I forgive her.

I know she had a reason

And she had trouble then.

My deepest fear is that I am here.

My deepest fear is that what happened in my hometown

and I won't know.

My deepest fear is letting me know the people I love be hurt.

It has happened before.

But I can't stay with them and help them.

My deepest fear is that I lost something important

But I don't know.

My deepest fear is that I don't trust anyone one day besides me.

My deepest fear is that I don't have the choice to do thing I want.

If I hurt the people I love someday, I will induce the twice pains.

My deepest fear is that everything I think can come true

But will never come true.

My deepest fear is someone who care about and love me leave me.

My deepest fear is to lose, such as people, love, friendship and others I care about.

It's my duty to be a good daughter,

Because my parents have been contributing so much for me.

I tell myself

Work hard, don't let dream just dream, come it true.

Quotes from The Fault in Our Stars

A few weeks ago after fellowship I cornered Depreena and Jonathan and explained to them that I was in dire need of books.  They fully recognized what a serious problem was and quickly lent me some books.

I have great teammates.

Anyway, one of the books that Depreena lent me was The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.  I hadn't been super eager to read it before -- I think I'm kind of snobby when it comes to reading young adult fiction kind of stuff -- but it was good.  It was also very sad.  

Here are the quotes that I really liked.  Some because I agreed, some because I disagreed, and some because they made me smile.

"Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer.  But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer.  Depression is a side effect of dying.  (Cancer is also a side effect of dying.  Almost everything is, really.)

And I wondered if hurdlers ever thought, you know, This would go faster if we just got rid of the hurdles.

I liked Augustus Waters.  I really, really, really liked him.  I liked the way his story ended with someone else.  I liked his voice.  I liked that he took existentially fraught free throws.

"Pretty great," I agreed, although it wasn't, really.  It was kind of a boy movie.  I don't know why boys expect us to like boy movies.  We don't expect them to like girl movies.  [Funny sidenote:  this was referring to V for Vendetta.  This past week, one of my (male) students asked me if I had watched it and told me it's a great movie.]

I felt a certain unbridgeable distance between us.  I think my school friends wanted to help me through my cancer, but they eventually found out that they couldn't.  For one thing, there was no through.

I stopped when I heard violent sobbing on the other end of the line.  "Are you okay?" I asked.

"I'm grand," Augustus answered.  "I am, however, with Isaac, who seems to be decompensating."

"Well, to be fair," I said, "I mean, she probably can't handle it.  Neither can you, but she doesn't have to handle it.  And you do."

"Sometimes people don't understand the promises they're making when they make them," I said.

Isaac shot me a look.  "Right, of course.  But you keep the promise anyway.  That's what love is."

As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.

"I want to have scrambled eggs for dinner without this ridiculous construction that a scrambled egg-inclusive meal is breakfast even when it occurs at dinnertime."

"You've gotta pick your battles in this world, Hazel," my mom said.  "But if this is the issue you want to champion, we will stand behind you."

"Quite a bit behind you," my dad added.

The weird thing about houses is that they almost always look like nothing is happening inside of them, even though they contain most of our lives.

You have a choice in this world, I believe, about how to tell sad stories, and we made the funny choice.

The urge to make art or contemplate philosophy does not go away when you are sick.  Those urges just become transfigured by illness.

Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew what Augustus was doing.  You clench your teeth.  You look up.  You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but A Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close, and you look at the person who loves you and smile.

"You are fairly smart," I said after a while.

"You are fairly good at compliments," he answered.

"Grief does not change you, Hazel.  It reveals you."

Why Do I Love My Students?

Reason #1:

Sometimes I can't get the keyboard to switch between Chinese and English when I want it to.  This is annoying, and it is also somewhat embarrassing when it's in the middle of class and the document that I'm trying to type in is being projected on a screen and all of my students are looking at it.

Also, Chinese classes are notorious for sitting there and watching while problems happen.  Not getting involved is part of the culture... a part that is frustrating to foreign teachers sometimes.

However, this is a story about why I (really do) love my students.

After what was probably only a few seconds of me trying and failing to change the keyboard, my monitor for the class, Sky, jumped up.  I don't remember if I've talked about him before.  He is very enthusiastic, very friendly, very loud, and not very good at English.  Nevertheless, he's high on my list of favorite monitors.  

"I CAN HELP YOU!" he announced to me, scrambling over the students between his seat and me, and then proceeded to do exactly that.  

Problem solved.

So easy.  

I really, really appreciated the fact that he did not wait until I wanted to cry before offering to help.

Reason #2:  

Tonight the students who came over to watch a movie brought a bunch of fruit with them.  I pulled out plates and bowls so that we could pass it around and eat it, and then got to a yellow melon like thing that I wasn't sure what it was or what to do with it.

I considered just forging ahead and chopping it open, but then I decided that was dumb.  My students know me well enough to know that I have very gaping holes in my ability to deal with the(ir) world.

So I grabbed it and marched back out to the living room (well, marched may be an exaggeration, since it's only about four steps) and held up the whatever-it-was.  "WHAT IS THIS?" I asked, using my teacher voice so that they would hear and answer me.  "I don't know what to do with it!"

"It's a melon!" someone said, and probably got smacked for that answer, before the smacker concluded that they didn't know how to say it in English either.  (Probably for the good reason that it's a Chinese food....) 

"I'LL DO IT!" Ross said, taking it out of my hands and back out to the kitchen, where he proceeded to confidently chop off some of the rind, scoop out the seeds, and slice it up like a cantaloupe. 

Perfect.

Reason #3:

"You majored in Greece and philosophy, right?" Wisdom asked me before class this morning.

"Yeah," I said, because that was close enough.  

He looked pleased.  "Okay.  I'm reading about philosophy because I will come to your office, you know?"

"Um... yeah?"

"So that we can talk about it."

"Oh.  Wisdom, it's okay, we can talk about anything," I said.  Coming to talk to me in my office was one of their options to fulfill a homework requirement this semester, but I didn't really expect them to do a research project to prepare.

He gave me a Wisdom-ish look.  "A few weeks ago we had lunch together, remember?"  (Yes, I did.)  "And you really enjoyed talking about the topics of the, uh, philosophy.  So I am reading about it."

"Okay," I said, not really wanting to discourage that either.  Having conversations about the meaning of life is kind of why I was interested in getting a degree in philosophy in the first place.   "Cool.  When do you want to come to my office?"

"Oh, I don't know," he said, wandering off.  (That is also very typical for Wisdom...)  "When I finish studying about it, then I will call you.  Okay?"

"Okay."

Seriously, with students like those... who wouldn't love them?

Truth is, I feel very blessed to have the classes that I do, especially in the Non-English department.  According to my teammates, my students are more crazy than theirs... I haven't seen them, so I don't really have much to compare them with.  But I love the craziness and even the loudness (most of the time).  

[Oh, bonus story, the thing that made me laugh myself into speechlessness and tears in the middle of class today...  all the students were supposed to speak during one activity, and Web hadn't.  His English and confidence levels are both pretty high, so I'm comfortable picking on him a lot.

me:  "Web!  What group are you in??"

Web:  "Nine!"  *hand gesture for six*

me:  *very VERY confused... staring at him*

all of his classmates:  *equally confused*  "Nine?  Shi liu! [it's six!]"

me:  *cracking up*

Web:  *blushing*  "Nine!"  *hand gesture for seven*

me:  *DYING*

...so then his classmates made him practice what the hand gesture is for nine while I tried to regain my composure.]

I'd invite you to my home!!

Today I spent about an hour being interviewed by my friend Simon about differences between Chinese and Americans in relationships. Probably the most telling moment came when we were discussing travel plans and he invited me to visit his hometown, which led to a huge discussion about cultural differences in hospitality.

说什么？(Say what?)

"Best of" answers from another quiz.

What is the "honeymoon" stage in crossing cultures?

We just love each others, and flow flowed the river.

What does "culture shock" mean?

It means that some culture in nowadays hit the culture in ancient or many years ago.

One culture splash to another culture.

A condition of disorientation affecting someone who is suddenly exposed to unfamillar culture or way of life or set of attitudes. [think she used the dictionary on her phone?]

different culture. Burn into sparks.

It's a kind of culture that shock you!

Can't fusion, don't like it.

Everything is awful and unendurable.

You can't be able to do anything in another country. What make you angry.

What did you learn about Easter?

They dislike rice and have blue eyes.

Celebrate harvest. A lot of delicious food.

They eat with the knife. They don't like talking about personal things.

The people will labber to others. [I have no clue what "labber" meant.]

Turkey. Christmas carol.

Talk about sb first to talk about the weather. Eat food shouldn't eat a bowl. Everyone should have a bowl.

People eat eggs and it's the God dead day.

Easter Festival we should thanks for the people even though they are our enemys. And eggs are important to Easter.

Reasons your friend didn't show up to meet you.

She had anything else to do.

Meet a beautiful girl and forget time.

Example of "social rest":

crowded transportation

How do you deal with problems?

I will deal with problems by communicating and have a cold head.

I usually to find policeman when I have problems.

Random Stories

Story #1:

One of my office mates was asking me if we use honey in America.  Several of the women in my office have a large container of honey on their desks to sweeten drinks with.  I said Yes, we also use it in drinks, and then added that we also spread it on bread.

I don't think I've ever seen a Chinese person looked so shocked by anything that I said.  She was caught between gasping, laughing, asking me if that was really true, and declaring that she was going to try it.

Glad to be such a horizon-broadening person...

Story #2:

It was three hours after class when I thought to myself, Maybe Charles playing with a butterfly knife in class should have concerned me a little more.

I mean, I told him to put it away because it was being distracting and he kept dropping it, and I was afraid that he was going to slice his own hand open...

But that was it.

However, I decided that if he is messing around with it in class next week, I'm going to confiscate it.

"You don't have authority to do that," Bridge protested when I asked her if students were allowed to have knives like that.

I'm pretty sure that if I can take cellphones away, I can also take butterfly knives...

"Do you speak Chinese?"

This is one of the most frequent questions that I get from students, along with Can you use chopsticks? (do I look like I'm starving?) and Do you like China? (do you think I would have come back if I didn't?) and Do you have a boyfriend? (no).  

It is not the most straightforward one to answer though.  My general answer is "A little."  However, students' interpretation of what "a little" means varies drastically.  My spoken Chinese is honestly really pathetic and something that I need to invest a lot of time in if I plan to come back to China for longer.  My comprehension of Chinese is better and has definitely improved this year, but there are always a lot of variables, like what the topic of conversation is and how much context I have and how thick the speaker's accent is.  

I have always operated a lot by trying to understand the context, no matter what language is being spoken, and I definitely exploit that in listening to Chinese.  When Cassie and Alicia and Jonathan and I were hanging out last week, looking at pictures from traveling, Alicia pulled up her pictures from Macao.  She and Cassie were discussing something in Chinese and these are the pieces of that conversation that I understood.

"Xibanya" [Spain]

"bu zhidao zenme shuo..." [I don't know how to say it...]

"It was settled" (see, I'm forgetting English... I meant colonized!) "by Portugal," I said.  "The English name for that country is Portugal...."

"You understood us?"  Cassie asked, floored.

Yeah, not really.  I understood that the context was Macao and then they were talking about something related to Spain that they didn't know how to say in English and I made a wild guess that it was Portugal.

Welcome to my life in China.  

Two more moments from today.

At lunch with some of Depreena's students, Jan was astounded that I knew the word la (spicy -- a VERY important word to know when ordering food) and that I knew the word suan (sour) was part of the compound word for yogurt -- "suan nai"... literally "sour milk".  (Appetizing, right?)

"Can you read Chinese?" she asked, pointing at a sign in the dining hall to test my abilities.  "What do the yellow ones say?"

[Please bear in mind that she is a freshman student having an extended, lunch-long conversation about a variety of subjects with us in English, and clearly is quite competent.  My Chinese is nowhere near that level of proficiency.]

"Um, fruit," I said, chickening out of trying to say it in Chinese even though I think I know the words for both of the characters.  

"WOW," Jan said, looking at me with a lot of shock.  "Your Chinese is so good."

"Jan," Depreena said firmly.  We're trying to teach critical thinking skills along with spoken English, and this was a great opportunity.  "It's a fruit stand."

Which is precisely how I had learned those characters... from seeing them hundreds of times on fruit stands.  

Anyway, that was lunch... impressing someone else's students with how awesome my Chinese is.  

Then there was dinner.

At dinner I was eating with my student Lola and a few of her friends.  

"Do you go outside to shop?" they asked.  I'm not sure how they think it's possible I would have been on campus since August and not gone outside the gate to a store.

"Yes, of course," I said.

"ALONE?" they asked, eyes widening.  

"Yeah," I said.  Going to Qinhuangdao alone would have been interesting, but I'm pretty confident in my ability to get to the nearby markets and back without mishap.

They marveled for a minute about how difficult this must be since I can't speak Chinese and since communication is so important (guess what class was about this week... yes, communication) and so on.

I tried defending myself. "I can say some things."  I can never remember which classes think I'm fluent and which ones think I know no Chinese.

"For example...." said Lola.

"Things like how much does it cost and that's too expensive!" I said, an answer which usually they laugh at and are satisfied with.

"But not everyone speaks English," she said.

I laughed.  "In Chinese I can say those things, of course," I told her, and then had to demonstrate to prove it.  She still wasn't very convinced and the next questions were about if I knew how to get back to campus when I went out.

Yes... taxis in Changchun are not too rare and I can say Huaqiao WaiYuar like a native DongBeiRen (north-easterner).  Okay, well maybe not quite like a native, but it does generally get me back to campus.

Do I speak Chinese?

Still open to debate, obviously.

difficulty that drives

Rob Gifford's China Road remains by far the best book I've read about China: good stories and very truthful.

For one of our Wheaton classes, we had to write about what the most significant part in the book for us was.  I wrote about the end of the chapter "Women Hold Up Half the Sky."  I thought it was poignant then, and the words have been floating around in my mind ever since.

The context is the author, Rob Gifford, interviewing a girl who works at a KTV (karaoke) bar.  Her job is to accompany patrons -- to sing, chat, dance, and for a higher price to accompany a man to his hotel room.  Gifford was asking about her life.

We often fail to see that Chinese people are living, breathing, loving, hating individuals, who do things for complex psychological reasons, just like Westerners.  And as Wu Yan sits talking about her life, her story doesn't have that standard tone, which says, "I must do this or I won't be able to eat."  She is slightly laconic, and cynical and angry.

"So why are you working here?" I eventually ask her.

There is a long pause.

"There was a boy..." She pauses again for a long time, rattling the dice in the cheap plastic cup.  "Wo ting xihuan de... who I liked a lot."  She is looking at the floor.

"But he liked another girl."  She stops shakring the dice, then looks up at me with large, hurt eyes.  There is a long silence as I try to compute what she is saying.

"So... you're... doing this to punish him?  ...Or to punish... yourself?"

She doesn't answer but reaches out her arm to me, the palm of her hand facing up.  There are two jagged scars on her lower arm, as though her wrist had been cut.  She looks angrily into my eyes.

"It's difficult being a person, isn't it?" she asks finally.

I look at her and nod slowly.  She shakes the cup with the dice inside and slams it down on the table.

The last thing that he records Wu Yan saying -- It's difficult being a person, isn't it? -- are words that have haunted me for months.  

It is difficult.  And that is a good thing.

In the movie adaptation of City of Joy, one of the characters tells another, "Maybe the world is meant to break your heart.  From the moment we're born, we're shipwrecked, struggling between hope and despair."

It makes me think of Paul's words:

And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined alloted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek Him, in the hope that they might feel their way towards Him and find Him.

Over and over, from my students and my friends, I hear the repeating theme that it is difficult to be a person.  There is the pressure of family and academic tests, the pressure to rise above the hard life that many of their parents have known, the stress of human relationships and all the normal craziness of being in college.  There is a void that many of them acknowledge, as China becomes more modern and farther away from the traditions that many trusted in for centuries.  A lot of them have questions about what the meaning of life is; some ask outright and others just tell stories about the way their lives are now and their voice aches.

Last night I was chatting with a friend on qq, and in the middle of the conversation, she said, "So it's hard to being human beings."

Yes, it is.  But it is a hardness we need so that we realize our need for Hope. 

Chinese maintenance... More like POSTventitive than preventative.

Door doesn't open? Chip out the concrete pad.

Friday Dinner

On Wednesday, my student Peter and I made plans to have dinner together on Friday evening.

This afternoon he called me, asking if it was okay if he brought a friend.  Of course, I said.  

This evening he came to my apartment building to pick me up and walk me to dining hall IV.  Which was additionally sweet as there are several inches of new snow outside.  We went to the dining hall (the farthest one from my apartment, but the closest to the guys' dorms).

"What?  Peter, your friends are Ansel and Savis?  They're your classmates!  Why didn't you tell me that?"

He laughed.

So the four of us ate dinner together, and I had a great time.  They're from the class that I'm most comfortable with (yes, I heard about the Waterbottle Incident), and we talked about a lot of things -- English, travel, families, future plans, the weather.  We joked and teased a lot.  I think that one reason I enjoy their class so much is that I feel like I am their teacher in class and their friend outside of class.  I can be absurd with them at dinner and be comfortable with them and feel like I'm hanging out with friends and not like this is something that it is just my duty to do.

Probably my favorite conversation:

Peter:  "Hello, Keeler."  [which is how he gets my attention even in the middle of conversations]  "Do you like small things?"

me:  *totally bewildered*  *looks at Savis and Ansel to see if they understand*

Savis and Ansel:  *look at Peter blankly*

Peter:  *goes on to explain*

me:  "Oh, like jewelry!  Ah.  Okay.  Well, most of my jewelry has some meaning to me.  Like this necklace, I got the first time I came to China.  And this bracelet, my roommate in China gave to me so that I would remember her.  And this other bracelet, a friend in Thailand gave to me so that I would remember them."

Ansel:  *without missing a beat*  "I'll give you a bracelet!"

me:  "Yeah, then I'll remember you forever!"

Ansel:  "We can all give you bracelets, then --" *motions to bracelets covering my entire arm*

me:  *laughing*

other guys:  "Yeah, he sells bracelets..."

Ansel:  "Yeah!  Do you want bracelets?"

Peter:  "I think it's a really good way to start business!"

me:  "Yeah!  So your bracelets, are they beautiful?"

Ansel:  "Yes!  And not as expensive as the supermarket!"

other guys:  "The MARKET!!"

me:  "Yeah, the market -- so are they good quality?"

Ansel:  *something between a loud snort and laugh*

me:  "Well then, okay... that answers that..."

Peter:  "I told one of my friends to buy an umbrella from him... and it broke on the second day!"

me:  "Um... okay Ansel, I appreciate your honesty, but I don't think I will buy anything from you."

After dinner, Ansel and Peter walked me the entire way back to my dorm.  Such gentlemen!  (Even though they argued over if a gentleman would SAY that he is a gentleman or not...)

Anyway... I really love and enjoy my students.

text messages

Snapshots of my life from my phone.

SOS!  jonathan said no break time today!

[from one of his students; this totally messed up our plan for pulling an April Fool's joke on him.]

we were so happy this eveing, thank you and Tempestt.  I hope to visit your apartment Again.  Linda

[from one of the 30+ students who jammed into an apartment for an Easter party/games night]

That is UNBELIEVABLY amazing!!!!!  "Coincidental" surprise specially planned for Easter!

[from a brother who was not thrilled that it was snowing here on Easter... and then we talked about Is 1:18]

Oh oh I know teacher sank you sank you

[from Emily (another teacher), after we were talking about the fact that /s/ and /th/ is a significant pair in English... something that our students know but have a lot of difficulty with.]

Send me a message when you get there and on the train safely.  Call if you have any trouble.

[from a friend in QHD, since Mel and I were leaving quite late... it was just super thoughtful.]

Notice:  Dear Ms. Hannah, tomorrow evening there will be a mysterious package to your apartment.  (Contain Phoenix. Iris. Donna. Vicky. Kiro. Ashely.)  Massage (sic) passed by deliverywoman Phoenix.  AHAAAAAAAA...

[Phoenix got points for the most creative RSVP-ing.]

Oh no!  time to buy a new one...?

[Mel, after I texted her to tell her about what happened in class this morning... possibly one of my worst in-class ideas ever.  One of the vocabulary terms was "heavy sleeper."  To demonstrate, I decided to drop my water bottle.  I mean, it's a Camelbak waterbottle that I've had since my freshman year of college and has been through many miles of adventures and many falls and served me faithfully.  It cracked and water went everywhere... much to the amusement of both me and my students.  But yeah... time to buy a new one.]

These Crazy Kids

During presentations:

V: Why do you like your school?

S: You asked me to say so.

T: Personally I'm not very homosexual.

Q: Very?

G: So... a little bit?

"In order to be environmentally friendly, I made an e-manuscript."

&

"If everyone learns to be a manager, who will be employees?" ~ Q

During a normal class:

We were talking about some terms related to schedules, habits, and personality, such as "power nap," "night owl," "heavy sleeper"... and so on.

Jack Black (who has incredible English): to Oliver "Ni shi night owl!" [You're a night owl!]

me: "Ni shi night owl???? Speak English!"

Gaston and Charles sit in the front row and are not very quiet.

me: introducing the concept of things central to your identity

Gaston: to Charles "Shenme yisi?" [What's it mean?]

me: "SHH, I'm going to explain."

Charles: laughing at Gaston for me yelling at him "Tingdong le –" [She understood/caught that]

me: "Yes. Now STOP SPEAKING CHINESE!!!!!"