Storm brewing
(The photo – if it loads properly – is of me at my desk in the teachers’ office on the first day of school.)
Looking out my window, I can see the trees bending and swaying in the – for Wuhan – unusual wind. It has been threatening to pour all day. After lunch, during my 5th period class, there was a loud clap of thunder and the power went off, just briefly. The children screamed and everyone, including me, was excited for the momentary delay, except for Julia, my co-teacher. She said in Chinese (and then in English as she saw I was wondering if class would be temporarily delayed), that all was well and that “it didn’t matter” so we should continue with class. Continue we did. It wasn’t hard to get the children back on track because Julia is the head of the English co-teachers and commands serious respect. I explained what “Do not” means and taught that the little mark in between the “n” and the “t” is an APOSTROPHE. The scary part is these 2nd graders nodded as if to say, “Duh!”
My children are extremely bright and very eager to soak up English. They practice with me in the hallways and before and after school. They are still getting used to the new teachers – Lisa, Colin and me – and tiptoe around the office as if they’re in the presence of finicky fairies that might disappear at the drop of a pencil or TIN CUP. (I’ll explain about the tin cup later.)
I’m sorry for being away. The Internet connection has been wonky all weekend and I haven’t been writing and then the power went out yesterday morning and the connection was gone for good right when I most wanted to start posting something. Also, though, I’ve settled into my life here and it will take a bit of adjusting before I can write about my day-to-day activities. Although I’m still flabbergasted by all of the differences in China, the ability to write about them seems to be waning. It’s good news because I’m getting used to the unusual nature of my surroundings (and some of them don’t even seem unusual anymore) but it is terrible because I’m letting a lot of things go by without even jotting notes down. Am sure, as with everything else, I’m experiencing a transition. Before, I was writing a lot so that I could process what was happening to me and now, I’ve got tools for processing as things happen. Good for me, bad for the blog.
I suppose this is the point where writers are truly tested. I’m sure it won’t surprise many of you, but I’ve been seriously contemplating a career in writing – what the implications are and what, concretely, I mean by “writing” or “career”. I’ve found some online opportunities for being published, but the thought of stepping outside of the comfort zone of the blog scares away all the words. In fact, thinking about all of this has scared the words away recently. Maybe I’ll just shelf the idea for a little while longer so I can get back into the habit of writing about this experience, which is what I really want to do right now (more so than contemplating the future…)
And without further ado:
I LOVE TEACHING! It is challenging, it is problem solving (on the spot), it requires creativity, it demands spontaneity and preparedness at the same time, and you get to engage with little people all day long! Here’s how a typical Monday goes from now until the winter holiday (Chinese New Year): the van picks us up from the branch school at 7:30am sharp. We arrive at the main campus around 7:55am. We have breakfast in the cafeteria. The entire school comes together out on the field/track and the flag is raised, the National anthem played, and the English sentence of the week is presented. A different teacher each Monday will present the sentence. Today, Matt presented the following sentence: “Happy Teacher’s Day!” Apparently Teacher’s Day is this coming Saturday. After the school assembly, we have ten minutes to collect our teaching materials and head to class. I, however, don’t have class until 3rd period on Mondays. That means I don’t have an actual class until 10:20am. Today, I prepared for my first to classes by cutting up strips of paper to write English names on.
I had 1B at 3rd period this morning and the only thing we did was present names to the children. Many of these children had English in Kindergarten last year so I only had to give out 15 names. Also, I was discouraged by other faculty/staff from giving “interesting” English names because many of these children will keep their English name throughout life. Do you realize what kind of pressure I was under? I looked into the faces of the unnamed children hoping to have a name call out to me from their eyes. Luckily, many names came to mind after giving the children a good once-over. I suppose I can post them later.
Okay, I just got finished preparing my lesson plans for tomorrow and am wiped out. I wanted to write more, but also wanted to post something before bed, so I think I’ll stop here and at least get this posted. More to come. I’m really starting to feel situated and only today, when we came back from school, I was feeling so linked to my new life! Dinner is served to the boarding children promptly at 5pm so as soon as we got here, we grabbed some bowls and headed to the cafeteria to get dinner. The two newest members of our happy little family – Matt and Alex Bartoloni (brothers from Portland!) – were throwing a baseball and several of the borders came out onto the field to try and join in the game. I feel like I’m in Happyland because I’m always surrounded by the sound of children. I know you’ll get sick of hearing this, but it’s true!
One last thing, can you believe Steve Irwin (The Crocodile Hunter) is dead!?! After all these years of surviving his crazy antics, I was shocked to hear that he succumbed to a relatively docile animal. Very sad and very strange. Russell, the Australian, told me this afternoon. Fitting, I suppose. And I don’t really want to end on that note, so I’ll let you in on a humorous moment from my day: Lisa is teaching grade 6 and while I was scanning her book today, I found a segment in the book where facts are given about a famous person/s and then questions are asked about said person/s. The segment I flipped to was on MILLI VANILLI!?!?! I’ve never seen anything so out of place. Why on earth would English teachers write a book informing Chinese children of the likes and dislikes of one of pop music’s most notorious duos? I suppose I’ll never know, but it was pretty interesting learning that the MILLI who died in a German hotel room from a drug overdose was a Gemini, born two days after my birthday. Since I can’t end this post on a good note, I’m going to quickly talk about the weather and then I’ll go.
It was hot and oppressive today, but the evenings have been more than tolerable and tonight, it was actually cooler OUTSIDE of my room than in. The wind is blowing and billowing and fall is in the air. Clouds are passing over the moon causing it to have an orange-y, unearthly glow (fitting for the MOON, I know). And I’m so excited for the weather snap because I’ll finally be motivated to get out during the middle of the day and get some exploring done. I still know very little about my neighborhood and how to get around the city, but I’ve managed to go on some short trips and have seen many streets worth a walk down. In fact, the street we drive along every morning on the way to the main campus has several large wooden pool tables out on the wide sidewalks and I’ve seen half-naked men playing pool in the early morning shade while they wait for women to serve up steaming bowls of spicy noodles, or cut pieces of fried egg pizza, or pull up deep-fried dough from giant vats of boiling oil. I might never get over how important food is in China. Having gone hungry a couple of days last week due to not having a cooker and not wanting to look for a restaurant in our neighborhood, I understand how being hungry will make you obsess over food, horde it even. And I’m only talking hunger for a day or a day and a half.
Apparently I wasn’t quite ready to sign off. Now I’m finished for tonight. The children are darling, school is great, life is good.
