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Published: September 11th 2008
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the school
olympic pencils! The internet here hasn’t been working all week, but it’s back now.
Yesterday was a Chinese holiday called “teachers’ day”. As the name would suggest, it’s a day of appreciation for teachers. The kids all came to school with flowers and gifts for us yesterday. It felt like it was my birthday or something. Most of the kids just brought single flowers, some real and some plastic. However, many kids also brought gigantic bouquets of flower. Each office at the school is shared by at least five or six teachers, and all of the offices are crowded with beautiful flowers right now. The smell walking into the offices is intense. Some of the students also brought us items such as traditional Chinese souvenirs, chocolates, moon cakes, and memorabilia from the Olympics.
I need to work on being a little more strict with my kids. Earlier this week I was playing a game with the first graders to teach them the phrases “Who’s this?” and “This is ______”. I bought a stuffed dog and a stuffed monkey, and named them Dinah and Matt. I would toss the dog or monkey to one of the kids while asking “Who’s this?” and
they would have to answer either “This is Dinah!” or “This is Matt!”. It was going fairly well until I tossed Dinah the Dog to this one little girl. Her face lit up, and she hugged Dinah very close to her. Then she sat down, took out her ruler, and started to run it through Dinah’s fur as if it was a comb. She was very quiet, and looked more happy than I’d seen her the entire class. What I really wanted to do was tell her that she could take the toy home with her and keep it forever. Of course I couldn’t do that because 1) I can’t afford to give stuffed toys to the entire class 2) I needed that dog for the rest of a lesson. I did take the dog from her, but I’m sure that she knew how reluctant I was to do so. Now she has realized that I keep the stuffed animals in the bag that I carry to class, and she seems to think nothing of opening it up to find them.
Now for a complete change of topic! Today a bunch of us went to get out medical tests
done. Normally I panic at the doctor’s office, but this hospital trip was so interesting that I couldn’t really freak out the way I normally do. There was no privacy in the whole process. I was with a group of three other female teachers from my school almost the whole time. Basically we were hooked up to various bizarre looking machines that seemed like something out of a science fiction film. The only time that a doctor physically touched us was during the blood work. I always have a lot of trouble getting blood work done, because my veins are miniscule. No exception today. Three Chinese teachers from the school accompanied us to help translate and steer us around the hospital, and I think they were worried about how I was holding up under the barrage of needles (The same thing has happened every time I’ve had blood work done in the US, so I was unconcerned.). They wouldn’t let me look at the needle, and they kept coming out with hilarious motivational comments (“we shall over come!”).
Admittedly I’ve been somewhat up and down emotionally. One of my fourth grade girls decided for some reason last week that it would be a good idea to pull as hard as she could on my Grandma’s ring, which I had been wearing on a chain around my neck. The chain snapped. The girl looked so horrified that I couldn’t be mad at her, but I was really upset for the rest of the day. The ring itself was unharmed though, and it’s tucked safely in my drawer. I’m going to go looking for a suitable chain to replace the broken one this weekend.
China is occasionally overwhelming, but I have an entire year to see the country at my own pace. I must have been the most difficult person in the world to deal with during my trip to Germany, because I could not stand to spend my time sitting in my uncle’s house or at the hotel. I wanted to be out and doing things 24/7. When I’m in a new place and have only a very limited amount of time to see it, any time spent resting seems like torture. In this case I have the freedom to retreat at the end of the day. I can go out to the shops, and clubs, and strange musical alley ways one night, and spend another night in my air conditioned apartment reading a book. I think that having time to recharge between excursions is making everything stand out more. Every outing is its own event.
Poll:
I have a one week vacation and a one month vacation to look forward to. Where should I spend them?
a) South Korea.
b) Shanghai
c) Nepal
d) Vietnam
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Ang
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c) Nepal. I'm biased towards this because I heard so much about the country from the friend who partly grew up there. Fascinating place...