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Published: March 2nd 2009
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Walking around campus produces a lot of stares--the kind that don't break when you make eye contact. They aren’t necessarily bad stares or creepy stares—not like Central America, just curious looks. Last night Hua and I were taking a walk (something you do after all your meals) and we went over to the track to check it out. After about 2 1/2 laps a student caught up with us and was very very excited to meet us. He told he had seen us a previous evening and tried to catch up with us but lost us. He wanted to just chat with us in English and ask us questions. He was so enthusiastic it was hard to begrudge him for butting in on our conversation. As we kept walking he got more and more enthusiastic about improving his English he didn't notice that he was pushing us off the track. When he first came up to us we were walking in the inside lane. By the end, I was off the track in the sand and grass...
This leads me to my first class of the semester! I had an 8am 'Advanced Oral English for Business Majors, juniors' class. I
haven’t been given the book for the class yet, so I was a little nervous about trying to fill up 2 hours of class time. They don't leave classes early here! A loud annoying bells rings several times at 7:50am, then at 8am signaling class to start. Not sure what it was I had to ask my students if it was time to start, they all giggled and shook their heads. So we started class, I told them it was mainly going to be a 'meet n greet' session. I had them write down a few questions they wanted to ask me on a piece of paper and then turned them in. I read them aloud and then tried to answer them all, here are some of the questions: "What's your opinion about President Obama?" "Who is your favorite actor?" "What countries have you been in?" "Can you speak Chinese?" "Does a majority of young lady look beautiful and sunshinny like you?" "Do you like NBA game?" "Do you live alone?" "Do you have a boyfriend?" "Why did you decide to come to China and teach?" And my favorite, "Hello Carey: I eagerly wanna know what do you prefer to
eat and we can have a meal together. Thank you!"
Then in the middle of class, 8:50am the annoying bell rings again, which signals break time. So some students leave, some stayed, and we continued chatting. Then 9am the bell rings again and we start up for another 50 minutes. The second part of class I let them introduce themselves to me. Some were very shy and didn't say a lot, but others kept going. Many of them invited to me their home towns or told me places I need to try and visit while I'm here. One guy even recruited me for his basketball team! So it was a great first class and I'm really excited for the rest of the week!
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