Last day as a teacher!

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I think I made it…although its not Friday morning and I’m not on my airplane yet, I think it’s safe to say I’ve jumped through enough hoops for the day. It started with a 8am wake up call from the woman who told me to finish my mountain of grading yesterday (which I did). Only to have her tell me SHE was too busy for me to drop it off for her and I would have to drop it off today…Apparently by “drop it off at the office tomorrow (Thursday) morning.” What she meant was, “I’ll be calling you at 8am tomorrow and when you refuse to pick up I’m going to call Hua and have HER call your cell phone. THEN when you refuse to pick THAT up, I’m going to ask her to go knock on your door to tell you that I’m coming over in 10 minutes to pick up all your grading…” That all happened. When this woman finally did arrive at my door, I answered the door in my pajamas (which seemed to embarrass her, I don’t know why? Me answering my door in boxers and a t-shirt, looking disheveled should embarrass me a bit more), and proceeded to give her my best annoyed tone (which of course is way over most of their heads…I do it more for my own satisfaction). After she COUNTED the test papers I gave her, she tried to make small talk, which is when I began to shoo her out of my apartment (that she had managed to barge into).
My morning of packing was successful; I am the master-packer. Every time I have to load up my pack, I’m even more amazed at how much junk I can cram into nooks or tie to the outside. The rest of the day I met with students and took many pictures—which has been the overall tone of the week. But I think we got some good ones. Only had one tearful goodbye—it was two of my favorite students, and that was the other day. Had one last mao cai dinner with several students, got a picture with “the boss,” who has become probably the 7th or 8th most favorite man of my life. More packing…broke my coffee table. I was moving it back to it’s rightful position in the living room (I had moved it months ago so I could do yoga in my living room), and silly me—I would ASSUME that a 1/2 inch 4x2 foot sheet of glass would be glued or SECURED onto the wood frame somehow. Well, I guess I’m the ass, cause it wasn’t. I lifted up one end and was pushing across the floor into place, when the horror began to unfold. In true disaster form, it all happened in slow motion. Even the words, “Noo...oooo…oooo….Shhhhhh…iiiiitt,” seem to leak out at a painstaking pace. I saw the glass sliding, I remembered thinking to myself, ‘self, maybe this will be ok, maybe the glass won’t break—its pretty thick, must be sturdy?’ And then the sound of break glass shattering—not breaking, but shattering glass met my ears. The first foot of glass was pretty loud, but then the next 2 feet of glass followed with an even louder and more horrendous sound (it was here that I remember thinking, ‘shit, I hope that guy that lives downstairs isn’t home). And finally, the last foot of glass tumbled onto the rumble and added to the mayhem that sat on my living room floor.
I could nothing but just laugh at the mess before me. What the hell China? Really? My last night? Took me a while to clean up the mess, I packed all the glass into a box that once contained loot from my parent’s latest care package—perfect fit. I walked it all down to a garbage can away from my front door—so they wouldn’t immediately think the foreigner messed up. But now I realize the box says “US Postal Package” so that may be a dead give away.
But, I’m out of here at 7am. I’ll embark on an hour long silent car ride to the airport where I’ll hop a plane for Guangzhou, then hopefully hop a bus for Macau. Yippee. It’s been fun, the students were great—it’s hard to dislike them when they tell you how awesome you are all the time. I think the administration has a long way to go; their rules or regulations seem archaic or backwards at best…not my battle anymore, at least for the next few months.

(I posted a few pictures that I took with students today)

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Photos

Cici
my patented thumbs up...good for all situations

Miracle (is her name)
everyone thought this was hilarious...