New Tune

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So yes, I kind of fell off the Earth in the writing sense for a little while there. I'm back! Welcome me! (Kidding.) For my new blog of 2007 I have made some new decisions that I hope to stick to (no matter how hard they are). I've decided that it would be better for me to keep my life with Cam out of this page. It has been the same for a long time and I do not predict it to go anywhere new any time soon. I have been frustrated about it and I will continue to stay frustrated about it for a while. So there is no point for you all to follow me in my frustration as it is "nothing new". So instead I will do my best to tell you about the things that are new.

As of January 8th I have started a new job at a new school in Dalian called Web International English School. For the first couple of days all I did was sit here and act pretty. This new job requires me to wear more formal attire in order to seem more professional as we are working with adults from a variety of jobs and people with a lot of money. However what I and the two other new teachers Michael and Tye have found out is that our job is to teach for about 25 hours a week and sit in a fish bowl to be watched for the rest of the time (as we are required to be here 40 hours a week). We like to pretend we are the "foreigners in a cage" like the zoo whoere other Chinese employees are constantly walking by us and saying "here are our foreigners on our left" if you feed them a cookie you can see watch them play. The L-Salon boys think it is quite amusing that the customers just get to look at the "purty foreigners" whenever they wish. The schedule is such that at least one of us is sitting in the fishbowl at any given period of time but we can be doing whatever we want. So I have been working on internet things, discussion groups, class lessons as well as Chinese and Spanish homework. I can even be in the phone or listening to music in here as long as I smile occasionally at the zoo keepers. Aside from sitting in the fish bowl I also had to watch the older teachers (been here longer) teach their classes, which was fairly mind numbing.

On the 11th I had my first class, an English corner of about 50 students. It was extremely difficult for me as I have never taught that many people before in my entire life. So I had a bit of difficulties with it including not smiling enough (a general problem that I have had teaching at a new place). I need to work on teaching as a public speaking idea a lot and hope this will be one of the things I will perfect while working here.

Fortunately my bosses all thought that while my English corner needed some work I was still good enough to start working here. My first two classes here were yesterday, one private class and one larger class of 8 students. These classes are much easier for me as I have done them before. Today is my second day of classes aside from having to sit in on a demo class that one of the older teachers (meaning he's been here longer), named Gareth, taught I taught two more private classes.

This week has been especially difficult on the memory part of my brain. For some reason I have forgot just about anything you can name there is to forget. I lost my wallet earlier on in the week and had to replace both my credit cards (so until Monday I am relying on money from friends), my drivers license (again) and my gym card that I just recently made for this current year. Along with my wallet I left my Chinese book at a friend's restaurant and another friend picked it up who hasn't given it back yet. And this morning I realized about 25 minutes before I left that my glasses were gone. Now to be honest with you I know what happened to my wallet and book, I was a bit drunk that night and so had no mind (literally). But last night the only thing I did was go to the movie and go home from the movie. Clearly I must have had my glasses on at the movie theater as I wouldn't have been able to see the movie without them. And later that night at home I did some fine-detailing work (like writing a full page of notes and taking my nail polish off) that would have required me to have used my glasses. So in my opinion they must be at home. I did take 25 minutes to look for them this morning but a blind person looking for her glasses is an interesting and slightly humorous concept. Today I have had to teach the whole day with no glasses (which has been interesting to say the least).

So far in my new job there are some pros and some cons. One pro is that it is in a large building downtown so even when we don't get very much time to leave the building for meals (about an hour) there are tons of places nearby for many different kinds of food. Unlike my old job which just had two places (one being a convenience store) near it for us to eat at every single day! However, one con is there is no such "punch-in" card here. Instead we use our fingerprints to clock on and off every day. This means that I have to put my thumb in an exact position on a machine for an exact number of minutes to clock on and off every day. Often times I have to clock on multiple times before it will tell me that I have successfully clocked on. And no one else can clock on for me as that would require them to cut off my thumb!

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Comments

[Your Dad]

Homogeneous populations
The U.S. is so heterogeneous, with people from all over the world. It was not unusual for you to come across people from Asia in Chapel Hill, for example. But in Asia, the populations are more alike- you are different to them; they are not as accustomed to WASPs, like you. Your "fishbowl" analogy was very astute, and accurate. You are DIFFERENT. It is your job to show them that we are all part of the SAME, human race. Love, Dad