School's In Session

Oh, what a week. School is extra fun this week. I’m being sarcastic if you didn’t sense my tone through reading. I know, it’s easier said than done. Monday was ok, but today is Tuesday and that’s when the fun started. Monday was Halloween, which is normally a pretty fun affair as a kid in elementary school. There’s not really much class going on, everyone is dressed up, and there’s lots of candy from what I remember. Sounds like a great day to me. But wait a second. I’m not in America. I’m in China. The celebration out here is fairly mild for the young ones. The knowledge the Chinese have for the ‘holiday’ has just been gathered from Americans. They don’t really know what they’re doing, and they don’t really care too much about it. That’s not entirely true, but you’ll see my meaning. The school is decorated with fall and Halloween decorations. I’ve seen pictures of previous Halloween events at my school, and it looked fun. My roommate had been told prior to Monday that the school was going to give us some sort of costume and the word ‘makeup’ was thrown in there as well. Fortunately, the makeup part never occurred. We got to miss one of our classes in the morning because we were told to go meet in one part of the school. Within that room, a box lay on the floor. Random costume items were then passed about. I ended up with a cap, a half black, half gold Venetian mask, and a pirate hat. A large multi-colored fro was originally presented to me, but I snagged the pirate hat from one of the teachers later on. It’s more my style. From there, my roommate and I were instructed to venture out to the school yard after the raising of the Chinese flag and pass out candies. There wasn’t much of a selection. As a matter of fact, there was only one; lollipops. The kids still liked it, though. They had fun for the brief amount of time it lasted. I’m fairly certain that the school provided half of the costumes or more to the kids. There were some here and there that brought their own. Some just threw on a mask, home-made or bought or one select item like that. However, there must have been a good 30-40 kids wearing the same cape as me. So, I’m also fairly certain that China only has 2 or 3 costumes available for purchase. I’m kidding, but seriously. The candy went pretty fast, and the whole affair lasted maybe 10-15 minutes in total. From there, school continued as usual. The children didn’t’ even keep their costumes on. In my opinion? Boring/lame. I was told they had some kind of a party maybe during the past weekend. There’s no real hard evidence of its existence, but hopefully the kids got to do something. I think the younger people out drinking the weekend before got the better end of the whole Halloween experience.

Tuesday marked the first day of some extra classroom visitors. We had principles and top figures like that from other schools evaluating our school. That wasn’t bad for me. I just had to deal with some older woman sitting in the back keeping to herself most of the time. Some paid attention, some didn’t. It didn’t really make much of a difference to me. I’m comfortable enough now and dealt with parents in the classroom, so not really a big deal. Besides, I’m not one of those people that freak out and get all stressed and worried about trivial matters like that. You know the type. What’s the point? Does it really help? No. In fact, it only makes matters worse for yourself and those around you. Take a chill pill. I’ll write you a subscription. 3 pills, 3 times a day during a meal. Wednesday and today (Thursday) were a little worse because the parents showed up in many of my classes. Again, I’ve done it before so at this point, it just doesn’t matter that much. I pretty much just block the parents out and try to conduct class as usual. Maybe I try to be a little better or try to keep the kids, parents, and I a little more entertained during the lesson. I’ll admit I have a little less fun with the kids most of the time too. I think I really only had one bad class, but the teacher told me that class was very good. Fine with me. I sweat a bit more in that class because it wasn’t going smoothly and the kids forgot old material. When it got a little tense in the room, I switched over to a game. Everyone enjoyed that. I think as long as the parents see that their kids are learning, repeating me, and having a little fun; they’re happy. It’s not too demanding. I think I’m through it anyways. I don’t think there are parents coming on Friday, but I’m probably wrong. The only thing that I really struggle on with parents is going too quickly. You can take your time more and focus on things longer when there’s no parents present. Oh well.  I have no class this afternoon. I have to take a trip over to another part of the city to show up for a visa renewal interview. Sounds important, right? There’s nothing to it. The last time I went, I spent more time waiting for the assistant and other teachers to show up then I spent there. I was at the ‘interview’ for maybe 5 minutes. They looked at me and I handed them some papers and my passport. Done. What a waste of a time.

I was wrong. Naturally. There were more parents today. No matter. I got through them no problem, so I’m finished with the parents. And…..it’s Friday! Yay! Haha. Come on, even when I do nothing on the weekend, I’m looking forward to relaxing and having that option to do nothing. Not entirely sure what I’m going to do this weekend. Been so distracted, as usual. Too many things going on, too many things I want to do, so little time. Going out to dinner tonight, but that’s it for now.

As promised, I got back into the gym this week. Amazing. You know, my body just craves to be in the gym. I’ve stuck with it for years, almost 10 now, so it’s not just something to do, it’s a part of my life. When I’m not exercising and being active, I miss it. I was looking forward to that unfamiliar soreness from entering the gym after being gone for a while. I got it. I’ve been pretty sore overall this week. Bring it on. That’s how you know you’re doing a good job. I’m praying I can stay injury free for a while. If I can manage to not get sick, that would also be great.

My hunger is starting up again. With the exercise, I need more fuel so I’m craving foods. After I had tonsillitis, about 2 weeks later, I was eating all the time. I mean all the time. I just couldn’t stop thinking about food. I felt like I was 17 again. I just wanted to eat and eat. I guess that was my body getting back to normal. I’m not like that now, but hungrier than I’ve been. After my dinner last night, I had a big bowl of cereal. I haven’t had cereal for 9 months, so I bought a box the other day. I’ve just been snacking on it lightly, waiting for the right moment to have a bowl of it. Don’t worry, I made it count. It was Trix. They’re not just for kids, silly rabbit. I’ve been drinking hot water and honey and tea like it’s my job. It’s so hard to get my throat back on track. It’s pretty good, but I feel it slip again from time to time. I gargle plenty of salt water too. It’s not my fault! I’m a healthy boy. I’m just up against too many odds. It’s cold, the air quality is poor, and I’m using my voice all day. That’s 3 strikes. I’m out. But I’m hanging in there. “Sometimes a guy will give you a strong grip, late release, and pull you in for the too close conversation.
To him I say 'That's three strikes; you're out!” That’s a Seinfeld quote if you didn’t catch it.

Some things. My room is a bit disheveled. I don’t understand. It was perfect two weeks ago. So easy to fall into disrepair. I bought two plants a while back. Now, one is dying. Perhaps the leaves are just changing colors because it’s autumn? The other one seems ok. Time is moving fairly quickly now since I’ve got to figure out what I’m doing next year. That always happens, doesn’t it? If you’ve got nothing going on, then it slows down to the speed of a tortoise. But wait, the tortoise wins the race!? I think I’m on to something. I’m hooked on walnut milk. My roommate recommended it. It’s incredible. I’m still drinking coconut milk too.

I’ll tell you some more about school and the kids and how they are. I’ve been jotting little notes down to help me remember what I wanted to talk about during school hours. I guess I’ll start off with Maria. She’s a new girl, not Asian, in one of my classes. The class loves me. (All of my classes do, come on.) This is the same class that always tells me if another student has a hood or not so I can put it on their head. We laugh and can have fun, but still learn as well so it’s a good atmosphere. At this point, like most of my classes, I know the abilities of individual children and the class as a whole. I know who the clowns are, who pays attention, who get easily distracted, and so on and so forth. There always exceptions and kids can surprise you from time to time, though. In Maria’s case, for the first 2 days, she was quite shy. She wouldn’t come up and do the introduction greetings with the other kids. If I asked her to repeat something, she most likely wouldn’t and it was a chore trying to get her to do so. I’ve had kids last like this for months. Having dealt with my dog, Goober, I know how to handle that kind of situation. I know, I’m comparing kids to a dog. But there are similarities! You can’t force the child or push them too much. You just need to let them work at their pace and they’ll come around when they’re comfortable. Maria was comfortable within the 3^rd day of class surprisingly. She came up and did the introduction greeting with another student without any objections. She was so comfortable that she leaned up against me while doing so. I’ll put my arm around kids and things like that and kids will do the same to me. Some will lean, or put their arm around me, or sit on my lap. Within a week, she’s one of the top students in the class. She learns so quickly, has a great memory, and with my encouragement, she’s proud of doing well and shouting out the answers. I was really impressed.

There are some other kids were mentioning from this past week as well. This is now the week from the 6^th to the 12^th. I have this girl Eileen in one of my younger classes. When she yells out the answers with the rest of the kids, it’s hilarious. The teachers nearby and myself can’t help but laugh. It kind of has the tone like one of those horns going off from ship’s coming in or leaving the harbor. It’s so loud and blaring. She even drags it out. When I talk with her one on one, she’s quite shy and her voice is the complete opposite. That makes it even funnier.

I’m not sure what’s going on with my school and their extracurricular activities. Sometimes kids will be missing from my classes or I’ll see some kids wandering down the hall with a teacher. I have no idea if these kids have been recruited or their parents are paying for some kind of extra activity. Recently, I’ve seen both some kind of karate or some form of martial arts and basketball.  I’ve seen piano playing with a child or two from time to time since I’ve been in the school. These other two sessions involve a lot more kids and the gym is utilized. I had asked one of the teachers why these particular kids were involved, and she said perhaps because they were big. That answer seems unlikely seeing how basketball contains little Sherry from one of my young classes and plenty of other small kids. Sherry listens quite well, though. She follows the stretching instructions like it’s her job. Andy, whom I’ve mentioned occasionally, listens equally as well during the martial arts. He has what appears to be the determination of a cat trying to catch a mouse. They seem pretty determined from what I’ve witnessed? Maybe not. Regardless, he’s determined. He looks like a statue when he’s going through the different motions. I think he would hold one of those poses all day if he was instructed to do so. I was amused with this. It shows even more truth in my previous knowledge that Andy only listens when he’s interested.

I’ve had a couple chants going on this week in several classes of mine. One, maybe two of my baby classes started a ‘Hello Jeff!’ chant. They just continued in unison as I entered and I cheered them on with a fist pumping in synch.  They stayed strong longer than I thought they would. Another one of my classes will cheer me on with ‘Jia you Jeff!’ anytime I get into an ‘altercation’ with a student. It’s all in a joking manner before or after class, but I may pick a student up or just mess with him in some way or another. Kids ,man. They’re just as bad as adults, trying to stir up trouble. Haha. It works. It just makes the opposing kid even more resistant. I simply will pick him up and spin him or something like that. They used to cheer against me during these little brawls, but I guess they realized I will always be victorious. Take that you little punks. Me and Tom always face each other and pose like we’re about to spar. I beckon him over with the hand motion while my arm is extended. He always gives me the shaking of the head to signify no, so I’m forced to approach him and he usually attempts to run. When resistance becomes futile, he drops to his knees and screams through his laughing. One day he started giving me a massage too. I thanked him and he proceeded. He’s quite professional. There have been a few times where I’ve had several kids attempting to give me a massage or perhaps trying to just hit me. Tom usually heads that little force and directs them otherwise. Awesome.

I probably witnessed one of the sweetest little child moments ever in another baby class. I actually have two sets of white boy twins, but this instance regards the younger ones. I picked up one of the twins because I’m always picking kids up and most love it. Not all, but most. I usually disregard the ones that don’t enjoy it and continue anyways and attempt to make them comfortable with a smile and some laughter. Usually works. Not always. Well, I picked up one of the twins and his already big eyes practically fell out of his head. His face was terror stricken.  One of the teachers noticed this and laughed over it. She picked him up and asked him if he liked it or not in Chinese. He spoke no words, but tears began to form in his eyes. She proceeded in asking him for a time, and then put him down. Tears then streamed down his face. He didn’t make a sound, though. His brother quite enjoyed being picked up. He tends to smile more, and I’m guessing he’s the older of the two, despite being twins. He proceeded to hug his brother and with both hands attempted to wipe the tears from his face. It was adorable.

Kids are also quite observant to the littlest things. Earlier in the week, I cut my finger. It wasn’t a terrible cut, but a mere band aid wasn’t good enough for the job. It just kept annoyingly bleeding, so I had to pick up some gauze for the job. How I cut myself? Ha. I was washing a glass, and my fricken hand can’t fit in the glass so I kind of force it in there to try and get the bottom when I’m washing it. This time I pushed a little too hard and broke the glass. You can take it from there. It was more bothersome than anything else. Just about all the kids in my classes noticed the gauze on my finger and inquired about what took place. I did my best to explain through hand motions. I don’t think it really got through.

I got a few hugs from some of my favorites this week that made the week a little better. I even got a big hug from an old favorite, Daisy. I see her sometimes in the halls and she begs to be picked up like the rest of the kids. I’ll admit, she gets picked up a little more than the rest of them. Sorry, I like her better! Besides, she’s so light. Dunny also gave me a few big hugs and so did his fellow classmate, John. There were a few others that I appreciated as well.

I’ll tell you about my weekend in the next post. It’ll be out shortly.

-Jeff

Fall Today, Winter Tomorrow

Well, it’s Thursday (10/20/11). Unfortunately, the hiking for tomorrow got moved to next week. Perhaps that’s fortunate, though. It was cloudy and rained last night. So, perhaps it’s for the better. It’s just so nice ending your week early like that. I was all prepared for a free day and starting my weekend a little sooner. Oh well, I’ve got something to look forward to next week. Besides, tomorrow is still Friday so it’s my last day of the week.  I’m on the home stretch.

Man, the last two days I’ve had some classes that were just a complete joke. I mean that literally. Even I was laughing. Some of the kids were just absolutely ridiculous – so much so that I couldn’t help but laugh at their stupidity sometimes. Whenever I end a class, I usually say to the kids, “Ok, say bye bye Jeff” and they all say it. Funny, sometimes I get better responses during the goodbye part of the class than I get for the rest of the class. Haha. Well in one of my classes today, I was laughing at the kids and was having a hard time teaching them because of it. I made a gun gesture with my hand, put it to my head, and repeated those words, “Say bye bye Jeff.” Even the teachers joined me in laughing at that. Afterwards, I couldn’t control my laughter. The kids were just being so dumb and I couldn’t resist laughing with them. I know, so inappropriate for the kids’ viewing. Come on. You kidding me? Kids love making guns with their hands and pretending to shoot people. Speaking of which, I have another class that loves just that. It’s died off a bit, which is cool because I was getting bored with it too. These kids used to shoot me all the time. I’m like a cat with all my lives. I suppose I should give credit to little Mark for starting that fun, little fad. He was the best, though. I love pretend shooting him because he always falls down and pretends to die. Always.  Maybe he’s got the acting bug. One day, I grabbed one of the kids like a hostage and pointed my hand (gun) towards his head saying, “Don’t make me! Don’t make me!” Well, after that, I got to hear ‘don’t make me’ for a good 2 weeks. I always got shot, though. Those kids are ruthless. Putting my hands up, playing defenseless, and trying to make peace was pointless.

And then it was Friday. I’m in a great mood too. For one, it’s the weekend. Secondly, I had some fun classes today. I played musical chairs in a lot of my classes. I even played with some baby classes that I had today (2 and 3 yr olds.). It took a few kids getting out before the rest got the hang of it, but once they did they were having a great time. I enjoyed watching them. I played in my older classes too, but most of the classes have so many kids now that I started playing with only 5 kids at a time. It keeps things under control a little better. You still have kids sitting on the side waiting to play, so they know they can’t be ridiculous if they want to play. When I first got back in school this semester, I continued to play with the whole class at once. It only took a couple times of doing that before realizing the kids couldn’t handle it. It’s just mass mayhem. Chaos. “Dr. Grant, Dr. Sattler….You’ve heard of Chaos Theory?” – Jurassic Park. Besides being Friday, most of the kids were fairly good today so it was also in part a reward for them. The last class of the day really impressed me. I even think that most understood the concept of what they were saying. I’ve mentioned this in the past. During the first half or maybe 2/3’s of the first semester, I used to just teach the names and words of the flash cards we were learning at the time. That’s due to the fact that I was inexperienced and unaware of the children’s capabilities. As I became more familiar with the students and what they could handle, I gradually threw in more things about the flash cards. I’ll give you a few examples regarding this week’s lesson with some of my classes. At times, I might use the same flash cards for all of my classes (except the babies for now). The only difference is how much I teach them about the cards. This week, I was teaching a lot of my classes a few different actions – biking, swimming, surfing, hiking, etc. I started with just teaching them the basic part, so I just taught them those words. Then, I started to throw in the question, ‘So what is he/she doing?’ Of course, they didn’t understand at first so I provided the answer with, ‘He is swimming or she is hiking, etc..’ I took it further with the older classes once they could handle that. I then proceeded to ask them where they were doing that action. So after the first question, I would then ask them where he/she was doing that. For hiking, the kids would respond to the second question with ‘in the mountains’. Eventually, that turned into ‘she is hiking in the mountains’. There were other questions and sentences as well, so the kids did really well and I was especially impressed with them today. I played musical chairs with my last class as well, older kids (4-5 – maybe a few are 6). They were really funny. If I’m feeling goofy, sometimes I’ll go over and run around the chairs with them a few times or sit down really quick even if the music didn’t stop just to screw them up, stupid things like that. Anyways, it was a great way to end my week. Time for the weekend!

Well, it’s Sunday evening. I am so tired. I feel a little burnt out just from doing some running around this weekend. I think I’ll be going to bed early tonight, but I’ve said that many times and it rarely happens. On Saturday, I wanted to do some shopping at a few places. I guess I just wanted to spend a little bit of money on myself after all the money I put towards medical. I don’t know. I need a few more winter wears. I ended up wandering over to the good ol’ Silk Market. Always an adventure. I walked out of there with just an ‘Adidas’ track jacket that I paid 75 yuan for. The girl told me the lowest she sold it for was 80, so I was pleased. She did argue that 5 rmb with me, though. She protested, “Only 5 yuan!” Well, that was my response right back to her. I forgot all my track jackets at home, so why not? I probably would have bought this ‘North Face’ puffy vest, but there was a bit of a situation in that shop. I stood for a few minutes on the outskirts watching this poor bastard get worked in the same shop. He was a young kid, probably 17 or 18, maybe younger. I don’t know what his mom was doing. She stood on the side and watched without stepping in to help him out. I’m observant, so even when I was looking at the vest, I was paying attention to his situation. The sales people just wouldn’t let him go. He kept stating that he wasn’t sure, didn’t have enough money, wanted to check his money upstairs, etc. Ha! They were trying to get 800 yuan out of him for this shoddy little jacket that he should have paid between 80-130 max. They persisted. “Are you sure you don’t have enough? You can buy it right now.” Poor guy. I could watch no more. I said to the kid, “Let me help you out.” I took the jacket from his hands, and while setting it on the side, I pushed him out of the shop. He looked at me and with a nod said “Thank you.” I know he wanted to leave, and I know he appreciated it. He just needed that little push. But let me tell you, the short little Asian boy/man was not happy. He immediately questioned me. “What are you doing? What are you doing?” I replied that I was helping the boy out. Then he started to accuse me of pushing him, which had me a little confused. He then queried, “Who are you!? Who are you!?” I retorted back posing the same question to him. We argued back and forth for a bit. Maybe my arm brushed him when I pulled the jacket out of the kid’s hand, but I did not push him. Had I wanted to, my pinky finger would have sufficed. He then told me to leave. That’s fine, he just lost more money and I told him so. In all honesty, I probably would have bought the vest. I didn’t go without some words of my own, though. First, I told him to leave. Haha. It was his shop, so he had me there. I told him that perhaps I would go speak with his manager or the owner about his behavior. Come on. Let’s be real. He wasn’t mad about getting ‘pushed’. He was mad because that kid didn’t buy the jacket. Not my fault. That kid was never going to buy it, he just wanted out. I simply helped him. That salesman should have thanked me because I would have loved to tell the kid how much he should pay, but decided it would be best not to. I told that to the salesman as well. After my exit, the Chinese guy continued to yell after me. “You are stupid! You are so stupid!” Yada, yada, yada.  My response? “Ok! Thanks!” Nope, didn’t look back. Get ready, Seinfeld reference approaching. Marcy: Are you close with your parents? George: Well, they gave birth to me and…….. yada, yada, yada. Marcy: Yada what? George: …Yada, yada, yada. As I previously stated, always an adventure.

Saturday night, I ended up going to one of my favorite restaurants here, at least for dumplings. It’s amazing. I forget the name, and don’t really care to look it up. But trust me, amazing. They have a huge variety. Any kind of dumpling you can think of, it’s there. I’m exaggerating a bit, but not much as long as you don’t want something crazy like pineapple and pepperoni. There’s a huge menu with lots and lots of varieties. My opinion? They all sound pretty good. I have yet to be disappointed, and I’ve been there maybe 5 times now. I think my favorite is still the one that has purple cabbage in it along with beef (might be pork) and a few other things. The rest is pretty much irrelevant. The purple cabbage is what makes it so amazing. It adds this nice unfamiliar crunch to the dumpling that few others possess. It’s the only dumpling there that contains purple cabbage, so it’s easy enough to locate. During a previous trip there, I didn’t know where the place was or how to get there obviously, so I searched on the beijinger website. I found a post, and just like me, the guy was raving about the purple cabbage dumplings.  Still not convinced? Wellllll, you can also get them in four or five different colors. Awesome! The only other thing you can do to make amazing tasting dumplings even better is make them with different colors. They come in purple, red, green, orange, and your basic white.  So, I guess five would be the correct answer if you count that last one. I might be wrong about red being available, though. In case you’re wondering, I think purple is the only way to go with the dumplings that have the purple cabbage in them. It only makes sense. Right? Right?

Saturday night actually wasn’t too cold. I was outside and didn’t mind a whole lot. Sunday, however, was a different story. I noticed that the wind was blowing, so I put on a thicker jacket. Man! Freezing! So cold. It’s been slightly warmer without that added wind chill and the sun has been out for the last two days, but still cold. I have pants and a t-shirt on in bed, and I wake up freezing no matter how tightly I’m wrapped in my blankets. I keep it like a cocoon, but it makes no difference. I’ll be heading out tonight (Tuesday) to purchase another blanket to throw on top. My building should be turning on the heat soon as well, which I must say I’m looking forward to.

I’m so happy I’ll be hiking tomorrow. 2 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on. Not the most ideal, but I’ll take it. I’ll be dressing warmly for sure, but it looks like the sun will be shining again so that will give me some added comfort. There are still plenty of leaves on the trees here in the city. I’m hoping I’ll get to see some great foliage when roaming on the mountains. Perhaps I can snag some great photos along with it. If you remember, with spring here, it was almost as if the leaves popped up on all the trees overnight. One day, they were bare and the next they were covered in green. I know it’s going to be the same here with the autumn weather. I’m going to look out my window one morning, and all of the leaves will have fallen.

So far so good with the frequency. I’ll keep working on it and write things as they happen instead of weeks later. Hope you’ve enjoyed my adventure so far because it’s not over yet. 

Back to the gym on Monday. Finally. I'm looking thin.

-Jeff