Today, I was popular Ms. Nelson for one class and unpopular Ms. Nelson for the next. Andy and I split classes today and in the first, everyone cheered when I walked in and all wanted to stay and attend my class and not leave to go with Andy. However in the second class, just the opposite had happened. All the Junior2 Class1 students had Andy as a teacher last year, so when we split the class down the middle, some from my side snuck out the back door to attend Andy's class. Ha, I guess we cannot all be popular all the time.
Class was good today though, the kiddos really suprise me at what they know and how they'll try to outdo each other. However, everything has to be a competition. You can only imagine the cheers that students give each other when they beat me at RPS (Rock Paper Scissors) so that they do not have to answer questions. However the cheering only lasts until they realize that I have twenty questions and even if you don't get called the first time around, I've still got all the questions and they all must be answered. Some of the boys even tried to cheat today, waiting until I put out my rock or paper etc. to put theirs out so that they would win. The funny part is that they are my best students and even if they had lost they could answer my questions, and eventually they did. Hopefully I was able to show them that being in my class will not be as painful as they had earlier made it seem.
Hmmm, let me now let you become acquainted with a concept in China called Nowism. It's the idea that nothing is concrete until the very moment before. I shall elucidate with a most telling example..... Three weeks ago when I came to Shenzhen I was told I would not have a curriculum for any of my classes and that there would be 60 students per class. That changed 2.5 weeks ago. I was still to have no curriculum, but I would only have 25 students per class. Excited, I began to tailor the first months lessons to a tinier class. Then, two weeks ago I was told that the last foreign teacher had not arrived back, so I needed to teach 60 person classes. A few days later I was told that I needed to produce an outline of my entire year's curriculum for all three grades I am teaching. So I did that. Then the day I turn it in, I am told that I need to go to Book City downtown and come up with a curriculum book that I want to use that has a student workbook and after I buy my copy, the school will pay me back, then buy copies for all the students. Thus, last Wednesday I bussed it downtown and spent a lovely afternoon selecting textbooks and found some really great ones. Then, on Thursday, two administrators come and sit in on my classes and at the end show me a book they have selected for the classes and tell me that every student will be getting copies in a week or two. Soooooo, my curriculum planning is all null and void. But, I figured since we won't have the books for a couple weeks, I'll do my own thing and teach about families this week. Then, I run into the prinicipal's asst. this afternoon and she gives me copies of the books and says the students have them too and that I should start using them tomorrow. Then.....I had been told from the beginng that my Junior3s will not have a textbook b/c they are more advanced and I'm excited by this, b/c I have some great discussion topics and things they can learn. But apparently someone told Barbara (lady I teach with) that we need to be assisting the students in prepping for their big standardized exams by putting scenes on powerpoint and having students write about what is going on in the photo. No points for creativity there. Hmmm sounds enthralling. ..........and that my friends......is an example of nowism. You must do as everyone says now but know that everything will ultimately change. Everyone deals with it here.
On a more um....gross note....I almost slipped on the pavement today AGAIN b/c in truly Chinese fashion a mother was having her son in his buttless pants pee all over the pavement. No one should EVER EVER EVER sit on the pavement in China. Every square inch of it is has been spit and peed on....it has got to be a spore's paradise.
Hong Kong Disney opened today. All the Disney big-wigs were there for the day. It didn't rain for this grand opening event, but it was the most polluted day of the year thus far. Soo....no blue sky behind Sleeping Beauty's castle, just the signature China grey. Of course they had to interview the crazy American tourists who flew all of the way to the other side of the world just to go to an amusement park that has two, I repeat two branches in the US! Why not go to China and see the Three Gorges Dam, or Daliang, or the Ice city in Harbin? At least one crazed American tourist clad in his Disney-pin-covered safari jacket and his waistpack(talk about trying to blend in) had his annual pass for Japan Disney around his neck and said that is where he is off to next. At least he'll waste a boatload in more than one Asian nation, gotta share the wealth.
I was on a bus this afternoon and was literally glared at for 30 minutes by one fella sitting in a chair, that he stole from me mind you, b/c in China, men are more important than women in all instances. So he's sitting in his chair and proceeds to feel like he needs to eyeball me every 30 seconds for all of my 30 minute bus ride. I almost, almost asked him in Chinese, dude what the heck is your problem, but I held my tongue....I probably would have said it wrong anyway and he'd have busted out the death-ray eyes and then i'd have smoking holes bored into my head. But back to my comment on the female-male pecking order. It has gotten to the point where I cannot even count the times that I have been on public transportation and a man and his very pregnant wife get on and the men will always take the last seat and the women, looking like they'll go into labor if the busdriver finds one more pothole to run through, will have to stand and hover over the husband. Yeesh! I know some people have trouble with chivalry, but this is nuts! I think I also got some addtional nasty stares on the bus today too, b/c when some man got off I did the China push and plonked myself down in a seat. Maybe I should have offered it up to the business man spitting on the bus floor and picking his nose with the one exceptionally long finger nail he had. Lovely.
However, going back to my Sunday - that was really lovely. My friend and fellow teacher who lives two hours away in Nanshan, came by bus and subway to just hang out and chill for the day. We ate good street food and walked around and got sunburned....just a bit. It was a good way to start the week I think. Oh and I love going running by the resevoir.....everyone is so friendly - only downside...I feel like i have to smile the whole run otherwise i hear comments about the 'grumpy foreigner' from passerby.
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