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Anji, China
30° 38' N 119° 41' E
Sep 06, 2006 04:49
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back to school and the onset of fall

Text written in: English

quite suddenly, it has become fall. monday, the weather was a melting, scorching 35 degree celsius. tuesday, i woke up to rain and the temperature hovering around 18 for most of the day. today, we are up to highs in the mid twenties - perfect. the humidity has dropped and the air is becoming crisp like autumn. any day now, i expect the leaves to begin their descent into color and then the grayness of winter to settle in.

with autumn comes a new school term, which started on monday afternoon. i have a near perfect schedule - no early mornings except friday, when i'm done by 10 am! i also have free afternoons on wednesday, which will be useful for shopping, banking, and general housekeeping. i have five classes, and i see each of them several times a week - some more than others. 3 of the classes are first-years, which is wonderful because they are all fresh, bright-eyed and well-behaved. the other two groups are second years - one a monster class of SIXTY-FOUR students that i see SIX TIMES a week. even on cool days, the classroom seems hot and crowded and messy, not to mention loud. these kids just simply will not shut the fuck up; and they are older, so they know the routine, they've been through it all, and they are jaded. they don't give a rat's ass what i say, and feel no obligation to listen or quiet down for any reason, whatsoever. several times, i have actually banged loudly on my desk with a flat, open hand which created a piercing noise that finally got their attention, and  thus threatened them with the ever-useful "don't make me get your head teacher" line. really, i think they are good kids, they are just rambunctious and there are faaaarrrrr too many of them.

generally speaking, though, i absolutely cannot complain about my schedule or my classes. so far, i have done the standard 1st week introductions - especially useful for those classes (aka the 64 one) where students didn't already have english names. i exhausted my list of age-appropriate names (i am so tired of meeting 16 year old chinese kids named betty, bill, and jim) with them.

chinese kids are often well-known for their choosing of odd english names, and i tend to encourage them towards real, age appropriate names (like jennifer, lisa, jake, and matt) when assigning them for the first time. however, one of my first-year classes came in already outfitted with english names (no doubt ones they've chosen themselves from god knows what sources). this is definitely one of the more interesting name classes, per capita, that i've ever had. highlights include girls called maggrrette, synge, afreet, pig, slave girl, berry, and lyrcra, and boys called tracy mcrgrady and bush. i also had to correct two girls who insisted on calling themselves will (i changed her to willa) and jerry (i changed her to gerrie). but i honestly have NO idea what on earth to do about slave girl or lycra. while i want them to be creative and have fun with english, i also feel a bit frightened that they, one day, might serve as a translator to foreigners. i can just imagine the look on a group of foreign businessmen's face when the cute chinese girl says, "hi, my name's slave girl!" oh, the humanity!!

i also ran into a lovely suprise today when i bumped into jason (my colleague/translator) who asked for help on a quick dialogue type up, and informed me that today is teacher's day in china. big deal, i thought. but it turns out teacher's day meant a SALARY BONUS of 700 RMB! i am stoked! i can now buy that chic white coat plus a printer without batting an eyelash.

good, good day, all in all.