Only two more days of teaching left. Julian said that I was lame for quoting Mary Poppins this morning ("Once begun is half-done!"). My children (teenagers) continue to bore me and be reticent. This afternoon, though, we talked about music and I brought them into the teachers' office to listen to MP3s. They like hip hop and blues. I tried to play a little of everything, in order to waste classtime and give them an idea of what the different kinds of music are. Some highlights include: "Bad like Jesse James" - John Lee Hooker, "The Seed 2.0" The Roots ft. Cody Chestnut, "Sabrosura" - DJ Laz, "Baby Got Back" - Sir Mix-A-Lot, "Party Hard" - Andrew W.K., "Seven Nation Army" - White Stripes, "In My Place" - Coldplay, and "Pour Some Sugar on Me" - Def Leppard.
We also discussed corrupt politicians in Africa ("One problem [with poverty in Africa] is that there are corrupt politicians. Moving on."), wars of attrition, China forcing people to be right-handed (and that the US used to do it), being "toasty" warm and possibly killing Rose if she puts the fire in the coal stove out again, Kenny G. sucking, and the Backstreet Boys being lame. I taught them the word "lame".
FedEx called yesterday to apologize. Which is fine and all, but it doesn't make my life any easier. What I really think they should do is give my mother a refund. If she had been okay with the package taking 13 days to get to me, she would have sent it some other, much less expensive way.
This afternoon, I mailed my books home. The day before yesterday, it was clothes that I don't want to replace. I still have some miscellaneous items that I will probably send tomorrow or the day after. Then it's pack my backpack and throw the rest out.
Speaking of cheerleading movies, has anyone seen "Bring it On"? There's a great quote in it: "Cheerleaders are dancers... gone retarded."
It's funny, we were talking about advice columns today in class and one of the girls, giving an example of a problem, said that a boy had recently moved to Guangdong (Canton area, in the south) and hadn't given her his e-mail address or telephone number. He has her e-mail, but hasn't written her yet. One of the other students said that he was her boyfriend, but the girl denied it (half-heartedly). Point is, the kids will actually talk a little about boy/girlfriends in front of me, whereas if they do it in front of a Chinese teacher, they could get in trouble, as you aren't allowed to date until you graduate from high school.
The Onion AV Club had lists of the year's best movies. I hadn't heard of a lot of them, but I had read that "School of Rock" is really good. Anyone seen it? Some movies are really hard to get here. Still waiting for the third Lord of the Rings. We think the pirates(?) are waiting for the Academy Awards screening copies to come out, since the quality is better.
Today's poem: "An Ode to FedEx" AKA "Ode on a FedEx Package, but hidden under the address tag"
How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways...
1. You lied on your website and said that the package was delivered to Zunyi at 4pm, yesterday, when in fact it is in Guiyang.
2. Without permission, you delivered the package to a different address (Guiyang Interlingua).
3. You have not responded to any of my e-mails to customer service, despite the Asia office guaranteeing 24-hour turn-around.
4. By the time I can make it down to Guiyang, the school will be closed, so I have to make special arrangements to meet Maosi and get my package.
5. Had you given me the option or informed me of your plans, I would have instructed you to keep the package in your Guiyang office, so I could pick it up on my way out of town.
6. General evilness.
That's it in a nutshell. I hate FedEx. I told them they should give Mom a refund. I wrote to the US and China offices. What really gets me is that they made an unauthorized delivery. Sure, Guiyang Interlingua accepted the package, but does that mean it's okay with me? Maybe I'm a heroin smuggler and they are a rival gang. Of course they will receive the package -- they're getting smack. I, however, am getting royally screwed, and while I am happy to hear that the place to which the package was delivered took it, I don't see what that has to do with me (theoretically), other than it's a heart-warming story about how you gave my stuff away. Thank you so much!
I asked my school to call the post office this morning to see if the package had arrived in Zunyi, as the website claimed and the post office said that they had packages from the US, but things in general tend to confuse them. Assuming that the package was for me, I went down during my lunch break and the woman brought out two packages: one was for Vivian Chao, the Peace Corps worker who left in May; the other was for Christine, a woman who worked at Interlingua a year-and-a-half or two years ago. I told the woman that both people had left last year. She asked me where she should send them. I told her to send them back to the US. I thought of volunteering to take them, in case they had anything, like cookies, that might not make the trip home, but as they were already a year old, I opted not to.
Only four more days of teaching.
Grandma just gave me about two pounds of la jiao (hot peppers). She knows how much I like it (thanks Jenna!) and was always saying that she was going to give me some before I leave and, wow! I have pounds of la jiao now.
Only six more days.
FedEx strikes again. I got a call this morning from the Guiyang FedEx office saying that they had my package, but since Zunyi is outside of their service area, they can't deliver it to me, so do I have a friend in Guiyang,or would I like to come down to pick it up? I took their telephone number and refrained from telling them what I would like to do. Then I had my school call them and explain that this wasn't a problem with the last two packages and they should just put it in the post. Nancy said that apparently their problem is how to go about working out the ChinaPost charges... because they expect me to pay them? No, I think someone already paid for this package. I e-mailed the FedEx customer service and told them to put the package in the mail and pay for it themselves. That's what they've always done. Then it occurred to me that it was Chinese customer service, so my mentioning that the Chinese hadn't yet figured out that there is a box outside of which one can think might not have been the best move and I might want to send a back-up e-mail to the folks in the States.
Sitting in the office on break. Nancy, the office girl is here. She's nice, but Julian and I usually sit around and space out, or take Seventeen quizzes. My last New Year's resolution, according to them, was that I need to stop making out with my boyfriend in public. Julian's was that he was too self-obsessed, so he needed to spend this year concentrating on making himself less self-centered.
We learned about free speech and the First Amendment this morning. Good stuff. That and lawyers will go a long way towards keeping a country well.
Just finished my second day of intensive classes. Now Julian is tutoring his older guy. He wants to learn about composition structure. I just passed over my notes on essay writing. Nancy, a girl who worked here last summer is here for the vacation. She's a student of Graham and Mark's at the Teachers' College. She's almost too cheerful, but cool and more on the side of the teachers than the school.
Anyway, I can't think with him teaching, so I'm going to run. He's reading an essay I wrote/helped a student write about the importance of learning English. Conclusion: it's important.
Half-way through the second half of my intensive class. The kids are boring me. Right now, I only have five girls, around age 15. There were two university students in the morning, but they wanted to talk more or something. Not quite sure, since it was a discussion format. Students/Parents here can be really annoying like that. Off to plan for the second half of the second half of today's class. Then I teach that little kids class (5-6 y.o.).
Later that day...
The little kids were easy. It's only an hour and there is a 10 minute break in the middle. They were actually really good. When I left, one boy said, "See you next Monday!" Impressive.
Julian is off on a date with some woman he taught last semester. He has this theory about a whole class/group of Chinese women. They're in their late 20s, usually the youngest child (from the age of multiple children), intelligent, often having good jobs, still living with their parents, as is normal here, and overqualified for marriage. As one of Jenna's students pointed out, it's "science" that the man is supposed to be smarter than the woman [in a relationship]. Brought to us from the same folks that brought us Creation Science?
I tried to walk up Phoenix Mountain yesterday, but the road is at a bit of an incline and it was all slippery with spit. Reminded me of the time last year (when I had only just arrived here) I was lost for two hours on small trails there and everything was wet and impossible to walk on. Walking down is much more of a problem than walking up. Can't people go to the trouble of turning their heads and spitting *off* the paths? Too much to ask?
So, teaching didn't start today. I mostly blame HQ, and not just because he doesn't have access to this page and couldn't read it even if he did. He told me on Tuesday that my classes started today and then yesterday handed my my schedule, which I only gave a cursory glance. I got to school at 9:45 this morning and he said that I wasn't teaching. Fortunately his sister, the headmistress, was there and agreed with me that he should have said something. I already knew when my classes were, so I didn't bother to look at the schedule.
Currently reading Tom Jones, by Fielding. The guy is pretty funny. In case anyone was under the impression that "slut" was a modern word, it was in fact used quite liberally during the 18th century. Anyway, I was reading and someone said the word, "w---e", and I was stumped. They often use the word wench, but what other "W" words were there? Then at dinner at Champs-Elysees, I was telling Julian and hoping he might have some idea, but he didn't. So we moved on and were sitting there, when I suddenly exclaimed, "Whore!" Julian: "Whore! Of course!" I commented that that would have been a lot funnier in an English-speaking place. That's one of the positive and negative aspects of China. You can curse a blue streak and no one understands. What with things here being so frustrating, one (you/I?) often does. I dread returning to civilization.
Off to home. Hopefully I'll get to bed at a decent hour tonight. I think about vacation all day and when it's time for bed I try to turn it off, but it doesn't work; and as there's archaeology involved, I really can't sleep.
I've agreed to teach small children for three hours. Angel was teaching them, but hurt his ankle (possibly broken, possibly from drinking too much) and can't leave the house. Don't worry, it's for purely mercenary reasons.