The Brain Dump

Christina and I are heading off tomorrow morning. We'll be hitting Beijing, Dandong, Dalian, Yantai, and Qingdao. It should be suitably awesome. We'll probably be back around August 15th (depending on how the money lasts), so you can expect more sporadic posts and pictures then!

B'bye!

Alrighty, we are back from Linzhou and do I have some pictures for you!

Yes.

Here we go.

Oy, I'm getting all gwiggly thinking about it.

OK, OK.

Here I am:

The grossness factor was huge. And it did not help that our New Zealander friend, Robert, was popping them into his mouth easy-as-can-be. But Christina really wanted to try one. And did:


That's Robert behind her. The amused looking Polish man to my left is Adam. He is Polish. Christina ate hers first; I required more convincing. She told me happily, "Tastes like popcorn!" This did not make it easier. The doodles were all very amused. Here's the problem: they brought the little arachnids out before everybody toasted us and got super-wasted-face. No, no, no, doodles. You bring the gross looking stuff out after . . . after . . . sigh. It would have been so much easier after.

Though it did taste a little like popcorn. . . .

So I meant to finish a blog post I started yesterday, as well as update it today and tomorrow . . . but we are being hijacked (shanghaied?) and taken to this middle school in another town so our administration can show off their foreigners. We have to stay overnight because on Sunday the school's principal is doing us such a favor by giving us a tour of the Red Flag Canal. I wouldn't be quite so annoyed if the Chinese weren't acting like this is some big favor they are doing us. Like we were begging them to drag us away in a crappy van at 7am to work on our weekend.

We found out we would have no weekend on Thursday evening. It's called planning doodles. Get with it.

Hellooooooo, peoples! How's it going? Christina and I are back, safe and sound, in Anyang. We actualy returned on the 3rd, but . . . I have been having some technical difficulties with my computer. But, that's mostly fixed now and I'll return to updating the ol' Brain Dump on a (hopefully) regular basis.

Today was the first day of classes for the new term. Had to get up at 6:30am. Not a pretty thing. But I did just have a two-month vacation, so . . . I imagine my complaints fall on mostly deaf ears. . . .

Can you imagine if I'd have died whilst galavanting around the Yunnan province (or if I'd gone rogue) . . . ? You wouldn't have heard anything. The only sign would be no more blog updates. . . . Think about it. . . .

But we did survive, and we had lots of fun. And we posted some of the photos we took on the trip onto my Snapfish public group. Once again, the link is here, and the password is:

chinaphotos

Hope you like em! This is only a very small portion of the 500+ photos I took. More to come as I sift through them. But now I'm off to bed because I'm going to try to wake up at 6:15 tomorrow. I expect to snooze. . . .

So, I began giving my final exams this week. Each student had the option of choosing to do a speech (by themselves), a debate (in two teams), or a short sketch (in groups). I then assess them based on their:

1) Creativity
2) Understanding of the topic
3) Expressed feelings and recitation
4) Vocabulary
5) Grammar and syntax

Those are my nebulous and extremely subjective parameters to determine a one hundred point grade. Only a mere two and a half weeks ago, I was relishing the academic demise of several students, but now that it's here I'm filled more with much more empathy than I thought I would be. Some of these students are just so pathetic.

There was one guy, for instance--he stumbled through his speech (on, ironically, how to better one's English), until he final hit a wall, stuttering the same sentence fragment at least eight times before he finally just slumped back to his seat. I thought it would be easy to deal the decisive grade, like a swift, clean knife to the throat, but . . . god, I can't help pitying them.

Not that they're getting off the hook. Not by any means. One girl today asked me in all seriousness after everyone in her class (by far my worst one) had finished their speeches, "Can everyone pass?" I looked at her, thinking for a few seconds, trying to find a diplomatic way of telling her that it was much more likely that about half the students would be passing. I settled, instead, on a simple, "No."

I'm telling myself that it wasn't me that failed them (as a teacher). I'm not sure how much I believe it. Every time I do, there's that idealist guerrilla warrior, spreading propaganda leaflets saying that, if I'd only tried harder to find a way to reach them, they all would be fluent by now. That is not true. I know how hard I worked; I know dismissive, how utterly disinterested they were in anything I tried to get them to talk about. I know this. But, goddamn, those leaflets are compelling.

The whole structure of the class certainly doesn't help. No, it doesn't help that the only tangible objective of the class was to get them talking. It doesn't help that they didn't actually have to learn any of the topics we talked about. It doesn't help that class participation--the aforementioned in-class talking--only counts for a piddly twenty percent of their final grade; whereas the final exam counts for the remaining eighty. And it really doesn't help that passing oral English is not required to earn a degree.

But I'm focusing on the negatives. There are many positives. The vast majority of my students will pass easily. In fact, every student in the class directly prior to my worst one will pass with a C or higher. These are the students on the "old campus." The "bad" ones. The ones who didn't score as well on the university entrance exam, and so were damned to poorly maintained and very, very old facilities. These are the same students that can talk circles around most of my "new campus" students. But they only got one chance to determine their next four to five years of education.

Sigh . . . all this and I may have to teach many of the same students next semester. . . .

Schadenfreude, you fickle, fickle whore.

I'm taking a rain check on tonight's doodles. I'm tired. I'll post them tomorrow.

This is not a cop-out . . . only a postponement.

I severely underestimated how much joy I would feel while failing many of my students. I thought maybe I would feel a little remorse, maybe a little guilty . . . nope. None o' that. In fact, I feel a little giddy. Mwa ha ha . . .

It's not that I want them to fail. It's more that . . . well . . . these students have been such little shits all semester that it just warms my heart to know (because it's up to me) that (at least in my class) these students will get the grade they most richly earned.

I mean, seriously: Daydreaming, sleeping during class, texting, (<---and these are the options I hope to see in class! because usually there's more) talking in class, having little doodle conversations (the bastards) while I'm trying to lecture or while their classmates are trying to improve their oral English, playing music on their damn phones, talking on their damn phones--I actually had students make calls right in the middle of class!--blank stares when I ask them to stop, when I ask their opinion, when I ask them if they have any idea what we are talking about in class.

I have yelled, I have asked, I have pleading that they pay attention, act respectfully, shut the fuck up, and everything I say gets ignored. I tried to get them not to come to class, so that they can't be disruptive. That, of course, is disregarded. Ooooooh, but now it's my turn. Now the teacher gets his say.

I took attendance in all my classes last week. It was the first time the whole semester I did so and it wasn't because I cared who showed up. Oh no. It was so that I could mark by each name their participation grade. I have one class (admittedly my worst) of fifty-two students . . . twenty-two are receiving zeros for participation. This minor victory is couched a little because of the terrible way we have to proportion our grades. Participation and such (all the actual work they do during the semester) is only 20% of the final grade, the final oral exam being the remaining 80%.

Oh but my day will come. Because I can guarantee you right now that the students who didn't participate in my class are the students who will not do well on the final exam.

It's these little things that keep my world turning 'round. . . .

The heavens part and drums roll like thunder . . .

Animals bow and the baboon steps forward . . .

Behold . . .

Here stands before you a man . . . who would read doodles.

And I did! It was at a supermarket that opened up today(!), which meant that every doodle in the province wanted to stop by and check out the low low prices. Christina's and my tutor, Cathrine, and her ever-present friend, Lucy, gave us a call to tell us the good news (that the supermarket was opening), and Christina and I decided to see what all the hub-bub was about, seeing as we our out of rice.

The place was mobbed. The only thing missing was the rage virus. But. But! That isn't what's important. None of this, in fact, is important. What's important is that this guy [*twiddles thumbs at self*], this guy is the guy who finally read a sign in doodles. The sign--that magical, literacy unlocking sign--read this:

小心有电

Ha HA! I know, I know--not exactly Earth-shattering. But I'll take it!

For those who are doodle-impaired, allow me to explain what this wonderous sign is saying. The characters read as thus: xiao3xin1 you3 dian4. 小, you may recall (if you've been keeping up with your doodles), means "small," and 心 means "heart." However, when they are crammed together, they form a compound doodle that means "Caution." Don't ask why. The next one, 有, is the verb "to have," but it can also mean "There is" or "There are." I learned this doodle this week, I believe. The last one, 电, means "electricity." I shouldn't know that one but I do because I kept seeing it around and finally asked one of my students what it was on one random occasion.

So.

Following from the doodles, I correctly read the sign as saying: "Caution, Electricity"

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

So what I'm really trying to say is:

1) I saw the sign.
2) It did, indeed, open up my eyes.

And now it's like a whole new world has opened up before me. A whole new world! Hit it, Nick!

My New Zealand friend, Robert, told me something interesting on my birthday a couple weeks ago. He said that I'm a year older here in China than I am in the United States--twenty-seven, instead of twenty-six. This is because the Chinese say you are already a year old on the day you are born. In the ol' US of A, you have to live that year before it counts. The Chinese go ahead and give it to you on credit. Or, as Robert put it, "There optimists in that regard." So go fig. I'm a year older (wiser?) just by being here.

I share this along with something else. I recently learned how to say "hair" (tou2fa1, 头发), and, already knowing the word for red, felt confident telling my students (chest puffed out with pride), "我的头发是红色的!" (My hair is red!). But when I did, their spoony little faces did not fill with joy as I had assumed they would, but puzzlement. "红色的?" they said. "不是红色的!" And now we're all confused.

"What color do you think my hair is?" I ask them.

"Yellow!" yell a chorus of giggly doodles.

"Yellow?! You think I'm blond?"

"Yes!" yell some. "黄色的!" yell others. "Yellow!"

Thinking this class silly, I asked my next. The same response. I asked more people and they all said the same thing, culminating with a short but fun discussion of American and Chinese concepts of beauty between myself, Christina, our Mandarin tutor, Cathrine, and her friend, Lucy. The Chinese have spoken: Chris Walsh is blond.

These thoughts have been tickling my brain the past day or so. I share my body with a blond twenty-seven-year-old. I wonder how else this Chinese Chris differs from his American counterpart. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Scrounging for in-class activities, I've started playing songs for my students in order for them to practice pronunciation and generally expand their vocabularies. So far, we've listened to: "Suddenly I See," by the indomitable KT Tunstall; "Do You Realize," by the Flaming Lips; "Take Me Out," by Franz Ferdinand; and, finally, "Big, Big World," by none other than Emilia. That last one was a concession made to one of my more demanding classes, as they did not care for "Suddenly I See."

Teaching a song does make you think a little harder about what its saying. It also makes you stretch as much as possible for some kind of meaning. For instance, here's what I came up with for "Take Me Out" (which I picked only because it was a fun rock song):

It was a common belief in Europe up through the Elizabethan Era that when a person orgasmed, they lost a little bit of their "life energy." Subsequently, another way of saying "to orgasm" was "to die." Now. Looking at the lyrics ("So if you're lonely/You know I'm here waiting for you/I'm just a crosshair/I'm just a shot away from you/And if you leave here/You leave me broken, shattered, I lied/I'm just a crosshair/I'm just a shot, then we can die/I know I won't be leaving here with you"), I picture a guy standing at a bar in a disco, getting a drink and scoping out the ladies. He spots one and he beckons to her, telling her that he's here if she's lonely. He tells her he's a crosshair, a shot away from her, meaning (as I see it) that if she would just look at him she would see how close he is. He jokes a little about Romantic notions of love (being "broken" or "shattered" when you're love leaves) to this complete stranger. Then he says "I'm just a shot, then we can die." So here's where the Elizabethan "death" comes in (heh . . . comes in (hey-ohhhhhhhhh!)). He's saying point your guns at me, baby, and we can "die." Ohhhhhhh yeah . . .

Now, not wanting to explain what an "orgasm" is to my students, who are possibly the most sexually naive people on the planet (they know nothing about sex, they aren't allowed to date in high school, they rarely date in college . . . when I even mention Christina in class, they all go "OooooOOOooh"--not unlike a studio audience watching Kelly Kapowski peck Zack Morris on the cheek), I told them instead that it was believed in Europe that you died a little bit when you fell in love. For my later classes I made up some BS about how your souls came together and it was your lonely soul that died and was reborn together with the soul of your love. Whatever. So "Take Me Out" became not a song about some dude trying to get laid, but a man searching for love . . . at a dance club. He's not confident ("I know I won't be leaving her with you") but he's persistent (why the lyrics repeat so much in the second part of the song). Thus, the "take me out" of the song becomes both: "Take me out on a date" and take me out--as in, kill me--so we can fall in love (or . . . have orgasms, whichever you want to believe).

So all of this was fine until I wrote out the lyrics to "Big, Big World," which, by the by, is, like, one of the vaguest songs about love ever. I hit a bit of a snag on the chorus. "But I do, do feel that I do, do will miss you much." I do will miss you much? Nevermind the "do will" part. Is "miss you much" right? I guess you can miss a person very much . . . "I miss you very much" . . . That's grammatical, right? But to just miss someone much? . . . They all knew the song, which didn't help. How do you tell a group of students that they're learning a song that doesn't use standard grammar and break their spoony little hearts? Well, I could not.

So now I'm lying to my students about European beliefs and teaching them non-standard grammar. I am clearly the greatest teacher alive!