Just a day in the life of a teacher

Where have the past few months gone? In just 2.5 weeks, we're supposed to be giving our finals! Our finals need to be finished by December 20th. However, we have to stay around until January 2nd, when we are participating in our university's extravagant performance.

The past week, with the exception of maybe Friday and Saturday, has been really difficult for me and I don't know why. Everything has been a constant struggle--interactions with my students, teammates, etc. And all of a sudden it truly feels like winter has set in and there's no escape. I don't think I would mind so much about winter, if there was heat in the buildings. Sitting in the freezing office yesterday morning almost made me cry, because I was just so cold and miserable. It would have helped if I had worn several more layers of clothes, but I'm still adjusting to this whole existence of living without heat. :)

Today I had two classes in a row and we talked about job interviews, which they all seemed interested in. Learning about that subject's very practical for them. I also brought some candy for my difficult class in an effort of trying to motivate them to speak more. It didn't seem to matter! I could have placed a million dollars on the podium up front and they wouldn't have spoken.

Between classes Jodi and I saw another Chinese English teacher who came to our Thanksgiving party. He was also waiting for his class to start, so he showed us the "teacher's lounge." I felt very hesitant to go into the lounge. All of the other teachers in there were about 43 years old and looked like real teachers in their suits and collared shirts. I'm just a 22-year old kid without much experience, yet they also call me a teacher. I never thought I'd ever sit in a teacher's lounge. But I did. We sat in these huge, velvety, light purple chairs, but it wasn't very relaxing.

In my next class, my wild class, Jodi came in for a few minutes. She's Chinese-American so people often think that she's from China. Jodi sat at the back of my class, looking like she was observing, sometimes like other random students do. I pretended I didn't know her. When my students were discussing in very halted English what they thought they'd be doing in 10 years, I had Jodi tell us her answer. She answered in her very fluent, American-accented English for a while. The whole class was abuzz with amazement. Then I told my students the real story. It was pretty fun.

And a photographer also came in with his fancy camera on a tripod to take pictures of me teaching, because they are taking pictures to commemorate the university's 15th anniversary. I'm sure a picture of me doing something very teacherly and American will appear in a brochure somewhere...

Now it's time to go to the supermarket. I also have to figure out how to withdraw money from the China Postal Savings bank. Have a great Tuesday!