Day of opportunities

(Class 1 this morning. My head is twice as big as everyone else's).
(Looking a lot like spring)

The past three days have been beautiful here in the 'Chang. When we have free time, we can skate, run, walk, and play badminton. I'm in heaven. And it actually got warm enough for shorts or a skirt, although it still doesn't seem to be the official "season" for that kind of attire yet. I'm just waiting, waiting, waiting for the second I can ditch these few winter clothes I've been wearing on repeat for the past 5 1/2 months.

The past few days have been a whirlwind of sorts. Nothing very exciting has happened, but I'm quite healthy (despite my allergies that go crazy because of the trees and pollution) and I've had a lot of energy during class. I feel like I'm really engaging my students again.

Yet as classes are getting better, I'm sad to report that about 1/4th of my students will be leaving soon! This university often operates like a business. In mid-April, the brightest students are pressured/strongly encouraged to return to their hometown to "recruit" more students. The students, in turn, get their grades and exam scores fixed, in addition to receiving money, for this endeavor. It's like a big pyramid scheme.

Anyway, that means about 10 people in each of my classes will be leaving very soon. They won't return until next semester. It will be nice that my classes will be smaller, but I'm losing some of my best and dearest students.

For lunch today I ate with my dear student Reborn. We walked the long way to the new campus back gate with Jodi and our friend Amy. We ate at a little restaurant on the back street, which looks sort of like a shanty town. All these little buildings and vending stands are haphazardly thrown together to serve the university's gigantic student population.

Then Reborn helped tutor me in Chinese during the lunch break back at my office. On our holiday this past Monday, she apparently went searching high and low for a Chinese textbook for me. So today she presented me with a small textbook that looks like Chinese for 10 year-old Chinese children. Somehow I have skipped straight from the most basic Chinese to intermediate-advanced Chinese.

I have no idea how I'll learn Chinese that way, but I'll try my best. Reborn doesn't seem to think it's impossible. That's what China's like. Everything can be accomplished through sheer will-power, no matter how difficult things seem. So I was just pleased that she went to all that trouble to find me a Chinese kid's textbook...

Today we were at new campus for a nearly 10 hour day. The day was completed at 5:15 with English corner. Half of English corner usually consists of my students. I think they think I'm a fine teacher, but I know they really enjoy talking to Jodi and Jonathan.

So today Jonathan and I were talking to a couple of boys from one of my classes. There is one boy who comes to my office hours every Monday to practice his English. He loved the Easter lesson, and has been trying to find everything he can about the Word. He straight out told us he wants to study it. It was amazing. So I'm going to give Jonathan his phone number, and hopefully they can have a study together. I'm also thankful that this one particular student won't be heading out for "recruiting" soon. Perhaps you can keep him in your thoughts!

Life is encouraging here. I always feel dead tired, but it is a good kind of tired.