Confusion

Friday, September 5. Today, I have my last two classes for the week. Both reasonably well-behaved and only a few students seem way behind the others. It is hard because in every class, there are clearly some kids who understand everything and some kids who understand nothing, with the rest somewhere in the middle. I've learned to speak even more slowly as the week has gone on. Most if not all of the Chinese English teachers have observed my classes, some more than once, and I've been getting some positive feedback: good at motivating students, patient, kind, strict (about no talking) and so forth. So I guess I'm off to a good start - now the problem will be to keep it up.

Lunch in the cafeteria: rice, tofu and carrots. I sit by myself, and a young new biology teacher (just finished university and arrived at the school this week) comes to sit with me. She is very interested in practicing her English and speaks very well. Her pronunciation is quite good, despite her protestations to the contrary. It is difficult to meet new people unless they go out of their way to let you know they speak English because we can't communicate with most people other than on a very basic level.

After lunch, I send an email to Mr. Zhang asking if I can meet with him to discuss subject for next week's lesson plan. Then I start reading more student "poems," get sleepy so decide to take a nap! As I'm waking up, Mr. Zhang calls and says he has time to meet with me in his office. So I quickly brush my teeth and run out to the Senior classroom building. I find the office, but he's not there. So I think maybe he was called away, then I think maybe he's teaching and I didn't understand. After I've waited about 45 minutes, I finally ask one of the Chinese teachers if she knows where Mr. Zhang is, and she points upstairs. I've been waiting all this time in the wrong office! (OK, in my defence, all the offices look the same, with about 6 desks in them for the Chinese teachers, they are in the same location on each floor, and different teachers come in and out all the time depending on their teaching schedule. I didn't recognize anyone in there but I thought maybe I just hadn't met them yet. But I think this explains why I've been putting things down in one office - like my umbrella - and not being able to find them later!)

So I rush out the door to go upstairs and meet Mr. Zhang coming down the stairs! I apologize profusely and explain, but he says not to worry, not a problem. He couldn't be nicer, but of course I feel ridiculous. All of the senior teachers are now on their way to their weekly meeting (Fridays at 5:15), so I tag along. The meeting, of course, is conducted entirely in Chinese but Mr. Zhang translates a lot of it for me so at least I have a general idea what's going on. It's basically a pep talk for the beginning of the new school year with the usual administrative matters thrown in. Apparently, they have a fingerprint identification system so the teachers have to "check" themselves in at 8:30 a.m., out at 11:30, in again at 2:30 and out again at 5:30 p.m.

At one point in the meeting, everyone turns to look at me and Mr. Zhang tells me to stand up so I do. Everyone applauds, I say "ni hao" (chinese for "hello"), and they applaud again. After I sit down, Mr. Zhang tells me that the Head of Senior Teaching was saying some nice things about me and that they could learn from me! Whoa. I hope I can live up to all this. After the meeting, I see the Head and say "xie xie" (Thank you).

Mr. Zhang and I spend a few minutes talking about topics for lesson plan for next week. I have my work cut out for me, with new vocabulary, review of verb tenses and sentence structure! All this in a 45 minute class. Now the trick will be how to make it memorable, in every sense of that word.

Home for dinner. "Talk" to Eleanor on Skype. I don't have a microphone yet so basically we're doing the Skype equivalent of Instant Messaging but it's great. I feel like I'm still "in the loop" with her life!