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wegotblankets' LiveJournal:
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| Friday, August 31st, 2007 | | 6:54 pm |
how come on my friends page i can't go back to look at previous entries? i used to be able to, but the link has disappeared. can i fix this? | | Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 | | 12:13 am |
that's funny. drew, robert, and chris posting all at once. so i might as well say something. i'm taking chinese now. it's hard as always. and i'm at that point where it's like, "we just don't say it that way..." which is what i would tell my english students all the time. so that kind of sucks. i have a british housemate named Jo. she's great. the heating came on today (the north of china gets centralized heating. the south of china, though equally cold, does not. what decides is whether you're north or south of some important river). but it cost me 2000 rmb (1 USD = 8 rmb). >:( we've had spring weather for a month now, no rain! it's weird...it's warm enough for the mosquitos to still be alive. i am tired everyday. class, studying, seeing students. that's ALL i do and yet i'm exhausted. i spent 2 hours in class today doodling because i was so tired from yesterday. um. i'm going to taiwan for christmas. i'll be stateside in 2007 to report to my church (which unfortunately has fallen apart) and to see all of you, and then i move to shanghai and live there for as long as it takes to gain enough experience to get away again. in an hour i'll be on my way to watch my classmates sit on a panel where chinese students can ask them questions about learning english. the school made them do it. hehehe...i laugh because the questions will either be inane (do you like china?) or incomprehensible (how about your life?)...not much critical thinking in this country...lots of dissatisfaction, but no critical thinking. anyway, the only thing i'm afraid of is that they'll make me sit on the panel too...ech | | Tuesday, November 7th, 2006 | | 9:12 am |
anyone got good korean songs that you wouldn't mind sending me? half of my classmates are korean and i've come to really like their language. but really, it might be because i have a crush on one of them. hah :) | | Friday, September 29th, 2006 | | 5:06 am |
for those of you that took chinese with me, what were our textbooks? i only remember taiwan today, which was 51a. i took chinese up to 51b, which means 3 textbooks are missing from memory...i ask because my current school wants to know. thanks for your help! | | Friday, May 26th, 2006 | | 10:24 am |
it's not my fault, they asked!!!
i told my student today (not in class, thankfully) that there's no religious freedom in china and people don't really have any rights (at least not the right of assembly), as far as i can see. she sat there like her world was falling apart. i was like, are you ok? and she said "i'm so ashamed." she told me she never understood why the US kept criticizing china for a poor human rights record, and now she does. she looked so sad! i felt really bad...but they DID ask. they said, "what do you think of the cultural revolution?" and i told them what i thought and i was surprised when they said they agreed. and then i cautioned them not to make it a habit of talking about this stuff. my student said, "i'll email you my questions," and i had to tell her that my emails are being monitored. which launched us into the discussion of why that is, which led us to my first sentence in this entry. i tried to backtrack by saying that really, china shouldn't be a democracy. democracies don't work unless most of the population is educated and living above the poverty line (at least). i do think that the government is making wise decisions about most things, it's just that they do have to exercise control to keep the peace. but the damage had already been done...she looked SO SAD. :( i love my students. i really don't give them enough credit. unfortunately, they can't express their thoughts very well in english because they're taught pat phrases like "every coin has two sides", "for the internet to be beneficial to us, we must try our best to use it properly", and "friends share happiness and sadness together." i'm beginning to see that there isn't really as much uniformity of thought as i had previously assumed, it just seems that way because that's all they know how to say in english! poor kids. they are being so stifled. | | Thursday, May 25th, 2006 | | 3:51 am |
disastrous class today, when i was being evaluated!!! ugh. but then, i don't understand why i was being evaluated, because this is my last semester teaching. if it turns out that i suck, what can they do? fire me in the last month of class? anyway. it's because i spent about an hour trying to explain the difference between "specifically" and "especially", and between "instead" and "however". my students REALLY wanted to know. nightmare. 4 more weeks...!!!!!! summer will be so deliciously boring ^_^ | | Thursday, March 30th, 2006 | | 7:13 am |
i'll be in hong kong and taipei from may 1 to 7. chris, send me your phone number! | | Monday, March 6th, 2006 | | 3:15 am |
i'm waiting to have dinner at the hyatt. buffet for US $12. ooooh yeah. and yes, that IS expensive if you consider that i usually eat for less than US $1 a meal. teaching english is SO easy with a good textbook! why didn't i think of this earlier?!? i made them spend US $2 and some were still grumbling that it was too expensive. until i told them that my biology textbooks cost me about $80 per book. my student tells me today that they were all scared of me last year because i forced them to write well. but they really like my classes this semester because i'm not teaching them writing ;P the local chinese teachers are all impressed that i'm sticking around instead of leaving after a year like every other foreign teacher at this school. my first week, the only thing i was hearing was "you're still here?" i found out today that my students have never heard of deodorant. they had no idea what i was trying to describe in english. they were like, "perfume?" have you ever heard a wedding magazine read out loud by a man with a dutch accent? you really should try it. | | Monday, January 16th, 2006 | | 7:46 pm |
just letting everyone know that i'm still alive. vietnam has been great so far :) | | Sunday, January 8th, 2006 | | 9:00 am |
| | Wednesday, December 21st, 2005 | | 1:01 am |
what is it with the religious right? if i were in the US and kept hearing about the "happy holidays" thing and "intelligent design", i would be upset everyday. is there nothing better to do over there? if only people would just channel that energy (and money!) into: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress..." james 1:27 if they fought as tiresomely for this cause as they do for their political presence...well, it's just unimaginable. though i do have to say, the ACLU is even worse. but they don't have anything better to do, really. | | Sunday, December 18th, 2005 | | 8:22 am |
3 more weeks till holiday! really hard weeks (preparing questions and grading 18 hours of people talking, and 60 lengthy essay exams), but hey, i get to go to vietnam after. and then a month at home, just watching movies and eating. yay yay yay yay yay yaaaaaaaaay | | Thursday, December 8th, 2005 | | 6:55 am |
nastiness
i get a whiff of smoke everytime i take my coat off. the smell clings to everything - my coat, scarf, sweater, hair. in any other country, this means i've been out having a good time. here, it means that i walked on the street. walking is now this game where i try to overtake smokers (ie. every man) so that i'm not catching the leftovers of their last drag. it's kind of stressful. but on really bad days like today, the air just smells of something burning. it might be because sidewalk vendors have lit random little fires on the sidewalk to keep warm, or there's more coal being burned for the heating (or something). my snot is always black, too. | | Thursday, December 1st, 2005 | | 6:56 pm |
casey went back home. i might not see him again EVER! though that's pretty unlikely, seeing as i've been able to see chris, meredith, michelle, and other pomona people on random trips. but still, people could die on you, you know? at least i'll get to catch up with him in eternity. my students always kind of go silent when i mention "Death" in the classroom. they say it's bad luck. but then again, they say it's "good luck" when you see someone drop his wallet and you pick it up and keep the money. (i've only heard that they think that, never really been said to my face) | | Friday, November 25th, 2005 | | 7:49 am |
i'm tired. no more teaching. no more no more no more...*die* good things: you can hitch a motorcycle for about 25 american cents to take you somewhere about 20 minutes walking distance. you can get fresh meat. they'll kill the chicken in front of you. (bad thing: bird flu might be in your city and you'll never know because The Man doesn't want you to know) people don't dress well so it doesn't matter what you wear the air is so polluted that it might be worse for you if you exercise (and thus breathe more), which is great for a bum like me students always give me bags of fruit, so i've never had to spend money on fruit. fix-it people line the sidewalk (they sit on little stools with their tools out), so you can go fix whatever's broken instead of having to buy a new one. and they're very good at what they do. people can't tell i'm not chinese if i don't open my mouth. you can break almost any official rule and no one cares, unless they know they'll get in trouble if they let you do it, or if they just want to power trip (which happens often). bad things: you always have the nagging feeling that you've been ripped off old ladies with nothing better to do (when the grandkids are in school from 7am-6pm) sift through the garbage bins for recyclables. it's really, super gross. long underwear comes in all sorts of colors and patterns (like imitation reptile scales, for example) except plain black or grey. the spitting and the smoking. you're not a man until you can do both. lining up for something is unthinkable. toddlers pee and poo in plain sight on the street. so when you come across poo, you're not quite sure if it had dog or human origin. the sidewalk is tiled, which makes it really slippery when wet. also, the buildings all have tiled facades so walking on the street feels like you're in a bathroom. which is appropriate since kids are defecating everywhere. to be continued. | | Monday, October 31st, 2005 | | 7:26 am |
gonna be in vietnam and chiangmai in january/february. what about you? | | Sunday, October 2nd, 2005 | | 7:16 am |
Hi! Can anyone tell me where I can find 1. baking ware (muffin trays, pie pans) 2. chocolate chips 3. Kettle Chips potato chips? in Shanghai? I already scoured Carrefour and was hugely disappointed :( | | Thursday, August 18th, 2005 | | 10:48 am |
| | Saturday, August 13th, 2005 | | 7:45 am |
i met up with kent! will post pictures soon. megumi is real and very nice. kent is very satisfied with his life here. i'm glad i got to see him. i miss you pomona people. | | Sunday, August 7th, 2005 | | 6:55 am |
got fat on shanghai food. going to japan tomorrow. yeehaw. |
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