more student gems

Let me preface this post, and maybe help explain previous ones, by saying this: for the majority of my students my class is a blow-off class.  They are postgraduate students required to have a language credit, and since most of them have been "learning" English for years, they figure that another English class will be the easiest way to get said credit.  The title of the course is "Spoken English for International Communication", so I don't focus on writing--that is why so many of their answers I post on here are funny.  I'd be surprised if 5 out of all 50 of them use or think about English outside of their two hours in my class each week, and I'm not going to bang my head against the wall trying to earnestly improve their language skills when they don't try.  Their writing will always entertaining, but I don't want people to think I'm a bad teacher who just laughs at my students instead of helping them.

That being said...I spent yesterday catching up on loads of grading and homework, and of course, I discovered some interesting tidbits.  First, two answers from a pop quiz, the question asking what "brunch" is:
-A big room with chair or sofa, that people could talk to each other.
-"brunch" refers to part of something, and alikes the subject.  For example, precision engineering is a brunch of mechanics.

The second, and more comically profitable, assignment was for students to write one page on which historical time period they would like to live in, and why.  Following are some of my favorite bits and bobs:
-So in the Three Kingdoms, a man is able to be a hero and achieve spandex achievement with his talent, his bravery and his loyalty in the troubled time.
-(from a student who wanted to live during the revolution/founding of the P.R.C., a little more serious) I wanted to work in foreign countries' governments, so I would control them in order to help my own country and my Chinese people.
-I may become a great man like Martin Luther King who fought for the freedom ring of Negro.
-Although, at that period, I may died early, can't enjoy the Internet and the colorful world of dairy life.  (INFINITELY funnier when you know that he has the same accent as Kim Jong Il in Team America--the 'l' sounds like an 'r'...I have heard him say 'revorution' and 'actuarry')
-The arts of that period are also world-sharking.
-So imagine a question: 'if I lived in ancient period, how long I can live.'  I think the answer is one day.  Because I can't bare that environment, Because I want to contact others freely, because I want to go to anyplace without limitation.  I want free.  So if I really lived in that period, I would be crazy, and then be killed by the king quickly, so I can't live more than one day.

I'm blessed to have a job where I can laugh, and my students do keep me in stitches.  Currently I'm hitting the burn-out phase, our semester here is about a month longer than the average American semester and that's starting to get to me.  As of tomorrow, it's only three weeks until I leave for home, and while I'm excited, I'm also a little hesitant to leave because the last couple months have been the best ever.  Once I am on the plane and on the way I know I will feel more committed to being home, and it will be a good trip; I'm also hopeful for the coming fall, I think it will definitely be another banner year!

funny exam answers

What a month April was!  I have been invited to return to NUDT for a third year, which I plan on doing, so that's exciting.  The month also started and ended with a holiday, and I enjoyed both of them very, very much.  The weather was overall not so bad, but the summer heat and humidity have arrived.  Also, as the title references, I gave my spring semester midterm exam, and exams always give rise to answers that tickle my funny bone.  The question that elicited the most 'creative' answers was the following: "What are the three most common ways to practice good hygiene?"  The answers I taught in class, and therefore needed were: wash your hands, cover your mouth, and stay home when you're sick.  What the students wrote ranged all over the place, and I have compiled some of the best for your reading pleasure.

-The most important I think is doing sports more.

-In my opinion, education is the first way to practice good hygiene.  Education will tell us how and what to practice good hygiene.  Second, we can use different kinds of action, like ads, TV shows, and so on to build a concept of good hygiene in society.  Third, we must punish the people who destroy hygiene and help the change to practice good hygiene.

-To set it into a law and make it compulsory to practice; to deliver it into every corner of the country through medias, and make everyone familiar with it; in schools, especially elementary schools, open a class to teach it, namely by education.

-Watch your actions when blowing noses in public.

-Study from doctors and ask some hygiene question; practice in public place and look others reaction, you can ask the reason they do like that; read book about health and daily life.

-Insist running for 15 minutes in the morning; if you feel tired, then go out for something to play.

-To learn good hygiene through media; do what you learn in your daily life; keep a good habit.

-Keep you room clean; keep your body clean and wash your clothes.

-Clean our teeth.

-The first thing is to prevent disease or illness to spread by enhance our immense.

-Go away drinking and smoking.

-Do the cleaning work every day; make the windows always open; drop the trash every day.

-To practice good hygiene, the most common way is to behavior yourself; you can clean your room frequency; plant beautiful trees and flowers to get your house pretty, and even go outdoors to take exercises to keep health.

-Wash your socks every time you play soccer/football; take a bath after large amount of sports.

-Don’t eat too much—too much food will make a person fat.

-Enough sleeping.

-At last, the most important thing is to control your emotion, always keep yourself in a good or wild mood.

My job is never boring, and I am happy that I can laugh while I work.  I cannot wait to see where May takes me, exciting new things happening and summer vacation quickly approaching!

up late, bits and bobs

It's 1 a.m local time and even though I didn't nap today, I'm wide awake.  I haven't been writing much here or anywhere, I do well to journal once a week at this point.  For a few weeks I was going pretty hard--fully taking advantage of the 4-day weekend, plus a week-long holiday spending as much time as possible with my foreign friends while we were free.  I met even more new people (still boggles my mind that I can do that here so often), got to know some new friends even better, and had sooooo much fun!  It's taken a couple weeks, but I think I've recovered well enough.  Today I was beyond productive, doing laundry and sweeping and EVERY LAST DISH, even threw a little schoolwork into the mix.  Payday is tomorrow, and I at least am a little on edge to hear whether or not I'll be re-signed at my university.  Sure, the restrictions can be frustrating, but I'll take those for a steady job that I know well and an apartment I have made into home.  I really don't want to have to look for another job, let alone move into a new place.  If I am let go, it wouldn't be for my teaching: we were finally evaluated a couple weeks ago and I'm happy to say I got rave reviews.

I've been thinking more and more about being home as the fly date approaches--June 27th!  Seeing my family and friends and hometown again after 18 months will be amazing and different, have to admit I'm a bit nervous how I'll fit in again after so long away.  I'm excited about everything though, high points will be the family vacation to Colorado, 4th of July on the lake, eating all of those delicious foods I miss, finally meeting my brother's girlfriend, having my sweet cousin practice driving me around, meeting Bryce Burrup for the first time, and being plain lazy with Dor and Keen.  It's going to be lots of good times, then Dor will be joining me for two weeks here in China in August!  It's unfortunate that some of my best friends won't be here to meet her, but regardless I'm ready to take her out and about and introduce her to my family here.

I've been watching movies all day while tidying, two Adam Sandler movies in particular.  After seeing the preview for his newest movie, I'm sad to say that I think his best days are behind him.  I am looking forward to Will Ferrell's new film, though--anything with Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal is bound to be great.  Honestly, I don't really keep up with newer movies lately, I've been watching more TV shows than anything.

Time is flying fast now that spring and better weather are here...hopefully in a week or so I'll have good news and can just enjoy the rest of the term!

the uselessness of making plans

So I've been in this relationship for 18 months now, and I think it's official: China and I are in love.  Sometimes we get upset with each other, and every now and then I want to call the whole thing off, but we've stuck it out and here we are.  I moved here a year and a half ago, thinking it would be two quick years getting experience then I could head elsewhere.  After a few months the idea of going back to school popped up, so the plan became saving money.  But now, I'm getting ready to head into a third year here, and I've realized that it's pointless for me to try to make plans anymore--to say that I'll be in a certain place X amount of years from now.  I've nested and settled in here, and met so many people and gotten to know some really amazing women (some of the guys are okay, too).  I am about as restless as possible right now, and the only thing to do is stay where I am while I can.

"Maybe warnings don't work, and maybe I had to see for myself"

full of excuses

Wow, over two months...and my journal has been suffering as well.  It's difficult to force myself to write for all the reasons I've mentioned before--being busy, spending time with friends, traveling for (literally) half of January, and my general laziness.  I hate to direct people to Facebook and Flickr, but that's really going to be the best place to understand my winter travels.  I spent three full days in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China, where the weather is beyond cold but the city is beautiful.  My friends and I saw tigers, belugas, and ice and snow sculptures, and walked across a frozen river.  After not even an entire week at home, I was off again to Weinan, which is an hour outside of Xi'an, to spend my first Chinese New Year in the country with a real Chinese family.  A couple days later my travel buddy Beth and I headed into Xi'an, the big city, to laze around for a solid week, casually seeing the sights and enjoying the AMAZING foods.  We had a good week at home to throw down before classes started, for me on Valentine's Day.  The graduate schedules have been re-arranged, so our Monday afternoon class is now on Friday morning...only I don't have students in that class, but they still wanted us to show our faces, which wasn't a big deal when it was in the afternoon.  February has also been a big birthday month, over the last weekend I made 4 dozen funfetti cupcakes and 1 mini-three-tier chocolate cake.  There is always something going on here, and I'm still having a fantastic time; we all can't wait for the warmer weather to arrive in a couple months, I've been doing some major shopping to prepare!

At any rate, I'm still in my pajamas and I've got less than an hour to get ready and be on the bus to campus.  Typical!

from the class that brought us such classics as "love is beautiful, so just do it"...

This week's class topic quickly became one of my personal favorites last year.  The first unit in our textbook is titled "Attitudes and Happiness", and discusses things like personality, moods, and opinions.  I prefer to have this class further into the year when the students are more comfortable talking in class and with each other, because it can be a little personal and it's largely discussion-based.  My favorite question in the whole lesson is, "Would you be able to marry someone from a very different background (cultural, religious, socioeconomic, racial); why or why not?".  Of course, it was during this class last year I learned that Chinese soldiers are not allowed to marry foreigners, so I have to ask them to discard that notion for a few moments.  Last year I actually had someone tell me it was his dream to marry a foreigner and have mixed-culture kids and raise them all over the world; usually the number of Chinese traditionalists (and I would argue realists) is much higher than the foreign-wanting outliers.  Anyway, the whole class has quotable potential, and I'd like to share some of my favorites from this week.

-"I can't devote all my heart into her", Clyde
-"my love girl", Nathan (one of my real romantics)
-(me)"What does 'prejudice' mean?"...(Marx)"It's a book's name."
-"He is happiest when he first mate with his girlfriend", [meant to be meet]
-"She happy, I happy, why not?", Jack, on marrying someone with a different background
-(Sheldon)"Do you have a girlfriend?"...(Howard)"Yes"...(Sheldon)"Do you want a few more?"

Somehow, my kitchen is messiest it's ever been in my life, even worse than when I've been baking or making dinner.  I decided to buy real coffee beans at Starbucks since I bought a grinder last year, and yesterday morning I was so excited to use it finally, I even woke up a bit earlier than normal (and this was Thursday, my early teaching morning).  Well, I put in too many for just one person, then when I took the lid off the grinder to transfer the powder to the coffeemaker, it kind of exploded everywhere.  And me being me, I left it that way.  All day...and last night.  Last night I was actually struck with a cleaning fever, which conveniently directed me to tidy everywhere EXCEPT the kitchen.  But I promise I'll tidy it today, there is the possibility of being Betty Crocker on the weekend horizon and it's too difficult to navigate the mess in there and actually get anything done.

Thanks to the magic that is Google Music here in China, I've replaced Christmas music with anything else I can download for free including: Mumford & Sons, The Swell Season, Hugh Laurie, The Black Keys, Gloriana, and the Killers.

"When you're still waiting for the snow to fall, it doesn't really feel like Christmas at all"

"some mistakes are too much fun to only make once"

It's the Christmas season, and I am super-pumped.  If my recent theme of amazing holidays continues, then Christmas is going to blow my mind.  I didn't intend to have the most interesting birthday ever or the most pleasantly-surprising Thanksgiving, they just happened that way...  It's fun to be in a holiday season with a wide net of friends and lots of parties and stuff to do; that's how it was at home splitting time between work and school and friends and family, and I love the hustle and bustle.  Classes have been going well, even though I had a sinus infection last week (and the cough and congestion seem to be hanging on)--the weather changed to cold and rainy all of a sudden and most of the foreigners came down with something or other.  Right now I can smell the cake pastries I'm making in my little toaster oven, and it smells so good!  I really love to bake, and the arrival of Betty Crocker cake and cookie mixes a couple weeks ago at Metro was a big deal.

I didn't post for Thanksgiving, but I'll still mention some random things I appreciate.
-my mom is really funny, and she says surprising things all the time
-I like looking on FB and seeing people who I know have had hard times in the past that seem really happy now
-last week we were finally able to book plane tickets and lodging in Harbin for winter vacation!
-when I was teaching dance at the training center last week while I was sick and in a terrible mood, I looked in the hall and saw the 50-something cleaning lady doing the steps: instant spirit-lifter
-my students make me laugh by drawing/saying things they don't realize are inappropriate, and creating impossible situations like the following:

This week I was having them create their own countries as part of our government lesson (y'all remember doing this in high school?).  This is what the board looked like after one presentation, and I'll explain as best as I can:  The name of the country is "The Great Kingdom of Morpheus" (the sun god?), and their capital city is East Factory.  The national language is Cantonese, and "fule ice" is their greatest natural resource.  You can't see their flag, but it's a palm full of bright red fire.  [Already, don't we have an issue?  A country based on the sun that produces ice?  It gets better...]  Their currency is the "Vampire B", one of which is equal to $1,000.  It is called that because the country was founded/is run by "the Great Vampire".  In a sun country.  Oh, and that little bit of Chinese to the far left?  It means polygamy--in their country men can have multiple wives.  My job is very rarely boring.