Worst Kept Secrets

The success story:

For lunch, I went to Skyways, which is a German bakery a block away from my house that makes tasty sandwiches. It’s also very nice from a bumbling foreigner perspective, because you fill out a little card (in English), hand it to the cashier along with your 20 RMB, and that’s all there is to it. Today I got two sandwiches - tuna for the manfriend and cheese for me - and I was able to explain, in Chinese, that I really did want two sandwiches, not a tuna and cheese sandwich. And yes, I really did want a slice of cheese on some bread with a tomato and mayonnaise. And that felt good. Three months ago, a confused Chinese baker spouting Mandarin at me would have made me want to cry, but it wasn’t even stressful. So competency points were earned.

Sidenote: Skyways was also really weird today. I walked in, and it was packed with beautiful blonde women speaking German. While I was waiting on my order, I double checked to be sure that there was not a single person in the restaurant who wasn’t female and yellow haired. It felt a bit Twilight Zone-y.

The failure:

my monster class.  I decided I was going to do something unheard of and actually mete out some punishment. Yesterday that entire class stood up and walked out before the bell rang, leaving me impotently spluttering with rage, and so today we spent the first hour writing essays about respect. I thought that would be enough to nip the rebellion in the bud - I explained very politely why we would be writing essays in class, and they looked appropriately ashamed and a little frightened, and everyone but one student finished their essays (this student seized the opportunity for a nap and is now in Official Trouble). Then we took a ten minute break, and I came back, expecting a bit of an easier ride. No such thing. When I get finished with this class, I always feel like I’m skulking away from a wrestling match with a gorilla. I usually wind up with a headache, a sore throat, and a general feeling of hopelessness, and it’s not fair to my other students for me to bring any of that into the next class, which is much better behaved and easier to deal with. Unfortunately, I spent the first couple of hours with them feeling too miserable and upset over the start of my morning to really notice how engaged and easy going they are. Then I spent my whole lunch break feeling bad about that (and eating tasty German sandwiches), and finally managed to have a solid two hours of Good Class Time in the afternoon.

A coworker suggested that having another teacher in the room could make a  big difference, and maybe the solution to my Class From Hell is having multiple observations. We have an observation coming up, which I’m completely terrified about. I really, really, really can’t imagine teaching in front of a superior. But it’s part of the game, I guess.

One of the monsters wound up with a fairly poetic little essay about respect in the classroom - he said disrespect makes everyone “burn with the angry.”  I realize that I’m supposed to be correcting stuff like this, but sometimes their mistakes are absolutely lovely, like the student who stated that art was necessary because “you will be intoxicated by the beautiful”. They really do come up with absurd, beautiful things sometimes, and I kind of hate to beat it out of them.

Anyway, today was my Bad Day - six classroom hours is a very long time to be on one’s feet speaking very loudly and slowly, and burning with the angry a bit. So now it’s time for some relaxation and perhaps another episode of Lost, if other involved parties are down with that idea. I was sort of mad with the season opener - I thought the writing was absolute crap, and I’ve been harboring a slow burning resentment toward that show for quite some time ever since I finally figured out that the writers might not have the slightest idea what they’re doing. But it seems to be picking up. Also, I saw Shoot ‘Em Up recently, which had me giggling and clapping like a toddler presented with breakable objects filled with fluids that permanently stain. I mean, within the first fifteen minutes, Clive Owen delivers a baby in the middle of a gun fight and severs the umbilical cord by shooting it, and Paul Giamatti tortures a lactating hooker. I feel like I’ve given you everything you need to know to decide whether this movie is right for you.

That’s it, happy Tuesday.