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This update is brought to you in association with aposiopesis: because sometimes it's
好久不见猫 ! ('Long time no see, cats!')
It's been a fairly long time since I updated my blog: this entry is well overdue. The last update was 11 May which seems like an age ago but I've been having a great time and am constantly tired.
The end of the contract is fast approaching and I've finished my final week of teaching. Now I'm doing revision sessions in preparation for exams starting 14 June. My students are ridiculously knowledgeable about every aspect of everything now and week-on-week they continually impress me with how much of my inane blabber they've soaked up. Most recently, we've done work on interview technique, the rhetorical devices in the speeches of Churchill and Obama and "lonely hearts" personal ads. Mixed.
With the unveiling of the London 2012 mascots some weeks ago, I had my students create mascots for the college. The most interesting one is in my photo album on here. There were also entries entitled 'Lying Panda' and 'Book Man'. Lying Panda has since played a prominent role in most of my lessons because he's a flying, crime-fighting panda that knows gōngfu (misnamed "kung fu" by silly westerners). His brother is 'Honest Panda'. He's not as interesting.
Last week we were looking at reification and metaphors in general and my students wrote poems covering the college with an allegorical guise. The best one was: 'This college is a ship. The president is the captain. The teachers are crewmen. The ship is going in the wrong direction. Towards an iceberg. Everyone dies.' Metaphors don't come more thinly-veiled than that! Also: 'This college is a furnace in which we're all melting.'; 'We're shopping in a supermarket that only stocks junk food.'; 'We're all swimming in a dye vat; struggling against an artificial tide and all turning the same colour.' I love my students!
The latest addition to the college schedule is 6.30am to 7.30am morning exercise for the students, followed by 9.35am to 10.05am exercise and 2.55pm to 3.25pm exercise. Thousands and thousands of students all go outside and do tàijí ("tai chi") thrice a day. The lessons immediately following these wonderful exercise sessions are understandably low-energy and, in general, met with apathy by the students. It's so hard to motivate students that have been up since dawn moving in slow motion to music that would send even a squirrel to sleep. (Squirrels, of course, are into all sorts of music, from Bizet to Boyzone, and are known for rarely falling asleep to music. 事实˳) It's only since the students have all been gathering together outside that I've realized how many students I actually teach.
Oh, also, one of my students tried lying to me. That did not go down well. I'm pretty good at spotting when a westerner's lying but over here it's too easy. Everyone here tries to save face and so has an innate porky propensity but they don't use any of the common cover-ups that westerners do. So, this student tried to tell me that the absence note she was offering me was for her, knowing that I can't read Chinese names. Needless to say, she will not be trying that one again.
In other news: I've found a new pīngpāngqiú (table tennis) partner who has absolute class. She took me to the beach last night and we went up on a ferris wheel at sunset. Also, I made myself even more of an enemy to the other teaching staff by correcting its English. I was walking past a classroom where a teacher was teaching one of my classes with the word 'describtion' on the board, and she did not mean the word for when yo talkin' 'bout yo crib.
Will, Wes and I went to a "western" restaurant last weekend and were the only westerners there. The restaurant was definitely not prepared for us: we ordered pretty much everything on the menu, bought rum by the bottle and sat there for hours eating and drinking with everyone gawping at how much we were putting away. The menu said that the 12" pizzas were suitable for 5-6 people. Negatory. 1 each please. Then we went to an arcade and ran up the top score on Rambo.
Wes was given a tea set while waiting at the bus stop the other day. Being the only westerners for miles around means we get special treatment by members of the Big C oligarch community. It started with the meal and drinks with tax official man and has ended up with Will being offered money for taking someone out and Wes being given a tea set.
That's all for now. I'll be going home soon!
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