Every year I have one or two boys in my class that have no fear. It makes them a handful, for sure, but it also means they're willing to throw themselves at a foreign language without any sign of embarrassment when they're wrong. This year it's Jayden, who, aside from the kids with foreign parents, is fast becoming the best English speaker in the class. He often asks me to translate Chinese words into English, which is interesting because I wonder how many of my ...

Parents Night was a bit different this year. For the first time ever, I had a foreigner acting as my translator. His Chinese - aside from a pervasive Australian accent - was flawless. It certainly put me off balance, and made me shy about trying any Chinese of my own. Still, it's definitely encouraging to meet other foreigners who have really mastered the language. I meant to ask him how he learned, but he was eager to talk about Western movies. Also worth no...

I've been sick this week, with some kind of bug that has migrated from my gut up to my throat and sinuses. I'm not sure where exactly I caught it, but I think the 30 children with only the shakiest understanding of washing their hands and personal space is a good bet. I'm not too worried though, as my class has been out of quarantine for a whole 10 days now. Oh right, I haven't mentioned that one of my students showed up to school with Hand, Foot and Mouth diseas...

I saw this magazine cover and it made me laugh (though obesity is no laughing matter, all sitcom evidence to the contrary). I recently finished Jared Diamond's "The World Until Yesterday", and in a chapter on modern health epidemics he mentioned that China and India are poised to overtake America as having the most diabetics in the world. From what I see most Chinese are still thin, but maybe 1 in 10 are overweight, 1 in 20 obese. With China's total population yo...

I've got the day off work because of a typhoon. Which is good, because the work shirt I washed last night blew off the hanger it was drying on and landed in a puddle 17 floors down. I guess I'll spend the day with my roommates. I'm sure more of them will be flooding in to get out of the rain. I've put out special snacks, just for them.