September 1

Today was a relatively simple day. Class went alright. My “morning” students (8AM-9:50AM) are always angels: they listen and participate and watch me intently with their big, dark, almond eyes. A couple of them held my hand when I led them to their seat, which warms my heart. (Except then I think of the sanitation here, and I wonder where their hands have been, and then I realized I don’t want to know—hand sanitizer has been my best friend and constant companion ever since I left the States.)
My “afternoon” students (10AM-11:30AM) are, for the most part, hellions. Okay, that’s not fair. Each class has 1-3 kids that are constantly getting out of their seat, grabbing the supplies, running out of the room, ignoring me, screaming in Chinese (Chinese is not allowed in class), and inadvertently riling up the rest of the class. The other students are quick to call my attention to the hellion’s misadventures.
“Teacher! Teacher! Look!” is what they call, although they pronounce it “teach-uh,” pointing. Some days they are better than on other days, but today there were especially bad and I didn’t get much teaching done, mostly disciplining. I eventually had to pull out my bag of goodies for Store and threaten them that if they didn’t settle down and listen to me, they wouldn’t get tokens and therefore wouldn’t get Store. This actually helped quite a bit. I was quite relieved when the class period ended.
However, I had one very interesting experience during Store with my Homeroom. I have this one kid, Jack, who is smaller than most of the kids but I’m not sure if he’s just short or if he’s younger (they’re all between 4-8), but he’s one of the very active, grabby kids. He usually refuses to respond to me, but now and then he speaks and surprises me with how much English he knows. He’ll say things in perfect English that I never taught him, signifying that he’s been in an English class before. Sometimes he’ll come up to me and put on a mad face and say, “Teacher, I’m angry. Grr!” or a happy face and say, “Teacher, I’m happy!” Or he says things that make total sense but I never taught him how to say it.
Anyway, one of the items available to “purchase” for tokens (which the kids receive when they speak phrases in English) was Skittles. Jack pointed at it today and then looked at me, saying, “Teacher! Teacher! I want to taste the rainbow!” I stared at him, speechless. Wherever did he learn that slogan?! It was the greatest thing ever. After he bought the Skittles and ate it, he told me, “Teacher, I want to eat candy.” When I said he had to wait until next week, he again told me he was angry but I responded that if he spoke lots of English next time, he’d get more candy. Then he smiled and ran off with his class to PE. What a little stinker.
They’re all so adorable, in their own special way. And, in some cases, they are very special. Cases.
For dinner, Kelly took us out to Hot Pots, a traditional Chinese restaurant. The school would be treating us.
We had a private room with two tables and enough seats for our entire group. In the center of the table was an electric stove. Our waiter brought us a wok with a divider in the middle, both sides filled with soup: one side was a dark color and super spicy, while the second side was cream-colored and less spicy. Vegetables floated in it. The waiter placed a multi-leveled tray beside our table filled with food: potatoes, squash, chicken, beef, tofu, noodles, and dumplings. Kelly would periodically scoop some of each into the wok, and we would partake of the continuously cooking meal. The hot pot underneath the wok kept the soup boiling, the ingredients cooking. There was sesame sauce for dipping our meat in, which was super yummy. Tasted like peanut butter.
I also tried shrimp—plain shrimp. It wasn’t that bad, actually.
The food was absolutely incredible; I wouldn’t mind eating there every day for the next four months.
Afterward, we used the squatter toilet and then went out for a night at the night market, which is always super duper fun and interesting.