In class today, we were choosing what kind of animal we wanted to be. It was in the same class that had the kissing lesson last week, and so the topic of kissing was brought up, naturally. In the mix of things, Kylie said that “Dennis kissed a monkey!” She realized what she had said, and giggled. It was cute.
Later on, I asked her if she wanted to kiss Dennis. She declined vehemently, and then she told me, understanding full well what she was saying, that she wanted to kiss Flynn, who is in a different class. I taught Flynn’s class next, and I told him this. His eyes grew wide and he blushed (it’s especially cute when the Chinese’s dark cheeks turn pink), but said nothing. The rest of the class thought this was a riot, though, and Jack teased him incessantly.
Because of his teasing, I gently grabbed Jack’s head and gave him a good kiss on the cheek. He freaked out like it was the grossest thing ever, but barely seconds later he ran up to me, pulled on my arms until I leaned down and kissed his other cheek. What a stinker.
Cami hasn’t been coming to class very often lately; when she does, she stays for only a few minutes. Some days, she doesn’t come at all. I suppose it has made me kind of lazy in my teaching: when we do arts and crafts, there is a lot of silence as they draw or create pizzas with Play Doh. Most days, I don’t follow the lesson, I only converse with my students, like with our kissing discussions and calling each other animal names, or discussing which foods we like and don’t like. I’m not sure how Cami would feel about it, but I figure that as long as they’re speaking English, I’m on the right track. On one hand, the discipline may be lacking because they can get riled up or jump out of their seats to go tackle Kyle to the ground until he kisses Paris (been there, done that), when they know full well that the rule is to “stay in [their] seats.” Plus, they don’t get a lot of tokens because we’re not with the lesson plan.
On the other hand, it encourages spontaneous speech; it requires them to learn words they wouldn’t normally learn, like “kissing” and “monkeys like to eat bananas”; it causes them to ponder new phrases and form complicated sentences to communicate with me. Therefore, it’s probably not too bad of a teaching tactic.
After classes were over, I met with the other morning teachers (Kailey and Scott Bailey, Emily Morrison, Kate Smith, and Cami Carr) and we walked to the Muslim restaurant for Muslim Monday. I absolutely love this tradition: it allows us to get to know each other better, spend time with people we don’t usually hang out with, eat good food, and discuss life. It’s a great bonding experience.
I got a new dish, one I haven’t tried before. It’s beef with spices on rice; it tasted just like Mexican food and was amazing. It was super spicy—Mexican or Indian spicy, which is unusual for Chinese food—but it was a good, nostalgic spicy. However, my stomach wasn’t too happy with it and still isn’t. I think the spice was too much for it.
I needed toilet paper so we walked to the small Jia Jia Yue right down the street; then we bought ice cream bars from a nice lady in a hole-in-the-wall convenience store. I suppose stating that it was a hole-in-the-wall is unnecessary, since it’s China and just about every store is a hole-in-the-wall.
Wo ai Zhongguo.
Dinner was the tomato and egg dish we all love so much. Seriously, it’s so much better than any other dish at the cafeteria. The school has served it every night for dinner for about a week now; for the last few days, I’ve gone back for seconds and so now the cook knows to load me up with the delicious schlop. It was just what I needed after a long day. It makes my tummy feel so happy.
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