i'm seriously worried.

i'm sick again. for those of you who talk to me regularly, you know that i just got over being sick about a week ago. and i'm sick again. so in the past 4 weeks, i've spent 3 of those 4 weeks being sick. this is not okay. something is not right. the awful part is that, it's just a cold. day after day after day, it's just a sore throat, sniffliness, congestion, slight cough. never a fever. never vomiting. never anything to get serious about, until the symptoms last for weeks!

for anyone who reads the New York Times, you'll know that they have, essentially, a China bashing series (remember that this is coming from Chinese nationalist Wendy). and the latest one is about truck pollution and their use of cheap, low grade diesel fuel. now normally, I read the series and I wholly acknowledge the problem the article addresses as a serious one for China, but I have usually have an immediate nationalist reaction of "Oh yeah?! Well, well, the United States has got a shit-ton of its own damn problems so shut up!" but this time, i was more than a hundred percent on board with the author.

and in the past few days, i have been thinking that it's got to be a combination of the dry, cold weather, my overall lack of healthy exercising behavior, and the freaking pollution that is killing me here. now i completely recognize that my not exercising regularly and irregular sleeping pattern is unhealthy and harmful, but those behaviors have, unfortunately, been my bad habits for the past 4 years. what has been different is that it's really freaking cold here, the air quality is absolutely in the shitter, and i strain my voice constantly.

the pollution is 100 times worse than L.A. and i've lived in L.A. my entire life, so that's saying a fucking lot. okay, so in L.A. we have the haze, and we have the layer of brown that lingers right above buildings, which eventually fades into blue skies. but hey, at least in l.a. it eventually fades out. in beijing, there are days, when literally, the entire sky is gray, and it's from the pollution. not to mention the fact that regulations regarding emissions are not even remotely close to being as strict as they are in the states, and that cigarette smoking is allowed everywhere (and the cigarettes are a lot worse for your health here too). so yes, i am worried for my health.

I hope that when the weather gets warmer, I won't get sick as much. But seriously I'm worried. What if I never get better and I have to go home early? That's going to suck.

Yet another reason, I don't want to teach as a career: You can't ditch your own classes when you feel sick or tired. I am exposed to coughing, sniffling students all day (about 60 different ones), and then when I'm sick I have to continue talking and I don't get time to heal. And on top of that, I'm cranky and the students don't respond well to a cranky, sick teacher.

oh yeah, and i get cold sores here, since i get them when my immune system is down. and since i'm sick all the time, that means yep, cold sores all the time. real attractive, teacher.

sorry, i didn't mean for that to sound all pissy. But I'm sick, and I don't like it.

Feeling a lot better.

I am trying to take a very proactive approach to life right now. I am not just going to lay in bed and whine and feel sorry for myself (even though I really really want to do this).

So Monday was the day when I felt like I wanted to cry in class. And I was really dreading Wednesday, because that's when I would see my CSP Qinghua class again, and that's the class I have a really hard time with. But I decided that if I am going to dread it that much, then I better be trying my damned hardest to make it as pleasant as possible. So I decided to design a class period that was completely activity based with as little of me talking as possible. AND it worked beautifully. They were energetic, and I was able to direct all that lovely energy towards the activity. So I felt a lot better with myself. It'll take a lot more effort thinking of activities for the students, but I think the students appreciate it. And it will make me feel a lot more effective. So yes Wendy, in order to be a good teacher, you must work hard at it. Oh, I knew this all along.

And last night after work, I walked from the Qinghua campus to Silk Street market. I love cities. And I love walking in cities. And I love walking in cities at night when there are so many pretty lights. And it reminded me of all the things I love about Beijing. I think it was good for me to take myself out of my room for a night, and just explore the city.

So things aren't perfect, but things can be better as long as I make an effort to try. So that will be my plan. Upswing. upswing. upswing.

And my ish with people? It comes and goes. There are those moments I want to slap someone, but I just need to remember to breathe and breathe.

Whew. Patience, Wendy, patience. I hope I come back from China a better, more mature person.

My students

I want to take the time to write about my students and each of my classes. For most, if not all of you, this will be very boring. But I am going to write out every mundane detail anyways. This will be a chance for me to rant and just address and release any frustration I currently hold about teaching. For those of you who have not read my "I'm so depressed!" post on my other blog, long story short, I have been overcome with a wave of inexplicable, intense sadness and I don't know how to stop it. But I figure talking about every possible thing on my mind might help. Let's start with my students, the people I see every day, whether I want to or not.

Let's start by saying, I now feel quite strongly that I do not want to become a teacher. I don't know how many people who go to foreign countries to teach English have a real desire to teach; but before coming to China, I actually considered teaching as a possible career. But I also wanted to have the chance to travel before having to have a real job. So I figured that teaching English in China would give me the opportunity to 1) try out teaching without having to make a big commitment (ie. teach, but not have to teach a full 40 hour week), 2) escape the United States and travel, and 3) learn Chinese (though I don't know how successful I am being with this). But after having taught (at only 20 hours a week) here in China, I am extremely confident, that at this point in my life, I do not want to become a teacher when I return to Los Angeles. A number of reasons, which we will get into later.

Now about my students.

So I teach 5 different sets of students. That is quite a large number considering some teachers here teach only 3 sets of students.

Let's talk about my favorite set of students. They're my CSP1 section (CSP means that they're at the intermediate level of English).

Let's make a digression to explain the classification of students' abilities. My school divides the students into 3 levels. QP is the absolute beginner's level, meaning many of these students would not understand a single sentence spoken to them in English. I do not teach any QP classes. CSP is the intermediate level. Obviously there is a wide range of students in this level. Some of the students can communicate decently in English, and can understand most of what I say to them as long as I speak very slowly. However, there are some students who just string together words, that are obviously translated directly from Chinese. And finally, there are the GES students who are the most advanced in the school. These students can understand nearly everything I say, but again only when I speak slowly, and can respond fairly well in a complete sentence. All those letters actually stand for something, but it doesn't really matter since the abbreviations are only used in my school anyways.

Okay, back to my CSP1 students. I teach these students writing and a class called "World Cultures." I do not develop curricula for any of my classes. I am given text books and I pretty much just teach straight from the text book. I see my World Cultures class everyday, and so of course I am the most attached to them and favor these students over other students. In world cultures, I pretty much spend each week talking about a different region in the world and talking about geography, landforms, cash crops, etc. Imagine elementary school social science class. I love these students. They're super well-behaved. They respond to me when I ask them questions. I feel that they respect me, and I think that they like me. These are the students that I went to karaoke (or KTV as it's called here) with, and these are the students I went to dinner with (in the picture below). And I went shopping with some students in this class. I just really like these students, mainly because they listen to me, they do their work, and they like me, inside of class and out.

Now for my other CSP sections, I only see them twice a week. Writing class only meets twice a week. And quite frankly, I feel like I cannot be effective in it because 2 hours a week is simply not enough hours. And the book is kinda crappy, and the students are at such varied levels, I really don't know what to do to make sure that everyone gets the most out of it.

My CSP2 section is the class with the most trouble students. The overall English ability of this entire section is a lot lower than the ability of my CSP1 section (even though technically they are categorized as the same level, so should know the same material at the end of the year). This class has got the students that skip class a lot and students that fall asleep in class. Also, I'm pretty confident that about a quarter of the class doesn't understand the words coming out of my mouth when I teach. The only problem is, that those students make no effort to pay attention or attempt to understand (because they're either zoning out or dozing off). Even after I explain things and repeat things 2 times, students still don't know what I'm talking about. You're thinking, "Well maybe you're just an awful teacher Wendy!" But quite honestly, I am explaining simple things in the simplest way possible, it's just that some students don't listen. Like today in class, I explained what a topic sentence was to the class. Then I called on Leo to explain what a topic sentence was. He didn't know, cuz um, he was asleep. Then immediately after I explain to Leo and make him repeat a sentence, I call on another student named Penn to give the definition of a topic sentence. And he didn't know, cuz um, he was zoning out. And I just didn't know what the hell to do, because at this point I have explained it 5 times, and half the class knows what's going on, and I feel like an idiot for saying the same thing over and over when most of the people understand, but a handful don't. Do I stop class and hand-hold the ones who don't understand? Or do I just leave them to get further behind?

And the thing is, outside of class I freaking love these students. I've been to dinner with them; I've had lunch with them. I have conversations with them outside of class and I freaking love them. They're pleasant and lively and funny. But in class, I can't get them to be freaking awake. I don't understand. What I should do is give them more hands-on activities. But how do I take the time to do the activities and still make sure that I get through the textbook by the end of the year?

Now for CSP Qinghua, a class that I also see only twice a week.

Oh yeah, did you know that my school has two campuses in Beijing? That means that twice a week, when I go to teach my CSP Qinghua class, I have to commute for 40 minutes each way to teach for a one-hour long class.

I live at the ErWai college campus. And I teach 3 of my 5 sections at the ErWai campus, in an academic building that is literally right next to my dorm building. And I teach 2 of my 5 sections at the Qinghua campus, which is actually quite close to ErWai, but because of the heinous traffic, it takes nearly an hour each way.

The CSP Qinghua class is the class that I nearly cried in front of yesterday. Not because of any real reason. This class has got the largest ability gap of all my classes. There is one woman in the class who is pretty much fluent in English. She has lived in England for several years, and she is married to a British man, so yeah, she's pretty much fluent. I don't really understand why she's in the class, since she's worlds better than the other students. So a lot of the time, I feel a lot of pressure to teach her something, since I feel like she's not learning anything from me. But in the exact same section, there are students who are literally incoherent. I have one student (the one whom I had the infamous "did you write about day or night? yes. did you write about day? yes. did you write about night? yes." conversation with) who cannot form a single correct sentence in the class.

Why isn't she in a lower section you ask? Well I wonder the same thing. And to be honest, process in China is process in China and sometimes it doesn't make sense but you just have to go with it. I know this doesn't make much sense, but I'll write a post about this later. But the simple answer: No fucking clue.

Anyways, this class makes me so frustrated. Mainly because they are so fucking antsy. Writing is usually the last class of the day, and on days that they have writing class, they have to stay an hour later than usual; so yeah, no one wants to be there. And this class especially, expresses this sentiment in a physical way. I have students who are asleep. I have students who are shaking their legs the whole time, checking their watches, just itching to get out. I have students who whisper to each other in Chinese. I have students who are doing homework for other classes. And I just don't know what to do. I just feel completely powerless and disrespected. I just think to myself, "How can you disrespect me so much to fall asleep in my fucking face, while I am standing right next to your desk talking at you?" And yesterday it was just too much for me, and I wanted to cry, but I didn't. And the problem is, that again with this class, I love them after class, and before class, when we're just having conversations. But in class, I hate them and I want to rip their little heads off. And sometimes I do have my little power tripping lectures with them. And it's getting harder and harder for me to be pleasant with them outside of class when they fucking disrespect me in class. And I just don't know what to do. Part of me just wants to show up to class, and say, "you don't want to fucking be here? You're not going to listen to me? You're not going to pay attention? Why don't we all just fucking leave?! Because I do not want to be here any more than you do you little brats!" And these are full grown adults. And the problem is that as a student I have the same bad habits. I don't pay attention all the time. Sometimes I get really drowsy in class. Sometimes I do homework for other classes. And as a student I always thought, "It's not personal." But as a teacher, I am taking it fucking personal. It is so fucking personal. And maybe that's my problem, maybe I should just let it go. And keep talking even if no one is listening. But then I just feel like a damn useless ineffective teacher. And if I just give them games to do all the time, then I'll just feel like I'm not providing them enough hard knowledge. Fuck, life is complicated. AHHHH! When I think about this class, I just want to scream. I want to punish them and make them do 50 push-ups or something.

Next is my GES class. I teach them reading, idioms, and pronunciation. This class is fine. I don't feel much of a connection to this class since I started teaching them 6 weeks into the semester. Also because they're the highest level, I feel like they don't need me as much, so I feel like I'm not teaching them much. I think that they like me (I hate that it's so important that the students not only learn from me, but like me too). There are 3 students in the class who are obviously placed in a level that is way too hard for them. 1 student in particular is extremely socially awkward, performs the worst, and quite honestly might have some sort of disorder. This is also quite a difficult position for a teacher. I have some students who are very obviously depressed and obviously has shit going down outside of class (based on the things that they write in their assignments and their body language in class), but what is my role to do anything about it as a teacher? And these are the students who are performing poorly in class. And this will sound horrible, but sometimes it's not only knowing what the best thing to do for the student is, but caring enough to actually take the time to do it. And so far, I haven't done anything. And with the one socially awkward student in my class, she is obviously ostracized by the other students. Often when I tell students to work in groups, she is left out from the group so she works silently alone. At lunch, sometimes she sits in the classroom by herself. During the halloween party, she wore this completely bizarre costume and either danced by herself or sat alone in an empty area. And of course as a teacher I make an effort to talk to her, to spend time with her, to do work with her, but I am also human. And as awful as this sounds, I also hate having to put in all the effort and energy to deal with someone who is very very awkward and has a very very low ability for speaking English. So it's true, I want to focus on the good-looking students, on the students who perform the best in class, on the students who are outgoing and likable.

And lastly is my Sunday class. Yes people, I have to work on Sundays. This is what happens when you work for a private school for adults (with a president that really only cares about making as much money from Chinese people as possible). I work from 9a-12p every Sunday. Only 3 hours, but it still puts a damper on my weekend, since it pretty much means I can't go out on Saturday night since I have to wake up early on Sunday. Part of me is kinda grateful, cuz I always feel so productive when I wake up early and have the afternoon free; but still I hate it. This class is quite small (only 4-8 people each week) and each week seems to be a different set of students. I really don't think it's effective for them, but I guess any little bit helps. And I teach these students business. Hah. Again, I pretty much teach the textbook, and go through exercises so it's not that difficult. But I usually only prepare for the upcoming class the night before or the morning of the class, so it's definitely not my A game. Sometimes I'm bored by my own teaching, so now I've decided to just focus more on speaking activities. Though I hate the fact that I pretty much teach my students materialism (half of my activities involve them trying to sell a product).

All this drama and pent up frustration over just 20 hours a week. Gosh, you must seriously be wondering what the big deal is. But seriously, these classes are pretty much all I think about; that is when I'm not thinking about how annoying some of the other teachers are or about how much I miss my family and friends and college and L.A. or about how I'm an incompetent/unproductive ass who is wasting away. So yeah, you can imagine how all this can bring a person down.

Superficial rant post

A list of shallow things that irk me about Beijing and make me scream silently to myself, "Argh! Why can't every place in the world be like Los Angeles?!"

Things that annoy me in Beijing:

1. Couples grooming each other in the park, and in the subway, and everywhere else on campus (imagine animals picking insects out of their partner's hair). Okay, so you're dating, so you're madly in love, so you're in deep infatuation, that does not give you free range to pick at each other's pimples, pluck at each other's facial hair with your fingernails, or clean each other's eye wax, ear wax, dried mucus, or any other form of crusted bodily fluid. It's really really not cute.

2. Super emo couples who are obviously in an argument, not happy together, just staying together out of sheer habit (okay, so the last one was just an assumption, but it's one based on personal experience). Sometimes I'll see these straight couples just sitting right next to each other, or walking alongside each other, pouting, not saying a word, and just looking thorough annoyed and upset at each other.

3. Those really slippery tiles all throughout subway tunnels and inside hallways and lobbies and other buildings. That in combination with the zero traction low quality shoes sold in China and the massive crowds of people who are always rushing and pushing past me means that I have to resort to doing the next thing that annoys me to no end, dragging my feet on the floor. I literally have to shuffle in order to get anywhere without falling on my freaking face.

4. People are constantly dragging their feet and shuffling in buildings. Why can't people just walk like I do?! Oh yeah, cuz the floor is way too slippery to walk normally on.

5. The uneven pavement of every sidewalk in Beijing. Honestly you can never tell when you're walking through a construction site in Beijing or not, since it seems like everything is under construction. And sometimes the sidewalks are literally piles of rocks. Not very safe, which brings me to my next point.

6. Not being able to wear flip-flops every day of the year. And the fact that most women here wear high heels every day. I don't know how they do it! And on uneven pavement too! The other day I wore high heels to work (this was before I bought some boots) and I was walking down the sidewalk, not paying attention because I was texting on my cell phone, and I walked into a brick. A brick! In the middle of the sidewalk. I stubbed my toe like whoa.

7. The driving. Oh yes, the driving. Riding in a bus is so torturous, through traffic, with the loud, ridiculously loud honking of the horn every few minutes, the unintelligible (to me) yelling of the ticket person on the bus announcing the name of every single stop, and the stop and go driving with the sudden halting jerks at every brake and start. Puke fest, oh yes.

8. And of course the three big S's of Beijing: smoking, spitting, and shoving.

9. And maybe this is incredibly internally sexist of me, but I am so annoyed by the self-infantilization of women here. You don't have to freaking squeal at everything, or cover your mouth and giggle, or scream ahhhh and throw tantrums. Get over yourself.

Gosh, I realize that this entire post sounded so bratty and bitter, but I just had to rant to someone about these random unimportant things.