I'm incredibly tired today. It was hard to get up, my throat doesn't feel too good, I'm sniffling, at times I feel a little too warm. It's OK though, tomorrow's Saturday so I can shut off my alarm and just rest as needed. I swept around my room to see if it would help me too but I think I should give the whole apartment a good mopping and then leave for a walk while it dries. I just generally feel better when everything is in order and to be honest, my kitchen's a mess right now from all the chopping, stir-frying, moving dishes, washing, and other things going on in there. On the other hand, my not feeling well may just be a seasonal thing (allergies) or something getting passed around the school since I've met at least two other teachers who have said their throats aren't feeling too good and my site mate also mentioned her throat feels odd. The school had a market/fundraiser where the kids managed to get about 40-50RMB out of my pocket and last night I went to Caffe Bene where the pasta was 38 RMB, splurged on a treat at dairy queen and had some street food so I burned through my money faster than anticipated. As long as I make a bunch of vegetable dishes at home I should get through all right on my planned budget. It's actually kind of addicting to go to the wet market after school and go through the ritual or cooking every night. I practice some Chinese, I go home, I don't talk, I rest a bit, I just focus on timing everything so it's hot at the same time (ie putting eggs in the steamer basket inside the rice cooker first, then making soup, and saving the stir fry for last because it's so fast and my stove gets hot in no time), and I sit in a room away from my computer, my work, movies, and distractions and just eat and listen to all the noises coming from the street.

I've had some interesting conversations about food recently too. I impressed a teacher who saw me eating all the green peppers out of the pork and peppers, and the English teacher next to him asked me if they had peppers in America. I said yes, and she said "Maybe they are not spicy" so I said some were sweet and many were spicy. She asked me if we eat rice in America. I told her that many people do, and that we also have a lot of bread. She then asked me if I preferred the Chinese way of buying fresh meat and cooking it or the American way of leaving meat in the refrigerator for a few days. I told her I was happier eating things the day I bought them because I live alone. Americans in my experience tend to buy for the week whereas Switzerland required I do my shopping more regularly and I've been in Asian markets before where the food is still kicking when you buy it, but I've also learned that here it's better to cook and eat things the day you buy if you don't have a refrigerator. For me, buying enough for the night's dinner helps me manage my portions and ensures I don't have things rotting or drying out in my fridge because I'm not eating fast enough. Subconsciously cooking for 4-5 people is a hard habit to break at first. Judging from the reactions of another foreign teacher, I could have reacted more strongly about stereotyping because not everyone in America eats that way but it seemed like a harmless question and I am an American. It can't be any worse than the Ticinese man who asked me about Schwarzenegger during my freshman year when I told him I was from California. When you're abroad, it's not unusual to find that you're a representative simply by being someone from another place with a different system and different experiences. I think it's just more pronounced in China than it might be in some other countries.

I finished reading Shen Cong Wen's Recollections of West Hunan. Certainly a different view of China than I've gotten from other reading, though to be fair my familiarity kind of ends with select poems and Journey to the West. His writings are all about rural West Hunan, his hometown of Fenghuang and throughout the writings he gathered in the book he comes back to the "big book" versus the "little books" repeatedly. He frequently skipped out on school and mentions that he had a stronger memory than many other students so that he tended to get less severe punishments whenever they caught him. The "big book" is the world that he runs through in order to learn what he can. After being so used to hearing about the importance of formal education in China and among other Chinese-Americans, his voice is completely different. He describes navigating the rivers, the Miao people, the conditions that drive people to become bandits, old magic and rituals...he's writing about his own home county but the way he writes and his experiences do remind me a lot of the travel writing I've been reading recently. The events towards the end of the collection are pretty dramatic though, a wedding, an elopement, bandits, a battle, saving face, poisoning...I won't give it away. I'm going to try his fiction next. He's not Steinbeck, but I guess his focus on people living in rural areas and people living a bit closer to the earth remind me of Steinbeck writing about the working class. Shen Cong Wen isn't quite so political though in his writing. 

I think it's about the time of year for allergies. I struggled to sleep last night and finally got up, took some zyrtec, turned out the lights after reading through Fuschia Dunlop's book Every Grain of Rice (if I remember correctly, she's the only foreigner to have studied at a culinary school in Sichuan) and seem to be OK now.

I managed to save up 2,200 of my 3,000 monthly stipend so I'm quite proud of myself. I might go get pasta when I get paid tomorrow as a treat and because I've got a better grasp on how to spread out my money. I'm really tired of fried rice and noodles, and I'm really looking forward to playing around with some of Dunlop's recipes seeing as her background makes her more familiar with Sichuan's and Hunan's dishes. Cucumber and chilies sounded really good and pretty easy to make. In fact, her book has been ideal for me since it's geared more towards home cooking and making different vegetable dishes.

Kind of a tough week as far as classes. Getting myself warmed up for teaching this morning after struggling to sleep last night and having a hard time with sleep over the weekend with the lightning and thunder outside my window was a bit like trying to strike a wet match. I had to address one of my classes 3 times before I could really get them (and myself going) and even after I had a full lunch I was pretty worn out. A cup of coffee did nothing for me this morning so I wasted 3 RMB but at least I had a hot drink to start my day. My last class of the day was out cleaning too so I came in to make sure that I wasn't missing class and they reminded me that they were cleaning all day. So they are peeking into my office as they pass by with mops and brooms.

So that's where I'm at now, a bit sluggish and drained, thinking about something that isn't jook, fried rice, or noodles for dinner tomorrow, and looking for a way to pick myself up. Maybe I'll finally brave a massage, bruises and all, to get my back to a point where I don't have to listen to it every time I stretch. Or maybe I'll just find myself perking up tomorrow after having a little more protein and variety than I've had the past two days.

I also think I'm going to teach in China again. I haven't really said anything to encourage belief that I'm coming back but after some thought I can't help feeling that I'd really like to do this again with a better sense of what to expect. I also want to get my TEFL. My online class just didn't do it for me and I already have a year's teaching experiences behind me, so I may as well take on the extra workload (which to be honest, isn't that much more when I already write at least 4 lesson plans a month, the biggest thing is creating a portfolio and recording myself while teaching). And what better way to earn the TEFL than by hands on experience? I've thought about taking on an independent contract at a college or any other school certified to take foreign teachers but I prefer to have that extra credential and that extra time to build relations and ask around. I have some sense of what to look for and demand in looking for an independent contract (pay, holidays, housing, assistance, legal proof of being able to hire foreigners).

So there you have it. I think I'm coming back to China. I keep asking myself if this is insane, if this responsible, if this is feasible, if I'm doing this to run away from facing real life (doubt it)...all the important things but I do think this is what I want. It feels right for now, and I'm not sure I've ever been in a position where the work I put and the rewarding responses I get in return are so strongly connected. I'll talk to the school I work at and tell them what I'm thinking. That doesn't guarantee they'll take me back, but it might be nice for them to know what I'm thinking of.

So...Zhu in Zhuzhou round 2?

So I'm projecting how much I'll have left for traveling at the end of my time here. So far, I've done pretty well. I allotted myself 250 RMB a week and have actually found myself living off of 200 RMB a week. Partly because the ATM only gives 100 kuai bills, but I've been doing pretty well with steamed eggs, and stir fry for dinners. If I didn't buy pork, I'd be eating even more cheaply than I do now. As i is, I usually buy a piece, halve it, and have a little meat in my dinner for two nights. I've watched people making noodles enough now that I could probably do something similar to what they do at some of the street stands: toss in an egg, toss in vegetables, toss in your sauces, some cilantro, some peppers, some chili paste, peanuts, and noodles. No meat.

I've found that the cost of flying can be cut by leaving from Hong Kong instead of through Changsha, but of course that means having to catch a train to a spot where I can go to the airport. The cheapest one-way flight I've seen to SFO so far is about $670. I'm playing with the idea of going to Kyoto, though I can't shake the feeling that there's so much of China that I haven't seen. Though to be fair, it's so big there's always going to be a lot of China I've never seen. If I continue as I am now with spending within 200 RMB a week, then I should have at least 8,000 RMB by the time I leave if not 8,800. I'm looking at Fenghuang but I need to move fast in finding out the exact dates for vacation in May if I want to go and spend under 800 yuan. It looks like people who are more familiar with the upcoming vacation time in May have already booked up the international youth hostels and there's only one green square for one youth hostel in Fenghuang. I could just shove it into a weekend, take a train to Changsha, get a 5 hour bus to Fenghuang, stay one night, explore, and run back. It's not a terribly big place, but I do prefer taking my time when I travel. Or since I've pretty much traveled whenever we have extra time and spent quite a bit on Spring Festival, it might just be smart to hold off and put the money away for when I arrive in the US or go on that long-dreamed of trip to Kyoto. And I just realized now too that I still get half a stipend in June (1500RMB) though I think I left it out of my original calculations so I could err on the side of caution. It's generally more pleasant to find you have extra than that you're skipping out on a few meals. I'm just not sure what packing will be like. I came here with one suitcase and one large bag that I brought as my carry on. Now I have a violin, a 485 gram cake of pu erh tea, two more shirts than I started with, a skirt, and a small air filter. My site mate says I was smart, but then I bought things so I'm not sure how smart it will be. And I hate traveling with too much stuff. I want to walk around and see things, that's usually much tougher when you pack a ton of stuff. My liaison though seems to think that my one bag must be huge. I guess it would be if I didn't keep telling myself to pack enough clothes for a week at most and to just wash more often.

I was told that to reapply for WorldTeach, I'll need to come up with an answer by April. Coming back has a lot of appeal for me and I really want to do this again and do a much better job of it. Zhuzhou's colleges often look for foreign teachers and they'd pay more. But I've also thought about going through WorldTeach again and trying for the TEFL certificate which would be something else I could put on my resume should I pursue a contract independently and I personally would feel much better knowing that I had that certificate instead of feeling like fraud even though I had to complete teacher training, teaching modules, write lesson plans and reflections, and all the in-class things as well to get to where I am now. And of course, there's the logistics of paying for a flight back. I don't think I'll be traveling too much because I really want a summer job. SF Summer Jobs has something about Ghirardelli Square and the Cheesecake factory. I think I could do those. It's about $13 an hour and if I came with WorldTeach again I might be able to come back at the end of August and skip orientation. Or of course, just fly home with the money I saved from China and buy my ticket back with that money. 8000 RMB is roughly 1200 USD after all which could get me a flight to Changsha. Two months as a cashier at the cheesecake factory would be worth being able to come back and do this again even if I don't get to stay with the same students. I thought it was strange that since my school had worked with WorldTeach for so long and was such a nice place to work that there were no independently contracted foreign teachers but I've also learned that if they took another teacher on an independent contract, they would be at the bottom of the list of schools waiting for foreign teachers. So if I want to come back it would have to be through WorldTeach, otherwise I find a college or a school licensed to employ/host foreigners and pay them a visit when I have a break. A number of people are talking about coming back and we were talking about how we qualify for deferment under economic hardship because 3,000 RMB a month isn't a lot by US standards, but given our situations it goes pretty far here in Hunan. Some schools here are advertising the chance to teach pay as much as 12,000 a month with housing provided for. Obviously, you have to be careful to find out what exactly you're getting into with the school, read your contract, see where you'll be teaching, and make sure the school is properly certified to host foreigners or you'll get into trouble. But after having managed my monthly 3000, all other jobs seem startlingly well paid. I know part of why my stipend is what it is comes down to this being a volunteer organization trying to provide quality teachers without costing the schools too much money. We were provided for during practicum, and feeding, training, and housing about 30 teachers for 3 weeks couldn't have been cheap.

The weird thing is, though I get thrown off by all the questions people ask about the cost of your room when you were traveling when you said in passing that you stayed in a hostel I haven't had too many problems being open about money. I have my limits, when my students ask about how much I make I usually tell them that foreigners generally find that question to be rude. I make less in a month than what they pay to go to school each term but it just seems like a good chance to talk about cultural differences while sidestepping questions about the cost of everything (a teacher asked me once about the cost of my college and I was pretty uncomfortable and wound up stepping around it). I haven't had too many of those questions though. I'm young enough and since the other teacher here has raised a family in the US and worked in different jobs she's more likely to get all the questions about housing and the cost of living in the US. But I guess if it helps another person looking to get some sense as to what's available to them and what to prepare for, then it's worth mentioning money.

Funny thing about my wanting to come back and try this again. I remember saying no to teaching in China for such a long time but by the time my senior year came around, I also realized it was a position that offered me what I was looking for in addition to the chance to see someplace new. A chance to work in language arts, a chance to take my own interest in foreign languages along with an earned sense of language as a highly practical tool and show students ways they can use another language to broaden their worlds, a chance to enjoy the novelty that is discovering I'm a decent public speaker and grow in that way as well. I'd still rather be TEFL certified though, it'd make me feel a bit better about having both experience and having earned a more official credential.

In my last year of college I got to hear travel writer Diccon Bewes discuss his new book Slow Train to Switzerland and discuss Switzerland's important role in developing modern tourism. At that time, I didn't realize that I would be in China eyeing the price of slow train rides across the country but now after having spent a month on the move through trains, buses, boats, and a plane (and having passed through all of Guangzhou's train stations) I've been reflecting on what I've learned since October. I also picked up Paul Theroux's Riding the Iron Rooster. At times I'm impressed by the depth of his reading, then I think he's a bit frustrating as he hides his identity from other tourists while writing some biting things about them (though I too have had my moments where I got a bit frustrated with other foreigners here in China). His voice is quite different from Bewes, whose worked I enjoyed for its detail and humor in writing about Switzerland, but perhaps I can partly attribute that to the subject matter. At times I've struggled with Riding the Iron Rooster because it wasn't immediately obvious to me that this was written during the 1980s. Barnes and Noble put its publication information as 2006 but my suspicions were somewhat aroused by the descriptions of urban living and what really made me look up the date of writing was when he mentioned listening to the BBC through his radio and the days leading up to news of Chernobyl. Some things were certainly familiar enough, the loud build up to someone spitting in public for one but until I had seen a book review from 1988 I just felt that the two of us had seen totally different Chinas. Now I know, given the span of time between 1988 and 2015 the China Theroux traveled around by train for one year and the city I live in are different worlds. One of the teachers pointed out Shennong Town once and told me that none of the big shopping centers, the park, the square or any of that had been there 10 years ago. 

I'm not through with it yet, I've just gotten past the part where he rides the Iron Rooster and makes his way to Xinjiang accompanied by a man who has been appointed to stay with him throughout his trip. I remember reading once in Lonely Planet's guide to travel writing that Theroux was a master of using dialogue to bring readers into a place. I have found the conversations he brings into his work to be interesting, but often I think the questions he asks are a bit strange. I've been looking forward to starting each new chapter for what it might reveal but at times I can't help agreeing with some of the reviews I've read about Theroux's condescension. The people he meets are fascinating and the information he brings in to contextualize some of the conversations he has is well woven into the book, but his descriptions of some of these people aren't terribly flattering either. Maybe I can better form my thoughts on the book as a whole when I've finished reading. There's something else he wrote that's supposed to be his best work, I've been thinking of looking for his other writings to get a fuller sense of the kind of traveler and the kind of writer he is. I've also downloaded Pico Iyer's Video Nights in Kathmandu onto my nook. I feel like I've heard the name enough to wonder what he wrote about and as it's part of a collection of writings on the far East it may be relevant. I have to admit, seeing Zhuzhou mentioned in Theroux's book has partly won me over to Riding the Iron Rooster. I'm sad to say though that thus far it's only been a train stop where he said goodbye to a man getting off a train for a connection to Changsha.

I'll be getting on a train (火车 huo che in Chinese, literally meaning fire cart and I remember it as one of the first words I learned in a book my grandpa gave me about reading Chinese) tomorrow evening. WorldTeach is holding a mid-service conference and though the bus station is next to the school my first instinct in traveling is to book a train ticket. Maybe it's the result of being in Switzerland for four years. So, it's off to Changsha for a weekend where I'll be doing a short presentation/leading a discussion during the mid-service conference. It's not terribly exciting. It's about effectively opening and closing your lessons but I've been surprised to hear others talk about how they're not sure about how exactly to close up a class and organized lesson plans have become a strength of mine. I guess it helps that in public speaking we were asked to do something similar to the lesson planning template that we were given during orientation. Basically, we had to outline what we wanted to say in full sentences and write in any gestures we would use so that we could both give a clear speech with deliberate movements and speak more naturally than if we were reading a thick essay. Hopefully, I can be of some help to someone but as of right now I'm a little nervous with making sure that I am where I need to be when I need to be there. I also don't want to be overly redundant when I know I'll be in a room full of people with as much teaching experience as I have so I'd rather talk about what we've all tried and some of the procedures we've developed.

In news about Zhuzhou, I saw sun and parts of blue sky for the first time in two weeks today. I was told it will still be quite cold for at least another month and then Hunan will once again turn into China's oven and the walls will swell with heat and humidity. We had English Corner for the first time this term and it's quite different from last term. More students, more formalized, more observations from other teachers coming and today our lesson plan for 40 minutes had to be changed to accommodate the visiting parents and school board members who are obviously highly important guests. So to make sure they saw us in action and saw what the school had to offer, we were told that class couldn't just end at 5pm. We had to continue holding English corner until we were told to stop and all the groups had had a chance to peek inside. It was a bit frustrating to have to think of something to do for an extra 30 minutes, but what school wouldn't want to show themselves at their best? And even more so in a culture where displaying that best and maintaining "face" is such a big concern. There's truth to the cynical view that we're here to add to the school's prestige because it's a private school that also has native English speakers that students can speak to, but at the same time I haven't felt overly cynical about that because I've found teachers quite willing to help whenever I've had questions. I think even with the greater presence of pomp and circumstance around certain school events such as the beginning of a new term or with greeting important guests to the school, the teachers are quite genuine in wanting to be better teachers and I guess in helping me that's also helping their students more fully take advantage of my presence. Is our school proud of having foreigners? Yes. Do we feel frustrated at times by last minute requests, teachers who keep their distance because they don't speak English well or speak it at all so they're not wholly comfortable sitting with us, and the knowledge that as oral English is not a zhongkao or gaokao subject our classes don't take quite the same priority that other classes on the test will? Yes. But from stories I've heard about the situations of others I'm in very good hands. I've never once felt that I wasn't and though there were problems with my visa in October, I saw how hard WorldTeach, JingYan, and the Hunan Dept. of Education worked to ensure that we were able to continue. Which was great because it would have broke my heart to be turned away a second time and not only that, face difficulty in coming to China later because of an innocent mistake. I think WorldTeach is taking applications for next year so if I want to come back to Hunan through WorldTeach I will need to act fast. As it is, I feel quite content either going home with my experiences, the better sense of self, and the greater trust in myself I sense I've developed or in coming back and being a much more polished teacher with a better understanding of what to look out for.

It's interesting to think through all this now. I remember how it used to surprise when I'd hear about a Chinese-American that moved back to China or read something in a history about cases of families moving back. I'd heard so many times that the US presented so many opportunities that people gave up all kinds of things to come here so with that understanding, knowing that people went back surprised me and raised questions. Undoubtedly, there are still more opportunities to do as a you wish but I've also learned about the appeal of being someone who looks like 95% of the population of China. I guess for those who had the choice to stay or go, there was also value in being in a country where you weren't alien, in knowing that you are a Chinese person in China. Not promising that everyone gets to do anything they can dream of, but at the basic level of education I can say that you're more likely to get second chances for a college education if that is what you seek either for your own emotional and intellectual development or for the boost it gives to your earning potential. I've found myself remembering a professor who once said that Americans had no right to happiness, but that we did have a right to its pursuit. Before coming here, I read in guidebooks and heard from online sources that Asian-Americans would not be treated the same way as other foreigners in China. I remember phrases like "met with a mixture of admiration and resentment" and of being alone in a long lost home, of not being treated with the same reverence and excitement that other foreigners were treated to. I have yet to be met with said mixture of admiration and resentment (or I'm not in the loop enough to hear it) and as I've worked my way through books about China I've started to wonder about how many Chinese-Americans or Overseas Chinese as we're called in Chinese contribute to these travel resources. Is it just that we relate differently and that our take on China isn't quite the same as a number of other tourists? Is that why some guidebooks leave a special box on what to expect as a Chinese-American in China while some mention nothing of the changed relationship and perceptions of overseas Chinese in China? I think the only work of travel literature about China written in English by an Asian woman is To the People, Food is Heaven and I don't remember her mentioning anything about resentment in her book either. Then again, Hunan's history is a bit different from places such as Guangdong so if I spent more time down south it may be a different story. If anything, I've encountered curiosity and confusion that sometimes ends with "xinjiang ren ma?" as people put my bad Chinese together with my predominantly Asian face and arrive at the possibility that I come from Xinjiang province, the province in China with the most minority groups.

I've been thinking about a lot of things this week and I still haven't quite gotten over the shock of realizing I have no more than 13 weeks of teaching left. While asking myself what to do when this comes to a close is exciting, it's also going to be very tough to leave with everything I wanted to talk about and the students who have put up with my off days and my struggles. I know the colleges around here are frequently looking for foreigners to teach English so maybe I should start looking at that as an option for coming back, but I'm also open to the idea of working and saving to come back in a year or two. Who knows? I've heard different things about teaching college, that it's frustrating because they've passed the gaokao and don't feel the same obligation to come to class, that they are more willing to work with you because they don't have that same obligation to exams that they did in middle and high school, that they are serious students, that they have money and don't care...but I also know that all college students still have to pass the college English test regardless of their major so I imagine that adds some incentive to stay in English class. I have the experience now and am more open to the risk since I've discovered that compared to some who take on teaching jobs I was pretty well informed of the challenges before coming here. But I think that's why I encouraged to try for the job again, because I applied and made it clear that this was something I wanted to do with the full knowledge that living in another country is not easy and that my appearance could change the way locals interacted with me. Since I'm going to be in Changsha with all the other teachers and the field director, that might be a good time to start asking about the possibility of doing this again. I know I'd like to see more of Zhuzhou and all the changes that happen around me are fascinating. My Chinese still needs work and I'm always sensing how big this country and how much there is to it, and I've been enjoying the anonymity I have here that I clearly didn't get from men who shouted "Hey China!" from across the street. Not to mention, the ready availability of tea and teawares of varying quality. Sometimes I sense it's less the drinks themselves that interest me than the whole culture and ritual, the contemplation, and attention to detail. But of course, it doesn't hurt that all that comes with a hot drink when you've boiled the water to the right temperature, washed the leaves, brewed and re-brewed for a reasonable amount of time, watched the leaves unfurl and finally poured it into a cup consumption.

To tie things up here, I guess I'm just at a point where I can hear the slow trains of my time in China calling out the next stop and while I'm not super anxious, I am listening for the station I'll be getting off at for the next connection, whether that be another chance at teaching here or taking my new confidence to other places.

So I finally have hot water again and celebrated with a hot shower. Too hot. I need to remember where the middle space between freezing and scalding is. If it ever existed. The warm bathroom is nice but not the inability to stand more than a few seconds under the shower head. I also have the use of my stove back. My wok is at the point where I can wash it and heat it over the stove to dry and smell the mix of garlic, green onions, ginger, soy sauce, and rice wine I typically toss in with just about anything I cook in there. I felt pretty accomplished about seasoning it since my stove is pretty hot and soon I didn't even have water in there, it was just the wok smoking and smelling of stir fries past. I can't wait to do more than just pork and peppers or basic vegetable stir fries. I'm still struggling a little with the timing and I've had to open the windows more than once because the air got smoky but I think I'm getting the hang of it. At the very least, the pork is cooked through and the peppers aren't totally soft from being cooked or covered in oil.

I've found myself hanging around the section of Vanguard where they sell snacks and some of the nicer teas. I knew that it sold Changsha and Hunan snacks but I never realized that there were pu er brick from Hunan as well. I found it especially surprising that it said "pu er" in English on the packaging since I heard that pu er technically comes from Yunnan alone. I thought about buying one but opted instead for the cheap mini "tuo cha" cakes that they sell individually/by weight. I don't need to buy a knife or pick for it and it's already the right size for individual brewing. But it's not as nice to look at when brewing. I guess to make them this small and cheap they couldn't use the whole leaf so it's all finely chopped leaf. It didn't taste too badly though and at when my hot water was out I figured that at the very least I could have hot pu er or tie guan yin. I've been thinking about trying ba bao (eight treasure) tea which doesn't have tea leaves at all but is kind of a sweet tea with dates, longans, a lump of sugar, and I can't remember what all else. I guess it's the closest you'll get to a dessert tea here, and it's still designed for your health. I've had some mix of dates and goji berries before, I remember because another teacher offered me some tea after I shared some of my snacks and he started to laugh and had to run to baidu to look up the words when I asked him what it was. He kept saying "Chinese wolfberry" but the words he used in Chinese were "guoji" which sounded close enough for me to pull out my phone and put the Pinyin into Pleco for translation.

Aside from necessities such as eating and drinking, I didn't have quite the strong start I meant to have this first week of school. My lesson plan wasn't terribly strong, the kids were incredibly noisy and I had to ask them to put homework away repeatedly, and I need to have clear duties for my classroom assistants so that I can better put my consequences into place. Having others observe my class doesn't always help me because if one of the other Chinese teachers comes in they will all behave quite differently from how they are with foreigners. But I want to be much better both for myself, for the other students, and for the 2nd observation I have coming up this term. It's not much progress if I still have a ton of noise by that time. But on the other hand, I have done a better job of laying out what I want to do for this term than I did last term. And as I might have said before, one of my classes applauded when I walked in so badly can I be doing?

Coming back has been tough. Anything from people nervous about working with foreigners and sending me around for a while before I could properly get registered to the ongoing thing I have for now termed "the shower saga" because it's been over a week since I had a hot shower to getting used to some of the new things that come with teaching this term to biting my tongue about haircuts. More on that later. I guess the biggest two thing have been registration and the gas/my shower. So I'll start on the shower because I think if you've been following along this blog you know official procedures can sometimes be ambiguous and difficult and I've already resolved registration. So here we go

Everything seemed in order when I got home, even more so than usual since I had swept, mopped, wiped down all counters, and did my best to clear out my apartment for the new year for my lengthy vacation. Pretty good. I turned the valve that I had used to make sure the gas was turned off while I was away. After finding that the stove didn't turn on I asked my liaison for help and found that I just needed to reinsert my card to get things going again. Great. I had a filling dinner of stir fried bok choy, pork and peppers, and steamed eggs. I went to the shower. Cold water. Turned the handle the other way. Cold water. Flipped a switch on the unit that controls hot water. Cold water. Turned the knobs clearly marked hot and cold water. No water, some water, the cold water side shut off but only cold water came out, the hot water side shut off with cold water coming out...after testing everything I felt I could safely test, I decided to ask why my stove was working but my shower wasn't. I was told to check out the battery. I had no idea where such a battery might be so I checked under the sink where the card reader for starting the gas was. 3 AA batteries didn't seem likely to power all the hot showers I had had the previous term. I saw a valve and moved it. I found that I had shut off the gas and watch the stove gradually fade out when I turned it on. I couldn't turn the valve back. I was told I had turned the professional valve and would have to get someone who could turn it for me. A man from the school came, looked at it and I pointed out the specific problem. Then he said he wasn't equipped to handle it so he had to call a professional to come four hours later. They turned it on, said good night and I had a fried rice/leftover night. Still no hot water. So I asked again about the shower and surprised everyone because they didn't realize I was still without hot water even after the professional gas valve had been opened (it was a problem before I closed that valve...).

So I watched as a man from the school came, tried everything that I had tried short of shutting off my own gas and decided to call professional familiar with the particular unit in my apartment for getting hot water to my shower the next day. I found myself surprised early in the morning when I went to the bathroom and turned on the faucet to wash my hands only to discover that turning on the faucet turned on the shower head as well and if I hadn't moved faster I would have had a cold morning shower on my first day of school At first they said they were coming in the morning. I did not know this until I had to stop my class to give my keys to my liaison so they could get in while I was teaching. Then they weren't coming until the afternoon. I didn't have my lunch card yet so I went to the noodle shop next door. I got a message saying they were coming during lunch. So I asked to get my stuff to go and the lady started asking if it was bad and if that was why I didn't finish eating so I pointed to my phone and repeated "da bao" and tried to explain that it was good but I had a commitment. So I arrived, noodles in hand, watched them examine the unit, and then finally shut off the gas and shut off the water so they could remove the unit completely. They are coming back tomorrow.

I have not had a hot shower in my apartment once since returning. And it's not something I'm angry about because I'll make it and clearly people are working hard to help me. But it has been over 7 days since I got back from spring break and I have been thinking that a hot shower on a cold rainy day would be nice. And I'm done with instant noodles but as of right now I can;t have any other hot cheap meal so...instant noodles it is. It could be worse. I have light, I have heat, they just installed wifi here, and I have been cleaning myself by boiling water, filling the tub I was given for washing my face, grabbing a soap and a sponge, washing my hair, and giving myself a final rinse by dumping the tub over myself. So I still get to be clean, it's just more labor than usual.

Now I guess to get to the new year stuff. I expected a lot of kids with much shorter hair, but one of my students was clearly distressed about how her bangs were cut at a sharp angle until they were gone from half her face. I told her it would grow back eventually. And I really wasn't prepared for the new look one of my colleagues was sporting. I know about "peanut butter hair" and the kind of orangey color that Asians get when bleaching their hair...but...I had to curl up my tongue and bite it for a while so I wouldn't look suspiciously happy or amused by the peanut butter colored, swirly hairstyle I found him with. I know, Asian style is a bit different and this is definitely considered appropriate for a relatively fashionable or trendy young man...but it's still different from the person I knew last year with the occasional white strand in his straight black hair. Very different. But hey, new year, new haircut, maybe things will be different when I'm over the initial shock. But it's been good to see people again. Class 5 applauded when I showed up and everyone seems to be having fun with talking about personality traits according to their Western zodiac sign. Capricorn has confused them ("What goat is it?" I guess a fish goat does look pretty weird.) People are asking if I found my family and visited my ancestral town but I have to keep saying no because I don't really have that many ties. I only had one cousin's information and I didn't see him.

It should all work itself out. And I guess on the bright side, even with the problems I'm having I managed to get through a week and spent less than 200RMB on food because I make enough in a night for leftovers and have gotten better at using China's tendency towards weights and measurements to better portion out my groceries for eating alone. I guess the mix of things here is just a reminder of all the good and difficult things that make up living in China.