Hello from the new laptop! My school gave me 1000RMB to put towards a new computer so I decided to just go for it and get a small one for 3500RMB. Somehow, I'd always assumed that "Computer City"  as it's called in Chinese would be far away but I've walked past it before on a long day when I just wandered through the city. For as much as I've growled and let things get to me that I shouldn't have, getting a birthday party invite out of the blue from the kind computer staff (who can't have been much older than me, or younger) reminded me of some of the wonderful things that come your way as a foreigner in Zhuzhou.

I've basically given away my weekends. I do an extra bit of teaching on Saturday mornings in exchange for lunch and cooking lessons here and there and on Saturday afternoon I also do an English Corner with primary schoolers. On Sundays, my one consolation is that I'm not teaching tai chi. I just get to be the student as shifu walks me through each step and teaches me a new warm up with each class. Then it's back to the work week. I love getting the last minute news that I have a day off on Monday or Friday. A day to sleep in and be tied to no one. Getting involved in something through clubs or volunteering is one way I try to work with my reclusive and introverted tendencies, but I still value a day of nothing at all. Maybe 4 years of living in a country where everything is closed on Sunday has influenced me too. I still find a small voice in my head that tells me that I have to get everything done on Saturdays despite being in China. It's funny to think of the things that stay with you when you've lived in another country for a while.

I've been stuck. In a lot of ways, I feel like I've lost sight of things and forgot how important it is to just focus on what's in your hands when things become less than ideal. A part of me knows it's a natural part of living in another country over time and that watching the novelty and the honeymoon period of adjustment fade is both frustrating and an opportunity to put things in perspective. Some might say the frustrations are just part of developing a more realistic/fuller understanding of the place I live in right now. I find myself getting a little vicious at times about things that are so small. Like when I go shopping for electronics and people try to find me something "more fashionable" or tell me I actually want this in red, not black, because I'm a young girl (but I'm a young girl almost always in dark jeans and something black). Or tired of last minute changes (though it's mostly OK, if I go to school and my class is cleaning, I had nothing else planned anyway so I may as well relax). I feel like I've never quite hit the high and fulfilling feeling that pushed me along last year, not to the same level or with the same frequency. On the other hand, Zhuzhou is constantly changing and I find new friends and people who fill my life and expand my understanding of life in China. There's P, the Uyghur man I wrote about last time who sells nan (at times, still looking for something romantic while I'm not sure). There's my neighbor who used to live in Dubai for work and now makes dumplings while creating spaces for people to practice speaking English. There's the Hui family from Lanzhou who greet me from their pulled noodle shop every time I pass. My "mom" and "dad" who run the tea shop where I get my caffeine fix and a lot of practice in speaking Chinese. Actually, I'm sure everyone on my street says hi to me now since I frequent their shops. It's kind of on purpose. One of my most rewarding travel experiences while I was in college was the summer I did an internship in Dublin, Ireland but found myself pulled into the songwriters and poetry community after joining a writers group. Since then, I've made an effort to frequent a place and be known or join something while I'm abroad.

It feels like there are things opening up to me only now, though I wonder if I should continue given all the swings and cycles I went through this time. A part of me says if I leave and try something else and find I want to be here teaching after all, then it's better to come back with purpose having other experiences with me. A part of me wonders about my chances of coming back if I leave. At times, I love this city and its surprises. At times, I'm anxious because I haven't been in the US for more than 3 months at a time for the past 6 years and there are times when I feel like an anthropologist rather than a local (to be fair, I think back on everything I learned about intercultural communications when I'm here in China too: high context vs low context culture, long term vs short term, Edward T. Hall's Silent Languages...). I also know how much I still haven't seen and keep finding. I feel like I've accomplished a lot of what I had in mind when I first signed up. I tried teaching, I grew in public speaking, I exercised a lot of what I learned about myself and intellectually while here, I've been finding my way in the Chinese language, I've made friends, and I've looked at one of my biggest anxieties (that I really was so sorely out of touch and spent so much time with books in some ivory tower that I had no real skills to offer to anyone anywhere) and seen it was nothing. I saw Xi'An and the terra cotta warriors, I fulfilled someone's prophecy that I would climb the Great Wall, I saw Guangzhou and Zhongshan, I started taijiquan, and after 4 years in Switzerland thinking hard about where I come from and where I've been, I found my way to a position where my own interests and education fit neatly with someone else's questions. I still have a ways to grow, but I've found confidence in my time here as I learned to trust myself and value things about myself I never considered to be real skills or talents. I know one of the most difficult things in going back to America when I was in college was coming back with the person I found while away, and occasionally feeling that with everyone's expectations from the past I couldn't always find room for that person. But that's also a comfort. To know that whichever direction I take from here on out, I take that person I found with me and all she's capable of. For all of its frustrations, I'll always be grateful to China for helping me find that person.

​Time for that weekly update again…well, I’m getting ready to give my second exam and I think I made it too easy. We’ll see. I’m still waiting for feedback on October’s assessment and I’m going to do a practice test in early December so that everyone is ready for the final in January. I think next semester, I’m going to do something more informal like a written in-class assignment that they turn in (a letter with recommendations for solving a problem, a short story, etc.). 
I gave my first F to a class and am now preparing my speech/a time to discuss with my students why my job is hard to do without them. I really need to sit down with them and get the ball rolling on what changes need to take place. I also need to get on top of some things that have piled up, like filming myself teaching, getting everything corrected and given back to students and other things that are part of the job.
We have a class trip coming up around the 26th/27th. I’m going to up close to Dong ting Lake (which Hunan gets its name from, since the province is “South of the Lake” although Dongting is inside Hunan). The teacher last year said it was a very moving experience. Among the things students do is a visit to a prison where they listen to young inmates tell their stories. It will be a unique experience for sure.

Otherwise, it’s been quiet. I had a second break-in attempt since coming back to Zhuzhou this year, pushed harder to get my camera repaired after last year’s incident, discovered that it will cost me a sizable amount of money (but thankfully not the 2000RMB I was originally told), put aside 300 yuan for the all-you-can-eat Thanksgiving buffet at the Sheraton in Changsha, and ate the rest of my extra money because China unleashes the snacker in me like nowhere else I’ve been. Recently, I’ve been eating a lot of táng yóu baba (糖油粑粑, a small cake made of glutinous rice and fried with sugar in the oil). The smell of chestnuts is everywhere, which reminds me of Ticino and watching the trees change there.

​I’ve also been eating seasoned grilled lamb skewers I confused the family that runs two carts selling grilled lamb skewers covered in spices. It didn’t sound like the man was speaking Mandarin when I asked how much for a skewer and no one really knew how to approach me. Even, less so after I said I was American. I’d like to go back since I know the meat is fresh (the goat’s head and the legs are usually sitting on the street next to the cart and has made innocent passersby scream every now and then, and I’ve seen a mountain of hair behind the head too). I just need to get over these awkward exchanges since no one really knows how to respond to me. I’m in this ethnic limbo I guess.

So I'll be showing a movie to my classes this week ("Frost the Snowman") and will have to spend next week telling students what's on their final exam and letting them prepare in class. I wish I'd received more warning on when my grades were due, but that's how it works here. I still don't know when school starts again. It probably won't be too difficult, but with an average of 57 students a class I will need two class periods to ensure that everyone speaks. (Each period I teach is 40 minutes long, and I only see each class once a week.) But as I wrap up with my students and try to find a suitable, short oral exam (I'm thinking that since I asked them for their names on the first day, they can introduce a classmate and tell us a little about him/her, it'd be a way to come back to day one and include some of what they've done and learned in my class or their other class) I've begun reflecting on the ups and downs of this term.

• Pleasant surprises: Despite having read about how Chinese-Americans in China are met with "a mix of admiration and scorn" I've found that a good number of people seem open to me being an American of Chinese descent. It probably helps that I speak some Chinese and can say that I'm American and I studied some standard Chinese though.
• The students. Creative kids, really sweet, really smart.
• How open the other teachers have been. And the teachers at my school have surprised in wonderful ways as well. For the most part, Chinese teachers just read or lecture (from what I understand) but my colleagues have shown a real effort to help me get better and have surprised me with their variety of methods.
• Finding that my kids actually really love my class and are very happy to see me every week.
• Chinese food. The variety, the taste, the textures. There's no way I can cover everything available in Zhuzhou alone but going out around the train station at night when all the booths are set up with their goods is incredible.
• Despite the air quality on some days, I do like Zhuzhou. It's relatively clean, has a lot going on, is pretty well connected to other parts of China through its trains and does feel different from Changsha which at times was too much for me.

And now some of the tougher things:

I was supposed to get paid yesterday, but due to some difficulties with the name on my account I still only have about 10 kuai from when I first opened my account. It turns out that after they demanded that I fill out the forms again because they wanted my name to look exactly like it did on my passport (I left out my middle name) they left out a space so that my first and middle name were smashed together. Now that I have that figured out, I should be getting paid my first full stipend soon. Otherwise, my account will have about enough for 5 pieces of stinky tofu and a sprite, which still leaves me with 1 kuai for the bus ride back to my apartment. That had better be some awesome chou doufu if that's all I have and do with that money.

Anyway, it's my third week in and my classes are still very noisy. I love their energy and their mischief tells me just how clever they are. But I still need to control my class. I hate taking points, but I'm going to have to be even tougher to ensure I have a quiet and focused classroom. I also want to be sure that it's a safe space for people to make mistakes. I took the advice of my field director to randomly call on people after students speak and ask questions of different students. I don't have the incredibly quiet classrooms that I hear when I pass my students and they are with their other teachers yet, but the noise did change quite a bit after I started pulling names from the name bag I had students create on the first day. I have their names in Pinyin and Chinese so even if they try changing English names without telling me, I will find them by their Chinese names. That and they should have the name tags I spent over a week cutting out and creating for them. The names I got seemed a little less wild than some of the other teachers, but part of that may have been that I let them pick from a bunch of names I had written and cut out the weekend before. Unfortunately, I ran out of names in one class and wound up reusing some of them. One of my classes has about 5 Olivias.

I'm not where I want to be yet, so I have to keep reminding myself to be firm, clear, and consistent. If I have to tell my class to be quiet 3 times, I take a class point away. If I catch individuals, I card them and they have to come see me after class. I'm now creating a poster so my classes can see how well they are doing relative to each other. Hopefully, the competitive drive will boost classroom behavior. And stronger lesson plans. I think at the beginning of the week, I made it too hard or too hard to understand. Then I made it too easy so students found themselves with free time to goof off when they were done or bored. I need everyone engaged all the time. I'm not giving up until I've shown these kids that I deserve a quiet classroom like their other teachers. I'm worried that students are hitting each other when my back is turned, and when other students tell on them, I struggle to penalize them because I didn't actually see what happened so I usually wind up saying "I need you both to work and keep your hands to yourself or I will be back".

Maybe I'm really not trying hard enough. I don't know, that's sometimes the impression I get talking to others: that I'm too kind when I need to slam things on their desks  and let them know they are in trouble. I do want them to know they are in trouble and for my class to see that there are consequences, but I don't want to shame them or kill their enthusiasm either. They're not bad kids, but I need to be a better teacher.

This has probably been one of the most frustrating and one of the most rewarding weeks as I condition my students to enjoy English but behave well in class. I love it when they're excited like when we went over family members using the Simpsons and especially the reactions of all the Lisas in my classes, but dang. When your smallest class is 55 students you cannot tolerate talking. At all. Get it immediately or you'll find it growing. The last thing I need is 55-60 students distracting and disrupting each other.

Fall seems to have finally reached Hunan. We had rain yesterday and it's been cool enough that I don't need the A/C or my desktop fan like I used to. I was enjoying an unhealthy lunch from the school cafeteria consisting of fried chicken and some spongy cake thing with cream inside while listening to the music they play during lunch break. Yesterday, it was Taylor Swift and the High School Musical soundtrack (the American one, I haven't heard the Chinese High School Musical soundtrack here ever). It's funny to me. Most people talk about getting used to the smells in China. Though there were certainly some I had to get used to to begin with, smell actually hasn't been as big for me as sound. China is very much an aural experience.

Sounds that have become a part of my everyday life in Zhuzhou:

• Motorcycles honking as they ride behind me on the sidewalk
  
• Cars honking all the time to tell people and other cars they want to go ahead
  
• Enrique Iglesias's "Escape"  playing at the accessories shop across the street everyday
• Some song at the Vanguard shopping center that has the words "I know that, I've gotta get out of here" that plays every time I'm there
• Firecrackers/fireworks. From early morning to late at night. While this isn't quite daily, it is regular enough that I don't run around looking for the source when it happens. Most of the time, it's off the top of  building nearby but one morning I got up extra early because the light was flashing through my curtains and later walked to the stationery/convenience store behind where I live and found bits of red paper strewn everywhere.
• The school bell. Except that it's not a bell. When I was in middle school, the submarine beep meant it was time to run off to your next class. Here, it's the teachers that move from classroom to classroom and I know my work is done when I have managed to wrap up just as I hear a piano start Beethoven's "Für Elise". I have also heard a piano version of "The Ash Grove" which I think signals the end of lunch and the beginning of the nap period.
• There is also some lively tune they play for the students eye exercises along with a woman's voice going "yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba". The students have 5 minutes for these eye exercises and they do them twice a day, though since my earliest class is at 10:25 I've only heard it before my 16:00 class.
• "Teacher! Class is ended!" if I continue speaking after the bell.
• Fast-talking store employees advertising aggressively, but with such incredible speed and clearness to their voice that it's really an art.
• The "Xiao Ping Guo". Because it's viral and everywhere. Whether it's a street food stand, middle-aged women dancing out in a square in a large group, my students during their music or dance class, a dance competition, or a nearby KTV, "Xiao Ping Guo"  by the Chopstick Brothers has also come to take its place in my daily life
• The incredible enunciation and rhythm produced by the other English teachers' classrooms. I often hear one teacher come in with his mic and very calmly and clearly recite the vocabulary the students need and have them chorally repeat it. It's amazing. It's completely the opposite of my classroom where I often feel choral repetition is the only time I have for getting all my students to focus and participate. But to keep them engaged I'm going to have introduce something a little tougher or include a few more words.

I imagine this is only the beginning to a growing list of noises. Forget China's smells, it's the sounds that seem to be making an impression on me.

I have a ways to go, but I've already been in Hunan for over a month. My vocabulary grows with every trip to the grocery store and with the assistance of my energetic, bright, loveable, but often mischievous students. I hope to grow as a teacher and make it very clear that helping me with Chinese is only for before or after class. As their English teacher, I'm there to speak English and make sure they do too.

I can't believe I've been here in my new apartment for about a week. I've never had so much space to myself in my life and so many appliances! Nearly everything in here is new too! I have a tv and my liaison told me that CCTV4 is the international channel. They seem to keep replaying a program on ice dancing but I also saw a program that follows a Chinese man and a non-Chinese girl as they travel around China. It has English subtitles and reviews some of the grammar used in the program so I'll have to see about watching that more often to improve my Chinese. I seem to be getting a little better at reading everyday. I'm sure I'll be a master at recognizing radicals by the end of the year from counting the strokes so I can look things up in the dictionary. This is the non-tech option for people like me who are too proud to get a convenient app or tablet that allows me to write out the character. It's actually not too bad, and I think I've actually managed to internalize and understand the characters a little better since I have to take them apart to find the pinyin and then play with the pinyin to make sure I've got the right character. I've started keeping a list of the characters I see. I write the pinyin next to the word then write the character 4 or 5 times. I can now confidently ask for a bottle of Sprite, a watermelon smoothie, a Cola, and a few fruits. Mostly though, I've been getting by through pointing and saying "zhi ge!" ("This!") or "na ge" ("That!"). My new challenge is the settings on the washing machine. The only one I can figure out is wool or knits. It's easier for me because I know the character for sheep, but the picture of a ball of yarn was kind of a dead give away too. I really can't figure out the rest since the translations I've received are: "big opponent", "normal", "monodesilyation(?)", "drift off", and one more set of characters I have to search through. It's like when I was struggling to learn the difference between cuts of beef in Italy and the US all over again. I still don't know which part of the cow is the "fin".

It's been a busy week too. I moved in on Monday with the other WT volunteer two floors below. The first couple of days we had to get our foreign expert certificates, set up a bank account, and get a cellphone all set up. We also had people running in and out nearly everyday to set up the internet, set up the television, change the locks on the door, or bring in more furniture. Just when I thought we were done 3 people showed up with 4 chairs and a dining table! Thankfully, we live in a pretty central area so everything is within walking distance or we can hop a bus. We actually live across the street from a shopping center called Vanguard which has everything from a large two-floor market to KFC and Pizza Hut, a donut shop, a coffee shop, a KTV, a movie theater, a bunch of clothing shops, some children's recreation area, a few drug stores, a cell phone store, and a jewelry shop. I may have missed a few there. Basically, just about anything I could want is across the street if I can make the crossing or within walking distance given that there are a ton of shops around the train station too which is just down the street. I feel incredibly spoiled given that I came in thinking I should be ready for anything I see. Instead, I have a well equipped kitchen, a room I never use because this is more than enough space for me, and fridge. I guess you know you've been living on your own for a while if the idea of having your own kitchen is really exciting.

We met the other teachers at our school too. They were extremely eager to get our input and work with us. I felt sorely unprepared since I have no idea where my office is or what my schedule even looks like. I'm just prepping this week's lesson plan to be clear on class rules and keeping students accountable for misbehavior. I'm going to double-check about whether I'm supposed to be giving grades or not. It didn't sound like it, but I don't want to be caught at the end with nothing to show either. I'm excited because I'm finally here and doing what I came to do (and the stupid pun I used for my blog name is finally applicable) and I made my mistakes during practicum so I have a firmer grip of what to expect than when I first arrived in the Changsha airport at 1AM. 14 classes of around 60 students each...It's almost like if I went back to California and took all of Redwood Middle School on as my students. I'll do my best to reach out to all of them since my job is never really done until I've gotten through to all my students.

I meant to put a photo up at the top of the page but I seem to have done something strange where I can't put pictures up there. So I did the next best thing and uploaded a photo of Changsha on a day when the sky wasn't quite as heavy or overcast. I think I've adjusted to the humidity very well. I'm actually not feeling it when I'm out and about despite being a little sweaty. This is near The Little Pearl Restaurant where we've been eating every night so far, though we're sharing a meal there for the last time tomorrow. I have to turn in my first lesson plan for critiquing as well. I'm nervous because I want to do my best but I am happy that I'm in a program that takes the time to train its volunteers in teaching methods, discuss culture shock, and give them a practice run of working in a classroom before sending them on to their locations. I think I'd be pretty nervous about having no support or information at all. I like all the people I've met and many have traveled before or are interested in development. It's a little like being at FUS all over again, though I do feel a little like the one thing people remember about me now is that I went to school in Switzerland. We even had a visit from the Consul General from the consulate based in Wuhan today which really made me feel like I was back.

My limited Chinese is returning and growing everyday. I've been getting a lot of practice at a tea and coffee shop (Seven Teas)  across the street from the middle school where we've been doing all our training and classes. They do not speak English there, but they do have an English menu with Chinese characters and pinyin so I am building my vocabulary one cold drink at a time. As we have Chinese class from 8-9:30 and the rest of our training from 9:45-5PM, it's a welcome break in the middle of the day. Oh, and have I mentioned that the middle school we're all doing orientation at is beautiful? And there's so many things in easy walking distance from us: Martyr's park, bakeries, a city museum, small shops... though just walking around demands a lot of attention. People everywhere, cars, bikes, and motorbikes moving along on the sidewalk have surprised me a few times. It may just be that Saratoga was so quiet, but the other two times I've been to Asia the activity on the streets amazed me. There's so much going on at 6 or 7 AM with dance and exercise groups going on and a few individuals simply doing their exercises alone where the streets have less people.

In short, despite my initial nervousness I am warming up to here though I am sure that when the group disperses and I settle into the school year with another volunteer working at my school I will encounter challenges. I haven't yet had too any of the issues I've heard Chinese American people sometimes report when they come here. Sometimes people expect me to understand more Chinese than I really do and just keep talking to me, but I've met a lot of people too who will speak to me in English if I ask. In time, I suppose.