On a rainy Thursday
Nov. 19th, 2009 06:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marjorieinchinaIt's been a strange week or so. During the second half of last week the Senior 1, 2, and 3 students had exams, and since I teach Senior 1, I had half the week off. I like time off as much as the next person, but I had no idea what to do with it this time. I had a bit of a cold, and I didn't really know how to get anywhere I might like to visit, so I ended up spending most of those five days in my apartment, futzing with the Internet or picking up and putting down various books. I did get out a little bit. I had lunch on Friday with a woman from London who's teaching at the university here, and we walked around the city a bit in the afternoon. Sunday I had a long, long Chinese lunch with a bunch of friends of another teacher, and then two students took me around to show me some of the sights. It was cold on Friday, and it was raining and cold on Sunday. Last night I went out for hot pot with some other teachers. It was cold and raining, or maybe sleeting. I think it is going to be cold and/or raining for a long time. They say that after January it starts to get warmer. But after that is the rainy season.
I'm reacting to all this in a couple ways at once. I've always been more productive in the winter time, hunkering down next to the heat to get my work done, bustling through the outdoors in a purposeful way to get to work or class or whatever. But the cold is different here. For one thing, it's wet, and for another, it's everywhere, outdoors and in. The classroom buildings here are really built for tropical weather. All the rooms open directly onto the outdoors, and the hallways and stairways are basically outside. This is very pleasant architecture when it's hot outside, but right now it means that we all wear our coats everywhere we go, whether we're teaching classes, working in the teachers' office, or eating meals. The buildings are also poorly insulated. In my own apartment I have the heater in my bedroom going full blast, all the time, and I keep my bedroom door closed, and my nose still gets cold if I sit in here typing for any length of time. It doesn't help that there are sections of windows in the other rooms that I can't close at all--there's simply no way to latch them, and the frames seem to be spring-loaded to keep them open.
So on the one hand, the weather makes me feel kind of invigorated and a little bit festive, and on the other, it makes me want to crawl into bed and not come out until April. I guess that would defeat the purpose of coming here, though. I'm supposed to be teaching people English and such. And maybe experiencing this foreign country I'm in? That seems like it is also part of the idea.
Anyway, I don't have any big adventures to tell you about, so here are some pictures from my small adventures.
I went camping in the mountains! This probably merits mention as more than a small adventure, but it was actually pretty close to the city and the hike was not nearly as hard as I expected.
Huamao Foreign Language School had its 10th anniversary, and I was told I was expected to be there. Turns out I was expected to wear a corsage and sit on the stage. I was wearing jeans; all the school's teachers were in suits. At least I had a corduroy jacket on that looked kinda formal when I was sitting down. All the speeches were in Chinese, of course, but they introduced everyone on the stage at one point, and when they said my name I stood up and bowed very, very quickly.
My friend Jane had a birthday, and we threw her a surprise party, complete with spelling her name on the wall with balloons. That's how you show you really care.
I went into the countryside the weekend before last, and a little boy who was with the group invited me to go catch crabs. I didn't catch any, except for a really, really tiny one that immediately got away, but he was pretty good at it.
I'm reacting to all this in a couple ways at once. I've always been more productive in the winter time, hunkering down next to the heat to get my work done, bustling through the outdoors in a purposeful way to get to work or class or whatever. But the cold is different here. For one thing, it's wet, and for another, it's everywhere, outdoors and in. The classroom buildings here are really built for tropical weather. All the rooms open directly onto the outdoors, and the hallways and stairways are basically outside. This is very pleasant architecture when it's hot outside, but right now it means that we all wear our coats everywhere we go, whether we're teaching classes, working in the teachers' office, or eating meals. The buildings are also poorly insulated. In my own apartment I have the heater in my bedroom going full blast, all the time, and I keep my bedroom door closed, and my nose still gets cold if I sit in here typing for any length of time. It doesn't help that there are sections of windows in the other rooms that I can't close at all--there's simply no way to latch them, and the frames seem to be spring-loaded to keep them open.
So on the one hand, the weather makes me feel kind of invigorated and a little bit festive, and on the other, it makes me want to crawl into bed and not come out until April. I guess that would defeat the purpose of coming here, though. I'm supposed to be teaching people English and such. And maybe experiencing this foreign country I'm in? That seems like it is also part of the idea.
Anyway, I don't have any big adventures to tell you about, so here are some pictures from my small adventures.
I went camping in the mountains! This probably merits mention as more than a small adventure, but it was actually pretty close to the city and the hike was not nearly as hard as I expected.
Huamao Foreign Language School had its 10th anniversary, and I was told I was expected to be there. Turns out I was expected to wear a corsage and sit on the stage. I was wearing jeans; all the school's teachers were in suits. At least I had a corduroy jacket on that looked kinda formal when I was sitting down. All the speeches were in Chinese, of course, but they introduced everyone on the stage at one point, and when they said my name I stood up and bowed very, very quickly.
My friend Jane had a birthday, and we threw her a surprise party, complete with spelling her name on the wall with balloons. That's how you show you really care.
I went into the countryside the weekend before last, and a little boy who was with the group invited me to go catch crabs. I didn't catch any, except for a really, really tiny one that immediately got away, but he was pretty good at it.
