Coffee and Work

The two aforementioned things tend to have a positively correlated relationship. The more coffee one has, the more likely one is to work. This was the case today when, after collectively consuming around 6 cups of coffee throughout my day, I managed to basically start and finish writing a 9th grade English midterm in less than an hour. The sudden influx of coffee into my daily diet/habit is directly related to the new teachers’ lounge where we have open access to a cheap, powder based coffee/cappuccino machine.

My classes went pretty well today. I ventured with my 9th grade English class to the new international library on campus where they were to pick out a book they would read for the next three weeks, maintaining a Reader's Journal throughout the process. The kids liked the fact that they got to choose their own books, and liked even more the fact that the Reader's Journal, which is highly self-directed, was to replace the archaic and dreaded book report. I am winning them over, slowly but surely. Best part is, they don’t even know it! I am doing a Reader’s Journal with them as I think it will help me to sit down and focus on my own reading everyday.

My 10th grade history class was ok. I just gave them a lot of time to work on the draft of a research paper that is due tomorrow. They get to choose any sport, research its history and traditions, and trace the sport to modern times, discussing its influence on the current wide world of sports. Not a topic of my choosing in particular, but it corresponds nicely with the section of the textbook we are currently studying, so I do what I can with what they give me.

I have nothing of interest to say about my 11th grade history class, which was the last class of the day. We have a love hate relationship. They love to hate me, and the feeling is mostly reciprocal. It is unfortunate, really, that the teaching relationship has to be that way sometimes, but most of the time it is not possible to be friends with your students. Rather you just have to focus on teaching them the material in the ways they most want to learn it.

Last week, I had them do a project where they made a promotional flier to get people to attend the Storming of the Bastille. This seemed age appropriate since most of them sleep through class because they party at night in clubs, which use similar fliers to promote certain DJs that will be performing there, drink specials, etc. This was a pretty popular activity, and amazingly enough I saw smiles on their faces, a few people talked, and the two kids that ALWAYS sleep in the back of class were awake for almost half the period! The posters they made were pretty entertaining. I will post some photos when I get my camera up and running.

After class, I sat down to write the English midterm, which actually isn’t for another two weeks. Helen, my boss, told me today, however, that they would have to be completed and turned into the administration by Monday. Not much fair warning considering the amount of preparation and work required in making a midterm, but this is China. That is more or less how they work things around here.

Back with a vengeance . . .

I am writing this blog post from our brand new teacher’s lounge that is ridiculously opulent. Mahogany tables, leather chairs, gigantic picture windows, French silk drapery, recessed lighting AND chandeliers. I feel like I will be spending a lot of my time here from now on, especially considering they have free coffee and cappuccino. I have an hour before my class from hell: 11th grade non-native history. Today’s lecture, the development of the French revolution. Not sure who decided I was qualified to teach that, but either way, I make it happen three times a week.

This weekend was a good mixture of calm coffee shop evenings, long and lingering days out, and risqué nights at some of the nicest bars this city has to offer. Nights out like that always bring with them notions of colonial imperialism, as I capitalize on the fact that being white, or being western, in this city brings with it exorbitant pay and, therefore, relatively undeserved privilege.

I took a nap on Friday after getting off work. I was a little sick, and needed a good rest before attempting to take on the weekend before me. After waking up from my nap, I watched a movie and knitted for a while on my brand new couch from Ikea, which I am unrealistically in love with (pictures to be posted soon!). Friday night I spent reading and writing at a place called Coffee Lox, which is basically just a cheaper Starbucks. There was a pretty big party at a co-worker’s apartment in the French Concession, but I opted not to go and recover from my illness completely instead.

Saturday I woke up in utter disgust with the status of my hair. It has taken a grand beating from two months of heat, humidity, hard water, cheap shampoo, and unreal pollution. I just knew I had to do something about it. I remembered this place that looked promising in the French Concession called “Eric Paris” and after checking out their website Saturday morning, I decided to give it a shot.

I have been getting much better and more confident with using various modes of public transportation less expensive than taxis. I decided to take the 824 bus, which goes more or less right to the French Concession, and dropped me off right in front of the hair salon. A huge shopping plaza is midway between school and the FC, so the bus got really, really, really crowded right before those stops. It was a little too crowded for comfort, but the fact that it cost only 2 yuan was hard to pass up.

I arrived at the hair salon about thirty minutes before they opened, but luckily for me there is a nice starbucks right next door. I sat out on the sidewalk right on Hengshan Lu, the main road in the FC. I had coffee and a muffin, and read a little. Right at ten, I walked in, and they just happened to have an appointment time open. A French woman by the name of Sylvie cut my hair, and I am really pleased with it. I headed back to school right after, and made it just in time to join Devon and Jess on a massage adventure in celebration of Devon’s birthday.

We found out about this place called Pheonix from some of our co-workers and were told to get the 88 yuan special. The 88 yuan special is a TWO hour message where they work on your feet for an hour and then take you to another room for a full body for another hour. It was quite enjoyable, and by the end of it, none of us wanted to move from the massage table. But, we had a busy schedule ahead; dinner and the opening of a new location of on of our favorite bars in the FC called Cottons. Because it was their grand opening, it was open bar until 10. Clearly, we wanted to get there early.

The new location of Cottons is quite nice, although like I said before, has a certain air of colonial imperialism. I stayed until 10, and then decided to head back home because I was still not totally over being sick, and I had a long and eventful Sunday in the city yet to come.

My plans for Sunday included the following; a good western breakfast, a trip to Shanghai Art Museum, a walk through Hengshan Park, and coffee and knitting on the starbucks terrace in Xuijawei. A late departure turned a western breakfast into a western lunch, and the crisis of potentially having had lost my Chinese bankcard weighted heavily on my once carefree spirit(no worries, though, I have retrieved it). Not the best start to a long day, but far from the worst as well.

After sitting at The Coffee Bean in People’s Square for about an hour where I read and wrote, we headed off to look for the Shanghai Art Museum, which alluded us for a while. After many map consultations a few scratchings of the head, we found our way to the museum, and waited in line to enter. I feel like the museum itself needs its own post, and I think I will give it that. The theme was “Translocalmotion” and was all about the vast immigrant worker population in Shanghai. The thirsty sociologist within lapped up the experience, and planned to expand research on this population, as it seems to be huge and quite a force upon the city in both social, ethnic, geo-political, and economic ways.

After satiating both my need for art and intellectual material, we headed back to the FC to wander through Hengshan Park, which was supposed to be having an art festival. Turns out the festival was less of a festival and more of a performance series, and the performances were not going to begin until later that evening. As such, we took a leisurely stroll through the park, and found ourselves at a very busy starbucks in Xuijawei, where I knitted and rocked out to modest mouse while watching the hoards of people below and attempted to comprehend the reality of my life at this intersection. I’d say I got a little further on the material blanket I was knitting than the immaterial questions of existence I was posing. Either way . . .

A not so quick trip to the Caoxi Lu DVD store on the way back, and 10 new DVDs later, it was time to finally return to my humble abode, pop in a film, pick up the needles, and calm myself for the week ahead. Sleep came easily and I woke up this morning without my alarm.

I have a feeling that it is going to be a pleasant and balanced week. Picture updates soon to come.

And we're back . . .

I could not be any more aware that it has been much too long since the last time I posted. An indescribable amount of things have happened since then, and each day that passed without a post, the forthcoming post became more and more looming. There are a few reasons for my lack of blogging, on which I would like to expand at this time.

First, it turns out that I have a real job with real responsibilities. Additionally to that, the kids that I am teaching are real kids and they are all trying to get a very real education. I show up to the office between 5:45 and 7 each day, depending on the amount of prep work I need to complete before classes begin at 8:30. I teach either three or four classes each day, and must juggle the assignments, lectures, and grading for each. At the beginning, this was a logistical nightmare. I have made some progress in my acclimation and have almost fallen into a routine on a few occasions, but to no avail. I try to leave the office at our approved time of 4:10 each day, and I refuse to bring work home with me.

By the end of the day, I am left beaten and bruised by obsolete grammar lessons, poor interpretations of history, and incessant traffic jams in the hallway. At that point, all I want to do is go home, throw on my pajamas, and crawl into bed for the rest of the night. But somehow everyday, and without fail, on my two minute bike ride from the office to the apartment, I somehow miraculously regain all the energy I lost over the course of the day, and after only a short rest, I am ready to go out in the great city that lies beyond the meager gates of Shanghai Zhong Xue.

This leads us to the second reason why I have not had the opportunity, nor have I made the opportunity, to maintain this blog. The night might find me at the coffee shop reading and writing, at dimly lit bar in the corner of the city, at a posh expat restaurant with friends, enjoying the relative privilege we possess in this country. I try to make the most of my hours out of the office, although lately (especially after the addition of an Ikea couch in my living room, a DVD player, and proper knitting supplies) I have found myself more and more content with simply staying in and enjoying a movie or two from Baise DVD.

These two reasons in culmination with the fact that the last thing I want to do after a long day of creating word documents is to create yet another one . . . especially if that document is a long account of what happened that day. It is an issue of proximity, I think, for those who wish to know more about my time here in China. The people I work and play with in this country continue to know more and more about me as the people I left behind in the Untied States seem to move continually further away.

Now that I have a little more control over my day, simply because I have at least a slight idea now of how to do my job, I should be able to more easily find at least thirty minutes a day to write and update the blog.