Yay day

I look forward to Saturdays, despite knowing that I'll actually have to get up early on Saturdays. Saturday is not my day off: at 10, a little girl named Betsy comes over for a one-on-one class that, originally, was supposed to last no more than 1.5 hours. Now it's 2 or a little over. At 7:30, I have a 2-hour private class with what is now 8 high schoolers (previously 6) and one of their mothers, who is a cool lady who sits by and helps some of the less advanced students WITHOUT INTERFERING (which therefore means she's cool).

These two classes are not only a pleasure to teach, but they're soooo easy! Betsy's class was sort of a surprise when it started, you know, I wasn't expecting her to start coming over so soon. But that was 2 weeks ago, and she is such an enthusiastic student that just about everything goes over well. Her lessons are easy to plan because she's very good at learning. As for my evening class, the students are amazing. Some of them pick up real quick, and most of them have the guts to stop me and ask questions. Also, their curiosity comes out better than that of my other students, so we always have something interesting to talk about. And we get along well and have laughs. Most importantly though, I can always expect them to do what I asked the week before as "homework" (since it's fundamentally optional), and also to follow along and complete each section of the actual class. So planning for them is a breeze-- I'm already ahead like 3 weeks. Well, two now I guess.

Anyways, I was just short of breathing fire when I woke up this morning... I'd had some dream where some activity wasn't being accomplished efficiently, and so every time it was attempted wrong, I'd try to rearrange myself in bed. But like, I sleep in a sleeping bag, and so all night I had this sensation that I was trapped, and like, so on. I opened my eyes just before my alarm went off at 7:45 and was like "holy shit, I'm tired." Just then, my alarm rang, and I actually wanted to cry. Got up though, and had class. Betsy is really cute, and has pretty good manners during class, so it like, wasn't a strain or anything. We read stories online, pick up some vocab, and then make Go Fish cards. It's an interesting challenge for me when she decides that she wants to make a card out of a verb or adjective. "Spy" as a verb was hard today, but I ended up just making it "spyglass" cuz you can still get the point.

Afterwards, she and her mom invited Alice and I to Haide Hanbao for lunch. Hanbao means "hamburger," so yeah, it's the closest thing to McDonald's. They also serve Chinese fast food there, a la Mark Pi's, Hong Kong, and Peace. For the parents, I guess, cuz the kids love hamburgers. By the way, "hamburger," as a term, is more distorted here than it is in the States, because it can also refer to chicken sandwiches. Basically, anything on a hamburger bun is a hamburger. For your reference. I ordered a beef hamburger, and got the equivalent of a Big Mac. The meat patties here are... thin. And uniform. Spam-ish in appearance. But taste ok. You'd probably need at least 3 patties to equal one quarter-pounder, so I guess the double-decker burger I got wasn't all that much more food. But you know, I can eat a hamburger and be done-- throw in an extra layer of bun, and I'm very done. Add fries, and you'll have to slow down. There was once a time when I would have sat down to an x-treme junior bacon cheeseburger showdown or two, but those days are past, for now at least. I can pig out, but usually to the note of an extenuating circumstance or two. What I'm getting at is that the mother (one of Alice's... high school (?) teachers) tried to order me a bowl of rice, essentially a food-court Chinese restaurant combo, and when I said no, ordered an extra chicken sandwich just in case. I didn't even manage to finish the first thing, and when they saw it, they asked me if I was afraid of getting fat.

It was a really fun morning. I mean, the weather was dismal, cold, and snowy (at last!), but that doesn't really matter to someone like me, whose essential functions take place indoors. In the cab on the way there, Betsy was trying to explain something about a speaking competition she wanted to enter, but got stuck on the words. Even the driver chimed in and told her to think about it slowly. We had two female cab drivers today, and both of them were quite willing to chat it up with Betsy's mom. Pleasant! With her mom or her cousins (who I taught once at the beginning of my stay here), she's like an anime character. And she is so clever, to the point where Alice and I spent a lot of time laughing at her comments or antics. I think her mom's trying to convince her to come stay Friday nights with us, and I'm not sure what I think about that, but at least it's an excuse to avoid having to accept unwanted dinner invitations.

I then caught up on sleep this afternoon.

My evening class now comprises 8 students. There's a boy who was in my Sunday class, but couldn't attend it anymore because it conflicts with a math class his parents are making him take. So, I invited him to come on Saturday instead. Frankly, any student from that class would do better for themselves in this one. But anyway, when he found out about this second class, he seemed really excited. Like... more excited than I was expecting. I understand that the students are tired from all their excessive learning (SO excessive in this country), but he really did seem to prefer napping and being otherwise distracted while I'm teaching over actually paying attention. I liked him though because when he did work, he did good work. But anyways, apparently he's a big fan of my class, and sort of shocked me with that information. The other Saturday students all seem to know each other very well, and there are only two other kids from his school (who are probably younger than him), but he came in with confidence today, and gave an awesome presentation about foreign cars, and I'm pretty sure that once he gets a hang of the... well, borderline cult-ish stuff we do on Saturdays, he'll be all good.

Another student from my Sunday class, the only other one who's got the initiative to actually e-mail me, has taken to telling me how much she enjoys my class. This girl is one of my favorite students, but I can't help but wonder where this is coming from. The Sunday class really just amounts to a big cracker barrel, where the students come and gossip and make fun of each other the whole entire time, in Chinese. If I could take each of them and shake them, sometimes I think I would. I like them. But daaaaaaamn. I'm not their English teacher, I'm their Chinese-American babysitter. They dynamic is way different from the one on Saturday. I often feel like we don't accomplish much in that class and it drives me nuts! Still, it does feel nice to know that she at least appreciates me. She says that they think of me, as a friend as well as a teacher, though this Thanksgiving, she also added "sister" to that list of relationships. And I was like... "oh." So I'm that older sister that nobody listens to *although they should.* I think knowing that actually makes it more frustrating.

Friday night, it was raining. Because of that one experience when we couldn't find a taxi in the rain, Russ and I accepted a ride from Mr. Ding. Mr. Ding, for his part, just sort of walked out of his office with the keys and had us follow him, so... it just sort of happened that way. On the road, though, he asked us where we wanted to go. I think it probably still would have been impolite to ask to go home, and maybe Russ felt that too. So he suggested dinner, though neither of us had really planned on it, and I wasn't all that hungry (and had to pee), and neither of us knew where to go. So we went back to the Dings, where I met Mrs. Ding for the first time. We eventually settled on cheap chao cai, or like... food that comes in dishes rather than in a bowl with noodles. Cheap, cuz I'm way poor. On the way to the restaurant, I got to talk to Mrs. Ding, and she is a really nice lady. Sort of pretty too. I wondered briefly how this marriage had come about, but then stopped when I realized how mean that sort of was. Dinner was pretty good. Russ only knows how to say gong-bao-ji-ding (kung pao chicken), so we ordered that. They also ordered some... beef? And some potatoes. And glutinous rice cakes with red bean paste filling. It's too bad English doesn't have the words to make that sound more attractive. Also there was sweet potatoes soaked in carmelized sugar (which I actually spelled shuger just now, if you can believe it) that was starting to harden. So when you took a piece, it would trail these long sugary threads. Good, but having sweet things for 2/5 of the meal was maybe a bit much for me.

As we headed downstairs, Mr. Ding asked who was going to treat this time. I'd half expected this to happen, since Russ was the one who suggested it, but then it was sort of like... would we be treating the whole family? Sticky, because I think his wife was preparing to cook before we got to their apartment, but also the three of them outnumbered the two of us, and also Russ payed about $300 for the 3 of us the week before. Another issue was the fact that I only had my last 20 that I was willing to spend for the month, so... But Mrs. Ding let him have it, and told him that of course he shouldn't make us pay. I dunno, friendship with Mr. Ding is not the easiest thing for me because it always comes down to money for him. He always brings up money. He also has kind of a frustrating personality, but anyway. His wife is cool.

So that lands me here, at the cusp of Sunday, which is definitely not yay day. I passed a lot of the last couple days watching Youtube clips of male figure skating competitions, and have pretty much exhausted that entertainment venue, so... I guess feel free to send me your online Christmas shopping. I'll find that perfect jacket or pair of shoes that your loved one would be thrilled to own. Or maybe I'll just try. In any case, I know a lot of places with quirky gift ideas, so bring it.