Meaningful friendships

Last night I had a teacher ask me for help as the usually do. This time though it was much more serious. I could tell she didn't have a good day and was concern for her students and for her job. She told me that her class that day was misbehaving terribly. Many of the males where talking, walking around the class, and causing disruptive behavior. She tried to control them and discipline them but she does not like to hit the students as some of the teachers do here. Tired, worn out, and out of ideas I could feel her stress crawling up my spine. I suggested swift action from the head teacher (each class has a head teacher who is responsible for the effective discipline of the class as well as the students dorms and any problems that the students have are run through the head teacher first) Apparently this head teacher doesn't do much in the way of being consistant with his discipline, only for his class, so his class is quiet, but the other teachers who teach his class are roudy. She was also concern for the marks that the students were getting in English, as you know how much you get paid and which classes you teach is based on marks. The leaders also look at you badly if your class is doing poorly as well. They seem to have a very poor perspective to WHY a class may be doing poorly and much blame comes on the teacher. Apparently the head teacher hits them if they do not finish the homework in his class. SO they use all their time and effort to finish HIS homework and they don't care about the other teachers homework which is a huge reason why they don't do very well in the other classes. Stressed as she was, she started to cry and I comforted her, I told her that its not her fault, there was nothing wrong with what you did, and not to take it personally. Remember what is important, your husband loves you, so does you son, and so does G (She is a C by the way), P to him in these time of need you have. He will comfort you.

As we were about to leave she said the oddest of things. She told me that she was sorry to WASTE my time. I told her, on the contrary, this is the exact purpose why I am here. To help you and all the teachers, to encourage you, and to support you. This is the whole purpose of why I am here. He sent me here, and I know why. This was not a waste.

Today she came to me and I asked her how her day went, she said it was much better, and she's not going to be as concerned with the marks as she will be for caring for the students. I think that is a step in the write direction. Change her perspective that the marks are the most valuable thing in the class. It is wrong, the student is the most valuable thing / person in the class. Love them, do not HIT them.

Truimph!

Man verses the scissors, a struggle for thousands of years, or maybe only decades... behold the beauty and precision of my oh so wanning hair! How? did I find Alberto Giodanio to graft every single hair to my scalp? NO! But through cutting my hair myself! Haha! boo 'urns to you! I never have to see another barber in my life, that is of course IF my hands don't get blown off in a horrible tragic gasoline fighting accident. Sure, many of us never have to see barbers again once we loss all of our hair, but until that day, I have the ultimate power! Controling nature itself! This is unnatural! But true! Behold! Behold! Behold!






Note: All Faces and hands shown in all this pictures are the property of Chris, No one may copy or reproduce this images without his express writen consent.

The Crocodile Hunter is dead!!!!

But its time to move one. So what did I do this weekend? Other then sleep to 11:30 on sunday ( hey I needed to catch up on sleep) Yesterday I went on the most fantastic cycling adventure ever... (well so far). I went with a friend up through the mountains to get to a town about 50 km away. I've cycled over 100 km before going from toronto to waterloo and back again. But this was something else. the town was elevated about 700 meters above where we started and let me tell you the first 28 km.. was hell. I thought I was going to die , but I knew when you go up you must come back down. It appears that we must of cycled up the mountain range over 1500 meters, to go back down the other side to the city, and then the way home was smooth sailing. My legs are killing me today yes, but that was something else. Here are some lovely pictures!




Above the clouds



Got to cycle to the city in the distance.

I almost discovered!

The gender of that baby!(Will not post picture) Almost.... Its been plagueing me for weeks now. At first I assumed he was a boy, but he was always dressed a little feminine you know pink shoes, dresses, hair accessories. But I just thought that it was just a phase for the parents to experiment with the 'what if he was a girl question" which works best when the child isn't wise enough that your parents are trying it out. Now come 14-15-16, if your parents are purchasing you clothes for the opposite gender, I think your parents identities have the problem and not you. (Quick word of advice for those poor teenagers and I know your out there: Get out. Get out NOW! )

So after meeting the father and mother, they kept on referring to the child as a she, which confused me a little, but I thought it was the typical chinese pronoun mixup. But when they started talking to me about their 'only daughter' I had to change my perspective a little. Maybe she does look a little bit boyish but is a girl at heart.

So I almost found out the truth about it today. No I didn't spy on the baby when they were changing its dipers (and anyways he is o.. I mean she is old enough to go to the bathroom herself. So i saw her today playing near the basketball courts with another baby. I was a little absent minded and stopped paying attention to them after a while. Then I turn around and look, and there he.. or she is... going to the bathroom in the middle of the school grounds. But I was expecting her to squat if it was a girl... but she didn't. She was standing... and it LOOKED like it was streaming. Now I didn't get a good view, and by the time i looked she was almost done. And I was facing her backside so I could not make a clear identificaion.

Almost! ALMOST... this is one of the worlds greatest mysteries and I intend to find out before I go or else my life will not be complete! I just hope its really a girl.

Allergic to

Building buildings? Sounds like a whistle blower to me, but anyways, they've been building a new building beside the one i'm in, and I just don't know what they mix in the concrete but it certainly smells like plutonium not that i've smelt it before, but the noxious orders have been wreaking havoc with my sinuses... (YES, finally got to use the word Havoc!) I don't know if I can live here much longer at this rate of not being able to sleep and waking up with a stuffed nose that lasts the entire day. 　I might be able to live with a teach in the city till the building is built though... trying to think of other options.

In other news, I got my own portable heating plate! Its great I just cooked Polish Perogies today for a bunch of Collage aged friends I have in the city, a nice change from the extremely hot and spicy food that I'm use to getting here (which I also have become quite accustom to)

Take a look at this DELICIOUSLY TASTY picture

Upon closer inspection we find the clown figure resembles the Ronald Donald, but after asking the manager of the fast food burger joint he completely assuaged my fears telling me that his name was not the Ronald McDonald we know, but rather
RangDe MaKeDangNaDe or 让得 马可当那得 in chinese characters. Phew, and I thought we had a case for trademark infrigdement here. I should have also realized EARLY that R McD, has a red white yellow colour scheme, not a BLUE white red colour scheme. Another thing that sticks out is RangDe MaKeDangNaDe's skirt. No way it could be an oversized pair of overalls... NO WAY! So China has gone a long way in fighting trademark infridgments! Kudo's to you China!

Evil twin?



PS. I do have a sneaking suspicion that RangDe MaKeDangNaDe, is actually R Mc D lost twin brother during the first artistic conception of the hero, many others were born but thrown into the fire, RangDe MaKeDangNaDe was safely stowed away in the pocket of one of the many Chinese artists working for a division of Disney. It was there he read the book Mein Kampft as Hittler had a profound influence on his life just look at that accurate portrail of the 'heil Hittler' arm action! After immigrating to China he worked as a short order cook having an talent for creating food that was so malnurishing even the starving kids in Africa thought twice about eating it. And that's where it started... Delicious.. Delicious food... Marketing is everything... So from that Delicious day forward, we now have a fast food change in china that rivals uhh, the mom and pop family restaurants around the globe.
Another unsolved mystery is the that here in China, RangDe has climbed to the pinnical of beauty with his exceptionally fair skin colour (Chinese view the lighter the skin colour the better) so much so that RangDe himself is so reflective that if put out in the sun long enough he would have the ablitity to reflect enough of the suns rays to outterspace to reverse the effects of global warming.

Wait.. Wait for it.. I'm getting. Getting an Idea. Thinking Thinking Thinking.. YES.. that's what we need! 1.3 billion Pale skinned chinese people to stand out in the sun long enough to reverse the effects of Global Warning! Warning.. they might get skin cancer.. doh! But they could act as a gigantic mirror if then all squashed into an area the size of Beijing. I think I should start a petition and a website "China, one people, one goal, one city - Imagine the dream. A world without Global warming. Imagine." Whoa..

I just had another wicked thought, and by wicked I mean bad, not awesome as most of you would have probably mistranslated.... If they all stood outside long enough, they could start another ICE AGE!" Dangerous! Nuts! More powerful then the atom bomb. okay its time to sleep Christopher.

Webbings

And I thought whacking kids with an inflatable hammer was cool, I've found my latest craze, to find people to invite me to there Webbings! Did I say Wedding? No sir! I said Webbing, there is a really huge difference between the 2, about the same size that spans two iron atoms in a solid beam at 273 degrees Kelvin. I first discovered my error when I was invited to what I first thought was a wedding, but upon closer look at the invitation I was shocked to find THIS:



I had no way to interpret what was going on jumping quickly to irrational and illogic conclusions. Such as, thinking Spiderman would be the best man and as a prank would web the groom just before they tied the knot. Or perhaps it wasn't a ceremony at all, but a sacred ritual involving thousands of spiders and people getting webbed. (I wanted to turn and run away as far away from the webbing as possible. Maybe Chinese webbings are dreadful meetings in the night where victims are suffocated and asphyxiated though the WEB! Dun dun duuuuuuhhhh. *SCREEEEAAAAAAMMMMMMM*

Or perhaps they have a more accurate view of a 'wedding' but rather call it webbing, because one person is the victim and the other is the predator ready to suck the money and stuff out of the victim until they divorce (or one kills the other) at which point another webbing may occur.

To my most utmost disappointment it was neither of the above, but an ceremony that involved lots of food and people and about 30 minutes, at which point most people systematically left, resembling the mob hawk rush that is found at most places of business in north American between the hours of 5:00 pm and 5:30 pm.

So that's it, what I thought would be a profound insight to the inner workings of a people through thousands of years and countless webbings was just a mere custom that resembled the small span of time just before the rush hour traffic.

This Issue: Pomeloes, Expelling students

Have you ever worked in an office where there was that one kind, old, kookie lady who you would leave some timbits, chocolates, or tirimisue in the kitchen for you hard working peons to unworthily munch on? Well I have, right here right now.
But the chinese are still experiementing with chocolate... their at a stadge where it doesn't taste like the rotting hide of a steer halfway between beef jerky and leather. Lets just say it tastes like butter, that is brown. My brain is too clever to be tricked by such a 'placebo' effect. So anyways, here they don't leave it on the table, they hand it straight to you. Futhermore, their aren't timbits, or tirimisu or chocolate that worthly of the name, but there are pomeloes! Tons of them! Fists full! No miniscule tangerine is the mighty pomelo! standing a hefty 30 cm high, with a similar diameter, they are sure to impress the ladies. Pocket sized fruit are for dorks, now when you come in to your workplace with that rugsack full of pomeloes your sure to be stomping heads and making a statement your co-workers will never forget. Its so big, its hard to even start to peel it. You've got to be committed, even more commited the marriage. Cause once your start, you've got at least a 5 course meal coming Pomelo style! Can't finish? Hand a gargantuan piece to the first person you see. Pay it forward! Its not my problem. A word of caution if you think tossing it in the garbage is a good idea. Its not. You'll get every enviromental nature loving tree hugging, ferret pet owning freak on your case from here to toleto. It is its own eniroment. Behold the Pomelo! Worship the Pomelo! All hail Pomelo!

Now to be serious.

You think Expelling students in NA was easy? All they had to do was bring a weapon to class, or pure sugar in a teachers gasoline tank, or beat the crap out of someone, up to 3 times before something goes down. But here... well a student doen't go to class? Expell him! Well that's a little oversimplification of what happened the other week. I walked into a teachers dorm where one of my good english teacher friends was talking to 2 unsually not happy students. Apparently they have skipped class over and over to an extend where he was ready to send them out, Leave them on the street, hand over their education to the dogs... or in other words expell them. No review, no need to tell the principal, its a teachers decision. You don't like that student? BAM he's gone... Well luckly I got there when I did, cause he asked me what I would do, and well you know me, I like to give mercy, I said if it were me and the student did something worthy of expelling, I would 'suspend them for a shorter period, with them having the opportunity of coming back. ( I mean I'd rather not expell/suspend them in the first place, but seeing where the possible outcomes of this situation would be, I went with the former. ) I talked with him today, to find out that he did reduce their sentence from them never being able to come back, to 'come back in a month'. Phew...


Teacher Expelling student…
Webbings

Oh forgot to add,

Sometimes if you don't P for a long time, you really have to go, and you feel really bad, but once you P after that dry spell, you will feel relief as you never have before. After such a P, you may cry, or learn something new, or even your whole world view might change (if it did, I would have like to been their to see it) So remember for a healthy body, you should P at least two or three times a day.

Hope your P'ing for me

Here is a picture of me that LOOKS like Pee'ed in my pants.. (I played Football a bit to hard / much that day, and the sweat gathered in the groin area just a little too much) No wonder teh students were laughing at me...)



Cause p'ing is an important function of the body. Without P there would be no way I would have the courage to stay here. YOu know I'm p'ing for you back home, athough it may be a lnog way off, I'm sure my P will reach you. You know I'm been P'ing a lot lately over many things. I P all over my friends here, and back home in Canada, I also P over material things that I have and also that I don't have but may be other peoples things. They don't mind if I P over them, In fact one time, I asked one of the teachers If I can P for them. There were kinda surprised, since no one has ever P'ed for them before, but they gladly accepted it. I P'ed over his wife's Father who was in Bad condition. But as you know, sometimes P'ing does not work.

I would usually recommand P'ing at least once a day, usually when you need to P you should. Its the best time to P, unlike times you are forced to P, which can be very difficutl. In fact if you can P for an entire day, or even longer, you would be my hearo. Remember, JC P'ed many times over long periods, and if he P's we should P too.Of course He P'ed alone in the mountains so he could not Boost about the Amount of P that he made or had done. So becareful how you P, cause some people will not want you to P over them, so do so in secret. (eg. Do not tell them you are p'ing all over them.

Pictures galore

typical MSN conversation with Alice

Chris: though, with the many different experiences i'm getting here at the school, I feel like more of a consultant then a teacher and I'd probably rather do that in the future. I have continually told the teachers, i'm there for them, not the students. I can't help 3000 students very well, but i can help 25 teacher.

Alice 说:
very true.
kind of like, dont' give hte man a fish, teach them to fish instead

Chris：
but instead of fish, i give them inflatable hammers... so instead of me wacking on kid at a time... 25 teachers can wack their kids at the same time...
some how I don't think I can draw that analogy from yours...

Chris：Cell phone found!!！ 说:
but i like it

Do you know what to do with

180 students in Grade 3? Apparently I offered to teach in a elementary school tommorrow where they will shove me and 180 in a lecture hall for about an hour. Any idea's would really help :)

As for treating people to lunch... its what I love to do here. A forienger from Holland came to check out the school just for kicks. So she saw me teach some classes as well as the school and what it's about. Then I invited her to lunch, on me. You know ever since I've been in China people have been inviting me to lunch and taking the bill well today I showed them, I did the same! and it cost me about 5 rmb or 60 cents Canadian for lunch too. A heavy hit, but I think I can stomach it.

Enough already?

Well as you know to go to another country/culture can be mentally and emotionally straining since all the things you know and are use to back home disappear. So bare with me in these next few paragraphs while I try to figure out my thoughts about certain things that I have come to face these few months. (One may say that I may be experiencing culture shock, after you read this, and perhaps it is true, but I think not (on the basis that I still love being here, teaching, learning the language, learning how to cook, making tons of new friends (just these past 3 days) etc) so I think there are just a few things that kinda erk me, and I also think its because I am 'a special' guest at their school so they treat me as such... At the same time, I realize and know by accepting this job, at this school living there, this is what would happen... soo I think sometimes they go too far to pamper me.. and I mean certain individuals. Secondly, there is just something with the ... ummm orc's that they keep nagging at me at, and well I'm starting to get fed up! hehe.

Okay, first off... when you invite me to dinner at a restaurant, please please DON"T take the food from the dishes and put them IN my bowl okay, I’m not a baby! NONONONO!!! you do that with your kids, but as adults if you want someone to try something, try saying... " you should try this, its a specialty", or some other polite saying. And this is not part of the culture cause I don't see people putting food in other peoples dishes (you have to be observant to be a teacher). So I told the guy today at dinner today, after he put a chicken thigh on my plate, that "I can get things myself, thank you", and I hope he gets the message, its about time I stand up for myself.

Secondly, well it happened again, and I had to go today, but here is the situation: Today is Friday, tomorrow is Saturday. My Saturday is free, so I’m thinking of relaxing from a long hard week of teaching. Now 8 PM comes around Friday night, when the principal comes along and says... oh, by the way, your coming with us tomorrow right? to the village? Huh? what can i say, I didn't have any real plans' though I did want to take the day off to rest, since I’ve been down with small colds and such often. I don’t' want to say no without a good reason, and no need to say no... cause here I know if you don't follow the officials then they may start not to like you.

Thirdly, Drinking. Fine, I’ll drink for you, cheers, yuppee! That is what they do every dinner, no I don't really like to drink, not because its wrong, or some book tells me not too, I just don't, I hate the taste of beer, and well the other choice is something that tastes like umm lets just say its really strong. Now out of respect, I do want to join them, and have a good time, so I will drink some，but please don’t peer pressure me. Well so this time, and so on, I may just add some coke to my spirits. I have enjoyed rum and coke back home, and mixing the two here has them almost taste the same. Now of course when they see coke in the cup they are suspicious, and they think its just coke, but I tell them there is some spirits inside, are you happy? well anyways, when I mixed the drinks they reaction was the same as if I were mixing Hydrochloric acid with sodium (really bad chemical explosion) so opps.. cultural mistake numero uno! I told them this is what I do in Canada, and they told me that we aren't in Canada... but then I told them, oh look here, look at this.. coke... its not Chinese! why is it here? Well that stopped the conversation, but I don't mind it with coke (more then I said in previous dinners). I have mentioned to them that I don’t really like to drink soooooo they should at least respect that. You can (as a foreigner) participate in as many cultural activities as you like.. but as a foreigner you should be able to refuse if its too uncomfortable... like those skinny dipping contests I hear all about in India. So please please please, I love your people, food and culture, language, I love you. But respect me too. Don't use me, don't abuse me, learn from me. Phew.. sorry for the rant.

PS: no worries with the wrong people reading this: I'm lucky my blog is blocked in China... I can post... I just can't read it, very strange but it has its benefits.

Do I have some time to talk about some good things now?

Talent show, yeah, yesterday all the students in the middle and high school got to watch some of their fellow classmates sing. It was awesome, my first real concert! It is something else when you have 3000 people staring at you singing. Well just for fun, in my classical Chris way, I decided to go on the stage while one of the male students were singing, gave him a hug, blew him a kiss and handed him a rose. I knew ALL the students would love that, so I gave it to them. I love the students!

Movie night with students superman!
I watched the return of superman the movie with the students tonight, after going for the entire day with the leaders of the school and some teachers to a restaurant and village. But for some reason, I loved this sooo much more then the restaurant. The movie was good, but I just like seeing the students, and they just love to see me hehehe. (on a side note) unlike North America movies go from the big screen to DVD in about 2 weeks… not like the 2 to 5 month wait in NA 

Teaching College students
Last three days got to go into the city to teach college students. I thought it would be difficult. I loved it, its nice to meet people university aged and older especially here. So I taught some of the college English teachers classes and I also taught the college teachers. I just find it so amazing that I can actually teach people who have taught English for more then 5 to 10 years…. And they find it edifying.. Where did I get this gift? How would I ever figure this out if I stayed in Canada??? Just another reason why I love China! And I got to meet a law teacher and her brother who are both from Beijing! You know what that means???? STANDERD MANDERIN ACCENT! I’ll be in touch with them!