Thursday, March 29, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
Oh how I miss the days of.....
Smelling my SANFORD Mr. Sketch (Scented) watercolor markers. Its been months since getting a whiff of my favorite Strawberry red, coco cola brown, lime green, and blueberry blue. I use to be able to reminisce of the flavors of North America through the smells and scents of markers. But alas, my sinuses becoming increasingly uncooperative and malign has staunchly vexed me from those aromatic scents of the west. I remember days when I would draw and color a bowl of fruit which would then be posted on my walls for weeks with the smell of fresh fruit embalming my domain. No more, cherry, no more lemon, oh how I misseth thee, thine scents divine. Recognize my pain, precious followers, readers, of news from the east. To Mr Sketch I say this: All hope is abandoned, I know, I know, its not your fault. Next time I won't take you for granted, I won't use you for selfish sniffing practices. I will colour within the lines!
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Useful advice... show me please...
So i've been sick, really sick, but not seriously sick. Its not a virus, bacteria, or habit. Its allergies... I haven't had them since I was in highschool but starting from mid-October when the school decided to build a new building to house labs and since then I had trouble with my sinuses. Especially the one that controls the airflow into my nose so its a pain to breath with my nose at times. At first I did't think it was really serious, and I still don't think it is, I didn't have any fevers, colds, coughs, flu like symptoms, the only thing was that my nasal sinuses kept on becoming inflamed, runny nose and uncontrolled sneezing that could launch a car about 50 meters. That's it. So yeah allergies most probable... real serious sickness no way. Now I had these allergies till end of January. What happened? I visited Hong Kong and the moment I was in a different environment it was gone. Wow that fast? Instant? Okay then I come back at the beginning of March, and on the second day I get the runny nose symptoms again and haven't been able to shake them off since. So now who would argue that I wasn't allergic to something here huh? I still love the place no doubt, but the environment makes me hesitant to stay longer in this place then my contract.
Now that you have the background, now for the humor, or sarcasm, take it as you please but no offense is intended. But people do say useless things all the time, in fact I think 9 out of every 10 of my posts are truly, remarkably, the most useless pieces of writing. ever.
Eventually the head English Teacher in the high school found out about me being sick after coming back, and we had a little chit chat. Something like this:
teacher "Hey Chris, I heard your feeling sick these days after coming back"
me "Yeah, that's right, but I know for sure that its something in the environment, I've got allergies.. " and go on to explain to him how I know.
teacher "oh, i'm sorry for that, hmmm well you know I think you should wear some warmer clothes"
me thinking in my head...." WHAT??? Its a BALMY 28 degrees at the moment during the middle of the day and nice 20 degree temperature at night when I sleep not including the insulation factor underneath my blankets."
me "yeah I'll think about that, thanks for the advice"
Silly me, I shouldn't be mocking him, maybe wearing thick sweaters and long johns will get rid of this allergy that I have. So just remember if you've got any illness or disease the first thing you should be doing is wearing warmer clothes, and as an added bonus for the next hour only, if you send out this piece of advice to 10 people you will be protected from getting sick for a year. For every friend that also sends it out to ten people you get another year of protection.
Now that you have the background, now for the humor, or sarcasm, take it as you please but no offense is intended. But people do say useless things all the time, in fact I think 9 out of every 10 of my posts are truly, remarkably, the most useless pieces of writing. ever.
Eventually the head English Teacher in the high school found out about me being sick after coming back, and we had a little chit chat. Something like this:
teacher "Hey Chris, I heard your feeling sick these days after coming back"
me "Yeah, that's right, but I know for sure that its something in the environment, I've got allergies.. " and go on to explain to him how I know.
teacher "oh, i'm sorry for that, hmmm well you know I think you should wear some warmer clothes"
me thinking in my head...." WHAT??? Its a BALMY 28 degrees at the moment during the middle of the day and nice 20 degree temperature at night when I sleep not including the insulation factor underneath my blankets."
me "yeah I'll think about that, thanks for the advice"
Silly me, I shouldn't be mocking him, maybe wearing thick sweaters and long johns will get rid of this allergy that I have. So just remember if you've got any illness or disease the first thing you should be doing is wearing warmer clothes, and as an added bonus for the next hour only, if you send out this piece of advice to 10 people you will be protected from getting sick for a year. For every friend that also sends it out to ten people you get another year of protection.
Monday, March 12, 2007
The students are interested AND THATS A PROBLEM???
Well there are many ways to interpret events, if what someone does to you means they like you, the bible where it say to make sure your wife doesn't smack your opponents genitals when your fighting them, but this takes the cake....
She's a good teacher, she has the right heart and many of them here do. But sometimes the way they interpret classroom events are the complete opposite of what might be truly happening. So how do I know that i'm not the one that wrong? Well I had an activity where each of the students had a piece of paper with a word written on it, and they had a matching partner that they had to find, the details of the activity are really irrelevant. So the students are running about, arms flailing trying to find there match. There's a lot of noise... Good noise and probably bad noise but its fine, Look even the lazy students I mean the poorer students are going at it. So some of them find their match and some don't. As I talk with the teacher after class she mentions that during the activity many students are asking her what the words mean 'if they studied they would know', but the point is they were interested enough in the activity to ask. They wanted to find out, they wanted to learn, and well the comment that I get is that ...
'see the students are soo bad they should know these words and still they don't... I don't know what to do.'
Huh? What? yeah... but they liked it ..... right?
So don't think its okay to grab someones crotch BEFORE the fight with your husband and your husbands opponent started.
She's a good teacher, she has the right heart and many of them here do. But sometimes the way they interpret classroom events are the complete opposite of what might be truly happening. So how do I know that i'm not the one that wrong? Well I had an activity where each of the students had a piece of paper with a word written on it, and they had a matching partner that they had to find, the details of the activity are really irrelevant. So the students are running about, arms flailing trying to find there match. There's a lot of noise... Good noise and probably bad noise but its fine, Look even the lazy students I mean the poorer students are going at it. So some of them find their match and some don't. As I talk with the teacher after class she mentions that during the activity many students are asking her what the words mean 'if they studied they would know', but the point is they were interested enough in the activity to ask. They wanted to find out, they wanted to learn, and well the comment that I get is that ...
'see the students are soo bad they should know these words and still they don't... I don't know what to do.'
Huh? What? yeah... but they liked it ..... right?
So don't think its okay to grab someones crotch BEFORE the fight with your husband and your husbands opponent started.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Whats the craziest thing your teacher told you do to in class?
I told my students to stand up on their desks after they answered a question correctly. Why? I have no idea.... I just thought it would be funny when my supervisor comes walking by to see 10 students standing on their desks. Well I wasn't smart enough to have a reason for them standing on their desks before the lesson started, which would make me look really stupid in front of the students (what kind of crazy english teacher is this)... but I was lucky, I brought some flashcards, so then the students standing on the desks had a flashcard competition, the first one to give the right english answer got to sit down and so on. Now that was random but It really got the students into it. Just some tips for those teachers reading this and you can spare "You are da Man" and "Where are geniuses like you here in Canada" comments until I come back, I get enough of those here.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Flurry of broomstick devil children miscreants!
Think of the most disgusting thing you've ever swept with a broom... you know, nail clippings, crusty dried food that should have been mopped, and that slice of pepperoni that happened to slip off the top of your pizza cause they didn't add enough cheese last Tuesday. Now i know what your going to say, they don't have pizza in China, true, they have instant dry noodles.
Each classroom has its own set of brooms, used everyday, to sweep anything and everything that is possible for them to pick up. The bottoms of the brooms are usually some flavor of black licorice.
I just happen to walk by the primary school one day(about 4 classrooms grade 1 to grade 4) cause I like to visit the young ones, I can be very friendly and no one will say a word. I would be classified as a suspect pedophile back in North America. Yeah that's smart tell everyone one on your blog that you a suspect pedophile. Just to be clear No, I am not. That would be bad, worse then eating that slice of pepperoni off the floor.
What do the students do when they see me? Riot! Swarm! Kick! Stare! I get swarmed like a dumbfounded quarterback receiving the football while gazing at the cheerleaders. Which is cool. Its cool to be swarmed. Makes you feel important. Then one little stinker pulls out a broom, and tap tap tap... What's that hitting the side of my head? Turning and looking I see the swarm laughing as one of them had the clever idea to take a broom and start shoving it in my face. So I take it from him, its over right? Nope... cause all of the sudden the classroom is full of flailing brooms, these aren't kids anymore but orcs. One by one I beat and usurp the brooms from the kiddies until my hands are full. I've got 5 freaken brooms here... how the heck is it possible they still have more??? Well so be it another 4 brooms appear out of nowhere and start flailing in my face, defeated, with an exit that is blocked by the flesh of hyperactive 8 year olds I squeeze my way through the defense tickling, pushing, and carrying anyone in my path.
So why didn't I yell "Don't make me force you eat that broom"? Well that's cause my chinese still isn't at dat kind of a level. Now, I can sympathize with those of you who'd been broom beaten for no good reason that seemed to be good. But don't you worry, a storm is coming boys and girl and you don't want to be their when it hits. No more Mr. suck up to the foreigner children, no more stealing my lunch money. You guys are toast, that's been burnt! Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!
Each classroom has its own set of brooms, used everyday, to sweep anything and everything that is possible for them to pick up. The bottoms of the brooms are usually some flavor of black licorice.
I just happen to walk by the primary school one day(about 4 classrooms grade 1 to grade 4) cause I like to visit the young ones, I can be very friendly and no one will say a word. I would be classified as a suspect pedophile back in North America. Yeah that's smart tell everyone one on your blog that you a suspect pedophile. Just to be clear No, I am not. That would be bad, worse then eating that slice of pepperoni off the floor.
What do the students do when they see me? Riot! Swarm! Kick! Stare! I get swarmed like a dumbfounded quarterback receiving the football while gazing at the cheerleaders. Which is cool. Its cool to be swarmed. Makes you feel important. Then one little stinker pulls out a broom, and tap tap tap... What's that hitting the side of my head? Turning and looking I see the swarm laughing as one of them had the clever idea to take a broom and start shoving it in my face. So I take it from him, its over right? Nope... cause all of the sudden the classroom is full of flailing brooms, these aren't kids anymore but orcs. One by one I beat and usurp the brooms from the kiddies until my hands are full. I've got 5 freaken brooms here... how the heck is it possible they still have more??? Well so be it another 4 brooms appear out of nowhere and start flailing in my face, defeated, with an exit that is blocked by the flesh of hyperactive 8 year olds I squeeze my way through the defense tickling, pushing, and carrying anyone in my path.
So why didn't I yell "Don't make me force you eat that broom"? Well that's cause my chinese still isn't at dat kind of a level. Now, I can sympathize with those of you who'd been broom beaten for no good reason that seemed to be good. But don't you worry, a storm is coming boys and girl and you don't want to be their when it hits. No more Mr. suck up to the foreigner children, no more stealing my lunch money. You guys are toast, that's been burnt! Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Wanna get high?
Cause that's the students here are doing... okay maybe not high, the are at least smoking... I haven't caught them with pot or drugs yet. So its a really big problem here since yeah there is a legal age that one is allowed to smoke, and of course since when did students ever listen to such rules? Well anyways after classes finish in the evening at around 9:30 or so, most or all the teachers go back to their homes. There are hundreds of students still milling about.. from grade 7 to grade 9, and I like to chat with them and hang around them. Well its the time that i've noticed several smoking which I as a 'teacher' should do something about, so I go after then and put it out. But since they dno't see me as a real 'teacher' in the sense that I don't necessarily have punitive powers (nor do I want them) they like to goad me into chasing after them ... I do have fun doing that and no once I catch them I don't beat them down or send them to a higher authority. Though I do get to say things like... "Are you talking to me? You dno't want me to come after you do you?, A storm is coming and you don't want to be there when it does." Though I have started to see a pattern, (i've only done this twice so far) but a group of them call out to me and point to their other friend that 'he's smoking' and they pull out a but and start puffing on it... Glad I don't get any respect from those students - and so the hunt begins.. it doesn't last long. I'm quite fast, after I take out the but I tell them 'using hand motions' that if I catch them again they'll be getting in trouble again. But of course at that age.. gr 7 gr 8, they love to test your limits and i'm just doing this part of the job - fulling the role of the teacher - but next time they try to do it i'm gonna walk away just to throw them off... I'm sure they smoke in their off time but if me chasing after them gives them a rush and encourages them to smoke more in front of me then that doesn't help either.