0_0 Tomorrow was supposed to be devoted to grading. Now I’m meeting Betty at 1, Joseph at 5, Alice at 7, Editing 6 papers, and Finishing grading. I’m going days at a time without eating normal meals. . . . If I were anywhere else, I’d be so overworked I’d lose weight. Unfortunately, Chinese students pay in snacks/treats, which means I’m actually still eating way too much 🙂
Tag Archives: Humor
Chinese Health Concerns
17 NovYou know you drink too much soda when . . . the gas station cashier gives you a free bottle of water and looks disapprovingly at your drink selection. All the while telling you, “tsk tsk . . . water have more power.” 0_0
Student Says What?!
12 NovStudents were asked to write a drafted ethics code for an employee in the financial world. One of my better groups actually chose the President of the Bank of China. One of the requirements was a statement about avoiding conflicts of interest. They wrote:
“When the president works in the bank, he is avoid working with others or sleeping.”
0_0 Oh dear. That poor man!
Victory!
1 Nov![IMG_0286[1]](https://deceptivelyblonde.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/img_02861.jpg)
My new Dart Board 🙂 On the one hand, my consistency sucks. On the other, They All Hit The Board!
Demon Bunnies
21 Oct
Meant to be adorable, these bunnies are a common souvenir offered to travelers at the Jade market. But the red eyes just make me think demon-possessed evil bunnies. 0_0
Things Students Say
20 Oct“Met Lots of Interesting Things”
Addam’s Family “Thing”
Interesting “Things” – These probably had GREAT nail polish!! 🙂
Chinese Teaching Objective Passed!
19 SepThree Cheers! Woohoo! Yay!
Oops, sorry I got a little carried away – I’m teaching my students about leading by being the team’s cheerleader and got a little caught up in the chanting and cheering 😛
I recently accomplished a great triumph in my classroom here in China – a student raised her hand and asked me to repeat myself.
Yes, you heard that right. . . she raised her hand and spoke in class. (wipes away a tear) I’m just so proud.
One of the cultural differences I’ve found here in China as a teacher is that students respect their teachers almost to the point of worship. It’s both self-confidence-inspiring and terrifying. They have a general fear of speaking in front of other students due to the risk of sounding like an idiot (one I’m sure students around the world share), a problem compounded by their culturally-specific fear of asking the teacher a question. I rather suspect they expect the event to go something like this:
**************
S: Teacher, I am so incredibly sorry, and I know it’s my fault, you are oh so wise. But I’m utterly lost.
Me: Shock! Gasp! Horror! You are telling me I (a foreigner from a strange land speaking your third language) didn’t explain the concept of Kantian ethics precisely the first time for you to immediately grasp all nuances? How dare you! Fiend! Horrible creature! Someone call the class monitor and have this child fed to wolves immediately!
Class Monitor: Off with his head!
Classmates: Bwahahahahahaha, what a fool!
***************
And so forth.
Hitchhiking in Italy: The Worst Travel Decision I Ever Made
3 AugHitchhiking in Italy: The Worst Travel Decision I Ever Made
by Glynnis MacNicol via “Yahoo News“
There I was, age 19, exactly 24 hours after setting out on a three-month tour of Europe, walking along the narrow shoulder of a busy freeway on the outskirts of Naples — then considered the most dangerous major city in Western Europe — bent under the weight of my backpack and the near-paralyzing fear that I would not live to see the sunrise. It was the middle of the night. My friend Angie and I had just been unceremoniously dumped from the cab of a transport truck onto the side of a busy exit ramp and left to fend for ourselves.
From the start, it had been one of those episodes that, if it had gone another way, would have been the sort of headline-making story fellow travelers shake their heads at in an “obviously, this is what happens when you’re an idiot” way and parents brandish as a dire warning to children setting out to travel for the first time.
(Photo: Thinkstock)
In my own defense, the one good thing I can say about the worst travel day of my life is that I got all of my stupid out in 24 hours.
It was May 1994, and after living and working in England for six months on a working holiday visa, my friend Angie and I decided to spend the summer backpacking around Western Europe. We had in our possession overly stuffed backpacks, one tent, and a copy of Lonely Planet’s guide to Western Europe (the first edition having just been released a few months earlier).
A dog-eared copy of the author’s Lonely Planet guide. (Photo: Glynnis MacNicol)
We planned to give new meaning to its “on a shoestring” tagline with about $1,500 in traveler’s checks between us, plus one emergency credit card each with an individual spending limit of $1,000. Instead of planning out a route, we opted to meet at Gatwick airport, find the cheapest flight, and buy a one-way ticket, which, after 36 hours of hanging out in the terminal, is exactly what we did — to Corfu, Greece.
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Random Question of the Day
9 Jul
How much did the composer/copyright owner of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” song make? Because it is EVERYWHERE. . . There’s the Inception song for fantasy film intros and the Pirates of the Caribbean song for every single espionage / suspense moment. I want that copyright! $$$$ signs are floating in front of my eyes. It’s even showing up still at all the sporting events! And on my TESOL demo video 😛
Random Lit. Crit. Question ~ The Sleeping Beauty Fairies
28 JunRandom Question:
Have you every wondered what Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) would have been like had the fairies not given their birthday presents? Would she have been ugly, stupid, a horrible singer, nonspiritual, ungraceful, unmusical, and unhappy? Or were a couple of those wishes wasted on her? I suddenly had this mental image of wondering how she changed after their wishes. Was she a bald baby that suddenly grew a full head of hair? Were her teething cries suddenly full-on choreographed musical numbers? What was the REAL Aurora like?
Were these changes really any good for her? Perhaps she would not have married Philip and enchanted the birds, but did she suddenly lose her original soulmate by no longer being likely to stumble into his path? Or would Philip have fallen for her anyway? Does this mean that Philip was really more shallow than we thought, if he needed a perfect princess to fall in love? I mean, it’s no wonder he fell at first musical chord. And if she lost her first soulmate (the one who loved the original her), does this mean she stole Philip’s soulmate? The one that was made for him before the fairies changed Aurora’s life?
Other than saving her life, how did they change her future? And did her mother miss the original Aurora? Taking the story way too seriously, but that’s what you get with an English major. 🙂
“She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city” ~ Roman Payne
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