I just came back from my first cooking lesson!  I am full of Chinese food that I helped make.  I rock.

It wasn't quite what I was looking for, since I was hoping to be there from the beginning of the creation process.  Basically, I helped make the dumplings, but Ing's father in law had already made up the mixture for inside of them, and the dumpling casings were bought at a market.  Ing promised to take me to the market at some point so I can buy my own.

It was so much fun!  Mine looked like playdough creations, but everyone else's were really nice to look at.  Of course, they all taste the same to eat.  *grin*  I was given the left overs of everything to make my own.

Then we made this yummy potato dish that I can't describe, but is so good....  I love watching someone who loves to cook cook.  *smile*  I will definately be practing this stuff.  Chinese food seems so fast to make (but long to prepare).  Whenever I think of living off of pasta in a box, I get kinda sad.

In unrelated news, this post makes me think of teaching:

"Tricksy studentses. Hates them, precious, yesss, we hates them. Studentses, grubbing for gradeses, grubbing and ssscraping and ssneaking, and their heads sso empty-- ssssso empty, gollum, gollum. No brains. No scrumptiously crunchable brainses, no precious, jusst air and dussst. Dussst!"

Which is not a nice thought, but yet still comforting.  Read the whole thing here.

I spent an hour talking to Ing today, about school and China and how different things are from Canada.

I asked her why she decided to teach.  She told me that she didn't decide to teach, that it was decided for her.  She explained about the exams, where they place you, and how that affects your life.

I can't believe she didn't choose to teach.  She chose English as the subject she wanted to teach, but her marks put her in a school where you learned how to teach, and that's what she's doing.

I didn't ask her if she liked it.  Honestly, it didn't occur to me to ask her.

I told her about going to Augustana, choosing it because they offered me money.  Told her about the year in exile I spent at GMCC, just going there because the idea of a year without school made me ill.  Then going on to UofA, taking Classics and learning anything I wanted to.  Told her about how I think I might go to law school when I get home, or go back to school and become a teacher, or spend the rest of my life working at KFC.

She asked me what happens to the people who don't go on to university, if they can still get good jobs.  I told her that they could, although I guess it depends on what you think of when you say good jobs.

I was told back when I was in school about how, in the Soviet Union, they assigned students to various jobs, and that's what they were.  They needed ten teachers this year, so ten students were chosen to be teachers.  I remember being very horrified at that idea at the time, but once I got older I was less inclined to believe it.

This isn't really the same thing, but it's similiar.  She's a teacher not because she wants to be, but because someone told her that's what she'd be good at.

God, today was a total bust.

My first senior class sucked, and my second senior class sucked worse.  I finally asked them, "Do any of you care anymore?"  They all just stared at me like I was talking gibberish.  I told them to do whatever they wanted in the last ten minutes of class, since they didn't want to try to pay attention.

I told Lily I wouldn't teach Senior One anymore.  Her response: "I'll talk to the head of the grade again."  Gar.  This is not going to help.  These kids genuinely do not want an oral English teacher.

Lily has told me she'll sit in on my first Senior class tomorrow.  Yeah, like that will show anything.  Fuck, I'm tired of this.  She doesn't want to have to tell Mr. Xia (the headmaster) that there's a problem.  I can understand that, but I'm really bloody tired of this shit,  you know?

Anyway, I'm going to sit here and sulk now.

One of the things that's really surprised me here is how little anyone likes to walk.  At least among my coworkers.  Biking, yeah, sure, that's great.  But every opportunity for a cab or a rick shaw, they take.

And then, when people do walk, they walk so slow!  Arg!

I keep thinking about Kris, who goes nuts when stuck behind slow moving people in Canada.  Let me tell you, slow moving people in Canada seem to walk the average pace of people in China.

Note to self: Don't bring Kris to China.

I managed to get myself down to the post office to mail off some letters and postcards and stuff.  I mailed 176 RMB worth of stuff.  Gah.

However, I finally got Jeanne Marie's letter in the mail!  It's only been... um... four months since I wrote it.  I suck.  Oh well, if I recall what's in it correctly, it's all still relevant, except for the part where I say that I like cafeteria food.

Oh, and I found Green Onion Cakes for sale at a street vendor today.  I'm in heaven.

They've started playing musak in the classrooms between classes.  I think it's so that teachers don't go over time.

It's Kenny G.  It's the music my language arts teacher in grade five used to play when he wanted us to shut up and read quietly.  It starts about five minutes after the lunch bell rings, and goes till five minutes before classes start again.  And it's now played between classes, during the ten minute breaks.  It's like they want the kids to fall asleep, or maybe they're just trying to keep them calm.

I really think these kids could use a good session of "run around outside until you fall down".  But that's just me.

I got another postcard from Mark yesterday.  The kids go nuts over them, asking all sorts of questions.  The all time favorite is the one of the dragon at West Edmonton Mall.  Of course, the kids kept insisting it was a dinosaur.  (Can I be impressed that Junior One knows dinosaur?  I don't know the French word for dinosaur, and I took French for ten years.)

I know Mark is worried about what the kids think about this guy sending me multiple postcards, but it's not the kids he should be worried about.  They don't care who's sending me postcards, they just like having an excuse to look at them and speculate on what's said.  (Typically, the kids can't read what's written on the postcards, because almost everyone who's written me writes them instead of printing them.  The only excepting being Raven, so everyone I work with wanted to know all about Raven's baby.)  The people Mark should be worried about are my coworkers.

Conversations go like this:

Lily: You have another postcard!
Me: Really!  Great!
Ing: Is this your boyfriend?
Me: No, he's not my boyfriend.
Ing: Is this the one who sent you that love letter?
Me: It wasn't a love letter, it was a valentine, and yes.
Ing: Valentines are like love letters, right?
Lily: Yes, yes they are.  I think he is her boyfriend.
Me: No, no, he's not my boyfriend!
Lily: He is the only person who sends you postcards!
Me: No!  I got that one from Raven, and I got one from my Aunt, and I got that really great one from Finland, remember?
Ing: I bet they all came from the same boy.  I bet he is in love with her.
Me: Arg!  No!  No!!!  Friends!  Mark, me, Friends!  Arg!

Then I leave.

I have had the obligatory "Do they really only let you have one child?" conversation here.  I told Ing that Jasen is Raven's third baby, and she was very surprised.  "In Canada, you can have as many babies as you want, and the government doesn't care?"

Something I did find out is that it's not everyone that is subject to this.  Ing told me that she and Wei can only have one baby because they are Han people.  That the minority groups in China can have more babies.  I didn't ask too much about it, but I wonder if that means that if I decide to settle down in China, I can have as many children as I want.

Paul's told me a few other things.  That if both parents are only children, they can have more than one child.  That if there is 20 yearas between kids, they can have more than one child.  I'm not sure about it, since I haven't asked anyone, but I can't really see him randomly making things like that up.

Speaking of Paul.

He's started up at the Senior One level.  His first class got sat in on by the headmaster of the school, and it clammed the kids up pretty fast.  He got pulled aside afterwards and given lots of advice and suggestions on how to teach the class.  I was actually fairly jealous.  No one wants to give me advice here, they just want me to muddle through on my own.  And when they do sit in, they do something very distracting.

But, he seems happier.  Although still confused.  He was told he only has these kids for two classes, so he's supposed to make the most of it.  But, he was told he was permanently at this school till the end of his contract.  So, he's lost.

My new cell phone and I are absolute best friends.  So far I've sent Paul about a million text messages (some of them in Latin, just to drive him nuts), and I've woken Lily up (at 9:30? She usually teaches till 10!).  I have yet to receive random junk mail on the phone, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

Oh, speaking of junk mail, I get junk mail in China!  I got a magazine the other day addressed to "Foreign Teacher" at Li Cai.  I was so proud.

I really must go to the postoffice now.  I finally have Jia-na-da written in Chinese characters, which should mean the ten minutes of explaining where I want the postcards to go should be lessened.

So, I passed that all important Chinese right of passage today.

Yes, I bought a cell phone.

(And at least four readers of this blog are now thinking, Oh god, not again. I'll assure those people that's it's pay as you go.)

I haven't actually called anyone on it, but it's not for making phone calls, it's for text messages.  You can't go anywhere in China without people sending text messages.  It's a strange thing.

So now I'm special, in that special Chinese way.

In unrelated news:  My friend Raven finally had her baby!  Yay!  (Now maybe I can stop having weird dreams where I fly home for a day and the only person who I can see is Raven.  And she's the size of a blimp, cuz she's been pregnant for the past year and half.  There's also a bunch about bikes and knifes that makes no sense.)

But, yeah.  Cell phone.  It's a Nokia, so I wowed everyone by being able to change the language setting on it to English when it was still in Chinese.  As I tell everyone who asks me about cell phones, go with Nokia, they're very user friendly.