Last week I started to get sick. I had a sore throat and was coughing and was really thinking my annual bout of crazy allergies was coming.

Then I got better. I felt great over the weekend and thought maybe I had hit a good delay.

I even accepted a substitute thing for Monday. Then Monday actually came and it was all over. About 5 in the AM I turned over and realized I wasn't feeling too good. Then I got hit with the diarrhea. Then the vomiting. Is there anything more fun that sitting on the floor of the bathroom trying to decide whether the urge to poop or vomit is more pressing.

Three major bouts of that and I felt better. Couldn't substitute and spent the day watching movies and moaning.

Yesterday was more blah, but nothing major. Today I feel good and did the tutoring.

Before I get to that I have to admit that there was a small part of me that was glad I wasn't substituting. It is probably a horrible thing to even have a part of me that preferred vomiting to teaching, but there it was.

I have this small part of me that is begining to think that I'd like to be a teacher, but that small part of me says I need schooling and training and some bloody idea of how to do it.

Which leads me back to today. We did a four hour session with my two boys. Here's the funny thing, with the sickness and business of the weekend I didn't do much preparing. Here's the funnier thing, I assigned homework last week out of their text books, and they only have one copy of the text books. That means I had to leave them there, and thus have no books to actually prepare a lesson out of.

I winged it. I made up some environmental stuff for geography and worked from memory for English. Then we just opened our books and read from there. This worked better than I thought but it was still a nightmare.

The oldest boy is alright, he usually looks bored, but he at least pays attention and doesn't act up. The youngest is a little hyper active and so is all over the place. The way it works is I teach one child one subject, while the other one sits in the computer and works on some busy work I give them. Then they switch.

Since they are in such close proximity it is difficult to keep them on task. This is especially true for the one I am not actually teaching. And more so for the youngest.

Four hours is a long time to keep their attention. Especially when you are not that prepared.

There is no detention. They don't get grades. There is basically no punishment I can give them. I have to encourage, cajole, and make false threats. Today I had the youngest in the corner not being taught. He had some work to do, but a computer was near and it took his attention. He likes to play games. I had to ask him multiple times to turn it off. Then I turned off the computer. Then he turned it back on like I wouldn't notice. So I had to move him and me and the oldest sat by the computer a little cramped.

I was so ready to get out of there.

More Word Stuff

Remember the two boys I was tutoring in English/Geography/History. Remember how I got fired? We'll I got rehired. Basically the boys didn't like the home-school program. It was a much bigger program with lots of kids. Unfortunately, most of the kids weren't my boys age and so they didn't like it.

The mom did see things she liked and this is making it better to me. She has turned one room into a classroom and given me access to the computer/scanner/printer to create more interesting materials.

Yea Me.

I also just got another job tutoring three boys in English (mostly writing.) It will be two hours a week.

I like the idea of this arrangement as it will allow me to make a decent amount of money, but at the same time enable me to keep blogging and writing and whatever else I like to do. It is also quite flexible which enables me to do other things as well.

The only problem is that this second class is on Thursday from 4:30 to 6:30 which is also when my Chinese class takes place. I tried to work out another time with these ladies, but it just wasn't too be.

Truth is I didn't really like Chinese class anyways. The language is very difficult. They deal mainly in tones and each sound has about four different tones. So you could say the exact same word (spelled exactly the same) but it will mean four different things depending on the tone used.

This is what Chinese class has been about. We haven't really learned words so much as tones. This is all fine and good except it isn't very useful to our daily lives. I know Americans who speak Chinese, but get the tones wrong. Context helps a lot.

Eventually we discussed this with our teacher and now we have started talking about real world situations. Now the problem is everybody just asks random questions. Like one person will think about how yesterday they went to a restaurant and ordered a particular dish. They will then ask how to say that dish, or how to say something else in a restaurant setting.

Then someone else will think about bargaining at the fake market and will ask about that.

It is all so random that it hurts my head. I need order and to stay on task in learning situations. This is just irritating me. So I'm not sure I'll really miss Chinese class.

Culture Shocking

When I hear the words “culture shock” I usually mentally image someone lying in their bed, curled into a ball under the covers afraid to leave, afraid to do anything. While that certainly would count as culture shock, that isn’t necessarily what it usually amounts to.

Having lived in France for awhile I am proud to say that many aspects of culture shock don’t really affect me. The lack of convenience, while annoying doesn’t make me break out into curses. I have no problems walking about or going to the market or a restaurant. I can buy the products I want and order food without a hitch. Well, maybe there are hitches because many of the products I want aren’t available, and I can’t always tell what I am ordering, but I can still navigate these problems without feeling what I’d call culture shock.

However, there are still lots of little things that send me into delirium.

I find that the little annoyances now add up into a giant ball of – I hate this place, this school, this country. For instance, I noted our ant problem in another post. Truth is we had an ant problem at our last apartment in the States. They were annoying, and we put in several complaints to the apartment management, but they never went past the stage of irritation. Ants happen, as they might say.

Yet here they seem even worse. Our kitchen was already bothersome with its lack of good shelving, and our lack of a lot of food and dishes. Add ants to the mix and you get two very frustrated Americans.

The thing is we wind up associating the annoying ants to our troublesome kitchen which is attached to housing that is unfamiliar and different which is then attached to our whole Chinese experience.

Thus China = Annoying Ant Problem.

All annoyances/problems/pains are automatically lumped into this stupid country.

That’s culture shock.

In about thirty minutes I have to go to my first tutoring session without Brian. I am nervous. No, I am scared to death.

Why? Culture. Freaking. Shock.

Logically it is no problem. In a few minutes I will gather my things and walk to the front gate where there will be a taxi, or if there is not a taxi, one will arrive shortly. I have a piece of paper from my tutoree that tells the taxi driver where to go. The taxi driver will take me to the correct place. I will then punch a button on the apartment complex where I will then tell the lady I have arrived. Up an elevator I will go where I will be greeted.

The tutoring session will be hot and long and probably pretty miserable, but it is nothing to be scared of, in fact she is a very nice lady.

When it is over, I will again climb into a taxi, show the driver a card and will be taken home. All of this is simple and without much complication. Even if some complication arises I can easily call someone to help out.

Yet I am all knotted up inside. The reality is all of that is new to me. I have not yet ridden in a taxi by myself. I have not had to find the right apartment and enter the right number. I have never tutored anyone in my life. All of which makes me nervous.

Yet, I know it will be alright.

Edit: Tutoring was, in fact, alright. I had to hail a cab, as one wasn't sitting there waiting, but that didn't take long. He read my little Chinese instructions without a hitch and we were on our way. My tutor lady lives in a high rise apartment alongside a pretty busy highway. Coming from my direction you have to do a u-turn to go along the right side of the highway in order to pull over and let me off. The problem was the taxi driver didn't know exactly where to let me off, and neither did I.

He tried one spot, decided my look of uncertainty meant move on and so he did, around the block. Eventually he left me off and I started walking - to where I wasn't sure. After a block I called Brian and he pointed me the right way.

Nicely this meant that I arrived at the apartment all sweaty, which made her turn on the air conditioner, something she normally doesn't do. The lesson was long and boring and annoying, but OK.

The return home was easy too excepting the 8 minutes I spent trying to find a cab to hail. I'll do it all again tomorrow, a little less nervous, but still a bit uneasy.

Edit, Part II: It has been noticed that I am being negative of late. Truth is I am in full culture shock mode. I'm still quite overwhelmed by everything. But that doesn't mean it is all bad. I'm enjoying many things and mostly we are having a good time. Things will get better and in time we will grow to enjoy ourselves a great deal. This will be especially true when we start getting regular paychecks and can enjoy the great cheap things.

My First Day As A Tutor

As the whole teacher thing doesn't seem to be working out, I am back to trying my hand as a tutor. I think/pray/hope this will actually work out for the better, but we shall see.

Brian has been tutoring a middle-aged woman for awhile now, and today was the day to see if she would take to me as to give Brian more time off. The woman and her husband are fairly wealthy and she has more or less taken the last year off to learn English. Her plan is to learn as much as she can now, move to Singapore in January, learn even more there and then travel the world.

Thus she wants lots of tutoring. Lots and lots of tutoring. So much tutoring she has already invited me to live with her so that I can tutor at every moment.

She lives in one of the high rise apartments about a 15 minute taxi ride from SMIC. She is on the fifteenth floor and has a lovely view of the big park in PuDong and the excellent Shanghai skyline. she is also a bit of old China which unfortunately means she isn't too fond of air conditioners. It was a good 85 degrees inside and we all sweated together.

Truth be known, I am not really a teacher or a tutor. Though at one time in my life I thought I wanted to be in that line of work - the thought of sculpting young minds and all that - but in the last few years I much prefer the company of a good book, an excellent film, an artful album and my computer. My social skills have dropped quite considerably in the 2000s and the reality of it all is that though I do enjoy the company of a few good friends, mostly I don't really like talking to people.

Call me a hermit. Call me Howard Hughes. Just don't really call me because I'm busy watching the Sopranos.

All of this is to say that the two and a half hours of tutoring was exhausting. Brian did most of the work and still I had had enough in about half an hour. She speaks decent English in that I can understand what she is saying, but that I have to really concentrate on her words and gather lots of context.

She wants very much to learn and in that way she is a good student, but she is older and slower and she will take great effort to get her to where she wants to be.

She has a book that her and Brian have been studying and at first I will take over that, but I'd like to come up with some other things as well. For instance I think I will record some shows off of NPR and the BBC and have her listen, and then answer questions. I think we will allow time for conversation as well.

I've painted kind of a negative picture, and that isn't exactly all correct. This is something I can do, and I know there will be rewards from it, but it is all overwhelming at the moment. It isn't really something that brightens my eyes when I think about it, as it is no longer something of a career goal. But I do think it will be nice to see her progress and find ways to help her move in the right direction.

Brian and I are supposed to come up with a plan this weekend on how I am going to take over and how I am going to get her prepared for her worldly travels.

Wish me luck.