Ok. So I watched Aladdin last night in bed because I couldn't fall asleep even though I had just woken myself up from falling asleep on the couch. I don't quite understand it myself, but it is the case. So Aladdin. They are flying away on a magic carpet and falling in love and it just hits me like a 10 ton wrecking ball. Minus the magic carpet, the movie is portraying my life. Only instead of falling in love with a street rat turned fake prince (or more eloquently a diamond in the rough), I am falling in love with China. What a glorious place this is. And it makes me so incredibly sad how fast time is just flying by. My time left here is already down below 100 days. That's practically nothing in the grand scheme of things.
So many random little things happened during this week that at the time, each individual one didn't seem blog worthy. But now looking back, I wish I had kept a better record of everything. I know I'll miss something and then randomly bring it up like a month from now and there won't be any good context. It will sound something like this next blurb:
So on our first day in Guiyang, literally the day we stepped off the plane, I did one of the dumbest things ever. And I can't believe it has taken me this long to write about it. I somehow managed to spend $40 (yes...US dollars) on a bath towel. We were shopping for a few things we needed in our apartments and none of us had towels so we each grabbed one. I went straight for the red without looking too closely at the price tag. I come to find out it cost over 250 RMB. My jaw just dropped when I saw it, but since I don't speak chinese and didn't know what to do or say, I just forked over the cash and wept on the inside. I then talked to my liaison about it after having a mini panic attack and she was able to return the towel and get me my money back. Major relief and happy ending to a tell of Ashley woes.
Now a little bit about teaching. I LOVE my kids. They are so stinking adorable. And I feel like so many random crazy things happen in my classes. I almost always get at least one crier a day. Either a boy hit a girl. Or I wouldn't let 15 kids go to the bathroom at once. Or I didn't call on someone. Or maybe I'm just an evil teacher who takes away comic books from 6 year old boys who just don't give a hoot about what I'm saying. It breaks my heart when the kids cry. Especially when they are my favorite students. On Friday, one of my favorite 2nd grade boys cried because his team was losing the class competition for candy and he kept trying to get them to be quiet but to no avail. I tried to explain to him that sometimes we win, and sometimes we lose, and that it is okay to lose. He just kept nodding his head and saying "ok" in this tiny whisper of a voice with tears streaming down his cheeks. So preciously sad.
I had one boy sit in class with a gushing bloody nose, and when I tried to tell the chinese teacher, she just shrugged her shoulders and left. It sounds cruel, but that's just the way things are here. The mentality is why should a student just sit around in a nurses office for the bleeding to stop when they can sit in class and still learn while they wait for it to stop.
One 1st grader lost a tooth in my class this week. I tried to explain that it was a special thing, but he just threw his tooth away! Again, I was just so baffled by these tiny differences between the Chinese culture and American culture. Back home we make such a big deal over everything and make every single little innocuous occasion special. When something extra special comes along its treated no different than any mundane special thing. In China, if you make a big deal out of something, it better be super special. Or it ends up being the most simple thing ever and I'm left scratching my head wondering how giving a kid a piggy back ride can elicit such gratitude.
It is crazy to me the range in skill level all my students have. I have some 1st graders who can hold a whole conversation with me while some of my 4th graders can't even tell me their name. But I've already seen some growth and that just brings me so much joy. I love walking down the street and hearing "hello teacher miss Ashley!" and then a bunch of giggles from high pitched and innocent voices.
The kids absolutely love when I act silly in any way. For example, when the bell rings to start class, I always do the same little dance. Over a couple lessons, some kids started doing the dance with me. Others just sit and laugh. Some applaud at the end until a take a little bow which gets them all laughing. Little moments like that are what make every bad thing that happens disappear. When a kid runs up to me yelling "teacher beautiful teacher, i love you" I forget that my apartment doesn't have hot water. I forget about the bug bites, or the endless horn honking, the shoes that don't fit me too well, and the fact that I usually get all of the energy sucked out of me by my second class of the day. None of that matters anymore because the only thing that does matter is the unconditional and absolutely pure love that I receive from my students. I just hope they realize that that love is completely a two way street.
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