January 15th 2016

9:52 am

I remember how nice it was yesterday to wake up assured that at least for that day I wouldn't have to do an English Corner.

So yes, I had completely forgotten that I had an English Corner to prepare for. In the hour before my first class- the only time I could prepare anything- I was internally frantic. I made the snap decision to find some of the songs I've been listening to that get me pumped up for overcoming challenges or just make me happier- I grabbed Dare by Stan Bush, the Mister Rogers "Garden of Your Mind" Remix, and the Smile Song from My Little Pony. Don't judge me until you've listened to it without getting it stuck in your head.

But even as I was working on getting these videos together (and I didn't know how to download it directly onto the USB I had, so I had to download it once onto the computer, then onto my USB, eating up precious time) I was telling a new teacher, Dany from Columbia, a few of the ins and outs of the place. Yes, I'm an old hand here after two weeks. And then there's my sick compulsion to say, whenever someone approaches me with a question of some kind, "yes, how can I help you?" with an expression like I've got all the time in the world. Curse my cool exterior!

I was a couple of minutes late for my first class, but things were downloading apace, and I'd had the foresight to turn off the sound on my computer in case some embarrassing ad wanted to pop up in my abscence. It only took a minute after to transfer everything onto the USB, so it worked out.

And then onto the English Corner itself.

While I didn't have the patience to allow the entirety of "Dare" to play through for the crowd- it gets a bit repetitive, it did have the most interesting imagery to discuss with the class, and the Mr. Rogers video allowed me to explain something of who HE was, and the "Smile" song led into, well, calling it a discussion would be generous, but I went around the room asking what made them happier, what made them ready for a challenge, and after one man said he wasn't too interested in the My Little Pony song ("Really? Never saw that one coming" I thought, totally seeing it coming) saying it was for teenagers (he has some interesting ideas about what's for teenagers..) so I talked about how adults are maybe harder to make happy than children, they have a lot worries, and so, pretending you were ten again, what made you happy then? And that question basically ate up the rest of the time.

Ultimately, this was my most successful English Corner. I kept my previous observations in mind and enacted them. I'm going to level with you, there was one dude that fell asleep on a table in the back, but I don't think that was related to me. 

After that was lunch, I picked up 22.50 yuen worth of food which, even for someone cramming lunch and dinner into one meal, I thought was a lot of food. Rice, a roll stuffed with something that reminded me of sourkraut (spelling?), some spicy... chicken?, a watery soup with tiny bits of some grain in it that was too small to be rice. It actually looked like quinoa. And some fried dumpling thing.

Oh, there was a translation issue at the Food Bazzar desk when I added money to the food card- it took some effort, and a guy with some English and a random customer that also had some English to explain SOMETHING about the 28th of the month. I think the word they were having trouble with was "sale" or "promotion". If I understood them correctly they were trying to tell me that if I place a 100 yuen on my food card on the 28th of the month that I would get 20 back, or more likely I'd get an additional 20 yuen put on my card total. I imagine the worker is forced to tell every customer about that promotion, and she didn't give up when facing the adversity of a customer that doesn't speak her language. Admirable.

Back at Web I ran into Steve who has now seen the new Star Wars. I'm happy to say he also had some concerns, so that's one person who doesn't think I'm crazy. He also gave me... wait, it may have been Bradley... uh, this is bad, they were standing together at the time when one of them gave me... well, it's a sweet USB with a ton of space on it. It'll be a big help with getting materials for English Corners in the future!

Then I helped proof read this girl's English essay- it was only about a page and a half, single spaced. We fixed up the grammar and, I couldn't help myself, made some suggestions for the style.

Next two classes, no big deal- then in my last class I sat down and began to tell everyone how great the last class, because once you're there you know you don't have to photocopy anything more for the day... and then I saw the note to myself from earlier in the day reminding me to photocopy for my last class. Which I did not do. (Ted, don't forget to wind* your watch!)

*spelling?

So I apologized, and went to photocopy. A little over two thirds of the way through the photocopy job it ran out of paper. I opened the tray, grabbed some paper, looked inside, and thought "I do not have enough time to figure this out without risking breaking it." So I worked with what I got. Which turned out to be plenty because...

When I returned to the class and began to take attendance, the students informed me that the class list was totally wrong. I apologized again, and left to go get the correct class list- but at least this time the delay wasn't my fault. The NEW class list had a couple less students in it, so that worked out well with the number of photocopies. Enough page one for everyone, enough page two to share, and the third page I could just read to everyone.

The class was about "Educated Guesses" which I said was super important in English- you aren't going to know every English word, but at those times when you come up short, you can look for clues and make a guess. From there the class was all guessing facts, making up stories/explanations based off clues (with a surprising amount of magic involved in the explanations, one suggested the involvement of a body swap with a dog, and the other had a spell reflected to turn the caster into a dog), and ending with some riddles.

And that was all she wrote. Some staff were asking Dany his deal- it kind of sounds like he already knows some people in Dalian. I walked home listening to music, doing some bicep curls with a 4L bottle of water I bought earlier but didn't mention when it happened because you're not the boss of me.

It's 10: 45 am and things look ROUGH outside. There's always the one 'stack in the distance spewing out smoke, but it's like, uh, when did you guys get three other smoke stacks out there? Did you JUST make those? It's hazy out, man.

Wish me luck, have a good day