What do you mean Pluto's not a planet?

A few days back I found myself in a classroom with the task of introducing the letter U to my kindergarten group. The job consisted of me reading the "U" book that had a boy in his underwear (get it "u" for underwear) as the star which caused the kids to seize with fits of giggles. After the book they called out words that they thought started with "U", and it was my job to write them on the poster board and draw a picture so that they would know what the word actually said.

Now, obviously, I'm not an artist. My drawing skills are mediocre at best, but to elementary aged kids I might as well be Da Vinci himself. They go nuts whenever I draw things on the board. Just this Thursday I was in a third grade class and had to draw a scene that to an adult eye would have looked like a really pitiful attempt at a landscape, but it was all I could do to calm the group from all their shouting, "PLEASE Mrs. Cox, PLEASE autograph this, I want to take it home!!!!" "OH MY GOSH this is the best drawing I have ever seen in my ENTIRE LIFE!" Not being very familiar with eight year olds, I assumed, as anyone would, that they were mocking me until I saw that a couple of them were actually tearing up with excitement and no one was laughing. I swallowed my own laughter at their enthusiasm and brought the class back to order stopping briefly to treasure the moment of artistic praise that I know would never come again by anyone over the age of 9.  So after all the accolades, I was pretty proud of my pint sized illustration of the letter U, and so I took a picture to show Joel my masterpiece.  When he got home I had him look it over, expecting some snide remark about this being my days work versus his day of grading essays, but no such remark came.

Instead, after a few moments of quiet he finally said, "This is great, but if this is our universe, where is the other planet?"

Fully prepared for this I said, "Oh, they're all there. Don't you remember?  Pluto's not a planet anymore."

To which he patiently replied. "Yes, but you only have seven and there should still be eight."

Which lead me directly to sing my trusty planets song (ala 2nd grade, Mrs. Crawford's class. Catherine can back me up on this. She watched the sing-a-long science videos too) aloud to check: "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Pancakes!...See they're all there minus the pancakes."

"Nope. Where's Neptune?"

Neptune? Neptune! What in the heck is the point of a song to memorize the planets if you're going to leave one out. Thanks a lot Mrs. Crawford. Ok, I can't even joke about that. Mrs. Crawford was amazing; but seriously, consider revising the planet song.

More likely explanation: Mrs. Crawford taught the song with Neptune in it and this is the first sign that I am, in fact, loosing my marbles.  The shining light is that now an entire class of kindergartners sings the song the wrong way just like I do. Better luck next time, Neptune.

Plaid is this year's pink.

It's been a pretty normal two weeks here for J and myself.  I've been staying busy with sub jobs (thank goodness) and J has been working hard at school. I recently took on an after-school job as a tutor to help add some stability to my schedule, so every afternoon Monday through Thursday I tutor an eighth grader here at the apartment.

My student, we'll call him Paul, is a fourteen year old eighth grader, repeating the grade to switch over from an all Chinese school into an all English school. He tested on the third grade reading level for English, and having subbed in the third grade this week I can attest to the correctness of that diagnosis. (Honestly, my third graders have a pretty good lead on this guy, but they do go to an uppity kind of school so I'm giving him a break in the comparison).

Now, obviously Paul is brilliant to be able to make the transition at all. He's still excelling in all his non-language based courses like math and science, but that being said, his English is awful (a word he doesn't know-but I'm not judging. My Chinese is virtually nonexistent). We've had some pretty hilarious conversations. It takes us about an hour and a half to go over the twenty vocab words he gets each week. Words like "detriment" and "oblique" take a bit of explaining. He's doing his best.

I've learned a lot from Paul these past two weeks. For someone with such a small English word bank, he still manages to wax philosophical in his own way.

Important observations

First: He wears plaid shirts exclusively, usually in shades of red and black. On what I can only assume is laundry day he has a bright green tee shirt that he subs until the plaids are good to go.

Second: He always runs up the stairs to our apartment (listening to the sound of the thuds, I think he averages three stairs a stride) so he arrives at each lesson completely out of breath.

Third: He laughs every time he reads a word he doesn't know, or when he learns the meaning of a new word, or when he finally understands the meaning of what you're trying to explain. Even if you're talking about something that isn't funny at all. (Last week we "discussed" poverty, martyrdom and the plague...yep. he laughed right through).

Fourth: He is very, very Chinese.

In our first meeting, I was trying to ascertain the most difficult thing about learning English in his view so that I could help him improve. He managed to explain that the hardest part of the process was making the decision to commit to the language, because he knew that becoming fluent with a language means taking on a portion of that language's culture, and he wanted to make sure that I knew that he really despises Western culture, its values, its slang. In essence he was holding back because he didn't want to become more like...me.  He finished by saying that in the end, he knew his future would be vastly improved by learning English so he had made an intellectual decision to plunge forward with English studies, but it made his heart ache.

He wishes he said it like that-what he really said was something like "emotions- no, but intell...ect?" (pointing at his head) understand this is more good."

While slightly aghast at his candor, I was sincerely impressed with his insight. (And yes, he now knows to say "better" instead of "more good" in case any of you were cringing).  It's true that once you learn a language well enough to let your thoughts roam about in its words, you naturally give a part of yourself over to it. How else could you ever understand metaphors or, harder still, idioms? All this coming from a boy who doesn't know what a comma is, or the words "assignment" or "essay" (yes, we started working on those first). Sheesh.

Click-clack, click-clack

As good luck would have it, I was hired on the spot at the school I've been lovingly referring to as the Chilton of Shanghai. [That's a Gilmore Girls' reference. If you don't get it, please clear your schedule and go rent seasons 1-6 immediately [*don't bother with season 7, they switched writers=destroyed the show.] But I digress.

My interview was for Thursday afternoon with the elementary school principal for an elementary substitute position. Well, I passed! She signed me up for a job the next morning and two more the following week before whisking me away to the Middle School and High School offices to meet with those principals, despite the fact that I didn't have appointments to meet with either of them. Both gentlemen squeezed me into their busy schedules and gave me the thumbs up, so I was hired THREE times in ONE day [don't worry, I didn't let it go to my head or anything...] Keeping in mind here- I'm just a sub. Right. Check. Moving on.

So I get up Friday morning, SO excited to start my first day of school. I laid out my outfit the night before, I got up way earlier than I had to, I even went to wait for the bus half an hour before it was supposed to pick me up just to make sure I didn't miss it. I stood on the street. Waiting. Waiting. Squinting into the sun. Checking my watch. Waiting.

But it never came. Stupid bus! I was there so early and you still outmaneuver me! Oh well, I'd just have to take a cab, but since I didn't have enough money on me to cover it I had to run back to our apartment [literally, more like a fast skip] and climb the 4 flights of stairs in our non-air-conditioned corridor to our room to grab the cash I'd left on the kitchen table. I burst open the door to the apartment and reach for the dining table for the cash. Gone! What?! I just climbed four flights of stairs only to find that Joel [even though he still denies it] had taken the money? So I had to get to an ATM. The closest one is just on the other side of Joel's highschool- probably a 5-6 minute walk away. No problem! I can do this! By this point it's well after 7:30. The bus should have come at 7:00. I'm starting to get a little antsy.

I get to the ATM, "glistening" quite a bit now in the heat of the morning. Someone is inside already [it's in it's own little building off the guard house]. perfect. So I wait. Moments later a peeved man emerges from the tiny building sputtering in Chinese. I shove past him, more aggressively than I usually would and go to put my card into the machine. It. won't. take. my. card! No! You can't be broken! I already missed the bus! It's my first day!

I tried calling Joel for moral support [and to attempt to reclaim the dollars that were so wrongfully swiped from the dining table] but his phone was broken. My fury was welling up within me. Luckily, I found a familiar face in the crowd of people shuttling into school- a new friend who lent me the money to take a cab.  My driver, naturally, didn't know where the school was and I ended up more than half an hour late on my very first day.

Once I actually arrived at the school, the teaching part was a breeze. I had fourth graders, and they were great. I subbed again today for a fifth grade class, and I genuinely enjoyed it. I wore heels today and, let's be honest, reveled in the sound of the click-clack, click-clack they made against the floor as I walked. I promise you the students sat up straighter in their seats when I crossed over from rug to tile.

Back again tomorrow, hoping the bus is there this time. It was this morning, but it's a very tricky bus.