just another tuesday

Class today was as usual. Morning 8:00. Got there two minutes late because I was cutting up the pieces of paper to play "taboo" with the students and couldn't find my scissors. Then I had to carry the bicycle up six flights of stairs... Oh well. I feel like most of my classes in the morning (and in the afternoon to some degree, too) don't get started until the second period. Almost all the students don't know what is going to happen in the class yet, so they don't know how to position themselves or interpret the information. I like not being predictable. It distances me from the other teaching styles that the students have gotten for 15 years. Yeah, a syllabus would be worthwhile and probably make keeping a schedule much easier, but who's really planning their timetables weeks or months in advance? Things change in China so frequently (especially plans) that it's practically impossible to follow a real strict course syllabus. I realized that very early on in my Peace Corps service.

My class is actually relatively worthless (it receives one credit point) compared to the other courses that are weighted much more heavily in terms of their credit worth. I don't mind that, really. If anything it makes my job easier as I'm not bound to really drill the students to reach some vague and meaningless goal in their English learning. Each week I do my best to present them with a new and contrasting world view, teaching style/methodology, and a fresh concept that they hadn't thought about before. I feel oral English is meant to be fun; like the jazz band part of high school where you've been in history or science or math for the last three hours and for the next period you take out your saxophone and play some hip jazz charts. I hope students come to my class with that feeling; not necessarily of fear, regret, or anger, but of relaxation and curiosity.

After class I came back home and called up Ting Ting. We decided to meet at McDonald's again at which point we hit up a small restaurant near Wu Xing. It wasn't that great, and way overpriced considering the quality, but so are the restaurants near the city center. The tables weren't even high enough to put your legs under so I had to sit awkwardly with my feet crossed to the left of my chair. I never understand why there's such a prevalence of short tables at restaurants.

We decided to hit up a movie and went to the movie theater near the clothing district. Ting Ting thought the movie would have been in English with Chinese subtitles, but it wasn't. I was actually happy about that because I've been trying to immerse myself in Chinese as much as possible lately and focusing on the movie was actually good practice. I couldn't follow much of the intricacies of the plot (it was a terrorist thriller with a super attractive female secret agent lead), but I know it ended in Kuala Lumpur and also took place in France, Italy, and Norway... I'm trying to find the name now, but can't for some reason. It's definitely not an old movie. It was pretty awful though, typical Hollywood garbage, but entertaining. At a few points in the movie, the female lead dresses scantily clad and answers the door in a towel. She asks the stranger to help her fasten the bra clasp behind her back. At this point Ting Ting asks me if this is common in your country...

Just found the name - Kod apokalipsisa. Apparently it's a Russian movie so it wouldn't have mattered if it wasn't dubbed or not. On a side note though, who the hell prefers a dubbed movie? Isn't there a good deal of acting in one's voice? Are we that of a degenerate group of people that we're not able to read subtitles? I can imagine someone thinking to himself, "Fuck subtitles, just let me listen to dialogue in my native language so I don't have to scan the bottom of the screen for a direct translation. I gain nothing from hearing the real actor or actresses voice. Please save me from this grueling mental obligation and strip the movie of any artistic quality it had previous to the butchering of the original production. I prefer images and sounds I can instantly recognize. Oh, and while you're at it, please bring me a copy of Maria Callas in Carmen (voiced over by some Chinese woman), an original Salvador Dali (painted over by some Chinese artist) and To Kill a Mockingbird (rewritten by some Chinese author)."

Here's what Pagliacci would look like:

Ugh so annoying. I'd really like to hear a legitimate argument for dubbing.

Anyway, hit up Tian Shang afterwards and met up with Julien, Durf, Sarah, Tan Ce Tian, She Jian, and the rest of the crew. Ting Ting came along for a bit, everyone had a good time dancing around. Grabbed some Lanzhou noodles and came back home.

Just another Tuesday in Nanchong.