杭州 Day 9

Wednesday, September 17, 2008: 杭州 Day 9 - Proctoring an Exam
中国 Day 9
Asia Day 9

Today, I woke up relatively LATE - 11am. I got up and planned my lesson, which only took 2 hours this time, thanks to the guided exercises in the textbook. I did some laundry and ate some food, then headed out to the classroom 3 minutes away.

• Call me Doctor Proctor. I had to proctor an exam for students who failed their finals. The administration told me to take it easy on them, so I tried to be as merciful as possible; most of them did really well on the dialogue parts, but as for the dictation, I guess it's hard for them to write down the English terms. However, for the dialogue section, I allowed them to write down some key phrases that they thought they would need to use (the best of the best just talked on cue, and some were really expressive - this led me to think that they should have passed the class, except maybe what happened was other classes got in the way, similar to how some people take languages for general education requirements and just want to get it out of the way). There were a few students that wrote almost nothing for dictation. I repeated the dictations twice (and I was even saying it slowly anyway). I asked if any of them wanted me to repeat the dictations once more, but they were adamantly against it, saying it was too hard.

• Dialogue highlights:
1) One of the students was alone in creating a dialogue, so he made a monologue. I think he did fairly well. However, there was this pleading prelude, with the student saying that he thought his failing was a mistake in grading, that he wasn't one of the best students and not one of the worst. Then he went on to talk about how he only learned some English in middle school. After that, he answered the question somewhat fluently.
2) Another group of students were quite funny because they were presenting on why English is important to learn (advantages/disadvantages). One of them said that they needed to know English to pass this final exam, eliciting laughs from me and the entire group. Haha. Was it not-very-teacherly to laugh? 'Twas funnay!!

• Oh, the challenge of grading. There's this feeling one has as a teacher - teachers don't want to pass someone who doesn't deserve it, but wants all students to pass. I am already facing such a challenge, BUT there are some students that don't deserve it because they didn't study.

• On the way back from proctoring, I saw homogeneous groups of students (separated by gender) dressed in military uniforms. They were doing their "military exercises" - I guess it's a form of physical education and discipline. Michael had done it back in his undergraduate freshman year; Baba did it back when he was in college (that was a LONG-ASS time ago). It's an old tradition, I suppose. Anyway, I saw this attractive older (25 years of age?) man in uniform; he was probably in the military. Actually, from this practice and watching other students around campus, I noticed that students didn't hang out in heterogeneous groups of guys and girls. It was usually all girls or all guys. Otherwise, a girl and guy would hang out one-on-one if they were dating. It's interesting because it shows that students in America are a bit more liberal, since there's groups of guys and girls that hang out.

• I went home to rest and to indulge myself in Moon-Cake-ness. Afterward, I decided to go back out and explore the campus. I walked around campus until I thought I knew every nook and cranny, granny. On one side, there's the main gate; on another, there's the East Gate (near the foreign teacher apartments). Then, there's a fenced boundary separating the university from the outside, non-sheltered world. There's some really nice archaic architecture on campus, so of course, I took many pictures. After this exploration, I went back to my apartment for a few minutes and then left to explore the streets. By this time, it was already 5:00pm.

• I turned right after exiting the gate. Walked to a fresh produce store and bought some heavy fuzzy peaches and some persimmons. Those persimmons were medium-sized and a bit squishy. Honestly, if I were to apply a little more pressure, I'm sure it would have exploded. Then, an angry Chinese woman would shout, "AHHH!!!! YOU BREAK YOU BUY AH!"
• Next, I went to the boba shop nearby. There were only two girls working, but they...were...s-l-o-w. I waited for about 10 minutes for them to make the boba of some schoolgirls. Then, another girl who was BEHIND ME in line chimed in her desires, erm, order before I did. Well, we got both of our orders done at the same time, though. I ordered a "珍珠奶绿" (probably a boba milk tea with green tea?). It was only 3 块. You could ask them to poke the straw through it (开 = open it). Hooray. However, it wasn't as good as I thought it might be. It was quite milky, yes. The balls were smaller than those balls they have in the U.S.

• After having lugged around those heavy peaches and squishy persimmons for 10 minutes while waiting to order and then waiting another 5 minutes for my order to be completed, I decided I wanted to drop the kiddies off at home. By kiddies, I meant my fuzzy, obese peaches and the about-to-explode persimmons I loved unconditionally. Well, I can't say that just yet, since I haven't tried them. But even then...no, I only loved them on three conditions - that they be fresh, soft, and juicy. After I got home, I didn't feel like budging.

• I read some information sheets from the police department and university, which said a multitude of things in Engrish:
1) "A foreigner shall not keep to the bottle and be sot, and is not allowed to fight or tussle with others." I think that means the foreigner should not get drunk in China o_o.
2) "Foreigners who are religion holders may go to the church in Hangzhou for cult, but are not allowed to preach, to spread religion booklet or to develop members in any occasion."
3) "Foreigners shall abide by the Road Traffic Laws of China, and obey the management of traffic police." (HAHAHA...WHAT traffic laws?! HAHAHAHA!!!!)
4) "It is prohibited to log onto pornographic and reactionary websites. If viruses invade the computer system because of inappropriate browsing, the school authorities are not responsible for the paralysis of computer system and look into responsibilities."
5) "The marking method can be either hundred mark system or five-level system, namely, excellent, good, ordinary, passed, and failed."
6) For the campus catalog, there's a section detailing student participation in events, such as competitions. For one of them, it said, "Mathematical modeling." That conjures images of nerdy mathematics majors posing and lavishing attention on flashing cameras. Of course I know what mathematical model isn't - it's not a pageant - yet, just those words create amusing imagery for me.

• I called Patricia to see if she had eaten yet, and it turns out she was still on the bus. When she got back, we decided to go upstairs and knock on people's doors to see if they'd eaten. All had, or they were too tired to go. Patricia and I went outside of campus and walked around until we found a new place to eat. It was really close to the front entrance of the university.
• When we went into the restaurant, this cute lil' boy took our order. They told me they didn't have any green beans, so I had to choose another dish, so I got noodles with chicken pieces and mixed (spicy) veggies. Patricia got fried rice. I taught Patricia some Chinese, too. Haha. We were talking about how she wanted to put the little boy in her purse or how she wanted to adopt him, and I was like, "Did you see 'Tropic Thunder'?" Then I made a stabbing motion, rofl.
• Anyway, they thought Patricia was Malaysian!! HAHA. I also made some conversation with the people. Turns out the little boy was 14 years old. His dad was from 青海, in the northwest part of China. Their whole family kept smiling at me and Patricia (mostly at her, though) NONSTOP. I asked the father if the little kid was his son and he replied yes. Then, I asked if the other kid was his son, and he said yes. I asked the older son how old he was and he said seventeen. Rawr? LOL. Patricia was asking about age differences in China...
• As I was finishing my dinner, some creeper stood outside of the shop, staring at our table. Patricia claimed that he was looking at ME and/or checking me out. I was reacting adversely, such that I screeched like an unsexy beast. I also said, "Yeah, he wants some of this Chinese-American goodness." I looked back a few times and yes, indeed, he was looking at me T_T. He was about 50-55 years of age. Ewww...I suggested we walk fast after we finished our dindin.

• As we were walking back, we saw this guy who was moderately attractive and Patricia said, "OOoooh I saw you checkin' him out!" I said, "Yeah...and he was aight..." She busted up laughin' at my ghettoness.

• We got back to the front of our apartment and saw Jessica. We had this conversation (paraphrased):
Patricia: Hey, she got a new boyfriend (indicating me).
Jing: Ahhh, but she did, too!
Patricia: Yeah, mine is 14.
Jessica: Oooh.
Patricia: Yeah, hers was outside of the window, checking her out.
Jing: Ohhhh! I thought you were talking about the other one.
Jessica: What? Other one? You have so many that you lost track?

Got bitten by bugs at least 5 times whilst standing out there. Then, I came back inside to do some unfinished bloggery.