Hello from a finally slightly drier Qufu! It’s done little but rain for the past week, and though Rob and I had a 30-minute night-time bike ride in a downpour that was actually quite exhilarating, the rest of the time, the bad weather has just been depressing. While it was fun to see the freshmen in camo twirling pastel umbrellas, it was not as much fun to teach two periods straight in half-soaked pants. Clothes that got wet wouldn’t dry because there was too much moisture in the air; the sign I made for my door (I spelled my name out in paper Scrabble tiles) folded up on itself and fell off; and I couldn’t wear my slippers because the feeling of clamminess upon sliding my feet in was unbearable. All in all, it just makes me more grateful I didn’t go to the other school Skidmore also sends teachers to in the south where it’s always humid!
The Mid-Autumn Festival past last Monday without much eventfulness. It’s not the most festive festival: it has a neat story, and if it had fallen on a less cloudy day there would have been more moon-viewing, but mostly people just give each other mooncakes–round pastries that can be filled with just about anything: red bean paste, peanut, chestnut, fruit jam or gelatin, chocolate, ice cream, and more savory flavors as well. Rob and I have a set of unidentifiable ones that smell distinctly like roast chicken. We have enough to last us at least through the end of the month, since some students gave us some and we each received a large box of them from the president of the College of Foreign Languages during the welcome banquet.
The banquet was an interesting experience, though not in the ways I thought it would be. There wasn’t nearly as much pressure to drink yourself senseless as I’d been led to believe (though maybe I just wasn’t bothered because I was drinking beer instead of XX proof bijou), and it didn’t last nearly as long as I thought it would (less than two hours). There was plenty of tasty food and frequent toasts (mostly in Chinese, translated by various parties around the table into English and Russian); Rob shocked all the Chinese professors by giving his own toast in very competent Chinese; Rob and I tried to offer our mostly-silent sympathy to the young Korean woman next to us who was being teased by a boisterous drunk old Japanese professor; I tried to introduce myself to said Japanese professor in Japanese and he responded most unhelpfully in Chinese…like I said, interesting.
This week, I begin teaching my full schedule: 16 hours a week. Each class period is two hours, and I teach 3 sections of Western Culture to sophomores and 3 sections of Listening to freshmen. I also teach Speaking & Listening to PhD students, but unlike my other classes, this one meets twice a week. The PhD class was the one I was most nervous about (everyone’s older than me and has years of teaching experience, eep!), but it has swiftly become my favorite. Since it’s a small class–only 16, as compared to 30-40 in each of my undergrad classes–and meets more often, I’m getting to know the students much better.
The part of teaching I thought would be difficult to get used to hasn’t bothered me at all. I have no problem getting up in front of a class and taking charge of things. That feels much more natural than I would have expected. More so than anything else I’ve done, it seems to stimulate hyper self-criticism…I don’t think I’m doing a bad job of it, but there are so many different approaches to teaching and so many different factors that can effect a lesson, that I’m constantly trying to figure out how to do better and guess at what might engage students more. I spend the ten minute break in the middle of most periods scribbling notes to myself–They laugh when I mime, use more physical humor! Find a way to break up this lecture–you talk too much! And too fast! And not in complete sentences! No students responding to questions…need to build repertoire of creative threats.
Best student names include Lemon, Echo, Fire, Flower, Friday, Smile, Cinderella.
Here are some (many!) pictures from around campus to try to give you a sense of what it’s like to wander around here.
