Twenty Years Later…

Back in August of 2004 I did something crazy; I threw caution to the wind, packed up what I believed would get me through a year overseas, and moved to Korea to be an English teacher.  I had not trained as an English teacher, nor did I know much about Korea - I hadn’t even tried the food when I boarded the first of 3 planes that would bring me to the other side of the world.  There were lots of nervous tears, some hysterical giggles, and a huge adjustment period, but before the end of that first year I had extended for four months and was working out the logistics of teaching art for a proper international school.  With the exception of a short hiatus following my second stint in Korea, I haven’t looked back since.  At least, not until now.

At a temple in Seokcho, summer ‘05

Back in June I left Mongolia for the last time, but it has taken until now for me to realize that I’m not going back.  It hit me one morning a day or two before I moved, when I was figuring out the logistics of finishing my packing, and I realized that I could not, after all, stay up all night right before my flight packing.  This is because I wasn’t flying to my new home, I had to get up that morning to go collect my U-Haul, which I would be driving the 6 hours it would take me to get to Minneapolis.  So no all-nighters for me.

Twenty years ago, boarding that plane was the hard part.  I felt like I was stepping into an unknown world without support - when my second flight was delayed, I was panicked that I would miss the third, and when I arrived in Seoul no one would be waiting for me.  Fortunately, that didn't happen, and over the last 20 years, I’ve come to realize how well my schools have supported me.  This summer proved to me how hard it is to move just within the States, from finding an apartment (let alone jump through all the hoops necessary to rent - thank goodness for the Evil One's Bank & Trust), to driving a moving van, and especially remembering that everyone here speaks English and maybe I should try saying “fuck” a little less often.

It also occurs to me how daunting it is to do this without my dad.  It’s stupid - he couldn’t have helped me load the moving van, or drove up there with me.  He was actually probably looking down on us as Shaggy, Babysis, and Gameboy helped me thinking that he’d at least dodged that bullet.  But there was just something about him that made you feel reassured, that everything would go smoothly, and if it didn’t, he’d help you figure it out.  I feel a bit adrift in the world, knowing I can’t ask him for help anymore.  And that makes it hard to leave my mom behind.  I couldn’t have stayed - I have no job in Glenwood nor do I WANT to have a job in Glenwood, and I’m a city girl through and through, being out in the country with no car and nothing to do would eventually have driven me crazy - but that doesn’t change the fact that I feel like the worst daughter ever.

Spoonbridge and Cherry at dusk

But I feel like Minneapolis is a good compromise, and in a way, it feels like I’ve come full circle at this point.  You see, this was the last place I went before I took that first big jump.  Not only because my mentor teacher, Lulu, used to bring her NAHS kids up here to see the art and tour MCAD, but because my parents decided they could fit my two younger siblings and I in a Ford Contour and take us on a road trip to the great northern beyond (we fit, but it was not a comfy ride).  And THEN, my classroom at GDA was actually called Minneapolis.  So there was a definite sense of fate as I set off two weeks ago in a 10' U-Haul with a smattering of possessions...

...mainly art supplies, to return here and try something that now felt just as crazy: starting back in the States on a slightly different career path, by going back to school.

It's been over a week since I got here and things have gradually started to move forward.  I've made approximately one trip to Target every two days (it's only a 6 block walk).  I've tried out at least six different restaurants on Eat Street.  More excitingly, I've met with three different mentors and chosen one to work with as I start the program.  I've moved into my studio and began to set things up - and gotten back to work.*  I've gotten my ID, am meeting with the professor for whom I will be TAing, and have gone to the two big art museums.  In a lot of ways, it really feels just like starting in a new country, with the notable exception being the fact that new classmates apparently aren't as eager to go socialize as new coworkers...I guess the fact that we're from the same country doesn't hold much weight when so is everyone else.

*Let me tell you, I think that was the hardest thing about this summer.  I've done sketches and things but not started actually working on anything in months - it is absolutely the worst kind of edging.

Shokugeki no Becky

Yesterday-ish (depending on what side of the international date line you are on), I graduated with my MA in Art Education.  It was pretty anticlimatic.  With covid still being a thing, there was no chance of me making it to the ceremony, and in fact, I couldn't really even go out and celebrate, because Mongolia still shows few signs of getting their cases under control...although restaurants DID reopen yesterday for takeout and delivery, and I'm at least allowed to leave Zaisan, so Engrish and I got together for Indian and beverages and bitchin'.  I thought I'd at least have my name published, but as the grad office had to remind me, I checked the "no publication" option when I applied for graduation - my cyberstalker may be on his best behavior due to his custody trial, but I wouldn't put it past him to act up in the future, so least said, soonest mended.

Homemade salsa

The true upshot of this change in my status is that I no longer have to confine myself to APA format and can use as many four-letter words as I want, which means that it's about time for me to start blogging again.  Yes, I'm going to blame my ongoing delinquency on grad school, which, coupled with a pandemic that never seems to end, robbed me of pretty much all motivation to write "for fun."  It's true that the pandemic is ongoing, but this is probably something that I actually should write about, so I'll pick up where I left off:  Food.  As mentioned WAY BACK in my last post, I have finally learned the fine art of cooking your own damn meals, every damn day (ah, yes...those four-letter words!  How nice they feel!).  This last lockdown was our fourth, and let me tell you, they suck major balls.

Note: Note how I normally stock my fridge.

You may have picked up on this if you're one of my six regular readers, but the kitchen is where the most evidence of my status as a counterfeit grown-up is found.  In a typical year, a close inspection of my refrigerator will reveal coke, a pitcher of lemonade, condiments, and eggs (which may or may not be edible, because even a 6-pack of eggs goes pretty slowly for me).  Typically my freezer has ice and frozen chicken breasts.  Sometimes bread, if I've been on a French toast kick.  It's not that I can't cook...it's more that there's very little reward for cooking food that you're only going to eat by yourself.  I mean, think about it - after doing all the cooking you STILL have to do all the cleaning, and not once during the meal does anyone tell you how tasty it is (unless you talk to yourself.  Which maybe I do).  The reasonably rational side of me thinks that cooking your own food should be healthier and cheaper, but after the last six months, I have very little evidence to back that up.  Although maybe (probably) that's just me.

Newest culinary discovery: Homemade chocolate sauce

However, at the very least, I've unlocked this particular adulting skill.  Although my first week and a half of lockdown I subsisted on a rotation of pasta and red Thai curry, I've gradually opened up all sorts of new worlds of culinary discovery.  My fridge and cupboards are stocked with a variety of ingredients that I can use to make single servings of different things, throwing in a handful of this and a splash of that.  Turns out, there are cheats I never knew about.  I finally figured out that chicken wasn't the only meat I could freeze a single portion into a ziploc baggie, quick and easy to defrost in a can full of hot water.  I've also learned to chop or grate my veggies or cheese, FINALLY reusing those take-out containers I've been collecting the last year and a half to store them in the freezer.

Another cheat: indoor weenie and/or marshmallow roast

My bags of groceries look less and less like an eight year-old turned loose at the checkout with a big wad of birthday cash.  Okay, I'm willing to admit that, more often than not, restocking my coke supply is what forces me to go out shopping, but along the way I've found good meat at our Rosie's, mozzarella cheese at the little shop in Enkhjin apartments, and Korean ingredients at almost all of the shops in Zaisan, ensuring that, at the very least, I can make that spicy marinade that Bronte taught me, back in the day, and - BONUS! - I can make a whole bunch of it at once and freeze that into ready-to-go portions (the smaller, round takeout containers are best for that).

Throw in cabbage and tteok-beokki and it's basically dalkgalbi 

I've also braved the pitfalls of ordering your groceries online.  I wasn't quite convinced about this one...last summer I attempted to make Good Price bring me a flat of Coke, and that didn't work out.  The idea of letting someone else pick out your veggies just seemed like asking for a bag of produce that was about to go off.  Just before the first lockdown ended, though, I got to missing pizza pretty badly.  I dug up my old recipe for flatbread (or the closest recipe I could find), threw some pasta sauce and mozzarella cheese on it, and called myself a culinary genius...but had to admit that it was missing something.

V3: Using homemade alfredo for sauce and with jalapenos added.

Which is crazy, because I actually love cheese pizza, but my own just needed a bit of something more.  Pepperoni is basically non-existent in Mongolia, so I went for the #2 pizza topping, Italian sausage...mainly because I knew Rosewood Market made it AND that they delivered.  

And that's how I ended up down the rabbit hole.  About once a week I make a big list with all sorts of things I could live without, but since I'm already living without human contact, seem a lot more necessary.  Big baked chocolate chip cookies?  Better have two.  Huge jar of tahini?  Much better than making my own!  Avocados that I will forget to use until they have gone bad?  Sounds good to me.  They usually have salsa, but the last couple of times it didn't show up on the website, so I even got all of the ingredients and made salsa myself, which may be the first time in five years I've done so.

Fortunately the lockdowns have usually had some break in-between them, and usually come with some warning before.  This means my cooking has gotten progressively more extravagant.  Rather than just making a bit of taco meat, throwing melting cheese on it and slapping it onto a tortilla with some salsa, I could pick up a can of refried beans, or find a jar of something approximating guacamole (it's not actually guacamole, but unlike those avocados I keep wasting, this crap doesn't go bad)...because I'd have a week or so to prepare.  Not so much THIS time, but some of the others.  That said, if you find yourself in Ulaanbaatar the day before a pandemic lockdown, you're better off not planning to go anywhere if you need a car to get there.  I mean, unless you REALLY like your car and want to spend hours in it not moving.

Lockdown masterpiece: Cheesy baked alfredo tortellini

I guess I should probably end this on some kind of positive note, and talk about how using the recipes that I learned in my friends' kitchens made me feel closer to them in my isolation, or that the recipes I picked up traveling somehow helped me to relive my experiences in other countries while I was grounded...but that's bullshit.  If I weren't fairly introverted by nature, I feel like there's a good chance that I would have done something irreparable a long time ago.  By the time I got to Engrish's yesterday I was pretty much starved for attention - I had verbal diarrhea to go with my potty mouth, and was probably telling the most boring, inane stories of all time.  Lucky for me, she'd had almost as little human contact, so either she didn't notice, or she was willing to live with it.  Maybe a little of both - Engrish is a lot kinder than me.

The Morning Commute

In all my life as an expat, I've never had to take public transportation to get to work.  The only time I've been more than a short walk away from my school was when I lived in the Emirates.  Back then, I'd either rely on taxis (because I could afford to) or bum rides from the other denizens of the Sunrise building.  That all changed about a month ago when my current employers moved us all to a shiny new, purpose built school.  I'm still not entirely sure it's a good trade.  On one hand, the air doesn't make me feel sick and there are tons of good restaurants to try out.  On the other hand, I have to be exposed to the public before 8 a.m., and that almost never turns out well...

It turns out that, as much as I claim to love public transportation, what I actually love is my freedom.  I love being able to go anywhere, anytime that I want, and not have to drive myself.  But when that turns into a daily forced migration, for which I must wake up when my alarm goes off (rather than ignoring it for an hour), public transit loses most of its charm.

This post actually began long before we moved, back when I went to that mokuhanga workshop. At the time, I was impressed by the fact that Tokyo commuters could all be dressed up in business suits and not spouting waterfalls of sweat off their jam-packed bodies, or that the women on the train were actually wearing make-up and it wasn't melting off their faces in a sheet.  Also with the fact that they commute on a daily basis without killing anyone.  Let me tell you, there is nothing like being crammed into a train car with a shitload of strangers to bring out your aggressively antisocial side.

Now, it was originally my plan to take one bus from my neighborhood all the way to Yokohama Station.  That first morning - which dawned way too bright and way too fricking early - I found myself puzzled that Google Maps was instructing me to walk from Higashi-Kanagawa Station instead.  Well, when I started looking at the bus stop sign, I discovered that my bus didn't go all the way to Yokohama for another hour and a half.  So I ended up taking the train the rest of the way.  My feet just were not up to a walk from Higashi-Kanagawa.

The next morning I took a different bus, one which stopped closer to my apartment.  I figured if I had to take the train anyways, I might as well make the bus part as convenient for myself as possible.  And then then bus showed up, already jam-packed with commuters.  Two stops after I got on, the driver started letting people in through the back door,* since there was no more room for people at the front.

As it turns out, I'm not cut out to spend even ten minutes each morning with the sweaty bodies of strangers pressed up against my various parts.  It brings out my impulses to smack people with my umbrella, fan, or hell, just to plant my elbow in the crotch of the individual who keeps bumping against my shoulder (with extreme prejudice).  Since I decided it would probably be a bad idea to get in a fight on the bus, I decided to go with the original bus, the one that wasn't crowded.

And that is the way things progressed for the first three weeks at the new school.  Maybe I had to reward myself with McDonald's for breakfast most mornings for making it in one piece and still letting people live.  I'd pretty much worked out the best route to go - the bus where I'd have a seat, the train with the easiest walk from the bus stop - but it really didn't matter.  I am not cut out to be a commuter.

And then Golden week came and went, and sometime during those days of freedom I got it into my head that I should walk to the nearest train station.  I needed the exercise after spending most of the previous month eating McMuffins for breakfast.

So about a week ago I started walking.  It takes me about a half hour, but it's flat the whole way, and at least half of my walk is by the stream that runs through the 'hood.  If I feel like as much of a zombie as my fellow commuters appear, well, that's only to be expected.  But I still feel like maybe a bit of an apology is in order.  Fellow commuters, I am so sorry.  If you hear me growl or hiss, or possible construct sentences strung entirely together with f-bombs, please understand that it isn't personal.  I hate literally everyone in the mornings right now.  Half the time I haven't even had my morning coke when you are seeing me bare my fangs.  I applaud you for the fortitude that it must take to deal with this day after day, stretching into years.  Personally, I'm just counting down the days til I'm back in Mongolia, where I can make it from the door of my apartment to the door of my classroom in two minutes or less.

*In Kanto, you enter the front of the bus, and pay when you get on.  In other parts of Japan, you get on through the back, and pay when you get off.

Cat Herding in Mouse Land

I don't have a problem with Disney.  I want to lead with that.  Disney's great.  But I've never been to any of the Disney theme parks.  I'd never been near one til I visited the Evil One's ancestral home in sunny California, and I think she was a little disappointed that I didn't want to go, even if she understood my obsessive need to hit all the big art museums.  When I was in Hong Kong a few years back, I saw the stop further down the train line I was riding in from the airport, but didn't feel even the slightest temptation to go (most likely because I was more than a month away from my next paycheck).  I love a good rollercoaster, but Disney just seems overhyped, overpriced, and not the way this nerd rolls.

However, when I found out my current school has an annual school trip to Disney, I found myself thinking it would be a good opportunity to finally experience Disneyland for "free."  That was my attitude for most of the school year...but then, I got the news.  I was going with the class that has given more more white hairs this year than any other class.  It's not that I don't like them.  I do.  There are TONS of good artists in this class, and they have lots of personality, so they can be lots of fun.  But there's a fine line between fun and torture.  The majority of the class is also terrible at following directions the first time you give them, and in general they are pretty strong-willed.  This is not a good combination when visiting a crowded amusement park where you've never been before, and to be completely honest, I was terrified.  I could see myself losing a child because they weren't listening to me, and then being run out of the country by angry parents with pitchforks.*

So today I bring you a blog about guiding 10 anklebiters around Disneyland.  Here's my first piece of advice - step in and be the voice of reason.  Guiding elementary students is like herding cats.  They will be all over the place.  Two will be a block ahead of you and four will be trailing about a block behind.  Rein that shit in and keep them close.  Also, when you go to get your first fastpass and find out that you can't GET it, rather than running all over the park, just make an executive decision to start riding rides.  Trust me - an hour in line for Pooh's Hunny Hunt may seem like torture** but at least they'll all be right there with you, and when it's over they'll be too excited about going on another ride to argue with you.  Also, it will make the 13 minute wait for the Haunted Mansion seem ridiculously short.

We eventually did get that fastpass - for Splash Mountain, as it turns out.  It was the only one we got...and actually the only one we really needed.  The week after Golden Week is apparently a slow one at Disney, so we made it through most of the rides in 30 minutes or less.  Splash Mountain, on the other hand, had a really long line, and all my kids and I were incredibly satisfied to walk past several other groups from our school standing in the slow line. 

My mom always wanted to take us to Disney growing up, and a year or two back, she finally got the opportunity to go with the niblings.  This was not my mom's Disney trip.  For starters, I blew through a significant part of my paycheck during Golden week and didn't have a lot of money to snack on (I did enjoy the honey-flavored popcorn...just not as much as I like Topsy's cinnamon, and not to the tune of 350 yen a pop).  My personal approach to theme parks is that they are best explored with a full wallet (or an indulgent fairy grandmother, in the case of the niblings...there's no guarantee that she will buy everything for you, but she does have the power to command your artistic aunt to make you that hand-painted princess parasol).  Since keeping an eye on my small friends kept me from doing any browsing, and to be honest, mouse ears aren't my thing***, this was fine.  If we took them to USJ, I might be singing a different tune.

Apparently what it takes to get me to finish this blog is a night watch.  At the beginning of the school year, relatively fresh off a camping trip with my best class, my new administrators asked teachers to sign up for activity responsibilities, and I went with the grade 5/6 overnight.  It didn't seem like such a great idea by the time I was shoving my blanket and pillow in a bag yesterday morning, although it hasn't turned out to be that bad, and hey, I'm finally getting some writing done.  I'm planning to buy a new laptop while I'm home for the summer, so hopefully the next year's worth of blogging (not to mention courses for my master's) will be a little less onerous.

*It's possible that the damage inflicted by my Dark Lord and Master's threats during our first meeting in Korea went deeper than either of us realized.
**And it will be, FYI - they will all take turns swinging on the ropes and/or chains in the line, causing you to have visions of them toppling over backwards and cracking their heads open.
***And, you know.  American animation in general.

A Tall Shot of GIN

It was Saturday morning and I was baking cookies.  Freakin' kids.

Back in June two of my favorite students (by which I mean actual favorites, not "You're all my favorites!") came and asked if I would be an advisor for our newly founded Global Issues Network.  They said they were asking me because I'd been in Mongolia for longer than most of the teachers and was involved with the greater community...and because they wanted to use my classroom.  But personally, I think that while the above are good reasons to ask a teacher to be an advisor for your club, the real reason they asked me is the fact that I'm a sucker.  Engrish put it most succinctly when she said, "Like you could say no to them."

Even if it hadn't been those two, I probably would have said yes.  I heard about GIN for the first time at the ACAMIS conference I attended this spring, and was hoping the school would get involved in something similar, if not GIN itself.  When a former classmate attending our rival school came and presented about it, hoping to get our kids involved, the response was overwhelming.

Well, this past Saturday was the commencement of their first project - a kind of Saturday afternoon community center in one of the ger districts.  The issue they are working on is "Education for All," and I was really proud of how they organized everything - from the activities to the games and even the food and drinks for their opening ceremony.  My students had a great time, and I know that the kids they are working with will learn a lot.  I couldn't imagine a better extracurricular activity to be involved with - they are developing a lot of great leadership skills, have done an excellent job of delegating what needs to be done so that everyone is involved...I couldn't be more proud of them if I tried.

I remember, when I was about 13 years old or so, my family went to Kansas City's theme park, Worlds of Fun.  My mom had just finished watching the "Stax of Wax" show in their nice, air conditioned theater, and I was bugging her to buy me something, when she said something that has kind of stuck with me for more than 20 years.  She said, essentially, "When you work as hard as those kids in that show, I'll buy you anything you want."  I look at these kids now - especially my seniors - and I think I understand what my mom meant.  I may be a sucker for them, but it's because they are so damn good.  They're not perfect - hell, there have been a few times I've lost my temper with them - but they have good hearts and strong minds.  They give me hope that all is not lost for us here in this little corner of the universe.

And that's why I'm taking them to Turkey.  My plans for a spring break trip focused on art and history got approved a week ago, and while willingness to take 20 hormonal teenagers to the other end of Asia on my free time may be a mark against my sanity, the admin team approved it anyways. If it weren't for the fact that it will be shortly followed by their graduation I wouldn't be able to wait.

Coups, and Hips, and Healing Facts

The problem with having a really lovely, warm apartment is the fact that it's hard to find the motivation to go anywhere else, knowing it's going to be colder there than at home. I haven't been to the gym since last Friday. So far I have not made the membership worth my money. Oh well, I've got 50 more weeks to do that.

One of my thoughts from the gym last week focused on what might have been if I hadn't come to China. If it hadn't been for Socrates, I wouldn't have applied to my school. Well, now he is gone - really gone - and I've been in a funk, and I ask myself whether it wouldn't have been easier if I'd only had to live through his leaving once. And I thought of the fact that if I'd stayed at RAKESS, I would have ended with two years under my belt, and right now would have been looking for jobs in Lima, where Evil will be moving this year. But then I realized that if I'd stayed in the UAE, I probably would have found myself working as a classroom teacher, or an ESL teacher, when the Trunchbull cut RAKESS' art program. Seeing as my current school was more interested in using me as a kindergarten teacher than an art teacher as it was, I think another year outside the art room might have ruined my career prospects. Thus, as hard as the last month has been, I've come to the conclusion that I'm ahead of the game.

Speaking of ESL, I managed my own personal coup at school this week. For the last semester I've been carrying the heaviest class load of any teacher there, and two hours of it have been ESL. This has not sat particularly well with me, and I've tried to make strategic battles against the situation, but a true opportunity to amend the situation didn't come until Wednesday. After our student-led conference day, I was pulled into a meeting with three of our powers that be, and had it explained to me that there was a problem with my schedule. The Chinese teacher who has been taking one of the grades for art was needed to teach more Chinese, due to an influx of second semester students. Their solution was to split his grade and give me two of the classes, give him my fourth graders, and thus fix the problem. They still wanted to keep me in ESL because the kindergarten classes were filling up and they were going to need the help. But there were some other issues brought up by this, and far be it from me not to press them to my advantage. Namely:
1. I knew at least one fourth grade parent was going to have a problem with Dingleberry taking those classes.
2. I didn't particularly want to have to plan units/lessons that he was going to have to teach, because he doesn't actually KNOW how to teach.
3. I was adamant that if I was continuing the ESL, that it would be in-class support only, that it was not fair to me or the kids to make me sacrifice art prep so that I could do a pull-out ESL class, which would take much more time.
Then as we were discussing this, I pointed out the fact that, at the beginning of the year, PE, Music, and myself were all told we would have to teach some ESL, but only I had been made to do so. PYP said, "Oh, I think PE is free during first period...I wonder how full his schedule is..." I had to work hard not to grin, as I knew for a FACT that PE was only teaching 12 hours, and he was about to get busted!

So that took care of my ESL problem. I suggested that if my kindergarteners only had one art class a week, that I would then be able to take ALL of the classes in ALL year groups. This would make one of the kindergarten teachers pretty happy, and create a solution to Dingleberry's obstinance regarding criticism of his art teaching methods. PYP did a little schedule juggling, and yours truly is now teaching each class in every grade once a week. This means a little more planning for me, but on the whole, I'm pretty pleased with myself.

I haven't been very good about my resolution to not eat out this week, either. I had good intentions when I cooked my sweet and sour chicken on Tuesday night, but the following two nights I had dinner dates with a couple of friends. One was a girl Azhaar introduced me to on facebook, who had taken belly dance lessons with her in Seoul. We agreed to meet at the stop where our subway lines meet, which just so happens to be Xujiahui, a pretty major shopping and eating area, and the place of December's MARVELOUS (that's only half sarcastic) staff dinner. So I looked up the Xinjiang restaurant in Lonely Planet, figuring a fellow belly dancer would enjoy the food and the dancing both, and she did...but it didn't actually turn out to be the same restaurant (I think the other place was actually better food, and the dancers did a few more diverse styles, but this place didn't cart the lamb around with its head still attached going, "Baaaa!") She and I were - enthusiastic - audience members, to say the least, a fact which the uyghur staff found pretty amusing. As if being tall and redheaded didn't make me enough of a target. So during the third or fourth song I found myself being led up on stage by the male dancer, and being a bit of an exhibitionist, I found the experience of having a little dance off with a good-looking Chinese Muslim delightful. And the new friend turned out to be pretty cool, too.

Lastly...it has been hard letting Socrates go, but I'm getting better at it. Sunday I spent a while comparing our friendship to my heyday with my Dark Lord and Master, and I realized that - for a number of reasons - this was a piece of cake compared to boarding that final plane out of Korea. I also found myself thinking of his assertion before he left that I would be fine without him. That's something I realized when I was back in Korea, before he'd even lost his job with Soul Sucking International School. What I finally figured out this week was almost poetic:
No matter how much I want him, I don't need him.
No matter how much he needs me, he doesn't want me.
I think that makes me pretty lucky. And if that thought fails to cheer me up, Bohemian Rhapsody sung with vigor during a school sponsored karaoke night ALWAYS does the trick.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Oh. Boy. Where do I even start with this? This is what happens when time picks up.

So about a month ago our Chinese principal tells me I have to make Christmas crafts for the charity bazaar that takes place during the school's pre-holiday extravaganza, and that I have to decorate the stage for the Christmas program. I - calmly and politely - protested that a month wasn't enough time for me. She - calmly and politely - informed me that the old art teacher didn't find this to be a problem so maybe I had been a poor choice for the position. I said that I'd get it all done, but that I didn't appreciate being told things at the last moment.

Yes. One month's warning is the last moment when it involves small children you see once a week making cutesy crafts.

Two weeks later, the coordinator in charge of the dog and pony show...errr...the extravaganza...comes and tells me I'm supposed to head up the parents' committee for decorating the whole school, as well. I - somewhat more forcefully than with the principal - inform her that I had more than enough to be getting on with at the moment. She once again lobbed back, "Well, the OLD art teacher didn't have a problem with it." My friendly neighborhood music teacher was standing by when this conversation took place, and she held me back from throttling said coordinator with the promise of talking to the Western principal about it. I went up to my classroom with steam streaming out my ears, and decided that I'd better have a look at my predecessor's schedule. And what I found was that SHE had been given four hours a week in her timetable dedicated to putting up displays. Yup. So I emailed a copy of this very enlightening document to the Western head and said, "Look, I know Music is talking to you - just so's you know, this was the schedule for last year, and I'll be more than happy to do whatever you want as long as it's not more than fair." And that is how Jo-Jo the Chinese/Art teacher got landed with it. And why the stage looks nice and the school looks like crap. Maybe next year I won't have to teach ESL and the school can look nice, too.

Two weeks later now, the stage is decorated, the crafts are as done as they can be, the art display (the only bit I knew I was responsible for a month ago) is up, my belly dancers have done their bit at the after-school concert (and they were SO good, I was really proud of them), and I've attended the bloody staff dinner.

Oh yes, the staff dinner. Pain. So much pain.

Don't get me wrong. I like my coworkers. Mostly. On the other hand, I don't go looking to spend time with most of them, most of the time. But we were basically told that it wasn't exactly optional, and I ditched the last one, so I cowgirled up and waited the half hour for the bus to come and take us into Xujiahui where we had a reservation at a Xinjiang-style restaurant. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it, but on the other hand, some of them WERE, in fact, the people I DO spend non-paid time with, and Xinjiang is the Muslim quarter of China, and I was curious what the food would be like. So it couldn't be too bad, right?

Yeah, actually, it could. Cause as we're pulling up to the restaurant someone mentions that our secondary campus was there, too - and this place doesn't look that big. We go downstairs and there are a few seats randomly scattered around the room - and the people I was hoping to sit with ended up scattered at different tables, while I was given the choice between sitting with two of my colleagues that I don't dislike but would rather poke out my eyes than make small talk with...or a table of secondary people that I've never met...Oh, no - wait! It turns out I HAD actually met one of them before. I thought at the time he looked familiar but for the life of me I couldn't figure out where I'd met him. Well, when I talked to Socrates, he tells me that his friend mentioned he'd sat next to me (I met this friend all of once, on a night when I was in just about as good a mood).

At any rate, I chose to sit with the people I didn't know. Yeah, awkward, right? My reasoning was that if I sat with my colleagues, I would have to make small talk and pretend to listen while my mind engaged in other business. With the total strangers, I could get out my iPod and read, and hopefully come down out of my temper. Or I could if people would quit trying to convince me to go sit with people I don't care for (which they did....eventually). So I sat down, said hi, and indicated that I would be playing the part of antisocial bitch for the evening, nothing personal.

Dad, if you're reading this one...try not to worry. I've managed to mostly succeed in life, in spite of my abrasive tendencies.

So - by this time it is around 5:45, and having had nothing more for lunch than cookies, I am getting pretty hungry. It was a half-hour before any food finds its way to the table, although there was a liter bottle of coke on the table which I proceeded to empty over the next hour and a half. Finally, the food began to come, and it was actually really good. Well, most of it - I don't eat seafood no matter what cuisine cooks it. And, as I've been told, it has a lot of similarities with Arabic cooking - although I think this was MUCH more flavorful - including the prolific use of lamb. Lamb's not my favorite meat, but I'm down with it...or at least, I am until they cart it out, roasted and whole, up to and including eyeballs and teeth, making a "Baaaaa!" noise. Eurgh! I mean. EURGH! I'm-not-a-child-I-grew-up-on-a-farm-I-know-perfectly-well-where-meat-comes-from-and-I-believe-if-God-hadn't-meant-for-us-to-eat-animals-he-wouldn't-have-made-them-so-delicious-but-I'm-sorry-I-do-NOT-want-to-see-the-face-of-my-murder-tasty-tasty-murder-victim-thank-you-very-much!!!!!!!

>gasp<

Yeah. So. Food good. I also noted, on my way in, that the wall had an image of a woman wrapped up in Isis wings, and the possibility that this restaurant might have a dancer was one of the reasons that I didn't leave when things started looking tedious (also, as I said, I was hungry, and figured if I had to cab home I might as well get something for my money). When the "stage" lighting came on, I found Giancarlo was back in my pocket and I was looking up before I became aware of what I'd just done. Two ladies and a man, all three of whom looked Persian to me (possibly because they were dressed in the costume that I've come to associate with Persian folk dance, although I don't know the style well enough to be sure), came out and started to dance, and I found that I was happy to be there. Even more so when the girls came back separately to "belly dance" for us. They were pretty okay - I've seen excellent dancers...hell, I've LEARNED from excellent dancers...and excellence is great, but the real show-stopper was when one went dancing up to our wee Irish principal, and dragged him out onto the floor. He's a great sport, and a fine comedian; I thought I'd bust a rib when she dropped to the floor and he kinda wobbled his way down to one knee! The next set saw her pulling -

Oh, I don't have a nickname for this guy! I'll call him Bilbo, cause he's about as tall as a hobbit, but isn't cool enough to be Frodo. A guy as short as Bilbo has only two options in how to live his life, and he chose the enlightened path. This guy does yoga and reads books on how to be a better man while cooking gourmet food for his Chinese girlfriend (cliche, he knows, but when you're that short, you have limited options and a Filipina would make him feel cheap and uneducated!) He's just so bloody earnest in all that he does, it's fricking annoying! Anyways, he was standing on the sidelines aching to bust a move when she pulled him out. Enlightened as he may be, he has no CLUE that when a belly dancer takes you out on the floor, the only expectation we have of you is that you bop along idiotically beside her for a couple moments - possibly mimicking some of her moves with nowhere NEAR her grace - before slinking back to your seat as soon as you can manage (embarassed and yet secretly pleased because YOU danced with a belly dancer). Oh no. He actually danced with her - twirling her over and over, or trying, because with her heels she was about four inches taller than him. And after his fifteen seconds of fame were over, he didn't slink back to his seat, but stood on the sidelines, so she pulled him back out, not once, but twice. It was so awkward to watch that it was painful.

Anyways, that was the staff dinner, and now it's over, and tomorrow, so will this week and school, too, at least until January. Shanghai is freezing, finally, I guess. Yesterday just past noon it started snowing. The kids went wild. I even got a little excited, until I realized that if it REALLY got going Socrates might not be the only one spending the holidays in Shanghai. I finally worked up some enthusiasm for the whole "home for the holidays" thing, as my darling Glamwhore will be in town, hopefully so will my niece, and Babysis invited me to go to the movies with her and a friend next Tuesday. Also - deodorant. I ran out last week, and rather than buying whatever I can get my hands on here, I'm just going without until I get back to the states. It really isn't as disgusting as it seems...well, not if you have good hygiene and don't eat too much garlic...

Ramblings

It's never a good sign when you find yourself missing the hagwon (private English academy) business. Hagwon owners are dirty bastards who will sell their own mothers. And yet...there's something comforting about the predictability with which you get screwed over. I had this conversation with my own Dark Lord and Master just a week ago - and now I find myself echoing his sentiments. It's probably not hagwons I miss; it's him, and B, and the comfortable safety of GDA, which, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists. But all the same, on this day which found me catching curveballs before 8 a.m., a very large part of me was wishing I HAD walked to the English academy up the street and got me a job, bidding China a fond "zai jian!"

I don't really have anything important to say tonight, just snippets of memories from the last week. Like the importance of A Well-Placed Word, in this case, "chu-go-llae." I was trying to snag a cab to Bundang on Thursday, and some ahjjusshis (old men) on the other side of the street crossed over to MY side to steal the cab that was slowing down for me. I yelled out in frustration, and they looked at me as if to say, "Oh well, next time," as they climbed in the cab. I then shouted, "Chu-go-llae?" at them, it being the first thing that popped into my head. Now why the Korean words for "Do you want to die?" should spring so readily to my lips boggles the mind, I know, but it did, and whether they actually felt intimidated by a buxom ginger or because they were so amused by a whitey shouting death threats, I don't know, but it did the trick. They got out of the cab and sent it to me.

Then there are Things You Never Knew About People. Specifically, the fact that a former coworker whom I will not name used to do editorial work on erotic fiction (until the technicality of it got tedious and they started getting headaches trying to figure out whose fingers were in which orifice). How cool is that?!?

Also, Conversations You Can't Understand and Wish Would End. Emily asked me if I would go to the sauna with her, knowing how much I loved a nice long soak in a tub with staring ajjummas (old ladies), and I readily agreed (I've said it before, and I'll say it again, nothing says friendship like getting naked in a bathhouse together). We found one across the main drag of their neighborhood, and went there, and enjoyed ourselves immensely, even if it was a little ghetto by Bundang standards. Well, we decided to go for the hot room (after freezing our nipples off in the cold bath), and had settled in when an ajjumma decided to strike up a conversation with us. Except she didn't speak any English, and Emily's Korean makes mine look advanced. So I fumbled through, responding to her "O-di-yo"s with "America," then "Korea and China," then "hagwon and wei-guk-en hakyo (foreign school)," before she started babbling about something that I couldn't figure out, and since she wouldn't shut up Emily and I decided it was time to go back into the bath. Escape is always a good option.

A year back I wrote about how I was strong enough to go back to RAK, in spite of the fact that I was still finding my feet, and that when I began this life five years ago, I don't know if I could. It was Korea, all those years ago, and now I find myself longing for it so much - cross at being here. Being there I felt whole - I'd left my partner-in-crime here, and some friends that I have a feeling I will become quite close to, and yet, I didn't feel their loss like a huge gaping hole in my heart. So who knows - maybe after I finish my contract at my current school I'll be able to get back there.

No more classes, no more books...

No more students' dirty looks.

This is the second time I've really slept in since arriving in Shanghai. No sooner had I straightened out the issue over which I've been waking up early than our 8-day stretch began. Yes, you read that correctly - 8 days. They are making us make up our holidays. After day 5 I was feeling pretty bitter over the whole thing; luckily that was the night I talked to my Dark Lord and Master, and HE reminded me that he regularly works 8-day stretches. I've never done more than 6, even in retail...the whole "Sabbath is a day of rest" thing is a wonderful part of my religion.

Needless to say, I was pretty stoked to be out of there at 2:45 yesterday. On the other hand, that was a bone of contention as well. The GOVERNMENT mandated that the schools should close early the last two days (traffic flow problems with people leaving for National Day). Mine ignored the issue on Wednesday. I'm not sure how they can get away with that, but obviously, they have.

I guess this is the first time that I've written much about the school. I'm so much more motivated this year, and the fact that I have most of the year groups and that we don't even teach the youngest three ages we had in RAK makes my life much more interesting. But on the other hand, I definitely have some issues. They've been renovating the gym and pool, and done a beautiful job, but it wasn't finished until a week ago, so I had to teach in a temporary classroom, with all the hassles that come with it (including getting out of it on fairly short notice). Not to even mention the fact that when I finally got into my art room it was in such a mess that I am STILL trying to get it into a reasonable semblance of order. Maddi Austin, I hope you rot in art teacher hell for what you left me with. You think I'm being harsh? When I got into that room, all the tables were pushed in the middle and stacked on top of each other, the other furniture was pushed up to the pile, all the supplies were thrown willy-nilly into tubs with very little rhyme or reason, and the waste - OH THE WASTE! On top of that, there were no new supplies ordered for me - I've had* to clean up her shit and make it work. So yes, I wish her classes of 30 students in which they do only papier mache for the rest. Of. Her. Life.

Then there's the ESL issue. In our first specialists meeting, our PYP coordinator dropped the bomb that we foreign specialists were to be the ESL team's backup - they are a teacher short, and we have the free periods in our timetables. Their leader told me that I would probably only be teaching one ESL lesson a week, and I was fine with it. A week later ESL and PYP came to me and told me I'd be taking the kindergarten four times a week for ESL, and I was still kinda okay with that. I actually started testing them to see who needed the help, and found it to be a calming experience. But testing requires a lot less time and energy than teaching, and when I heard that class was going to be split, I could have shat rainbows. See, the kindergarten gets art twice a week, so my timetable was going to be way too full for me to take them for ESL. And during this neverending bloody week, as I've been finishing up units and really hitting my stride in my art lessons, I was super glad that I wouldn't have to plan and write ESL lesson plans, and assess them, and write feckin' report cards. I would have SO much more time to concentrate on being a really GOOD art teacher.

Hold that thought for a minute.

Now, while you're on hold, let me tell you about the Chinese/art teacher. We have one, and he has been sharing year groups with the art coordinator. This year he has 2 of our year 3 classes, and I have the other, which means he should be doing the planning; however, since he began at the school he has been coddled and coached and never actually made to stand on his own two feet. When I asked him to collaborate with me on this grade at the beginning of the year, he told me Maddi had planned the lessons and he taught them...and since I would rather have someone teach my lessons than have to teach theirs, I went along. Until the day he came to me and told me he was going to do something different in his next week's classes. At that point, I went to the PYP coordinator and asked her exactly how she wanted things done; if I was going to bully him, I wanted to be sanctioned in doing so. Instead I was told that he needed to collaborate with me, but the planning and paperwork and ordering were his responsibility. Which was fine with me. But early last week, as I was starting to plan my next units, I said, "Gary, you need to start planning what you want to do with grade three." Late last week (ie, early in the 8-day stretch) I emailed him the unit overview we do for the year groups, with an email explaining what is was and when they needed it. Midstream in this ongoing hell, I went to him again, asking what he was going to do. He asked me if I had any ideas. Rather than telling him, "Yes, Gary but they are MINE!" I referred him to the year group leader, who spoke of wanting some art integration with their unit on mapping. An email from the group leader, another talk with PYP, a unit overview and lesson plan written IN CHINESE, working with me AND Music (who is our specialist coordinator), and PYP decides to upend the entire timetable. Here is what she did:
Give Gary the whole of grade 2.
Give me all of year 3 and the 2 new hours of kindergarten.

Shall we do the math? Story problems are GREAT for teaching English!
Ms. Becky teaches 18 hours. She loses 4 classes to her idiot coworker. Then she gains 2 classes from her idiot coworker. Finally, kindergarten is split and gives her 2 new classes. How many classes does she have now?

Think about it....did you come up with the same number you started with? So did I, and the fact that the email PYP sent out listed "accommodating more students in the ESL program" as the reason for the change makes me PRETTY sure that even though ESL isn't on my official timetable that I'm about to get screwed over, and NOW I'm pissed, because I have WAY more hours than the other specialists as it is, and after eight days of teaching in a row my tolerance has snapped.

In the words of my immortal Dark Lord and Master...."WOO-SAAAAAAAAAAAAA...." So the moral of the story is, this vacation is well-deserved and even if I were staying here for the holiday, I would be happy just not to have to do anything with the school. As it is, I'm blowing out to Korea, to party with my nearest and dearest and eat dalkgalbi and just have an overall kickass time.


*"had" is probably too strong a word, but because I am a conscientious person I would never just scrap things and start over. Also because I believe that art teachers who waste supplies and order things they don't need give administrators just cause to believe that cutting art would be a great way to fix the budget.

Soul....dancing.

So after a grueling day of teaching, I made my first trip into town to check out a belly dance class at Souldancing. I had mixed hopes. On one hand, I'd seen a Chinese dancer at Shanghai's 1001 Nights (the first time I saw a restaurant dancer was also in China, at the Beijing branch of the same restaurant), and she had pretty good technique, even if her musical selection was somewhat uninspired. Also, one of our teachers took classes there last year and said they were good. I had reason to believe she was right - Souldancing actually equipped one of their studios with poles just so they could teach pole dancing, and you don't have the kind of capital to invest in that sort of venture if you're amateur hour. But on the other hand...well, let's just say that learning from Azhaar for most of the time I was in Korea has spoiled me. I know there are better teachers than her, or more experienced, blah blah blah, but she has a sense of humor and is caring (how often did our lessons stretch on long past two hours as we bitched about our own problems to each other?!), not to mention has a vast knowledge of the dance, technical skill, and makes up the most beautiful, evocative choreographies...even if she can't remember them.

So yes, mixed hopes...but as I said in my last post, I am disturbingly out of shape, and I still love this art form, so I pinned my heart on my sleeve and slogged into the heart of the Emerald City, to West Nanjing Rd, and down a side street crowded with shops selling everything from clothing to Tibetan artifacts and everything in between, in my yoga pants (still splattered with Saturday night's strawberry shake, dropped as I was unlocking my bike) and Gap tee. Sweating and bloody hot, I went in and paid my money, filled out the form, got rid of my shoes, and started stretching. Luckily I had plenty of time to do this, because when QiQi came in she laid into us almost immediately. She drilled us in shimmies, hip lifts, shimmies, chest drops, choo-choo shimmies, 3/4 shimmies, and arms. To be fair, she warmed us up a little, but she transitioned fairly quickly into kicking our asses. Also to be fair, this was an advanced class, "Performance," which hopefully (thanks to my years with Azhaar) I didn't embarrass myself too badly in, out of shape or not. After brutalizing us for half an hour, QiQi moved into a choreography. I don't know how to describe the music - it was slow and sensual and had an unmetered feel to it, but was neither modern/fusion nor classical (unless I'm mistaken). And the combinations she put together for it were absolutely suited to the feel of the piece, and not simple ones, either.

In short, I was impressed. I can't wait to see what the other teachers have to offer.

Afterwards I walked back up to the metro, and the lights on Yan'an road were lit, painting me blue, and the trees on Nanjing Rd were lit, giving the place a festive quality...I wanted to go for a wander, but I was slaughtered, so I just stopped long enough to eat at subway and then headed for home. Today I noticed body aches in all sorts of places, and it brought back all the happy feelings of the night before.

Wow. That sounds dodgy. I mean that in a strictly belly dance sorta way.

Today I learned something about my school. Apparently we are a great experiment. We are a Chinese international school. By that, I mean that we are a Chinese school that offers international curriculum to Chinese students. Most international schools here have strict laws laid onto them about who can attend...essentially foreign passport holders (there are similar laws in Korea; I don't know about the Chinese, but if my Dark Lord's word can be trusted for anything, most Korean parents wouldn't want their kid going to an international school in Korea because it's not hardcore enough). This came up this weekend during the trip to Anting, when I said our majority was Chinese, and I was told they were probably Taiwanese instead. No, Virginia, they are, in fact, Chinese students. There's some sort of loophole. And we are, definitely, a Chinese school...remind me later and I'll tell you about the flag raising ceremony.

Typhoon Day?

Very similar to a snow day, except with rain. We were supposed to start teaching today. Instead, we got a typhoon warning, so the kiddos didn't come to school and the teachers only worked a half day. It was nice to have some more time for planning, and I had a very nice nap (until I was rudely awakened by our downstairs neighbor)...but part of me just. wants. to. get. on. with. it.

The downstairs neighbor didn't speak English (didn't speak Korean, either, although that probably wouldn't have helped much). I made my first call to the Foreigner's Help Line of the day to tell me what it was she wanted. Apparently, the leak from my toilet and accompanying clogged drain that I haven't bothered to complain about has extended itself through her ceiling. Hmm. Not good. So I decided it was time to find the management office and have it taken care of. So call number two happened when I found myself in the security office (although I didn't know it at the time...they had to translate that for me, as well). Call Three, in the actual management office, explained my issue and got Mr. Fix-It following me back to my place. Call Four was the last one of the day, in which the guy explained - through the interpreter - that I needed to pay him 40 kuai for the part he installed (and since I had to pay for it, I kind of want to take it with me when I move out) and that he would have to return tomorrow to unclog the drain in the floor, since apparently they are off at 5 and he couldn't get to the tools he needed. There should have been a fifth call, in which they explained to him that I had either 30 kuai or 100 kuai, but I'd already hung up and was too embarrassed to call them yet again. I don't know how I would have gotten by without the service though...actually in the last five years of living abroad, I haven't needed it, since I was living in school housing and they always took care of whatever needed to be done. Oh well. More incentive to kick ass during the next two years so that I can work at a GOOD school next time around.

Market Places

I found my new happy place, and it's just up the street. The year 3 group leader told me about the flower market off Jinhui Lu (just up the street) last week, and after a couple of failed attempts I finally made it tonight. It's at the side of one of the canals, down a picturesque little walk that is deceptive if you don't know what you're looking for. Fortunately, I DID know what I was looking for.

For more than a week now I've been mourning the fact that if Shanghai has the equivalent of Seoul's Express Bus Terminal, I haven't heard about it. Well, now I don't miss it nearly as much. The flower market is pretty big, and has lots of everything...plants, of both the potted and cut variety, ceramics, pillows, handicrafts, and animals - for pets, not to eat. I was looking forward to the animals, because I wanted to get some goldfish (actually, I didn't get them tonight because I bought a huge bowl to put them in after buying a pot of jasmine, and there was just no more room in my bike basket...hell, there wasn't enough room for the two things I'd already bought), but at least a few of the stalls had other animals. One of them even had THE quintessential Asian pet...crickets! Yes, you heard me right, crickets...some of them in woven grass cages, others in the more fancy cricket cages. And they were chirping for all they were worth! And these were big fat crickets, not the little guys we are used to seeing in America. Kinda crazy.

So what is the point of all this shopping? I have, for the first time in my life, a window seat. It's posh. I want to dress it up. I bought some candles when we went to Ikea last Sunday, and am going to go back for some pillows. How cool will it be to have a cozy nook to cuddle up in and watch the snow when winter hits?

The other market I've been missing from Seoul is, of course, Dongdaemun's fabric market. Not for the fabric (however great) but for the beads and findings on the fifth floor. Well, I don't think Hongqiao Pearl City will ever replace Dongdaemun in my heart (not least because I haven't been there with Azhaar and Jill), but it DID have some pretty cool beads, a string of which I snatched up to go on the new belly dance cossie I'm working on. I need to do a more thorough investigation of it one of these days, but at least I'm starting to figure out where I can get the things I'm going to use. Starting to feel a little more competent in Shanghai. And - I've got to admit it's still strange, because I've never been much of one for lots of different groups of friends, but rather than a few very close ones - but I've got all these friends from all these different schools, and I've gotta say, I'm really grateful for them.

One more day til school officially starts. I'm SO not ready.