The midterm

So I interviewed about fifteen of my first year students this afternoon (I'm thinking it must've been around 15) in an hour and a half. I spent about 5 minutes with each. I learned a lot. There's a girl that told me her university life isn't at all what she expected - she's a loner. Another told me about her blind grandfather who loved her so much he lied to her. Another talked about the discipline tai kwan do has brought to his life. It was all good. Apparently they all wanted to talk with me because they thought I would be the nicest. Maybe I was the nicest but I definitely didn't give them the greatest grades. I failed two of them (one of them didn't speak at all; she doesn't often come to class either) and the highest grade I gave was 85%, and that was to one of my best students (he's good in class, but during this exam I thought he didn't do so well; I guess he was nervous).

It was an interesting experience.

I went to English corner. There were six students and two of them didn't speak... I refused to speak longer than 30 seconds and the four students who did talk did a good job of speaking, I thought. The topic was the generation gap and differences between children and parents. We also talked about divorce and the effects on the child. One of the students' parents had divorced when he was young and he thought he was better off for it.

This evening we went for drinks at a local American-style restaurant. There was Bob, Pascal and Melodie (the two Chinese students learning French who are in the picture with the lingerie-clad woman poster restaurant), Tom (British dude teaching English), Matt (if you put Tom & Matt together you've got "tomato" in French), Jean-Baptiste and the whole French crew minus Guillaume (he was probably out with a Chinese girl), and a Chinese friend of Matt's called Carl (he speaks English very well but he's in the German department). So 11 of us in total. It's boring for you because you don't know these people, but to me, they're like my second family, seriously, and they're what keep me going at this point. I love going out like this in the evenings and getting together with people who enjoy my company as much as I enjoy theirs. It's lovely and reassuring.

Anyway, tomorrow I leave for Chengde. My alarm is set for 5 AM. Yikes. It's now nearing midnight...:P Oh well. I'll sleep in the train. I won't write for the next couple of days, that's for sure, so have a great week-end and see you all on Monday (if not Sunday).