English Competition & Dead Animals

Last week was, over all, an average week. Classes went pretty well, I think. I mentioned that we were doing disabilities in class, and I expected some hilarious sentences. I did get some good examples of disablities like "can't smile" and "doesn't have hair," which were hilarious, but on the whole the students did a really good job. For part of the lesson we talked about famous people that had disabilities, and they knew a lot of famous Westerners like Beethoven, Stephen Hawking, Helen Keller, etc. that had disabilities. I think that overall they did a good job. In the key classes, which have the best students, we talked a little about Milton's "Sonnet XIX" on blindness and about his disability. Oh, in the other classes I did a poem by Shel Silverstein about confusing an anteater with an aunt-eater, but no one got it, so I think they might not have enjoyed it as much as I did.

Another important update - I mentioned the mouse in our apartment. Well, he did disappear after we put out the poison (although he ate four out of the five piles of poison, so either it was incredibly delicious or incredibly slow-acting.) I thought that maybe our problems with him were over. However, this morning I woke up to find our kitchen flooded- at least an inch of water over all the floor. Fortunately it's set down a little bit from the hallway, so the water stayed in the kitchen, but it still wasn't a great sight. I got as much of the water mopped up as I could, and then I checked the drain. Now, we knew the drain wasn't working very well (the sink has a little hose that goes into a hole in the floor, so we could see the "pipes.") I pulled out the rubber hose and checked it, and it was working fine, so I figured that our drain was clogged further in and that the other apartments all used the same main drain, so our kitchen was flooding. I don't even know if that makes sense, but it sounded good to me. I thought I'd poke around down there with a wire hanger and see if I could dislodge whatever was blocking the drain (I assumed it was food, since there's no such thing as a garbage disposal.)

After a minute of pushing and pulling with the hanger, I pulled out a dark clump of (what I thought was) moldy food. I pushed it to one side and continued to poke around, but I couldn't find anything else. Then I noticed that the mold had a tail. Yes, yes, it was the mouse. Disgusting, of course. I picked it up using a plastic glove as a bag and put it in a trash bag, which we need to take up to the school dumpster today. As Charlie says on "It's Always Sunny," cleaning out the rat traps "takes an emotional toll." Regardless, I'm glad to know it's dead, and I hope it didn't have time to reproduce before it died. The drain is, unfortunately, still clogged, so David said he'd send the repairman over today.

On another note, yesterday was the English competition. Overall, I think it was good, although it wasn't the best experience of my time in China. We sat outside on the "playground," a.k.a. the huge dirt plaza in the middle of the school, under the burning hot sun. Jane, the vice-principal, lent us her umbrella for some shade, which was nice, and the school did provide bottled water, but still it was unpleasantly hot. Anyway, I ended up having a good time. The students had to give a prepared introduction and a recitation and then talk impromptu about another topic. They all did surprisingly well (especially my students, I'd like to add. It did help, of course, that my students were the oldest ones and have had the most time to learn English.) Some of the highlights were: a Senior 1 student (Josh's grade) came out screaming "We will rock you"; a student saying that many people were afraid of sharks after seeing the movie "Jews" (at least, that's how he pronounced it); a student holding up a piece of candy and saying how "sweet and friendly" it looked; numerous students beginning their speech by saying how they were "confidence" about giving their speech; and last, a student, on being asked to describe her English teacher, said he was "short, fat, and very clever."

Afterwards we were treated to dinner in the school cafeteria with some of the other English teachers, and it was actually pretty nice. The food wasn't that great, but it was ok, and some people actually spoke English to us, so it was an improvement. When we had finished eating, we were told that we could "go have a rest," because they wanted to stay and drink and "talk in Chinese, which you don't understand." It might have been the most interesting way that I've ever been asked to leave a dinner (I don't think I've ever been asked to leave before, but maybe I've just forgotten.)

Today we were supposed to go visit some caves nearby which have an underground lake that you can go across. Unfortunately (not really) it was raining today, so we'll stay home--although we will have to go out to eat, since we have a kitchen that is flooded and has decomposing mouse bits all over. We do, apparently, have a holiday this week. We may end up going to Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province. I'm not sure if we will - it's a 7-hour bus ride, and we don't really know anything about it, but it might be worth it just to get out of the house. Plus it has a Wal-Mart, so, way to go Sam Walton.

All right, I believe that's all for today. Oh, I almost forgot my other story. Twice this week I've been surprised to find animal heads where I least expected them. First, I was at the supermarket buying pork, and it's just all spread out on a metal slab and you just pick up the chunk that you want and have them weigh it. Well, I reached out, grabbed one, and realized that there was a whole pile of skinned pigs' heads looking up at me (eyes and teeth included.) That was pretty gross, but then yesterday at dinner I was helping myself to the mushroom and duck soup when I came across a big bone. Turns out it was the bill of the duck, with the whole head still attached. Also very gross.

Ok, enough. I'll tell you what we end up doing with our holidays. Oh, and I found out I have exams next week, so that means an extra day or two off. Not for Josh, unfortunately.

Take care.