Now, I know this is probably the absolute worst time to write a new blog. It's Christmas day here in China and it's Christmas Eve back home. All of you are probably busy wrapping up last minute presents or doing something with your families-as much as I would like to think you are all sitting around waiting for my blog updates, I know that isn't very likely. Still, I thought I would post some of the highlights that occurred during the two weeks I gave finals. So here we go:
1. I was told during a presentation about traveling that Seoul is the capital city of North Korea-perhaps if things continue to escalate on the Korean Peninsula this would come true in a decade.
2. Three students showed up 15 minutes late to their allotted time slot for their final-their time slot only lasted 25 minutes.
3. During another presentation on travel I had a group discuss the various regions of France where wine is produced and then how to properly drink each type of wine.
4. One student completely plagiarized a final project on Jimi Hendrix's If 6 Was 9. As if when we she started talking about "acid infused blues," the counter culture, and how this song is the epitome of "the 1960s individualist anthem," that I wouldn't know she copied that information from Wikipedia.
5. In the two weeks leading up to the final in my sophomore Oral English class I had 10 students who had never shown up to a single day of class before come up to me and ask how they can receive a passing grade. I told them that being in class probably would have helped.
6. While grading my listening final, I thought I reached a low point when one student received a 32/100. However, that was followed up by a student who received a 24/100-these two students also showed to one class before we took the final.
7. And last but not least, during a conversational portion of a final on current events, one student promptly looked over at me and said "Why did the Nobel Peace Prize Committee show up China?" I quickly handled that question like a politician during a debate, where I just started talking about another issue to divert the attention of the entire group. I believe it worked.
Overall, my students did very well on their finals for the most part and with the exception of a few students all will pass and improved their English as the semester went on. To my surprise we actually have a white Christmas here in Wuhan. It has been snowing for the last two days and yet there is barely enough snow to cover the ground. Still snow on Christmas is pretty nice. I also had my first experience of shopping on Christmas Eve/Christmas here in China. My students had been warning me since Thanksgiving when we discussed Black Friday, to avoid the mall at all costs on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, because as one student put it, you have to fight to move around. I did not believe my students at all. So against their advisement I went shopping on Christmas Eve. I went very early in the morning and beat all of the crowds. The reason why everyone goes shopping on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is because everything in the mall is on sale, and I don't mean 10-20% off. We are talking 50% at the lowest. From what I gathered is that, as Christmas Eve progresses the discounts increase and then at midnight on Christmas Eve the sales really swing into full of effect.
To give you an idea of the amount of traffic out last night, you need to know that from my apartment to the mall it is about 2 miles, or a ten minute cab ride depending on traffic. Last night around 10PM some friends and I got into a cab to head to Wuhan Prison, which you have to drive past the mall to get to. Traffic was so bad last night that it took us 15 minutes to find a taxi-and some taxis wouldn't even take us the way we need to go because of traffic-, and about 20 minutes to get halfway to the mall. In fact, the road we needed to travel down to get to Prison was shut down to avoid increased flows of traffic. Traffic in China is chaos-buses constantly make left hand turns from the right lane of traffic, cabs will drive in between two cars while occupying the middle of two lanes, etc-enough already without the entire city of Wuhan going shopping, but last night was mayhem. We had to walk the next mile and a half or so to the bar and the entire time we just kept seeing waves and hordes of people coming from the mall or going to the mall. I thought that if I could go shopping on Black Friday and work at one of the busiest malls in the suburbs during Black Friday that I could handle shopping with the Chinese on Christmas Eve. After seeing the crowds of people, no way-In reality I used a four letter to describe my feelings but it doesn't really seem appropriate to write that in a Christmas type blog.
Anyways, the foreign teachers and I are having a big Christmas dinner together tonight and we will all celebrate together. It is nice to be done with finals and to be more or less done with my first semester of teaching. Less then three weeks before I take off for Southeast Asia and get out of Wuhanese weather. I cannot wait for the upper 80s and low 90s of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand.
Merry Christmas to everyone back home. I wish I could be there with all of you, but we will just have to wait till next year. I hope Santa was good to all of you.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
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