A gaggle of boxes?

Boxes and bags filled the trunk and back seat of my driver's car yesterday as the hot sun covered the seaside locale of Daheishi. The Grade 9 graduation was yesterday, and after clearing out the remaining stuff from my apartment, I said goodbye to some of my kids and the good friends I've made this year, and started humming the tune of Whitesnake's, "Here I Go Again" as the door closed and we hopped on the highway towards Kaifaqu.

The week's been filled with a bunch of different emotions. Leaving the kids is never fun, but I have the good fortune to be moving to the same high school that most of them will attend. And the same goes for my friends who have been teaching with me all year. I won't miss my apartment and although Daheishi was beautiful, I don't think I'll miss it that much. Maybe the quiet... I'll probably miss the peaceful, silent, seaside nights when the local army decided to not do any loud, live ammunition exercises over the hill. I'll miss the highway runs through cherry orchards and looking over the BoHai Sea as the sun sets over what would be Beijing across the water. But I'm in a new, nicer place near some friends, I'm on my way to the mountains, and in 12 days I'll be back home. Sooo... it's difficult to harbour any negative feelings with so much awesome coming up!

Okay... off for my daily caffeine dose. Hope the 3 of you that still stop by and read this are doing well, and hope to see all of you Canucks when I get back to the NW Hemisphere! Much love from the Far East...

T

Laziness

It's been a couple of weeks since I've done any fun and random updates. But the countdown to Canada has been filled with busy days and mental distractions, hot and sunny days and dreams in Chinese. The end of the school year always seems to make me mentally braindead, so it's no surprise that I haven't had any ambition for writing lately.

I'm officially done teaching, marking exams and have submitted my year-end grades. I have my mitts wrapped around a monstrous cup of java at the Canadian Embassy (also known as Starbucks), since I've packed up my coffee pot and it now lives in my new apartment in Kaifaqu (yes, folks, I've found an apartment for next year and will finally make it back to civilization). The only things remaining in my place in Daheishi are some pots, my clothes and a random assortment of apartment odds'n'ends that never seem to fit into any boxes. I met with my new landlord, got things sorted out for my return in August, and now the only thing that remains is the Grade 9 graduation tomorrow, a bit more cleaning, and a whole bunch of excitement before I fly to southern China on Monday to conquer some mountains and see, from what I'm told, the most beautiful area of China. I think this year's birthday will take place somewhere on the edge of a cliff. Can't complain one bit.

I found out a few months ago that a bunch of kids from our school are going to be travelling to Victoria at the same time as I am for a 2 week English "camp", and my friend Flora (one of our Chinese ESL teachers) will be one of the chaperones. Every time we talk about it, I get more and more excited about the prospect of moving home, so that's definitely buoyed my spirits in the misery of exam grading and year end chaos. On Thursday, Alice (our ESL secretary) came to me and asked me if I knew a Grade 7 student named Mike. I said I did, and she told me a funny story. Apparently, Mike came to her office and asked for "Mrak's address in Canada". Alice explained that she didn't have one for me, and asked why he needed it. He explained: "I'm going to Canada for the ML Summer Camp. And I want to live with Mrak when I'm in Canada. Can you find out his address? Mrak and I will have a great summer!" Awesome. He's a great kid and loves to follow me around whenever I visit the first floor where the Grade 7 offices are. I don't know if I have any room in my non-existent house though. Sorry, Mike.

I've also had some strange sleep-related things happening lately. The other morning, I woke up and felt a strange sense of confusion. At first, I couldn't figure out why. But maybe an hour later, I figured it out... I had a dream that was completely in Chinese. Now, before you start to be impressed, I don't know if it was actually Chinese. It was probably just random jibberish mixed with my broken idioms and phrases. I don't remember what was said or who was involved. But someone was speaking to me and I was speaking back. In Mandarin. Weird.

Also, I had another dream this past week and woke up with a start. A loud "bang" in my dream startled me and woke me. I shrugged it off and went back to bed. The next morning I woke up and there was glass all over my living room floor. Apparently, 2am is a great time for a piece of your living room ceiling's light fixtures to give up and dive into the dark abyss of the hardwood below. I'm kinda glad I wasn't up to be impaled by my shoddy apartment fixtures.

The first installment of this Chinese adventure is quickly coming to a close. In all my uncertainty in the fall, I know I definitely made the right decision to pack up my life and move across the ocean. I've grown a lot and the time on my own has been pretty therapeutic. More adventures await, though, so I still have a million things to look forward to. Hopefully some more fun stuff to add soon...

T

Dragon Boat Luck?

An addendum to the post from earlier today...

I just finished a hot, sweaty 6k run up the highway near the school. Just as I arrived at my apartment, my friend Jasmine (one of our Chinese ESL teachers) was outside with her husband and son (who's the cutest dude on campus, and about 1.5 years old). Just as I'm saying hi, she starts digging into her bag and comes out with 2 carefully tied Zongzi... the traditional and lucky food of China's Dragon Boat Festival, which is taking place right now. Zongzi is a steamed, sweet glutinous rice which is molded into a triangle shape and wrapped and tied up in banana leaves and steamed or roasted. Typically it has sweet dates inside and is given out at this time of year to friends and family. Many people dip the pyramid of sticky rice in sugar and eat as a snack or dessert. I would've never guessed it, but what an awesome post-run snack! (My mom is probably saying "Good for you Trev... yuck!"... she's not so fond of the sticky rice I love so much.)

The Chinese words for Zong-zi sound very similar to words relating to another good luck phrase, so the traditional association has been made (I'm trying to figure out what the other words are... for some reason "chicken" is in my head, but I'll get back to you).

The hot sun is shining down, the legs feel decent, and I've got a belly full of good luck. 10 days until Yunnan, one more day of teaching, and Slovenia plays the US tomorrow night. Go Slovenia!!!

T

Ticking clocks...

The clocks in my classrooms are slowly ticking off the minutes as summer holidays approach. There always seems to be a million things piled into the final days of the year at school... grades, comments, exams, extra help, saying goodbye, packing boxes, anticipating holidays, anticipating September and a million other details. The end of the year is all about taking care of details.

The final days have the kids have been intentionally low-key. The consensus is that we've done what we can, we're offering help to those who want it in the extra blocks, but it's likely too late to cram anything new or profound into their overly-taxed brains. And I'm okay with this assessment... my own mental status would read: "Checked out" if I could hook up an announcement board to it.

I'm excited but stressed about my upcoming trip to Yunnan, just because I may have to do it sans-passport (mine will possibly stay in Dalian as the process my residency paperwork). And my timeline for moving my things from my apartment and re-acquiring my passport before I need to go back to Dalian is pretty tight, as I fly in on Thursday the 8th and leave on the afternoon of the 10th. You gotta love timezone changes, though... I leave at about 1pm China time, and even after flying to Tokyo before Vancouver, I still arrive in Vancouver 3 hours earlier on the same day that I left.

This hasn't been the most exciting entry, but my creative brain isn't exactly in overdrive right now. I'm distracted by my schedule and my mess of a desk, and maybe also by my efforts to watch the rest of a season of Dexter while tuning into all the World Cup games possible.

As my new, official sign-off while the World Cup is on... GO SLOVENIA!

T

So, I was told that I might be homesick

One of my friends/colleagues here at my school recently told me that she'll be acting as one of the supervisors for a two-week student trip to Canada for a number of the kids here at my school. They're spending their time in Victoria and, being head-over-heels, dancing-in-the-rain in LOVE with this city, my excitement may have leaked out a bit. I may have rambled and started asking a million questions and began to recite all my favourite sites and smells and hangouts. I thought I had it under control, but with exactly 29 days left before coming home, I guess I'm not holding it together quite as well I thought.

The last few weeks have been quite hectic but filled with fun stuff. After my trip to Beijing, I spent another weekend in Kaifaqu before heading to Qingdao this past weekend for the bachelor party of two of the guys from the high school. I won't go into too much detail (in my attempt to respect the tradition of keeping tight-lipped about the shenanigans that take place during such events), but suffice it to say that we had a blast and the weekend involved a brewery tour, some beach time (including some titan-esque wrestling), lots of BBQ and a trip to a zoo that cost $1. I have some good memories, some ridiculous pictures (possibly to be used for bribery down the road), and some bruises that will help me recall the good times had.

Now, the final weeks are here. All week I've been grading oral exams for the students' potential entrance into the high school, and after I finish today, I'll have one final week of classes to cram all my enlightening knowledge into the reluctant brains of these kids before they write their final exams on Monday. Then, I'll have a couple of frontal-lobe-throbbing days full of essay marking to do before I am granted my freedom for summer vacation. I may be a touch excited. Just a touch.

The only bad news I've heard about recently is that I'll be missing out on the high school staff's year end party, as I'll be on a plane to Kunming to begin my 10 days of sightseeing and hiking before I fly back to Victoria on the 10th. It's mostly disappointing because many of the people attending are people who I won't see next year, as they'll be off to various places around the world. But, my adventures call, so I'll have to satisfy myself with the fact that I'll be doing adventurous things in one of the most beautiful parts of this country.

On a completely separate note, Slovenia has made it into the World Cup this year for the second time in their short history, and I have to say that I'm getting a bit of the World Cup fever. Go Slovenia!

T

Moments

Lately the kids have been, well, let's say "sluggish". This is about the most polite term I can think of for what's been the typical mental state in my classrooms lately. The kids are mentally  checking out prematurely, and they continue to be buried under the constant stress of examinations, homework assignments, long study hours and continual demands for perfection by teachers.

As a way of battling back against this and in an attempt to get rid of my own late-year frustration, stress and workload, I decided to teach the kids a new word: "reprieve".

I checked homework but didn't worry so much about marks or completion. I gave each class an opportunity to do the work they'd missed and catch up on remaining assignments. For those kids who were diligent and had completed all assignments, I put on some music. I simply asked them to write whatever they were feeling in response to the songs I played. I played two: I played one quiet, slightly intense but emotion-inspiring Dave Matthews song (I'm sure you're all surprised at this choice if you know my music listening habits), and one song by Sarah Bareilles. Both shared lyrics about heartbreak, but the styles were completely different. And I didn't let the kids know the content... I was interested in a more emotive response that just tapped into their thoughts/feelings/memories sparked by the songs.

It's activities like these that give me by FAR the most diversity in writing and in connection to the kids. Sometimes it makes them nervous or uncertain, thinking that I'm looking for a single answer to the prompt. Others use it as a way of venting their frustrations. Others just let the music fill them up and let the pen do the talking and they write something bordering on inspirational. And some are just funny. As long as they wrote something, I was happy. Others made me smile a bit more than others, so I thought I'd share a couple of good lines from their work...

"This song is like vanilla, and the memory takes me to my childhood."

"If you have ever picked the wing off a butterfly, you will know how I feel."

"The man is remembering his memories. They are beautiful, pure, unforgettable."

"I think the song is like a sapphire."

"My friends and family pass one by one in my eyes. The afternoon sun shines on the wild scene and makes a huge shadow on my heart."

"I hate the first song. It makes me feel restless and ill-tempered without any reason."

"It's like being at a small pub with dim light."

"It was as if a person was lost in an empty street which was filled with darkness."

"It's like drinking cola."

"Long, long ago, there was a dog. He was a free dog..." (story proceeds for 2 pages about a dog.)

"I am tired from homework. My engine might be broken."

"The boys are so naughty!!! They don't finish their homework, just play, play, play!! Oh! I don't like them! But it doesn't mean I hate them..." (from one of my class assistants).

Hope you enjoyed them...

T