Sorry I didn't get an e-mail off yesterday, I didn't really have a whole lot to say, so I figured I'd just send out a longer one today. Teaching is going better than I thought it would, although I'm unable to teach in the way that I would like to. The kids all love me, which is pretty neat, although I'm not sure if they're understanding anything I'm teaching them, or if they just have lines they use in situations. For example, I asked one of my students if he felt comfortable writing short stories, and he responded with "The American dream", which threw me for a complete loop. One of the kids in my class looks like a young, Chinese Pee-Wee Herman, and I have problems not laughing when he talks in a distinctly feminine voice. Pretty good student though. We had a fashion show as a camp, and my class asked me to be a model, and I agreed. They asked me if I would wear a dress, and I thought "why not?". Next thing I know, I'm wearing a flowing wedding dress made of newspaper. I think it scored me points in everyone's book, but I'm not really sure.
The guy from this school who is our primary contact, Don, is an interesting fellow. We played The Price is Right on the first day, and everyone had a great time, and he followed it up with a long, angry lecture about only speaking English in camp and just generally chewing out the students. It was a huge buzzkill. He's also a great example of the subtle graft that permeates life here. He placed his kid in the best class in the camp the day after we opened, despite the fact that his kid is about four years younger than the rest of the class, and significantly less proficient than everyone else. He routinely tries to cheat at the activities to get his kid to win, among other little things. He can bat pretty well for a pudgy middle-aged man, though.
That brings me to the title. As you know, I bought a bat and some tennis balls when we got here, and we've been having a blast with it. We've been out every night hitting tennis balls around the soccer field, and let me tell you, it feels really good to go out and get some regular exercise and run around. If I had shoes other than my Chucks, I'd probably start running again. I taught all of my classes baseball today, and they all love it. Everyone oohs when someone hits a pop fly, and some of them are actually pretty good hitters. The rest are awful. Most of them have these weird downward hack swings that I can't really figure out how to fix. I'd just let them be, but Miles's class and mine are playing a game against each other tomorrow, and I'm gonna be subtly competitive about it.
We're killing time here pretty well, too. We went to KFC two days ago. It's much spicier than home, which is actually really nice. Last night was Ben and Danny's 6 moth anniversary of being in China, so we went out and got beer and a $4 bottle of Brandy and watched Dr. Strangelove, which made us all feel like we were getting away with something. We have two more days of teaching before a day off, and I have enough lessons ready for the rest of the camp, so I'm in great shape. The other camp in Jangxi is not. Apparently it's deathly hot, and they're with a bunch of kids from Oxford. This wouldn't be a bad thing if the people from Oxford weren't A)Huge pricks, and B) on a secret mission trip. They're butting heads, and the kids aren't cooperating with the activities, so they're all in their own special kind of hell. I'm so very happy I'm not there. I'm going to do laundry tonight. My kingdom for a washer/dryer combo!
-Cooper
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