Plagiarism Part Two: Electric Boogaloo

And here it is, folks, the thrilling conclusion of the plagiarism saga, which turns out to have 66% less anger, and 50% less disappointment than I had anticipated it to. However, before I get to that, I have to give a general update on the goings on of the camp here in Qufu. For one, we have suffered our first medical casualty since the butt incident in Quzhou. Abbie was feeling a bit under the weather yesterday, and spent the day sleeping in the warmest room possible; a sure sign of a fever. They took her to the hospital, and I'm not sure what they found. Today after lunch, she left with Niona for Beijing, and we're not really sure what's wrong with her. This being China, I'm guessing she's had at least two X-rays. I'll know more about her condition tomorrow, and I'll keep everyone posted.

The Soccer players down the hall continue to get worse, and we continue to do our best to keep them in line, although due to the language barrier I think they see our outbursts as cute instead of intimidating. We're yelling at them every time it gets loud, but it isn't making much of a difference. We returned from the corner store last night to find that they had managed to completely flood their end of the hall through what could only be an overzealous use of the faucets in the bathrooms. Because of this incident, they have begun to use our bathroom holes with even greater frequency, which has resulted in a drastic increase in the negative externalities associated with non-flush toilets. It goes without saying that we are all less than pleased at this development.

Other than that, I'm done teaching for this camp because we are having a party day tomorrow before the closing ceremony. This means that I'm running baseball, something I'm going to do with gusto. I can't say that I'm going to miss this place, or my students, which certainly makes leaving easier. Don't get me wrong, they're good kids. I'm just looking forward to the next crop more than I want to stay here and hang out with them, and that's a sentiment shared by the rest of the group. We're hitting up all of the major tourist sites on Friday, and then it's off to Beijing for one glorious night in the city.

But I'm going away from what I really want to talk about: the speeches. As I said before, they went way better than I thought they would, although the weather would have indicated otherwise. Throughout the speeches there was thunder, lightning and torrential rain, giving the proceedings a certain air of ominousness. However, the students prevailed. The speeches I thought were going to go well did, and the kids that had taken their speeches from the Internet showed up with new speeches, one of which (a heartfelt piece about the environment that was, disappointingly, not titled "Fuck Coal") was the best speech in the class. However, there was one girl that did not change her speech. Her name is Kitty. 

Kitty went up and gave the same speech she had pulled from the Internet the day before, and stumbled through it in a quiet monotone while I frowned from the back. After the class, I took her into the hall and in the tone of a father that has caught his child stealing pies from a windowsill I explained to her what she had done. I went on about how this would not fly in any American classroom and how dissapointed I was with her. I told her that there was nothing I could do to punish her, but that if I could, I would. She went back into the classroom and emerged fifteen minutes later with my TA and an apology speech that was longer than most of the speeches in the class, and much better written. I'd like to think this represents a victory for me, and at this camp, I'll take any victory I can get.

I have a couple other stories, but the Soccer kids are running up and down the hall, and I'm going to go yell at them. Hopefully I'll get to them at another time, I've got issues that need resolving.

-Cooper