Despite only getting 6 1/2 hours of sleep last night, I woke up feeling well rested. It was a bright and sunny day, and I was ready to take it on.
As I left walked out of my apartment this morning, I saw a chicken running around the street, squawking very loudly. Then a woman chased the chicken down, picked it up by the neck, shoved it in a plastic bag and threw it in the back of her truck.
I know that, at times, this blog has been a little crass. When I started writing this blog, I did not think I would be writing so much about my digestive system. So I apologize if any of this has disgusted anyone. It comes from honesty, not an attempt at potty humor. (That probably makes it worse.)
Anyway, this morning my stomach was rumbling like crazy again. Is it the water I've been drinking? The strange spicy meat dishes I eat without knowing what's in them? My current theory is, it's the pears. They are the only thing I eat consistently enough to have an effect on my system. I still have like 99 pears left so I guess I'm going to be dealing with this for a quite some time.
At school, I am scheduled to work from 8:30 to 11 straight with no breaks. Then I have a ten minute break before working again until noon. During these first four classes, I am in quite a bit of time. I had been farting in front of people in the office because I had heard that it's not considered rude in China, but I still hadn't heard anyone fart in front of me and had held off farting in front of the kids. My thought was at least the kids would think farts are funny. I can't fart in front of a classroom. During my second period class, I accidentally let a huge one slip out.
The children did not react at all. No smile, no laugh. And it was loud, they must have heard it. Just to test the waters, I farted again. Still nothing. For the next two classes, I fart loudly and often, its the only way to relieve the pain in my belly. Not a single student laughs or cracks a smile. I don't know how they train these kids to not think farts are funny, but it seems almost unhealthy. I appreciate that I don't feel humiliated, but I also shouldn't be able to stink up these students classrooms with no shaming whatsoever, it's not fair to the kids.
At 11, I run towards the bathroom to hopefully shit out my gas problems once and for all, but I'm stopped by the creepy boss lady who makes me go sing the songs with the kids again. Deftly avoiding being touched, I fart my way through two songs and then head to my next class, still clogged up like a dutch dance floor.
Finally at noon, I rush steal some more paper towels from the children's bathroom and rush into the teachers bathroom. But it's too late. I don't have to go anymore. I come out, feeling very disappointed. It will be another two hours before I finally squeeze anything out, and it's barely anything.
Monica stops by the office and Josie tells her that I said her English sounds the best out of all the teachers, which makes her very happy. Then I ruin it. She was teaching her students the word yogurt but pronouncing it like "you-gurt." So I mentioned that to Monica and the rest of the afternoon, I could hear her muttering to herself "YO-gurt, YO-gurt." I hope she appreciates it and doesn't hate me. I had a little crush on Monica before my crush on Sakhi, but Monica is definitely married with a kid.
When I teach Peters class today, we talk about gardens and the children start telling me about the most beautiful gardens in China. When Peter enters the room, I say that maybe Peter and I will go see these gardens together. This makes the students laugh very hard. Peter's face completely drains of all color. I'm really starting to worry he will hurt me if he gets the chance. It worries me that he knows where I live.
In another class, a boy has a little hole in his jeans and I guess wasn't wearing underwear. Throughout the class, he kept pushing his very small penis through the little hole and tugging on it. I keep asking him to stop, but I think he just kept forgetting. None of the other teachers seem to be phased by this at all. I think Americans are maybe more trained to fear child nudity, but this kid is making me feel very uncomfortable and I can't even look at him because I'm worried he will pull that little penis through that little hole again.
Than in my next class, students are asking each other what they like (do you like to play soccer, do you like to ride a bike, etc) and one girl ask another girl do you like Riley's pee pee (I assume she meant my genitals, not my urine, but who knows with these kids.) I told her that was an inappropriate and went back to quizzing them with flash cards (frog, spider, ant, bird.)
After school, I order some delivery to the house. Right before its supposed to show up, I get a phone call from someone yelling at me in Chinese. I run outside to find the delivery guy, but there is no one insight. I use my translator app to start texting whoever called me and found out that he left. I convince her to send him back and finally, 15 minutes late, I get my food. I'm a little pissed off, but as soon as I start to eat I feel a lot better.
I also finished The Artist Way again today. I would highly recommend it to people, but it's also my third time doing it so maybe it doesn't work that well. I started it for the third time after my break up with Mitchell. It's an intense 12 week program to end creative blocks and is probably, in large part, one of the reasons I am in China now. Anyway, to celebrate, I bought Bertie. She's really sweet and sits on my desk, next to my laptop and metal turtle. I wanted to get a fish, but decided I was less likely to kill/it wouldn't be as bad if I killed Bertie. But I'm very happy she is here with me now. She's my first friend here in Gaochun and I'm excited to get to know her better.
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