Adventures in Guangzhou!

But anyhow, I am indeed now finished teaching and giving my final exam which is wild. I have no idea where the time went this term but it is most definitely over. The beautiful thing about my schedule is that I'm giving my exam this week and giving them back randomly over the course of the next two weeks. Why the disparity? Because I have a 7 day vacation coming up which ends 3 days before I go home! Gotta love it. The senior 3 students here are not quite as psyched because they have to take the Gao Kao at this time, the college entrance exam. Picture the stress of the SATs times about 1000 and you're getting close. Poor kids...

The exam I'm giving is relatively similar to my exam last semester with a big focus on informal speech. I've decided that more than anything else I want my kids to be able to communicate and for me that means learning how younger people speak. We did a few more lessons on slang and similar informal phrases which always make me laugh. There's nothing like hearing a 17-year old Chinese kid say, "It's all good, dude."

The last section of my exam requires the students to write an informal dialogue using about 15 words/phrases from a word bank of twenty five or so. Some of them had to write a dialogue between Michael Jordan and Bill Gates. Others had to write one between me and Jay Chou, a Taiwanese pop star. Without fail, they are absolutely hilarious to read. For example, one of my better students wrote the following:
Ari: How you been, dude?
Jay: 'sup man. Same old, same old. How's your Chinese coming?
A: Let's just say they're not knocking down my door for any translation services.
J: I hear ya. Have you had any exams lately?
A: Yeah and it sucked. They used one of your tunes to test my listening skills!
J: Oh bummer, they didn't pay me for that. How'd you do?
A: The jury's still out but I don't feel good about it.
J: No worries--no one will pass!
A: Thing is, I had been locked up with studying for a long time. It's not fair!
J: Eh, forget about it. Wanna hang out tonight?
A: Sure. I was thinking about hitting up KFC to grab some grub. Lets go together.
J: Sounds good. I have to go home first though.
A: Okay. Drop me a line when you're ready to go.
J: Alrighty. I'll text you. Peace.
A: Later.

That right there makes me pretty happy. He used every phrase in a realistic, natural way. Perhaps I have actually been helpful this year! I certainly hope so. I plan on giving my students an evaluation to fill out before I give back exams. I'm curious to hear about what they think of my teaching. I'm afraid that the culture dictates they don't say anything negative but that's exactly what I'm looking for--constructive criticism. We'll see.

Besides being content with their dialogues, a few students absolutely blew me away by getting the extra credit correct. I decided to up the ante a little this time because so many got it right last time. Last semester's was to figure out the next line of the following sequence:
1
11
21
1211
111221
312211
13112221
?
I thought it was tough but apparently I underestimated them. This time around I decided to give them an LSAT-style logic puzzle. It is by no means impossible, but it certainly takes some time and these kids didn't have more than five-ten minutes to work on it. I'm amazed:
Five friends from across the United States planned to meet at a convention in Milwaukee. Each friend came from a different city and each was employed in a different profession. Use the clues to determine the full name of each friend, their home city, and each one's profession.
1. The doctor and Mr. Cross both arrived a day early.
2. By coincidence, the secretary from San Diego and the doctor, Ms. Forest, arrived at the hotel together.
3. The lawyer arrived late. He was delayed by a case and had to catch a later flight from Baltimore.
4. Jane, Mr. Smith, Mark, the mechanic, and the friend from Chicago all planned to spend the weekend after the convention together. Then on Monday, Ms. Trent and Tom would leave to return to work. Dan, the teacher, and Cindy would leave on Tuesday.
5. Dan Richards does not live in Baltimore. Cindy does not live in St. Louis.
6. Ms. Trent laughed when asked if she was a teacher. "No, he's from Atlanta," she said. "I'm from San Diego."

I won't give the answers here in case anybody wants to do them but maybe I'll post them in my next entry... Finishing up here for round one of the China experience certainly has my mind focuses a bit more on the states, of late. I find myself wondering about changes. Will I see new stores or buildings near any of my former homes? Will I be shocked by some new element of US pop culture that hasn't reached China yet? Will it be weird to eat western food everyday? Will I forget all my Chinese in the two weeks I'm home?

More importantly, I suppose, I find myself wondering about myself. Have I changed in the past year? I suppose it's inevitable that people mature and learn more over the course of any year, but I've had an especially different year than most. What do I have to show for it other than some decomposed clothes and elementary Chinese skills? Will my friends and family see me differently? I guess there's no way for me to tell while I'm still here but I am getting more and more excited everyday to get back and see people before studying all summer. I only hope people are equally as excited to see me!