Approaching Exodus From The Drone

Hi gang,
Here's the latest. School continues to dominate my life and Heza's but after two full days of teaching this Saturday and Sunday, we get the 7 day National Holiday to celebrate the unity of the country under the Communist Party (or something like that). I will be sure to celebrate in the way of The People, which will pbly be to get drunk.

Actually, i'm pretty stoked on this coming wkend, since Saturday night will be my first attempt to get bk in touch w/ hipster culture. Heza and i wanna chk out some bands in the Uni district area. I wanna see Hedgehog, a cutesy guitar alt pop band, and Heza wants to see Car Sick Cars, who have a more punky feel. Both bands are from BJ. Apparently Hedgehog is one of BJs hottest bands right now, but i made sure yesterday by asking Big Sister if she knew of them, and she'd never heard the name before, in Chinese or English. Score! So that should be fun, presuming we can get in.

Then i have to wake up at 6:30am the next morning. And will pbly kill some time by teaching the grade ones Duck Duck Goose.

As for school, it is what it is. The grade ones seem to love me which is great in class, but it's kinda scary out of class, when they literally swarm me yelling Mr Wang! Hello! Mr Wang! It's pretty cute, but mostly i try and avoid walking down that hallway. i guess they like the classes, not realizing that my brilliant teaching ideas were desperately scrapped together at 9pm the night before.

Grade 7 is another story. Some of the 7s are at grade one level, but some are at 2 or 3. Grade 3 is great: you can read and talk and stuff. But some of them are so low, that you can barely do anything w/ them in class. Ok. So some kids need remedial attention badly. So i have officially started remedial classes, since i didn't expect anyone else to. But even then some of the kids are equally vacant even when the materials are accessible. i'm rackin' my brains on this gang regularly.

It's ok. Today only 3 kids showed up for remedial session, including one of my most capable students and as well as the least capable. And it's good for both of 'em.

Holiday much in need. Heza and I both recognize the need for space from one another. Last weekend we had planned some time apart which just didn't turn out to be convenient. We were both cranky and rather getting on each other's nerves. i ended up snapping at Heza in the cab coming home which was unfortunate. Oops, my first time losing my temper w/ Heza. Ah well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Things are a-ok now, though we will make a point of having a bit of solo time this wk. Hell, we've bn spending crazy #'s of hours w/ each other in the last 6 weeks, mostly awesome.