Sunday night slump

I have just watched Forrest Gump. Merim and Ahmir b0ught the DVD for us to watch, mainly out of utter disbelief that I had reached the age of 21 without seeing this film. In a way, I do feel that my life has been enriched –'Forrest - Forrest Gump' is just so endearing and there are more than enough quirky comedy moments to keep a person engrossed for nearing 3 hours.

In fact, it was just was just what I needed after completing my weekend teaching slog. Apart from Kindergarten on Wednesday mornings, all my lessons are squished together on Saturdays and Sundays – days that sometimes feel like a relentless, blurred procession of students.

On Saturday morning, I woke up to teach my English teachers in our 8.20-10am lesson. However, only one teacher turned up (it is only a voluntary class and I think, quite understandably, the rest didn’t really feel like getting up and climbing six floors that early on a Saturday) so it ended up being a one-to-one chat. It's a shame because I had planned the lesson in quite a bit of depth; I was looking forward to hearing my students’ views on marriage and the roles of women and men within the institution.

Of course, I do not expect such engaging conversation from the rest of my classes, nor do I ever get it. Instead, I am most often confronted with over-excited children whose parents wait outside the classrooms during the 100minute lessons (sometimes, I’m convinced I can hear them pawing at the door), eager to know how well their only, precious child is doing. To be fair, the older children are not nearly as loud, especially as the classes are smaller and many of them have a real interest in learning the language (as opposed to being dragged their by their parents). I will say, however, that poor Grant, my assistant this morning, nearly lost his voice as he strained to get 24 six-year olds to do as we wanted.

On Saturday, after teaching, Joe and I did one hour’s spinning. I had no desire to go beforehand but I am so glad I did – I felt much better afterwards. We were only going to do 45 minutes, but when you are with someone else and there are great tunes being pumped out (Chinese dance music is something that really ought not be missed – especially the remixes of western songs) it is so much easier to keep going.

It's an odd place, our gym. I don't think that many people can afford to go ( it's cheap compared with British prices, but expensive here), so it is usually very quiet. However, when there are others working out, it is very likely that they will not be wearing sports gear as we define it. I have seen many men without tops on and one guy wore absolutely nothing on his feet whilst he plodded away on the running machine. You just wouldn’t see that in England – health and safety, hygiene and fashion snobbery dictates a scary amount.

Talking about fashion, I have of late noticed increasing numbers of people wearing pajamas in the streets and supermarkets of Wuhu. Bright and colourful jim-jam ensembles are paraded around by young and old alike. Joe and I went to Walmart the other day and were stared at by a woman in a pink pair of pajamas. She looked at us as if we were the strange ones (we were both wearing jeans) and didn't take her eyes off us even as she descended to the ground level. Partly as a result, on Friday night we decided as a group that we might just follow suit. The plan is to walk around Wuhu, on a day yet to be decided, in our pajamas (apparently you can get reasonably-priced thicker bedclothes for winter, so we won’t be cold), maybe do a spot of shopping and grab something to eat, and then perhaps take a leisurely walk around Mirror Lake. It sounds good to me – When in Rome and all that.

Now my weekend of teaching is over, it’s back to thinking about learning. I felt a bit overloaded with Chinese lessons by the end of last week so it was cool to have a break. However, I do think I am learning in the lessons, albeit slowly, and I know I wouldn’t put in the required work if I were teaching myself, so I am still sure it’s all worth while.