As you may have guessed, it's gotten a bit chilly here. It rains a lot, and it's cold, and the rain is cold, and reality-wise, I don't love heading off to class in the chill every morning.
The cold here is a bit different from the cold back in the US. Here, because we are in the south, there is not central heating. So, no public buildings have central heat in them. This includes our apartments, but, by the grace of God, we have two duel-action air-conditioner/heaters in our apartments, one in the bedroom and one in the living room. Unfortunately, the duel-action air-conditioner/heater in my bedroom is currently a single-action air-conditioner. So it stays off. So this is me, bundled up at home!!
Luckily, the school put space heaters in the classrooms this year (the Elizabeth Effect- no big deal), and those babies are saving my life. Unluckily, I do not know how to work the heaters because everything is in Chinese. Don't get me wrong, I can press buttons until heat comes out, but I feel like it diminishes my authority in the classroom when I push every single button on the heater and it still isn't working. So I leave it up to the kiddos.
My Tuesday morning class always turns them on before I get there, and it's like walking into a sauna. It's so great! The first day they did it, I looked so shocked when I walked in that one of my boys stopped and asked me, "Teacher, what's wrong?" Nothing. Everything was right with the world. Then there are other classes that apparently generate their own heat, so they don't like turning on the heater. Or when one of them miraculously does turn it on, someone else will turn it off 10 minutes later. I don't want to be the weak foreigner who can't handle the cold, so I suffer in silence.
But in reality- I can't handle the cold. My little hands just don't like it. To everyone who was worried- I bought a coat the other day! And I love it! The lack of heat here means you wear your coat all the time. All the time. So my coat is my best friend right now.
The cold signals that time is passing. I am giving Midterms this week and next. Midterms! One- it's a weird feeling giving out Midterms when six months ago, I was taking them. And two- that means the semester is half (actually more than half) over!! Where has the time gone? It's a weird feeling where I feel like I've lived in China for years, and at the same time I feel like I just got here. It's like when I ride on airplanes, and I forget what it's like to not be on the airplane by the time we land.
So far China's been a good ride. A little bit of turbulence every now and then, but overall, pretty solid. I'm getting to know my kids better, and spending more time with them. Now that I'm not as stressed with all the newness, life is settling down. Still lots to do, and I'm constantly busy, but it's busy in a good way. Not in a frantic way (most of the time).
So I'm cold. But cold and happy!
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ReplyDeleteI remember that my classmates who are from North China cannot get used to the cold weather in South China. They would buy some staff for heating. For example, 热水袋，热手包....You could ask the students who are from North China for some advice because they also have the similar experience. Keep warm :)
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