Haha, I can't believe I'm writing a blog about being cranky but I said to myself I was going to try and update more often so here it is.
First of all I woke up at 7:27....my ride picks me up at 7:30, so right there I'm off on the wrong foot. On top of that for some reason I have multiple aches and pains hitting me at once. I'm used to the hamstring being sore (I injured it in April) and I've been getting used to my back being sore, but the headaches have been the most annoying. Once I got to school though I wasn't in a bad mood...yet. My 6th graders were fine, we had some fun and I was looking forward to doing some venting during my break. But then, that conversation didn't turn out so well, and after, I had my 5th graders who were complete little pills. I have four classes in a row before lunch and that usually wipes me out. I had 2 more classes in the afternoon and then finally it was time to go home. For some reason I just kept getting more and more cranky over the course of the day and I just couldn't handle the guy driving me home. I love the people here, I do, they go above and beyond for me and are always very concerned with my well-being but sometimes their form of "conversation" due to lack of English words becomes redundant and annoying. I decided to ask the teacher who drove me home some Chinese instead of him trying his best at English and I asked him if beef was "ro" which I was already pretty sure it was but couldn't remember if it was beef or meat in general. He had no clue. I've noticed here that some people get so freaked out about assuming they aren't going to be able to understand your English that they don't listen to your Chinese. Sometimes at McDonald's we'll try to tell them the number we want in Chinese, or one time my roommate was telling them tea in chinese, and they get all twitchy and ask someone else to come over. We're speaking Chinese! And I realize you're thinking "you're probably saying it wrong" and sometimes yes that's the case, but other times they are very basic words that we've been saying for months now. It's just that they don't take the time to listen and realize we're speaking Chinese because they get so freaked out about not knowing English. Anyway I guess that's kind of what happened in the car because he said he didn't know when I asked what the Chinese word was for "beef" and asked if it was "ro". I said "Chinese" in chinese, and then said "eat" and motioned eating....then "cow"...then I moo-ed. Still, nothing. I went as far as to give an example of a dish that I like "lou ro fan" which is minced pork rice but no. When we got to my apartment he pointed to my building and tried to start telling me about getting "beef" at this restaurant and he said it like he was introducing me to a new place. It's in the bottom of my apartment building!! I'm aware. Well my patience was shot for the day and I said "I know that, I've lived here for 4 months." Hopefully his lack of English comprehension will mask my rudeness =X
So anyway, that's a little insight into me not always being pleasant. I do think this whole journey has been extremely good for my patience level in many different ways (which has always been a little low in certain areas). Tomorrow is a new day AND it's Wednesday which means I don't teach any classes. I have the whole day to plan and prepare for Christmas! =D
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