Our final day in Guiyang. The horror, the tragedy, the
weirdness!
I slept until 8- I meant to get up a little earlier, but I
couldn’t bring myself to do so, and thus in bed I remained for a little longer.
But we had some ‘officer’ apparently coming over to check out the apartment at
9 so we needed to do a little extra cleaning. We didn’t think it was a cleaning
inspection, so we just tried to have everything mostly tidy for the time being.
The officer came a little late, and arrived with Nicole to
translate for us. It was good to see her! We had hoped to hang out with her
Christmas night but I was to talk with my family and there just wasn’t that
much time overall.
Anyways, it went by pretty quickly and overall, pretty
smoothly thank goodness. They were mostly just checking to make sure we hadn’t
stolen or sold any furniture. Which we hadn’t, of course.
Katie had class less than an hour later, so we hurried up
and got ready to go to school. We grabbed the last of our pennies and candy and
headed out! I paused to take pictures of course, trying to remember the last
time we would ever end up walking to school… sad day!
We got to the office and I chilled out while Katie went to
class. It got a little crazy though, kids constantly coming in and out, to
snoop through things, ask for money or candy or pictures, talk to us, play with
our things, and so on. They got pretty loud, too!
Ah, well…
It was also found that kids had taken about all of my extra
pictures [remember, I had about 100 left?], and they had also found Katie’s
candy… the candy she was going to give to her class that morning. Darn kids!
Luckily there was still a little left though. I offered her some of mine but
she wouldn’t take it. Turns out, her kids probably deserved it more than mine…
Katie went to teach her kids, while I tried to make the kids
in the office behave a little bit. I had to make sure I had everything cleaned
out of my drawers and into my bags, and make sure I had taken everything I
wanted off the computer and onto my thumb drive… I ended up leaving the servers
and passwords on, unfortunately, because we were tight for time later-
At the time being, Katie hadn’t returned by the time I had
to run off to take care of my class.
Grade 5. I wish I had gotten them over with earlier, instead
of ending with them. Katie says it’s a good thing it ended like that so I
wouldn’t miss teaching so much. And right now, I still don’t miss it. That
class was absolutely ballistic. I had three boys constantly coming up to me and
talking in Chinese- and it was so, so blatantly obvious they were mocking me
and being cruel and rude.
I put up two signs on the board- if they were good, they
could get a DVD with checkmarks. Then I posted four lines on the wall- if there
were still some lines by the end of class, they would get candy, too! Before I
got the class in order, I had already taken off a line. The three boys were
still being a pain in my face so I took off another line for their insolence.
There were also four boys in the back tossing a ball back
and forth! I couldn’t get that under control. Also, the computer was having
issues so I didn’t have anything to really distract them with for a while. For
some reason my thumb drive wasn’t registering on the computer- one of my kids
bent it a few weeks ago so I guess the wires might be acting up which is NOT
good- so I had one of my better behaved girls run to my office to borrow
Katie’s thumb drive hoping she still had the same slide on there.
She was gone for about 8 minutes or so. Turns out my girl
was a little confused and wanted my thumb drive, even though I had showed it to
her. But Katie finally decided she’d give hers to me, but she had taken off the
Christmas slide, so she pulled it onto the computer and uploaded it on there
before the girl brought it to me.
Of course right before she returned, my thumb drive finally
worked.
By then, the class was still chaotic! I couldn’t get anyone
listening to me! Girls were, talking, playing hand games or drawing. The three
boys were still getting in my way, egging each other on, boys dancing and boys
throwing balls around. It was ridiculous.
They were also playing with the lines I’d written on the
board. I finally erased all the candy lines, leaving No Candy on the board- of
course they erased the first word. They also erased the NO in the NO DVD line.
So I just erased everything and tried to get it all under control.
No one was even phased. I have no idea how that was
possible.
I wasn’t going to give them any candy but I knew Katie
didn’t want it- we were trying to get rid of it! So I finally pulled up the
Christmas slide on the screen, and pulled out the bag of root beer barrels.
They had to tell me about the picture. If the answer was good enough, I gave
them a piece of candy.
So, obviously, I picked who got candy and who didn’t.
And yes it may have been super childish, but the three boys
talking to me in Chinese can’t speak English and it’s not my fault they refuse
to listen to their teachers or pay attention in English lessons. So they didn’t
get any candy. They tried and constantly rose their hands. I gave them a chance
or two- when they weren’t trying to trip me, but they failed.
No one would help them with the answers either- the ring
leader sat next to probably the smartest boy in class [he looks like a cute
little nerd], who refused to give them the answers, so then I’d pick him and
he’d obviously give me a smart answer so I gave him candy and the other boys
sulked.
I had over 100 pieces of candy that I just about all got rid
of in that class, except for about ten.
I’m not saying class went well, obviously- all that drama
and chaos continued during the class except for a few occasions when I managed
to get kids back in their seats. But I’d walk down a row to hear an answer
better and then kids would be all over me, out of their seats and yelling in my
ear “Let Me Try!” And grabbing my arm- which I didn’t appreciate it.
They were so ill-behaved, it was unbelievable. But I didn’t
know who to turn to, so I just rode it out.
The bell rang finally before I realized what was happening-
I hadn’t even told them I was leaving! Most of the kids ran out of the
classroom after that, because it was lunch time. Then another handful mobbed me into the
corner, demanding candy. So I made them work for it and then lied and said I
was out of candy to make them all go away.
I had three random boys hanging around at the end, and I
gave them an extra penny as I passed out the pictures and pennies on the now
empty desks. I told them I was leaving, and they could tell the others. Figured
that would work, though there were a few girls I really liked and wish I had
time to tell them and say good bye…
Oh and right before I had gone to teach Grade 5- Jason, the
nutty kid from Class 3, gave me a lovely purple box tied with a pretty bow. I
asked him if it was for me and he nodded and opened it- first I saw a picture
of him, aww- with a little glass apple!
It made me feel like such an adult, such a teacher! It was
crazy. And so nice. I’m still paranoid that it wasn’t even for me, truth be
told. I don’t feel like I deserve that, you know? A temporary teacher and all…
But it was so nice!
Worn out from the crazy class, I made it back to the office
with a few more hugs from my cute kids in Grade 3. Katie was there, whirling
around on her chair and saying we were late- we were going to get dumplings
with Abby and Greg for lunch!
Except there were still kids everywhere and we had to get
rid of some pennies and candy… so we had to do that for a little while. The
kids are so insane about things like that, though! They want me to give them more
and more and more and more! I made them get in a line for the pennies. They
moved pretty fast for that one.
We went out into the hall, passed out a bit more- then I
snuck into my favorite class’s room to find a few girls sweeping so I gave them
candy as well. Then Katie took a bag of candy to her favorite class’s room for
the teacher to find and hopefully pass around. So I sneaked into my other empty
classroom and put a few pieces in a few desks to be found.
A few more goodbyes on our way out, there we met Abby,
wondering where we were! I felt so bad, we were about 20 minutes late because
of the crazy kids and I had to make sure I had everything and turned the
computer off [though I did forget, like I said, to erase the servers and all].
Chatting, we strolled up to the bus stop and waited forever
until the bus arrived and we headed into town! We crossed to eat our favorite
dumplings with Abby, and enjoyed our last fresh batch there. They were perfect!
Hot, fresh, juicy and delicious! We paid and then we asked Abby to translate
and tell the sweet old guy who owned it that we were leaving for good but his
dumplings were our favorite, then we gave him some American coins. He was very
happy and sweet!
Two shops down and we got chocolate drinks! Well, Katie and I
did. Abby bought a banana smoothie. Good, but much too cold to enjoy in such
cold weather! Seriously! I don’t know how she did it, brave woman.
Again we split paths with Abby because she had to go teach,
and the two of us didn’t want to be done with Guiyang just yet. So we crossed
the street and took the bus further into town!
We got off after the Temple Stop and headed down the mall at
H&M. There was a big Christmas tree still up! It was pretty epic and
beautiful and definitely awesome, yay… Then we wandered around inside the mall
for a little while- checked out the levels- before resigning ourselves to
H&M again. Katie had some extra money she wanted to spend, so we wandered
around in the goodies. And ended up spending money, yay!
Too full from our chocolate drinks, we didn’t eat or drink
anything else at the mall though we had planned on it… And then we were bored
and out of ideas and it was too cold to do much so we ended up hiking back up
to return to the bus stop and head home, basically. I know, not too exciting.
On the way home, Magi started texting Katie because she
wanted to say good bye to us, so we made plans to hang out there for a little
bit. The bus ride home took a little while, but we eventually got home. Katie
showered and I started cleaning up some more and then Magi came over.
We chatted, remembered the good times, talked about if she
came to America, looked through pictures, and then found out she might be in
trouble for leaving the school grounds at that time so we let her go an after later
or so. Back on our own again, we texted Nicole to make sure plans were still
good for that night, and then we worked on making sure our bags would close [we
had to reorganize a few of my things and such], and cleaning things out.
Then Nicole came over! She had just come back from the
school. We gave each other gifts- earrings! Haha. Hers came in adorable little
boxes, so freaking cute! We also gave her some cute fake roses, candy canes,
and a prettily decorated apple. Then I went through my luggage again to pull
out a movie and then the two ladies ran down to get Nicole a noodle bowl to eat
with.
I also enjoyed a delicious watermelon soda with my meal,
though the carbonation was definitely strong! Like really strong ‘like alcohol’
as Nicole so kindly put it. It was pretty awesome.
Anyways, we watched Rise of the Guardians. It’s not really a
Christmas movie, since its Easter time and all, but I figure it counts [okay
you can totally watch it all year round and I totally will], so we did that. I
love that movie and Nicole liked it and Katie likes it and it was a fun little
party!
It was a little late after that, so we said our good byes
and she promised to see us in the morning- and she wouldn’t make us carry our
bags up the hill, thank goodness, but the bus will pick us up downstairs, thank
goodness…
At the end of the movie, to our surprise, Katie got sick in
the bathroom. Which she’s been wanting the whole time since she was here! We
even joked about her getting sick on the last night here… which is kinda funny
but she ended up curling in bed and being in pain most of the night.
That gave me time to chill and clean up the house, carefully
sweep and mop everything on the floors and wipe down the walls a good bit.
Hopefully we got everything cared for decently, although I know we still left a
thing or two out since we were in a rush that morning and all… But more on that
later-
It was almost midnight by the time I finally crawled into
bed, satisfied with the close of our time in Guiyang!
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