Day 91: A Teaching Day

In spite of the fact that I'm suffering from a sinus infection, I had a pretty good day today. Got some papers graded, had breakfast, took a cab to school (I'm figuring out Didi more and more, and liking it). Easily made the bus on time, and graded a bit, but also chatted with Raymond again. My class was quite good: my students did a surprisingly good presentation. I say "surprisingly" because they are three of the quietest students in the class. But their work was well-organized, had examples, and was well-cited. And they didn't just read the information, either. The topic for today was "themes" in Gatsby, so we explored this a bit, as well as some resolutions in the novel, such as things that happen at the end of Chapter 9 (Nick leaving home, breaking up with Jordan, his final meeting with Tom). I will not be seeing this class next week because I'll be at Jilin U. I met with Bella, one of my students, after class. She wanted to ask me some questions; she is doing a project for her pragmatics class. She recorded my responses, and I was fine with that. I told her that Kerry as well as some of the SISU foreign faculty might be willing to participate in her study, and she seemed thrilled. We then had a great conversation about education in the US. She was under the impression that Americans all had great educations, and that everything in the US was fantastic in terms of education. I englightened her a bit about the cuts Betsy DeVos is proposing to education funding ($8 billion), and she was shocked. She seemed very happy that I wanted to work with her: "I like you!," she proclaimed at one point. "I like you, too!," I said back. I can't ever imagine an American student telling me that, whether they do or not. I've only had American students say that to me if we got to know each other a bit, particularly AFTER the class. After Bella left, I ate my lunch in the lounge area outside the class, and then went to the bus. I ran into Raymond while I was taking yet another picture of the Songjiang campus (it is SO beautiful), and he and I walked to the bus together. The bus ride wasn't as bad as two weeks ago: only a bit over an hour. I took the 745 home--ran into Grace--but it was SOOO crowded. Claustrophobic. Kerry and I just had leftovers for dinner, and then I worked on my presentation a bit. I also decided to extend our trip to the US by two days, so I called Delta and took care of that. I just felt like 8 days wasn't enough; I got permission via e-mail from Taozhen to do so.  So hopefully that's not a decision I regret.

Tomorrow we go to Suzhou. I will write again once that experience is over.