So Sunday and Monday were pretty normal: nothing too exciting. Sunday I did prep for my classes--two of them on Monday. We're still doing Gatsby in Short Novels and my American Literature class. is talking about Jack London and Mark Twain. Monday, I went to class. The presentation on "color symbolism" by the group was okay, but I don't think they explained how "grey" is symbolic as well as they could have. Still, I think they did a better job with citation than most groups did. We also talked about literary theory and typical theoretical approaches that would work with the novel. Once class was over, I got bombarded with questions, as usual. Two students seemed very concerned about their overall performance in the course, but I tried to convince them to stay in it. They are not two of my best students, so I am worried about them, but I don't like to see people drop out, either. I advised them that since they are studying English interpreting, they should make more of an effort to talk in class and speak English whenever possible. After a brief respite in my office--it's always so quiet on the 3rd floor of teaching building 5--I went to my second class. We talked about the Final a bit. I still couldn't share the day and time of the final with them, much to my frustration. This hasn't been decided by SISU, which is so bizarre to me. The students told me that they usually don't know until mid- to late December. Then I did a lecture on London and Twain, followed by some discussion relating these authors to realism, naturalism, and regionalism. I managed to get home pretty quickly: the bus arrived back at Hongkou at 7:31, and I managed just in time to hop on a 745 bus home, at 7:41 pm. I actually got home at 8:05 pm, which really shocked me. I've gotten home as late as 9:00 some evenings.
We didn't have Chinese tutoring Tuesday, so I spent most of the day working on my "Online Teaching" presentation for Soochow and Jilin. Then in the evening--around 6 pm--Grace came over to copy and paste some things off of this blog. She is doing research on international faculty, and I have agreed to be one of her research subjects! So the blog provides good data for her. I warned her that not everything I say is positive, and she told me she didn't expect it to be. She also helped us figure out our TV a bit....I'm still not sure I get it, but I think I understand how to work it a bit better now. Apparently Smart TV is very popular in China; perhaps I am old, but I just don't get it. I'm too dumb for Smart TV. Then we left to go to Hongkou Plaza for dinner; we took a taxi. Grace was impressed that we knew how to use Didi; Kerry knows it better than I do. We went to the Shanghai Restaurant again. When I tried to speak Mandarin to the host, she immediately tried to correct me, using Shanghaiese dialect. One thing I sometimes misinterpret here is the tone and loudness of the Chinese people. She sounded almost angry to me, but Grace assured me that that wasn't her attention. We ordered shrimp, oyster beef, a pork chop, some bamboo shoots with shiiitake mushrooms, and Grace ordered glutinous rice balls. During dinner, we talked a lot about cultural differences between China and the US. She seemed surprised that a lot of people in the US don't have health insurance. She also told us that, in China, white faces are considered beautiful, with double eyelids. She mentioned that both men and women will go to South Korea for plastic surgery because it's well-done there. We stayed until about 9 pm, when we basically got kicked out because (I guess) the restaurant was closing. Afterwards, Grace went home and Kerry and I went to Carrefour. We picked up hats and gloves, which apparently we are going to need here. It is colder here than I thought it would be. I mean, it's not as cold as MN, but it's very windy, so gloves are not a bad idea. No snow at all, though.
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