Day 178: My First Day Back at SISU--The Second Semester Begins!

Wednesday, March 7, was a very long day; it was my first day back at SISU. I left pretty early, around 7:15 am and met Navin downstairs. He was a little bit late, but he finally showed up and we walked to the bus stop together. The first bus we got on was on time, but very crowded and I had to stand near the front. We went about five stops, then got off and waited for another bus, which was even more crowded. We had to pass our cards down to the front of the bus in order to pay; this was interesting to me--in America, I'd be too concerned about passing my bus cards to strangers because I'd be too afraid of theft. I was only on the second bus for one stop, and then we got out and walked to SISU. I'm not sure if I will do this again; I don't like crowded buses and we still barely made it to the shuttle bus on time. I had to stop for a cappuccino and a water, so I had to sit in the back of the bus. I re-read Oroonoko on the way there.

I barely made it to my first class on time, with only minutes to spare. At first I couldn't find it. When I did, though, I was pleased about several things: first, it's a small class; second, there was no room drama this time; and third, and 25 students showed up. There was no problem at all. I took attendance, gave a little lecture about me, went over the syllabus, talked about the novel as a genre, and them gave them a brief writing assignment asking them to write an introductory letter to me. They were very quiet except for a couple guys. One of them, Aleks, asked me to "lead a salon" later in the semester, and I happily accepted. When I glanced over their letters, I noticed that most of them mentioned not having a foreign teacher before at SISU. Perhaps this accounts for their reticence. Two girls chatted with me after class: Hannah and Taffy. One of the girls, Hannah, mentioned that she had 10 classes, because she had "minor classes on the weekends." I'm not sure exactly what this means, but it sounds impressive. She has "only one class" on Fridays and then gets the rest of the day off.  Wow.

After class, I retired to my office. It was, of course, freezing cold. I just sat around eating my lunch and playing around on my phone for a bit. Eventually, my graduate student reading group showed up: there were eight female students present, six of whom I had in my Short Novels class last term. The ones from last term were Cora, Katniss, Leona, Blair, Vera, Lydia, and then Amy and Rebecca I didn't know. First I chatted with them a bit about my travel and my impressions of China. Then I had them explain what they wanted to do in the group, and some of them talked about the oppression of Chinese women--it was fascinating to listen to. The value of men over women in their culture seems so automatic. After the introductions, we talked about Oroonoko a bit--I sense that most of them either didn't like it (Katniss was vocal about this) or didn't read it. Cora, however, seemed quite engaged; she always does!  I was pleased that they seemed to cue up for my wisdom, taking notes at things I said. We don't meet next week, but I told them I'd send a link to Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women.

I left the reading group a bit later than I wanted to, and then I headed to my Honors class at the Administration Building--it's a bit of a walk. I got there with about 5 minutes to spare. The room they gave me is very nice and big--lots of tables--but I have only a laptop computer this time. Still, there are two big screens. Most of the students knew me from last term, except for two (one of them, Carol, said she just wanted to sit in on the class). I was somewhat surprised that Siqi and Laura, my two best students from last term, opted not to take my class again. With these students, I gave my introduction presentation, went over the syllabus, and then we talked about modernism and related some poems to Modernist traits (Frost's "Stopping By Woods"; Hughes's "Mother to Son"; and cummings's "next to of course god america i"). I know it was a VERY brief introduction to Modernism, but we have only eight class sessions, and that was one of them. Surprisingly, they applauded me at the end of class. They are too kind!

Walking to the bus, I ran into Laura, who apologized for not taking the class, and mentioned that she would like to sit in. Not sure what will come of this, but it'll be nice to have her. I also ran into Julia, one of my students from last term--I wanted to chat with her more, but I didn't want to miss the bus--which I barely made. The ride back to Hongkou was quiet an uneventful; I miss having Raymond on the bus! Then, I had to take the 745 bus home; it arrived pretty quickly. Unfortunately, it was raining and I had forgotten my umbrella (which was later found by Katherina in the Honors office!). I arrived home about 8:15 or so--we heated up leftover spaghetti for dinner.

A tiring day--very tiring--but not a bad one.

Songjiang campus--on my way to Honors class--taken first day of school.