Day 248: Long School Day

Today was one of my long SISU days. The morning was fairly uneventful: no drama in getting to school, but it took a long time, of course. My first class was on The Great Gatsby. My lecture topic today was on characters in Gatsby; it took a bit longer than usual, so we didn't have as much time for discussion as I thought. Again, discussion seems to work best when discussion leaders call on people. It's very odd how no one seems to volunteer. I passed back the midterms at the end of class. I noticed that the student who earned the worst grade (she plagiarized parts of her exam) sat there by herself at the end, reading over her exam but saying nothing to me. I then danced off to lunch with some students.

We went to lunch off campus: I went with Aleks, Lily (who's actually not one of my students, but she helps runs the salongs), Olivia, FuFu, and Hannah. We had some interesting conversation--indoors with air-conditioning, thankfully, for it was BRTUALLY hot today: 99 degrees!!!  I was surprised at how much food the students ordered: Aleks ordered a huge meat platter! And what's interesting is they all shared: they shared salad, dessert, etc. It's so different from the American style of eating. But we had a really good time; they asked me a lot more questions than I asked them, though. Cost me 400 RMB, but I'm glad I did it.

When I got back to my office, I was sweating like a pig. I couldn't figure out the air conditioner, so I called Kerry to pass the time a bit and sat down on the couch to rest. My grad students showed up a bit late for the reading group; there were only 5 today. We discussed three poems: Giovanni's "Nikki-Rosa"; Plath's "Daddy"; and Dickinson's "Much madness is divinest sense--."  The discussion was productive and interesting; we didn't get to all five poems I assigned, in fact, because we spent so much time discussing the three works. I'm going to miss this kind of intellectual engagement.

I arrived about on time for my Honors class, and they straggled in a bit late. I reprimanded them a bit and told them that they needed to be on time next class, when they're doing presentations. I asked them if it was okay for me to bring my husband next class, and they seemed fine with it. I did discussion a bit differently today: I had them write out questions, and I answered them. Then I had then answer some of the questions we didn't get to. The topic was gender and race issues in the United States; we're now on the "American culture" part of the course. Most of their questions were about the #MeToo movement and/or white privilege. In fact, one student, Gal, walked with me to the bus, wanting to discuss the issue of white privilege more; I don't think he fully grasped it. But that's okay: I'm just glad he wanted to discuss it.

I then took the bus home. Samira was there--we talked off and on, complaining about the hot weather. It was nice to have someone to walk home with, of course. Again, my long days are not always bad: I really do like interacting with the students. But they are tiring.

One of the many BEAUTIFUL buildings on the Songjiang campus.

Lunch with Short Novel students! (left to right): Lily, me, Hannah, Aleks, Olivia, FuFu.