This has quite possibly been one of the weirdest weeks since I've come to China. (Yes mom, I know I say that a lot!) On Sunday I went to bed, nothing was new there, but I woke up around 2 in the morning and I couldn't open my right eye because it was glued shut with gunk. I started panicking because I was 99.9% positive that I had managed to get pink eye. I wasn't sure what to do and I was really scared. I ended up skyping my parents at 2:30 in the morning and ended up sobbing through most of the call. The next morning I got up bright and early and asked Molly, one of the English teachers, if she could take me to the hospital. They don't just have regular doctor's offices here you go straight to the hospital. She didn't have time but Elaine, one of the other English teachers, did. So at 2:30 we headed off to see the doctor. Hospitals here are similar to Western hospitals. The two biggest differences I saw were sanitation and privacy. I was taken to an eye doctor who looked at my eyes right at the front desk. All the Chinese people already in the office sat and watched and apparently word spread that a white girl was at the hospital because pretty soon the whole room was full of people watching, completely fascinated by what was going on. After looking at both of my eyes and putting some drops in them the doctor took me to the back room and my fan club followed us in there. He looked at my eyes in a machine that eye doctors in America use. Then he had me go to the machine that blows puffs of air in your eyes. I'd done this before and knew that it made me jump and that I didn't really like it much. I guess jumping at this machine isn't allowed in China because he had a nurse come over and hold my head right up against the machine. That was embarrassing because I still had a crowd of people watching me! In the end he concluded that I have an infected cornea and gave me two different kinds of eye drops to take. I was also told I cannot wear contacts for one month. I guess I fit in with the Chinese people in my glasses now. It was really fun to see how fast word gets around at my school. I had so many teachers come up to me and ask about it and stare at my eyes for long periods of time.
This week for my classes I taught about April Fool's Day and Easter. I began my class by telling my students that their Chinese teacher came and talked to me because they were not happy with the spoken English in the classes. I told them that I had to give a test next week on the PowerPoint I was going to do today and all the other power points I'd done that semester. In my first class some of the students looked as though they were going to cry. I then proceeded to teach them about April Fool's Day. They actually have April Fool's in China so they knew a little about it already. I told them about my April Fool's last year (My uncle got married) and they got a kick out of that. I showed a picture of the wedding cake and in one class they told me it was beautiful and wanted to know how much it cost. Naturally I had no idea and they found that to be hilarious. In China you talk very openly about how much you spend on things so it probably did seem weird to them that I didn't know. After that I taught them about the Easter Bunny and Easter Egg Hunts. I mentioned that it's a Christian holiday but told them not to ask me too many questions because I am not allowed to talk about it at all. I showed them a couple pictures of me as a little kid with Easter baskets and they loved that. They oohed and aah ed over both the pictures. They even told me I looked beautiful during my awkward looking phase of life which I appreciated immensely. After talking to them about it for a few minutes I pulled up a slide that said "Now, about that test..." and told them we had to discuss a few things and then we would go out and have an Easter Basket Hunt. I then told them the test was an April Fool's joke! I have never seen so many relieved faces in my life. It was absolutely hilarious. None of my classes have ever listened so well in class before, I might have to threaten them with tests more often. My first class didn't get it at first. They sat there and stared at me in shock. After I explained it was just a joke and there was no test there was an audible sigh of relief. After a few more minutes they kind of chuckled. I really had them going on that one and it was awesome.
For the Easter Basket Hunt I filled a bag with goodies that my wonderful mom sent from America. We went outside and I had one person hide the bag, one person be blindfolded to find the bag and one person direct the other to the bag. I went along to make sure no one got seriously injured, and luckily no one did. One person almost fell in a fountain and I had to step in but other than that there were no real big problems. One of the students in my class came up to me and said "Teacher, this game is not very safe." I just told him "I know." and we kept playing. One poor boy reached out to grab the basket and got a pine tree instead, but he laughed that one off luckily. They got really excited about the treats. One boy got a push pop that was stuck. He came over to me exclaiming "Teacher! It's broken!" I took it and looked at it, then I pointed out that on the label it said you must be 3 years or older to use this and gave him a funny look. He took the push pop from me and walked away blushing. I eventually gave him an Air Head because he kept whining about it. I saw the sweetest thing during this. One girl got a package of Air Head extremes which had lots of long strips of Air Head inside. She ripped every single piece up and gave each of her friends a piece of candy. It was very sweet to see.
During the week I went to one of Josh's classes. We colored pictures of Easter eggs which was a lot of fun. The little kids got excited over mine and were so eager to show me their eggs. They never got tired of showing me so I saw the same one multiple times before class was over. Josh and I were sharing a desk with some of his students when apparently a spider decided to disturb the peace. I had no idea what was going on. One second Josh was sitting next to me coloring then next thing I knew he gave a little squeal and was running to the other side of the classroom. The teacher came and got rid of the spider and all was well. Josh wouldn't come and sit by me anymore, he moved his chair to the other side of the room and colored with those kids. The little boy I was sharing a desk with thought Josh's reaction was funny and kept reenacting it for me and the girl sitting by him. It was pretty funny to watch.
I still don't have a camera so there aren't any pictures to go with this post. One day I'll work that one out and send pictures again!
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