Ineptness (Courtney)

*editors note from Marcus - Courtney didn't want to post this as somehow we both managed to have a blog attack after finding out we weren't teaching and wished to sing praise to the wonderful word that is ineptness. But I forced her to post it anyway as her conversation with Mr Pan is just too memorable to forget; and one of the main reasons we keep a blog anyway, to remember this kind of thing.

The word inept was probably my "word of the day" for the 9 years I spent toiling at the bank. I used this word almost daily to describe staff and customers alike..and myself on more than one occasion! And anyone who deals with banks on a regular basis probably uses much harsher words than that.

Well the word ineptness is creeping back into my vocabulary. Coming to China we knew that things are run differently and sometimes it would feel like you were in the twilight zone. We'd been given a heads up by our friend of ours Liz, who had been teaching in China for a few months. We knew to expect things to change at the drop of a hat. I suppose what we didn't expect was that we would categorically NEVER be told of any change - to our schedules, our classes, the alloted class times, exams, holidays....nadda!

We've had, I think 3 timetable changes since we started. These aren't an issue, but a bit of forewarning is useful. Not even a lot, all I'm asking for is to know of the changes before I'm due in class. This can happen 5 minutes prior to class for all I care, just so long as I know. You've know idea how many times I've walked into Class 7 (my first Senior 1 class of the week) to either find - it empty, a different teacher in there already running a class, the kids doing exams, or - my personal fave- an entire bunch of new kids in there who I had never seen before! I'm sure class 7 think I am as inept as everyone else, because they are always laughing at me. We've had about 3 lots of exams that we weren't told about, and a couple of holidays that just magically appeared.

This week has been a classic example of this. And you might be wondering why I'm writing this post at 11 o'clock in the morning, when clearly I should be in class. That's because there is no class today! Late last week Abby told us that this coming Friday (today) would be a holiday. We had been expecting a holiday of sorts as there is normally one for the kids at the end of each month where they go home for the weekend. So Abby wanted to know if Marcus and I were interesting in maybe checking out Nanjing or Hangzhou for the weekend. Well of course we are! These are two places we really want to go too, but because we had only gone to Shanghai a couple of weeks before we had to decline because we spent a small fortune. So alas we begin to assume that we will have a nice long weekend, which you can't help but be excited about.

But we hear nothing from the school, so we start to doubt whether in fact our school is recognising this holiday. Then I speak to one of the Senior 3 students (I appear to have a student from Senior 3 who is...well, almost stalking me! In a nice way of course) and she tells me that Senior 3 have their uni entrance exams this weekend (poor kids), so I doubt even further that this weekend is actually a holiday.

So, I think it was Tuesday when i had to go to Mr Pan's office. I figure at the same time I'll ask him about this supposed holiday. Below is how our conversation went....

Hey Zili! So a friend of mine who teaches at another schoool tells me that there is a holiday this weekend.

Holiday?

Yes, holiday. She says that Friday is a holiday, so is China having a holiday this weekend?

Weekend?

Yes, a holiday this weekend.

Oh, maybe, holiday this weekend, I think.

So are we teaching on Friday?

Uh, I think it is ok if your friends want to visit this Friday.

Um, no, our friends don't want to visit this Friday, we want to know if we have to teach this friday.

This Monday, maybe Tuesday, some students have important test.

Ok.....which students?

Some students.

So what about Friday?

I think on Monday it is not ok for friends to visit. But Friday ok.

Ok, thanks Zili....

Now, this might look like I'm bagging Mr Pan. Which I am not. Mr Pan is awesome and a wonderful man and he does so much for us. We have no problems with Mr Pan at all, he is great. The problem is that he is our man to go to with questions etc yet this is the above result! I haven't seen Raymen around the school for a couple of weeks, and Miss Soon never tells us anything (see above!) So I relay all of this to Marcus and we just decide that our school is obviously not recognising this holiday.

Marcus heads off for class this morning and lo and behold....the kids are cleaning the classrooms so they can go home at 12 for the holiday!!!!!!!! I tell ya. Whilst we certainly aren't looking a gift horse in the mouth, a day off is a day off and we are stoked...good lord would it have been so hard to let us know! Marcus calls Mr Pan, and he says to him - yes, the kids go home at 12 for holiday.

Sigh.

So it's a good thing we couldn't go away due to saving for a big holiday coming up!