That's right, we just found out we don't have to teach today(Friday). I found out - in the normal way of course... Get up, shower, get ready, head to class only to see that all of the students are busy cleaning their classrooms for some reason. Many of them are training it out to the bin structure and dumping their rubbish.
As I walk to class, one of my students who I call Mr Poet(As he likes poetry, duh!) runs up to me to see how I am and ask what I am doing. I ask him why everyone is cleaning and he says that some students(Senior 3 - equivalent of Australian School year 12 - though a little older) have very important exams today for university entrance - so they are cleaning then heading home at 12.
Um great.
I called Mr Pan straight away and asked him, "What's going on? Do we have to teach today? Why are all the students cleaning?" to which he told me, "You have to teach this morning, two classes, until 12, then they go home for holiday as students have very important exam"
Uuuuh
So I go upstairs and see two of my girls and ask them, "What's going on? Is there no class?" They confirmed there is no class. Same deal, cleaning till 12, then it's home.
So I call Mr Pan again, to which he now confirms that we don't have to teach today and can have a rest. YEAH THANKS! I asked him profusely if someone could actually inform us just once about things like this - to which he apologised, and I said no no no, it's not you, the english department should be telling US. YOU cant tell us as they don't even tell YOU! Geez!
So while it's great we don't have to teach, it's a constant frustrating annoyance being kept completely in the dark about this kind of thing. And Mum finds it odd that we cant confirm if there's a week holiday IN OCTOBER!! Haha, October! It's hard enough to find out what's happening in the same week!
So what if we had declined to go to somewhere like Hangzhou or Shanghai with Matt and Abby on a 3 day weekend like this, only to find out we did in fact have the day off? We'd be pissed. It's just rude and inconsiderate that we are litterally not told anything.
The only people who tell us anything are the students - and in most cases they too are kept in the dark.
I like all of my classes on Friday, there's some really cool students in them that I look forward to seeing - so it's a mixed bag. I'd much rather teach those classes on say Tuesday and Wednesday. But anwyay, we have the day off so that is at least good. It's a pity the weather outside is shaping up to be pretty feral - hot and muggy.
I did manage to kill two birds with one stone with Mr Pan however. I asked him if he could help us with our cellphones(No I still call them mobiles, but the Chinese call them cellphones) - as we have been having issues SMS'ing people in Australia - we send them, but people rarely if ever recieve them - to which he replied, "Yes! The school has ordered your sofa" (aka cellphone = sofa). Then I explained further what a cellphone was, "What?" "Cellphone.." "What?" "Telephone.." "Ohhh...telephone, there is something wrong with the telephone in your apartment?" "No! Cellphone..cell...phone..what we are talking on now..." "What?" "..." "Ohhhhh cellphone, yes yes, we go to shop and fix." And the good news there? Oh man oh man bring on that new sofa - ANYTHING has to be better than the current one.
And last but not least, in a continuance of animal hour, on the way back from this mornings little non-teaching fun, I noticed a new flock of ducks on the campus. This had the regular gang of 4 white geese honking their little asses off. There was a HEAP of them. I have no idea where they have come from. Across the road from us there is a lot of construction going on and they have built a tiny lake in front of what looks like some kind of display mansion. Well in that lake they located a small number of geese - it really is ridiculous as there's litterally nowhere for them to go other than what looks like a dog kennel, and to circle this tiny lake(which I will photograph at some stage). So maybe they've noticed the much bigger lake over here and defected. As you can see, it's all very exciting ;)
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