I’m starting to wonder if a lot of Chinese develop a situational unawareness to psychologically survive in these crowded cities. They have the same cut and bump methodology with push carts in supermarkets as they do on the road with their cars ( Read more... )

Another novel down, except I’m still waffling about the title. That’s happening to me a lot these days. I wish I could take more satisfaction, but work has been wearing me down. The students are fine; the administration is a pain. I was told my supervisor and one of the senior teachers (senior in the program; I’ve been teaching longer than he has ( Read more... )

I dislike serving two masters, the Nanjing Office who pays me and the local Chongqing Office I actually have to work with. The Nanjing Office was on my case about sending them a syllabus, which was slow work given the schedule changes. Then yesterday five teachers from the local office sat in the back of my class and watched it, then afterwards we ( Read more... )

The Linkfun manager up in Nanjing told us foreign teachers in Chongqing that we are using the same textbook for a year and to send them a year’s syllabus. Then two hours after I email him the syllabus, I’m told by the local boss that we are only using that textbook for a semester. Blah. The weather has finally reached a warmer than comfortable ( Read more... )

Day Five ( Read more... )

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/10/why_mitch_daniels_went_from_anti_public_education_governor_to_state_school_president_partner/

Ah, America, shooting itself in the foot one toe at a time.

It’s been weird today teaching my students about John Calhoun, the southern senator who championed “states’ rights” and slavery. When he was talking about abstract theories, I often agreed with him. He criticized the Enlightenment idea of men ever having lived in a “state of nature” as equal individuals who came to work together and form ( Read more... )

I've had one of my pissed off at life days. Since most of the students have gone home for the summer, the laundry place is pretty casual about their hours, taking long lunches, arriving late, etc. I finally got so peeved that today I just hand washed all my whites in the bathroom ( Read more... )

I think my American history class is going well. I keep digressing from the main point into modern American politics. The thing is, the text book is organized chronologically, but my lectures are organized topically. So for example, my next class the students will have read up to Reconstruction, but my lecture will be on the evolution of Congress ( Read more... )