Movies and more

What a blustery night! The wind is rattling our windows and I can hear a number of creaks and crashes outside. It’s perfect weather for sitting inside, watching a terrible movie, and drinking tea. I’m not quite sure where spring went...


I had a great end to my school week. I taught two classes and showed the end of Emperor’s New Groove and start of Cars to seven students during my “Movie Lunch Friday”. Hopefully, the activity will become more popular, but if not, I still think the small group benefited from the experience. They seemed to enjoy the movies and understand them quite well. I was impressed.


They wanted me to play High School Musical 3, but I didn’t. I explained that I had “lost” my copy of it. My own experience of watching movies to learn a language taught me that to remain interested in a plot, it’s important to have a balance of conversation and “seeable” action. The trouble with High School Musical is that many of the jokes aren’t transferable to Chinese culture and the actors speak too quickly for the students to follow the story. However, after watching The Emperor’s New Groove, the students could easily explain the plot because they were able to visually keep up with the action. Plus, the humor was universal.


I spent most of the afternoon fiddling with Photoshop Elements, reading the manual for my camera, and taking pictures of Jean-Jacques. We made a delicious veggie stir fry for dinner and watched another terrible movie. (We make an effort to see the worst movies ever created since it’s practically impossible to find worthwhile films these days.)


Last night, at 10:30 PM, as we were about to turn out the lights to sleep, a series of fireworks exploded on the street below our apartment. Our window was closed, but it was so loud that we had to cover our ears. We think that a neighbor’s son got married yesterday and that the fireworks were set off at two different times during the day for good luck (one time before he left for the wedding and one time after the ceremony). 


I heard a weird noise in an apartment on the third floor and was terrified by the experience. Check out Jean-Jacques’ blog for the full story.


During the warm-up for one class, a student had “finished” answering the questions long before any of his peers. I was a bit suspicious and said, “Wow. You wrote fast!” 
The male student, nodded, while looking down at his paper.


(During my time teaching in Anqing, I have learned that Chinese students are horrible at lying or acting slick when they know they’ve done something wrong. This kid’s behavior showed me that he was obviously hiding something. I ran with my hunch.)


Me: You obviously didn’t write this.
The student looked at me with wide eyes.
Me: You used someone else’s warm-up.
The student, looking down, nodded.
Me: I’m pretty smart, you see. I was once a student so I know what you do. 
The student started giggling with his friends. He was obviously embarrassed.
Me: Do you think I’m so stupid that I won’t know you cheated when everyone else isn’t close to finishing yet? Get writing.


The student didn’t respond. He was so riled up (and still giggling with his friends) that I had to remind him five minutes later that he needed to calm down or else I would ask him to leave the room. 


Ah, students. Oh how you entertain me! Thanks for making my life so enjoyable.


Here are Friday’s pictures. Jean-Jacques is a handsome model, isn’t he?

Have a happy weekend!