A few nights ago, one of the professors at our school wanted us to go out to dinner with him. We thought we were going to his house to make jiaozi (Chinese dumplings) because when we last ate with him, he and his wife told us that we should come over to make jiaozi with them soon.

But to our surprise, after he picked us up, instead of driving to his house, we drove to the fanciest restaurant we’ve been to in China.

We live in an area of Tianjin that is famous for its architecture. This part of the city was occupied by the British and other European countries back in the day when China was being fought over by Western powers. So all of the architecture is old and Western-style.

The restaurant that we went to used to be a residence of some British government officials. Now the center rooms have been turned into elegant waiting rooms, and each of the inner rooms has been turned into a private dining room filled with fancy antiques and decorations (some rooms are Western and some are Chinese).

When we first arrived, we knew it was fancy because the hostesses came out to meet us with umbrellas and walked us from the car to the door. When was the last time a McDonald’s employee walked us in with an umbrella? Um…never.

Then we were escorted to our private dining room where some of the professor’s friends were waiting. (The friends were the ones paying for the meal. We found out later that they want me to tutor their daughter. Smooth move, buying us a fancy dinner first. How could I say no after that? Haha)

When they told the waitress we wanted to order, she brought in an iPad menu. What??? We got to scroll through pictures of the dishes and touch the ones we wanted. Then a green check mark would appear on the screen on the ones we had touched.

At one point, the professor leaned over to us with the iPad and asked if we wanted shark fin. I looked down to see if the price was listed. Yup. 388 kuai. (That’s like an entire week’s worth of meals, including food for both of us.) We had just learned at the Aquarium of the Bay that eating shark fin is a travesty, so I politely told him that maybe we could try something else. He found another fish selection for us that he said would be just as good. (And it was only 255 kuai.) So that was one dish. We don’t know what the other dishes cost, but we’re guessing about the same general price each.

For six people, they ended up ordering 13 dishes, so we’re assuming the total bill came out to over 2500 kuai. Almost a month’s salary for one of us. Dang.

In light of the upscale-ness of the situation, I thought it would be prudent to try everything they ordered, no matter how gross it sounded. Fortunately, most of it didn’t sound too gross. (I think they were being sensitive to my American stomach.) But the puffer fish from the Yangtze river and the iced goose liver cubes wouldn’t usually make my list of things to try.

I’m glad I tried a bit of everything, though, because I did find that I liked it all. (Well, except the puffer fish wasn’t so great. It was too fishy tasting.) But even the other fish dish the professor recommended in lieu of shark fin was really good. And I normally can’t stand seafood in China, so I was pleasantly surprised. Here’s a look at a few of the more visually attractive dishes:

Delicious shrimp (this was one of my favorite dishes) with an incredible carved bird garnish that was, I think, made of carrot?

Tai Ji Soup, half of the soup is spicy and half is not spicy. Shaped like a yinyang symbol

Mashed Chinese yams in a fancy curly shape on top of a carrot slice, topped with a dab of blueberry jam

The most surprising of the dishes because it turned out to taste so good. Goose liver cubes inside a sculpture of ice. Literally, that teardrop sculpture and the plate underneath were carved out of ice. Amazing.

Matt says I should also write when I’m happy so you all don’t think that we hate being in China

It’s true, most of our lives are very happy here, but I tend to just enjoy life when it’s good instead of writing about it. So lest our readers get a skewed perspective, here is a happy Monday night blog post!

After Matt got home from teaching his afternoon classes (which last until 5:40 pm, so late!) we decided we would not talk about or think about teaching all night! It was delightful. I am very grateful for my wonderful, amazing, best husband in the world!

We went to the school cafeteria (canting in Chinese, which actually sounds like tzahn-ting in a high-pitched tone) and ordered some rice dishes that we like to eat often. We had some good conversation and then came home and watched the movie Red on our gigantic projector screen.

The school provided us with a decent-sized TV, but the quality of the picture is really bad. It’s okay for watching the news, but for movies or other TV shows, you can’t see what’s happening when the scene is dark because  the color is so bad. We figured if we ever want to have people over to watch a movie or play Kinect, we should have a screen that they can actually see. We thought about getting a better TV, but the cheapest, smallest one we could find was still over 1000 kuai. So we started looking into the cost for a projector.

Most of our classrooms are not equipped with projectors, just a chalkboard. I haven’t used a chalkboard in about…oh, I don’t know, 15 years maybe? I can’t completely remember if my high school had chalkboards, but I’m pretty sure we already had whiteboards by then. So anyway, chalk is pretty nasty and it’s not easy to write a ton of notes on the board. It’s always possible to print notes and whatnot for our students, but when you have over 150 students, that’s a lot of time printing. We do get to print for free at our school if we use the printing office, but not all of the people who work there speak English, and our Chinese level doesn’t always get the job done like we want.

So we thought investing in a projector could kill two birds with one stone. We’d have a screen to watch things on at our apartment and we can take it to our classes and project powerpoint presentations and other media on the wall for our students instead of printing hundreds of sheets a week or writing tons of stuff on a chalkboard. (I also forgot to mention that I switch classrooms for every class, so I can’t even just write stuff on the board once and use it multiple times. Nope, I have to rewrite it for every single class.)

A couple of weeks ago one of our friends who has lived in Tianjin for a long time hooked us up with some of his friends who sell electronics. The projector ended up being a little bit more expensive than we would have paid in the US, but I feel like it’s been worth it. Teaching is a lot less stressful with the projector, and we get to use it in our free time as well.

Much better!

The original TV, now sitting in a corner behind the bookcase

In case you were wondering, Red was okay. Kind of weird, sort of funny but tried a little too hard. I guess we would give it about 2 stars. Now I’m off to read a little before bed and NOT think about teaching! There will be plenty of time for that tomorrow…

As a perfectionist who hates conflict, today was not my best day.

Every now and then those days come along, perfectly orchestrated to have everything that can go wrong and irritate/frustrate/sadden you happen one after another.

When I first started planning my lesson content before we arrived, I had the mindset that I would teach things that only a foreigner could teach. So for example, in writing classes Chinese English teachers can easily teach students about grammar and paragraph structures. But they probably don’t know as much about the types of assignments that are typical in an American university setting, so I wanted to teach things like writing a resume, writing a research paper, and writing an analytical book report.

I figured if any of my students wanted to study abroad for their master’s degree, it would be useful for them to have at least an introduction to the types of writing an American undergrad student would know about.

I had all these great plans, but within two weeks, I realized that teaching those kinds of advanced assignments was going to be a challenge. The students’ grammar level is high, but definitely still needs work. I hate teaching them things that they could learn from a Chinese teacher (it makes me feel like my “native” English quality is not being put to use at all), but it’s really kind of a joke to work on advanced things when some of them don’t even know how to correct a run-on sentence or use consistent tense in their writing.

So as frustrating as it is, I decided to cancel most of the assignments I had planned, at least for my freshmen students, and go back to the basics. The whole semester, we’re spending about 70% of the time focusing on basic grammar rules. To make that slightly less boring, I put the classes into groups of 3 to 4 students. The groups are each assigned two units of grammar from a grammar book I borrowed from a former teacher, and the group has to spend 20 – 45 minutes presenting the units to the rest of the class on an assigned date. They have to teach/present the units and write and perform a drama that incorporates the grammar in their units.

Last week was the first week they presented, and I was terrified that it would go horribly – that the group wouldn’t do a good job presenting, the rest of the class would be bored and confused, etc. But to my pleasant surprise, both of the groups did an amazing job. (I even gave one of the groups a perfect score because they really earned it. I think they taught better than I do, haha)

So I feel like things are starting to go well with my two freshmen classes. And my two graduate level speaking classes are going well. The students are more mature and have a higher English level that my undergraduate classes, and it is SO much easier preparing, teaching, and grading speaking assignments! But really, the age and the improved level of English makes the biggest difference. I think that if I had to teach writing to the graduate students, I would enjoy it a lot more, and I could easily focus on teaching them the more advanced things I’m trying to muddle my way through with the undergraduate students.

So that leaves four sophomore writing classes that I’m trying to figure out. I had two of them today, and things went pretty terribly. I started working on the entire semester’s schedule earlier on with my sophomores, and so I already gave them a printed copy of the semester’s schedule of assignments shortly before I realized how difficult it would be to do those complicated assignments with them. I was a little behind on planning for my freshman classes, but that turned out to be great because now they still don’t have a semester-long schedule, and it’s so easy for me to change and cancel assignments from week to week without any hesitation because the students don’t know what to expect anyway! Unfortunately, the sophomores already have expectations, and I feel kind of stupid canceling and moving things around too much. Plus, how do you explain to the class that you’re canceling an assignment because it’s too complicated for them without making them feel stupid? I’m sure some of them would welcome less work, but the students who are overachievers (which comprises more than half of each class, I’d say) would think either that they’re so terrible they can’t handle the assignments or that I’m a bad teacher who doesn’t know what she’s doing and can’t manage the time of the class effectively. (Partially true, but I’m trying hard not to let them in on that!) It’s definitely a tricky dynamic, attempting to maintain this image of a competent, in-control teacher who deserves their respect when I feel like I’m hanging on by the seat of my pants trying to figure out how to/if I can actually teach them something useful.

So right now we’re finishing up working on an assignment about writing a cover letter and resume. It went okay, but I wish I would have spent more time on it. About half of the students understood and did decently well on their first drafts. But there are a few that are definitely struggling to figure it out. And also a few that still don’t get the concept of telling about their true experiences in a positive light instead of inventing things that look good but are complete lies.

One girl today was trying to argue with me that it doesn’t matter if the information is truthful or not because this is just an assignment, so what’s the big deal if the whole thing is an invention? They don’t need to practice content, just formatting. This girl is really antagonistic about all of the assignments I give. She tells me every time I give them an assignment that she wants to do it her own way and not be forced to do it any certain way. I have no idea what she thinks she’s going to do some day when she does get a job and her boss tells her to do something in a certain way. In her mind, when I give her a low mark because she does things her own way, I am punishing her. Frustrating and very stressful to my conflict-averse soul. But I guess teachers aren’t always meant to be liked, at least when they have to start giving out grades

So after today, I cried a bit and felt like I was letting down these classes and not teaching them anything valuable. I hope things like this will get better next semester as I figure out more what works with this particular demographic of students. It’s a lot more difficult than I realized it would be to teach students who have an intermediate level of English.

I’ll take a break from BookSneeze reviews to give y’all a real update. (Karen asked me why I’ve been reading so much lately…I hadn’t thought about it before, but I suppose I miss high quality English, so I’m making up for it by reading a ton of English books, haha.)

So what’s new with us? Teaching has been slowly improving since our last frustrated update. I decided to make my freshmen really focus on grammar by putting them into groups and assigning various grammar units for each group to teach to the rest of the class. At best, they’ll take more responsibility for really knowing and being able to apply at least the units they’re assigned to teach. At worst, the whole class has a chance to practice grammar and I don’t have to come up with plans for teaching all of it throughout the semester. Plus, it gets one of the required grades out of the way for the class, so it makes my life easier. (We’re required to have seven grades for each class, plus a final exam grade.)

I think teaching has been going better for Matt as well, but I’ll let him talk about that when he has time.

On Monday, we went to Beijing with a few of our Chinese students and one of our fellow expat friends. It was a lot of fun, and we’re definitely wanting to go back soon. Beijing has a lot more to do than Tianjin (where we live), and it was really neat seeing two of our students experience Beijing for the first time. They were so excited to see their country’s capital in person, and it was special getting to experience that with them.

This week has been a holiday (so no school!) because October 1 is China’s National Day. Unfortunately, we have to make up two of the days this weekend. So we’re teaching our Thursday classes on Saturday and our Friday classes on Sunday. (For some reason, Monday through Wednesday classes never get made up.) Matt’s lucky and doesn’t have any Thursday classes, so he still gets a free day tomorrow, but I’ll be teaching all morning and also on Sunday morning. Matt has to teach Sunday afternoon. Then Monday it’s back to our regular schedule. Not a fantastic end to the week, but at least we had the beginning part to relax…

…which was good because we’ve spent most of the week with a wicked cold. We started coming down with something a day or two before we went to Beijing and about a day after our trip, it developed into full-blown colds. Usually one of us will get sick first and give it to the other one later, but we both must have been exposed to something at the same time from someone else, because we’ve been on the same sickness schedule this week.

Last night and this morning were the worst days for me (super runny nose, I hate that!) so my birthday hasn’t been very fun. We also had some very sad news that a friend from home passed away in a car accident earlier this week. So it’s been a sobering week. In light of our moods and sickness, we took it easy today. We needed to do some shopping, so we went to McDonalds for lunch and then to Walmart afterward. In between, we found Coldstone and had a birthday treat to share. (Matt says after he gets his MBA and starts making real money, maybe we’ll be able to afford Coldstone two times a year, on my birthday and on his birthday.)

The ice cream helped clear up my throat and nose a little bit (it tasted just like at home too!) so I was able to get through the rest of the day with more energy.

When we got back to our apartment, we had a rather serendipitous experience. Foreign students at our university used to live in the apartment complex area behind ours, but the university built a new, nicer building for them in the center of campus, so the apartment complex behind ours is now empty. Today when we came home, some Chinese workers had pulled out all of the furniture from all of the apartments in the complex. (No clue why, maybe remodeling, maybe cleaning, maybe trashing?) At any rate, we saw dozens of real mattresses sitting outside the complex, just like the mattress they took away from us last month! I pointed this out to Matt, and he promptly called our FAO to see if we could take two of the mattresses. (We’ve been sleeping on futons for the past couple of weeks because Matt had an allergy attack from the foam pads and my hip was killing me from sleeping on the wooden box spring. The futons have been great, but it is a little tedious having to literally create our beds every night.)

The FAO said we could take the mattresses if we carried them up to our apartment ourselves, so sick and all, we hauled two mattresses up three flights of stairs so that we can have real beds to sleep on!

So that’s a brief update on our latest happenings. Now I’m off to finish getting ready for my classes tomorrow morning before I sleep on an actual mattress again

Matt in front of the Bird's Nest at the Olympics park in Beijing

Our student Arthur's first taste of pizza

One of the waiters at Pizza Hut was really in the Halloween spirit

The futons we've been sleeping on

Woot! Mattresses rescued/stolen from the complex behind our apartment

I love fiction. If more than a few months of my life passes without reading a good novel, I start to get literal physical cravings.

So I was super excited when I saw an email announcing several new fiction books being released to the BookSneeze program. I started off with this title: Waking Hours by Lis Wiehl and Pete Nelson.

For the first few chapters, I was afraid this would be one of those books I wouldn’t be able to finish. (Several months ago, a friend loaned me a Christian romance fiction book that I had to stop reading after a chapter and a half because it was beyond cheesy.) There are definitely some “groan” elements to Waking Hours – the too-perfect Christian guy meets the jaded pseudo-Christian girl and the perfect romance ensues.

But the plot keeps Waking Hours interesting. It’s centered around the supernatural. The main basis of the plot is a forensic psychiatrist and an up-and-coming PI trying to solve a murder that looks ritualistic and cult-related.

While the writing is a bit awkward and intensely cheesy at times, the plot is interesting enough to keep you moving through the book. Some of the more scary scenes were even described well enough to bring some fearful tears to my eyes. I didn’t have nightmares or trouble sleeping from the book, but I wouldn’t recommend it for younger children or teenagers, since there are many disturbing elements to the story. For adults, it is scary at times, but rooted enough in Scripture that the dark supernatural elements aren’t too disturbing. The book does a good job of dealing with the tension between real, tangible scary things in life (people who make bad choices and do bad things) and supernatural influences on evil (the devil made me do it).

All in all, if you love fiction like I do, this is worth your time. If you tolerate only the best fiction or like books with positive messages and inspirational content, you can pass.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”