An American Expat in China

This past week has been an absolute blast.  On Monday and Tuesday I chaperoned an overnight high school trip to Huizhou Forest Lake Resort.  This was my first time traveling outside of Shenzhen.  The students had a lot of fun climbing a rock wall, doing a ropes course, and playing team building games.  They also cooked their own dinner over a gas stove.  Most of them had never cooked in their lives.  The teachers, being concerned about food safety, ended up ordering food.  I sliced my thumb open after telling a student to step aside and let me cut the potatoes because I was concerned she was going to cut herself. Students were housed in dormitory style accommodations while teachers had hotel rooms. The rooms were nice, but the hotel was almost abandoned since the start of covid and since reopening was only used to accommodate teambuilding trips like our own.   The place reminded me of the Overlook Hotel from the Stanley Kubrick film "The Shin...

This was the last week before our thanksgiving break and the accumulated stress among staff and students is palpable.  Everyone is ready for a vacation.   One of the dark sides of such high academic standards is the amount of strain it puts on students.  You can see bags under their eyes from a lack of sleep.  They have stress over their performance and are rarely happy with any score below a 93% because they all aspire to get into America's top 30 Universities or Colleges.  Their attitudes toward success leads to some unhealthy mindsets.  While I continue to praise the education system here as far superior to the idiot producing factory that is American education, it has it's flaws.  The cultural perspective on education is that every child should have a LOT of education.  They take additional classes after school and on the weekends.  What is most concerning is that they assess their self-worth in relation to their academic success....

Well the results are in and democrats have kept control of the senate and only lost eight seats in the house. While the red wave may have been more like a tiny ripple, and this may have been a huge relief to a lot of liberal voters, there is no reason for them to celebrate.  Democrats still lost (have 0 chance of winning) the house.  This will stymie, if not completely halt, any liberal agenda for the next two years.  There will be no debt relief.  There will be no legislation to protect women's reproductive rights.  There will be no election reform or voter protection laws.  The supreme court will remain stacked in favor of a religious minority. The country will be unable to make progress until we see another democratic majority in all levels and branches of government.   Had senators Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema done the right thing and not stalled the democratic agenda for the last two years we would not have lost the house. We would have had...

 Today's post is a day late for the fact that my weekend was rather busy.  Last week at work was a tad stressful.  First there was some confusion around a supply order that resulted with me meeting with my head of department on Monday to establish that I was, in fact, following the protocol.  Additionally, I had intervened in the classes of two other teachers with whom I share a classroom.  Those teachers felt I had undermined their authority with their class.  However, when all was said and done I established with all involved parties that I had only intended to assist, that I would not intervene without being asked again, and that the next time they take issue with me that they should address it with me directly before going to the head of department. They appreciated my apology and commitment to not repeat the same mistake and we established a stronger rapport as a result. Friday night I took it pretty easy.  I drank a bit at home but really did not...