Nothing particularly interesting happened today. But today, Friday, was the last day of the first week of this school term. I have two new teachers, and one teacher is the same. I also have four new class-mates and one from last term. It's been a long time since I've attended school, I never set foot in a school after my High School graduation (except that one day I had to pick up my diploma, and maybe a couple school plays.) So it's been a long time since I've "dealt with teachers" I really didn't think about it much until today, but every teacher is different, some are difficult and some are easy. My two new teachers couldn't be more different from each other. The first hour's teacher is my same teacher from last term, Mr. Zang, great teacher, explains things very clearly and makes sure we all understand, he doesn't talk too much or too fast. He's always telling us how afraid he is of his wife, how fat his kids are, how expensive Japanese fruit is, and how he hasn't seen a movie since 2002 because they're too expensive because he has no money because he gives it all to his wife. I'd like to meet her. All the students appreciate him, he is tough on our pronunciation, which is good because we're all trying to improve it.
The second hour's teacher is the tough one, one or two of the students today were trying arguing with her about what was "logical" and what wasn't. There is a bit of mind bending we have to do to use Chinese prepositions, things either come or go, if you take your watch off of your wrist it comes, if a child swallows something it goes. We're all a little bit scared of her, when she explains something in rapid-fire Chinese mixed with English, she repeats ten times in Chinese "Understand?" It's actually kind of funny thinking about it, we all kinda just sit there staring at our hands on the table too afraid to say we don't understand. We don't want to be "illogical," and we don't want to have to try listening to another rapid-fire Chinese/English explanation we don't understand.
But I came a long way and spent a lot of money to get here, all just to learn Chinese. So, while I may not get the benefit I want to get out of this teacher, at least not yet, I'd like to get something out of it other than the memory of my class-mates across the table frowning down at their books trying not to make eye contact with the teacher. So today I tricked her, I didn't do it on purpose at first, but I think I may have a way to get more I can use from her. I distracted her with unrelated, or barely related almost irrelevant questions. Time will tell if my strategy works, but she seems to like giving explanations to unrelated questions. So I ask her a question I'm pretty sure I know the answer to already, but I'm not really sure but I need it repeated to me. Not something I have no reason asking that I already know really well, but something that I could have remembered wrong, or maybe I just want a few more examples or details. Ha! Basically I guess you could say I play dumb (or rather dumber) and get myself a nice little refresher on some other topic. These little refresher courses can really eat up class time, but the other students don't seem to mind because they've already given up.
Then afterwards, as we've already done at least two or three times this week, we just ask the next teacher to explain whatever teacher 2 was trying to explain to us. Which she usually does in 5 minutes instead of the 45 that we sweat through the hour before. The third teacher is totally different than the second teacher, I would describe the second teacher as "fierce" and the third as "giddy." She's small, has big oversized glasses, and she always brings a Big Gulp sized stainless steel tea cup with a lid that keeps the heat in. I don't think I've ever had a teacher who had so much energy or enjoyed her job as much as the third, she's always giggling and laughing at something or drawing stick figures on the white board. The whole class's attitude changes when she takes over. I don't need to trick her, but I do need to pay close attention because she gives hard homework: hand written photo copied work sheets with little stick figures crossing streets towards each other and walking across circles.