chrisclanton.com

I’m sitting in my computer lab right now watching the students’ screens on the lab computer and typing this on my laptop sitting directly next to it. The bits I’m saying in class are in bold.

“GEORGE!  WAKE UP!”

GAC2 is the worst class in the school.  It’s not that they’re stupid, really, just very VERY lazy.  In fact, I’m reticent to say that they are “lazy” because they do a LOT of work trying to find ways to cheat, or get out of doing any work that could be beneficial for them.  This is the class that–

“MIKE! INTERNET OFF!”

This is the class where I discovered that SEVEN of the eleven students had cheated on an excel project. They’d copied the spreadsheet and charts from one student, then each of the students who copied it went through a lot of work changing the colors on the charts, the chart-layouts, fonts, and even the functions in the spreadsheet (ie: changed a3*b3 to B3*A3) to make it appear different.  Of course it was obvious what they had done when they all made exactly the same typing mistakes, mistakes in their formulas, and when they forgot to change the headers and footers to their own name (It appeared as though there were 8 students named “Jim” when I graded that part of the test).

“ROGER, WENDY: GET TO WORK.  GEORGE, WAKE UP OR I WILL SEND YOU TO TRISHA”

On their final project– a project that should take about 25 hours, most of them tried to tell me that they were finished after about 35 minutes.  Of course I’d look at the project, see that they had met NONE of the requirements on their sheet (which they didn’t read at all–they just started making whatever web page they wanted) and then they would get angry when I told them that they weren’t finished in the slightest bit and hadn’t even completed one PART of the project).  Two students, in the end, DID only make their websites in 3 hours because they missed so many classes or only sat staring at their screens for the other classes.  George and Peter– Little fucking shits. I can’t wait for their parents to pay big bucks to send them to America only to have them come right back in one month when they can’t do anything in a REAL college.  Yes, I know it is terrible for a teacher to wish such horrible failures on his students, but I don’t care one bit.  I want to see them fail in life.  I wish they would have to work as one of those people you see here walking around picking bottles out of trash cans (they won’t, their parents are rich and they’ll probably end up with a high, bullshit position in their daddy’s company).  These two kids I yell at every day to turn-off-the-internet-wakeup-pay-attention-listen-to-me.  I have to send them out of class once a week.  I’ve met with their parents (who blame the teachers and administration for their kids’ bad behavior). I send them to Trisha (their class master who yells at them a bit).  I’ve failed them on tests– but a “failure” doesn’t really mean “failure” at this school.  They just get to “resit” the test again and again until they get a passing mark or have taken it enough times to memorize the questions.  They didn’t even fail when I caught them blatantly cheating on that excel spreadsheet.  I’ve done everything I can to try to stop this behavior, to get them to work

“ROGER STOP TALKING TO WENDY AND BOTH OF YOU GET TO WORK!”

and to try get them to learn ANYTHING and nothing works.  Nothing changes, and they keep getting moved up and up until eventually they’ll get to graduate next week with a certificate that says that I, and their other teachers, have prepared them for studying in university.   That makes ME look bad.  So yeah, fuck that.  If I want my good students to go to America and get a top notch education and do really well, I want the students who screw around in my class, ignore me, and do everything they can to flaunt the system (especially when there’s nothing I can do about it) to fail miserably in life.  I want there to be some sort of karmic justice– you work hard and smart you do well in life, you do your best NOT to work you do poorly in life. I don’t know. I guess it’s still wrong for me to want my students to do badly, but, that’s about the only thing I can control here.  If I can’t make them work, if I can’t even fail them for cheating, then at least I can wish them to do badly (and they will, mind you).

“Ariel?  Are you ok?  Well, ok, if you need to go out for a little bit that’s ok…”  Ariel is our “crazy” student.  Her mother told us that she had been to a psychiatrist who said that she is “psychotic”.  I kind of doubt this is a poor translation too, given what I’ve heard about psychiatry in China.  This year she has acted like she was going to jump out the 4th floor classroom window to “kill herself”, attacked a teacher who took away her cheat sheets, had a nervous break down and cried for 2 days when one of the teachers moved her to the back of the class so that the teacher could keep a better eye on a problem student. When you come near her, she kind of jumps and looks at you like you’re coming to attack her.  I feel really bad for her, because she’s not that dumb, and it’s obvious that she really does have some condition that she can’t get help for.  I feel really really bad for her in fact, and walk as lightly as I can around her.  Of course the point that perhaps it’s a bad idea to send a girl who’s so unstable alone to a foreign country to study is lost on everyone except for her foreign teachers…

Today was supposed to be my last day with GAC2– ever.  I was really excited about that.  Two hours of review for the test and then the last hour to take that test.  Then I would never have to see them again. I was even going to find some way to skip out of their graduation (since, in my opinion, only 3 students in the class deserve to graduate).

“ROGER INTERNET OFF!”

However, true to form, only 5 students showed up or class– the rest have to go get visas so they can get into America.  As usual though, none of the students told me last week that they wouldn’t be here today when I announced at least 5 times that they would have their final exam today.  So now I get to sit and watch them finish their projects in English, Science, and Business (all of which were due last week for them, of course).  Here is what each of my five students are doing on their screen right now.

George: staring at computer screen moving his mouse up and down so it looks like he’s working.  “George get to work!”  He responds, “I am!”

Roger: talking to Wendy again.  I’ll let him talk for another minute before telling him, again, to get to work.  I’d move him, but then he’d argue that all his work is on the computer where he currently is.

Ariel: working on her science powerpoint presentation about Charles Darwin.  The slide she is on now reads Title: “Having More Questions”, bullet points “What does his father do?” “What does his grand father do?”. She seems to be thinking of more relevent questions.

Mike: asleep again, his screen is on his desktop. He should be working on his computer project that was due last week.

“Mike! WAKE UP! Your project is already a week late!”

Wendy: her screen is on her English essay, but I haven’t seen her type anything in a while because, I suppose, Roger is talking to her.

“ROGER! WENDY! GET TO WORK!”

And so it goes.  Class goes on, and I stew about having to play babysitter and that there’s nothing I can do to help these kids.

One final note, this class is really an exception.  GAC1 (who graduated last nine weeks) was full of super intelligent, hard-working kids.  Their final projects in my class were top notch, well researched, fun websites.  Teachers loved them and they were great students.  They got a lot from our program and any American university would do very well to have them.  Not one instance of cheating or plagiarizing with those kids.  The other students in our college, even the low levels, are all hard working but are just a bit deficient in English or general intelligence.  This class is the only one that has students who are just plain horrible.  This is the only class where I actively dislike the students.  Luckily I will only have to see them for four more hours before we send them out to continue being failures somewhere else.

“ROGER!  Move up here. You can use my USB key to move your work”  He laughs a little bit and reluctantly moves.  He will not come back for the third hour of class.  He also, likely will never finish his projects, but, I’m certain he will be graduated.

I figured this would be better than a lot of pictures:

Please forgive the dorky awkwardness.

BWAHAHAHAHA

The New York Times is reporting that two lawyers who offered to defend, pro-bono, monks arrested for the protests earlier this year have had their licenses suspended and can no longer practice law. Basically, for even attempting a fair trial in China for people who the communist party disagrees with will result in instant loss of your livelihood.

NYTimes explains:

Lawyers are increasingly at the cutting edge of efforts to push systemic change in China. Self-styled “rights defenders” regard the law as a tool to expand and protect the rights of individuals in an authoritarian political system. But the ruling Communist Party is often wary of lawyers who try to challenge what it regards as the unassailable pre-eminence of the party in society.

One of the lawyers who was suspended is quoted:

Last month, before a final decision had been made on the licenses, Mr. Jiang said his status was in jeopardy because of his willingness to handle “sensitive cases.” “As a lawyer, I only care about whether the case can be legally defended,” Mr. Jiang told The South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. “I will follow the right rules within the law. I don’t know how to judge whether a case is sensitive or not.”

OK, I’m getting kind of freaked out.  My body just keeps going through all these diverse screwy problems, that I can’t really diagnose and aren’t really worth going to a Chinese witch doctor about.

The one that’s screwing with me the most, I’ve had for three weeks now (since I got back from the Philippines).  My middle toe on my left foot is swollen to a gigantic size and is itchy as hell.  It started out as one welt (three weeks ago) on the top that itched really bad.  I assumed it was a mosquito bite.  But then that welt turned into another welt, that was equally itchy.  This cycle has been happening for about 3 weeks now:  Itchy welt appears on the toe, then bursts open in a puss-y explosion that soaks my foot, then more welts appear (always on the same toe) somewhere else, toe gets grows one centimeter in diameter, cycle repeats.  Any ideas what this could be?  I did walk around barefoot a lot on the beach.  Parasite?  Flesh eating bacteria? Leprosy?

I’m getting kind of freaked out.  Anyone in med school?  Any freelancing doctors out there want to help a guy out?  I’d just go to the local doctor here, but I’m pretty sure I know his suggested treatment already.  I guarantee it would be one (or more!) of the following:

• drink more hot water.
• here are some locust shells.  make tea from them.
• here is an I.V. of saline solution.  Come back every day this week and have another bag of saline drip.
• get more sleep.
• you have no problem at all.
• we should amputate the toe.

I’d really rather skip all that… you know, so if you’ve had something similar or have any suggestions, they’d be appreciated.

I hate to poach someone else’s funny remark off the internet.  It’s always a reminder of just how lacking I am in the humor department.  However, I’ve been thinking of this tweet all day. This is from Scott Simpson’s twitter feed:

Whence the archaic syntax in re: “shitting not” thine bro?

His site youlooknicetoday.com has some really funny Talk Radio-style podcasts as well.

This little bit caught my eye in a recent nytimes article about Obama’s aide.

Basically, the RIAA would want to sue Obama for up to $150,000 stolen/pirated from his friend’s music collection.

Here’s the quote:

After the Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia in April, Mr. Obama borrowed a move from the rapper Jay-Z and mimed brushing off his shoulders, but it was Mr. Love who had uploaded his music to the senator’s iPod in the first place — a silver Nano that he bought the senator for his 46th birthday.

This is one of my favorite words.

A google search for the word confirmed my suspicions about this word that is a synonym for “lucky”.

Here are the main times when the word is used:

1. when translating from any Asian language or referring to something lucky in Asia
2. when talking about astrology

No one ever seems to use this word except for in those occasions, and mainly when discussing something Asian.  In fact, the word itself conjures ideas of fortune cookies.  I’d say that this word is more Chinese than English these days…

I went to the Nanjing Olympic Torch relay.  It was a lot of fun and the nationalistic explosion that I had predicted.  There were even more people than there were when I went at 7:30 this morning (I described it then as literally millions stretched down Beijing Xi Lu– I mean that literally again.)  Since the runners were only going about 100 meters apiece in the city, I was fortunate enough to get to see the actual relay part up close and personally.  As with many times in China, the fact that I’m about a foot and a half taller than everyone around me was really helpful again. But when trying to get pictures of the torch, I was thwarted by the sheer number of flags  waving.  I got a few pictures of the torch if you look closely (or go to the photoset and zoom in) but it was really worth it for the shots of the crowd.  It’s not rare to see crowds like this in China, but it’s rare to see a crowd like this where everyone’s excited and generally happy.  Anyway, here are a few key pictures, and you can go see the flickr photoset here.

If you go to the full size version of the picture above, you can see the flame being passed. This is about the best shot I got of it.

Of course the police were out in full force for this.  I had no idea that a city this size could support so many.  In fact there were so many that they had formed a human road block about 5 people thick across Shanghai Road.

Rob, our boss, told us that when he was coming into school, the back alley ways of our neighborhood were filled with soldiers in full fatigues sporting shotguns and riot gear just waiting for anything to go wrong.  I meant to get some pictures of this as well, but barely made it in time to catch the actual torch.

Finally, the timing of the torch run was most “auspicious” (hahahahaha, more on that funny word later…).  Right after the conclusion of the run, the sky turned dark as night and a huge thunderstorm rolled through.  It really was spectacular timing.

Anne and I went to Hongshan zoo last weekend and had a blast.  I was surprised at the quality of the place, to be honest.  The previous zoo I’d been to in China was the one in JiuJiang.  Anyone at all associated with that place of torture and degradation should be fed to the wild animals kept in that thing.  It was not a zoo.  It was a display of animal cruelty.  I seriously had to leave crying and making plans of how to break free the animals whose short, miserable lives outside of the zoo would be 1000 times better than the torture they had to endure inside.

HOWEVER, Hongshan zoo in Nanjing was not like that!  In fact, the animals enclosures were (mostly) spacious and really nice as far as zoos go.  I mean I guess there was a “bull fighting exhibit” and a “animal performance house”– which I’m completely against, but we barely even noticed those things, and the rest of the zoo was fantastic.  In fact the main problem with the zoo wasn’t the zoo itself but the Chinese tourists who were visiting it on the same day.  I’m sure a lot of this stuff happens in Western zoos as well, so this shouldn’t be read as a critique of China or Chinese zoos in any way.  The pounding on the glass and screaming at the animals trying to get a reaction was only the smallest of the problems (I really did want to throw one guy who kept shouting at a sleeping tiger into the pit to let him fend for himself…).  The biggest problem was the trash that went into the animals’ cages.

Unlike most places in China, there were ample trash recepticles– one every 30 feet or so, yet trash would just accumulate in the pens. I realized that this was purposeful– people would throw their trash into the pens to see how the animals would react to it.  Sometimes this was mostly harmless, but a couple of times I almost lost my cool about it– both times involved cigarettes.  The first was at the monkey pit.  One guy threw a cucumber in, which I guess was ok, because the monkeys had fun ripping it apart and chomping down to the laughter of the crowd.  Then another guy– around my age– thought it would be a good idea to throw a cigarette to the monkeys.  Of course a monkey immediately went after it, and of course, started chomping down on it to the laughter of the prick who threw it in.  I shouldn’t have to tell you that tobacco when eaten, is one of the most poisonous things in the world.  Put just a few pieces of tobacco in a fish tank and the fish will all be dead within a few hours.  We had to leave before we witnessed what happened to that monkey.

The second cigarette incident was when one guy threw his lit cigarette into a (different) monkey cage.  This one was behind glass that was ten feet high with a fine wire mesh above that.  Basically he really had to aim to get it in there, and he did it in a sort of “Fuck you, monkeys!” type movement.  Luckily the little golden monkey who ran up to investigate winced at the smell and ran off, otherwise I would have lost it completely.

Anyway, I shouldn’t focus on those two negative aspects of the trip.  The zoo was fantastic!  In addition to the monkeys listed above, we saw some tigers and lions (who, by the way, had a fantastic enclosure!), some African wild dogs (never seen those before, in person!), my first pandas (despite being in China for 3 years), elephants, giraffes, and tons of other wild-animal-goodness.

One of the highlights was the orangutan.  This guy was a sweetheart and a half, and had a special fondness for Anne.  He would move to sit by her and want to play a handgame where they would touch the glass in the same place.  Then they’d make faces at each other and imitate the other’s movement.  It was really sweet.  Especially since he so obviously liked Anne so much.  When other tourists would come by, he would walk over to a corner where he couldn’t be seen, then peak out and watch for them to leave, then promptly resume his place right next to Anne.  It was really sweet.  It was really the only enclosure that I didn’t think was up to par.  He was so obviously a brilliant animal, but his indoor enclosure was complete sparse with nothing to play with or occupy his time.   He was really the only animal I wanted to liberate… and take home and be ape-friends with.

Easily the best part about the whole trip, though, was the red pandas.  Leif and Anne had told me that they were really cool animals, but I never really understood how absolutely fantastic they are.  Not only are they about the cutest animal on earth, they’re also very smart and inquisitive.  They seemed absolutely interested in the people looking at them and would walk up to people and make faces and put on a show.  They reminded me a lot of having the personality of just really sweet, cuddly dogs– except without all that hyperactivity and blind loyalty.  It’s really hard to describe them, other than that they were the most charismatic animals I’ve ever seen.  We should really start working on domesticating these things (the ones we saw already seemed domesticated, really) and making them the pets of the future.

Anyway, here are a few key pictures from the trip– including Anne playing dress up in traditional Mongolian clothing on a horse.  Here’s the full flickr set if you’re interested.