A new day... and say...

Friday was quite a big day for me mostly due to the incoming new students and my new responsibilities. I felt like I had learned a lot more on this particular day than any other since I came to work. Despite a few kinks with the Smartboard (I guess it is not so smart after all) the day went down quite well and fast. I seemed to have gotten the good draw of a group of experienced and bright students while having a nice team of colleagues that the meeting I had to hold ran smoothly as well. As long as we keep the high hopes with the current motivation to work well together this team looks very promising. And the biggest reward for myself toward the end of the day is that I got my new HDTV! Yeehaw!!!

And of course I have been following the Olympic controversy. I am not going to deliberate my opinions too much again here (I'm scared of death threats and such...) but I just want to say there are too many people maybe unintentionally upholding double standards. On one hand they say such an event should not "involve politics" but on the other hand they would protest against other countries' attitude and opinions towards the occasion. Haven't their protests become part of the politics per se? I actually find the current Olympic theme of "One World, One Dream" a chilling idea as it resembles the ideology of tyrants past and present. The intolerance of different voices and opinions would only make the current sitation worse which is something the Chinese, especially the CCP needs to learn if the nation is to present itself as a real power on the world stage. My conclusion for everyone is this song which has been a favorite of mine in the last few days...

It's all about COMMUNICATION!!!

Have been heavily involved with a couple work related projects that I'm devoting my whole holiday weekend to them. And I realize lately that whether work is enjoyable or successful or not depends a lot on communication. I'm learning this the hard way again that unfortunately some of the people I am now working with are not good communicators at all. They delegate work without clear instructions or what is expected of me that I have to make a lot of guesses amidst confusions. Hence my students and the work suffer. I recall the experience of a couple of the so-called "miracle companionships" (named by others, not myself!) on my mission that things went amazingly well only when we got along and communicated well. It tended to attract good things to happen. I guess that is what happened with my former teaching team that we "attracted" good students or what actually happened was bringing out the best of them if the teachers work well together. When there is no communication, bad things are bound to happen.

On a totally different note, these are what I call real talents:
I'm obssessed with Wade Robson's choreography lately.


And this has been my favorite song the past month.

Things got really interesting at work these days. I went back to the classroom after finishing teacher training but the first couple classes didn't go as well as I thought. It's like I was cursed with dullness once I switched back to full teacher mode and you could tell from students' yawning. The surprise came in the afternoon when the MLI (Military Language Instructor) came to me and said the students had been petitioning to get me back to the team because they didn't want to lose me to other teams. One student even went so far as telling her I was the best teacher in the team. I was really flattered. Talking about the MLI, depsite our misunderstanding a while ago we turned out to be very good friends now through the ICC experience. She pretty much told me all the insider's news of what's going on now. Then the student with family ties to Hong Kong got a 3 in his Cantonese OPI (Oral Proficiency Interview) which is equivalent to native like and good enough to teach in that language. Our whole team was thrilled and I was glad to be able to help him prepare a little bit before the test. And today I substituted for the other team teaching some rather new students and the 2nd class of students I taught didn't leave a good impression on me before at the study hall but turned out to be great participants in class today. Even the team leader came and commended to me how lively the class was today. At the end of the day today I was once again touched by that particular student who is among the more matured telling me that all the students already missed me even though I haven't officially left them yet. Well it really surprised me now how much I enjoy teaching these guys now.

The final interesting but strange thing happened yesterday was Michael Bolton showed up in our school!!! He was scheduled to sing but it turned out he was more than half an hour late and he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do without a band so he ended up telling (sometimes dirty) jokes! The only joke he told I can remember goes:

A wife asked the husband to take the trash out. The husband said, "YOU take the trash out. You cooked it."

Yeah, I know it's silly but somehow it sounded funny at the time. Anyways, MB seems to be one of the more genuine artists and rather approachable.


Thanks to Katherine for the picture as I didn't bring my cell phone along and I didn't wanna look like one of those stalker fans... ;p