I taught them how to spell "mafia"

If Dan's the J.D. Salinger of blogging, then maybe I'm the Donna Tartt? Only hopefully my sophomore effort won't be as terrible as "The Little Friend."

Being in China is weird, and time seems to fly by. Every week I'm surprised when it's Friday afternoon and I start to hate everything again. The two day teaching marathon is exhausting, and I don't like having to run so much of my class through a teacher's assistant. Thank god they're around to help, but how can you properly manage a classroom when you have to tell someone else to do it for you? I love being in China, but in all honesty I preferred my job teaching Latin in the U.S. I can't stress enough how great it is to teach someone who speaks the same language as you.

This weekend I decided to add to my class load by picking up a shift at the English Corner. I chose movies as a topic and I just spent the last hour and a half discussing everything from "Gone With the Wind" to "Brokeback Mountain" to the mafia controlling the Hong Kong film industry. About ten women ranging from middle schoolers to "my age is a secret" showed up to this free talk. Though I was hesitant about the extra responsibility, I really enjoyed just shooting the breeze and discussing movies with the best (non-American) English speakers I've met since I've been here. (Note: it so happens that I don't know most of the British teachers very well, and the Aussies can't speak English at all! A thong is underwear, for serious!) I even told the class how much I enjoyed speaking English with them. It is so boring for me to spend my Saturday and Sunday saying nothing but "An eraser... I have an eraser... do you have an eraser? A pencil case... I have a pencil case... Johnny, stop hitting Rose or you're going in time out!! I mean it!" and then turning to the TA and asking her to please tell Johnny to stop hitting Rose or he's going in time out.

Back in movie-related news, I found this completely insane documentary in one of the DVD shops downstairs from my house. I have been interested in this movie for a long time but once I moved and gave up my Netflix I figured it was lost and gone forever (or until Movie Madness). I don't know what the hell it was doing in Zhuhai except, of course, waiting for me to buy it.