"Bailey cries a lot."
I hate admitting this but I feel like it must be said, so here it is: This year was supposed to be about fun. I've never really had a desire to teach. In fact, this summer when I was talking to one of the kids at Hodgies about his student teaching placement, I believe that I said "Yuck, that sounds terrible. I could never do that" and only realized, after he looked at me and said "isn't that why you're going to China?", that, yes, I was about to go and do exactly what I had just turned my nose up at. However, I did think that it would be very different. Yes, I would be teaching but only for three hours a day. I had already figured, and also been told very bluntly, that I was mostly going to be there as a decoration - a way for the kids to hear a native speaker and a way for the school to charge the parents more money. But that was fine with me! In fact, it made it better! It made it much easier for me to be nonchalant about teaching and focus on the trips and adventures that Carly and I had planned. I was planning on landing in China, settling into my apartment, correcting some pronunciation, playing some English games and taking off on the next adventure as soon as possible ( I love China but I have other places I want to see too). Unfortunately, that was not at all the case. And at first, that made it really hard. We work WAY more than three hours. Often times, especially at the beginning of the year, we find ourselves eating all three meals at school and then we go home for more lesson planning, powerpoint making, grading and all that other stuff that teachers do. My kids are exceptionally difficult in class and I found myself yelling, getting frustrated and, at times, even crying at the front of the class saying "weishenma, WEISHENMA (why, WHYYYYYYY)?" I was frustrated. I had been expecting to be in a big city but was really in a much more rural area. There were almost no other foreigners (for the first three months that we were here, Carly and I were the only Americans in Lin'an). I was lonely. I hated teaching (because I hadn't really ever loved it to begin with) and I had 10 more months of this looming in front of me. So, I cried. (I'm a crier. It's how I express myself.) I cried enough times that, in an email to our professor in Xiamen (that he decided to read in front of his class), Carly wrote, "Bailey cries a lot." While, I wasn't thrilled that she had decided to share that part of our adventure with him, it was true. I did cry a lot.
But then, things got better. I adjusted. I got my apartment sorted out. I started getting used to lesson planning and figured out better ways to manage my time. I even started looking forward to eating dinner at school (sweet meat sounds like it might be atrocious but it's actually the best thing that has ever happened to school dinner and I'm thinking of starting a sweet meat store when I get back to the States because it's just that good). I stopped taking my kids misbehavior so personally and found much better ways of handling their ridiculousness (now I just have to figure out how to keep myself from laughing because they are so cute and funny but it's just not how they are supposed to be behaving in class). I became friends with my co-teacher so now, instead of crying alone after a long day, we can cry together (she always says "why are they so noisyyyyyy?"). So, things were looking up but I was still very much in the mindset of "get through this day so you can get to Korea/Thailand/Vietnam/Japan." Living and working in China was nice (have I mentioned that I love China?) but that wasn't the main goal - I WANTED TO TRAVEL!
Then, to make things worse, we made friends outside of school. We met this wonderful group of people who, even though we resisted, took us in, helped us out and loved us when we LEAST deserved it. And, unfortunately, I love them too. I really tried not too. But they're too good. They're too sweet. They're too kind. I didn't want to get sucked in because that's not what this year was supposed to be about. We weren't supposed to form friendships or relationships, we were just supposed to teach and travel. Our friendships with our coworkers was ineveitable (because they are so sweet and good) but outside friendships were preventable and we didn't need them because we were leaving after a year and we weren't planning on being around much before we left. Unfortunately, with our work schedule being much more aggressive than we had thought it would be, we have been around a lot more than we thought we would be. Since we are around, we get to spend more time with these people who we were not supposed to be friends with but are so good and loving that we didn't have a choice. We even started an English Corner with them. WHAT? WHAT WERE WE THINKING? Now, all those trips had to be put on the back burner because our weeks are FILLED with school and our weekends are filled with activites with people outside of school (I SHOULD HAVE BEEN TO JAPAN BY NOW) but I wasn't crying anynmore, so that was nice.
Here we are, in the middle of January. I have made more friendships than I had planned on. I have not been as many places as I thought I would have been. I'm still not the biggest fan of teaching. I still don't live in the big city that I thought I would. But I'm used to it now. So, why, today, did I start crying again? Why, when my friend got up to speak this morning, did the tears just start flowing (see thats the main problem. I don't expect them and I can't control them. They just happen. It's because I'm a water but its still not something I'm super proud of)? He was speaking in Chinese. I understood like every three or four words but I couldn't stop crying. Besides being a little embarrassing and making the people around me uncomfortable, ("you feel sick?"..."ummm no, I'm ok...") it was mostly annoying because it didn't seem like there was any real reason for it. But, waters don't cry for no reason (although it may seem like that at times) so I've been thinking about it and I think I finally figured out what that little scene I created was all about.
Before, I was crying because this year was turning out to be nothing like I had expected it to be and that freaked me out. It made things hard. It made being in China hard. And now, I am crying because this year has turned out to be everything I had expected for it not to be and now thats making things hard. I have made more friendships than I had planned on, most of them don't speak enough English for our relationship to really be qualified as a "frienship" but I have spent so much time with them hanging out whether it be in silence or in broken, frustrating, hard to understand, often times funny Chinese/English that they have become some of the sweetest friends. I haven't been as many places as I thought I would have been but I have been some places that I never expected to go and I have some amazing trips coming up that are going to be that much better because we have been waiting and planning them for so long for them. I'm still not the biggest fan of teaching, it's just not really my cup of tea, but I love being with those funny, ridiculous, noisy, misbehaving little cuties. I am still not in the city that I thought I would be but Lin'an has everything that I would have needed in the city and more because it also has beautiful farms, wildlife (which can actually be more terrifying than wonderful at times) and all of the other things that you can only experience in, what many of the foreign teachers who have left our school this year, describe as "the real China" (like styrofoam kingdoms and cows grazing at the side of the river in the middle of downtown). So, the fact that this year has not been the adventure seeking, fun-filled whirlwind that I had been thinking it would be makes things hard. It makes choosing between going on trips or spending one more day with some of our friends hard. It makes realizing that after this semester we only have four more months left hard. It makes being excited for things like warm pancakes, iced coffee, and clothes fresh from a dryer hard because having those things means giving up all of the other things. I have never wanted a hug from my mom as much as I do right now but hugging her means giving up those 120 little hugs that I get every day. I would kill to be able to squish Samson's little face (I'd even be willing to take him on a walk..which is really saying something) but that means no longer getting to play with the little puff ball puppies that the store down the street has for sale (although I suppose I could just buy one and bring it home with me.....mom? dad?). When I was leaving for China, I felt sad that my love for China, Asia and my desire to travel meant leaving everything and everyone that I had always loved. Now, as I'm getting ready to start thinking about leaving China, it makes me sad that it means giving up everything that I have learned to love in the past 5 months. It makes going back to America hard because who know if or when I will come back and if I do, it most likely won't be to Lin'an, this school, these friends. It's hard knowing that, soon, sooner than I realize, I will be closing a chapter that I never thought would be a part of my book. And that goes against everything that this year was supposed to be. That's not fun at
all.
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