The day started out wonderfully!  (But a combination of coffee, water, high heels, Taylor Swift, and a bad sound system made the day much more interesting!–It’s almost like someone was playing one big April Fool’s Day joke on my life.)

(…but let’s back up to Thursday morning to begin.)

On Thursday morning, Ms. Fan informed me that I should listen to all of the people who were giving speeches (speech competition on Friday night) in the class. (Now, when both class A and class B are together, she expects me to teach the entire group for 3.5 hours–There are 12 people giving speeches–at 3 to 5 minutes per speech–that makes 36 to 60 minutes of class–even with me giving feedback for 1-3 minutes per person the total time is still (maximum) 96 minutes. So, if we do a little math, we discover that 210-96 = 114… (If anyone reading is really into punctuation/conventions, forgive me for the overuse of dashes/parentheses/slashes/etc.)  The point is this: I had to keep these people entertained for a LONG TIME.

Later that evening, Ms. Fan told me that I would do the same thing the next day…good grief, woman.  On Friday, I decided to have a regular lesson with the once-again-combined classes and then listen to speeches.  Before I could have an awesome class on Friday, I had coffee with another FOCer at 7:30 am.  It was special coffee. 🙂  Needless to say, class was much more fun.

We had a discussion about healthcare (China and US) and then I gave them the choice of working in the book or finishing our Friends activity we had started before.  (The Friends activity consists of watching part of the show over and over–2 or 3 minutes with script in hand–and trying to imitate intonation/pronunciation/etc.  It was a really great activity!) Of course, there was no choice. If you were given the choice to watch Friends or work out of the textbook, of course you would choose Friends. It’s a no-brainer really.  So we worked on that for a while. 

A while later, Ms. Fan comes in and tells me that the students would like me to perform a song for the speech competition.  Now, they know that I majored in music so they all think that I love to sing.  Shame.  After a bit of arm-twisting, (or possibly the effects of the special coffee) I gave in.  But the only song I had on my USB drive that was good for this sort of thing was “Love Story” by Taylor Swift.  (I’m not a big fan of Taylor Swift but her music goes over really well with Chinese men…maybe it’s not the music.)  I told Ms. Fan that I would only sing if Michael and Jerry sang with me. 🙂 hehe….  We came up with a horrible rendition of “Love Story” including actions and two men fighting over ‘Juliet’ in the song.  (I know that’s not how the song goes, but we wanted to make it more interesting and entertaining…so while one man–Jerry–was down on his knee proposing, the other one–Michael–was trying to pull me away from him….super cheesy but they loved it for some reason…I’ll never know.) 

So, after ‘rehearsing’ this in front of the class, we decided it was good enough.  I spent the rest of the class listening to speeches for practice. (Yes, the competition was that night)

I relaxed a bit that afternoon, met a friend for coffee, showered and got ready.  Normally I would wear the same clothes that I wore during the day, but Ms. Fan specifically told me to “look beautiful” that night.  Her actual words were, “Make sure you look very beautiful tonight.”  Good grief.  This means that I shouldn’t wear pants.  (I mean, after all, I was getting engaged…) hehe… So, I put on a skirt. Since it had been beautiful that day I didn’t bother with leggings.  I was supposed to meet Jerry early so that we could practice our performance.  Michael was in the speech contest so he said he wouldn’t practice with us.

I made the decision to walk to the campus because it didn’t seem appropriate to ride my bike in a skirt.  I got downstairs and it was raining. Hm…  I stopped at a friend’s apartment to get an umbrella (because I was already running late and didn’t want to climb back up to mine. I’m also not sure if I have an umbrella or not.)  I committed to walking because I was still in a skirt without leggings. (had I been in leggings I might have considered biking.)  I got so many strange looks. Probably because it is “bad for health” for me to be bare-legged while it is raining. Usually the strange looks are directed at me when I wear flip-flops in 60 degree weather. (or when I wear flip-flops period–for some reason people think that I’m wearing house shoes when I wear sandals of any kind…)  The only thing that would have made this situation more ridiculous would be if I were wearing heels…which happened to be in the bag that I was carrying.  (The shoes involved in this day also ended up being a problem…I removed the shoes I wore to walk there and put them in my purse. HUGE mistake because they were soaked…you can imagine how bad they smelled!  I also had to walk home in them and ended up with a large blister on one heel.)

When I finally got to the building, the reactions of my students were priceless! They never see me dress up.

The speeches were BORING. Especially since I had heard most of them already.  And the ones I hadn’t heard I helped edit.  The three foreign judges (who are also the three foreign teachers) made the time more bearable by having fun with the scoring. (all giving the same score, giving obscure scores [5.73, etc.], scoring based on dress, etc.)  It’s not like it was an important competition. 

After all the speeches were finished, it was show time.  Jerry and I took the ‘stage’ (aka front of the room) to sing and ‘act’ for the audience.  They loved it!  (even though I couldn’t hear the music at first so I sounded horrible, and then the music was too loud…honestly, there is no in-between in this country.)  It was so very ridiculous and so Chinese!  I ended up receiving the “best judge” award…most likely because I performed for them!  I have the performance on video. You’ll have to wait until the summer to see it. It’s awful. 🙂 

After the speeches, my performance, and the awards, there was much picture-taking, and I finally escaped!  Michael and Jerry (my backup singers) insisted on accompanying me home (because it is “very dangerous”.)  Since I had no bike, Jerry offered to give me a ride on his. I was not comfortable with this, so I walked and they rode next to me the whole way! 

So, I ended up with wet clothes, a big blister, smelly shoes, humiliation, a best judge award (and a pin to go with it), and 50-100 pictures of me.  It ended up being pretty fun.