Confusion All Around

by Ruth

The Store is Confused
Today Christina and I went to the supermarket. As we entered the store, we saw they had put out their stock of Christmas items so we perused through a bit. There were some small Christmas trees, various Styrofoam Christmas ornaments, Santa door/wall decorators, Santa hats, some Christmas cards...the normal kind of stuff. There was also a dark castle with a crazy/slightly evil looking cartoon character sticking out of it. There was a section of tiaras and various masks. There's usually a bit of confusion about which holiday belongs to with what, since none of them are really celebrated much.. There were also the traditional Christmas wands. I have personally never seen a Christmas wand in America before, but it seems that China can't celebrate without them. There are so many things I will never understand.

I am Confused
At the store, I also accidentally bought about 3 kilos of eggs...that's 45 eggs. Hmm. I wasn't really paying attention until the egg lady had already bagged them up, and then I suddenly realized, “Holy crap that's a lot of eggs! I'm not quite sure what just happened...” I bought them anyway because that seemed like the less confusing option and they were only about $2.50. Good thing we eat a lot of eggs. And that it's Christmas baking season. And that Kelly needed some eggs. And that eggs don't go bad too fast. It's a lot of eggs.

The Students are Confused
It's hard to believe that it's already December. We only have about three weeks left of the semester. Of course, we haven't ever quite officially heard when the end of the semester will be, but that's everyone's best guess. It seems like this semester has gone by so quickly. I never really even had time to hit the “I'm so sick of teaching phase.” Though lately I have been thinking a lot about the seeming futility of my teaching. By the time these students hit college their bad pronunciation is already so ingrained it's hard to believe that correcting it really makes any difference. Sometimes I think they are getting a new idea, but then I give them a test and realize they have no clue. It's a little discouraging. But, oh well. Now I get to supplement each class with Christmas songs, pictures of Christmas trees and such. If I can't teach them anything, at least I can entertain them.