New Teacher

For some reason, our previous Chinese teacher is no longer able to teach our class, so we have a new teacher who started last night. There are pros and cons to both, but she is the complete opposite of our old teacher. While our old teacher barely opened the textbook in class, she followed it almost line for line. On the other hand, the things she did outside of the textbook were really good. When she came in, she introduced herself in Chinese, even though we hadn't yet done introductions (we did that last night). Rather than just practicing numbers in order, she gave us her mobile phone number to see if we could understand it. She also taught us the hand symbols for the numbers. But sometimes she would just ask us to read something in the text book on our own in class, which I think is not the best use of class time. I can (and do) read the book outside of class. We only have one and a half hours in class each week; I think we shouldn't be using that time to read the book.

I had started thinking to myself that perhaps our "freshers" were getting bored of fire alarms, but last night at 3:30 a.m. the insistent ringing pierced my sleep once again. The fire department actually came, so perhaps there was actually some fire. They kept us outside for about 20 minutes. We were not allowed uninterrupted sleep after that; we were woken by short bursts every hour or two through the rest of the night (presumably testing after resetting the system).

One positive aspect of all this was that one of the other students in my Chinese class found me outside. I had introduced myself to her (in Chinese) during one of our reading times during class. She's from France, studying European studies, and eager to learn any new language she can get her hands on. Perhaps, together, we can keep the interaction up during class so we can get some more practice in.

On a completely different topic: Last night I was talking to my flatmate Imram (from Pakistan) and asked him about the earthquake last year. He said he lost a close friend and described the horrors of helping to excavate afterwards. He also said that, particularly in the more remote areas, many people are in exactly the same condition as the day after the earthquake, and are facing the prospect of another rough winter without real shelter. Eventually Imram reproached me for bringing up such a depressing topic and awful memories.