The China Chronicles

I think I just had the most worthless Saturday of my entire life. It was fabulous. I got up and talked to Laura for a bit, then the maintenance staff came to drill another hole in my wall for the pipe on my gas tank to connect to the stove. Oh! I didn't turn the gas tank off after I was done cooking! I'll be right back. Okay, disaster averted, I didn't blow up. Anyway, then I spent quite awhile trying to figure out what to make for dinner tomorrow night (it's my night to cook). Apparently, most recipes require either an oven, cheese, or ingredients that are not available to us. After conquering my recipe dilemma, I made lunch, watched a movie, took a nap, talked to Nick, read, and stared off into space. I finally got out of my pajamas around 7:30 and went to the post office to see if my package is here yet (it's not). I don't think I possibly could have been less productive. It's a good thing the freshmen start soon...maybe then I will get into gear.

It's really weird to be living on campus as a professor. It's difficult to figure out how to be an authority figure because I'm the same age or younger as many of my students. It's hard to know how to balance being a teacher who needs to be a professional with the fact that I see my students when I am running around campus in jeans and a t-shirt during my time off. Remember how you learned about role conflict in Sociology? I'm experiencing it! Chinese university is much different from American university. We don't have offices, so students come to see us in our apartments. The same student you fail for cheating on the exam may eat dinner with you or sell you your 5-gallon jug of water or invite you to her home for the National holiday.

Maybe this will become easier once I start feeling like a teacher instead of a student. I have to remember to keep some degree of separation. Even though I am living on campus just a few buildings away from my students, I can't be best friends with them. If I invite a few of them out for dinner, the others will assume that I am showing them special favor and I'll give them the questions on the test and grade them more easily. But it's also important to develop relationships with my students. I can't ignore them on campus, and I need to make sure that I am open to them. This growing up business is hard!

On a lighter note, my front windows face a boys' dorm. This has given me a few chuckles over the last few weeks. I'll have to take a picture and post it. The ends of each floor are their bathrooms, and they aren't enclosed. There are just iron bars. It's not the whole bathroom, I don't think--just the place where they brush their teeth and do their laundry, at least as far as I can tell. Last week, I heard a guy singing at the top of his lungs. Opera. Then, the other day, I saw a guy running around in his underwear! Ahh! It's not like I stand at the window and try to peer into the boys' dorm. It's just kind of unavoidable because it's right in front of my face. At least he was wearing underwear...it could've been worse.

posted by Sara @ 6:55 AM