Good Classes, Bad Classes, and the House of Pain

Okay, I need to catch you all up a bit.

So on Saturday night, following our crazy clubbing experience, I for one expected to have a nice quiet evening in. This was not meant to be.

First, let me explain a couple things. So I've already established that seven of us went and were in a movie on Friday. There was additional shooting done on Saturday. Three of the original Friday crew (Kesha, Derek, and Jay) returned for Saturday's shoot. Additionally, several other of my colleagues joined them. I'm not positive who all was there, since I wasn't.

Shooting ran much later in the day on Saturday than it did on Friday, but that was okay because the actors were on a boat and I'm told there was an air-conditioned break room. Luxury. So anyway, here I am, about to head out and grab something to eat on Saturday evening, when I bump into Huw and Emily who say "We've just got a call from Peter [the Chinese faculty member with the connections to get us in this movie]. Are you up for some free dinner? Come to the taxi right now." Those of you who know me know that there was a 0 percent chance of me turning down a free meal.

So it turns out that Peter's friend, one of the producers or something, decided to take all of the Jianghan instructors who worked as extras out to dinner on his dime. It was an extremely different experience from anything I was used to. I ate a sparrow. We also drank a lot of beer and quite a bit of a Chinese spirit called "baijou." I managed to avoid getting totally hammered, but I was feeling rather. . .erm. . .happy by the end of the meal. Following that we drank on the roof for a bit and I called it quits about 1am. This led to me getting that nice relaxing evening in I had wanted on Sunday.

I don't think anything especially memorable happened on Sunday, to be honest. Let's skip ahead to Monday.

Monday I paid my year-long gym membership--one of the last big up-front costs left to me here--and became a member of what we lovingly call "Jackie Chan's House of Pain." The gym is run by a remarkable man called, you guessed it, Jackie Chan. (No, not that Jackie Chan.) Jackie really knows what he's doing when  it comes to getting people into shape. But holy shit does it hurt. I've been to the gym three days in a row now, and honestly after the leg workout Jackie hit me with tonight I'm not sure I will be able to walk immediately upon waking.

Tuesday night saw the return of me to teaching. Last week, my Tuesday night class had been a big disappointment to me. None of them brought their books to class, they were rowdy and unruly, and I wanted to smack every single one of them. This week, however, we clicked and they are now my second-favorite class.

Wednesday morning intermediate English, however, is a different story. Teaching them is a lot like teaching forty-some-odd slabs of stone. I don't think my curriculum is the problem, since my Wednesday afternoon class had the same curriculum from the same teacher and they responded very very well.

Looking forward to tomorrow though. I only have one class and it's my last one for the week. Plus, I blatantly play favorites with my Thursday class because they are the best class.

Peace.