Becoming 李老师

I taught my first citizenship class today.  It didn't go terribly well.  I arrived at the church at 8:30 for a 9:00 start.  Since Xiangping didn't arrive with the keys until 8:45, I had some time to meet with a few students and talk to them.  I have several that will be having their interview in the coming months.  They got excited that I spoke Mandarin and I am happy to have the opportunity to practice so much.  Once class got going, I realized that it would not be as easy as I had hoped.  I was frustrated and so were my students.  I guess I had overestimated their English ability.  Thankfully, I have been provided with a translator.  Her name is Mee.  She is very shy and introverted which doesn't serve my purposes very well.  I felt quite bad for her since she had what seemed to be the whole class of thirteen talking at her.  They speak Cantonese mostly and even if it were Mandarin, they speak too quickly for me to understand.  Basically, they only want to be taught enough to pass the test.  While I understand why they want this, that attitude irritates me.  It did in high school and it does now.  I tried to give them what they want but they just wanted me to do things how the old teacher did it.  We had to go through four different incarnations of a dictation, trying different ways of doing things.  Any way, I struggled through and will be better next time.  I talked to Xiangping and she said that the first day is by far the worst.  A student brought in a sack of yummy plums.  Xiangping gave them to me so I spent a lot of the day opening conversations with "Want a plum?"  It was fun.  Xiangping took me out for lunch.  We got pho bowls which was quite nice for my cold.  I also had a human resources orientation, a follow up with the client I met on Friday and volunteer coordination meeting.  That was pretty much my whole day.  I stopped off at Safeway to pick up a few grocery items on my way home and Beth was pulling in to 139th as I was walking up so yet again, I didn't have to walk up the hill.  Now, I have to fix myself some dinner!