Woa sure low sure. “I am a teacher.”

The first days:

It felt good to pull out my professional attire on Tuesday morning. I haven’t worn these clothes since losing my PR job last February. When that happened, I took all my boring office suites and slacks to the dry cleaners and stuck them in the back of my closet—refusing from then on to wear anything that resembled “adulthood”. I actually had to tear off the dry cleaning tags for the first time while I got ready. As I looked at myself in the mirror with my business clothes and my heels on—I found myself humming the same tune that got me to my first day at the pr firm, “I have confidence in sunshine. I have confidence in rain. I have confidence that spring will come again. Besides all this you see I have confidence in me!” (or something like that, I never get all the words right...The Sound of Music)

I have two classes of PhD students in English Writing. The goal is to enable them to write academic level papers for publication. The first class is comprised of scientists, botanists, and all forms of extremely intelligent people doing work that I cannot even pronounce. Soil genochemistry, rapseed development, microbiology, molecular biology, soil and land conservation etc… The second class is full of management and business types—with the obvious agricultural focus. My first thought as they shared their field of study: “What the heck am I doing here. These are some of China’s most brilliant scholars. I’m 23. With an undergrad degree.”

But I’ve got the title of “foreign expert.” And they’re stuck with me marking their run-on sentences. This is a strange world.

I’m not sure how to live with the mystery of comprehension. I have no clue how many, if any, students can understand the words coming out of my mouth. I ask questions, blank looks; I make a slight joke, blank looks; I try speaking at a slower tempo, blank looks. Tough crowd, tough crowd. Some of them copy the power point slides verbatim, so at least I know they can go home and translate it word-by-word if needed.

My other classes are all freshmen English majors and I. LOVE. THEM. Their English is as good as my PhD students, they are sweet, THEY LAUGH, and well….they like me! Haha—I know it’s shallow—but I can’t help but bask in their acceptance of me! To the PhD’s, I’m someone whose class they just have to get through so that they can get their degree—to my freshmen, I’m (in the words of one student) an ambassador from a country that fascinates them AND a new, interesting class in the midst of a dull schedule.

I am so relieved to hear them speak English. They know the language, they are conquering grammar and the nuances of written English—my job is to refine their pronunciation. There will probably be slow moments (repeat after me: th. th. th. th. the. these. there. think.), but hopefully I can come up with enough activities to keep it lively.

It’s SO funny to me to see how college freshmen are all the same! As freshmen, we’re all awkward and goofy. The girls are silly and giggle and the guys are lanky and gawky. There are queen bees and class clowns and jocks and plain janes. There are overachieving pseudo-intellectuals and bored or sleepy d-students. I can’t express how joyous I feel thinking that I will get to know them!

On another note: all the girls want my brother. As I introduce myself to each class, I put up a powerpoint slide with photos of my mom, Dylan, and Laura and describe each of them to the class. As soon as Dylan’s pic pops up, a gasp goes up from the crowd. Seriously, in EVERY class (of freshmen). THEN, when I say that he is a junior in college, that he’s 20…the giggles begin. They can’t get enough of him. One class asked me to pronounce his name again. Another asked me if he would be coming to visit me in China. ANOTHER class asked if he was from Houston too (when I introduce myself, I play up the fact that I was born in Houston—where Yao Ming now plays for the Rockets. They all love it. I’m not gonna mention to them that I didn’t know Houston’s basketball team was even named the Rockets until I came to China). Anyway, I’m thinking of offering to give him in marriage to the girl who makes the best grade in my class. That’s what I would call motivation. You up for it Dyl?

Anyway, I’m loving this first week. It’s better than I could have hoped for—and I’m wondering if I stumbled into something that I want to do my whole life. We’ll see. I’ll leave you with some responses from my students to the “introduce yourself” question: What is your favorite English word?

“Beautiful—because I am believing you are very beautiful and I get to look at you in class each week now.” (And you wonder why I like teaching so much!)

“Defense—like for the Rockets. Defense. Defense. DEfense. DEFense. DEFENSE. DEFENSE. DEFENSE.” (at this point I had to interrupt so as not to disturb other classes)

“Hope”

“Smile”

“Happiness”

“Challenge”

and for the winner: from one of my freshmen guys: “Girl—there is not a more wonderful word or thing in the world.”