Aey....

Somehow I feel that there is tension around my chest as if some air is trapped and cannot be removed. A day without a maniac boss around is not as stressful as the days when she was here, but the post-stress cause by her presence is pretty tensional. I do blame her for taking away the fun of work at the centre. Banning the table viciously with death penalty face when she saw us having a brief discussion in an observation. Savaging people with her power being an boss when she realized she has not sufficient knowledge in discussing any academic issues. Anyway, so glad that she is away and I will try to enjoy my work for only a couple of days without her in presence in the office.

Almost have spent the whole two hours of time watching Youtube videos. Somehow, just by watching other writers' stories, that made me feel comforted. My fear towards writing is explicit in other's words. I feel I become no more vulnerable although in fact I still am.
I don't remember which video says so but it gave my neglect ion a touch :" when you don't how to write or what to write, go to experience something and live a life." I forgets to live my life especially when i am getting emotionally low and defeated. The experience with Alice, my boss, was not comparing to traumatic events like death or separation with your love but it was pretty anxiety related, bad energy generated. I don't hate her any more but want to keep far far away from her.

Asian Film Award, what a dissapointment!

Briefly glanced at the Asian Film Award ceremony last night, I could sense that how odd the live situation can be. There were sitting some excellent actors and actresses off the stage, on the stage a single male host presenting every now and then different awarding guests who seemed to have no passion of what they are doing there, not matter how good they tried to act like a pretty one, not until the best actor and actress were awarded, I had to turn off the TV since it made me feel bored and close disgusted. It seems to me that they would like to copy from the Oscar, but didn't have strong culture to back up this. Therefore, the whole ceremony looked like a typical amertuer work. Asian film without Asian identity. Tanwei didn't attend this award. Through online news I only realised that Tang Wei was boycotted in China, her ads was boycotted, no more film roles for her inside China, and I hope she was not 'imprisoned'. I imagine that it were around cultural revolutionary time, she would for sure end up staying in prison for this. Luckily, that horrifying time was over. Stupid, isn't it? for the stupid political reason, a excellent actress is baned to act. I doubted she had any motive for free speech but acting what was in the history. The government and maybe the masses in China are not ready to listen to opinions other than their own on history. I guess the government wanted to warn everyone else who has attempt to try out any "unpatriotic role" like the role of "Wang Xiang Zhi" in Lust and Caution Tang Wei played. Certainly the communist part holds a very strong vision of and experience in exercising the power of film and literature. For the government, maybe it is something they have to do to protect their public image and glorious history in this current unstable Chinese society. However, how long their authoritarian parenting style can really work in the growing society of individualism. For Tangwei, never know if it means any positive or negative impact on her career or life. 塞翁失马，焉之非福。If I were her, I would make use of the money and time to study films in Europe, learn several languages and enjoy life there before anything would happen... Bless her...

Young children's reading

It is my dream coming true that I am paid to read and write on topics I care about and am interested in- child development in language. My current project have directed my attention back to children's foreign language learning as I used to teach young children English. The motivation of the research interests came from an experience my current boss encountered in a kindergarten in Beijing (She is very impulsive towards research ideas). Her partner in Beijing had a grand-daughter, who was learning English in the kindergarten, but the kid came back home with an aucward pronunciations (e.g. lesson becomes laison). From there, these academics realized how important to teach young children English properly. It is true that it is not the situation just solely belongs to one kindergarten, it is indeed many educators and parents' worry and anxiety. How to make young children bilingual and literate? Talking about literate, in this circumstances, it means reading and writing. In the understanding of child literacy development, reading is, at least in western society, recognized as the core and key to writing and composing. It is also true in the Chinese society, however the concept of reading is not as widely accepted as that is in the UK, US or any other western society. It is very dangerous that this statement may go far from reach. I had better stay still with just reading. Reading is seen important, and treated seriously in Chinese education. However, reading is somehow not encouraged or motivated. It is more of a task, a homework, it is not supposed to fun. Maybe it is too generalized, saying this may hurt many teachers' feelings. However, the reality is that reading for fun is never a culture. I still remember that how I was criticized for reading novels in my middle school, because it took too much of my study time. The situation may be different now, but I doubted that students nowadays have much more time reading for fun than before. What's the point of reading? especially reading for fun! Developmentally, reading for fun builds up one's fluency in reading, therefore the comprehension of the content of a book. Reading enriches one's language from vocabulary, syntactics to tones. Readers can replicate the talk from a story in their real life. In this case, reading is particularly more important for second language learners who particularly lives in an non-second language environment. Second language learners do not always have opportunities to communicate with people in the second language verbally, but reading a novel or even just a story provide them a context that shows how the second language is used. Through reading, the learner can also practice their language skills such as decoding and comprehension. Why reading is so important for children? Children learns from stories, children's literature is usually narrative with simple languages at the beginning. For young children starting to learn another language at age of 3 (true in Hong Kong and valid in many major cities inside China), reading is the most efficient source for the literacy development. Through reading, children will be able to get to know characters that was built in the stories and discuss about the character and things happened to the characters. What's more, children can act out the story or even retell the story. Therefore, reading is not just about reading anymore. Reading is a door to communication that will be eventually expressed through writing. More reason why children should start reading early...?

Sitting in front of my computer, my mind is packed with news on Tibetan protects, now it has developed into riots and my own research project. Like many people have projected that there must be some protects or riots against Chinese government happening around the Olympic time, a couple of weeks after Bejork cheekily hummed 'free Tibet' at the end of her concert, the Tibetans started their large scale protects over human rights and cultural invasion just over one hundred days before the Olympic day. To be independent is every one's dream and life-goals, it seems. Few people would say:" I would like to rely on someone else", maybe for a short period of time one would think it before they can be independent but it is unlikely to be one's claim for ever. The reality seems to me that no one can be completely independent from another, especially one who had close relationships with, physically, mentally, materialistically. I guess politics is a very different story, it is more about what small groups of people want over the mass. Maybe the small groups of people have more visions, otherwise China would not be China today, America would not be America today, the same with Great Britain, and the world would be much more peaceful, a big maybe! Only if we have the exact same standards, the exact same executives. Even so, there is so many uncontrollable variables... There is no way one standard can make every one feel it is fair... Fairness is just poetic word that expresses human being's good willingness. Like what is said in Animal Farm, some are more equal than the others... It is such a good spirit that equality becomes to every one's attention in life, but it has been taking western societies hundred and hundred years to fight for equality, given the fact that the equality is written in most western societies' constitution.
I don't really know how to continue saying what I will say about Tibetan monks' protects... What are they really protecting about? Really about human right? cultural invasion? or really about globalization, or the erosion of the human society...

Anxiety level starts to shoot up!

It still remains the question of whether I will be able to make it to the PhD study in the UK in the end. The desperation has started to reveal itself in my emotional state. when I am fed up with pledging for money and help, I intend to say 'what the hell?' , 'piss off', but can never really give up. The history I am experiencing is making me suffer from anxiety, impatience and nightmares night after night. The more I want, the more I feel I am about to burst into tears or screaming. Day by day, hour by hour, I have been in the situation that I am not be able to leave my computer and have some kind of flase hope that I might get an email and be told to have a scholarship. This seems no difference than buying lottery ticket. When I didn't buy one, it had nothing to do with me and I just needed to lay back and chill out. Once I got one ticket, if I really want to win something, the expectation will grow dramatically as the day of the answer reveals approaching. I sometimes feel that I am a gambler. Maybe I am trying to experiencing the beauty of life, the uncertainty. On the other side, I am long for some certainty in my life while I am doing the opposite things which may not help. Those choices are happening every single time so far. I want certainty but I choose uncertainty.

心弦越绷越紧

哈罗伦敦学生到访哈罗北京也让我有了这次展示我的教学才能的机会。我教了他们两个下午的中文，这些学生和他们的老师对我的教学大加赏识。昨天临走之前，宣力，他们的一位随行的中文老师悄悄地对我说，你等着，哈罗伦敦学校很有可能给你一份工作邀请。真的吗？我都不敢相信我的耳朵，这是因为前晚我和同事们玩到很玩，喝得有些醉了才回家。整一天我都还处在兴奋和疲劳的状态，思维上的反应有些滞钝。如果能如此，那就真太好不过了。至少对我在牛津上学的经济压力上会有一些帮助。但是实际上我还没有收到任何邀请信呢，让我真有些心里七上八下不得安宁，也许宣力真不该这么急地告诉我。耐心一点吧，我只能这样的劝慰自己。目前，我正为读牛津的费用操心者，不知道谁最终能成为我的学业资助人，是小姨，毕翔，还是国家的奖学金。这种等待，期盼真让我有种煎熬的酸楚。不过幸好在哈罗学校的工作能分散一部分过于集中的注意力，再加上帮助人教社的郝老师编写小学英语听力手册，我的生活有些如火如荼的热闹。不管怎样，我正在竭尽全力试图完成我这份弃之不可的心愿。

I bought two 'antique' vases!

I know they are not real but I still bought them and like them still. The dealer told me it is 'silver wrapped China', but it is obvious the metal on top is not silver although it shines a bit like silver. Haven't thought through what I will do with it but I just enjoy looking at them.

A Sunday lunch ...

After lunch in a Korean restaurant at Wudaokou, we left each other with silence and not satisfying with each other from the bottom of our hearts. Right after he said 'sorry', I stopped saying anything as if it was exactly what he needed to shut me up. I did not say anything anymore but it was obvious that I was not happy, not happy with how we ended our conversation. We were talking about family education and its influence to a kid. One of my colleagues has two children, both are boys. The younger one has a very cool hairstyle, almost like one of those very cool Japanese comic book figures, but the problem is that the hairstyle he has could be quite disturbing for many people because his fringes are long enough to just cover his eyes. The kid just enjoys the shade the fringe covers and would not like to have it cut. Dave thinks if he were the parents, he would just have a pair of scissors and cut it by himself. I disagreed with his roughness and said I would talk with the kids first and try to persuade him to have it cut instead of using force. There our argument started. Family disciplines, socializations, young parenting education, old society had more disciplines, and so on... in the end, it turned out to be philosophical debating argument, an unpleasant one for us rather a Sunday afternoon lunch discussion.

A dreadful day! - loss of a young life

I was completely shocked when the news broken out into my ears. Stitch, a boy who I taught once, I saw every school day, I had chat with, jumped out of his window of his apartment where his mum and him lived at his 18th birthday yesterday. A suicide or an accident, it is not really sure yet, but the boy is dead. The whole school is in gray although everyone is trying to hold onto it. Several students were in tears in the toilet and others look sad and low even they try to squeeze some smiles every now and then. He is a star student awarded the only Golden medal in an International Maths competition, he had lots of admirers from different cultural group in school. He was humorous, fun loving and alway wearing smiles. He looked so positive that I would think he is the last person would end his life so soon. Then I checked online about teenage suicide rate.... in 1996 America, the suicide rate among teenager and young people were higher than the death rate of cancer, Aids, and other serious illness added up. It is shocking...and among male youngsters the suicide rate is usually higher than females.

His death reminds me a lot of my own teenage time. I couldn't believe how fragile and desperate I was. I thought about how hopeless my life is now, it would be so much trouble free for myself, my parents and others that I ended my life early. When I was young, I didn't know how to appreciate life. Luckily, I wasn't silly, desperate, or careless enough to make my tragedy happen.

He is gone, left his family and friends missing him and the myth of his death.

As a teacher, I wonder about how his death is going to impact on others' life, some of his friends were his secret admirers, some teachers such as me had had some real nice chats with him, and some of younger graders had liked his jokes. He is certainly missed but we miss him with full confusion.

Why continue going to university?

My cousin's reaction towards my determination for a PhD degree strikes me really hard. 'Why do you want to do a PhD in a university while you can gain as much experiences at your work?' He is a very rich man and he said this when I asked him for financial support. I told him that I wanted to become a university lecture, he replied me ' why on earth do you want to work in a university?' 'because I feel becoming a scholar suits me better and plus it is Oxford' He didn't say much but I can feel his disapproval.

Then I come across this article http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2004/07/what_you_should_know_before_starting_a_doctorate/
it really stirs my mind a lot... when I have to make a decision between going to uni again with lots of debts, and getting pregnant in China, what can I do?

All ready for the Spring festival

Next weekend is the Spring Festival, but the strange feeling I have is that it is just another holiday break and has nothing to do with the Chinese New Year. It sounds all dangerous as the New Year used to be the biggest festival that I had longed for when I was younger. I wonder if it is because I am older and wiser to be practical about it is just another day in my life, or there are really lack of cheers for the Chinese New Year celebration around.

For the last week or two, my beginning Chinese groups have been working on several performances such as a small play called Three Little Piggy, two songs: one is Laoshu Ai Dami, one of the most popular song in China for the last two years I think, the other one is Bude BuaiJinsheKuangwu which loved by my African students. An American Chinese boy in Year 7 is going to play with Pipa which is quite impressive. Suddenly, I have become a drama teacher, music teacher, and even an instrument teacher. This is totally not the reason I come to work for this school. The celebration needs me to make such a have-to contribution.

Still, these preparations do not make me feel that we are preparing for the Spring festival. Instead, it is just preparation for another assembly in Harrow, indeed it is. The celebration for the Chinese New Year is going to be on Friday which one day before the Chinese New Year. My mum insisted that we should go back to Wuhan for the time and refused our invitation to celebrate the New Year in Beijing. So booking tickets becomes a headache for me, in fact for many, at this time of the year. Last time I checked there was only tickets avaiable on the New Year Eve, so I am still waiting for the chances to get tickets for the day before the Eve. Anyway, mum is calling me home and I feel the urge to get tickets the night before the New Year Eve. The urge that drags me back to Wuhan stings me slightly and it seems something or someone tries to tell me that it is a time for a family reunion and it has to be one day before the Eve.

想当妈妈的恐惧！

今天决定用中文写一段，说实话，我的中文打字速度是赶不上我的思维变化的 。 ,是终究还是因为缺乏练习的缘故。所以，这次就练练吧！周末的时间总是很快的就过去了，每到周日下午的时候，总有些心里不踏实，好像是虚度了光阴又有些着急下个星期的工作还没有准备好。整个人感到焦虑的情绪比较强烈，也许是星期天综合症加上星期一的焦虑症吧。我还是非常积极的调整自己的生活节奏的，周日通常是我独自去桑拿或是去咖啡馆的时候，虽然并不是每一次都能让我完全放松，但是我很珍惜独处的时光因为这机会好好的反省和回顾一周发生的事情并且为下一周作一作打算。我想有这样的机会完全是因为我的生活还没有孩子或是老人的顾虑，我很能想像出一旦有了孩子，这样的时间会变得毅然稀少起来。当然，这种体会并不是常常有的，但是仅仅和喜清还有她的宝宝Nanex呆了一两个小时就让我完全理解当一个母亲的意义：耐心，全小时服务，以及创意加上灵活的管理。我自然非常佩服喜清！

做母亲还应是一个朝九晚五的工作，我肯定不是一个能够朝九晚五的人，好歹现在工作的地方不要求坐班，所以作息时间上灵活了许多。今天觉没睡好，明天补点儿，上班累了，周末还可以休息休息。要不然高压工作状态下，再加上不喜欢的工作，我不染上一个忧郁症才怪呢？所以，我还真有些谈当妈妈色变的恐惧了！

After the parents meeting!

At least, these parents said that they expect their children to learn Chinese in China as it is a very popular modern language nowadays and it is such a good opportunity for their children to learn authentic language here. It certainly showed that their parents who are expatriates in Beijing are much more aware of the importance of learning Chinese language than their kids. However, when it comes to the point that Chinese learning in school, in a school such as Harrow (a British boarding school), the importance of learning Chinese has been lessened. Chinese becomes not as important as everybody wanted.

Magnetic!

The time between 2:30- 4:00 in the afternoon is just not good for me to work or learn anything at all. If I were given a bed, I would fell asleep immediately. I started my ITune to search for some music that would wake me up and refresh my brain. The moment I heard Billy Gibbons's Blues Jeans Blue, it just caressed ans soothed the right nerves that bothered me for the last half an hour. The brain cells which went wild, now started to behave themselves again and moving according to the rhymes. They are like mashed magnet pieces, without a strong whole piece of magnet, spreading all over the place. once there is magnetic object, they are went attracted and knelled down wholeheartedly. Oh, feel much better now... now better to work again and tonight is Year7,8, and 9's parents meeting, another long work day.

To all my friends- Should have, could have, and would have

"Should have, could have, and would have", quoted from the Sex and City and it is also how I would like to explain my isolation or distance from my friends, you.

I don't feel sorry that I didn't keep in touch with all my friends but indeed I have been too laid back and thinking about contacting you too much. I didn't find an efficient channel or pathway until I find this virtual place to write my blog and things that I would like to share with you. Physical distances and time differences make face to face communication more and more difficult especially for people like some of you and me myself who have been moved around a lot the last few years. So here it is, I am hoping to 'be with my friends- you' again as if it is in the old days in Wuhan, Xining, Bristol and in my current residency in Beijing.

Please feel free to comment or leave me a message whenever you pass by.

I am looking forward to your 'presence' here.

Lots of Love

Year 9 monsters

Year 9 drove me really mad today as they kept talking and joking with each other in English in my Chinese class and not matter how many times I stopped them, they started again immediately right after shutting for 10 seconds. It makes me almost throw them onto the wall, but of course I don't have strength to do so. Two English boys, one Korean boy, one Thai boy and two Korean girls form this class. The biggest problem is that the two English boys have much lower Chinese abilities than the others but they don't care and work hard to catch up with others. They behave almost like comedians who make fun of themselves and others, so that they have all the attention from their classmates. It makes me think if Y9 (14/15 years old) are the most rebellious year during one's teenage.

A disheartened kid...

One of my Year 7 group students were so disheartened when he was facing his Term 1 mandarin result and he was almost in tears. It would be quite unfair for him as he is a total beginner in the Chinese language but he has to be in the same classroom with other more experienced students who are however at more upper-beginning levels. In school like Harrow, it is extremely difficult to allocate the students into appropriate levels as there are limited human resources as well as time constrains. In such a mix-ability classroom where students at a competitive period of their life, I wonder how I could make him more comfortable with the result and see it more positively.

About Child...

"I am four months pregnant", so one of my old friends told me through phone. Wow, things are happening but with joyful notice! I am so happy for her. It is not surprising that many that I know who are younger than me are already mothers. But she, a good friend since teenage and who is also one month younger than me is expecting a baby this May. Sounds like I am competing ... Maybe yes, maybe not...
Kind of think that most parts of getting a child is to fulfill social responsibility, otherwise why would many governments especially developed countries are encouraging their citizens to have more children by providing them some nice benefits. Such as the case in Germany, the government has a new policy that from 2007, every child who born in Germany gets 28,000 euro for the first three years of life. The funny thing was that some women in Germany whose expecting date were around 1st Jan 2007 'were fighting to' give girth in the new year.

I don't know when I will have a kid or two, or even none. My life still goes on...

Best wishes to those mother and would-be mother friends. Hope you enjoy your parenthood and enjoy watching your kids growing up, but more importantly enjoy yourself.

Cooking club- Thai special

Less people than the number we predicted turned up for this edition cooking club that took place at our flat. But the party turned out to be really enjoyable for everyone who came, in particular with the flow of Mojito. Among five of us, we finished two bottles of Havana Rum and half bottle of Gin. At the end of the party, I allowed everyone watch our wedding video and make fun of it. I could not help laughing at it either but that is another story.

This is actually more of a post-Thai trip party for us who went there for the last Christmas holiday. Jane made a Tom Yum Soup which opened up everyone's appetite. The spices and sourness from the soup activated all the taste buds in our mouth. I made three Thai dishes, Red curry beef with vegetables (less spicy), red curry beef (more spicy) and Curry vegetable with shrimp which were also popular that settle down every one's stomach, Graham brought a tropical fruit salad as dessert which carried our good memories back to the tropical land packed with fresh fruit. All of us happened to be in Thailand this Christmas although it was half way planned. We were at different places in Thailand but we had some really unforgettable relaxing memories despite the fact that some of us were sick there and could not really do much. When David and I were in Bangkok, I insisted going to a supermarket because I believe that to know what people's real life is like, market, in this case supermarket is the best place to go. That is the place I got the Thai pastes including Tom Yum Paste, Red curry Paste and so on, Lemongrass, and kaffir limes (two bags of them), and the most important fish source ( the most famous popular kind in Thailand at moment). With all these ingredients, our Thai cooking club almost sounds authentic. Really looking forward to the next cooking club gathering.

Wondering at a coffee shop

Just love to stay at the coffee shop for hours and hours and don't feel it is boring. I can concentrate and look at every stranger around me whenever I feel like. No body cares what i am doing and neither do I care about anything else. Sometimes, the music in the coffee shop drags me into moody thoughts, sometimes it is merely a background, other times i almost want to dance with it. my fingers can dance on the keyboard while every now and then I am distracted by a guy who was just walking into the place, or A girl who was just coming out of the toilet companied with the sounds with the plastic door chain curtain, everything seem all have their own rhythms and work very well with each other. the shop assistants are cooking, they look quite busy with demands from the customers, but they don't care my existence although i have been here for about 7 hours, amazing. I have got to go, my shoulders are complaining.