Dangerous times

1. Apparently there was some sort of gas leak or explosion at a local factory this past weekend. Nobody really seemed to know what happened and I didn't end up hearing about it until a couple days after the event. Some people said some factory workers had been killed, others said large numbers of Xinyu residents fled the city. And then the last thing I heard was that a few workers had gotten sick and that nobody had left. It's too bad I can't read the local newspaper, I might be able to know about these sorts of things if I could.

2. Every day after lunch the other foreign teachers and I get in a van that takes us back to the old campus. Most of us don't have afternoon classes so it doesn't make much sense for us to hang around the new campus without anything to do. But today we were taken back in a cab instead of the van. We've done this before and everything was fine in the past but this time the cab driver was not quite fit to drive. Bleisha and I were sitting in the back with Laura in the front. From my position I could see the driver's face in the reflection of the rear view mirror. As we sped down the highway, I could see the driver drifting off into sleep. By the time we were nearing the old campus, his focus seemed to have dropped drastically and all three of us were getting a bit concerned. We were also laughing though because we would watch him and wait for his eyes to slowly shut and then talk out loud about how he was falling asleep and about to wreck. At last we arrived at the gate. We got out, made sure the driver had already been paid, and watched as the car drove off in the hazy early afternoon sunlight.

Now I would like to apologize for making anyone worry about me. I don't intend to make anyone anxious, these are just strange and in some ways funny things that have happened recently. But it's not all so bad and scary. We've been having great weather, truly the best since I've been here. Around 70 degrees and clear skies. We may be getting rain soon so I will be making efforts to enjoy the good weather while I can. That means playing basketball and tennis at school, and making a more thorough trip up the mountain just behind the old campus.

And class is still going well. I'm still enjoying it and my students seem to as well. The past couple days I did lessons on going to see a doctor. I had them brainstorm at the beginning of class about medical-related vocabulary. Then I had the students pair up and do a role-play with one being a patient and the other a doctor. They all liked that very much. At the end, I gave them a few scenarios where they were the doctor and they had to choose who to save. They had to choose between things like saving more lives or saving fewer, or killing one person to save several people. They seemed to enjoy that part of the lesson.

The main thing is simply to figure out ways to keep their attention and keep them interested in the activities. I think philosophical debate might be one way to do that, so I'm going to keep experimenting with it.