A Class Act All The Way

I've not blogged in a while - this is either because nothing's been going on, too much has been going on, or I've become terminally lazy and bored with everything and lost my will to journal events that will probably only make me angry when I read them again. However, I've summoned the strength to do just that, right now, for your benefit. And by benefit I mean "read this, and if you have an inkling of sense you'll never ever come to Xinjiang Normal University".

I've complained about the Stanleys before; but now I realise I've been slightly wrong - the root of the problem lies with three Azerbaijani students (two brothers and one sister). They are a nightmare. The youngest one (16?) cannot produce anything other than a monotonous non-stop tirade of sound when asked to read out loud (ignoring punctuation and even omitting a rest between paragraphs, let alone sentences); the middle sibling (Gulaga, I feel it's okay to mention his name since he writes it on EVERYTHING - the board, the desks, maps on the wall, the windows, you name it) is probably the most annoying possibly-ADHD person I have ever met, and he lacks social skills and a suitable mental age to boot ("teacher teacher pick me pick me", or simply not shutting up when the teacher is talking, or walking round the classroom in the middle of lessons, or - like most of the other students - dashing out when his phone rings to answer a call ... all this from a 17 year old dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase, playing the man about town), and finally the oldest one, 18 I am told ... he seems to be the most normal of the three but this isn't saying much. He still lacks an attention span or any kind of common manners or courtesy that should be shown toward a teacher / in a university environment.

This week I've had the pleasure of seeing all these Central Asian students packing up their bags and preparing to leave about 10 minutes before the end of the lesson because they figured we were done with the interesting part of the class and the teacher's a bit of a pushover (she is, I have no idea how or why she puts up with so much shit from the class - someone told me on Monday she threw some chalk at these kids ... I said if I was the teacher I would throw the KIDS out of the window and be done with it; I went further to say if I was their teacher they'd all be dead by now, and I'm not kidding.) They need high-speed lead injections to their brains, the sooner the better.

It's not just these younger ones who can't pay attention either though - this week also saw an older woman in the class (I estimated 40+ though my friend says I'm being a bit harsh) committing such an act of duncery (I made that word up but it's rather nice I think you'll agree) that I actually turned around and reprimanded her. Gulaga had just spent a good couple of minutes embarrassing himself by answering the teacher's "What is the abbreviation for this type of train in China?" with "They are green", and I thought after the fairly obvious correction by the teacher there'd be no one else misunderstanding the simple question, but nooooo I was wrong. Behind me, this behemoth of a woman (seriously, she could do with losing a bit of weight) tries to answer the next question (identical but about a different type of train) with "They are white" ... I actually turned round and exasperatedly half-spat the words "ABBREVIATION not COLOUR" in Chinese ... god, would it kill them to listen? And if they don't understand could they just keep shut like I do most of the time?

While I'm on the subject of keeping shut, would it be possible for them to close their gobs while I'm being asked to read out loud? It would be the least they could do.

The worst thing about all this is not that their Chinese is better than mine (after all I kind of expect that from people who learnt all their Chinese in China and who havent had to go to high school because when they got here with Daddy from Azerbaijan he arranged for them to come straight to uni via an admissions contact of his so they wouldnt have to "do Biology, Chemistry, Physics, all those HARD subjects" as the youngest of the three put it) but that this is supposed to be a better class than I was in last semester!

Then again, what do you expect from the university who has not only managed to lose an exchange contract with a British uni (as far as I know, after just 2 years of sending students here, Newcastle has cancelled the exchange, or at least not offered it for this coming year), but also lost a contract with the US State Dept for English teachers (because they treat them all like shit, literally, and they simply wouldn't stand for it). Apparently Anniwar, the useless sack of crap who was supposed to be in charge of the foreign exchange people, has now been moved to a different department (but not sacked for some reason), so maybe there is hope for the future; however, as long as the university keeps allowing un-vetted foreign nationals in on the basis that they have money alone, and until it learns what a university ought to be like, I doubt very much that anything is going to change.

Rant over, I'm off to sleep. This week has been less than exciting. Next week I get to plant a tree or something. See how THAT goes.

DAYS TIL I AM IN THE UK: 95