I am just about caught up on the blog posting that I missed out on while under the Great Firewall of China! I have a few solutions to get around the firewall once I get back to China, so I am hoping that one of them will work and I can continue to document my experiences! Thanks to all of you who are faithful readers!
My last two weeks in China before coming to the states for the summer can only be described as pure and utter chaos. I thrive in chaos! But, even amidst the chaos, the stress settles in.
I was going along fine with just two weeks left - my job was settled, I'd chosen an apartment and I was moving swiftly on my TESOL certification work. Then, the big money job came along and I couldn't turn it away....
First of all, I should tell you that sometimes in China things are done with a sense of immediacy. For example, a student wants me to write a recommendation...okay, no problem...and it needs to be done in 4 hours...problem! There is an unspoken assumption that if you have a connection with someone than they will be available to you at any time. Americans don't work like that! Another example...a department in our school asked Tony to translate 15 chapters of a beginning English language textbook and find a native English speaker to record it (me). We did the translation and I was ready to record but then there was no word from the department about moving forward - literally silence for months! Tony just told me that the department recently contacted him with 15 more chapters to translate and they expected everything (including recording and editing) to be done within 2 weeks. Why the sense of immediacy all of a sudden??
Anyways, back to my original story... I was all set to get back to the states when a co-teacher called and asked if I had some time to help him translate a book. At first I hesitated then agreed after I heard how desperate he was for help! The school had given him a book, approximately 320 pages, and told him they needed it in a week. WHAT!?!? Edit an entire book in a week...don't they know how long it takes to edit something like that? So, after settling on a price of 5,000 yuan for 5 days of hellish editing, I got to work on my half of the book. The book was all about the Olympics - I think they were trying to document every logistical detail. The editing in some of the chapters went smoother than in others. All in all, it took me about an hour to edit 5 pages. 5 pages per hour X 160 pages = a lot of hours! Did I mention I only had 5 days? It would have been better if they had not been calling every couple of hours to check on my progress...and remind me that I needed to hurry. I pretty much canceled everything in my week, stopped all work on my teaching certificate and didn't pack a thing for my move. Anyone who saw me that week can testify to my mood...stay clear!
In the end I finished and was satisfied with my work on the book but I will never understand the emergency that was crouching behind my shoulder throughout the entire week, threatening to rear its ugly head if I slowed down for even a moment. Geesh, people, plan ahead next time!!!
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