Cold Feet

It was inevitable.

I'm actually surprised it took this long to happen.  

Today I had my first "oh my god what am I doing here" moment. 

I was sitting at my desk devising some plans for the afternoon classes and it hit me out of nowhere. 

Panic.

This place is so rainy. No one here understands me. I'm tired of getting lost. I miss cheese. I hate living alone.  I'm not even a teacher. What was I thinking? 

All of a sudden, I feel so out of my element. It's overwhelming. 

The thoughts keep coming and I find myself sliding into a downward spiral of uncertainty. 

Then just as sudden as it came on, I slam on the brakes. 

C'mon, Kirsten. Why are you doing this to yourself?

I've realized that in this moment of fear I had forgotten everything good about this place.

I had forgotten how much things have improved since I got here, how many amazing adventures I've already been on with my friends, the good food I've eaten, the beauty I've witnessed, and how friendly everyone has been. 

I had forgotten the laughs I've shared with my new Chinese friends, and the games of soccer I've played with my students in the schoolyard. 

Most importantly, for that moment I had forgotten the main reason I came here: to teach. 

And in that regard, I have no excuse for cold feet. 

View of the Yangtze and a tributary from my office window

Since I arrived here at Jin Dongfang High School, I have had a strong network of professional colleagues and friends who have shown me endless support and offered invaluable guidance whenever I have asked. 

Not to mention, my students are so intelligent and incredibly driven. When I am able to get them talking, the amount of creativity and humor some of them use blows me away. I keep having to remind myself that English is the only barrier here-- the thoughts and ideas are there, the intelligence is there, my only job is to help them express these things in English! This thought is extremely humbling, as I am reminded of the difficulty of learning a foreign language, and of how little Chinese I actually know myself. What these kids are doing is amazing, and I know it was forced on them from an early age (sometimes I wish we had been forced to learn  a language as kids), but it is pretty impressive how far they have come.

 In my classes there have been intensely satisfying moments where I feel so proud of the original thoughts coming from my students, and happy to have discovered activities that get my students talking and using new vocab. That is something that is so nice about this job. If you put in the hard work, learn from your mistakes, and modify your lesson plans, you are (usually) rewarded with a classroom full of happy, chatty students, sometimes having enough fun that they don't even realize they're practicing their English  :)

Today's cold feet incident has turned out to be a much-needed lesson in perspective. After stepping back and looking at things for what they are, I feel like I'm on level ground once again. 

No, things aren't perfect. The cultural differences and language barriers lead to daily frustrations, but also out of these new conditions spring new and exciting things to discover, and endless opportunities to learn about the people and this place they live in. Not to mention, I think I'm really starting to like my job. Living and working here really is a rush, to say the least, and sometimes I need moments like this to kick me in the butt so I don't take all of this for granted. 

Yesterday was national Teachers' Day, and this cake was in the teachers' lounge on the main floor of JDF . I was wondering why all these tiny Chinese women had such massive piles of cake on their plates. My question was immediately answered when we exited the room and hoards students swarmed my colleagues, pointing to their open mouths. As we moved through the crowd the teachers fed bites of cake to their students like little birds. It was one of the most adorable / funny things I've ever seen!