poops, giggles and huh?

A steaming cup of coffee sits on the table next to my computer. Soft Zhou Jie Lun music plays as a background to my evening. The building is quiet. The week seemed to rush by so fast. Where did it go? Memories from it are blurred together. Images in my mind of laughing with one of my favorite classes as a group of students perform a hilarious skit blend in with a quick snapshot of me on the phone with Susan. I’m sitting on a little concrete wall outside the school building.
"We’re always so far apart," we say to each other. "Will we every get to live near each other?"

I move to another clip of Barry, Justin, Matt and I at the Korean Barbeque restaurant on Thanksgiving night. "Happy Thanksgiving," Matt and I say to each other. Barry is Welsh and Justin is Canadian. To them, it’s just an ordinary dinner. We all chow down like we haven’t had a decent meal in years.

My mind replays Andrea, a Chinese teacher who works in the same office as I do, wiping tears from her eyes as her students try to comfort her.
"She’s been crying since about 12:30 and it’s already 4:00 now," the Russian music teacher whispers to me. "That’s a long time." One of the students tells me that Andrea is hurt by something he said to her in class. "I should not have said it. It was a bad sentence," he confesses to me.

The clip of me trying to understand the man at the post office pushes the one of Andrea aside.
"I want to send this package to America," I tell him again. He is exasperated with me. He mutters something and tells me to give his coworker 6 yuan. I do although I’m not sure why I’m paying the money. I stand there stupidly, waiting for him to tell me what to do next. He is busy with the next customer in line. After a couple of minutes, someone behind me tells me to bring my package to the next window. As I’m filling out the customs declaration form, I realize that the 6 yuan was probably the fee for having my items packaged there at the post office.

After I hand the lady my forms and my package, I ask how much it’ll be to send it. She weighs it.
"474 RMB for the faster service and 364 for the slower service," she says. After I ask her, she tells me that if I use the faster service, my little package will arrive in the US within a week. If I opt for the slower service, it’ll take about a month. I pay for the expensive service even though it’s more than 2 times the price of the actual contents. But it’s ok. It’s for my brother’s birthday.

I see myself playing football with my 7th grade students. I like all of these kids. They’re like little brothers and sisters. A few of them get hurt in the process of learning to play two hand touch football but the injuries only last for a couple of minutes. We laugh and talk on our way back from the soccer field to the classrooms.

I sit here and think about how relatively comfortable I am with my situation, for the most part. I’m intimidated at the prospect of looking for a new job in a field I’ve never worked before. I sigh, take a sip of coffee and click on another link to a job ad on the internet. It’s Friday night. Things are ok. Not perfect. But I’ll take it.

The spiralling football hit him right in the chest. Robert went down. I rushed over to see if he was ok as the other 7th graders crowded around too.

"Robert! Are you ok?" I shook him vigorously. He looked a little dazed.

"Mr. Josh," he wheezed. "I’m ok. But you’re shaking me really hard."

I let go of him and he fell back to ground. His classmates rallied around him patting his body and asking if it hurt when they patted at this particular place.

"Ok, Robert," I said. "We’re going to let you rest over here for a while and we’ll keep playing. When you’re ready, you can play with us again. Ok?"

He nodded.

"Ok, guys," I yelled. The girls nearest me winced at my yelling in their ears. "Let’s play football!"

The boys yelled their approval and everyone headed back onto the field.

I instructed the two teams to start on opposite sides of the field for the kick-off. Harry kicked the ball as hard as he could and it careened crazily toward the opposing team as both groups of children ran to try to corral the ball. James beat both groups to the ball and picked it up. He sprinted full speed around the other children and followed the sideline toward the end zone. Defender after defender leaped at him as he gingerly stepped around their outstretched arms and flying bodies. The last defender out of the way, James looked back at his classmates, grinned, and slammed fiercely into a soccer goal post. The boy flew backwards and hit the ground.

Again, all of us ran over to him to try to assess the damage and to pat his body and ask if it hurt when we patted in this area.

"James," I said. "Are you ok?"

James looked up at me and tried to breathe.

"James! Speak to me! For the love of God, speak to me, boy!" An Irish accent crept into my voice.

I was more than a little anxious. He had run into that goal post hard enough for me to be thankful that I was not the post. Meanwhile, the other kids crowded around. It was hard to see James between their patting hands. I did see his glasses though, so I spoke in that direction. James finally sat up and rubbed his chest. His breath came in shallow little gasps. He communicated that he had just had the wind knocked out of him. He took a seat next to Robert on the sidelines.

The rest of us set up a line of scrimmage near the spot where the goal post had tackled James. After reminding them of the procedure, Mark, the quarterback, yelled, "Huck, Huck, Height!"

Laura hiked the ball to him and locked arms with the people next to her as she shut her eyes tightly and screamed as loudly as possible at the thought of the oncoming defenders. The defenders came like a wave. They went through and around the offensive line. Bodies rolled on the ground as the ball squirted out of a pile of kids and into the arms of little Harry. Harry held the ball in his arms, unsure of what to do now. Two boys immediately jumped on him. I quickly pulled them off of Harry. I hoped he would still be alive.

"Harry! Harry!" I frantically waved my hands in front of his face, as though it would help soothe his obvious pain. He clutched his knee and groaned. I picked him up and carried him over to the sideline with his other injured classmates.

"Mr. Josh! Priscilla’s hurt!" Linda was tugging at my sleeve. I followed her over to where a group of girls surrounded one of their own. Priscilla sat on the ground near tears.

"Ow! My hand hurts," she said. I looked at it closely and massaged it for a couple of seconds. It seemed to calm her down somewhat.

"Hey, it’s 5:20," one of the kids announced. I stood up and clapped for attention.

"Time to head back, guys," I yelled. The girls near me winced and covered their ears at my coice shouting in their ears. Everyone picked up their articles of clothing and we started walking back to the classrooms.

I assessed the damage. Four damaged kids. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to introduce the game to these kids. We probably shouldn’t play it again. My thoughts were interrupted by some of the kids walking next to me.

"That’s a cool game, Mr. Josh," they said eagerly. "When can we play it again?"

Nope, scratch that last thought. We were definitely going to play again.

I’ve never spent so much time alone before. I’ve never spent so many evenings by myself just reading or watching dvds or going to the gym. I’ve never tried to NOT hang out with people as much as possible, if that makes sense. I’ve never spent so many weekends going places by myself, eating by myself, taking pictures of places by myself, and even going to church by myself. A couple of years ago, I would have thought this kind of life might be lonely and boring. I would have thought that I would have actively gone out to hang out with people and make a lot of friends so that I wouldn’t have to be alone. But now, the opposite is true. I’m not really bored and I’m not really lonely. I mean, I miss certain people but I’m not lonely. Usually though, I enjoy having all this time to myself. It’s peaceful and I’m not sure when I’ll have this again after I go back to the States.

Maybe I’m getting old, but I like being in my own room at night. I don’t really feel like going out with all the other teachers on the weekends even when they invite me. Maybe i"m just a loner. I don’t know. Maybe I’m a hermit. A content hermit though.

My back itches. I have to find one of those back scratchers. I don’t like these Pringles as much as I used to…I can’t even finish this little can of them. I’m kind of tired but I should stay up long enough to call Susan. I want to talk to her before I start the week. I haven’t talked to my family for a week either. Man, where’d the weekend go? It was too quick. This book is kind of pointless. Why am I reading it? Oprah’s Book Club is the suckiest club ever. I kind of wish I went to go get some food with Matt when he came by to invite me a couple minutes ago. I wish my hair would grow faster. I want hair like Zhou Jie Lun’s. I have so many people to buy presents for during the next few weeks. I’m going to go broke. Birthdays and Christmas are so expensive! What time is it now? Is it late enough to call Susan? I swear Dan’s an alcoholic. I wonder if he already polished off that bottle of Smirnoff that he bought today. He’s kind of strange. I wonder if I’ll gain a lot of muscle before I get back to the States in January. I hope so. I hope I’m really really big. Damn, my back itches. It feels like someone sprinkled asbestos all over it or something. I wish I had more money. I wish I could buy presents for all these people without having to dip into my savings. I hope I get a decent job when I get back to the States. I hope I’m content there. I hope I don’t want to run back to China.
I’m sleepy and it’s only 9:30. Who the heck is going to read this stupid blog? I should quit writing this right now. I must be really really bored. Wow, that’s sad. I’m gonna quit now.

Lights from the city pass by the window. The cars, the buildings, the street lights and more. High rise apartments and the lives that they show. I see how they’re living through their windows. Like a hundred tv screens on top of and next to each other I see the brothers, the sisters, and their fathers and mothers. Now we’re passing the streets with cars jammed together. Ironic how they’re supposed to make life faster. And now the people on the sidewalk walk and move faster. So now the people in the cars have time to look up at the stars but they don’t because they’re blinded by the lights on the cars. But I look and I can see the stars that hang above. They’re waiting to be noticed because they shine brightest when it’s coldest. And it’s cold tonight so the people on this train all huddle together without any shame. We stop and the doors open again to let on more people and to let some go their way. The next stop is mine so I move to the door. I have to smile as I let my mind explore how someone else might be thinking the same. I don’t know their name but our thoughts might be the same. We might have the same observation without having a conversation. How a city full of people all going different ways with nothing in common without knowing each others’ names, we all share one thing whether we know it or not. We share the same sky and it connects us all but we don’t see it plain because we’re blinded by the lights…of the city.

The walkway was completely empty. The leaves on the trees next to it had turned gold, red, and orange; but mostly gold. Through the trees I could see the sun hanging in the hazy sky. It looked like a single yellow circle painted onto a gray wall. It was so quiet that I could actually hear the falling leaves hitting the pavement. For a moment, it was completely still. No wind stirred the plants or branches. No voices echoed from the buildings in the distance. No footsteps shuffled around me. Silence. It felt like I knew what it meant "to experience eternity in a moment."

In a few seconds, I heard the voices of a group of students from somewhere behind me. Their laughter peircing the reverie that had been. Oh well. I was on my way to the gym anyway.

The long day is over. My midterm tests have been handed out and collected. I’ve yanked a few of them off of the desks of the cheaters. I’ve had students crowded around my desk eager to learn their scores. The graded papers lie on my desk in the office on the second floor in the middle school building. Peace for the first time in a few days. Music that reminds me of my college days and driving with Jeff Smith plays on my computer. The building is unusually quiet. It seems like my neighbors are usually bumping around or talking loudly in the hallway outside my room. Not tonight. It’s like a graveyard; just how I want it tonight.

Will I miss this all when I’m not here next year? Probably. Doesn’t life go in stages though? Once you pass through a stage in your life, aren’t you supposed to put the pictures in an album and pick up the camera for the next stage and not turn back to look at what you left behind? Right now, thinking about leaving China makes me a little sad. I thought that this was where I wanted to stay for the rest of my life. I do love it here. But it really does just seem to make more sense for me to return to MY roots. I’ve returned to my ancestors’ roots already. It’s time for me to make a life for myself instead of escaping one, I guess…

Maybe I’ll be back one day. Who knows. If I do come back, I’ll have a better camera.