the power of language...all 6 that you speak

Teaching 5th grade came early this morning. My first class was the worst as usual, and I finally kicked a kid out of class. This always makes me love my 2nd and 3rd classes more though because they are so much better. It makes teaching them fun! It's amazing how when we experience the negatives, the positives just stand out. Tonight, Lauren and I were talking about this exact subject. A girl Lauren knows in Zhuhai (the city in China right across the river) works at a university where 40 students were sent to the hospital for food poisoning from the school cafeteria today...and that means probably many other students had a less severe case of food poisoning as well. Fortunately, the standards in Macau are higher. Yes, I have found bugs in my food at some restaurants, but nothing too severe...and some restaurants are very clean. Our canteen does not have the greatest food, but I will take a lack of flavor to food poisoning any day! I had Yang Zhou style fried rice at the canteen today, and it wasn't half bad...though it didn't touch my Ma's fried rice....then again, no one's does that.

I was reminded of the power of words today when I was grading at Pacific Coffee Company. They post a quote of the day each day. Today's was "If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've tried before."...or so it was handwritten on the chalkboard. They also had a TV with looping video, and the quote came up on the TV as well. Though, this time it read, "If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before." ...complete change of meaning just by one word missing. I let the baristas know about the error, but I wonder how many people read that today. So just remember, there is power in your words; choose them wisely. Proverbs 18:21, "The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit."

Some of the students from Debate went to a competition in Taiwan this weekend. One of the students brought back the ETAs some candy from Taiwan. It was a salt water taffy-like consistency with almonds in it...and it was quite delicious. Here are the wrappers. Interestingly they have multiple languages which seem to have little to nothing in common. This pink one is my favorite.

We had dinner with a guy from Malaysia who's doing research here for 6 months on Macau culture as part of a masters program from Denmark. Next, he's going to Singapore. Impressive guy and easy to talk to, even though English is one of 6 languages he speaks...He jumped on the boat with Lauren and Ray making fun of Kentucky and where I'm from. Interestingly, he did an internship in Cleveland, so he wasn't too far away. After joking back and forth about where I was from, he came back later in the conversation to say that he thought my accent was quite sexy. Haha. That's not how I would have described it, but I guess that compliments a lot of you readers as well.

One interesting fact that the Malaysian friend (Alvin) shared was about the dialect of language that was spoken my traditional Macanese people. I can't remember the name of it, but I suppose it was a fusion of Cantonese and Portuguese from what I can understand. There are very few people left that still can speak/read this language.

My classes at Hou Kong being cancelled this week has turned into a blessing. I have had more opportunities to work directly with the university students, the nursing professor came forward with some essay grading for us to do, and today I was able to attend a class the ETAs help lead called Speaking with Confidence. I may be helping out with this class next semester if Hou Kong does not renew their contract, so I was glad to see what all it was about. Today they worked on emphasis and intonation....like instead of saying, "I had a nice weekend," saying, "I had a REALLY fantastic weekend." It was fun, and these students were far more open and willing to participate than any of the other student groups I've worked with. Most of them were first year students as well, which generally means that they have a low level of English and are therefore shy. The atmosphere of the class was productive and fun, and I'm excited about the potential of working with them in the spring.