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Sunday Snippet
Nov. 7th, 2021 11:03 amOh hello! I hope you are well! My week has been relatively drama-free, at least outside of work, where we finished up Julius Caesar and Hamlet. A month or so ago, my mom sent me a box of things — some clothes, earrings, and books — that I accidentally left behind. I knew I was going to have to pay customs — even though they are my own personal items! — but I was prepared. However, apparently when they checked my box, there was a fuss about the books, and now I have to get approval by the someone on the Ministry of Culture? I’m still not sure. Our secretary, Vika, told me she had never seen the forms I got before, and our staff fixer, Anna, is trying to sort it out. Hopefully I can get the things next week. But this is just one of the many things that I didn’t expect living under a dictatorship would bring. The books, by the way, are Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho and The Good Immigrant, the American edition, a book of essays by immigrants to the US. I know it deals with racism within the US, probably the impact of imperialism, so I’m prepared for it to not paint the US in a good light, so I’m not sure why that would flag anything unless books in general are flagged, so…
It also made me choose Fahrenheit 451 for our classroom novel. I was vacillating between that and Animal Farm, neither of which I have actually read, but I have one student who is something of a shit-stirrer. He’s also Chinese and has a habit of painting all countries in the worst light (which, generally, this is fair) but also said the novel is just propaganda and that Russia is left wing, and to be honest, I have neither the patience or the energy to go forward with class debate on it. I am also not educated enough on the broader context to be able to ensure that all student voices are heard while still trying to keep discussion productive and civil AND trying to be fair about the book. I’m much more comfortable talking about the US side of the Cold War and its effects on US citizens, and I am more confident that my students can help make connections in a generally civil manner when we talk about censorship instead of whole political systems.
This is the opposite problem I would have in the US, where students and the curriculum are so divorced from history in context of the whole world. And it’s going to be a good challenge for me as a teacher, because I do want students to engage passionately with work, and I do not simply want to force my own beliefs on them, but at the same time, I have learning goals to accomplish. And these books were some of the few that I had enough for a class set for. I can’t just pop on over to a book store and get new copies of things, nor am I willing to pay out of pocket. And, as we see, if I tried to have them shipped, they might not even get to me.
Anyway! I’m using The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman for my senior British Lit class because tbh, we need something fun. Those kids take so many AP classes, and that novel has such excellent mood and figurative language that I think it will be fun to look at. And bless my less-ambitious American Lit class. I let them choose between The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible for our next unit, and they chose the play.
As you can see, the units with longer works of fiction are still somewhat fraught for me, and they are still hampered by what I can physically access. Fingers crossed that I don’t screw it up too badly this year.
As for writing, I started a longer work, which I shared a snippet of last week (modern cultivators), and then immediately got the idea for another longer work (modern fluff) as part of the Jiang Cheng Birthday Love Fest. I meant to take a break after meeting my GYWO goal and finish making my advent calendar (which has so. many. sequins), but eh. Writing is good too.
Nie Huaisang stands in front of the bathroom mirror and tugs at the neckline of his t-shirt, slowly revealing the end of shiny pink tendril of scar tissue that creeps across his chest like a vine. Huaisang is not a particularly vain man, he’s just -- okay, he is. He’s vain. He spent a long time developing his particular brand of cultivation to avoid things like physical injury. Scars are just not sexy, and Huaisang is very sexy!
It also made me choose Fahrenheit 451 for our classroom novel. I was vacillating between that and Animal Farm, neither of which I have actually read, but I have one student who is something of a shit-stirrer. He’s also Chinese and has a habit of painting all countries in the worst light (which, generally, this is fair) but also said the novel is just propaganda and that Russia is left wing, and to be honest, I have neither the patience or the energy to go forward with class debate on it. I am also not educated enough on the broader context to be able to ensure that all student voices are heard while still trying to keep discussion productive and civil AND trying to be fair about the book. I’m much more comfortable talking about the US side of the Cold War and its effects on US citizens, and I am more confident that my students can help make connections in a generally civil manner when we talk about censorship instead of whole political systems.
This is the opposite problem I would have in the US, where students and the curriculum are so divorced from history in context of the whole world. And it’s going to be a good challenge for me as a teacher, because I do want students to engage passionately with work, and I do not simply want to force my own beliefs on them, but at the same time, I have learning goals to accomplish. And these books were some of the few that I had enough for a class set for. I can’t just pop on over to a book store and get new copies of things, nor am I willing to pay out of pocket. And, as we see, if I tried to have them shipped, they might not even get to me.
Anyway! I’m using The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman for my senior British Lit class because tbh, we need something fun. Those kids take so many AP classes, and that novel has such excellent mood and figurative language that I think it will be fun to look at. And bless my less-ambitious American Lit class. I let them choose between The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible for our next unit, and they chose the play.
As you can see, the units with longer works of fiction are still somewhat fraught for me, and they are still hampered by what I can physically access. Fingers crossed that I don’t screw it up too badly this year.
As for writing, I started a longer work, which I shared a snippet of last week (modern cultivators), and then immediately got the idea for another longer work (modern fluff) as part of the Jiang Cheng Birthday Love Fest. I meant to take a break after meeting my GYWO goal and finish making my advent calendar (which has so. many. sequins), but eh. Writing is good too.
Nie Huaisang stands in front of the bathroom mirror and tugs at the neckline of his t-shirt, slowly revealing the end of shiny pink tendril of scar tissue that creeps across his chest like a vine. Huaisang is not a particularly vain man, he’s just -- okay, he is. He’s vain. He spent a long time developing his particular brand of cultivation to avoid things like physical injury. Scars are just not sexy, and Huaisang is very sexy!
