Teacher's Pet
As I type, I’m taking a break from studying. I’ve been doing a lot of studying recently. Class always starts with a test, and I need to keep my test marks up to keep my scholarship funds rolling in. As a break I’m watching some strange cartoon in Chinese. I find the cartoons help me with my listening comprehension. The subtitles in Hanzi are particularly helpful. One of the characters just transmogrified into an imposing white angel. Now there’s a huge talking tiger as well. I’ve now completely lost track of what the hell is going on. All I know is that the little flying teddy bear is more powerful than he looks.
Classes go well. My teacher is a year or so older than me. Like most unmarried folks here, she lives at home with her parents. Her favorite activity is shopping, which again is not unusual for folks her age here. I think she has a bit of a crush on me. For the first few days I just thought I was being overly sensitive, but it is becoming apparent by her usage of classroom ‘examples’ that I may be the teacher’s pet. For instance she often addresses each of us in turn when explaining a new word or grammatical rule. She will go around the room and say things like “Yesterday Bob ate lunch at home”, “Today Sarah will study Chinese at school”, and “Tomorrow Ryan will dance at teacher’s house” (I’ve used English names instead of Chinese ones for simplicity’s sake). These examples crop up on a daily basis. So far she has used: “Ryan drinks alcohol with teacher” “Ryan eats dinner at teacher’s house” “Ryan goes for a walk with teacher” and my personal favorite “Teacher slept in Ryan’s bed.” The crush is flattering, and humorous. It doesn’t really affect classes and adds a bit of excitement to my day. I’m waiting for the examples to get completely absurd before I start acting like I’m on to her. When she starts saying things like “Ryan has very nice eyes, and I’d like to touch his package” I might voice some concerns.