The Chinese Obama, plus other notes & errata

* Finally got a student named Obama. Been waiting for that one. Every time I call on him, the entire class erupts into laughter; it probably doesn't help that I can't quite keep a straight face myself. (You'll all be happy to know that my streak of popularity with the Chinese boys continues; under 'other comments,' Obama wrote: 'I love you.' Where, oh where, is this famed Chinese indirectness I've heard so much about?)

* Lesson learned: When you roll out of bed early on a Sunday morning and discover there is no coffee in the house, and think to yourself, I will just dash across to that corner market less than 100 yards away, and decide not to change out of you polka-dotted polar bear pajamas because, really, who would be up that early anyway, there will always, always be a group of your students inexplicably loitering near your front door.

* Didn't think there could be a moment more grim and disheartening than when a class of overly sugarfied 6-year-olds realizes that nothing comes after 3. As in, 'If you're not sitting down quietly by the time I count to 3 ..."
All it takes is one kid to catch on to the fact that you are relying solely on some nebulous implied threat that will never materialize (at least, not once you have dismissed corporal punishment as an option -- not that you ever considered it; not seriously, anyway; and even if you did, it was only for, like, a fraction of a second), for the whole cabal of kids - who already hover on the fine edge of mob mentality on their best days - to slide into utter chaos, scoffing in the face of your last-ditch appeals to sanity and reason.
Turns out, there is a moment even bleaker: When a class of 60 adults in their mid-20s does the same thing.

* When asked what he wanted to learn more about in my class, Sailor said: 'American cowboys and Colt .45s." He mentioned his passion for Colt .45s three times. Not sure how to break it to him that the West was won a long time ago, and there aren't many places left where the deer and the buffalo roam.

* Just realized that my laptop lid, which has been staring my students directly in the face for the last few weeks, has a prominently placed sticker proudly advertising "Stitches for Bitches" (one of my favorite stores in Oakland). Really hoping that their extremely limited vocabulary is working in my favor for once.