Author Archives: Meg
Six Years Later…
I’ve been corresponding with my old roommate, Ruth. She’s working in Washington, DC now, and she dropped words like “senator” and “security clearance” into her letters. She said something along the lines of “six years ago, if someone told us … Continue reading
Why Spelling Matters
Last night, Zorro (formerly known as Jason), David and I went to the Jazz Island Cafe. Like more of the “English” places around Yantai, Jazz Ialand has a few spelling errors in their signage. In some places, Jazz is spelled … Continue reading
Travel In China
Tonight I had my adult students. Now, I don’t really like teaching adults because they have all the idiosyncrasies of my middle school students (refusal to speak above a whisper, inability to separate “L” and “R” but an insistence that … Continue reading
Helen of Yantai
I tutor a little girl called Helen, and by “tutor” I mean we play Barbies and lots of clapping games. She is bright, sweet, funny and the picture to the left shows her dressed up for her school concert and … Continue reading
One-Way Ticket
We moved David into his new place the other night (my school is playing Musical Apartments right now — I think the prize is getting an apartment with a bathtub) and we noticed this bar on the way over. That … Continue reading
Meg Vs. Mandarin
Stick’s mom is famous for forcing me to watch Nascar and driving my hyperactive self to the MTELs. The other day, she e-mailed me to tell me she’d learned some Mandarin words, and she gave the examples wo xiang-nian ni … Continue reading
Summer in China
Today I was walking through the park in Kaifaqu in a haze of sunshine, sea air and June roses. I saw a little girl, around 5 or 6, in a white princess dress walking through the summer flowers with her … Continue reading
A Classical Education At Work
After a lesson on present progressive and some Slytherin vs. Griffindor verb charades, I dismissed my teenagers and came back to the teachers’ office. “Meg, did they have wheelbarrows in ancient Rome?” Jason asked. “I suppose so, they had to … Continue reading
Chinese Standards
My new co-worker, David, and I both have Thursdays and Fridays off, so yesterday we went exploring downtown. “is this squid on a stick kosher?” “The next person who calls me lao wei…” The Lonely Planet mentions that Yantai #2 … Continue reading
It’s not a new job until you almost flash someone.
My class today was three Korean students. They call me Professor McGonagall, in Korean this time — and why does everyone do that? Is it that all Westerners look alike? Does “Meg” sound that much like “McGonagall”? Do I radiate … Continue reading
