Charles Dickens became one of my favorite authors sometime after I read A Tale of Two Cities in high school—this despite the fact that he couldn't create a plausible heroine for anything. I took my amour far enough to read David Copperfield, nearly 1000 pages of impoverished Victorian English glory. I have a new tutoring student whose English name is David. When my most recent tutoring acquisition, an audacious 14-year-old boy, asked me for a unique English name, I drafted a short list of movie and literary character names, and he chose Oliver. This adds a Dickensian twist (pun?) to my days, and makes me smile. Speaking of names, Oliver also has a huge pet mouse named "xiao jing," or "little king." I think it's adorable.
My former student Daisy, who first appeared in my stories as a meek character who seemed to be at the whims of the men in her life, has proven to be an especially strong woman (the anti-implausible Dickensian female!) determined to do something different with her life even as all of her friends and family pressure her to settle. She recently moved to Beijing to find a better job and continue to improve her English. It has improved greatly, but still has a touch of China that makes it musical to read.
Regarding her desire to leave China and pursue anything somewhere else, she sent me this line in an email: "I think it more like a dream than an aim. Life will become boring and hopeless if dream is considered as a luxury. For me, the aim or dreams like a kind of support. I just try my best to let them come true." I think she could have a career as a greeting card writer once she cleans up that grammar.
Lately her friends, like mine, have started to get married, and she's feeling the expectant stares and parental toungue-clicking. Her response to my suggestion that when she moves to America we can go out and find husbands together: "I smiled when you told me we can find our husband in America together, because that moment I felt life can be colorful." Life can be colorful. Write that down.
A friend and fellow Drake journalism grad, Alexa, is currently teaching English through a Fulbright Grant in Indonesia. She recently wrote an incredibly honest blog about the stress of planning the next step after an experience like this—essentially, you think you go abroad to find your calling, to "take a year off" and get it all figured out, but most of our species only end up more confused and with less direction by the end. I've been thinking of saying something really similar, and I invite you to check out what she has to say.
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The things we learn from our students!! Finding a husband and finding a "job"/ finding things to do with our lives should be colorful. I love that idea! Thank you for your nice words about my blog and for writing about it on my wall. It is very encouraging to know I am not the only one, and I certainly dont consider myself worse off after teaching abroad... just more confused for sure. It is hard to know what to do to put me on the right path career-wise when I am more concerned with what will make me happy/ give me the best life experiences. but then what if I get in a rut, or I apply to grad school and they ask me what the hell I have been doing for the past few years while my peers were racking up years of work experience in their field! ... I think I know how to answer now: "Ive been learning how to live colorfully..." which will definitely benefit me in any field, or at least it will make things interesting.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to hear what comes next in life for you. I hope you will keep blogging about it, I love your blog. You are a talented writer.