Teaching in China - What a Crazy Dream I Had.

Before I get to the dream, let me just firstly say that I've been at my placement school for a week now, and a a part of me had been regretting the decision to choose 'No Preference' for where I was placed in China, what age group I taught, and the English level of the learners I would teach.  I'd even contemplated being asked to be moved to a different school.  Facebook friends have all told me just to 'hang in there', which I'm trying my best to do, but after I laid on the couch in my room early this afternoon, I had a dream that made me realise...

Sometimes it takes the most vivid dreams in our deepest sleep to show us just how much it is that we need to 'wake up'....

I was looking at the piece of paper which had my placement on it and noticed that it had two, the first being a shorter stay than the second, so I went along with all the other TEFL interns who were leaving the day that my shorter placement had finished, and we all got onto to some weird crazy suspended bunk beds.  Where are we? I wondered to myself.  Are we on modified shipping containers to be shipped out around China? Then, a familiar type of shunting feeling - we were on a train.  We were at the very back, and looked out the large window as we watched the town disappear in the distance.

My mum started talking to her sister (my auntie) and my (deceased) cousin, Stuart, about her placement - Wait.  What's Mum doing here? She always said she'd 'wring their little necks' if she ever became a teacher.  And yet there she was, quite calmly talking about where she was going to be placed and that she hadn't yet started.  She also mentioned that Joanne, my sister, had willingly missed the train, and she had some washing to hang out. What? I was then struck with an image of my sister hanging out some washing on a windy day.  How strange.

As I listened to my mum talk, I started to realise something - I'd read my placement sheet wrong and wasn't supposed to be on that train at all.  Is it a one-way trip, or will there be stops where I can get off and go back? The train made a few stops and I panicked more and more with each passing stop, desperately trying to talk myself into getting off the train and go back when I suddenly burst into tears.  "I miss those kids, I really miss them" I say in a panicked blubber.  "I don't actually like most of them, but there's a few really good kids there that I'm really going to miss.  I have to go back, I just have to!"

I woke up suddenly, slightly shocked and ultimately relieved that it was nothing more than a dream; a dream I contemplated the deeper meaning of after having awoken from it, as I do now typing this, coming to the conclusion that it is trying to tell me one thing above all else: "Wake up to yourself, Ian.  Wake up." (Or, you know, something along those lines, anyway). ;-)

What do you think?

- End.

Those Stairs We Climbed. (My morning at The Great Wall of China).

What words must I put?  What words must I say?  Is it not impossible to convey the truth of my experience using only these limited things we call 'words'?  And yet, I must try.

It begins - a tired morning in a mediocre hotel, slowly rushing to get ready to make it to breakfast to socialise with the others.  Who is it I have yet to meet?

I sit at one of the round tables, as I remember it, with my roommate and some others.  Two physics teachers - a couple - recommend me to the film "Interstellar", as do others at the table who've seen it, and I wonder to myself if it and I shall get along well.

Once breakfast has passed, we make our way, in the manner of a slow, un-urgent rush, to the hotel lobby.

Our attention received, we make our way to the boarding of one of two buses.  I, my roommate, some friends and acquaintances board bus 1, the others, bus 8.  With few seats left I sit next to Sam, whom I originally met at Starbucks in the Beijing International Airport on the day I landed.

We see the wall as the bus approaches, which I found initially unimpressive, but as the bus traveled further, the sheer and utter scope of the wall started to dawn on me.  An impressive architectural feat of humanity if ever there was one.

The group is organised, the climb begins.  So excited, so enthused to be climbing  The Great Wall of China! Climbing ... climbing ... ... climbing ... Dear God, what have I gotten myself into? O_O  I struggle to keep up with the group, as my legs start to ache and my heart starts to pound.  I push myself to continue, barely managing to keep my position in the group. I find a spot to rest and notice blood feels like crimson sandpaper flowing through every fiber of my being, especially in my chest.  It's my heart.  Is it palpitating?  I'm not sure, as I'm too overwhelmingly exhausted to tell.  Thinking I'd lagged so far behind that I was last in the group, I'm surprised when others I know start to pass me.  Those from Bus 8, no doubt.  I'm unquestionably the last in my own group.  More pass, and one stops to ask if I'm okay.  I explain my palpitations, and am told, as much as I desire it and tell myself I can, not to push myself.  "Do I look pale to you?  Paler than usual, I mean," I ask.  "You've got colour in your cheeks."  I think to myself It might be okay. I heed her advice and decide to pace myself.   From now on, I dawdle, taking slight rests at every opportunity, other people from the second group passing me every now and again.

Onward I continue, people now coming back down and I ask them which tower is the top, pointing to the which seems to be the highest from my perspective.  "Nah, not that one, man, the next one," he replies.

Eventually, I climb to the souvenir shop and buy myself a t-shirt, a jumper, and a brand new, long overdue, cap.  I carry onward, knowing that there's not much more to go, knowing that I'd regret it for the rest of my life were I to give up now ... or ever.

Nearing the highest tower, I hear a voice call out my name "Ian!!!".  I look up and see my friend leaning over from the top of the tower, smiling and waving, seemingly happy that I'd made it all the way.  I'm overcome with relief. That voice from on high giving me that last burst of encouragement I need to take those final few steps and make it to the top of the tower.

I'm done.  I've done it.  I'm here.  I'm here right now standing on top of the world.  I made it.

And then I went back down, stopping once again at the souvenir shop, buying myself a medal as proof that I'd achieved the impossible.

And on that day, the day of Our Lord, I had conquered not only the wall, but myself.

Yours,

Ian Hollis, English Language Teacher.