Why am I not doing Chinese? A sudden realisation that I'm no linguist, that I need good hearing, that it would be no bad thing ending my association with China. I was getting wound up just counting the number of times the two Chinese tutors mentioned 'Confucius Insitute', A Chinese government Trojan Horse/propaganda agency that entices universities with hard cash. It was almost as if they'd been sent a missive from some department back home explicitly instructing them to keep repeating the name.
On Saturday I went to a squash taster. I proved fairly proficient for a beginner but skipped the pub crawl afterwards. Not that anybody asked.:-(
Sunday I was mostly selecting women on the 'meet me' feature on Plenty of Fish. I must have said yes to hundreds. Three have said yes to me. That's how it goes. There is one pretty 33 year old with a 3 year old I'm talking to but conversation with her is hard work. I was also talking to a 40 year old who was a mature student at Bangor 7 years ago but that conversation seems to be petering out, as well.
Today I returned to the English department but Alex Weaver wasn't in his office. There was a picture of a Penguin book he's had published, though. Something about Welsh literature, I think. Someone helpful called Helen saw me loitering with intent. I'd met her in the mature students welcome last week. I remember her saying that the uni absolutely loves mature students. Perhaps the truth is she loves mature students. She was very friendly and connected me with Dr Laura Dryer. I explained my predicament to Laura and we hastily figured out that besides my compulsory modules I will study Children's Fiction this semester.
Laura was very kind to me and smiled a lot. It must be said, although some people are hard to get hold of lots of others are just waiting to pounce on you if they see you looking lost or help if you ask them a question, and that is just as well because that is clearly what keeps Bangor functioning. Laura also told me to send an urgent email to Alex Weaver, which I duly did and he hasn't yet answered. And we had a brief conversation about China, which made me feel an instant disconnection. 'You were in China? Isn't it an amazing country?' etc. I also got the feeling from talking to her that she assumes I've done no writing. I could have killed two birds with one stone and told her I've written a series of stories about losers in China but I didn't get the chance. However, I've done my homework and I know she's won a BBC prize and written a novel which is not the kind of thing I would consider reading, unfortunately. Even the sub-title annoys me (If you're not angry you're not listening). But I would like to read at least one of her short stories.
Then I went and got a haircut. The barber said that when he was young he used to beat Bangor students up but now he's a businessman and values the custom they bring. He also said many of the Chinese students studying business and finance speak next to no English. They come in and when he asks them what they want they point at his clippers. He says he's heard that they swipe in at lectures, sit at the back and gamble on Bet 365 on their laptops, then swipe out again and get the recording of the lecture translated into Chinese. Why does the uni take students who barely speak English, he asked. I said money talks, or words to that effect.
I'm not officially on the English Lit and Creative Writing course yet but Lisa had given me the details of the Children's lit lecture at 2.00 and I went to it. I'm not sure if you're supposed to swipe a card to show you've attended. Even if you are the system still thinks I'm a Chinese and Creative studies student and presumably one playing truant.
40 minutes of the child lit lecture was given by a Romanian professor (I assume) and the last ten minutes by Laura Dryer.I found the content interesting and the talk was really efficient and well organised but two things perturbed me. First, at the end of the term we have to do an exam saying how much the children's stories we've been reading have influenced our own work. But what if they haven't? It is possible to read books that leave no impression on one's style, especially at my age. Obviously if I don't play the game I'll be punished and this is the fundamental problem with academia. It isn't long before it asks you to lie.
Second, at the end of the lecture Laura put on a very loud YouTube video (I thought it rude to press my fingers on my ears but I figured that was preferable to risking damaging my hearing even further). It was Michael Rosen telling a story called No breathing in class and fine, I've no problem with that. Personally I didn't find it amusing or interesting and it was achingly obvious where it was going but it's part of the course and that's fine. What I didn't like was Laura periodically looking at us at bits she found funny, as if WE SHOULD FIND THEM FUNNY TOO. "Rosen makes it looks so easy, but it's actually very hard," she said. And I couldn't disagree more.
And no, I DID NOT BELIEVE IN FAIRIES AND THE MONSTER IN THE ATTIC when I was a child.
After the lecture I tried the squash again but my heart wasn't in it. It's not so much the squash as the feeling of no connection with the people there. No connection with anybody really. Not the women on POF who have all been married and had children. Not the 18 year olds that filled my children's lit class. Not the really friendly socialist lecturer who thinks that China is amazing and Michael Rosen very funny. It would be nice if I wasn't so bloody picky, wouldn't it?
You have to relax. If you keep picking holes in everything then you will be unhappy. Lecturers, especially senior ones, are notoriously lazy and keep their own time. They may actually be busy but you'll never know whether that's so or not. You have been helped out by office staff (I assume) who clearly know what the senior guys are like, so you're not unloved, you're just being treated like everyone else. The 18 year olds won't care, they're just so chuffed to be away from parents they won't notice. You also might need to push a bit socially, so get yourself on that pub crawl. If they didn't invite you it might be just as much that they felt you might not want to hang out with them as them rejecting you, if not more so.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the class content it sounded like a good one albeit perhaps a bit basic. One of the less PC things to mention is that Bangor is not populated, on the whole, by top students, I imagine quite a number of C-grade A-Levels and so they can't go balls-out with the difficulty or advanced standards from Day 1, they have to cater to the lowest denominator, just like you did in your classes in China. So if you feel superior or that you can out-write Rosen then that's a great sign, you're going to be top of the class. The title of the blog post says everything, but it's not actually true unless you facilitate its truth, if that makes sense.
I for one though would be driven insane by the Chinese students acting like they're in China. I'd actually say something to them if I saw them, complete waste of time of course.
ReplyDeleteI would also just say that it's fine, from my view, to challenge things, at least in a polite and respectful way. See Dr Blower after the class and talk about how unfunny and obvious his storytelling is perhaps and what he could have done instead, it's not school, you're fine to express your views.
Dr Blower is a woman called Lisa. There isn't much time at the end of class, the lecturers often have another one or are off somewhere.
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