Exams

Things are starting to wind down at school now. Whilst this doesn’t mean I have fewer lessons, it does mean that some of them are spent watching kids have exams or, like today, marking papers whilst they watch a film. As like a lot of things Chinese, this is a lot harder than is strictly necessary: the scoring system for example involves assigning an arbitrary number of points for a particular question, and then deducting marks from that score based on what they got wrong (as opposed to just assigning one mark for each correct answer). At the end the papers are given back, but the grade announced in front of the whole class, so that the best and worse students are identified to everyone. I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing – certainly it would never happen in the UK – but it may add some motivation to the worse students to do better next time.

Went to see Kung Fu Panda 2 on Wednesday evening, which I thought was pretty good. It had a lot of China related references which was nice (if not a bit inaccurate); and it was in 3D, which I slated before, but was actually very good this time. I guess it depends on how much effort you put into converting the film for the experience.

Had very little time to do much else this week. Still going to the gym, but the humidity here is making it really difficult (the air conditioning system in the gym consists of a window, which may or may not be open depending on the time of day and staff working). Got a killer crossfit workout to do on Sunday, which I’ve just been informed made Will sick. Damn. Better schedule that one for the morning – don’t want half of Huzhou pointing at me whilst I’m on the floor dying. I also got asked to join the basketball league the other day (win) and I duly obliged; but given I have about two weeks left in Huzhou it’s unlikely I’ll get my debut.