My student got a Mohawk so we could match.

I once met a man so poor when I asked him how rich he was he showed me his bank account.

Friend: That’s a nice suit! Did you get dressed up for your boyfriend?
Me: Not really.
Friend: Aww did you get dressed up to impress me?!?
Me: No, I got dressed up for myself.

Sometimes people want to feel handsome or pretty for no other reason than to feel handsome or pretty.

Sometimes I just want to impress myself.

I present to you the best sign I have ever seen in China. Use it well Internet.

Alright y’all, 左右’s back!

I’ve recently moved back to Beijing and have had a plethora of exciting things happen to me in the last two months. As per the suggestion of a friend and the nagging of my relatives I decided to hit the tumblr-verse again.

I’ll start off with a heart warming story that made me ball my eyes out like a punk-ass bitch when it happened to me.

So I’m back teaching at a kindergarten. I have four separate classes that I teach. One group is 30 3-4 year olds. Another is 25 4-5 year olds, then I have a group of 10 7-9 year olds who are part of the ‘gifted’ class. My final group is about 10 5-7 year olds who have special needs.

I only recently discovered that this group of kids had special needs (quite on accident honestly.) At first they seemed rather rowdy and dysfunctional, they wouldn’t listen and they would often refuse to play.

I am honestly quite ashamed of how I discovered this. One of my kids was being incredibly disobedient so I put him in time out and was scolding him. While doing this my teaching assistant told me to be nicer, to which I responded, “he refuses to play and constantly distracts the other students.” She then pulls me aside and tells me, “his heart isn’t the same.”
This of course confuses me, but then it dawns on me as I’m looking at him, “is he autistic?” I ask.

“Yes.” She responds meekly and mildly ashamed.

I’m floored, and infuriated. Two months. Two FUCKING months I have been teaching these kids and not one person has told me that they have special requirements. I begin to panic. I’m under skilled and unqualified to teach students with special needs.

I need to clarify something. I’m not upset that I am teaching a special needs class, I am upset with the way I was told. The way my school viewed these students was that they had something to be ashamed of. So rather than telling the teachers that the kids need extra time, more attention because they have learning disabilities they would rather ignore the situation and pretend that all of their students are the same. In summation I was upset that their need to ‘save face’ was adversely affecting the students.

But I remember many of my discussions with one of my closest friends who has decided to dedicate her life to working with special needs students and it dawns on me. Just play. Be flexible. Remember to be patient.

And guess what. It actual worked. Within one week they went from being my most dreaded class to being my favorite. There’s no pressure, if I run out of things to do I just make faces, they also laugh at my jokes (unlike many of my friends.)

But my most rewarding experience came when one of my students who is preverbal spoke her first words to me the other day. “老师，我爱你.”

Teacher, I love you.

I was crouched on the ground helping her play a game with the class and she turns her head, makes eye contact and utters words which rip through my chest and puncture my heart.
“老师，我爱你.”
I have been utterly disarmed by a 5 year old. Before I say anything she throws her arms around me and we both fall to the ground.

I cried.

tl;dr: A ballin’ 5 year old with autism made me cry like a punk ass bitch.

Some of you may not know that my major in University was acting and I actually moved back to Beijing to start my acting career. So here’s a trailer for the show I’ll be premiering on sometime next week.

Alright y’all, 左右’s back!

I’ve recently moved back to Beijing and have had a plethora of exciting things happen to me in the last two months. As per the suggestion of a friend and the nagging of my relatives I decided to hit the tumblr-verse again.

I’ll start off with a heart warming story that made me ball my eyes out like a punk-ass bitch when it happened to me.

So I’m back teaching at a kindergarten. I have four separate classes that I teach. One group is 30 3-4 year olds. Another is 25 4-5 year olds, then I have a group of 10 7-9 year olds who are part of the ‘gifted’ class. My final group is about 10 5-7 year olds who have special needs.

I only recently discovered that this group of kids had special needs (quite on accident honestly.) At first they seemed rather rowdy and dysfunctional, they wouldn’t listen and they would often refuse to play.

I am honestly quite ashamed of how I discovered this. One of my kids was being incredibly disobedient so I put him in time out and was scolding him. While doing this my teaching assistant told me to be nicer, to which I responded, “he refuses to play and constantly distracts the other students.” She then pulls me aside and tells me, “his heart isn’t the same.”
This of course confuses me, but then it dawns on me as I’m looking at him, “is he autistic?” I ask.

“Yes.” She responds meekly and mildly ashamed.

I’m floored, and infuriated. Two months. Two FUCKING months I have been teaching these kids and not one person has told me that they have special requirements. I begin to panic. I’m under skilled and unqualified to teach students with special needs.

I need to clarify something. I’m not upset that I am teaching a special needs class, I am upset with the way I was told. The way my school viewed these students was that they had something to be ashamed of. So rather than telling the teachers that the kids need extra time, more attention because they have learning disabilities they would rather ignore the situation and pretend that all of their students are the same. In summation I was upset that their need to ‘save face’ was adversely affecting the students.

But I remember many of my discussions with one of my closest friends who has decided to dedicate her life to working with special needs students and it dawns on me. Just play. Be flexible. Remember to be patient.

And guess what. It actual worked. Within one week they went from being my most dreaded class to being my favorite. There’s no pressure, if I run out of things to do I just make faces, they also laugh at my jokes (unlike many of my friends.)

But my most rewarding experience came when one of my students who is preverbal spoke her first words to me the other day. “老师，我爱你.”

Teacher, I love you.

I was crouched on the ground helping her play a game with the class and she turns her head, makes eye contact and utters words which rip through my chest and puncture my heart.
“老师，我爱你.”
I have been utterly disarmed by a 5 year old. Before I say anything she throws her arms around me and we both fall to the ground.

I cried.

tl;dr: A ballin’ 5 year old with autism made me cry like a punk ass bitch.

I got my tattoos to commemorate my first big adventure and to remind me that anything is possible as long as I stay, “dextarious and deft and never mix my right foot with my left.”

 So I’m sitting in the chair of a rather nice tattoo parlor with a Hawaiian and Chinese friend of mine (who speaks better English than many native speakers I know.) The tattoo artist is a bad-ass Chinese hipster who speaks little to no English. As he’s working on my feet he hits a particularly sensitive part of my foot and I yell “Vaffanculo!” Which is Italian for, “go fuck your own ass hole.”

The Tattoo artists erupts in laughter and releases his foot from the pedal operating the machine so he can regain his composure.

Once he’s done laughing he looks at me and says in Italian. “So, you speak Italian?” Completely shocked I respond, “Yes, a bit.”  Panicked I hastily add,” but I wasn’t talking about you.”

“Yes, I know.” He says through laughter.
“Wait. How do you know Italian?” I ask.
“My wife is Italian, but I can only speak a little. How do you know it?” He says.

“My friends taught me, but I only know how to swear like a whore in church.”

“I see that.” He says.

We both share a laugh and he begins working again.

Before coming to China I honestly had no idea what to expect. I knew there was a huge wall, a 5,000 year history, a lot of people and they used chopsticks. Aside from that and a year of language study I really knew nothing else. At times I really thought I would be in some remote village waking up by the call of a rooster at dawn to catch the local rickshaw to class.

 If you would have told me that I would be in a city with more than 17 million people that is more modern than New York, in a hopping bar district, sitting at an incredibly clean and safe tattoo parlor speaking Italian with a Chinese man… I would have laughed in your face.

 At that point it felt incredibly suitable for me to be getting this tattoo, to this day it reminds me that the best way to have an adventure is to remain flexible and expect nothing. What would an adventure be without surprise?

Hey guys, I’m back.

 I know I disappeared from the world of Tumblr for awhile which was very unfair to my loyal followers.

Adjusting back to life in the States combined with a stressful, yet exciting semester left me little time to devote to my Tumblr.

 As time passed I realized that my memories are fading into nostalgia and I need to put something solid down so that I won’t forget them as the hands of time turn on.