Evaluation Fever
My University, SISU, is preparing for the Central Education Bureau to come and evalutate us. This means a lot of things. It means an army of old men have been weeding, hoeing, and planting all over campus for the last two weeks. It means that our website has a countdown to evaluation. And it means that I am singing the song "Eidelweiss" to about a thousand people during our special "Evaluation Welcome Convocation."

Please note that there was no request to sing, simply the information that I am going to sing. My partner is a girl from the Spanish department, who confuses "Eidelweiss" with "Advice" and "Yes" with "Si," leading to the song "Advice, Advice, you greet me every morning! Clean and white, small and bright..." and me standing on stage thinking that it was the dumbest song I've ever heard.

But come hell or high water, SISU will be ready for the Inspector General Comrade Whoever, no question there.

Teaching
I teach about 300 students, each one of which I see once a week. If they we're not all named Apple, Candy, or Happy I'd never be able to learn their names. I held office hours in my apartment this past Thursday, and I was surprised that nobody came. I found out this morning that the guard to the Foreign Teachers' Housing wouldn't let the students in. He is, perhaps, slightly over zealous.