I’m going to be a pessimist/realist in this blog. I never know if and when I’ll see my students again. Who knows where life will take us?? There’s kids, like Seven, who don’t even have WeChat. How can I communicate with them? It saddens me to know that our time with the Zhuhai No. 9 students has come to an end, and that I can only look forward and cherish the memories I made with them.
If I’m being quite honest, I don’t think I made the most out of my time with the students until the second half of the program. Everything was so new and overwhelming at first that I would’ve rather spent time in the office or at home than with students. It was exhausting to add everyone back on WeChat or try to have these simple conversations as ice-breakers. I absolutely hated the whole introduction thing. As a person who hates small talk, introductions and icebreakers just make me uncomfortable. I didn’t feel like I could connect with the students as well because of the language barrier and I also let that hamper my efforts. I didn’t warm up to my students as soon as I would’ve liked to. I JUST started making genuine deeper connections with them and now I have to leave and go home. It was really satisfying to get to learn more about the students beyond the surface level, such as that Kim’s favorite show is Keeping Up With the Kardashian or that Becky has a baby brother or that Jacky wants to be an actor when he grows up. I also enjoyed seeing the growth of my students in Journalism class. I remember after the first day of Journalism I thought that many students were going to transfer out of the class because it was so DEAD. I know for a fact that my seventh grade self would’ve much rather enjoyed a dance class or acting than sitting in a room writing about random prompts. However, a lot of my journalism students were invested in their writing. They were always eager to improve and seek help, and to feel like I was able to help them become more comfortable and confident in not only their speaking abilities, but their writing abilities, is one of the best feelings in the world. From reading their writing, I was able to learn so much about them and their interests. I could go on and on. These kids aren’t just my students, but they are now also my friends. Because I spent a lot of time during the program with the idea of going back home in the back of my head, I didn’t always cherish my time here as much as I should’ve.
Last week, Jill randomly asked me “Hey Shelsea, do you want to be in acting?” Mindlessly, I said “yes!”, and I couldn’t be any happier with my choice. When I sat in acting class for the first time on Monday, I was unpleasantly surprised. A lot of students would talk over the Duke teachers (Jill and Andrew) when they were giving out instructions. Students were much more invested on whatever was displayed on their phone screens to the point where Jill had to take away their phones. They just didn’t seem to care. I felt frustrated for Jill and Andrew, myself. After an incident, in which a group of students broke another students’ bowl (a prop for the restaurant scene), the acting students came to the realization that their behavior was not okay. For some reason, I’d find humor in these misbehaved children, maybe because I was a mischievous kid myself growing up. Because I was in almost all of the scenes, I grew amazingly close relationships with the students in acting during that one week...only ONE week. Two of the acting students, Jacky and Dennis, invited Jill, Andrew, and I to eat a Zhuhai specialty for lunch and it was delicious! I also felt that my connection with my host sister strengthened after this week because she was in Jill and Andrew’s acting class. We shared this activity together and she seemed more open to interact with me, both at the school and outside of school. I think Acting class is the place to be silly and extroverted and just EXTRA, and I think it was the perfect environment for me to connect with the No. 9 students. Spending time in acting class made me realize that I love acting. I intend on making it a hobby of mine and joining a theatre group on campus back at Duke.
Yesterday, during the final show, time on the stage flew by. My nerves from earlier during the day dissipated. The day was quite hectic to say the least. Seeing my peers stress out about the backgrounds they spent SO MUCH TIME on not being used and the lighting made me stressed for them. I feel like the logistics for the final show were not adequately organized nor communicated, but at the end of the day, everyone’s performances turned out beautifully. The students were so happy to see their hard work and long rehearsals pay off. This show was for them (and only them) and I’m glad we were able to end our time at No. 9 with a BANG!