Not so bright class- Dad

Hello everyone: I received four emails today. Thanks. Today, we had DSL hooked up to our computer. We are one day closer to getting some kind of a direct line to the United States. Thank goodness. Today was a very busy day for me. I started at 10:00 A. M., and went straight through to 5:00 P.M. Well, at $5.33 an hour I did pretty well. I earned almost $38.00.
I had my sophomore class for the first time. Boy, was that a zoo. There is such a difference between my sophomores and my juniors. I had a lot of blank stares from my sophomores. I asked a question, but no one answered. I asked them, do you understand. Still more stares. I think to myself, this is going to be a long three hour class. I finally say to myself, "I am going to ask each one to come to the front of the class and introduce themself to me and point to the China map and tell me where they are from. I have 28 students. I call the first one up. I say, "hello, my name is Professor Ferrell, What is your name?" She giggles and looks back at one of her class mates. The class mate says something to her and she says, "my name is Pamela," (or something) I say, "how are you" She giggles and looks back at her class mates. They say something, and she says, "fine." I say, "where are you from in China?" She looks back at her class mate and the classmate says something. She goes up to the chalf board and puts an X on the map where she is from. I excuse her and start again. This process is repeated 27 more times. When I took this class, the professor that I spoke with said, "they are a little slow." I assure you she wasn't lying to me. I'm sure that no one else wanted this hand picked class and they said, "good old Wynn, the American, won't mind, he doesn't even know anything about this class." So anyway I have it. I asked the professor that gave me the class a little about the class. I said, "how many students?"
He said, "I don't know. "
I said, "what year are they?"
He said, "I don't know."
I said, "When will I get a roll?"
he said, "maybe never."
I said, "How do I grade them?"
he said, "don"t worry about it. Just come to class and everything will be ok."
I have no roll, no count, no book to teach from, don't know what I am susposed to teach, no grades. Boy, this is going to be an interesting semister. However, I must not forget, I'm being paid $5.33 per hour. Really, I am not exagerating about my class.
Well the cell phone I purchased has never worked, nor has the telephone cards. After class, I tell mother, "lets go to the restaurant with the cat for dinner." I really like their food. It is the best American food that I have tasted since being here. We walk to the gate to fetch a taxi. There are two taxi's waiting at the gate. I walk up to the first and show him the card of the restaurant. he laughs, shakes his head, and takes another person in his cab. I walk up to the next taxi driver, show him the same card, he laughs and walks away. I look at the card, it is all in Chinese. I still think that it is a restaurant here in Tianjin. I see a young couple walking toward us. I stop them and say, "do you speak English? They say, a little. I show him the card. He says, "what is this?" I say, "it is a restaurant with very good food." He gets out his cell phone and calls the number on the card. What ever he says, I don't know. Finially he finds a cab, and talks to the driver. The driver shakes his head and takes off. The person says to me, "I will walk you there, it is only one killometer." (What ever that is.) Mom says, "no way, I'm not walking." The man says, "I will find a taxi and take you there." I say, "thanks, please join us for dinner" He says something that I don't understand. We finally get a taxi. The four of us jump in and away we go. He tells the driver where to go. In a few minutes we arrive. I'm amazed. I hand the driver and 100 yuen bill. (about $16.00) He says no, he wants something smaller. I have nothing smaller, He finally takes my money, but doesn't have the correct change. He takes 10 yuen, (a buck sixty) and hands me back 90 yuen. I'm still short 4 yuen. My friend with me supliments my shortage. We get out of the cab to go to dinner. The couple with us says no, they are going somewhere else. They get into the same taxi and away they go. We go into the restaurant, have a little wait. I pet the ungrateful cat, he is still as ungrateful as before. Pretty soon we are invited to go up some stairs to find a table. We order, and the food is as good as before. If you ever want a good meal, come to China and you can have a good cheap meal. My two bowls of soup cost me 90 cents. My spaghetti cost me a dollar eighty, and my french fries cost me 27 cents. Mother tells me that I have stayed within my budget. I bring my own diet coke, because I don't want to go through the same experience that I had at McDonalds last week.
We met our branch President last night. What a nice fellow. he said that we would be receiving a church calling soon. In two weeks, we have a week off. We are taking the Silk Road trip. We are looking forward to it. However, I am going to greatly miss teaching my sophomore students that week. We love China and the people. They are so kind to us. We love hearing about what you are doing and how the children are doing. I just wish you could fax them to us for a while. I am going to speak with the professor over the English department and see if he can assign my sophomore class to another English speaking teacher. I am going to suggest
Dr. Ferrell! (Don't tell!!) Well, we sure do enjoy hearing from each of you. I love you all. Dad