Frustration

“Tolerate ambiguity.” It was a skill they told us we would have to develop when we first came to China. I learned that on the first day of class when the classroom location had been changed but I wasn’t told about it. I remember it when we are invited in the middle of the afternoon to a banquet that night. I guess it’s been a while since my patience has been tested, though, because today when I received the e-mail about New Year’s holiday I was, shall we say, highly frustrated.

We found out today that there will be a school holiday January 1-3rd to celebrate the New Year. Tuesday classes are moved to Saturday and Monday’s classes are cancelled. Which would be great, except that it’s final exams! It is the last week of class, and I have already scheduled 90 students for final interviews on those two days. Now I will have to figure out how to contact the students and reschedule before the end of the week so that I will still have time to calculate and turn in grades (although I don’t yet know who I will turn them in to). I think I will go pull my hair out first.

In other notes, today is the first day of winter. And I was just wondering, what the heck has the rest of this been? Summertime? Who planned these seasons anyway?