on spreadin' love and living life

in tonight's epic installment of teacher tessa and the chinglish connoisseurs, we broke away from the prescribed textbook mambo-jumbo and had a lesson based on cultural figures. the topic? influencial, inspirational homies in history. 

after spending the whole day piecing together and cutting down the biographies of some greats, i was about as enthused as eeyore.
walked in assuming that it'd be a lesson packed with tireless teacher-talking; no student input and no stimulating conversation. have never been more wrong and more delighted to be so.
ultimately - ended up teaching the students something, learning something from those crazy cats. most surprisingly though,  almost feels like i taught myself something? doubt i can claim overtime for this but no matter - for the first time in weeks i feel purely inspired.

albert einstein, the beatles, rosa parks, audrey hepburn, honest abe, helen keller, mother teresa, princess diana, amelia earhart, ghandi.

the tales of these incredible people have been tried and told by every teacher, storyteller, mother, father, leader. although only a few examples of some truly courageous characters, i shared their stories with the class who swallowed their tales up in one swift gulp.

handing each student a short summary of one of the above icons, i asked them to read, summarize and tell the class about who they were and what they stood for.

waaaw man. i really mean it - just. geez. yoh. 

initially daunted by the fact that the complicated word structures and intimidating vocabulary might push the class too far; into a more blasé, "who gives a rat's ass?" attitude; ended up being just plain impressed by the students' performance.

incredulous, i listened as these barely second language speakers took these big words, even bigger ideas, and wholeheartedly preached the most basic, most fundamental messages. all on behalf of the greats who all went through tireless struggles for such simple creeds. love, man. love. all you need is love.

ogling over their pictures, we read quotes, biographies, discussed ideals and possibly even came up with the way to acheive world peace - all in completely unintelligible english.
so for the first time in too long - i'm inspired to live in love ! love life ! live love !

so, covered in tonight's lesson (and thus a lesson relearned by a teacher).

-- listed respectively as seen in the list of the groovy homies above -- :

1. "don't letting people make tell what you can't do"

2. "all you need is love"

3. "fight for what is right - don't be scary" (scared)

4. "be beauty inside and outside"

5. "do the good thing, no matter what."

6. "you can do all thing, no matter your trouble."

7. "spread love. like peanut-butter."

8. "be kind without want reward"

9. "you can challenge others even if you are anything."

10. "fight with peace, no violence."

these nearly unreadable phrases are so basic, so present in the human mind, that not even language barriers can prevent us from revelling in their ideals.

and so now i'm just like, sitting here. so thankful for a day of cooling rain and sipping on a pearl river and mellowing out to the beatles with revivified ears and just loving everything, even things i don't want to. 

on my way home i wanted to be an authentic chinese citizen, so i tried out my first very public and extremely gnarly spit.
first and last time.
maybe there are some things one should not love. quite ewwy things.

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REALLY GOING TO MISS MY ADULT CLASS WHEN I'M GONE. COUPLE O' GEMS.