Day 8 at St. Florence: The Friend Zone

awww man -- back in the Friend Zone again.

there is another student volunteering with the teacher i'm working with; she's really friendly, nice, and actually attended the school from kindergarten and graduated in '99.

the teacher made the boo-boo of introducing her to the kids by her first name, thus making her equal with the kids: a friend, if you will. she corrected that mistake by introducing me by my formal address, Mr. Chan, elevating me as an authority figure in the eyes of the children. This, of course, also leads to various pronunciations by the non-Chinese (everyone else): Mr. Chang, Mr. Chen, etc. the other student volunteer calls me Dr. Chan because she thought someone called me that on the first day.

anyways, if you're nice enough to the kids and not a very good disciplinarian, the kids will bring you back down to the Friend Zone and basically never listen to you unless you're saying something they want to hear. so now i'm having a lot of trouble getting them to listen to me when i tell them to sit at the their desks or walk a bit faster after playground time. it's like day care all over again, especially with the girls. i'm like a toy now.

littlest and cutest girl (LCG) in the class - "Mr. Chan? Do you have a girlfriend?"
me - "Nope."
LCG - "Why not?"
me - [shrug]
LCG - "Are you a teenager or an adult?"
me - "Adult."
LCG - "So you should have a girlfriend! ... It's easy. Just find a girl that you like, and then ask her out on a date! Oh, but what if the girl rejects you?"
me - [shrug] "Find someone else?"
LCG [to the other girls] - "I asked Mr. Chan, 'Do you have a girlfriend?' and he said, 'No.'" [giggles]