The Winter of my Discontent

How Aston Spells the Holidays: F.U.

By the time December rolled around in the not-so-glorious city of Hefei, my personality was starting to take on the same characteristics I would use to describe the city: frantic, agitated, cold, depressing and with little bits of ice growing steadily thicker by the day.

The only thing keeping me going was the reassuring thought that the holiday season was upon us.  I listened to my Christmas playlist obsessively and watched every movie I could find that had even a hint of Holiday cheer.  I kept reminding myself that we FINALLY had some vacation days to look forward to.  And of course, there was the Aston holiday party!

The party was scheduled for the 17^th, and I was interested to see what the Chinese take on this Western holiday would be.  At home, Christmas is ‘the most wonderful time of the year!’  It’s a fact.  Ask Andy Williams.  I was certainly hoping some of that spirit of goodwill toward men would hold up on the other side of the world.  But by the time the party was over, I was fairly certain the Holiday Spirit was another sad example of something lost in translation.  The party itself was great; there was delicious catered food for all of the students and their parents to enjoy.  And for the boss of the company to enjoy.  But all of us teachers doing all the work were provided our own holiday meal beforehand.  We got KFC.  

And as for the ‘vacation’ I was looking forward to, I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that straightforward.  Throughout the previous four months, our schedules were constantly changing.  On Sunday nights we would get the schedule for the upcoming week, and midweek was where they would typically schedule marketing and other erratic variations to the schedule.  The weekend was the only thing that was marginally fixed.  That is to say, that I always had seven classes on Saturday and twelve on Sunday.  It was exhausting, but at least I could plan for it because I knew what to expect.  And then “holiday season” happened. 

First, I got sick in the beginning of December and had to stay home one Saturday.  The following weekend they crammed every free hour that I had on Saturday full of make-up classes.  And although I was making up for the classes I missed, the manager informed me that I would also be fined for the time I had taken off.  The same thing happened to my roommate when he got sick.  It’s standard policy.  The next weekend one of the foreign teachers was on vacation, so yet again all of my spare time on Saturday was filled with covering for his classes.  Mercifully, we actually got Christmas day off and so we only had to work our Sunday schedule that weekend.  That Sunday night when I checked the schedule for the next weekend, I noticed that although our contract specifically says we get New Year’s Day off, which this year fell on a Saturday, they opted to give us New Year’s Eve off instead.  To add insult to injury, they packed every free hour I had that New Year’s day full of classes to make up for the ones that were missed on Christmas.  The Holiday Spirit I was familiar with from home was definitely missing this year.  To make up for it I filled up on whatever spirits I could find in liquid form that New Year’s Eve.  What should have been a time for celebration turned out to be the worst couple of weeks I had suffered through since arriving in China. 

I wish I could say that things got better, but the next few weeks continued along a similar vein.  Another foreign teacher went on vacation, which meant those of us remaining had to cover his classes.  We also had to cram in some catch-up classes because the school was closing for three weeks in late January through early February for remodeling.  It was exhausting.  But at long last, on January 24^th the classes stopped.  And with them, whatever remained of my motivation and sanity was cut off as well.  I was emotionally and mentally drained and the only thing I could find to fill up on was apathy.  I stuffed myself full of it, and though I tried to quit my addiction, I was still binging heavily on it when classes started a few weeks later.  The only thing I could bring myself to care about was the fact that I would be leaving Hefei and Aston behind in the finally visible future.  And in fact, that is still all I can bring myself to care about to this day. 

Summary:

The Grinch does exist, and her name is Vivian (the owner of the Aston Hefei School).  The only holiday spirit you will find in Hefei comes in bottle form.  When you are in an Eastern part of the world, don’t expect to enjoy your Western holidays.  But most importantly, when things aren’t going well, try to remember that eventually it will all be reduced to a mere memory.