Good morning Bloggers! My my, this week has been busy!
Before we get into what I’ve been up to this week, let’s take a trip back to
when I first started working here…
Back in September we were given a translated document that
stated all of the conditions under which we were medically insured. In our
contract with the school it states that we are given insurance. We were never
asked to sign any documents pertaining to our insurance (which honestly
should’ve been our first clue to the troubles we were in for). We were just
told that the document is not to be used for any other purposes except to serve
as translation. In January, one of my coworkers got sick and needed to go to
the hospital for IV antibiotics. Her husband paid out of pocket and was told
that they would be reimbursed. Our "translated document" also
confirmed that they would be reimbursed for the treatments. When we returned
from Spring Festival holiday in February, my colleagues filed an insurance
claim to get their money back. We just recently found out, within the last two
weeks, that our school JUST NOW paid the insurance company bill to cover us. So
we were without insurance for the first 7 months we were working here. And
honestly, I still haven’t signed anything so I’m not 100% sure that I’m insured
right now. So for the last week I’ve been busy helping my colleagues collect
evidence to build a case for them to get their money back. It’s been quite the
process. We’re still not sure if they’ll see their money again even though our
contract clearly states that we should have been insured. I mean seriously, my
colleagues paid equivalent to 1,000USD for the antibiotics AND got her pay cut
equivalent to 500USD because she had missed so many days of work. If the school
won’t pay her medical bills, they’re violating out contract. It’s so
frustrating to watch this happen because if it happened once, I can almost
guarantee that it’ll happen again if someone else gets sick. We’re given two
days of paid sick leave per semester and because people don’t wanna lose money
(and I don’t blame them) they come to school and teach sick. I get that you
need to be here for your students but by coming to work sick, you’re risking
all of us getting sick! Stay home and rest! Easy for me to say when I have
Juice Plus+ on my side but still.
In other news, my boss is giving me projects that are in his
job description. He has me creating course descriptions for the course catalog.
How should I know what each class is teaching?! You have all the syllabi, why
don’t you cut and paste each teacher’s course description into another document
and call it a course catalog? Oh right. Because it’s easier to transfer all
syllabi onto my thumb drive or email them to me so that I can do that and then
email it back to you, have you write notes on a hard copy that you printed off
and then give them to me to edit. WHAT?! That makes no sense… Although when you
say that you live in Jinan, Shangdon Provence on your emails, I guess it makes
sense to have someone who knows how to spell do these projects for you. Just so
everyone knows, we live in the Shandong Province, not the Shangdon Provence.
Last story, I swear. So I teach a culture class to my
students and this week I taught them about the hook up culture on college
campuses. Yes, they do exist, yes our students need to be aware of what they
may see and how to say no if they so choose. I had a talk from… an
administrator. Not quite sure what his title is but he comes into my office and
says, “Excuse me Chelsey I need to talk to you about your lessons.” I said, “Of
course. What about my lessons?” He then says, “I completely agree that our
students need to know this because it is important but maybe if you could just
avoid using the word ‘sex’ or ‘sexual intercourse’ it will be better.” I said,
“OK but that’s as technical as I can get. How would you like me to address the
action of having sex if I can’t say sex?” He suggested, “Maybe call it
‘seduction’ or ‘doing it.’” Uhhhh Ok…? Also, he said that I can’t, as in I’m
forbidden, to talk about STI’s. I asked, “But don’t you think that’s important
for them to know?” He said, “Yes of course but it’s not that present in China
so they can learn about it from their schools when they go to university.” HOLD
UP! What?! I can believe to an extent that STI’s aren’t that present in China
because their culture just isn’t as promiscuous as the US’s. But you REALLY
don’t think they need to know about STI’s before gong to university in the
states?! Really?! Chinese education doesn’t teach sex ed correctly. They teach
it definitely but they’re taught everything wrong… For example they are taught
that using multiple condoms (not just two but more than two) is more effective
than using just one. “The more you use, the more protected you are.” Ummmm no.
FALSE! WTH Chinese government?! I’m genuinely worried about my students in the
states. I REALLY REALLY REALLY hope they use common sense and learn quickly!
Ok that’s it for now. I’ll be sure to update you next week.
There are some crazy things happening this weekend and next week so I’ll probably
be writing a lot more. Until then… Laters!
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