Expect the Unexpected...

This should be my mantra in Taiwan, though perhaps it is a typical part of any teacher's life. I went to the boys' high school today where I taught last year. No books had arrived, this is no longer a surprise to me, and I was already prepared to teach for 4 hours without them. If they still don't show up next week I might start to worry though. Anyways, last year I taught classes 201 and 101, and this year my assignment is the same. Last year's 101 class was my favorite of all my classes (I know, you're not supposed to have favorite) but they were great! I laughed a lot every class, and really had a lot of fun with them. So naturally, I was really looking forward to seeing them again after a two month break. My first class didn't get off to the best start, which made me even more excited about seeing familiar students that i've already established great rapport with...
Can you see where this is going yet? Any guesses?
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Well if you guessed that the class was different, you'd be right... actually all but one of the students were new to my class (this is an optional class so they usually split the class in half).
As face after unfamiliar face filed in I felt like crying, I was really disappointed. Not to say they were a bad class at all, but I'll really miss the students from last year! Anyways, once I got over the initial shock, things went pretty well. The most interesting thing is that there is an exchange student from Brazil taking my class. It was quite surprising to see a blond boy walk into the room. His English is quite good actually, and he's relying mostly on it for now to communicate with his classmates until he can learn some more Chinese. I think he'll be better than the Canadian kid who got stuck in my class from time to time last year....