This week we started school again here at the 雙語學校. My students and coworkers were all very happy to see me and hear about my adventures. I missed them all so much! It's great to be back here, and to know that my students and coworkers missed me too.
I decided to start off the new semester by helping my students choose English names. English students in China are notorious for choosing ridiculous names. My friends who teach at a university here in Baoding have class lists that read more like grocery lists or weather reports. I've heard of students named Banana, Snow, Happy and T-Rex. Often when choosing English names, students seem to just choose any word that they like the sound of. I actually think it is cute and a little poetic, but I wanted my students to have real names regardless. Not that I was entirely honest about what names are "popular" in the US. I compiled a list of names including many of my friends and family and some of my favorite literary characters. Then I read the list to my students, and had them choose from the list. So now Baoding Eastern Bilingual School is populated with all of my favorite people and the entire cast of characters from Harry Potter. For some reason no one wanted to be named Knightley, Mercutio, Juliet or Sherlock, but I did convince one boy to take the name Darcy.
Some of my older students already had names in mind, and of course I let them choose whatever name they wanted, so I also ended up with a boy named Friend and a girl named Bubbles.
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