老师

Shao Laoshi (邵老师) is a petite young woman with long black hair that reaches the small of her back. She wears contacts to lighten her eye color but one can only tell when sitting close to her and the ends of her hair are permed to be wavy. She dresses in the typical Chinese fashion, very cute with interesting combinations. Normally she wears a short skirt with tights and a nice blouse with heels. Her voice isn't overly soft but it isn't very commanding or loud either. She takes the lessons seriously but laughs when Theo lists off his sentences to practice the grammar that all are about how hot he is (excuse me, "aesthetic"). She is absolutely adorable and she is my Chinese teacher.
Lately I've missed a lot of classes due to illness and so Marketus and those in D.C. suggested I make up class time with Shao Laoshi. So now I meet her twice a week for an hour and I just had my first session with her yesterday. When I arrived I saw she was writing the new vocabulary on sheets of paper for today. We discussed my exam and what I got wrong and why. Afterward I found out she needed to soon go to Tsinghua where she teaches as well. Actually, the times we meet are the only times she has available. Today in class she admitted she had a sore throat. Afterward, she admitted to me she hadn't gone to bed until five am.
You remember when you were a kid how you felt the teacher's life was at school? Wondered if maybe they lived at the school and were shocked when you saw them outside? I feel like Shao Laoshi is pretty close. It really seems like, besides her weekends, her life revolves around teaching and she's not a special case. Some teachers actually live in special dorms on campus that are specifically for professors. From what I've seen, there's no way you would ever find a teacher who didn't feel passionately about teaching in China like you sometimes find in the U.S.
Maybe it's just Shao. Either way, I have a totally awesome teacher who deserves to feel better soon.