I bet your wondering about how English Corner saved my life. Some maybe even wondering what English corner is. Well, there are two English corners that I go to normally one is on campus on Thursday nights from 6-8pm and there is another one off campus at an English Training Center on Saturdays from 8-10pm. At English corner as a foreign English speaker I go and others come to practice there conversational English.Well it was Saturday, and I not only was planning to go to English corner, but was first going out to eat with a Chinese friend then to teach some little kids English at one English Training center then going to another English Training Center to do English corner. As I was stepping out the door to my apartment I went to check my pockets to make sure I had my keys and just as I realized that I didn't have them the door slammed behind me.
So locked out of my apartment I started to think about how I was going to get back in. Just about all my foreign friends had left town for the National Holiday so I couldn't call them. Then I tried calling the lady in charge at the foreign affairs office on campus, Kerry. When I called She said one sentence and we got disconnected and when I tried calling back I found out the phone was disconnected. So with no other options I went out to eat with my friend at the cafeteria on campus. He then told me of our plans to leave for Dali tomorrow mourning, so if I was going to have any clothes to bring with me on the trip I was going to have to get in my apartment some how.
Afterwards I went to teach the kids, which was a nightmare! Then I went to English corner. Everywhere I went I told everybody about the ordeal and just about everybody responded the same way laughing and then not helping me at all. Till Finally when I got to English corner, that night it turned out that all the students had classes (yes they had classes that they had to make up for the vacation before they could be off, at 8pm)! So after we talked for about an hour with just a local high school English teacher another foreigner there to help with English corner and the manager and a teacher there at the English training center I finally told them of my predicament. Immediately the other foreigner offer to let me stay at his place, then the High School English teacher offered to go find a locksmith for me. He came back in about 20 minutes and we all went back to my apartment to see the locksmith open the door to my apartment. The English teacher had translated a little for me from the locksmith and I found out that the Locksmith had already been here several times to this apartment building so I had a sense of I wasn't the only one. Anyways as you can see in the picture below the teacher held the light as the lock guy somehow opened my door! That was the day English Corner saved my life!
