Chapter 18 The Career in Junior High School
The first class in the afternoon was taught by Teacher Liu Hualan. He asked the students to take out the Chinese Language and Literature textbook for preview and lead the students to read the full text aloud.
Those who didn’t know, will think that he is a Chinese Language and Literature teacher, but in fact, he is only a History teacher, yet doubled as a teacher in charge of the classroom. He is not good at English and Mathematics, but he has no problem teaching the Chinese Language and Literature. In those days, there were not that many teachers. Basically, one teacher could hold several positions. As a Class Advisor, he could not even relax.
The second class is Math. The Math teacher’s surname is Chen. She is a female teacher in her forties. She is very strict. Although her voice was not loud during the lecture, but it was all properly and logically arranged. Occasionally, students who do small movements get casually glanced at by her and dare not move randomly anymore.
Then came the highlight, English class.
English is a new subject that everyone has just come into contact with. Other courses, whether it is art or science, can be grasped in their mother tongue. However, English is an unfamiliar language, which makes everyone feel very uncomfortable.
“Students, don’t be afraid, because all of you have the same starting point. The most important thing when learning English is to read more and recite more. As long as you master enough vocabulary, I believe that your English performance will improve.” The English Teacher, who surnamed Gu, encouraged the students in this way, then opened the textbooks, and guided them to learn the most basic English letters.
After the three classes were finished, the students became a little confused. They have just gotten into the junior high school stage from primary school stage. The newly introduced subjects and learning pressure make them very uncomfortable.
Mei Xiaoran remembers clearly, at the time when she was still studying in school, the most painful thing for her was the morning self-study.
The students arrive at school at 5:30 in the morning, followed by running and morning exercise, then go to self-study. They leave the school at 6:50, hurry home to have a breakfast, at 7:40 must arrived at school to study again, and at noon there is only one and a half hours of lunch break for rest……At 5:30 in the afternoon the classes are over, there is also only one hour for meal time, and then it’s an evening self-study time. If there’s only one class of evening self-study time, it’s almost eight o’clock in the evening when they get home from school. If there are two classes, it’s nine o’clock at night when they get home, and there’s also homework. After the homework was finished, it would be ten o’clock at night. If there’s a lot of homework, it would already be eleven o’clock at night when they finally finished. Then they have to get up at five o’clock again on the next day’s morning!
It is imaginable that with only a few hours of sleep every day, getting up every morning becomes her most painful thing then. It was unexpected that after circling around and reborn once again, she still has to continue experiencing this kind of suffering?
It was 5:30 p.m. and the classes were finally over, but everyone was not relaxed at all.
Although there’s no self-study this evening, there’s still a self-study session tomorrow morning.
Almost all the children go to bed and sleep earlier after dinner to get ready for the morning self-study tomorrow!
At five o’clock in the morning, the alarm clock rings on time. Mei Xiaoran and her younger brother hurriedly got up to wash and go to school and Mei Zhonghua also began his bustle for a day.
Since the successful negotiation with the person in charge of Xiaodong Camp, Mei Zhonghua has to take the group of people to the watermelon field in the morning to pick out watermelons. As they previously agreed upon, for each cart that he brought into the watermelon field, regardless of the amount of watermelon, they will have to pay a service fee of three Yuan. Then it was five Yuan of service fee for those who wanted him to personally pick the watermelons. In this way, Meizhong doesn’t have to pull the watermelons and run to the street to sell them. He will have to stay in the watermelon field for most of the time. Needless to say, the amount of income is also hefty.
On the first day that he brought everyone into the watermelon field, Mei Zhonghua got more than thirty Yuan of service fee, which was the earnings from about ten carts of watermelon. This was comparable to his own income from selling watermelons for a day, with the exception that he didn’t have to run back and forth on the road. So it was not that tedious of a work. On the second day, more hawkers got wind of it and came along, he took more than forty Yuan. On the third day, it reached the highest, making more than fifty Yuan in total.
But since then, the hawkers were not that crazy anymore. It has become more and more stable, basically maintaining a stable income of about twenty five Yuan per day. After all, it has reached the end of watermelon sales, which was similar to what Mei Zhonghua had expected. At most, the watermelons can still sell for another ten days to half a month and this watermelon season will be completely over.
When Mei Zhonghua ended his watermelon business, Mei Xiaoran and her younger brother had been studying at school for more than a week. From the initial discomfort to the slow adaptation, everyone also began to get used to junior high school life.
In the first week of class, Mei Xiaoran encountered Ouyang Xun several times in the school. Every time, Ouyang Xun is the one who took the initiative to greet her and she just laughed it off. Of course there is also the most annoying person, Qi Yao. Every time she sees Mei Xiaoran, she always flaunts her own prowess and tries to step on Mei Xiaoran’s feet when she finds an opportunity. However, such opportunities are not that many.
Today is the weekend. In the morning, Mei Xiaoran and her younger brother make use of their time to do the homework at home. When it is almost noon, Mei Zhonghua comes back and buys two jin of meat to improve the children’s quality of lives.
When he heard there’s meat for a meal, Mei Xiaolei was so excited that he finished all the remaining homework in one fling. Mei Xiaoran also didn’t take it lying down and practically finished her homework at the same time as her brother.
In the afternoon, they eat braised pork.
Seeing the children eating with their mouths covered with oil, their happiness bubbling, Mei Zhonghua also took the opportunity to announce something to everyone.
“After we finish our lunch, I’m going to buy a bicycle.”
Li Mingyun was taken aback, “What? You want to buy a bicycle? You have that much money in your hand? Look at how pretentious you‘ve become.”
“I support Dad to buy a bicycle!”
Mei Xiaoran was the first to approve. She had already told her dad to have a bike. It’s convenient for everything. Just take selling the watermelon recently as an example. It only takes about twenty minutes to ride a bicycle for ten Li distances. If they depend on their two legs to walk, it will take an hour and also exhaust their body. Time is wasted on the road and they also work harder.
Mei Xiaolei and his older sister have the same attitude. He is also in favor of buying a bicycle.
But Li Mingyun didn’t speak at all. Of course, she knows the advantages of a bicycle, but she is also worried that this act of Mei Zhonghua will be too eye-catching.
“Mom, what kind of era is it now? Others can buy bicycles, then why can’t my dad buy it too? Besides, if we have a bicycle, it will be more convenient to do things. I think it’s very good. “
“What our daughter said is right. If we have a bicycle, we won’t be so tired. It’s also convenient for me to go back and forth when doing some small businesses.” Now, his daughter is the closest one to Mei Zhonghua. The approach that she casually pointed out for him, in less than half a month, already earned him nearly a year’s worth of money. Just with this change of income only, he is bound to become closer to her.
“Mom, as long as my dad has enough money, what is wrong with buying a bicycle? Now, it’s not like that buying a bicycle is a prohibited thing to do. As long as you have the ticket and you can afford it, why won’t you buy it then? “
Mei Xiaolei also joined in the team of persuading his mother. The whole family then leaned to the side of supporting Mei Zhonghua’s decision to buy a bicycle.
“To buy the bicycle, it’s not enough with only the money. We still need the bicycle ticket.”
Mei Zhonghua smiled broadly and took a bicycle ticket out of his pocket. “See this? Last time when I went home, I asked my second brother and troubled him about getting a bicycle ticket for me. He really got one. Now we have the ticket and the money. Are you still against it?”
Li Mingyun thought about it for a while and nodded at last, “Alright then. Since you all want a bicycle, after you are done with the meal, go and buy one then.”
Mei Zhonghua exclaimed excitedly, “Li Mingyun is a wise man!”
The two children also excitedly raised their arms and shouted, “Our Mom is wise! Our Mom is the wisest! “
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