Why Satellite passes are named for the direction of motion relative to the equator, not the ground track's east-west drift. An ascending pass is when the satellite is climbing in latitude, crossing the equator heading northward, so it moves from south to north over your location. A descending pass is the opposite, north to south. The ascending node is literally the point where the orbit crosses the equatorial plane going north.
Watch out West to east describes the general eastward drift of many low-orbit satellites (or the apparent motion in geostationary work), but that is not what ascending and descending mean.
Ascending = going up the globe = South to North. Descending = North to South.