Exit Stage Left, Chairman Meow

The cat is gone!

The Chairman finally figured out how to get into my kitchen, which is the weak point in my 'keeping the cat in the apartment' security system. In order to keep him out of the room, I had to tie the door handle to my bathroom. This prevented the cat from getting in, but also made it a pain in the ass for me as well. Since the kitchen contains my only sink, and is essential for toothbrushing activities, I finally decided it was time for the cat to go. (This is in addition to the meowing, biting, tearing up my house that was going along with the daily escape attempts)

Deb has a friend with a nice farm not far from here, and he agreed to take Meow away to live a happy life of chasing mice and other cats, and not being bored to death in my small three room apartment.

While I'm sad to see him go, I must admit I'm glad I don't have to keep buying food and litter, and that I can go into my backyard without worrying. My site mate and I have plans to go buy a grill now, so we can make kebabs and hamburgers all winter...mm. Tasty!

Just Another Monday

Mondays are always a bit hard for me to face. I have 8 teaching hours, and no repeat classes, so I'm testing the waters all day. Sometimes my lessons are awesome, and sometimes not so much. Today was a big stressful, as I started off with two lessons I thought would go really well and didn't, and then followed with two lessons I was sure were going to fail and didn't. Actually, the best class of day was the night class, which I planned out at dinner while Erica and my sitemate argued about whether the soup was good or not.

Chinese classes are canceled tomorrow and I can't say I'm upset. I want the time to go over the bad lessons and fix them before Wednesday. And I want to sleep...alot. And watch movies. I am a very simple person, with small needs.

After night class tonight, we went out for Lanzhou noodles, like every single Mon and Wed night. I only realized that this had become a regular thing because a couple students went with us and I heard myself describing what would happen, down the exact moment when my sitemate would finish my food. Routines! Yay! It was fun to go with new people though, especially because I was able to walk through the park in the Chinese girl arm hold, which is very nice in the cold weather.

Dora, one of our adult students, has promised to clean her house and cook dinner for us next week, and I promised that I would as well. I am really going to have to hold myself to the whole "I'm going to cook now" thing, and learn how to make something besides noodles!

Good Things

I bow down to Andrew's judgment from now on. I finally saw Grind House and it was amazing! While they both were good, Death Proof was my favorite because it has the Best. Ending. Ever.
Although tomorrow is the long teaching day from Hell, I'm almost looking forward to it, or at least not dreading sneezing from all the dust in the office. I spent a good few hours on the new campus last Thursday doing some serious cleaning/organizing. So now, it should be all shiny! Hooray! It's the small things that make me happy.

Also good: I spent this weekend doing some hardcore catching up with my grading/lesson planning/data entry that had been sitting around not getting done for quite awhile. So now, I feel like this whole week is free. Which means that I'm going to chicken pot for a reward. Yum.

long time, no update

For the one or two people who read this, the reason that there haven't been any updates in a while is because I couldn't figure out how to do it. "But," you may wonder, "You updated before..." Don't ask. Some people have to try and do everything the hard way.

Things in Nanchong are good. We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner at a lamb Hotpot restaurant. Over 15 people ended up going out, and it was wonderful to be surrounded by so many good friends. It really makes me feel thankful for being placed here. I know I can be sometimes negative about where I live, but it's hard to complain when everywhere you turn there are supportive, fun, fabulous people. And the nice people in Nanchong completely make up for that crazy guy that hangs out near the McDonald's. (and even he is entertaining as long as you don't have to walk home alone at 2:30am)

In other news, still no idea on what I will do with the rest of my life.. stay in China? go home to the expensive purebred dog bribe? grad school? join the circus? It's a mystery! Suggestions are welcome.

complications

What I love about my school is that I have the most amazing students. I really feel that what I learn from them is so much more than anything I can teach them. They are really incredible people.

What I hate about my school is that there seems to me such little organization. The foreign teachers are told to do something, not by our supervisors, but through second or third hand information. And of course, if there is ever a question or problem, whoever is delivering the message has no interest in helping us find the person who might have the answer.

There was a problem last week with my night class. I won't go into the details, but the point is that office A refused to help me until they heard from someone in office B, who insisted it was office C's problem. Nothing has been resolved yet, and there has been some very angry yelling. (not by me, or at me, thankfully)

Tonight my site mate was supposed to give a lecture, but it was canceled because someone forgot to reserve a room. Who was responsible for reserving the room is a mystery that might never be solved. The teachers are blaming the students, who claim they were never told. And of course, no one thought to call my site mate to tell him it was cancelled, and no one appologized to him for the inconvenince. I don't know what he would have done if I had not gone with him, because it took a couple of phone calls on my part, and all of my limited Chinese, to even figure out what was going on. Needless to say, we were both a little frustrated on the way home.

But I know that all these problems don't matter. That in the end, I spend 90% of my work dealing exclusively with my wonderful students. In my classroom, I can make things as organized as I want.

Still.. it didn't help that in my shower I took to tonight to relax, I dropped a razor down the toilet, which of course is just a big hole in the ground. :( AT least my cat is being nice to me.

Sundays

Today has been a slow day, full of laundry, grading, and lesson planning. I had, of course, intended to have everything for tomorrow done by now, however I think I am just going to have to accept that I am a champion procrastinator. It hasn’t been too hard though, and I’ve been enjoying the quiet day.

The weather right now is so beautiful! It’s a little cold, but not miserable, and the sun is shinning. I was walking through the park this afternoon and feeling the breeze was so wonderful, I couldn’t stop grinning.

Lunch Stories

I had jiaozi for lunch today, and because I went a little early I got the whole shop to myself. I was sitting there, listening to my ipod, absorbed in my book, and really just numb to the outside world. Suddenly, the boss pounced up behind me and grabbed my back. I almost jumped out of my chair, it startled me so much.

I after I pulled off the headphones, it turned out she just wanted to know why I wasn’t eating any xifan, since it came free with the food. After I told her I didn't want it, she gave me a strange look.

“You know, in your country you say “HALLO?” We Chinese say “Ni Hao.”

I didn’t know exactly how to respond to this sudden Chinese lesson and just smiled at her, figuring she was talking about how she was trying to get my attention earlier. I told her I could understand her, but I was just listening to music and I couldn’t hear her. She nodded again.

“Yes, I know you foreigners all understand our Chinese language.”

She wandered away after that, leaving me kind of confused and wondering what I had missed.

Random thoughts of the Day

I've been listening to Feist all day today. This group is best summed up, I think, by my sitemate who gave it too me: "tampon rock, but good tampon rock." The lyrics are interesting and I'm finding that it's really good study/grading music. This is very good because I have a lot of studying and grading to do.

My writing class is killing me. I find that I have to do tons of research just to lesson plan, then spend many hours every week just keeping up with the grading. Although it IS a lot of work, I find that I get more out of it than my speaking class since I kind of feel like I'm actually teaching them something rather than finding creative ways to boost their fluency. I need these kind of thoughts with me for the times when my lovely students groan at me and tell me my speaking classes are much more fun.

The cat is chewing on everything! Bah!

first post

I've got blog!

Maybe I'll think of something to say later. For now, I'm just proud that I figured this out when all the instructions were in Chinese.