How I spend my time...

Before I forget, don't forget to check out Lucas' 8 1/2 by Eleven, in which sad food plays a role...and spaghetti, which is one of my favourite foods, so...go read it!

I'm supposed to be doing laundry, but as you can see, I'm procrastinating. Haven't done laundry here yet. The past two times I used my friend Guillaume's machine, not the school's. The school's scares me, but I suppose today I'll have to find out how to use it...sigh.

I'm leaving Sunday around noon for Shandong province. Candice got a ticket, so there'll be quite a few of us (unfortunately): Melanie and Candice (American), Katia, Gaetan, Loic, Guillaume (French), and me. Seven. Yikes.

The plan is to go to the seaside city of Qingdao, which is supposed to be beautiful. We arrive at 2 AM, so not sure if we're going to find a place to stay beforehand, or spend the night on the beach and look for a place to stay the next day...
We also want to go to Qufu, Confucius' hometown, and we want to climb the famous Taishan mountain (the most revered of China's five sacred Taoist peaks).
Hopefully five days is enough. We'll have to buy our train and bus tickets as we go along, which might take up some time since nobody speaks Chinese that well in our group. I really hope our return ticket won't be a problem. I don't want to be coming back any later than Saturday during the night, since I do need to work on Monday. I can't afford to miss a day of work!

I had lunch at an American-style restaurant today, called AIR but also Banana Leaf, funnily enough. My picture's on the wall. One of the waitresses took a picture of Dave, Geoff and me, sitting at our table, when I took the two Vancouverites to that restaurant. It's enlarged and framed and up on the wall along with pictures of other customers (from all over the world). I'll have to take a picture of the picture...

Last night was the fancy teacher's dinner. I was under-dressed but oh well. I sat at the same table as the university's vice-president. What an honour. We drank good wine (every five minutes we had to drink to someone's health - Gambai!) and ate delicious food (always different - I really liked the pudding-like desert) and I learned how to say, "Happy National Day" in Chinese. The university foots the bill. There were all the foreign experts and the Chinese leaders from the university and some teachers (the ones who take care of us). It was impressive. The President of the university said when the banquet started, and an hour and a half later, he said when the banquet ended, and that's when everyone left. Very strange in a way. Usually people sit awhile and talk, but I guess everyone had their things to do.

So, this is a huge deal, after dinner, two American teachers (Matt, 23, and Karen, in her thirties) wanted to go to McDonald's. I went with them and Loic (French teacher) and ordered a strawberry milkshake. This is the first time since I arrived that I set foot in McDonald's!!! It's actually quite the happening place. We went around 8:30 PM and there were quite a few people. Today Matt's stomach was hurting him, and he thinks it's the ketchup he had with his hamburgers (can you imagine, he ate a couple hamburgers after the fancy Chinese dinner we had just eaten!). But I thought it was a big deal to go to a McDonald's in Beijing. Don't especially want to go back, either...

OK, should go do my laundry. Will go shopping with Katia later (need to buy some anti-rain and cold clothes). Tomorrow I'd like to participate in the National Day celebrations, so will need to wake up early to make it to Tainanment Square in time to get a good view...

Hope life is going well for you all.

Frustrating

Hey you guys. Well, looks like I really can't post pictures. Trying my best (just spent the last hour trying different ways) but I'm getting tired of trying.

This morning's class went OK. Did some discliplining by moving a guy who was talking too much. Moved him straight across the room. Went OK after that, although he is disruptive. Feel weird having to discipline students in freaking university, but what can you do...

Well, looks like I'm going to Shandong next week. Melanie's coming, which I hadn't planned on, and maybe her American friend Candice if she can find a ticket this late (wouldn't count on it). This is the deal: if you want to buy a train ticket, you can only buy one four days in advance. Not five, that's too early, and not three, that's too late, but exactly four days ahead. The ticket centre opens at 7 PM and you better be there early or else you're too far back in the line and the chances you don't get to the front in time to get a ticket are greater (seeing as this isn't the only ticket-selling place in Beijing). Tickets sell fast.

Let's hope my friend Jessie gets her American visa so she can go back to work in Washington for National Geographic Traveler.

I have nothing to eat and I'm kind of hungry. Good thing we're being invited to eat out tonight. "We" being the foreign teachers, or "foreign experts" as we're called.

It's raining hard. Rained all day. Kind of depressing. It forces me to stay indoors and relax. I'm enjoying it. Need to practice writing my Chinese name...

And with that I leave you to your thoughts.

This one's for Rachel

Alright, the only reason I'm writing is cuz this is my friend Rachel's homepage and she likes to read something new everyday, and I don't want to disappoint...

My Chinese name is Su Lin and I learned how to write it today. Some of Josh's former colleagues gave me the name and every Chinese person I've talked to has said it's a good name. Now I can actually write it! Yay!

I just came back from a Beijing Opera. It started at 7:35 and ended at 10:05 - two and a half hours with only a ten-minute intermission. It was kinda long... It was actually a concert that mixed classical Western music and traditional Chinese opera - including the traditional Chinese fiddle and the kind-of screechy singing. I'm glad I went, but I was tired. And I missed dinner.

I discovered the video camera function on my camera and have been taking lots of mini videos. I hate not being able to upload pix onto this site. I can't even send any through email. I don't know what the problem is.

Today's classes went well. I had first years and they worked well. Tuesdays suck, so it's nice to have good Wednesdays.

What else is new? We bought train tickets to go to Shandong province over the holidays. I lined up with Loic (French teacher at Erwai) at 5 PM outside the train ticket booth, Katia, Gaetan and Guillaume came at 6 PM to take over. Tickets went on sale at 7 PM. Loic and I had to leave for the Opera at 6.

This afternoon I watched that movie about migrating birds. Loic was showing it to his class and invited me to watch. It was good to see something of that nature. It's another one of those slow-going but impressive movies!

Alright Rachel, is this enough? I'm super tired and I've got an 8 o'clock class tomorrow morning!!

Slowest internet connection

I think this must be the slowest internet connection EVER. I suppose all the students in this dorm are sharing the same band... I'm also thinking that's why the uploading of my pictures isn't working. Sucks.

My afternoon class didn't go so well. It's funny, I've got a few students in there who'll do anything for me. There's this one guy who answers and talks all the time (in English), trying to show what a good student he is. Unfortunately, he's always wrong, and he says the most random things. For example, I'll say "How do you invite someone in English?" and he'll say "What time is it?" Or something along those lines. He's a good volunteer though. Anyway, there are those guys, then there are the silent girls who don't say a word and are too shy to look you in the face, and then there are the "cool girls" who are actually quite good at English, and then there are the "cool guys," some of whom can speak well (most likely thanks to private tutoring or trips abroad - these kids are loaded) and some who just don't care.

This evening I had dinner at the cafeteria with the French crew and two Chinese guys, one of whom went with us to visit the Hutong on Sunday. A few of us went to visit my future apartment...looks so good! I really can't wait...man...

Tomorrow, all the foreign teachers have been invited (by the university) to see some authentic Chinese opera (we're going to Tiananmen Square Theatre). On Thursday we've all been invited (by the university) for dinner to celebrate the National Holiday (which starts October 1st).

Tomorrow's my last big day - four hours of classes. Yikes, the pipes are at it again - that noise is killing me! I can't go to sleep! Hopefully in the new place it won't be like this...

How's life where you guys are at?

Don't forget to visit James' sight (on the right) for cool news.

Internet in my room

YIPPEEE! I've got internet in my room! Finally...

Problem is, I have to lie on the floor to reach my computer because the internet connection is near the ground and my cable's not long enough to allow me to raise my computer higher than half a metre. Get a new (longer) cable you say, yes, but supposedly I'm moving out of here within a week so I guess I can survive with lying down to type for the time being... I put a comfortable blanket on the ground and it's alright...

Mondays are OK because I've got a great afternoon class. They're the adult continuing education students and they're eager and disciplined and super nice. I really enjoy teaching them. Tuesdays are hard because I'm tired from Monday and I still have to teach six hours... You may think six hours is nothing, but six hours on your feet, constantly having to be aware of what's going on, keeping students interested, is hard work. Wednesday went really well last week, with my new first year classes (I have two), Thursday less well, and Friday not so well...I re-do the same class Tuesday afternoon, Wed, Thurs, and Fri morning, so by Friday I'm a little less enthusiastic...

OK! Pictures! Yay! With internet in my room I can send you pictures everyday. But I have so many I don't know which to choose...

Well I decided there wasn't much more "Beijing-ish" than me infront of dear Mao. This was taken the first week-end I was here, when I spent the evening with my cousin, Veronique. Tiananmen Square is beautiful at night. Saw lots of kite-flyers. Bought a map of Beijing that's very useful. Even has bus numbers on it. Amazing.

I'm starting to learn Chinese - kind of. I told myself it's been a month, I should start making an effort...yeah right. So I started with the numbers 1-10, 100, and 1000. My pronunciation sucks, but I can write the characters (I race myself - I should time myself!). I also know how to write and say "me" - wo (with the fourth tone, which goes down then up, thank you very much). I'm trying to make Chinese a priority, but I'm usually tired and not really up for it. Sucks. I taught my student "sucks" this week. They think it's funny.

One big problem: internet connection is unbelievably SLOW here.

Friday night specials...

Hello again.

Well last night was Friday night and it should've been a big party night, but it wasn't. Nothing special. I went out (Sanlitun - the international bar district) but was in my bed by 1:30 AM. The group of friends that I left behind (to get to bed early) got kicked out of the club we go to for free drinks, because the girls were giving the guys their drinks. It was quite the spectacle. Melanie's hair got pulled by a female worker at the club - it was pathetic! Melanie was ready to call the cops but that wouldn't change anything here. They went to the club next door (that's apparently much better but where we have to pay for drinks...) until the wee hours of the morning. I was glad I had gone home...couldn't take another crazy party night. Won't be going to the "Pure Ladies" club anymore (where we used to get free drinks) - they're crazy!

Last Thursday afternoon I spent with two of my students walking around the centre of the city. Bought myself an Adidas sweatshirt (a real one thank you very much). It's super warm and super comfy. We went for Peking Duck at a restaurant in the centre of the city. For some reason it wasn't as good as the duck I had eaten at the restaurant outside my university - and it cost three times as much! But it could just be that I don't know anything about duck tastes... We were invited by one of my student's guy friends. He knew maybe three words of English and I know maybe three words of Chinese, but my students translated and we were able to communicate OK with sign language too...:) It was really nice of him to invite us, especially since he didn't know me....

I bought some flash cards to help me learn Chinese. I practiced writing some characters. I'm gonna be a pro soon, just you watch me! (yeah right)

Alright, my friend Katia's waiting for me so I should go, but I hope you're all doing well and continue telling me the news of your lives!

American Internet Restaurant

I'm in an American-style restaurant/bar that has free internet access, but unfortunately, for some reason it doesn't work with my computer (figures). Would've been too easy. This place is two minutes away from my campus.

I'm with three Korean friends. Since Dave came (Dave's from Korea), I've spent more time with these three Koreans: Andy, Cecilia, and Kim. I gave Andy and Kim their names. Kim's English name is actually James, but I think Kim is better. And Andy's name used to be Andree but he didn't like his name so I told him Andy might be better.

Today's classes went much better. I taught freshmen (first years) and they're eager beavers and I had revised my lesson plan so it went well.

I should go, but I hope you guys are all doing well.

Rough 'n' Tough

Hello again!

Thanks to my wonderful, super-duper editor-in-chief, my main man, Cheryl Li, who has just celebrated her 24th birthday (yay! Cheryl's a big girl now!), I can now VIEW my blogger. Woo-hoo! Has that ever made my day. A whole month in China and I can finally SEE what I write! And then I realised how much junk mail has been put in my "comments" - is there any way of getting rid of that? Don't bother, junk mail people out there: I'M NOT INTERESTED!!!

Today was a rough 'n' tough day (new expression). I didn't get to bed until later-ish (10:30 PM) and then I couldn't fall asleep for some reason, and then the huge pipe noises - due to neighbours using the water system - started up at 6 AM and woke me up. I was already tired yesterday, so today I was exhausted. Life's not so great when you're exhausted. Whatever. Class was class. I let my students leave early. Not so bad. I had lunch with a class monitor and we joined two of her friends in a Korean restaurant on top of one of the campus cafeterias. I taught a new class this afternoon - they're freshmen (first years) and boy was it tough. Many of them are super shy and don't know a lot of English. They don't speak much at all and it was difficult to get the class going...argh...I need to revise my lesson plan big time. Some people wonder why I bother. Apparently the foreign teacher I'm replacing used to play a song at the beginning of every class and get the students to write their feelings about it. You'd think they'd be happy to get someone who actually cares about them learning something, but they don't want to practice their English. They say they can't speak and then they don't even try. Terrible.

Enough bitching. Everything outside of class is wonderful, and I guess I should concentrate on that.

This past weekend, we (Geoff, Dave and I) were supposed to go see the Great Wall but we ended up going to the new Summer Palace (huge park built by an Emperor's concubine, called Xici, at the turn of the century). We took a boat there, which was nice and relaxing. We walked for three hours around the park. It's quite large. We didn't even make it to a pagoda-type thing (one of the main attractions) because we couldn't be bothered to find the entrance (not evident enough, I suppose). We were tired and a bit cranky coming home. Dave and Geoff were in fact becoming sick. They spent all of Monday resting up, preparing for the Great Wall which I hope they got to do today (that was the plan anyway, haven't talked to them yet).

Last night we went for Peking Duck at a restaurant not too far from campus. It was delicious. There were ten of us around the table - 3 Koreans, 3 French, Melanie, me, Dave and Geoff. Dave speaks Korean and Geoff doesn't speak much. :-) The common language was definitely English. The duck was really very good. There was too much to eat, though. Tons of food.

So once again, Happy Birthday to Cheryl! And happy travels to Dave and Geoff (they're leaving tomorrow - Wednesday - at 4 PM). For my part, I'm in good health and hanging in there.

Oh yes, pictures to come soon. I've taken 243 so far, but just haven't quite figured out how to transfer them onto this blog...well, I know how to, but actually doing it might be a different story.

And now you can comment and I can read them! So comment away!

Dave & Geoff

Dave & Geoff, two friends of Pierre's, arrived Wednesday around midnight. They are making a trip around the world of around 4 or 6 months, starting out September 4th. They arrived at Beijing West train station, and were being asked by a young woman to go to her hotel and to follow her down a dark alley. Dave asked to use her cell phone to call the hotel in question, and instead, called me! I told him how to get to my university. I had prepared a room for them in C wing (I'm in B wing). I told him what to say to the taxi driver and half an hour later I left my room to go meet them at the entrance of my university.

My university is probably the cheapest place to stay in Beijing, at least one of them. It's 100 yuan/night (6 yuan = $1 Cdn) for a room with two beds, so 50 each per night. Dave and Geoff first booked two nights, but liking it so much, they are staying until their departure next Tuesday.

On Thursday (yesterday), we went to visit the Forbidden City. It was rainy. Not the greatest. We saw Mao, which was nothing special. He looks fake. His face is illuminated and looks like it's made of plastic. Chinese soldiers herd you past him. My theory is that they want you to hurry so you don't realise just how fake it is!!! The soldiers would literally push and pull at the tourists' sleeves to make them move faster, but they didn't touch me...yay for being White.

We got lost in the Forbidden City. I thought we got an all-inclusive ticket which would allow us to visit other parts of the Palace - the clock museum and Imperial Treasury - but apparently not. So we didn't visit anything other than the Palace. It was very impressive. But I'll have to go back when it's a nicer day. It's a lot of the same thing and we were quite tired.

Once back at the university, I got a group of people from my dorm out to dinner. We ended up being a group of 10 and we went to the "Pink Door" restaurant. Because we were such a large group we got our own little room - score! Dave drank a lot and made everyone else drink a lot (beer and soju, but mostly beer). He made friends with the three Koreans who were there. The food was good and we ate like kings for 220 yuan (22 each - less than 5 bucks!). That includes all the alchohol - and there was lots of alcohol. We were the last to leave the restaurant at 9:30 PM, and then the party continued in Dave and Geoff's room - everyone went to their room to drink. It was pretty funny...

Today we woke up around 10 AM, but I didn't want to wake up Dave and Geoff, and they didn't want to wake me up, so we both did our own thing in our separate rooms, until I went to "wake them up" at 11:30 - to find out they had already been to eat...at the Pink Door restaurant! So I had lunch with Katia and Gaitan, two French students here to study economics. We eventually left (Dave, Geoff and I) for a park from which we'd take a boat to the Summer Palaces in the north-west part of the city. Unfortunately, we arrived 15 minutes after the last boat had left! We were going to take a taxi there when the taxi driver told us the Palace would be closing around 4 PM - no point in going since it was already 3:30! So we went to the nearby park where we rented a peddle boat and peddled around. It was fun. Today's weather was a lot better than yesterday's.

Tonight we're going to the same club we went to last Friday - Dave wants to drink again and he can't believe it's open bar (even if it's only for girls). I can't believe I'm going there again...I'm going to be exhausted yet again!

Tomorrow we're taking it easy. There's a folk customs show that the university has organised to take us to ("us" being the foreign teachers and some of the foreign students), which is in the city tomorrow afternoon. I asked if Dave and Geoff could come and eventually they were permitted to come. It's to celebrate the mid-autumn Festival, which is Sunday.

Sunday, Dave, Geoff and I want to go to the Great Wall. That'll be an adventure, since Dave wants to go to an out-of-the-way part of the Wall. And I'll be more than exhausted starting my 20-hour week on Monday. Oh well. I'm in China. I've got to live it up....

Hope you guys are doing well and enjoying yourselves, wherever you happen to be.

Week 3

I've corrected the blogs that were screwed up. I hope you can read them now. Please tell me the titles of the blogs that can't be read (in an email since I can't read comments) and I'll do my best...

The university has loudspeakers throughout the campus and plays music sporadically, especially at lunch time. It's Erwai's radio station (the name of my university is Erwai) and right now (4:55 PM) it's really loud...

Yesterday (Monday) morning, I awoke around 6 AM to this terrible noise...I think it was the pipes inside the wall that were creaking or something. It was terrible! It lasted a good 15 or 20 minutes and I really wondered whether I should go to the trouble of getting dressed and going downstairs to the office to complain. It eventually stopped (it was super loud!) and it didn't happen again this morning.

Sunday evening I went to watch an acrobatics show with Veronique (my cousin) and two students from France doing their first year of an Economics degree (I think). Their classes are in English and sometimes even in Chinese. First of all, their English isn't great and they don't have any Chinese, so they're not really understanding their classes for the moment...

We went into the city to watch the acrobatics show which was absolutely amazing. Non-stop amazement. Most of the seats were empty and those that weren't were filled with foreigners, of course. The show followed a traditional fashion I suppose: contortionists, jugglers, guys who jump through hoops, girls who twirl saucers while doing gymnastics, guys who climb poles and do gymnastics on them, a very young boy tight-rope walker (super!), and it was all in all spectacular. Thank you Veronique! Veronique is my cousin who's been living in Beijing for eight years and speaks Mandarin well. She had other things to do after the show, so Gaitan and Katia (the French students) and I went to have dinner in a random Chinese restaurant. We were home by around 11 PM.

Ordering in restaurants is always an adventure. Last Thursday, Guillaume, Melanie and I were in the "Pink Door" restaurant (so-called because it has a pink door, but in fact it has a totally different name, I just call it that because I can), where we ordered "Fried Chicken in lemon sauce" (this is what was written on the menu - sounds good, right?). When the dish arrived we were sure the restaurant had made a mistake - banana slices surrounded by a thin layer of fried chicken pieces, albeit in a lemon sauce! The restaurant had forgotten to put the slightest of details on their menu - the fact that the dish was mainly made up of BANANAS!!! Luckily Guillaume enjoyed it and ate most of it.

I haven't made any food in my room yet. Too depressing. Not enough equipment. Apparently our apartments will be ready October 15th now...they keep postponing the date, it's terrible! The teachers who were here before had been told upon moving out that they would be able to move back in on August 21st. When they actually do move in, they'll have been waiting almost two months more than expected!

I hope you guys are enjoying your lives.

daily life

Alright. Now that I'm using Melanie's computer in Melanie's room, internet seems to work, my blogger seems to work (although I still can't view it) and I can write coherent emails, which is a relief to many people.

I realise I haven't really told you much about my daily life. So here goes.

I live in the foreign students' building, because the foreign teachers' building is being renovated, although it looks more like it's being completely re-built. I'm supposed to move in beginning of October. The National Holiday is October 1st and we have ten days holiday. One of my students has invited me to visit his place in Hunan Province and I'm still not sure whether I should accept or not. It's a great way to travel, but it's also kind of strange...

I live on the third floor, which means I climb two flights of stairs to get to my apartment. I live in a room for two people, so I have two beds, but because I'm a teacher, I'm the only one living in the room. I'm in wing B. Wing A is for single occupants, and wing C is for poor people who don't have their own bathroom or kitchen in their rooms (there are public bathrooms and kitchens on every floor in wing C). I haven't used my stove top since I arrived. I don't make any food. I buy Chinese croissants (not the best, but they're cheap) and sweet buns and peanut butter and fruit for breakfast and snacks, then I always go out for meals. I have some instant noodle cups handy for emergency meals.

In the first week I bought a kettle, an iron, a mop-type thing to clean the floor, and some hand towels. As well as plastic slippers. Everyone has them. They're cute.

There are a good range of restaurants in and around campus. There's a good restaurant on top of the swimming pool, where teachers usually go. There are also a whole row of Chinese and Western-style restaurants outside of the North Gate. The campus (as most Beijing university campuses) has four gates: North, South, East, and West. East and West are often closed. South gate leads to the subway station, about a ten-minute walk away. North Gate leads to a busy road full of restaurants (including McDonald's) and shops (including a 3-storey supermarket where I buy my groceries).

The campus is kind of outside the main city - it's not common to find a map of Beijing with my university on it. I'm out east and I have to transfer to get on the main east-west subway line to the centre of the city. Getting anywhere takes quite a while. Nevertheless, I go to the city quite frequently and am starting to get a good feel for it. The street from the North Gate leads straight to the north of Tiananmen Square, and the street from South Gate leads to the south of Tiananmen Square, so it's easy to hop on a bus that takes you to the centre of the city (takes around 40 minutes and buses are hot and crowded).

On Friday I bought a new bike with thee other foreigners and two of my students. For 145 kwai ($1 Cdn = 6 kwai) I got a new grey bike with a basket and a bell and a good lock (the bike comes with a free lock on the back wheel but I bought another lock for the front wheel and to attach it to poles and the like). It felt great to be on a bike as we rode back to the university.

Friday night I went clubbing with some Chinese girls that are friends of a French friend that's living in my dorm. There were ten of us in total. We crammed into a small van to get there, for 5 kwai each. The driving was scary, as always. The club had a cover charge of 10 kwai, and drinks (shots of tequila, vodka or whiskey) were on the house for the ladies from midnight to 2 AM. As you can imagine, I had my share of drinks. OJ was also free, and very refreshing inbetween shots. We danced a lot and I sweated a lot. There were many foreigners there. The place to meet people was at the toilet - I'm going to have to call it that rather than "bathroom" because it really is just a hole... It was upstairs and quieter and there was always a line-up so it was obvious you'd talk with everyone. One of the Chinese girls got especially drunk and couldn't walk...her chinese friends sent the six foreigners home in a taxi and took care of her. Clubbing is so much fun when the drinks are free. We got back to the university around 4:30 AM, I think. We went for jaoze - mini meat-filled dumplings - and dumpling soup. Delicious! We tried not to look too carefully at what the broth was made of...

On Saturday afternoon I went into the city with two of my students to buy a cell phone. Ended up buying Melanie's cell phone and she bought a new one. It's nice having a cell phone... Took the whole afternoon. We left the campus at 1:30 PM and we were finished around 6 PM. Separated from Melanie and my students at the subway and met up with Haflidi, Josh's Icelandic friend that I met when Josh was in town. Haflidi is studying Chinese at Beijing University (very prestigious). We went to three different places, all in the same international bar area called Sanlitun. We went to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. Apparently it used to be quite old-fashioned with stone floors, but now it's quite swanky and expensive: 120 kwai for the both of us ($20! and enormous sum in Beijing). But we also had drinks...

Today was relaxing. Stayed mostly in my room. Had lunch with Matt, a 23-year-old American that teaches English here, although he's never taught a day in his life. Interesting. He's the type that really watches what he eats and he's always talking about whether things are "good for him" or not (he says things like: "I should stop eating now, shouldn't I?" and "I won't get this drink again because it has so much sugar."). He really wants to find a gym to work out... A bit too healthy for me. :-)

Going to go back to work. Hopefully I can do this more often. Remember, I can't read my comments, so please email me if you have questions or comments.

Almost 3 weeks...

Hey you guys. I'm sorry, I think I might've deleted some of my previous posts because the site was in Chinese and I had no idea what I was doing - I was pushing buttons based on what I remembered they meant...

Anyhow, I'm on Melanie's laptop in her room right now. She's the only one who has internet connection in her room which works. I've tried getting my laptop to work with her connection (a cord in her room coming out of the wall) but it doesn't work with my laptop. I've tried configuring my computer exactly like hers and something I'm not aware of must be missing...ARGH.

I still can't view my blogger on her computer, even though it's American and everything. Must be a configuration mix-up with Chinese internet service provider - not compatible or something. I agree my humble blogger would not incite the wrath of the Chinese government...

So far so good in this land. I was very frustrated (and still am!) by the fact that I can never be sure what I buy is going to work. My students helped me buy some CD-RWs yesterday, but they don't work...:P I can't do anything with them. I should've also bought some CD-Rs just to be safe. I need to get some Word docs that are on my computer onto a computer with a printer so I can print up the worksheets I want to give my students in class on Monday. Hopefully get that sorted today.

This afternoon at 4 PM I'm meeting another one of my students who is going to help me and some other foreigners (I invited them all because there's a group of us that want bikes) to buy used bikes. The chances of them getting stolen is pretty high, but it'll be good to have a bike. We'll be buying the crummiest, most used bikes, but apparently they still get stolen...

With September came incredibly nice weather. The sky is blue almost everyday. The sun shines. The air is cool in the mornings and evenings, but the middle of the day is still hot, although less hot than before (or maybe I'm just getting used to it). I'm sleeping better although not enough (7-8 hours). I'm always tired. But then, I was always tired in Vancouver, as well.

My schedule at the moment looks like this:
Monday:
Class #1 8 AM - 9:50 AM with a 10-minute break at 8:50 AM.
Class #2 10:10 AM - noon with a 10-minute break at 11:00 AM.
Class #3 2 PM - 3:50 PM with a 10-minute break at 2:50 PM.
Tuesday:
Class #4 and #5 at the same times as class #1 and #2.

I only see my classes once every week, and I do a lot of repeating. Class #3 is different in that I don't teach university students but "continuing eduation" students - adults who have stopped work to learn English.

Not next week, but starting the week after, I'll have a class from 2-3:50 PM on Tuesday as well, then one class Wednesday morning, two Thursday morning, and one on Friday morning. That's 20 hours in total. Monday and Tuesday will be my busy days. I'm not looking forward to that. Although 2-hour lunch breaks are actually quite good.

Last Monday I met a teacher at break who invited me to her friend's house for dinner. I met her five minutes and she was already inviting me to her friend's! I couldn't refuse. Her friend is also a Chinese English teacher at the university I work at. She lives in an apartment building built around 2000 or 2001. Her apartment is great and although small, looks relatively new. But once you go into the common section, where you wait for the elevator, the building looks like it was 50 years old! Everything's out of cement, so it's stained and dirty. No paint or wallpaper on the walls, definitely no carpet on the ground...a single naked lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, and waiting forever for the elevator. This reminded me abruptly that I was back in a developing country.... Plus the fat shirtless man in dirty shorts taking up half the elevator didn't help.

The swimming pool is being "cleaned" and hasn't been open since I last went. We went a couple days ago and they told us it'd re-open in ten days...how long does it take to clean a swimming pool?

Yesterday afternoon, three of my students took me to the city. We went to Qianmen, an old neighbourhood south of Tiananmen Square. Beijing is humungous. They ordered this special dish for me - a soup using the rice that has been previously used to make rice wine so it tastes a bit like sake, and black sesame-filled dumpling-like balls floating in it. It's sweet and actually quite good. Apparently I can buy it at the supermarket and warm it up at home. It'll be good for the winter. They also ordered "baoze" - famous large meat-filled Chinese dumplings. They're very filling.

After coming back to the university from Qianmen, they helped me buy some CD-RWs at a student store. What was ironic was that the student warned me that he hadn't bought CD-RWs from the store (only CD-Rs) and so he wasn't sure they'd work. I bought two, thinking this is a student store, they're not going to rip off students, but sure enough, it didn't work. ARGH! I hate not knowing if what I buy will work or not. Very frustrating...

I thought I'd just have to repeat that story one more time...

But the DVDs tend to work. I bought five last night (5 kwai each; $1 Cdn = 6 kwai). I watched Fantastic 4 with Guillaume and Melanie. It was entertaining, although I didn't understand half of it and there was no need to understand - it was really quite stupid. But entertaining. I don't see why everyone likes Jessica Alba so much. She's not that hot in my opinion. Guillaume disagrees. So does Pierre. And just for the record because miscommunication tends to happen over the internet, Guillaume is not a love interest. Actually, something might come out of a thing between him and Melanie if I leave them alone enough...they were lying on the same small bed watching the movie together last night. ;-)

I hope to write to you guys more often. Maybe I'll be able to borrow melanie's laptop more often. After all, I did get her a fridge. Monday night's hostess had an old fridge she wasn't using and told me I could take it off her hands for free. We only had to pay for the labourers who put the fridge on a wheelbarrow and wheeled it to our building and lifted it up three flights of stairs to Melanie's room. They asked for 20 kwai and Melanie gave them 30 because they actually hadn't anticipated the stairs... So that's 10 kwai for each guy (there were 3 of them) for some hard physical labour that would've likely cost more than $50 in Canada. the delivery of a fridge is a big deal in Canada! I gave it to Melanie because I'm supposedly moving out of here in a month into an apartment that will have a fridge...and a much better kitchen. I'm hoping they'll stick to their schedule. I'm really hoping...

I should get going. I still need to get dressed and deal with this computer problem. Hope you're all doing well!

Hello

I'm back in this world! Josh's visit (he arrived Wednesday) kind of skewed everything... On the first night he arrived we went to visit a friend of his in a more central part of the city and we stayed the night drinking and smoking...not good for my cold.

Thursday night I left him at his friend's because I couldn't take another night of partying, but Friday and Saturday night I spent with him and his friends...crazy!!! But this way I have a few more contacts in Beijing.

On Friday night we had a fish dinner with some old colleagues of his when he was teaching at a school in the outskirts of Beijing. These young women (all around 30), will help me with pracitcalities - eg: cell phones.

We also spent a couple meals with Sean's friends and family, who will help me with traveling and any problems I may encounter with the police (the father works for the police) - that won't happen.

The friends we spent most of our time with are from Josh's international high school that he went to for grades 11 and 12 in Hong Kong. One of them's mixed-born and raised in Beijing but his father's Dutch. He spent his high school years in Hong Kong and his unversity years in Holland. He works for the EU (an office job). Another high school friend is from Iceland and he's here for a year learning Mandarin at Beida (Beijing University - most famous!). There was a third high school friend but this one was only visiting and he's supposed to have left but he can't get a plane ticket back to Ireland (where he comes from). He was supposed to work on Monday (tomorrow) but that's not going to work out.

Anyway, they all speak English and were all very nice and we got along. We ate Baoze for breakfast, which is little meat-filled bunes. Quite tasty and good for hang-overs.

Sean's family took us out on a couple very nice meals. Saturday night we went to a fancy southern-Chinese restaurant where I actually got steak (it was either steak or sea cucumber, which I've already tried and didn't enjoy). But there was also a lot of other delicious "real" Chinese food. I can't eat that much because it's hot and I just can't...not that hungry.

Today we went for delicious Japanese food - didn't think I'd be having Japanese food so quickly, but this place was fancy (having been invited by Sean's parents) and good quality and very good. I had udon and congee and this egg puddingthing and fresh fruit and miso soup... It was a bento-box type thing. We drove Josh tot he train station this afternoon where he left for Nanjing.

The train station is surrounded by a lot of people at all times. I felt it was super busy, but apprarently this is "normal" and it gets a ton worse during public holidays - the three "golden weeks" given to Chinese workers. People were sitting and sleeping everywhere in and around the station. We had just come from the Japanese restaurant that had been in a Holiday Inn - a super nice hotel with swimming pool and western bathrooms. 　

Actually, starting September 1st, the weather's been amazing. Blue sky everyday - real blue sky!!! And the termperature has been going down (under 30 degrees now).

Guillaume, (the French student) and Melanie (the American) and I made a few posters asking for cheap bikes and a fridge (we wanted to buy these things). We put my email address because we thought it'd be easiest but the only reply we've gotten so far is...Hi, I don't have cheap bikes, but I want to be your friend. In essence, they want to talk in English. We knew that was coming but it would've been nice if someone had a bike and fridge.

This past week I only had four classes so I worked Monday and Tuesday from 8-noon. This week I'll have five classes so I'll work Monday, 8-4 (2-hour lunch break) and Tuesday, 8-12. In a couple of weeks I'll start working 20 hours a week. I'll work six hours Monday and Tuesday, and then very little the next three days (2, 4, and 2 hours respectively). Suits me. I'll only ned to prepare for three classes. I fell like I'm repeating myself.

The public bathrooms here are funny - the fancier the place, the fancier the hole where you pee becomes. I think that's hilarious. In a fancy place you'll be given toilet paper and a nice ceramic hole. I still find it difficult to squat, but there's something satisfying to it as well. I mean, this is how we're supposed to do our business and it's somehow purifying and really satisfying to be squatting. It's like going back to your roots...

Anyway, I still need to prepare for my classes tomorrow. People ask me what I plan to do in Beijing. Right now I'm still getting used to it all. I'm giving myself around 3 months and then I'll start planning, seriously planning. Right now I can only take it day by day - there's just too many things going on.

Hope you're all well. Keep those wonderful emails coming!

*****

Sep. 13th update: we actually ate "jaoze" for breakfast - they're smaller than "baoze." I met the Icelandic friend again. His name is Haflidi. He's very tall and blonde. His girlfriend, who works at LeHague's international criminal court (I do believe it's something as fantastic as that), is Cuban. This is multiculturalism at its best. Angus, the Irish dude who couldn't get a plane ticket, finally left Wednesday, I think, and his job waited for him...amazing!