Phil and Red's Excellent Adventure

"It is with great sadness that I must report that Gabriel Chin, died today march 31st, 2005 at 9am.

P.s. Gabriel, take it easy on God when you get there, he was doing his best."

That's alot of dimp. I personally didn't receive this information until 745AM April 1st. That really sucks. I was hoping to see him when I came home, but alas. He was a wonderful man and he taught me alot. I will always remember his amazing stories. I hope his family is doing ok.

The day went ok. I didn't have morning classes because I got to school and Lucy said that she was giving a test today so I didn't have to teach. So, I rode home. I used that time to throw some finishing polish onto the DVDs. I had 5th graders this afternoon with Ivy. The one class that is quite good was pretty naughty, not paying attention and such. Usually they are one of my best classes. Oh well.
After that I headed to Kindergarten. I worked with the 2-4 year olds teaching them a bit of gong fu. They seemed to enjoy it. One of the little girls had gone to the bathroom and while I was teaching, she came waddling out into the room with her pants around her ankles, don't worry her undies were on properly. For some reason she was having trouble pulling her pants up. The regulator took care of it and Lynn was giggling.
After class I started to feel tired.
After class I went to teach Daisy. It was just her and her grandmama. I spent an hour trying to teach her some things. She wasn't very focused. I fried her brain. Then it was time for my lesson. I basically just worked on getting tones and learning some words.
Afterwards I headed home and cleaned up some stuff and junk like that.
I then headed to bed.

Posted by Phil at 11:47 PM | Permalink

I woke up actually early to work on getting those subtitles done for the DVD. I put a bunch in only to have DVDSP3 crash on me after I put them in and before I saved the progress. WTF! UGH! Why is the subtitle editor on this thing sooo stupid! So, after wasting time on that I prepared for class.
I talked to Coco about the fone call last nite. I tried to explain what I was saying to her and after I said it again, her response, "Yes." I guess she just doesn't understand.
I had my 5th graders this morning. They were all right except one thing. One of the smart girls in the second class said in front of the whole class, "You is very fat!" So, after a dramatic pause, I dragged her to the front for two reasons: 1. She insulted me. 2. If you are gonna insult me, do it right. "You are..."
During lunch, I spent my time entering subtitles. This subtitle thing has sure turned out to be a huge irritation and pain in the butt.
Once back at school, I parked my bike and immediately about 4 kids rushed over to say Hello and then for some odd reason they found my bike, which they have seen thousands of, to be quite amazing, they said, "WHAAA!", and they started flipping all the gear switches. "SCRAM!" They scattered. Man, I don't know what it is about these kids. Anytime I do anything and I mean anything, they all go, "WHAAAA!" Today, inbetween my 5th grade classes, I was eating an orange. As I was peeling it, two little kids in the office were walking by and were utterly amazed, "WHAAAA!"
Whenever I am wearing my zipper sweatshirt and take it off during class because it gets hot, I hear, "WHAAA!!!" And yes, I am wearing a regular shirt.
I walk by kids that aren't paying attention and they turn and see me and go, "WHAAA!!!"
Why do they do that?
So, after telling those kids to scram, I had my 2 horrendous 6th grade classes. Today was an odd day. The first lesson, the students were really indifferent like they usually are. There wasn't much activity and when I tried to get activity, the kids were resistant as usual. The most memorable thing from that class was the fact that whenever the audio tape, I, or the students read, "We were fishing!" all the kids would bust out laughing.
Am I missing something? Does the phrase, "We were fishing!" sound like a chinese phrase meaning, "Save the killer robots"? I don't know. Of course, since it got students involved I tried to milk it. After about 5 minutes of that crap I finally asked May why they heck they were laughing. Apparently they were laughing because one of the student's father sells fish at the supermarket. I then began to notice whenever they laughed, he wasn't. They were laughing at him, so I plugged some of the bad kids' ears with M-80s, lit them, and ran. FIRE IN THE HOLE!
The second class, the ones that are usually pretty bad where great today. Lots of activity with them. I got to make them laugh a lot, which helps sooo much. If they are laughing then they will 90% of the time actually pay attention. I was asking students around the room at random "Where were you yesterday?" with the location cue cards that we have. Whenever a chinese kid is picked, he/she looks around to those sitting next to him/her a couple times, then looks at my pointer, and realizes that maybe he/she is the one chosen. Then they do this thing that only chinese kids can do... (I think I mentioned this in a previous entry) they point at their face with a curled index finger, look at me with big eyes, a look of question on their face, and their mouth is hanging open because they are saying, "Ngoh?" (that means "me/I" in Guangdonghua). Its a funny thing to see. One of my kids did it, so I impersonated it, and I can do it pretty good, and that sent about 75% of the class into a hysterical laughing fit. Now, I don't know if its because they found it funny, or they were laughing at my use of Guangdonghua or what, but I don't care, becuase it got them involved afterwards.
They were participating in anything I did. It was great. The class was wonderful.
I then hit up Kindergarten afterwards. It was the 12 Kid Older class, previously the 10 Kid Spaz Class from last sememster, but this semester they are much more well behaved because I don't have those tumors in the class anymore. I realized that I must have left my cards at the #1 Middle School during my lesson with Daisy and Violet over the weekend. I called Lynn to see if she could bring them ,but no one ever turned them in...Uh oh. Crap. So I told her to bring some others from the office. The class went good. Continued teaching emotions, Happy, Sad, Excited, Angry, Tired, Love.
Today was a very rainy day. It poured a few times for a span of a couple minutes. Luckily whenever I went out in the open it would hold up and I didnt get very wet. I wanted to go to Lion Dancing, but it was pouring at the time of practice and I didnt want to bother getting soaked. So, I continued to enter subtitles. Spent pretty much from 630-930pm entering the rest of the News Story subtitles in. Finally finished. When completed I was able to get Amy's help for a couple other subtitles.
What a pain.
But the good news is that after finishing up the subtitles, I completed what I think is the final version. Got all the music loaded and I checked all the links, now I need to burn it and check it.
Coco called me around this time. She was like, "Hello Phil!" in her own variation of English. Its fun to listen to...its got a nice rythm to it. Its different than all the other English teachers. I like the way she talks. Even though sometimes I have no clue what she is saying. She called me up and said, "I have a friend in Nanhai (by Foshan) and they want you to go there to teach. Can you? I was like...well, my contract is up in August. She was all like, "Ooooh." in that disappointing tone. I was like why? She said, they got your info from my sister and they want you to teach there now. I am listening to this and I am like, "What? I am in contract to teach at your school. Do you not want me teaching at De Xing anymore?"
.....(a few seconds of silence)..."Yes."
Excuse me? I started to laugh. Then Coco said, "Stop laughing. Why are you laughing."
So I explained it again to make sure she understood exactly what I was saying.
"Do you not want me to teach anymore at De Xing?"
-"Yes".
UGH! either she doesn't want me to teach there anymore or she just doesn't understand. I am going for understanding. But I don't know. I will check tomorrow.
The DVD is burning right now. For those of you that want a copy. Contact me and we will trade info on its shipping. I need to go to bed. Tired.

Posted by Phil at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Classes were mediocre today. My second 4th grade class has these two kids that have got major class disruption issues. The skinny one does it for attention I think and the fat one with the shaved head just has a screw loose. As class started the fat kid was missing but his stuff was at his desk. I asked Lucy where he was. "He's outside being scolded." Aaah, figures. What do you do for a kid in which scolding doesn't work anymore? It just goes in one ear and out the other. What else is there too do?
The fat kid came back in and looked upset a bit, but the next minute he was up and humping his desk. The skinny kid was just getting up while others were speaking and hitting his row mates with his book rolled up. "Do you not see me staring straight at you."
At one point, the fat kid walked to the front of the class and pulled his shirt up and rubbed his nipples. Right in the middle of class. aiya.
The first 6th grade class was a pain as well. Anna wasn't regulating at all because she had missed the morning classes due to a doctor's appointment so she had to make up a 3rd grade class. So, I got some troublemakers. I tried to use their negative energies and use them for a group activity, which worked, but once that was over, the went off to disrupting others. Oh, one kid had these black and white shiny rocks used to play some chinese board game. A bunch of the boys were throwing them around the room at each other. So, I confiscated them and gave them to Anna during the break.
The second 6th grade class was fabulous. No problems at all. Excpet for a boy putting eraser fragments in Cagny's hair. I made it a priority when starting teaching here to stand up for the kids that get picked on alot because I used to get picked on and I could never understand why the teachers never did anything to the students they knew were being bad and harassing the good kids. I want to be like Morgan Freeman in "Stand By Me", the HNIC. I want to expel all the bad kids...and drug dealers/users. Cause there are so many drug addicts in my school.
For Kindergarten, the most eventful thing I did was play London Bridge is Falling Down with them. However, they said it like this, "Rondon Bridge is Farring Down..." It was pretty funny.
I had a private reciprical lesson with Daisy and her mom today. I swear, the little girl continues to amaze me. She sat on the table next to her mom holding the flash cards for me, talking to her mom in Cantonese, then saying the Flashcard contents in Mandarin, then repeating the contentst in almost perfect English. Man. Handslap to the forehead...my forehead. These talking lessons aren't really working. I just don't understand anything they are saying. I need a book that has homework n stuff. That always helped me. Lisa couldn't find any suitable for me. I need to start looking. I am sure there is something out there.
After lessons I came back here to work on some subtitles. Talk about bees pissing off an elephant. Here is the best description of the DVD Studio Pro Editor I can come up with, its an AIM conversation:

Me: the subtitle editor in DVD Studio Pro 3 is a little bitch.
E: so treat it like one
Me: i do, i yell at it n stuff.. i smack it too...but it doesn't fuckin learn...just like a little bitch.
E: good, then everything's in order
E: perhaps more grip tape for your pimp stick?
Me: damn yeah!

I also had a very interesting online conversation with Lynn. It started because she needed my help and correction on a translation she did for her friend. We then started to chat about regular stuff, and I asked her what she plans to do when she leaves BOND. Apparently something is going down right now and she's not going to "worry" about it anymore. What she told me was pretty interesting and it will be some time before I will post it. I will give you a clue, its might deal with how foreign teachers are treated in relation to the chinese staff by the leadership.

Well, its time for bed. Goodnite.
lata.

Posted by Phil at 11:36 PM | Permalink

Today, i literally spent most of my day in front of the computer working. I took some time for lunch and running a couple errands. In the evening I spent 2.5 hours with Amy translating the 10 minutes of chinese that makes up the audio track for the Zhongshan News Story I was on. I ate a lot of chocolate today as well since its Easter time. I couldn't find any chocolate bunnies though. Bummer. I like the layout of this DVD, its pretty nice, I think. Other than that,
there really isn't much to say.
Its getting late so I amgoing to bed. Sleep well.

Posted by Phil at 09:47 AM | Permalink

I have been downloading some Ren & Stimpy cartoons lately. So funny. Most of the morning was me trying to clean my room and do things around the house. Yumi and I had plans to have lunch at 130pm at the really good Hunanese resturant. I headed out about 115pm. As I was riding on the back of a motor-taxi down a very busy road, with lots of vehicles as well as people on the road and sidewalks I did a doubletake. We were driving by the DVD shop and supermarket next door when I spotted this 4-5 year old boy with his pants around his ankles, his shirt up to his armpits, pissing on a tree. Not a care in the world. Chinese are proud of the fact that foreigners can't really ever understand their culture. Man...I don't want to understand it. Use a friggin' toilet.
Lunch was good for the most part. They were out of the duck that I wanted, that is sooooo good. And they were also out of this other dish. I asked, "Tell me what you have and then I will decide."
Catherine was giving the BOND foreign teachers a chinese lesson at 730pm today. I could only stay for 45 minutes because I had to go to a lion dance meeting. I can tell that her lessons are gonna be just as much as a joke as Lynn and Doris's. I will explain that after I introduce Ben.
I met Ben. He is a new guy from Australia. He's a few years younger than me, or so it looks. He has light brown hair and blue eyes, I think. From the 45 minutes I spent with him, he is a nice guy so far. I asked him where he was staying and he said with Bill. Ah yes, the room where English Phil stayed for three days. I told him to beware of Bill. He gets upset with BOND, which everyone has their right to do because, i mean face it, if you don't get upset with BOND, you're retarded. (Speaking of which, Toby had his bag stolen today. I guess there is no honor among thieves.) But Bill has a tendency to get hardcore into his hatreds and it makes others around him feel terrible. Especially if Ben is new, he will already be demoralized from all the horrendous surprises that BOND laid in store for him, the last thing he needs is a crazy 60+ year old hairy man telling him horror stories. I learned to steer clear of him awhile ago. Why he came back, I have no clue. The guy is a crazy, hairy man. I'm talking "Robin Williams" hairy. I'm talking body hair, mostly back and shoulder, coming out the collar of his shirt. Too bad he doesn't have someone shaving his body hair like the father in "Malcolm in the Middle" - that show ruled!
Back to the joke of chinese lessons. BOND on entering China gave us a "Useful Phrases for Foreign Teachers" booklet which has 4-5 pages of very basic chinese phrases, verbs, and nouns. For some reason they felt that this booklet would help us, except they didn't bother to get anyone to explain the tones and pronunciation. I was told by The Big Boss Man that Chinese lessons would be offered. How much bitchin' did it take, mostly on my part, to get lessons? About four months. First lesson was on Dec 17th. So, I had this packet for 4 months with no instruction on it. Sure, I was given offers to teach me Putonghua by other people I had met, but since they are all chinese, nothing ever happened on their end. I was all for it. But..alas...
So, the chinese lessons we had been offered has pretty much been "Lets go over the sheet." While going over it, they would show us the tones for each word. They didnt bother to do the basics of the language until we demanded they do it. Things like, the pinyin alphabet, phonetics, tone work, confusing areas and such. And this is supposed to be a friggin' Language Institute. So, our first lesson with Catherine started out like this. "OK! Lets go over the sheet." I immediately say, "Aaaaw, Hell no! You are teaching us everything from the start. Alphabet, tones, all the basics." The response: Well, I can teach you them while going over the packet.
My retort: No, you can't. I have been in China over 6 months and I have had this packet and other on my own practice of the language and I still have trouble. Poor Ben here has been in China 3 days with no previous experience in Chinese language at all.
Catherine said, "He was speaking to me in Chinese earlier."
Ben responded, "I was asking you how to say, 'Thank you', 'Goodbye', and 'Hello'."
Catherine was like, "Ok, what do you want to learn."
You're the teacher, Lady. Its sad when one of your students directs you on what to teach. After 5 minutes of her going thru the alphabet with Ben, she ignored me, she said, "Ok, lets go over the packet."
NO! Fuck the packet. We ain't doing that right now. Ben did not learn the basics of Chinese in 5 minutes!
UGH!
I left. I had to go to a Lion Dance meeting this evening. I didn't understand the 30 minute lecture, but I goofed around with the wunderkinded. One of them had gas so he was making humorous Qigong movements while he passed gas. Then we would hit him. After the meeting was over, I was chatting with a couple of the kids that try to speak english, they all have the ability, they are just too chinese...i mean...too scared to actually try. No one really told me what the meeting was about. But the end of it was about passing out of money. Everyone who performed for New Years was given money. I got 80RMB for my participation in the few events. Kool. Totally not expected, but nice.
Interesting night.
Happy Easter all.

Posted by Phil at 10:48 PM | Permalink

I got alot done. I pretty much finished the editing of the movie. I hooked the computer up to the TV to use it as a monitor to check sound and color levels. It always happens, I spend so much looking at washed out and dim colors on the computer while editing that I forget that it looks crisp and clean on the TV. I am always amazed when I see it on TV. I am cramming alot onto this DVD. I had to cut out a bunch of stuff I would have liked to keep, but oh well. I could have made another disc, but then I would have had 3 discs. I have a second one that has the performances from the Chinese New Year that I did and was a part of.
Whoever wants a DVD, they will be done the end of March/early April. Prolly won't get to the states until mid-April.
goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 11:00 PM | Permalink

Nothing bad happened today, I just felt like that was a pretty good title. giggle. In the words of Dr. Dre, "Today was a good day." It started out pretty normal. Getting up, going to school. Today was my long school day. 4th, then 3rd, then 4th, then lunch, then two 3rd classes, followed by kindergarten. I had no troubles, well, not many with the kids. The second 4th grade class was a little unruly because Coco wasn't there to bust heads and break legs. So, I had to use my beating stick. I know what you are thinking, don't worry, I don't beat my students. When they are really loud, I just take the stick and wail it on my little desk a couple times and it gets their attention. There is an equation to this as well. The length of time they pay attention to me after I smack the stick is directly proportional to the loudness and duration of the smacking of the stick. I learned this trick in fourth grade from my teacher Mrs. Mousseau who was the tallest female teacher I ever had, yet she had the softest voice. She sounded like Officer Jan Hooks from the Police Academy series, only my teacher wasn't small, black, or have a loud shout in her.
If individual kids aren't paying attention either and talking to someone behind them or next to them, I will sneak up and wail on their desktop scaring the crap out of them. It ruelz and makes all the other kids giggle. Perfect. They usually pay attention after that for about 3 minutes, then off to not paying attention. Oh well.
During lunch i watched the movie "Saw" while eating. It was a pretty good indie film, except the acting was wretched. Everything else was good.
Kindergarten was pretty good. I was getting to be really tired during that class from all the kiddiness around. I was teaching emotions, Happy, Sad, Excited, Angry, Tired, and Love. While I was instructing the kids, I discovered that two of the little girls are going to grow up to be closet case lesbians. When I drew the picture for love and the hand motion of hugging someone, they hugged each other and kissed. NO KISSING! Lynn was crying she was laughing so hard and the two little girls were giggling. Aiya.
Afterwards I went to grab some grub and buy light bulbs for my shandelier in my room. Then I headed over to Daisy's house for a chinese lesson. It was quite humorous. Daisy was sitting on the table looking over some chinese characters with her mom. I was surprised she was back already becuause she has a piano lesson that ends at 6pm, but apparently she wasn't able to make it because she had a singing lesson. Thats alot of stuff for a 4 year old. While Lisa was getting things together to teach me, Daisy was instructing me on character pronunciation. Every once in a while Daisy would get something wrong and Lisa would shout the correction from the kitchen. Daisy would then laugh.
We started going thru stuff. They used my flash cards that I use for my lessons and went thru the chinese on them. They wrote down the characters and the pinyin. It was very interesting here, becuase the Grandfather was writing the stuff out and he kept gettin all the tones wrong on the words, Lisa would then scold him playfully, and I even had to correct Lisa and Grandfather on spelling once. I found this really funny. Here is a man that is in his late 60s and he doesn't know the correct tones of chinese. It makes me reallly wonder how important they are after that.
Afterwards I went to Lion Dance practice. It was good. Learned some new stuff. And I finally got my News Story DVD! YES! This is going on the DVD. ROCK!
Came home and time for beddy. GOodnite.

Posted by Phil at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today is my easiest schoolday. I have four classes. One 3rd grade and two 5th grades, plus one kindergarten class. What made it so tiring is that I was riding my bike everywhere, carrying the guitar, and teaching lots of little kids. What really got to me was that today was the day that I started doing a private lesson for Daisy in return I recieve free chinese lessons from Daisy mother and gradfather. It was good teaching her, but its hard to plan with her, she learns so quickly and retains the info.
The chinese lesson was tuff because we were just looking out of that Chinese book that John gave me before he left. No matter how good it is, its tuff to just try and learn by reading that. We spent some time doing that and I just didn't feel good about it. I know I won't retain any of this stuff. About halfway thru I say, that this wasn't the right way to go about it. It was boring and tiring. So, we tried doing where they just speak to me mostly in Chinese the way I just speak english with Daisy. It forces me to practice and say things. Which is good, but of course I need to use english to find out things. I can see problems with this that its not structured. Probably a cross between the book, the speaking, and flashcards will be the best way. The offered to teach me Tuesday - Saturday, I could come over and just speak with them for 1 hour after my lessons are done at 530pm. I will teach Daisy on Tuesday and Thursday.
I told them last night that once Daisy gets into Primary school and gets older that they will need to be the ones to continue teaching her English. The primary schools just suck in the way they teach english. For one, they chinese teachers who barely know english teaching the class and the kids have no reason outside the class to use English. So Daisy must practice with her folks if she wants to continue. And her level is so high right now. Her mom has taught her alot. Super smart that girl.
After lessons were over, I was super tired and super hungry. So I went to this noodle shop that I was just taken too the night John left. The food is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo friigggggin good! Whenever and whatever I eat there feels like a koala bear just crapped a rainbow in my mouth. The food is fantastic. I ordered this one dish that just tastes soo good. I have gone there 4 days in a row. Not because I really went out of my way to do so, it just happens its right around the corner from my schools, so...yummy. When I found this dish that is just sooo good, I don't know why I should even bother to try and lose this weight I have been packing on, because this food is just toooooo good that I won't want to eat anywhere else. My will power has met its match.
I headed home and fooled with the guitar.
Another good note, Bob K., friend from Highschool and College, located my Friendster Page (Hypotenus Love Triangle) and contacted me. We had lost contact somewhere along the way. It was great to talk to him again. He's bought a house and living somewhere in Texas with his ladyfriend of 2 years. Killer.
Well, time for beddy-poo. Later.

Posted by Phil at 07:33 PM | Permalink

Still haven't changed. Oh well.
Most of today was normal.
The most special thing I did today was getting Garage Band working again. For some reason, on a previous Security Update or something for my OS, my Garage Band Application got corrupted. Damnit. Why did my computer get nailed. I don't know. Of course, I only found out about this when I needed it. I re-installed and got it backed up. Now, why do you think that is so special? Because now, I can plug my new Cock-Rock guitars into my computer and use it as a mixing board/amplifier. I can also record and make my own brand of cockrock. It totally ownz, dude. I spent all lunchtime just jamming away on my guitar. It was neato.
I headed out to Lion Dance practice and it was cancelled tonite due to some big function at the Elementary School down the street. Aiya! So, I headed home again. Someone bought "Finding Neverland" Sweet! I wanted to see this. So I watched it...pretty good. Johnny Depp is still one of the best actors around.
Time for bed. Later folks.

Posted by Phil at 03:55 PM | Permalink

The weather today was very interesting. It was sunny and humid this morning. During lunch it poured rain for about 15 minutes. The sun came back out and dried all the water out, pretty much, then it got humid from doing so. By the time I was back in class, a nice firm wind was blowing around and it was very sunny. By the time I got to Kindergarten, it had gotten cloudy again and looked as though it promised rain. But it didn't rain. Very interesting.
Lets see, my bike already started falling apart. The brakes that I had them tightened yesterday loosened up and the reflector fell off so I took it back for a quick repair. For kindergarten I took in my guitar and tried to use that to help the kids learn the colors. Its really hard for these 2-4 year olds. most of them don't even know how to say the words in chinese. I thought the kids would really like it as well. Well, they did like it, however, they paid more attention to me than they did the teaching exercise. They just stared at me. Uh...this isn't working. Crap. Maybe they just need to get used to it. Also, something else wierd is going on. I am totally comfortable in front of the kids, so you would think that I would be able to play the guitar like I do when I am alone at home, but nope, I constantly kept making mistakes on whatever I played. Whats going on here? Hmm.....poop.
During lunch I pretty much finished my Final Cut Pro work on the movie. I am still waiting on that TV Interview footage. If i don't get it by the end of the week, I am gonna complete the movie and finish it up. Its gonna have subtitles on this one. There is too much chinese not to put it on.

Posted by Phil at 06:53 PM | Permalink

Basically the day started off and proceeded like my normal Mondays lately. I did alot of DVD work. Got alot done. Around 2pm I went shopping for a bike. I found a place down the street. They were trying to sell me the most expensive things. I mean, these bikes were all pimped out and hitech. I doubt they ever sell them. There was one for 800RMB. All bikes in China are hunks of crap, so why waste your money. Even the most expensive bike will have something break the day after you buy it. I was looking at a few other bikes and the shop people were saying, "No good no good." If its no good why are you desecrating your shop by stocking it? I picked out a bike that would be decent. It sorta looks like the old bike, just not as fancy. It doesn't have the shocks and it doesn't really stand out. It was 338RMB and 25RMB for a lock. I didn't want to go above 300RMB so i was trying to get it for 270RMB, but she wouldn't go below 320. So I jetted.
Later on, I asked Megan if she would be willing to go when she was free. I was in no rush. She said now, so we went. We got to a different shop and I found pretty much the same bike. The staff also pointed out the same other bikes that were way expensive and crappy. I picked out the bike and said OK, I then allowed Megan to work her magic. Its funny how I am the one doing the searching and interacting and she stays back in the corner and then when it comes time for money issues, she takes over and I go back into the corner. Its really bizarre. Chinese culture, though, has the women as the ones who take care of the money. The guys do all the manual stuff, fixing, etc, the women take care of the money. And boy, the talons come out when they are negotiating. Jolene and Megan are really vicious whereas Amy is really nice. Its really funny to see go down. The will be negotiating and fighting over price and it gets pretty intense sometimes and then when its over, they are all nice to each other. Its a saving face issue. Its an art. Megan wanted to get less than 300RMB and they wouldn't do it, so she motioned for us to leave. As we were walking away I said 300RMB is OK, so we went back and picked it up. They took care of last minute tune ups including tightening the brakes and straighting the spokes. Ugh. Just make something that works to begin with!
I rode home while she sat on the carrying thing over the back wheel. Thats how the chinese get around. And of course, I was hauling down the street and people were all staring at us. "whaaaaaa!?". I did more computer work.
I went to practice tonite, but I got there and no one was doing anything and barely anyone was there. Screw this, I have more important things to waste my time on. So I took off.
Came home and worked alot more on things.

Posted by Phil at 06:53 PM | Permalink

Today was my first private lesson with Daisy at 9am. I will teach her for 1 hour and then her mom, Lisa, will teach me Putonghua. A trade off. The first day I spent pretty much prying Daisy's brain to find out more of what she knows. And I went thru with Lisa a crash course so she could figure out what I know.
After class I headed back to the house. The rest of the day Yumi and I went to Shiqi to a couple parks she has never been too. It was nice. That was most of the day.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 09:59 AM | Permalink

Today was a long interesting one. I got up for Putonghua lessons at the BOND office at 10AM. Doris was running this lesson. I was the only one since New John came in 1 hour late thinkin it was at 11am. Silly irishman. Basically the lesson consisted of me practicing the tones of nouns of things you find in a house or apartment and what to say when they break...since they do constantly. Most of the time was spent just practicing the tones and not much time for reveiw. Doris kept yelling at me about the tones. At least with Lynn I could hear the tones when she spoke, with Doris, its miniscule. The only time I was able to get the tones with any sort of accuracy was when I impersonated a chinese opera singer say the words, so it sounded very high pitched and unbearably annoying, and quite funny.
After class I headed out to lunch with Damon, New John, Owen, and a couple others. I reminded them about Peter's gathering. From there I headed home.
I had class at 3pm with Daisy and Violet showed up late again. Jack was there today as well as this other kid that has never had much english outside of a couple words. "Owen, why is this child in this class? He has no experience, these other kids know alot more and this kid will be confused and left behind."
"It doesn't matter...he is here to see if he likes it."
Really? Is BOND gonna rip him off as well? Class went really well. I taught, "How much is this? It costs ... dollars".
When class ended at 345pm I had to scamper off because I had to meet Nick and Megan at the bus stop to go to Shiqi. We needed to go to Justco to pick up some foodstuffs for the party tonite and for personal reasons. After going to Justco, we got out of there in record time, we headed over to the guitar shop to finally purchase those guitars I have had my eye on. While I was in HK, I went to the Tom Lee music stores and realized how much I miss shredding up Van Halen tunes and rocking out on Crazy Train. I knew I needed to get those things now. So, i went in there to see what I wanted to do. I wanted the total cock-rock Randy Rhodes Leopard print body guitar, no question on that. Thats a no brainer. But then I had to decide on the archtop/hollow-body or the Les Paul. I decided on the Les Paul. It plays wonderfully and I realized that the archtop is just too small for my tastes and it didn't play all that well when I was there. So i got the Les Paul...which plays wonderfully. I also got a small amp...about 7 inches tall and 7 inches wide. Its this cute little thing that is run off a 9-Volt battery. Its killer. Once I had decided on everything, it came Megan's turn to deliberate the price. It was originally 2550 RMB, but I know that stuff ain't worth near that amount. Megan was able, after about 15 minutes, to get them down to 2000. Damn. She is good. As we left she said she felt she could get a little more off, but prolly not much and it would have taken much longer. What an awesome deal. The place said I have free repairs for 1 month...um...uh oh...thats not a good sign. I assume the first thing to go will be the amp.
We then tried to get a taxi back because Nick said it would be hard to catch the bus at this time. Alrite. This proved to be hard. All the taxis wanted 60RMB, when 40 is usual. For about 3 cars, we were standing there and the driver said that because we were foreigners, then we should pay the full amount. This sent Megan in a rage, she yelled at him pretty good. So, on the next taxi, Nick and I decided to hide around the corner. Megan negotiated a taxi down to 40RMB, then as she waved us out, the taxi driver got pissed and drove off. LOL! Awesome! After a while we finally decided for 50RMB. We had gone thru about 8 taxis. 4 of them we were trying for 50RMB. Finally one relented. We thru the stuff in the trunk and took off. I had to direct him thru Xiaolan because he didnt know where he was going and Nick didn't really know from the highway.
We got back to the house and fired up the grill. Folks showed up and apparently it was Ash's bday on Monday. Cool, a party for two folks. Somehow we ended up with 2 cakes. So Ash gone and so did Peter. We all hung out for a while. I popped in Return of the Jedi for a little kid at the party. He seemed to be engrossed in it at times. But his attention span was quite short. He was only 3.5 years old. At one point, he was clutching a bacardi breezer that was his mom's. He was trying to take a sip, so I pulled it from his hands. HIs mother was clueless and so was Echo. "What are you doing? That's his mothers!"
"He is trying to drink it."
-"So what? Its his mothers!"
"Its alcohol! F-ing A!
-"Oh..."
The rest of the gathering was relaxing. I was super tired and passed out.

Posted by Phil at 09:25 AM | Permalink

The morning classes fine this morning. I made two kids stand up in front of the class in horse stance while they had their fists out with chalk placed on their wrists. If they break the chalk, they will get in more trouble. One did break the chalk...i didnt expect it...so, I just made him sit there longer. During lunch time I headed to the BOND office to meet with Katherine. As I walk thru the gate, Lynn comes running up and shouting my name. Apparently Katherine switched and Lynn was the one gonna go to the police station with me to make a statement and fill out some forms about the stolen bike. Lynn has more experience with this. The first week Robert was here, he had his bag stolen at the supermarket and they had to go. So we go to the Police Station.
We get there and walk up the back stairs into the office areas. We go to the desk and chat with a couple people. Then a guy comes out later with some forms and we start filling them out with him. Lynn was my interpretter. All the while we were filling out forms another police officer was going thru photos of crime scenes on the computer not more than 5 feet away from me, with the monitor in our direction. I had plain view of all the real crime scene photos. Blood and everything. Lynn would gag everytime a foto with blood would come up. Why she didn't tell them to change the direction of the monitor beats me. I was strangely interested. Its weird that these are fotos from stuff in Xiaolan, yet I have never seen this stuff. Which is good I guess. If you cannot deal with graphic descriptions, best not to read on...skip a couple paragraphs.
One set of fotos that he was looking at dealt with an altercation on the road or sidewalk: fotos with pool, and I mean a pool of blood on the cement sidewalk, a man laying limp on his side - almost in the fetal position but spread out - on the sidewalk or road or whatever, the sides of a man and a woman's face bloodied and with a 1 or 2 cuts with a few first aid bandages covering the serious wounds, and a what looked like a very large pocket knife..I dont know the exact size, but it was a fold out knife of some kind. Another set dealt with another incident that took place in a restaurant: there were fotos of a private room, the chairs were in disarray, food was messed all over the table, glasses were shattered on the floor, there was blood all over the room, on the floor, the table, chairs, shattered glasses, and on the external air conditioning unit (the AC units in the country are big things like the size of a tall thin refridgerator) - it looked like a drunken karaoke party gone awry horribly horribly awry. However the fotos that really made me cringe and tell Lynn not to look up was a set that took place at an apartment complex. Someone had brutally carved up a baby while he was sleeping. The blood looked fresh as well. The baby was in the fotos, his eyes half open, and blood covered him as well as the white bed sheet covers. It was terrible and the Police Officer kept zooming in on the fotos. Ugh, I hope they have the murderer in custody. I can come to my own obvious conclusions about what happened at some of the scenes.
At one point when he first started looking at fotos, i just saw a bit of blood and some guys face bloodied up. I asked Lynn to ask what happened, she did, and there was no response. After the dead silence is when the first foto of the man lying on his side popped up. Gotcha. So, we continued on with the forms.
They sure wanted alot of information on there. More so then necessary since they will never find the bike or look for it. They guy looking at crime scene fotos said I would be super lucky if they ever found it. Duh. Its china...do you actually think you could find one stolen bike in this place? Its like a needle in a haystack. I then asked Lynn if they were packing any weapons. Just curious if the office staff was packing. They said no and that they didn't need any. "It's not like the US where guns are easy to get." I was like, you can't tell me there is no illegal gun trade in China. If a criminal wants a guy, he will find one. So I was all like, "What if a terminator or some psycho walks in and starts shooting the place up, like in all those movies. They would be so out of luck and couldn't stand a chance." They said that there was another guy in another room who was packing heat. So, I kept on harping on it to Lynn, and she could do nothing but laugh. I also was asking her to ask bizarre questions, like if the chinese police would allow a foreigner to join the force to help deal with the english issues in large cities. Lynn said they wouldn't do it because there was no way that a foreigner could understand their laws. "Ok, there you go with the cultural arrogance again. You don't believe I could tell a crime from a non-crime? I mean, if a dude steals your bag, thats pretty much illegal in any country...except Mexico." "Really? Thats legal in Mexico?".....
The last part of form filling out dealt with Lynn translating all of the questions that he just asked her and she asked me, but I needed to write something down to say that she explained everything to me and that it was the truth. I was all like, "Dude, its the truth from my point of view. The gym may have a different view as well as the criminal." It took me about 5 minutes to understand what she meant. I thought she was saying to write down everything she was reading. Confusion. But I got it done. And then I had to sign my name about 8x and fingerprint every signature and every scratchmark i made while I was trying to understand what Lynn was babbling about.
As we were about to leave I noticed Lynn and the cop filling out the form were flirting a bit. So i started to tell her to ask him out and she started blushing. I was like, "ask him on a date? are you single, go for it, you are hot, he is attractive, do it!" She would then elbow me. On the way down the stairs the police stopped us. They wanted to give me a ride home. What? Lynn said they wanted to give me a ride home. Apparently they don't do this for everyone that comes in with a stolen bike report. Lynn said I was special. I was just like...no they are just being nice and trying to gain face in front of a foreigner. She was like, "exactly. If it were just me, they wouldn't care." I told them only if Lynn comes because I was afraid the cops would take me to the jail cells and give me a body cavity search. So she came along.
They took us to the police van, which I was hoping was gonna be a Paddy wagon, but it was just a van like the BOND van. They ran the sirens off a couple times and I got all giddy. The driver along with the officer looking at crime scene fotos were the only police with us. I asked them about what martial arts they learned. Lynn interpretted. They said that most of the police officers had served 2-4 years in the Chinese Army before becoming Police officers. He said they trained for 4 years in Xanda (Muay Thai Kickboxing) and I asked where they do it now. The guy said Yongning in the xanda school affliated with my teacher, Guo Sifu. BADASS! I got home and I had an hour before I had to be back at class.
Class this afternoon went really well. I was super tired after classes were finally fhinished. Goodnite

Posted by Phil at 01:33 PM | Permalink

The punkass smashed the lock and made off with it. I was at the gym and I locked it up with the chain that they provide. I tried to get them to pay for a bit of it, seeing as it was some of their fault, and of course they wouldn't. Mountain said we will call the police. Like that is gonna do anything. The police don't care nor will do a thing. I plan to go to the police station with my "assistant" after kindergarten.
I was thinking...In the 26.45 years that I have spent on this planet, the first ~25.85 years the only thing ever stolen from me, to my knowlegde, was when George Gorno stole my Smashing Pumpkins "Saiamese Dream" album from me during 11th grade Band Camp. Why? I don't know.
I get to China, and within the first 6 months I have had my cellfone and bike stolen.
fuckin' chinese.

Third grade went ok today.

(I wrote a bunch of stuff here during breaks between classes at the school, but because of the Great "Fire" Wall, the internet decided to not work while I was trying to upload. Fantastic. I don't know how much I can remember, but I will try.)

From the gym I hopped a bike taxi home. For some reason the bike guys always try to rip me off. They are like, 4RMB, I laugh at them and say, 3RMB and sometimes I they start to argue and sometimes they don't. One guy today started to argue before I got on his bike. I said, "Gong Qiao Lu, he was like sure, 4 RMB, I was like 3RMB. Totally two face, this guy got all pissy, so I returned it and argued back with him and then walked away. Got another dude and took him to the house. He said 4RMB like he was trying for it, I smiled and said no, 3RMB. He shook his head and giggled. Personally 3-4 RMB, its not really anyting, but as Captain Kirk said referring to the Klingons, "Give them a hand and they will take the arm." If you start succumbing to give 4RMB, all of them will start doing that and then it just begins to add up and what not. Why do I always feel chinese people are always out to rip me off? Oh, because most are.
I got in and then told some friends online about my bike being stolen. Garrett tried to cheer me up by sending me a copy of the ultimate Steven Seagal comeback movie that one of his friends wrote a script for the other day. Just the intro of the email ruled. I am curious to see how totally awful the script is. But the question I have is this, "Has Steven Seagal ever really disappeared? Has he? I don't believe so. He has always been with us in one way or another." Here is the email intro:

Birthed from the combined loins of my friend Ryan
and Myself comes "The Greatest Untitled Steven
Seagal Comeback Film Ever."

We wrote this Direct to Video script in a weekend and
spent the last month polishing it up.

We want suggestions of all kinds, (Better One-Liners,
a title, location names, characters, etc.) Remember,
if you give us a good line, Steven might just
eventually speak it before crushing some puke's face.

So enjoy, but read carefully because even on the page,
Seagal can snap your neck.

Dan

I plan to read this later on tonite. I will let you know how it is.
The rest of the day went surprisingly well considering what happened to me today. Today turned out to be a gorgeous day weatherwise. Despite the high humidity, that caused all the tile and wood paneling to be all slippery n stuff (ie the gym exercise floor that was as slipper as ice as I was practicing forms), it was almost perfect. Sun was shining, it was cool but also warm with a slight breeze. For some reason, on my walk to school, I felt good and I was encountering nice chinese folk, like a couple teachers, one let me hop on the back of his scooter, some students waving to me, and the little shop lady. Its nice to see that every once in awhile. It helps make this country bearable. For all the bitchin' and complainin' I do about the chinese, there are some very great and wonderful people here. I know reading my journal entries, you may get a sense that I hate all chinese, well... not ALL chinese. I talk about them in my entries, but of course, negativity is easier to remember and more interesting then positivity. Thanks to all the news programs. I have met some wonderful folks: my kindergarterns, my 3rd-5th graders, most of the 6th graders refuse to talk to me when they aren't trying to make fun of my foreigness, except for a couple. Most of the folks I have met on my Beijing and Kunming trips have been wonderful and kind. Guo Sifu is amazing to me as well as most of the kids at the Yongning Studio. And even the Xiaolan BOND staff can be wonderful. I know I complain alot about them, but they do alot for us. I love to hang out with them outside work, they help out with interpretting things and what not and helping me out in a jam, but once they get into the work frame of mind, its like they change and there is nothing more you want to do than straggle them. I don't know how many times I have wanted to destroy Lynn, but then we chat after work and I don't have that desire. Its really creepy. Something in the chinese collective unconsciousness.
Back from the rant. I got into the school. I mentioned to Anna and Coco that my bike was stolen and they both laughed. "I'm glad you find this funny." I was pretty pissed. Anna said, "My mom had 2 bikes stolen." Coco then topped her with, "My daughter Michelle has stolen 4 bikes." I was all, "Wait a tick, did you just say that your daughter stole 4 bikes?" Coco said, matter of factly while holding up her fingers and very proud of herself as she said it, "Yes. She stole 4 bikes." I caught her mistake and played with it, "How could you allow her to do such a thing. Thats terrible." Coco was then confused. I then brought it to her attention and she giggled. Then said, "Yes, my daughter had 4 bikes stolen from her." I was then all like, "Why would chinese people steal from other chinese. I mean, you guys are all comrades interested in the common good, correct? (she laughed when I said 'comrades'I mean, isn't this system set up so people are the same, in essence abolishing the whole need to steal from each other?" This part totally went over her head. "Huh?" Nevermind.
On the way to class with Ivy, I asked her, "Why do they steal?" She was like, "they aren't Xiaolan people, they are poor people from other provinces that come here. They have no job so they steal and sell the bike to make money." Of coures, to get this out of her, it took about 5 minutes because she wasn't understanding what I was asking her, 'why do they steal'. Anywho I got to the 5th grade classes and they were great. These are the 5th graders that I really like. They are very good and participate well. They seem to like everything I do. Ivy also has them trained well. Everytime I say good afternoon, they stand up all at once and say "Good afternoon, Phir." Its kinda creepy and cute at the same time. My eyes always bulge out when I see that. So, classes went really well. Made the kids laught a lot. Ivy cracked up a lot as well. There is one boy in my first 5th grade class that sits in the front next to the smartest girl in class. He constantly falls asleep and I always slap his desk to wake him up and Ivy has smacked him in the head as many times. One of the punishments he gets from Ivy is standing up during class. Well, anyways, I was going thru and acting out words with "a" in them, such as: cat, fat, cap, and nap. So when I got to nap, he was sleeping, so I pointed at him. The class began to giggle, then the smart girl elbowed him and he woke up looked around, saw kids giggling, and saw me pointing at him so he instinctively stood up. The class, Ivy and me lost it while he stood there clueless. It was great. You had to be there I guess.
After class I had a break before kindergarten so I decided to type up some stuff online. I mentioned what happened to that entry earlier. I think I got most of everything that I tried to type up.
Earlier, at the gym I talked to Jolene and Mountain and they both said I need to talk to the police. Duh. So, I told Jolene on the fone that I would be completely free after kindergarten to go to the police office. She said, OK. She called me after I had gone home to get cleaned up. She told me that Katherine would be my assistant and then go with me to the Police HQ to talk about it. I said, OK. Comes time for kindergarten and Katherine still hadn't shown up, she is 7 minutes late. So I called the office to find out where my assistant is. Katherine answers the fone. I am like, "Um...you know you are late." She was like, "Huh? I need to get some info from you about the bike." I was like, "yeah, we can do that after class, right now you are supposed to be here." I turn around and there was Jolene. Great communication skills. Then Katherine proceeded to tell me, "Well, we can't go to the police station after 530pm. Its closed." But what happens if there is a murder? Do they take care of it the next day? ;-) (rim shot goes off in the backround)
Kath - "Huh? I need some info on your situation."
Me - "Can it wait till after class is over, I should be teaching right now, the class is waiting."
Kath - "What kind of bike was it, describe it. Where was it stolen and what time?"
So I gave her a quick run down. Of it and hung up. Class with the 2-4 years was ok. There was this one girl that was completely afraid of me. She was new I think. She was wearing a sweatshirt with pockets and had her hands permanently fused in them and would not shake my hand. When I got close to her, her face would crinkle up. Sorry. Then later on in class, after the bathroom break, one of the boys was pushing a girl in the face so I scolded him and pulled his chair into the middle of the class circle. He tried to scoot his chair back to his spot, but I put my foot down on the brace of the chair and he kept trying to scoot the chair back, but it wasn't moving anywhere. Jolene could do nothing but giggle. Then the water works began. The chinese teacher then started saying stuff to him and sat him back.
Throughout the kindergarten that was mostly about 45 minutes because of Jolene's lateness and Katherine's questions, Jolene was there for about half the time. The rest of the time she spent on her cellfone dealing with things that could have been taken care after class. Of course, while she was jabbering, she was no where to be found, and I needed her interpretting. I can understand why Peter had started taking Jolene's fone away during his classes last semester. I will do that if she is my assistant again.
As class ended, she wasn't around, so I just left without her. As I was about to walk home, Jolene came rushing to me...here here wait wait, talk to Katherine. So, I talked with Katherine and we decided to meet tomorrow at 12pm to go to the Police HQ. But won't the officers be off taking a nap like the rest of the city? I then headed home.
Ok, I read the Steven Seagal script. Funny, but a it was a waste of time. I could picture the movie in my head, but it was still just a crappy Seagal movie. Tony Jaa is in it. A new Thai fella that did a new action move called Ong Bak, which was just ok, but he is pretty amazing. This movie would be just like all his other flicks, nothing comeback about it. Unless, thats the whole point. Anywho, its late. Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 12:55 PM | Permalink

Whoever said "There are no such things as bad students, just bad teachers" is friggin' retarded. When I teach 6th grade on Wednesdays I have to deal with two things that are different from grades k-5th:
1. Puberty
2. The children have been cultivated into full grown chinese people.
I take that into account when I plan lessons. However, nothing works. These kids are horrible.
Food for thought.

Posted by Phil at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

First two classes went well this morning. I have been trying to go back to the gym since the beginning of March. For some reason, I can't go. Its cold outside and that is a huge deterent to go out to the gym because I know its just as cold inside the gym as it is outside and in my room. I don't know if its a body thing, not wanting to exercise and do strenuous activity in the cold or what, but it sure feels like it. I make the decision to go to the gym and when it comes to the time to go, I have no desire to go. I don't get it.
All the good students in my 6th grade classes were gone during the afternoon for some Chinese Language thingy. There was less kids in the class, so that seemed to help as well. The first class, I was trying to get the students involved and no one would participate because of their chinese cuture and I got angry with them. They make more of a scene refusing to go up to the front of the class than they would if they just went to the front of class and participated. Its a strange phenomenom. So at one point, this girl wouldn't go up and join her classmates so I sat on a desk and stared them all down. Anna spoke to them for a minute and there was more silence. I then started teaching again, and everyone participated, however, no one would join in any activities. Kindergarten went ok as well. I had the 2-4 year olds today.
Spent the rest of the nite doing video work.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 12:02 PM | Permalink

I spent all day today video editing and uploading footage to my computer. I also bought some Nestle Vanilla Ice Cream. OMG! Its sooooo good. Ice cream.
On my way out to the 1+1 store, I noticed Phil was at our place. He was doing something with Maria, so I figured he was moving in and going to ShiQi for VISA stuff. However, on my way back, I asked, "You moving in?" He was like, no man. I am leaving. Really? Good luck man. He was totally of the mind set..."Screw BOND." He said he spent last nite, in bed, with a heater that was broken, wrapped in just a bed sheet, while he was still wearing 3 sweatshirts and pants. It was cold last nite and BOND did nothing to take care of a potential teacher. He hadn't signed a contract yet, even if he did, he would have received the same treatment. Another BOND casualty. And we wonder why chinese people at BOND say, "Why don't you want to stay?"
Get a friggin' clue, jerkoffs.
So anywho. Most of the day was spent doing video work since today was my day off. Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 10:01 AM | Permalink

Spent the whole day shopping around HK. We walked all over Times Square and some surrounding areas. It was nice. I also found two Tom Lee music stores. The first, I had been in before when I was first in HK. It had some nice arch-tops. I so want that Epiphone and that Gretsch. Then at the second one I was amazed at all the guitars. They had a bunch of Gretsches and I fell in love with the gigantic White Falcon...droooool. They also had some badass shredder guitars, gorgeous Gibson guitars. Oh man, I wish I were rich.
We went to the Hong Kong History Museum. That was neat. THey really didn't explain much about the history of HK since the british hand over to the chinese handover. I was expecting a large part of that, yet, all I got was a few sentences saying it was seceded to the british and the chinese handover. (Something that should never have been done).
After that we went to Pizza Hut for dinner. Man. And I thought Pizza Hut was nice in China. In HK, its like a 5 star resturant. Amazing. And the pizza was fantastic. Much better than the US. Wow. Great. It was so worth going to. After that we shopped around lookin at junk. We then got on the ferry and headed back to Zhongshan.
I got back to my place about 1030pm and fooled around with my computer and went to bed.

Posted by Phil at 09:54 AM | Permalink

I got up and got ready for class. It was still abit sticky, but outside, no one had an umbrella. Thats a good sign. No rain. I get to the #1 Middle School to meet Jolene. We have to take a bus to Guzhen this time. And I am being forced to pay. Great. What a crappy way to start the day off. I arrived at the school after a bus ride and a motorbike ride. For 10 minutes, Jolene could not locate the correct room that I would teach in. Once she did, it was locked and it took 15 minutes to find the key and unlock it. All the kids were waiting out in the hallway. A few just stood in front of me staring. "Is there something wrong with your eyes, kid?" Thankfully they didnt start poking me like I have had in the past.
I found out in the first few minutes that Lynn has once again given me wrong information. "The kids had class with Mountain last week. They are on Book 2 and you can start on Unit 2. I get to class and attempt a quick reveiw of Unit 1. The kids only know a few body parts and that's it. Nothing dealing with "Touch your toes" or "touch the rabbits ears" . Fan-fucking-tastic. So, my whole lesson plan was screwed. The children could barely even respond to, "Hello, How are you." How they hell are they on Book 2 Unit 2? I am sick of this. Of course, when I do talk to Lynn, she will just brush it off. I want to punch these people. Jolene didn't really offer me any help. None of the kids would respond to what I was doing. There were a couple kids that were good but the rest of them didn't want to be there. I wanna want to do illegal things to the Bond staff. They helped make this class a horrible experience for me and the children. I had to revert to speaking a bit of chinese in this class to get them to do things. I haven't had to speak it outside of the youngins kindergarten class.
After about 15 minutes of having the lites turned out and making the kids put their heads on their desks for being insolent, i played a game with them that started to get a rise out of them. FInally the three 40 minute classes were over. Ugh. And of course, it was pouring rain outside now. This is the school where Ash teaches and he was teaching at the time. He drove me and Jolene to the bus stop after class on his brand new scooter. He bought it and he doesn't even have a license for it. Oh well. I guess white folk be safe here. The chinese authorities are too afraid to try and speak to a gweilo and lose face than actually enforce the law around here.
I get back to the house and go to sleep. I have class again at 3pm. So I get there on time and Daisy and her mom are already in the classroom. Once I show up, Violet shows up afterward. I guess the rain is keeping Jack and Peter away. So I go thru a quick reveiw with the two of them. They were learning alot and remembered alot. I was very impressed. I was having them do body parts, one would ask, "What do you have?" point to a body part and the other would respond, "I have...." It was good. But they found it tough. Especially elbow. I had reverted to putting points on the board and they were both neck and neck. We had about 1 minute left and we were about to break when I said, "Ok, last one." Daisy got it right and Violet didn't get it right so I gave Daisy a point. I turned around and Violet's water works were going off at full blast. She was crying heavily, breathing heavily, and trying to wipe the tears out. Wholly Crap! I have never received this type of response to the point system. She is sensitive so I had to take care of her. And of course, when I needed help from the Bond staff, my assistant was no where to be found. MFs. During the break, after I calmed Daisy down, I headed to the bakery and bought some cookies, enuff for all of us. That got them excited. The second lesson I had them asking each other, "May I please have..." "Which do you want?" "I want...." Next week I may introduce buying things. I was very impressed.
After class I ran into KFC to grab some quick food. Phil, a new foreign teacher was in there and I sat with him. He is from London and trained with Toby there. I'm sorry fella. Anywho. We chatted a bit and I told him that the actual teaching of students isn't all that bad and this town can be enjoyable, but what you will learn to hate and what will piss you off and turn you off in this place is BOND and they will help ruin whats left of your hopes for China...whats leftover from the people in any sort of business or government position doing that. He said that he is getting a strong negative vibe about BOND. Yup. Thats them. He is stuck in the small closet room in Bill's apartment. Bill is the 60+ year old Australian that keeps coming back here despite his hatred towards BOND. I dont understand that. If you leave, stay gone from them. He's a glutton for punishment. I also warned Phil about Bill's tendency for over-exaggeration and high stress desires. He said he kind of got that impression. I told him to get Bond to let him move into the Big House since we have had a spare room ever since I came in.
I had to run because I had to catch the shuttle bus to the ferry port at 615pm. Yumi and I got to HK no problem and the hotel, King's Hotel, was gorgeous. Its got this Art Deco feel to it and its great cheap. I want to come back here again.

Posted by Phil at 10:20 PM | Permalink

Today was spent mostly teaching and preparing for Rumi's Surprise Party. The weather today was quite warm and muggy. Very sticky. But it was also windy. Quite weird. To begin, my first morning class was cancelled due to something that I have no idea about. But 3rd and 4th grade through out the whole day was great. I had no problems. Wait. no, I am lying...wait, no...thats right, no problems today. During the lunch break, Yumi and I met to go to the Ju Cheng Hotel to get a ferry ticket and a hotel in Hong Kong for saturday nite. We have been wanting to go somewhere together for a while, and this opportunity presented itself after John mentioned that he got a ferry ticket + a place to stay in HK really cheap. She said that this weekend is the best because she is going to be so busy that she doesn't know when we will get a free chance. Koolio. We had a slight problem with checking the 6pm ferry, which would have been ideal because we would get into HK at 8pm and not 10. However, because my school had kept me to themselves last weekend, Bond is making me teach an extra 45 minutes with Daisy and Violet. It won't be over till 430 and the shuttle bus leaves at 415pm. Hey, its not my fault my school volunteered me for their dance so they could score gweilo points on their performance evaluation. Oh well.
We got everything set up and then went and grabbed some lunch at the place where she always goes with her teachers. There sat Rumi and Maiyu, a new japanese teacher. I told Rumi Happy Birthday and she held out her hand and ask..."Present?" giggle. "Oh, I didn't buy you anything. Was I supposed to?" She retracted with a polite "hmph." I need to make her think nothing is going on. Yumi says she has no idea. I met with Maiyu and we talked a bit about Shorinji Kempo - she knows of it and other karate systems, Shaolin Temple (she spent a day there a few years ago), and her husband - however, she consistently referred to him as "wife" by accident. Very humorous. Her husband did Kendo in Japan so I was all like, "DUDE! Is he like, a total samurai and stuff?" She was all, "Shit, yeah, negro." She followed that with a 'raise the roof', snap of the neck and fingers. I said to her, "Hoterru ikanai?" wichi is Japanese for, "Do you want to go to Love Hotel?" Maiyu laffed and Yumi slapped me.
I then headed back to school for my afternoon classes. And again, my second class was canceled because the kids were off getting brainwashed at the local movie theatre. My kindergarten went fantastic. On the way home from class, it had started raining, while I was searching for snacks and presents for Rumi. I went into this one shop that I always walk by but never went into. I walk in and the girl running the store was primping her hair while singing along to really loud canto-crap. She didn't even notice me. Her hair was done up in such a way that she looked like she had stuck her finger into an electric socket. She was wearing a pair of purple tinted sunglasses...while it was raining outside, and some wierd "trendy" chinese clothes. I stood there for about 30 seconds staring at her, then I started to look at some of the clothes, she looked up and jumped in surprise. Apparently, my whiteness added to the shock. "We never get anyone in this store...now I have someone in the store and its a white male. I think I will have a heart attack." I looked around somemore and found a couple things that I was interested in. I finally decided on a pair of pretty kool looking earings that were surprisingly cheap. They weren't a precious metal, but they were neat. I guess they kinda looked like multi-colored fireworks or something. I don't know the best way to describe it at the moment.
I went next door to a "Cute" store and bought a Hello Kitty nightlite. I finally went into the "BIACK IEOPARD" and bought a shirt that is adore with chinese fashion and a spat of chinglish. It ruled. I picked up some snacks and went into the house to set up everything.
Yumi AIMed me and told me that Rumi had made plans with some students to go out at 10pm for her birthday. AIYA! No! Crap. She is supposed to be here at 930pm. I decided that Yumi bring her over at 9pm and then we can have 45 minutes for the surprise part. She didn't want to invite her students over. Yumi then came over and showed up with the cake all worried that the cake had been destroyed. On her way over a motorcycle guy ran into it because he wasn't be courteous. I opened it up to check it and it had shifted about 4 inches on its base. Nothing major, but I didn't want to move it for risking cake base damage. So I left it. Its got Hamtaro and his friend on it. I totally want to knife them.
Yumi left to her place and to convince Rumi to go shopping down by here. People starting showing up at 830pm when I called everyone to tell them that the surprise had moved up to 9pm. It was all good. Everyone was flexible. Then around 830pm, Yumi called to say that Rumi didn't want to go out and that she was too busy getting ready to stop by the house. Great. So, I told her to beg her to come over for 5 minutes for her present that I had ready for her. She hung up and I didnt not hear anything from her until I called her at 9pm asking what was going on. Yumi said they would leave in 10 minutes. Sounds like she will be here at 930pm afterall. Oh well. We all sat around.
Finally at 930pm they showed up. I made everyone sit in the corner opposite the refridgerator behind the doors across from the stairs. Peter had my camera. Unfortunately some jackass turned off the lites so the camera didn't have enuff lite and wouldn't be able to get a decent shot or Rumi's surprise. I opened the door and brought her in and led her to my room where I said I had a present for her. As she walked into the area, everyone jumped out and yelled surprise while Nick and Ash shook up some beer bottles and squirted the hell out of her. Wow. Hilarious. She seemed surprised. She enjoyed the cake. She ended up leaving at about 1030pm and came back around 1130pm.
During the festivities, I heard Toby knocking the USA again. I should just ban that guy from my events. Like England has never made mistakes. He sure isn't blaming Tony Blair for aiding the US. My teeth are clench and I am yelling thru them.
The rest of the nite was great. I ate too much snacks and fell asleep. I have to be up at 650AM for 830AM class tomorrow morning in Guzhen. Fantastic.

Posted by Phil at 09:26 PM | Permalink

So, sometime last week or a 1.5 weeks ago, I came back from a crappy wednesday afternoon 6th grade class. I mentioned my frustration with the kids and Coco mentioned, do you want to try teaching a 2nd grade class. We had discussed this option at the end of last semester. But nothing ever came to fruition. We decided that today was the day I would trade my 6th grade class on wednesday afternoon for a 2nd grade class on thursday morning. Yesterday, I received a bit of a possible crisis when I was asking May about the lessons for 2nd grade. She said "You are teaching 6th grade." No...I am teaching 2nd grade, that was the whole point of switching. So, she let me look at the book.
I got up this morning and headed to class, I picked up some fruit for the lesson and go to the school. Coco immediately told me that I am not teaching 2nd grade but 6th grade. I was all like, "But the whole point of the switch was for me to teach 2nd grade today. Why would I move a 6th grade class to the next day. They will still suck." So Coco and I discussed it for a bit. Ugh. She was the one that mentioned doing the switch, I don't know what went wrong. But May when to ask someone about me teaching for the 6th and the 2nd grade, she came back and said they both classes were taking a test during that period so I don't have to attend either. Ugh. Way to keep on top of things people. So, I sat down at the computer to type this up. Crazy stuff.

Well, the rest of the day was, eh. My 3rd graders today were terrible. My 5th graders were great. Once they got over being chinese, things went well. They really got into it and participated. See, I am doing something right. It ain't me.
I got alot of DVD work completed today. I am going thru editing a bunch of footage. I have so much that I want to cram into 2 hours. I have alot of Lion Dance stuff leading this edition to be heavy on that. I will also send out the Chinese New Year performances I did on a seperate disc. I made one for Guo Sifu. I will just send that along.
I am also preparing for Rumi's surprise party that I am hosting at the Big House tomorrow nite. Yumi went to get the cake today and some other little things. I called people, bought some beer, and got my dry cleaning. Also other snacks will be purchased tomorrow. Killer. Hopefully we can actually throw a surprise party for real this time. Yuppers.
Pretty much it for today. I am outtie suckas.

Posted by Phil at 09:19 AM | Permalink

Class was usual today. I didnt have my 2nd 6th grade class because we are trading it with a 2nd Grade class tomorrow morning. Should be interesting. I tried to find out what May wants me to teach the 2nd graders tomorrow and for some reason she thinks that I am teaching the 6th grade class tomorrow. Why the hell would I do that? A poor girl in one of my class had been doing some stuff for the school and because chinese people like to wash tile floors during the middle of the day while school is in session, she slipped on the floor and broke her arm. She should totally sue them. MFs.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Kindergarten went well. I bought a back-up drive for some of my computer files. I dont want to lose anything.

Posted by Phil at 09:58 AM | Permalink

I had my 4th graders today. Class went much better than last week. However, my 3rd period class was changed to 2nd period for some reason. One kid gave me problems in my 2nd period. He sat there in his chair with both hands up giving the middle finger on one and the pinky finger (the chinese version of the middle finger) on the other. So, I took him up to the front and made him stand in Horse Stance for about 8 minutes. I was having each row come up to the front to act out the words for reveiw and when his row came up I allowed him to join it. By that time he had began to water in the eyes.
Class was done. I came back to my desk and there is a giant bottle of Peanut Oil, Dish Soap, and cleanex packets on my desk. And all the women had bottles of milk and a chocolate flower in addition. Today is Women's Day all throughout the world apparently. The chinese celebrate it. I was told that we will have no class in the afternoon. And Doris called me yesterday to tell me that there would be no kindergarten today either. Interesting. When is Men's Day?
As for my health, I feel a bit better. I still feel messy from the drugs last night and I have a phlemgy cough. No fever though. At least, not yet.
After the morning classes were done, the teacher's had some activites to celebrate Women's Day. Everyone tried to sink two free-throws, jump rope, and do tug-o-war. It was funny to watch. After doing a little activity, I felt much better. The sun came out today and so far its been a gorgeous day. After doing the activities we went back to the office where our teams (English Dept, Math Dept, etc) received their prizes. We got 3rd. The prizes included pretzel sticks, toilet paper, fake Pringles, and a couple other things.
We then headed to the Flower Hotel for lunch. Like any big celebration, families bring thier kids and of course, the kids get super bored so they start playing in the areas not around the tables. I headed to the bathroom and there were 4 boys and 1 girl playing in the men's bathroom. As I walked in, they were scampered out. As I was washing my hands, a little boy walks in with a flower and is jabbering about someting. I say, "Hello." He responds, "Hello." I am all like, "How are you?" He is like, "Ok". I totally said something like, "What are you doing?" This is when he stared at me...then jumped in the air and ran into the stall. Ok. He then came back out of the stall with his pants around his thighs while he was holding is junk and he was saying something to me. I don't know if he needed help or what, but I pointed to the stall and said, "xi shou" (bathroom) while chuckling.
I didnt say one thing during the lunch at all. Its times like this I really wish I knew Guangdonghua and Putonghua. Oh well.
I did some house, computer work, and some shopping for junk until I headed out to take some fotos of Latern Festival I had developed for Guo Sifu and some of the other participants. I grabbed a bike taxi and headed out. As we were passing by the 1+1 Supermarket, there was a big crowd gathered. Then I saw the police had a perp handcuffed and sitting in between the two of them on their motorbike. The perp was trying to hide his face. He was prolly trying to pickpocket someone. Its happened to many people outside this place.
I got to the gym and there were just the wunderkinden hanging around doing not much. I took the fotos into the office and gave copies to the people there. Sifu showed up and I showed him the stuff. He was glad to get them. Sifu had a visitor as well. A P.E. teacher from a school was visiting to get some info from Sifu and the P.E. Teacher's wife was an English teacher at Leianna's and Robert's school. So, I chatted with her for some time. I was fooling around with one of the wunderkind when she ordered me over. "Come here, come here." Whoa...thats a little forceful. I figured it was because she doesn't know.
I then told Guo Sifu I had to leave, I couldn't practice cause of my cold that is mostly gone. He said sure and he told me to come next week on Mon Wed and Fri. Sure thang. I ended up walking home because I couldn't find a bike taxi. Time for bed fools.

Posted by Phil at 10:38 AM | Permalink

There was nothing much to report today other than trying to get rid of this cold. I seem to catch alot of colds in this country. Its so dirty. Oh well.

Posted by Phil at 10:36 AM | Permalink

Today, I got up after a well needed rest. I got another slight head cold from all the dancing and then walking thru the cold. I then met up with John and Jolene for his last lunch in Xiaolan. We had some good food. He then went back to Peter's to grab his suitcases and take them to the hotel where he will take the bus to the ferry port, then to Hong Kong.
I went to the foot massage place. I fell asleep during it. I felt much better afterwards, thats for sure. Then I headed home and John and Jolene were there ringing the doorbell. The four of us sat down and chilled out for a bit, then we went to grab some noodles before John left. At 6pm, he and Jolene had to jump onto a taxi to head for the hotel. I gave John a big "Mr. Peepers" hug. You know, how Mr. Peepers jumps on someone and holds on to them before he starts breathing heavily. It was sad to see him drive off into the coming night on the motorcycle. When will I see him again? I don't know. But I will. I know that.
Yumi was a bit upset and we went back to my place. Jolene showed up around 630pm and they pretty much sat on my bed crying for awhile. I texted John on his fone and he responded that he was really sad too.

Posted by Phil at 10:59 AM | Permalink

From the Kansas City News

BEIJING - Chinese government advisers meeting in Beijing this week have some weighty matters to discuss: blocking Taiwan's formal independence, alleviating dire poverty in the countryside. And lip synching.

Ma Bomin, an official with Shanghai's municipal radio, film and television administration, likens the practice of performers pretending to sing to selling fake goods. She wants to pass a law making it a crime for a performer to do so without first notifying audience members.

"Fake singing is no different from trading in fakes. It should be resolutely boycotted and shunned," Ma was quoted as saying in Saturday's Beijing News.

Ma didn't say what punishments would be proposed under the measure, included in a draft of China's first comprehensive law on arts and culture. Members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference - a key advisory board to the national legislature - are discussing the draft law among other proposals.

The law follows a campaign by Chinese rock star and artists' rights advocate Cui Jian to mobilize fans to boycott lip synching artists. The practice is believed to be widespread in China, encouraged by a state-sponsored arts scene that churns out cookie-cutter performers with little real talent.

Posted by Phil at 08:12 AM | Permalink

Ok. So I gets up early. And i am waiting for my ride outside at 745am. Shows up at 8AM. Shoulda known. Going 30mph on a motorcycle is fast. I say this because for the past 6 months I have been on motorcycles that travel no faster than 20mph thru the city. Plus, weaving thru the traffic in a tightly packed city adds to things.
We got to the Government Building Auditorium. We had breakfast there. We watched a couple of the other groups and then it was our turn to practice there. If it weren't for me, the instructor would have set us on the stage so that I and a few others would fall off during one of the dance steps. It was ok i guess.
After that we headed back to the school where i was given a headband....NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! The sun was out today so I was wearing my mirrors. Man...in this outfit...I look like I am a member of the cast to "Breakin' 3: The Return of Boogaloo Shrimp's Superfly Style"
I got the mirrors, the head band, the shirt, the pants, the shoes, and the gloves. All I need is three plaid ascots, about 5 swatches on my right wrist, and a bunch of slap bracelets on my left wrist. Oh...and a green vest. Then I would be totally breakin!
The practice at the school was irritating because a few people kept making mistakes and the female headmaster would yell at them...and they would yell back....but according to Coco, this is just talking. I have been here 6 months and I still have yet to find the difference in Cantonese yelling and talking.
We ate lunch.
These freaks were trying to put make-up on me after lunch. I was like, why do I need makeup. I am already white. Chinese people when they put on make up for performances, they basically paint their face white and then accent it with various things: blush, yellow around the eyes with sparkles and other crazy things. So, Coco, was like, "Ok...well, at least you need some lipstick." So I sat down and she put it on. When someone starts to giggle while putting makeup on you, you start to worry. I stood up and everyone started laughing. WTF! I went to look in the mirror. AIYA! It was gross. I spent about 5 minutes walking around trying to find tissue because chinese people don't believe in tissue, and I found some and whipped it off. I then yelled "chi seen!" at Coco which means, "crazy". Of course in a funny friendly way. And the chinese folks here love it when I say that. Its the only word I know where I sound like I am from Guangdong. I got rid of the lipstick, but some still remained and it accented my lips just enuff that it was ok for the stage. To imagine the horror or whorer that I looked like, picture Steve Buscemi from Adam Sandler's "Billy Madison" when Adam Sandler calls him up to apologize for the way he treated him in highschool, and then Steve Buscemi hangs up and puts on a gob of bright red lipstick. It was that creepy.
After that we headed to the Government building. Peter left his tripod at the entrance and I picked it up. It was 2pm and people were still filling in the auditorium. Yumi showed up while we were just about to start practicing. She watched our dance and was giggling underneath her hand when I went to talk to her. Yeah, its that bad, isn't it. She nodded her head in that japanese way. So we all went into the auditorium. I set up my camera and the show began. Turns out that we were the 3rd act. I headed out to get ready.
Dance time! It went ok. I screwed up a couple parts that I have never screwed up in practice. Go figure. Nothing major. Personally, I fel the performance was lame...but I also thought the dance was lame to. After getting back to my seat, I realized that most of the other dances were uber-lame as well. I don't know why but the chinese take so much from crappy US Culture: Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, diluted/commercial hip-hop, and horrible romantic movie chick flicks (ie Someone Like You). Its just so depressing. Alot of the music was the same chinese dance crude. There was teh occasional Backstreet Boys/NSync throw in, and a surprisinlgy cool dance mix of Jacko's "Billy Jean". Other than that, it was poop. This is why I am happy to see a law being passed like this: Chinese adviser urges lip synching ban. Maybe they should pass this in the USA so that actual artists with real skills actually could benefit from their art instead of having mindless zombies shelling out money for over-produced lack of talent cretins.
The dances were pretty funny. The best in the totally chinese category, which I unfortunately had turned off the camera long before to save tape, had a couple guys buzzing around the stage on those little lame jam scooters (those thin metal skateboards with rollerblade wheels and handlebars). They were wearing some shiny silver and blue outfit. At the end of their dance they had three guys with Twist N Pop Confetti Fireworks that blow junk all over the place. Well, they popped them in time with the music. #1 and #2 went of great, but #3 had some problems. The audience started to giggle and #3's face got all red. After the applause ended, I added, "Yangwei" only loud enuff that about 10 of my coworkers hearrd it and laughed. Thru my "Outrageous Chinese" book that Chad so graciously gave to me on my departure from AA, I learned that the chinese name "Yang Wei" means Great Yang. Yang is a common surname in China and all parents want their kids to be great, so they name them Yang Wei, "wei" meaning great. However, what they forget to remember is that the word "yangwei" is now synonomous with impotence. So, any child with that name will be made fun of. I said that after the guy couldn't pop his firework and the chinese girls around me giggled.
After the performance was over I headed to the computer store to buy 40 DVD-Rs. I need to make 3 copies of the last DVD for John. We then headed to a resturant for dinner. It was pretty good. The dance instructor came to borrow the tapes I recorded at the dance recital. Her team won "SPECIAL PRIZE". They were the best, but they also had 2 dance instructors in their troop. When they won it they were all "surprised". Whatever. Then for the following results:
1st Place: 8 teams, including the team I was in... how can there be 8 first places...it makes no sense.
2nd Place: 8 or 10 teams I can't remember.
Also during dinner, Coco tried to tell me that since I spent so much work in the dancing that I dont' need to come to class a couple days this following week, but I declined because they school bought me shoes and a radical Break Dancing outfit. How could I not come to class.
After dinner, Yumi and I headed over to Peter's place cause a bunch of folks were there. I was super tired from the long day and almsot passed out on the couch. While there, Peter told me a great story. He and Echo needed a taxi at one point. Peter wasn't in the greatest of moods. The taxi guy told Echo, "He is a foreigner, he should pay more." Peter responded to that with, "You are chinese, you can kiss my ass." Awesome. Absouletly awesome.

Posted by Phil at 12:34 PM | Permalink

Today was a great day. My classes went really well. Very successful I think. I was doing alot of performing in them. For the 3rd graders I was doing Big, Small, Happy, Sad, Heavy, Light, Hot, and Cold. I acted out everyone and then I made the kids act them out. They all got a kick out of it.
During lunch time I received my shirt for the performance tomorrow. Its a tank top...like a super-muscle-T. When it isn't stretched out it looks like the size of a baby's t-shirt. Crap. I have to wear this...along with those damn motor cycle gloves! I swear, I will be busting straight out of the 80s. I just hope I don't have to wear a headband.
During lunch, Coco took me to the place where they got the shoes. I was trying out a bunch of different ones. I finally decided on these really nice white ones with a shiny black stripe down the center of the tongue and front of the shoe. Its goofy look. So I got it. There was another shoe that I was looking at that was really lame. It looked like the shoe version of the rear-entry ski boots. Totally a waste of material.
Classes continuted to be really good. Kindergarten was surprisingly great. I brought my dance outfit along to teach them the names of each part. I also taught the letters. Then Jolene told me that the kindergarten teachers don't want us teaching letters and sounds to the kids becuase it will confuse them while trying to learn PinYin (the romanization system of chinese). I disagreed. I feel the kids could differentiate the two. Being young, its best time to learn it. But, oh well. They will forget the english anyway. Its not like I am making a difference in any of their lives.
Practice went real well tonite. I enjoyed it and we had a good time. #1 (a-Chan) the school's gym teacher was wearing his white jump pants and ripped thru their seams. It looked like Freddy Kruger got a hold of his pants. So, we had to work a little frontier medicine. We were told to go get some more pants...all black. So we had to go pick them up. While wearing the outfit, the shirt and pants...I look like a ballet dancer who's packed on a few pounds.
I have to get up at 645AM tomorrow because I being picked up at 745 to do a quick rehearsal at the Government building tomorrow. Fantastic. Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 11:08 PM | Permalink

So, today was a normal day. However, the weather wasn't as gloomy as it has been for the past month. In the afternoon the sun actually came out for 3 hours! I was great. I haven't felt sun shine on me in this city for a while. I forgot what it felt like.
I had kindergarten today w/ the 2-4 year olds again. We these guys its hard too work on more than one thing, That's good though. I did the hokey pokey with them again today. A couple of them actually tried to do the dance. The rest just stood around and looked at me and laughed. The two 2 year old kids are pretty non-involved. Either they are too young for the class or their minds haven't developed enuff. When I talk to them...I can feel that their minds are working. I have started to use a bit of cantonese with them...like, "You say" = "lei gong". I have tried to use english to say, "You say" but it just doesn't work, they stare at me or just repeat exactly what I say. I found out that about 90% of the children in that class have never had any english. This is gonna be interesting.
During their bathroom break, while a few were back in the class area and the rest were still squating, i began playing a bit with the kids. Since I don't like having my groin punched or my ass punched by little kids I have done two things:
1. Had the chinese instructors tell them flat out that if any kid slaps my butt or punches my groin, they will sit in the corner for a time out. (I can't believe I am using discipline tactics that I myself said, "I would never do that when I get older.")
2. I got on my knees to play with the kids.
When I got on my knees the kids got super excited and mauled me. I had about ten 3-4 year olds all trying to hug me at once and screaming while I was on my knees. It was all I could do from buckling over and having them fall all over the place.
About 5 minutes later, one boy decided to test my #1 rule. He got up as I was going around the rows and slapped my ass. So I picked him up and took him over to the corner and sat him down. He started bawling right away. I hated to do it, but you would to if you got smacked in the ass and punched in the groin for a whole semester. Of course, Jolene yelled at me, "Aiya! You are too strict! He is just a kid, he wants to play." So, I explained to her. I said, "How would you like it if I ran up to you 10 times during the class and slapped your ass and punched your groin?" Well, don't answer that...you may like it. Besides, first its a slap to the butt, then its a punch to the groin, then its a fist to the fast like Psycho Lucy, and then its a shotgun to the back.
After class, I decided to screw the dance practice for a bit and go get some food at the Wooden Chair. i haven't been there in a while. So I went and grabbed a taxi. I told him, "Ren Ming Gong Yen" which is People's Park in Putonghua. The taxi guy repeated exactly what I said and I said, "Hai". He started going in the wrong direction. I was like...hmm...well, depending on which way he turns at this street, I will give him a piece of mind. He turned the wrong way. I said, "Aiya! Ren Ming Gong Yen!!!" and pointed in the opposite direction. He then said, "Oooooh, Ren Ming Gong Yen, like he just understood what I was trying to say along with some other things I can only assume are insults or annoyed sayings. I was like, "Dude, its not my fault you don't understand chinese!" All my coworkers understand. All the Bond staff understands. All the Lion Dance people understand the chinese when I do use it. And so do some other taxi people. Its your fault you don't understand your own language. Here's a quarter, buy a clue.
After I ate I headed back to school for dance. Practice went until 930pm. Yuck. Oh well. I got my white pants that we are to wear in the show on Saturday. We also got the shoes. The shoes were the proper length size, but the width was like super tight. I put them on and my footies were crushed it felt like. I tried to dance in them to maybe break them in and after about 2 minutes of jumping i felt my big toe go "ZOINKS!" Ouch! so, I had to sit a few minutes out. The rest of the night i was being super careful of the toe and not jumping. Oh, and I removed the shoes as well. Coco said we would go out tomorrow and get another pair.
This evening I decided that I am gonna quit my bitching and complaining about the time schedual for this dance thing. I am starting to enjoy the bonding experience with the other teachers this has given. And the school is really doing alot too. They are paying for the outfits and the gym shoes. I needed new gyms shoes and they are taking care of it. So, I have decided to put a real effort into this despite how much I think its a retarded dance. I mean, we are doing a competition and I know now matter how much effort I put into it, there will be about five 1st places, seven 2nd places, and eight 3rd places. Time for bed time!

Posted by Phil at 10:17 PM | Permalink

I hope you have a wonderful day today!

Let's see. How was my day. Well, my classes went fairly well. I was able to keep the 6th graders at bay and not have them give me too much crap. However, I walked into my last 6th grade class of the week and they are one of my two terrible 6th grade classes. I walked in and one of the girls in the middle front saw me walk in and she made that sad "ooooooooh" noise you make when something you don't like happens. I will smack you silly. This is the class where a few of the girls have started to develop big time attitudes. I like what the Misfits said about Attitude. I want to say every line of that song to those kids. Oh well. Between 6th grade classes and walked to the Kodak shop and picked up my pictures I dropped off to have developed for Guo Sifu on Monday. After the last 6th grade was done, I headed out to kindergarten.
Today is my day with my 10 Kid Spaz Class. However, it wasn't the same bunch as last semester. The Fat Kid who's pants were always falling down, Bizarro Phil, Psycho Pig-Pen, Mickey, and the Cute Little Girl were gone. So, to start out, I had 4 of the same kids: The Girl Who's Voice Volume is on #3, Tommy, Mickey's Best Friend, and Reserved Boy. The really smart kid, almost equal to that of Tommy, showed up about 5 minutes before the class was over. I started out with 4 of the same kids and 3 new kids: a quiet lad, a girl that looks like a chubbier version of the Cute Little Girl, and Psycho Lucy. Ok. So, I started out the class with an introduction of Duck Duck Goose to the new kids. It took them a few tries to understand it and catch on.
The reason I call the one girl Psycho Lucy is because she is very in-your-face and is kind of like the female version of Psycho Pig-Pen. She doesn't have much control and is very physical. Outside before class, Tommy was chatting with me while she and Reserved Boy were staring at me. So, I played a bit with Tommy and Reserved boy and I tried to play with Psycho Lucy and she started throwing punches and kicks. Jeez. But she was playing...apparently. Anyways, back in the class, I was going thru each student and shaking hands and asking, "How are you? What's your name?" Jolene had taken the 4th kids spot (Smart Kid hadn't showed up yet and she was filling in) so, Psycho Lucy was 7th in waiting for handshakes. I got to the 5th in waiting, they sat next to her, and Psycho Lucy jump up and wailed one into my face.
I lunged for her and she thought I was playing so she started to run. I caught her in 3 seconds, threw her over my shoulders and restrained her for a walk to the headmaster's office. I walked down the stairs and about halfway down I think she realized that she was in trouble. She started to kick and squirm. I was like a snake. The more she squirmed the tighter my grip got. As I walked to the office, other teachers and parents walked by me and stared at me. I set her down on the seat in the office and explained to the headmaster that she hit me. I left and Psycho Lucy didn't come back to the class until about 10 minutes before it was over. She was wimpering and I saw that her eyes were red. You'll get over it and perhaps you will learn something. I just hope the headmaster didn't hit her or anything. I doubt she did, but that is pretty standard in Chinese schools.
After kindergarten I had to go back to my primary school for Dance Rehearsal. Coco told me before I left that I needed to come back right after kindergarten to practice. Damnit. So, I get to practice and it was super lame. These guys have been practicing this prolly as much as twice as me and I was instructing them what to do. Then we had some food on the house. Nice, but then they all sat around for about 1.5 hours doing nothing while the food settled. The instructor finally showed up around 730pm I was like finally, but then practice went on till 930. They totally wasted my time.
oh well. I know to never again allow them to volunteer me.
good nite all.

Posted by Phil at 11:25 AM | Permalink

I had two fourth grade class this morning. Absolutely terrible. I put one kid up in front of the room for acting up. After a while of him not responding to what I was trying to get him to obviously do, I started to try and take him to the office to see the headmaster and he freaked. He would not let me take him. Lucy ended up scolding him outside the classroom. There goes any sort of remaining authority. Then the fat buddhist kid that always acts up in the back was giving me crap, so I sent him to the front. He used this time in front of the class to dance. Lucy says this kid is crazy, not all in the head. In front of the class she made this motion and this time all the kids started to giggle. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE!
After a terrible morning I headed off to the gym to renew my membership for another 6 months and to try and workout...its been ~1 month since I have been to the gym. ugh. Took care of that. I was gonna workout, but it was friggin' cold and the gym had all the windows open again. I still say that's retarded.
Headed back to the house to cool off from my morning classes. Great, I thought, I have 6th grade to deal with in the afternoon and then 35 kindergarteners. Ugh. I got to school and was preparing. Ivy had three of her students at her desk collecting some materials. I was chatting with her for something. She offered me up that one of the boys collecting stuff at her desk was "very stupid". WHAT! You don't talk about your kids like that in front of them. "Oh, that's just for you. He's stupid. Very poor english. He doesn't know what I am saying." Its soooo wrong. But sooooo true. The boy sat their smiling and giggling. (See above sentence written in capitals in the first paragraph)
My 6th grade classes went really good. I was very surprised. I got them to write tons of junk on the board. I don't know why they say they don't know English. Everything was spelled right...for the most part. Hell. I know english and if you have spent anytime reading my journal, you know that I don't speel the bestest.
I was given another surprise at kindergarten. I didnt have my usual Tuesday class like Lynn said I would. Instead I had Suzannah's old Youngling's Class. This kids ranged from 3-4 and there were two brand new 2 year olds in the class. They were all adorable. About three kids pissed their pants and the homeroom teacher had to pull out the hairdryer. This is gonna be a very interesting class.
After that I headed to dance practice! YEAH! I get to wear white jumpsuit pants and crappy black vinyl gloves with the fingers cut off. I put them on, they were too tight, and I burst thru half the seams. Fantastic. The shirts come tomorrow. Part of the dance show entails me being in the bottom of a people pyramid. We were practicing and one of the women was digging her knee into my spine. Ouch. Joy joy joy.
I got really upset with this place down the street that I have given lots of business to. They make good food and its cheap. Yet, for the past few times I have been going I have been noticing the serving that I have been receiving has been much less than the chinese people that pay the exact same amount as me. Today I saw a guy get a load of food and then the chinese woman gave about 6 pieces or so, so I handmotioned to "Come on, don't bullshit me, more" So she added a more real serving and she then charged me an extra yuan. I gave her 5.5RMB and she gave me back 1RMB. I stood there waiting for the rest of the change. She turned around and was like, "You're still here." I was like...I gave you 5.5, the price is 3.5. WTF! Ok. Its not a money issue here. I can pay the extra 1 yuan. But the fact that she would charge me more for less because I am white just pissed me off when I was already in a bad mood. So i started giving her a hassle and I got into a cantonese arguement.The boss lady was conversing with the lady that served me to try and understand what was going on. Then the boss lady was all like, "Aaaah, I understand... I have a solution. I will fix this." She took the food and starting removing peices of meat. NO NO NO NO! What the hell is wrong with you. So, I went in to her money basket, threw the change back in, and took my original amount. "Sit n spin, lady!" I said a couple things and gave them this look of disgust. I took off and I ain't ever going back there again. I was sooooo pissed off. Why I stay in this shithole of a country is beyond me sometimes.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 08:42 PM | Permalink