More crazy dreams.
I woke up to somewhat good news today after another bizarre dream. The good news is that it turns out that Prime Minister of Japan, Koizumi, apologized to China and all Asian countries at an international forum. Thats great. And I guess that Koizumi is meeting with Hu tonite or something like that to discuss more things. The article said that the government was going to take the steps to disuade people from any boycott of Japanese goods and to not organize anymore protests for this weekend, but that there may be a couple, very small though. How quickly public opinion sways in this country... This is good news for our Shanghai trip. Hopefully things continue on a positive turn. But more may be in store for us.
As for my dream. It was really interesting. It has to deal with the Simpsons:
Setting: Springfield - in back of the Nuclear Power Plant
Time period: present. I guess.
Plot: Mr. Burns, in a sneaky plot to help make his ailing plant more money, he creates a new setup to create energy by burning children's fat.
How it goes: He had small capsules created that imprison young children from Springfield against their will and create energy by burning the fat off their bodies. Like, steam rooms or something. At one point, as Martin (the brainiack) was being forced into a capsule, he ran into Moe (Moe said it was his side job). As Moe was filling up Martin's capsule with some sort of liquid, with Martin in it, Martin popped his head out and said something that Martin would say, and Moe gave a quick retort and shoved the lid on his head. Now, Bart and Milhouse had avoided capture and were sneaking around the area. Until they came to a big car that seemed to be designed to run of the energy of the fat burning. So they hopped in to check it out. In doing so, they turned on the car. It turns out this wasn't a scheme to supply power to the city, but to supply power to Mr. Burns' personal rollercoaster. Bart and Milhouse were in for a ride. The car itself was in the shape of Krusty or something with his tongue as the ignition/foot pedal. After the ride was over, Bart and Milhouse decided they needed to stop this. So, from the attached warehouse, they jumped onto the top of a trailer connected to a Semi. And guess what, I was there with them at this point. We drove down the parking lot to where the real brains of the operation was. They were stocking the trailers up with some sort of boxes directly related to the energy burns. The three of us jump off the trailer and said, "The jig is up!" And it turns out that this thing was being run by the Smurfs, and Papa Smurf was the one in charge...obviously. So, we got into a battle royale with the Smurf contingent. They were about half my size and the same size as Bart and Milhouse. I singled out Papa Smurf and wailed out big time on him. I laid into him, threw him against the trailer, and pounded him into oblivion. All the while I was laughing as I was destroying him...
I woke myself up because I was giggling outloud. very strange dream.
I was taking a taxi ride home from an errand and I saw a construction site. It was about 1pm as i drove by. In the site, there slept a chinese worker. Just laying among all the bolts, nails, and wood. Damn. That is really odd. To me I mean. Chinese people do that all the time around here, sleeping at their place of work during the lunch period.
It was a gorgeous day today. Warm, sunny, and breezy. Slightly humid. I had class with Daisy, Violet, and Jack today. I was at the office about 10 minutes before class started and I was talking with Owen when a tall white woman walked passed us towards the office. And I found myself staring like I was chinese. "WHOLLY CRAP!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!!!!" I haven't seen a tall white woman that I don't know in a while. Its not so much she's a foreigner, but a teacher that I haven't met yet. I was trying to see who she was. I felt bad and I was upset that I may have made her feel uncomfortable. I asked Owen who she was. "She's a foreign teacher and she's in Guzhen."
What's her name? "Her name is Xi Huan." Um.....what? She is white, whats she doing with a Chinese name. "No, Xi Huan." Spell it out for me. "S. H. E. V. O. N." OOOOOOOOH, Shevon. Not Xi Huan. You need to work on your "V"s.
Where is she from? "She is from Southern Island country."
um......ok......where is that Owen? "Southern Island."
What country? "UK" oh,...Ireland? "YES YES!"
Gotcha.
The class went well. Reviewed the emotions with them and taught them The Seasons. And of course, I go to Bond hoping to get access to some material on the Seasons and all they have is a flash card on Winter. They constantly tell me that they have any subjected material at my disposal at their office, yet, when I need something, they don't got it. Its always like that. Not just in China. The class was overall well. Jack still has trouble remember my and Owen's name. They seemed to enjoy the class. Violet didnt cry this time, which is good. And she was on time...2 minutes early. Last week she was 35 minutes late. Afterwards, I was gonna go to the gym, but I came back to the house and worked a bit on some Chinese homework and guitar stuff. Printed up a bunch of word sheets and went thru the software I have.
Yumi invited me to meet her for dinner at the Hunan Resturant for her co-workers birthday. All the teachers there were younger than me...I was surprised. The b-day boy was 24 years old. He was one of their school's English teachers. He called me handsome and corrected his girlfriend's incorrect English grammar with more incorrect grammar. It was quite humorous. His girlfriend is a Japanese teacher and from what I could tell, her Japanese was quite good. They were on my left, and two art teachers were on my right. One teachers at Xiaolan Middle and the other at Yumi's school. The two are dating. Then there was another couple. One was a math teacher and his girlfriend, i never caught it. Then there were two other male teachers. One was a math teacher and I don't know the other. Mayu and her husband showed up a little late. Almost about the time I had to go because I had to leave for Lion Dance practice.
The dinner was great. Food was fantastic. I didn't eat alot because I wasn't that hungry. The birthday boy was insinuating that I wasn't a man because I wouldn't drink much. I told them that I had gong fu and they said, "Likely excuse." I then said, "If it were Drunken Boxing that I was going to practice, then sure, I would drink up." He was just joking about it though. Yumi was drinking alot. She was into it. For some reason, the bday boy and his girlfriend thought it would be funny to take pictures of all the couples drinking their beverages in the intertwined position....where you lock your arms up and drink. Well, we did that one and then the hug around the neck and a drink. Yumi spilled her beer on my shirt. So riske. The bday boy kept wanting me to drink he kept toasting everyone and I was just taking sips. It finally came time for me to leave and I said goodbye's and left.
Lion dance practice was interesting. Sifu didn't show me anything. While practicing, I wasn't in the best of shape because of the dinner and beer. Hunan food is spicy, but its not like Sichuan spicy that just burns your mouth. Hunan food is like a timebomb. After its in you for about an hour, it explodes. Aiya! So, I did my formwork and practice some stuff. I was screwing around with a couple of the wunderkinden and practiced some Lion Dance moves and positions, much too Sifu's surprise and pleasure. He better start showing me it now. I also was pretend sparring with one of the wunderkinden. Just fooling around. I then tried to teach Victor and the best wunderkind (one I was goofing off with) some toi-shou (push hands). Victor caught on after I worked on it with him for 5 minutes. Its hard to teach this stuff when you can't speak. As for the wunderkind, his body alignment was really really hard and wouldn't soften up where Victor could a little. This aided me where I could win easily. I kept trying to show him the movements and he kept saying, "msec." I can't. I am like, yes you can! Since he wasn't into that, I showed him a bunch of Hong Gar arm conditioning exercises that he liked, even though they hurt your arms...slightly. They just make them sore for a bit.
Also, something else that was kool was this new 8-10 year old fat kid who was doing some form work, Chan Quan. He seemed pretty good. He was very fast and needed some fine tuning, but he rocked. I tried to talk to him, but he just stared at me with a blank stare. ugh. My chinese was fine too. I am gonna see if Sifu will show me Chan Quan and Long Quan in addition to Lion Dance on Monday. I need this stuff, as much as I can get!
I headed home and called Yumi. She got sick, so I went to take care of her for awhile. Then headed on home. Its like 3AM right now. Good nite all.