Phil and Red's Excellent Adventure

Well, most of the day I just spent preparing for the wedding. I went to the gym, got stuff together and watched some of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin in chinese. I understood about 10% of the language they were saying. I didint watch all of it...just some.
I went to the bus station at about 6pm and Yumi and I got tix for 625pm to the station that Ben told us to go to. The bus station that he told us to go to was on the East side of Guangzhou, whcih is the farthest from Xiaolan. Took 2.5 hours, but about 1.5 hours to hit the Guanzhou area. We finally got to the bus station and I called Ben. He couldn't come to get me because he was really busy. He talked to some of the taxi people and found out we were at a different bus statoin. Looks like the bus cut us short. So we took a taxi there. Ben met up with us and took us to the hotel, then to his apartment. And then he walked us down to get some food. He went off to do some things.
After dinnre, Yumi came back to th ehotel and I went to meet with Ben and his two American friends. Seth and Will. Well, will came to the US when he was like 9 or 10. They were roomates together at UCLA.
We spent some time just hanging out and chatting. it was nice. Seth is in China just travelling and not having any plans about it. Just going where he's going. I would like to do that, but I was raised to make sure I have a plan about things. Kinda frusttrating in China when you can't make definite plans.
Well, time for bed. I got a long day tomorrow.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 12:02 PM | Permalink

Well, most of the day I just spent preparing for the wedding. I went to the gym, got stuff together and watched some of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin in chinese. I understood about 10% of the language they were saying. I didint watch all of it...just some.
I went to the bus station at about 6pm and Yumi and I got tix for 625pm to the station that Ben told us to go to. The bus station that he told us to go to was on the East side of Guangzhou, whcih is the farthest from Xiaolan. Took 2.5 hours, but about 1.5 hours to hit the Guanzhou area. We finally got to the bus station and I called Ben. He couldn't come to get me because he was really busy. He talked to some of the taxi people and found out we were at a different bus statoin. Looks like the bus cut us short. So we took a taxi there. Ben met up with us and took us to the hotel, then to his apartment. And then he walked us down to get some food. He went off to do some things.
After dinnre, Yumi came back to th ehotel and I went to meet with Ben and his two American friends. Seth and Will. Well, will came to the US when he was like 9 or 10. They were roomates together at UCLA.
We spent some time just hanging out and chatting. it was nice. Seth is in China just travelling and not having any plans about it. Just going where he's going. I would like to do that, but I was raised to make sure I have a plan about things. Kinda frusttrating in China when you can't make definite plans.
Well, time for bed. I got a long day tomorrow.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 12:02 PM | Permalink

Went ot gong fu tonite. Just practiced what I learned yesterdya.
To tell you the truth, I can't really remember what happened today. because I am writing this almost a week later.
Sorry.
Nothing super spectacular happened today. If I remeber anytihng, I will write it down.
well, goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 12:14 PM | Permalink

Did most of what I did on Monday, only today I had class at 430pm with the little kids. it was great to work wtih them one last time. Gonna miss those kids. I brought in my camera for one last time. It was fun.
I shaved today. First time in like 1 month or so. So weird to see your full face agian. Also took off my sideburns. Yumi made fun of me because i got rid of my sideburns. She told me I look like a little boy. So i whimpered and sulked in the corner.
i thne had lessons with Daisy and my chinese lesson. Pretty good.
Went to gym too. I went to gong fu. Sifu wasnt'er there, but his daughter was and recieved orders to teach me more of Chang Quan.
It was funny. Victor kept teasing her about teaching me or something so I pants him. Then he tried pantsing me a couple times and utterly failed.
Chang Quan has a lot to it. Its sad that my muslce are sore from all the running.
goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 03:56 PM | Permalink

Today, well, went to the gym like most of these days which I had time off during the day. Sat around, did laundry. Did some chinese.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 03:55 PM | Permalink

Went to Shenzhen with Yumi today. We met up with her friend Noriko. We shopped alot today. When we got into town we met her at an Indian Curry resturant. It was good but slid right thru me.
The taxi took us from the bus station. He took a shortcut thru a parking garage. That was weird.
What did I buy.... a movie that sux (didn't know at the time), a Chen Style Taiji Instructional VCD, and a pair of nice sandals for 65RMB. Pretty good.
While Yumi was buying something for a student in the bookstore, i was in the music store downstairs jamming on a Starsign imitation of a Worlock. I had the guy plug it in, and I had a group of chinese watching me play a crappy instrument. It was sad. It looked great, was only 750RMB, but it could not hold a tune at all. It kept popping out anytime i would bend a string. so sad. And it was all greasy.

Posted by Phil at 03:48 PM | Permalink

Well, today was my last class for the saturday kindergarten.
Didn't do much else today.
Smell ya later.

Posted by Phil at 03:44 PM | Permalink

Well, today was the last day of my teaching at good old De Xing Xiao Xue. I was hoping it would feel different, but not really. All my classes went pretty well. Enjoyable and fun and full of reveiwing extasty. Here are the fotos of all my class that I have been taking all week. Class Fotos.
After my last class, I went to the office to say goodbye to anyone I needed to. Lily was the only one there. I asked, "Is there anything left for me to do?" She was like, "Do you have to teach class?" -"No, I just finished." She was like, (i think she didn't know what was going on), "Oh, ok, well, see you later." And she walked away. I was like...hmmm.... I mean, I don't really expect much of anything, but I just figured that on my last day of teaching, they would do something because thats what I am accostmed to in the US. It just felt weird. Last day teaching...and no celebration. Strange. I guess they figure they will do that at the end of the school year dinner. Who knows.
During the last class with the 3rd graders, I was doing review, and I was going over shoes, socks, skirt, etc. And usually when I do these types of lessons, i get a model from the class and put him on the desk and use them. But since there were no girls with skirts and chinese kids go nuts when you start cross dressing, i threw a boy up there and used their school jacket as a makeshift skirt tied around his waist. i then gave him an umbrella and a chiense fan. The kids loved it. He was in embarrassment heaven. it ruled. Check out the foto in to class fotos.
I had kindergarten and it went pretty good. I was all energetic to go to the class as well. I was excited to teach them, but after class...i was totally spent. So tired. I couldn't believe at how much life those kids suck out of you. These were the older kids. The younger ones don't do it as much, its the older ones. They are a bunch of small succubi these kids...without the sexual part - at all. They just suck the life out of you. Kinda like psychic vampirism.
In the evening was the Government/Bond dinner that they have at the beginning and end of each semester. John Zhang, the boss, was there along with Stephen from Governments Education Department. The food was good. I chatted it up with Amanda. She brought my contract addendum that said my termination date was going to be August 14th so that I can take my 2 weeks unpaid vacation the first 2 weeks of August. I will use this time to spend the whole month at the Shaolin Temple. Should be interesting. Found out some more about Summer Camps and of course, not much was known and who was gonna work in where.
Moses gave a goodbye speech basically saying that he is going back to the USA for 2 months, then coming back to meet up with Amy and get married. He doesn't know whether they will stay here in Xiaolan. Most likely not.
John also gave a little speech. He spoke on a couple things. First, he mentioned to say that BOND now has the authority given by the government to recruit foreign teachers legally. He said, after a few hours of their inspection of the business in Shiqi, they have granted us the right to do so. On the inside, I , along with Peter, laughed our asses off. I wonder how much money they were bribed with. Thats basically what they mean. I mean, BOND has had close ties to the gov. all along, but they were never official. Like they would be brought down even if they didn't become legal. Such a joke. John used this time to let everyone know that the government was gonna start cracking down on schools that recruit teachers illegally...like BOND was before they bribed the right people....and he wanted to re-iterate the importance of us, if we move on to other schools in the country, or if we have friends coming from the USA to teach, make sure they are with registered schools.
My answer to that is, its hard to find out who is registered or not when the schools lie about it...like BOND did.
Second thing was this. John started it out like this, "A teacher who will not be named...." but he then gave tons of evidence to make all of us know who it was. Classy.
Anywho, James, the crazy Londoner guy that reminds me of the psycho soccer hooligan in Trainspotting, who I have met only 2x but I got that impression right away when I met him. It was a vibe. He didn't do anything to make me think it. But at the soccer game at the 2one1 Bar when they had a screen of the game, he did jump up and down and hug Miguel's head and kiss the bald part. Anywho, he went to HK about 1.5 weeks ago or so for a VISA or something. The people at BOND got a fone call a couple days later after he was supposed to be back from the UK Counsellate saying they had a person with no passport, $1 HK, and the clothes on his back claiming he was a teacher at your school. So, John talked with James...jeez, sounds like a Bilblical Gospel. He was stranded and needed $2500 HK to get things taken care of. So, John went to western Union with enuff RMB for a HK transfer, but WESTERN UNION only does US currency, so they needed to convert it and convert it back, which wasted a bunch of cash.
He got all his junk taken care of and came back to Xiaolan. Only he got back really late and he had no key. He rang the door a bunch of times for awhile and John, his flat mate was sleeping, and was woken up after awhile. So, he opened the door. And apparently James was mad cause he was out there for awhile ringing. James punched John in the face. John wrote a message to John Zhang and told him what happened. John Zhang all told us about this during dessert. He was like, "What do I have to do with this teacher but terminate his contract. Luckily the housemate was not hurt."
I didn't hear about that. Crazy.
Well, dinner was great. I am in a food coma. GOodnite.

Posted by Phil at 02:05 PM | Permalink

Its been raining more than a week in this area of Guangdong. Most areas. However, HK was great. well, the first day was. And the humidity, man, its tiring me out big time. I just want to sit in an AC room and do nothing.
Morning class with the 3rd graders was loud and uncontrollable. I took their picture.
Went to the gym at lunch and while running, my foot cramped up. I was pissed.
When I got back from lunch as I was heading to my desk, one of my 6th grade students, one of the ones that sat in the front of class and was relatively good compared to the rest of kids was standing at her homeroom teacher's desk staring at the desk while this lady was screaming at her and pushing/poking her head with her finger. Thats a common occurence when an adult scolds a child here. That or they hit them and slap them, I see kids with bruises all the time. There was a girl in my class yesterday who had the whole right side of her face puffed up and she used her hair to cover it up. I think that was a dental issue, not so much a parental beating. But back to the girl in the office. Her mom was the one screaming at her and doing this. In front of all the teachers. I was like, "Jeez, if you yell at your kid, do it in the privacy of your home. Screaming at them in public to try and gain face doesn't help their development." I asked Anna what was going on. Apparently, this girl did something bad or wrong, I don't know which. Whether it was intentional or not, but anywho, I have seen this girl all the time, she seems nice and all, I have never had any problems with her. She's not one that I would think would get in trouble. But the cause of the screaming was this.... The girl did something bad that made the homeroom teacher call in her mother. But then the girl said, "Please don't call my mother and have her come here. She's ugly." So, that was the cause of the screaming. The daughter didn't want her mother to come to school because she was ugly. The teachers told the mom all about her bad deeds in class and then this extra thing and the mom went off. She lost face from her daughter saying she was ugly and she tried to gain it back by scolding her in front of everyone. Personally, I don't see how that regains any face to the mother. It makes her look...well...ugly. But, the chinese have a very different and odd culture. In fact, I have seen this more than a dozen times.
Afternoon 5th grade classes were great. I did review and got to use the over-head computer projectors. Those things rule. I want to buy one. The photos of the classes were good. I am gonna miss those two 5th grade classes.
After all my classes were done I chatted with Anna and Coco about the screaming lady and I mentioned that I thought it was horrible to do something like that to your child in front of everyone like that and I mentioned I have seen it before. They laughed and they said they totally agreed with me. Then they said, the mother has problems, then they said. "Koi hai chi-seen." (she is crazy). I then headed home and practiced some chinese lessons since I had no Kindergarten class.
Then, at 5pm, Mountain calls me. "Where are you?" I am at home, why? "You have class right now?" I do? Wing told me, many times yesterday that yesterday was my last day. "Did you look at the schedual that Wing gave you?" Yes, I did, and it confused me and then Wing explained the schedual and said I didnt have class anymore. "Ahh.............did you look at the schedual?" Yes, I did, it confused me and Wing said I had no more class after yester... *click*. About 1 minute later, Mountain called back again, "Can you go and teach." Yup, I am on my way out. "You can teach till 6pm" No problem.
It really wasn't a problem. I just had to cancel my lesson with Daisy.
Teaching the kids was no problem and I enjoyed it, I actually was happy that I would have a couple more days with them. I got them saying "How old are you?" and "I'm 3/4/5!" So cute. Only problem was that I was preparing to go to 6pm and the teacher pointed to her watch at 530pm.... UGGH!!!!
Communication sucks in this place!*
I headed home afterwards so I could get some things done and work on my chinese and some other stuff for Megan, Amy, and Moses leaving.
Well, goodnite.
*and yes, to all you people that wish to lecture me, I know there are communication problems everywhere else in the world. but i never have had this issues ever before. So don't bother. And don't ever call me a racist.

Posted by Phil at 07:13 PM | Permalink

Well, the beginning of the day was normal with Lily's 5th grade. They were good, but i couldn't get them to put their noses' on the chalkboard, they were much more defiant. Which is good. sorta. I took pictures of the classes and they enjoyed it.
I headed home during lunch.
When I got back to school, one of the 6th graders from yesterday, Cagny, stopped by to drop me off a letter. It was cute. And it was asking to be penpals in the future. It had some info on their for me to fill out which I did.
First 6th grade class was a bust. As usual. I didn't bother to take a foto with me in it. I just took their foto. And about 4 girls that don't like me because I have a tendency to kick them out of class, refused to get in the foto. Fine with me, i don't need your mugs breaking the camera lens anyway.
Between the two classes, i ran to get some more money for my phone SIM card. I then met up with Amy and we called the Gong Fu schools around the Shaolin Temple. This was interesting. It was a wild goose chase to get the right fone numbers. Things have changed in that area extensively in the past year. China is razing all the schools around the temple and re-locating them because they want to make Shaolin a World HEritage Site. They are destroying more history in their striving to become modern and appease the modern world. I guess they get benefits from doing it though. Oh well.
Chatted a bit with them.
Then went back to class where I was supposed to be doing a review of Units 1-6. May had to skip class because of an emergency. During class, I didn't get past unit 1. At all. After about 15 minutes I went to get a chinese teacher, no one came. so i went back up to the room, took their picture and left.
I am soooo glad to be done with those two wretched 6th grade classes. I sat at my desk for another 15 minutes while I filled out that form for Cagny. Then I realized her name is Katherine. Wow. Not Cagny....Katherine...wow. Here's what she wrote:

Dear Mr. Phil,
My English name is Katherine Lee. My Chinese name is.....
You are a good English teeacher. Can I ask you a question. Where did you come from? How old are you? Can you write your detailed address with me? When are you go to your country? Cna I go your home? Thank you.
After you back to USA. Let's be pen-friend. OK? My detailed address is. ..........
Don't forget me. Forever Friends. I love you. You must be don't forget me and write a letter for me.
To:
Best Wishes!
The same to you!
May the friendship between our two peoples be everlasting.
All the best wishes to you!
Tomorrow will be better!

Yours,
Katherine Lee

That's adorable. I blushed.
Afterwards, I had kindergarten with the older class. It was ok. Wing left at 5pm because she had a doctors appointment. Moutain had emailed me yesterday that he would get down to business with discovering my kindergarten plight. Wing brought in a schedual written by Mountain referring to the rest of my kindergarten class. At first i didn't understand it and after Wing explained it I still didn't quite understand. The dates were set from June 27th - July 1st, but Wing kept saying and insisting that today was my last day teaching at the Kindergarten. "What? You mean, this is it? WTF!? Why? Why not the rest of the week?" So bizarre! Also, Wing gave me a package that finally arrived from home. My mom sent some Christmas Stolen that was left in the freezer. Still good. Yummy!
I want to teach at least the rest of the week. I felt bad because I wasn't able to prepare for my kids a goodbye lesson. Phooey.
Its the chinese way I guess. I can't be too upset about it.
I got home and the big house residents, Robert, Megan, Amy, Moses, Nick, and me (along with Yumi) went out to dinner. It was some good food. Megan, Moses, and Amy leave saturday. Moses will go back to the US for a bit, Amy will go home, and Megan will go to Beijing to their new apartment and take care of things while looking for a job before Nick shows up to do some schedualing at the college he is going to in the fall. Nick will head out in 2 weeks for a couple weeks then back here then back to Beijing.
After dinner we all went to get some ice cream and we all had some of the stolen that just arrived for dessert.
Yumi and I were heading home and we tried to get a box taxi since it was raining and there were two of us. Yumi asked, "How much." The guy looked at her, then to me. He stared at me for a distinct moment and then said 10rmb. Yumi got pissed and we began to walk away and the guy shouted back "how much?" She said, "5rmb", he then said 6rmb, and I thought Yumi accepted it because she stepped onto the bike. Ok. no problem. 6 is fine. As we were in the bike, the guy said something to Yumi, then Yumi got visibly pissed, "He just said, 'We are rich thats why I said 10.'" I laughed when I heard that. I wish I could speak well enuff to tell him, "If we were rich, we wouldn't be taking a taxi, jackass. We would have a motorcycle or a car." The standards in this country are so different. I usually expect this kind of treatment but Yumi gets angry when they do it...rightfully so.
It seems that whenever I write about something like this in my journal though, someone always has to explain to me why they overcharge....i friggin' know why they do. I ain't ignant. And then they go on to say, "You don't think this happens in the USA or in other countries?" OF COURSE IT DOES! But because it happens all over the world doesn't mean its right or that should give these people the incentive to continue with bad business.
goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 07:05 PM | Permalink

Today went well, i guess.
Both 4th grades were switched iwth each other for some reason not explained to me. I brought in my digital camera to take fotos of all my classes since this will be the last week with these kids. Cna you believe that? Damn. I watched a bit of my recent DVD of my new kindergarten classes on it, and I started to shed a drunken tear as I watched them running and shouting and running up and huggin my legs...in hopes that I will pick them up and swing them around in the air.
Anywho. I am doing reviews in all my classes, just doing a crash course thru all the lessons. I then take a foto at the very end of the class. Thats interesting. Huge classes trying to cram them in a small corner for 5 minutes. I have endured crap from alot, but I am gonna miss them...its wierd that way. I don't know what it is.
During lunch i went running while listening to Pimsleur Mandarin lesson and practicing on the treadmill. INeresting.
Afternoon classes were good with 6th grade. They had a harder time doing the nose on the chalkboard trick to get them speaking English. Whenever someone would go up, all the kids stopped what they were doing to watch. In doing so, I was able to snag a couple that would laugh at the student in front of class and they would say something in Chinese so I would snag them and make them do it.
the class alwasy loved that.
I took fotos with and of them.
In my 1st 6th grade class...the trouble makers...also the ones that actually only really participated in the class, mobbed me during the foto.
Kindergarten went ok. I tried teaching them "How old ar you" and "He/She". It was tuff.
they aren't 2-4 year olds...they are 3-5 year olds...just found that out today. Wing had a sore throat.
Lessons with Daisy didn't go very well. I almost passed out i was soo tired.
Chiense lesson was interesting, I think the teacher wants to start teaching me how to read. Kool. Lets see how that goes.
The rest of the day i spent doing thingys.
goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 11:51 PM | Permalink

I have been meaning to mention this. For about the past month or couple weeks, whatever, members of the House...the Big House...of Bond...not the House of Representatives in the US.... but anywhays. Here goes. Since no one has been able to seem to get a hold of the 6 Feet Down Under series Season 3, from HBO. They got addicted to NBC's West Wing...i think its NMC....NBC> Anywho. The sow is kinda interestings. But its such propaganda bullshit. Whenever I have a break in what I am doing, an they be watching it all intently like, I will sit down and sit in on a viewing. I don't know what political affiliation I sit with anymore, but man...this hunk of crap reeks of bias and propaganda. I asked Robert today....well, I didn't ask him, it was more of like...stating fact. All of the films and TV shows made of the presidency that are suppose to be positive representations of the government (not including that Reagan Biopic which got booted off the air by Republicans claiming that it was offensive towards Reagan and untrue) they are all based on Democrats. "Primary Colors", "The American President", "The West Wing"....as far as "Dave" is concerned...i can't remember if he was a Democrat or Republican ...but whatever...
if you can't tlel,, I am a bit drunk. I was realizxing from a long day and I had a 40oz of Pabst Blue Ribbon baby, along with a can of pineapple beer...plus some nuts. Watching this hunk of poo while inebriated makes it much more enjoyable, and you forget about the bias and all that junk, and its kinda gripping... all the characters are 1 Dimensional and fake. Unlike 6 Feet Down Under wher ethey seem to be more realistic.
There is so much in this show. "You are the good guys, you shouldn't be resorting to tactics like this"....that was a response from a hooker on the show. They show republicans as evil and democrats as good. It just gets on my nerves sometimes. And I feel bad because the foreginers in the hosue watching this show may get the wrong idea.
Things I want to see in this show.... 1. The president vomiting on the Japanese Prime Minister. 2. The president getting a hummer from the intern....wait, actually, I wouldn't want to see that....cause the president is old and fat and the intern is a young black man. 3. The president almost dying from choking on a pretzel. Of course, they do show the president almost dying in this...but its etheir from MS or from a sniper missing his target of the young black intern who is dating the president's daughter.
Man...what is up with this show. Make it realistic for Heaven's sake. Its much more endurable while drunk. "Hello, I'm Martin Sheen, I ain't he president but I play one on TV...so I know everything about foreign policy."
Mindless Self INdulgence RUELZ!

Posted by Phil at 12:30 PM | Permalink

Well, this morning, I was planning on getting up early to go to Kowloon park to check out everyone doing Taiji. But I slept thru it...i was tired. I got my stuff together and took it down to the bell service so they could check it and watch over it all day. I then went and had some dim sum. I then checked out.
I headed out about 1045AM for the UA Times Square. Batman Begins at 1135AM. (you like how I did that)
That movie ruled! It was the first time in a long time that I wanted to go right out after the movie finished and buy another ticket to watch it again. I was very impressed. It was really good. Bale was awesome, Michael Cane...obviously, same with Gary Oldman. There were only 3 things I felt any sort of negativity towards, but nothing that deters from the film. 1. The beginning where Bruce is in prison and how quickly Ducard shows up and gets into things. 2. The lack of the Batman Intro Theme by Danny Elfman. Its just synonymous with Batman. They shoulda kept it. 3. The very end and how they plan to go in to the sequel.
But thats all. It was fantastic.
After wards, I contemplated buying another ticket for the 445pm show after my Sin City gets out, but that would get me out of the movie att 715pm and I prolly wouldn't make my ferry. Darn it.
Sin City was good too. Hell, I was contemplating changing my ticket, but I am glad i got to see Sin City in the theatre.
After that, I shopped around a bit more. Went to Pizza Hut for some lackluster pizza. I was disappointed. After that, got some ice cream. Headed to Tom Lee again to oogle over all the Gretsch Guitars n stuff.
Then headed back to the hotel where the internet was so I could check my mail and message some people that I needed too.
I took off from BP around 730pm and got to the ferry 10 minutes later. Took me a minute to get thru customs. Got on the boat and relaxed.
On the way home there were 2 poor souls that boarded the wrong ferry. A japanese girl and an australian man. They were supposed to go from HK to Macau, but they got on the wrong boat, and of course, the chinese/hong kong people working the boat didn't check their tickets or passport at the door like they are supposed to. They had to spend the nite on the ferry in Zhongshan port because the doesn't have a new Chinese Visa that would work. Apparently, earlier that day, they left China for HK, and then were supposed to go to Macau. They had plane tickets from Macau to Malaysia schedualed for midnite. So they missed their flight. They weren't really angry...just furstrated and I bet they felt like crap. Well, i bet they were angry. We were only about 5-10 minutes out of port when they found out their folly. The ferry boat wouldn't turn the ferry around at all. I think in that situation, only that far out, they should have turned around. I don't see a problem with being a little late to Zhongshan if its too help them. But then again, they would have still missed their ferry to Macau, but they could have taken a bus or something. I would have been pissed. But in that situation though, I don't believe they knew that it was the boat's job to do all that checking of passports and tickets and that the boat people are partly at fault. Both the travellers and boat people were at fault, and the ferry had a message in english saying that this boat was going to Zhongshan, China, not Macau. They were sitting right behind me.
Everyone gets screwed over in this country at some point or another.
I got back to the house around 1045pm. Time for bed. sleepy.

Posted by Phil at 04:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We woke up and headed out to Tom Lee music to pick up the guitar cases first. Man, that place is beautiful. So many nice guitars. I drool whenever I go in there. I picked up two cases. 1 hard case for the Les Paul and 1 soft case, but has tons of padding, for the Randy Rhodes. I picked some strap saver knobs for the guitar.
After that we headed back to the hotel to leave the guitars and have lunch. We had dim sum in the hotel resturant. Good stuff.
The rest of the day we went all over the city shopping and looking for gifts and a black dress for Yumi, she wants one.
She feels much better today.
We had some afternoon snacks at Haagen Daas. Some nice sundaes n stuff.
We found some gifts n junk. It was good.
We went back to the hotel about 715pm so she could get her stuff and we laid down for about 5 minutes then we went to the ferry port where I stayed until she got thru customs n everything.
After that I hopped a subway train to the KCR Rail to head up to Sha Tin stop. There they have a UA Cinemas that was playing the only Star Wars ROTS. Started at 920pm. Man, the mall this place was connected to, the New Face Plaza or some crap like htat. No signs and know one I asked new. I ended up walking around in a circle before finding it. And actually getting there is a straight shoot from the KCR Station. KCR is an underground and sometimes aboveground train. Its really fast.
Anywho, I was worried that I may be cutting it too close on the time. The movie gets out about 1140pm and I keep hearing that the last train is about 12AM so i was worried i wouldn't get back intime. I would be stuck in the New Terretories and would need to take a taxi. I don't know how much that would be. Turns out that I needn't worry. The last train was at 1AM.
I was in the clear.
Seeing ROTS on a big screen in English helps alot. I felt it was really good. Also ,I tried not to over analyze it so it was very enjoyable...despite all the crappiness that was contained in it. It was very good. But still...at that climax...i couldn't help but cringe at Hayden's line delivery...for that matter James Earl Jones playing Frankenstein.
Anywho. It was good and I am glad I made it out there. I was afraid I wouldn't be abel to make it out there.
I stay up late watching some british version of Inside the Actor's Studio...but this was some guy named Parkinsons....the guy looked as though he may have it too.
Anywho, Tom Cruise and Billy Connelly were on. It was pretty funny and interesting. Man, Tom Cruise looks and acts the same way in real life as he does in movies....
Also, Asian MTV is behind by one month. They were playing commericals for the MTv Movie Awards on June 6th.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 11:10 AM | Permalink

Most of this morning was done with preparing things for HK and DVD burning after finishing the DVD last nite. I picked up my new glasses.
There are sorta good. But i think they are too small and if I look down or up at all, I lose the benefits of having glasses. As for them working, I think there is something wrong, something just doesn't feel right and its impossible to explain it to these people running the shop.
Class at 3pm was ok. I took my guitars and stuff with me. After the end at 345pm I booked it over to the Ju Cheng Hotel to meet Yumi and the van to the Ferry port.
I got there just a bit before 4pm and found out the shuttle left at 430pm. Yumi showed up about 410. We just sat and relaxed. Her speech contest went well. Her student took 1st place.
The shuttle came and took us. We arrived about 5 minutes before the ferry left for HK. Traffic and the 430pm arrival of the shuttle caused that.
On the boat they were playing some Stephen Chow movie. Maybe the gambling series he ripped off of Chow Yun Fat. He had mental powers along with the villians and from what I could tell, he goes back in time. What I saw was funny.
Yumi got sick on the ferry boat. I tried to help, but I couldn't do anything. Whenever she felt really bad from the rocking, she would latch onto one of my limbs and squeeze. OUCH!
We got to HK and once we were on land she got better with every minute. We got to the BP International Hotel, which is a very nice place. Very nice. The same price as King Hotel, but much more space in the rooms and more navigatable. I have realized, the hotels in HK have something for making bathrooms designed in Art Deco. Interesting.
Yumi fell asleep right away. I went downstairs to ask some questions on the locals of different areas...and of course...subway/train stops for movie theatres.
I checked the internet they have at the bar lounge, they had two computers and while I was waiting I had some nice Guiness and some fish and chips. Good stuff. Got some info from the web and got more info from the Bell Service desk.
I then headed back tot he room where Yumi was passed out, but feeling better. They Daily Show Global Edition was playing on Pearl TV. Sweet. I got to watch that. Very funny. It was highlights of a weeklong watch on Wacko Jacko. They had some footage of the news shows covering everything. It was hilarious the crap they were watching and saying. SO pathetic.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 10:56 AM | Permalink

Well today was ok. I had no problems with my classes at all. I hit up the gym. Etc. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Tonite was the celebration for Moses and Amy since they are leaving next Saturday morning. I swear, I don't know what I am going to do without Amy. She has been a Godsend. She has help lots of us out with interpretting things. She is very good. I had thought that we would be celebrating next Friday, the nite before they leave, but Moses changed it at the last moment. So, I had no time to prepare some Rice Puddin' or get any gifts. Thats what I was planning on doing in HK this weekend.
Yumi was really busy yesterday and today preparing for her school's Japanese Speech contest. That craphole of a school is working her too hard and too much. She can barely do anything but sleep outside of school. Makes me want to break some legs. Because of that, Yumi was unable to attend the festivities. She called me up as we were at the beer gardens and said she would stop by for like 5 minutes.
When she finally did show up, it was to say that she had to go home and go to bed. That school is taking away her precious "Phil-time". ;-)
The beer gardens was good. First time I was able to drink lots in awhile. Alot of folks were there. Glenn, Miguel, Ash, Debbie, Shevon, Moses, Amy, Richard, New John, Mountain, Damon, Megan, Nick, Jolene, a new girl from France...she is teaching in Shiqi, Valery (sp?)
Miguel and a few of the others are going to Macau tomorrow so they were asking me questions on what to do.
I didn't get home until about 2AM.
It was good.
Sleep well.

Posted by Phil at 10:35 AM | Permalink

Went to the gym this morning at 8Am. It was good.
Classes today went fine.
I video taped myself in front of the green chalkboard in Kindergarten class today. I did so, because I wanted to use the Chroma Key function on Final Cut Pro to overlay me onto the DVD footage I am making. Basically, its like a green or blue screen. YOu cut out all the green and you place yourself over the footage. I shot some footage.
Of course. It didn't work. There were too many shades of green on there and I couldn't remove them all.
UGH! so frustrating. I could have had this DVD finished last week but I wanted todo this. Oh well.
Instead I just copied a picture of my head ala "Game of Death" style to a scene.
Its been raining all day. Didnt go to gong fu.
Sleep well.

Posted by Phil at 10:52 AM | Permalink

Morning class with 5th graders went fine. Its liquid hot today. You step outside of your AC-ed room, and you immediately start sweating. And this was just in the house. It was cloudy all day today. Between my two 5th grade classes I went to get paid and talked to Gary about my teaching status on July 1st. I have to teach, so I asked Gary if I could have someone sub for me because of the wedding I have been invited to videotape. He was like, no problem. Hmm...good. I headed out at lunch to go to the gym. As I finished changing at the gym, it started pouring rain outside. "Good. That'll cool things off a bit," I thought. Nope...it just made it even more humid. I ran for 45 minutes. After I was done, my face was tomato red and i looked like I had been standing in pouring rain for 5 minutes or stood in a shower with my clothes on.
I ate lunch, headed home. As I got home, it started to rain again as I walked in. I showered and prepared for classes. It stopped raining.
How did 6th grade go? Well, you can guess. CRAPPY. During the break between the 6th grade classes, it started pouring rain...hard this time. And it didn't let up until after kindergarten and I didn't bring my umbrella. poop.
In my second 6th grade class, I walked in, and there was a kid in the back of the room clutching his head and crying, while a couple other kids stood around staring. It almost looked as though they would pick up sticks and start to poke him. The homeroom teacher got there the same time I did, apparently some kids went to get her. I tried to get out info on it. The first story I was given by the kids is that he fell out of his chair. The girl made a bodymovement that made me think of....crap...whats the word for when you shake uncontrollably...seizures. Yeah. (sp?). But a girl said no. Then I thought it was because he chair fell apart like so many i have seen do in this school. A kid will be sitting there, not paying attention like usual and the chair will fall apart. Looks like this kid hit his head on the floor.
Later, after the class had calmed down and the boy was led out by some friends. I asked, "Did he slip?" and made the image of me slipping on a banana peel. The kids were like no. A boy jumped up and shouted, "Chinese Gong Fu!" and pointed at another boy in the back of the class. So i was like, "Oooh...fighting." I tried to determine the kid, but everyone was pointing to a couple kids, so I had no idea.
Later in the class, the one i thought it was, was led away to the office by some other students. The second 6th grade class, after that mishap was more enjoyable than the first. There is this super skinny boy who is the class clown, and he is quite funny. He does what I ask, he just overdoes it in a goofy way....hey...at least he's doing it. And he makes the class more enjoyable. So i tolerate it. But during the part where I have kids speak english with each other and boot out kids for a minute if they speak Chinese, i motioned for him to go out, and he had to slip his shoes on first. Which made the class laugh good. As I brought him back in, I tried to take his shoes away from him. He wouldn't let me, so I picked him upside down and took his shoes off and placed him out in the water soaked hallway. The class loved it...and it was fun. I think i have pretty muched given up on teaching in these 6th grade classes. I only have 1.5 weeks left of teaching at this school. Can you believe that? Damn.
After that, i headed to kindergarten where I tried to teach the 12 kid class the Months of the Year. It was interesting. It will take a couple lessons.
On my way to teach Daisy, I got in a bike accident. I was coming around a 75 degrre corner and there was a motor bike there and I went head on into him. Thankfully we were both going slow. I said some naughty things to him in English, but I believe the accident was my fault. As I was coming to the turn, I heard him sound his horn, however, I was already commited to making the turn. So, I guess you could say it was China's fault for having crappy streets. He must have been scared out of his mind. I can see him getting home and dinner..."A fat gweilo pig had a head on collision with me today. He said a bunch of things in English and took off." -"Wow! Dad! You are soooooo lucky! Too bad you weren't playing Mah-jong!" Then his wife would be all bitchy and yell at him for not having better luck all the time.
Man...i'm an ass.
My bike makes a funny sound on the back tire now. dang nabbit.
Taught Daisy. Iwasn't in the best of moods. My lesson consisted of me checking out this website. Hello Han.com . From what I can tell, this is a fantastic online chinese language teaching tool. Check it out.
I came home and sent out some emails n junk to people concerning adoption stories or white people coming to China and picking up their new family additions and how they are greeted by the chinese people when Chinese people see white folks with chinese babies and how they react to the reality that is China. The Chinese don't seem to understand why anyone would adopt orphans. I will see about posting the message. Its quite interesting.
I was about to head out to practice when I had Amy call Guo Sifu to tell him I would be about 20 minutes late and he said not to come because no one had showed up because of all the rain. Man, the chinese are lazy punks. Just take an umbrella while you ride your bike. Jeez.
I also told Ben that I will be free on July 1st to videotape his wedding in Guangzhou. That will rule. I got my first real paying job for a wedding. Its gonna be chinese style too.

The wedding will be China styles. In the morning you
would need to be with XH, as she brushes her
hair and awaits my arrival (tradition). When I get
there (most likely a hotel) I need to bribe her brides
maids to let me in and find her hidden shoe, then take
har back to my pad where our parents will be waiting.
There we pour tea for them and receive the blessing
to wed. Then we go back to the place to eat, which is
called the yin he da jiu dian (yin he hotel), which is
not too far from my place. There merrymaking ensues,
with plenty of food and drink, and if I'm crazy even a
speech or two. You would just have to capture as much
as you can, as well as all the guests (who will be
informed about what you are doing). Then X and I
are supposed to go to our own private room and ...-
you don't get to film that!

Should be interesting. I just hope he rides a horse, or better yet, a donkey thru the streets with the traditional wedding band playing while wearing a black silk outfit with a giant red bow wrapped around his chest. That would rock! I hope there are lion dancers there too...but I dont know. He said they are paying around 36,000RMB on it already. DAMN!
Well, I am off to bed. Goodnite folks.

Posted by Phil at 09:24 PM | Permalink

Well, classes went as usual for a monday. Nothing to exciting. Nothing bad. I couldn't go to Daisy to teach because there was a huge storm brewing. Poured rain and lightning and thunder. Another night where I could go to practice. Man. Bummer. It went on raining for a long time.
Most of the news today was that I transfered all my DVDs that I bought in China...save a couple in which the cover case is too awesome to get rid of. I also put all my Computer software stuff in there as well.
That cut out lots of space and will be easier to transport back to the states.
If I think of anything else, i will report it.
later.

Posted by Phil at 10:03 PM | Permalink

Just spent most of the day preparing and uploading fotos to the website. Along with some DVD work. Alot of laundry was done today. Went to the gym today and while I was running, they had the movie "Twins" on the TV there. It was all in Chinese dub. So, I turned the sound off and filled in the soundtrack with my memory.
Yumi came over about 630pm to take a nap before her class at 8pm. She is always sleepy.
I went to gong fu tonite, but I got there and the place was closed up and two kids hanging out on their bikes trying to see over the wall. At 830pm, nothing change. I headed home. I also erased and re-initialized my crapped out harddrive. So, I lost all the previous data, nothing too important or life threatening.
The day was long with nothing super special going on.
Here are the photo updates.
Weekend get-aways to Shiqi, Macau, and Xiaolan areas
Megan's Birthday
Zhan's Garden

Posted by Phil at 10:25 AM | Permalink

I went to the hospital for the last time today. I fell asleep during the treatments. It was good. I came home and slept more. Yumi and I headed to the bus stop. On the way, I saw a midget driving a box taxi. I got really excited. We hopped a bus to Shiqi at 1pm. When we got there we grabbed some quick lunch. We then snagged a cab to the Zhan Gardens.
The place was just as beautiful during the day as at nite. They also had a performance at 240pm. half of it was the same as I saw last time I was here. The stuff that was the same was the Daisy Dance and the Mask Changer. A new thing was some kid balancing himself on a board and flipping silverware onto his head. The other was a kid placed a funnel on his nose and then put 4 trays with 18 little silver cups on it and rode around on a unicycle.
Nice.
Around 430pm we noticed the sky started to get really dark down to the south, so we felt we must book it before we get drenched on. As we exited, the #22 Bus was driving by and we flagged it down and ran across the highway. We got on the bus and headed to a hotel in town.
It started pouring while we were in the bus. We were let out at a bus stop and ran thru the downpour and hid under a canopy covering the bus stop. I thought the rain would last about 5 minutes like it usually does, but once it started Lightning and thundering, i figured we should flag down a cab. We got one and we dashed into the car. We then drove 2 blocks to the Japanese resturant. This place was great. The food was sooo good. And Yumi said this is what most bars in Japan are like. It was really good.
After that it had finally stopped raining and we took a cab to Jusco where I was gonna buy some stuff, but I got there adnthey didn't have what I wanted, so we left and snagged the 7pm bus back to Xiaolan.
The pictures were great. Check them out. Here.
goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 04:01 PM | Permalink

I went to the hospital again today for my knee. It went much quicker this time. For the second bit, where they placed suction cups on my knee, i got to sit in a massage chair. I then headed home.
Yumi went off to pick Lychee with some Japanese friends/government people.
Class at 3pm was good.
On my way out, I met Superman.
Not THE Superman, but a chinese kid whose english name was Superman.
Nice.

Posted by Phil at 05:05 PM | Permalink

Well, I got up today and it was a bright sunny and liquid humid day. Very sticky. I was hoping that class would go ok today, but I got what I thought was a bad omen right at the beginning. As I greeted my first 4th grade class, a girl came in a few seconds after me and a couple of boys scolded her and the third boy said, "_uck You!". I pulled him out of his chair and planned to take him down to the head office. As I was going, Coco was walking to class. She asked me what was the matter. During that second of hesitation while I spoke to Coco, the boy latched onto a metal railing. He would not let go. He did not want to go at all. He was scared. I would pry one hand off the railing and the other one would latch on. He has weight skill. All of a sudden he felt like he was twice is size. He would not let me take him. After about 5 minutes I finally broke him free, but intsead of taking him down, Coco scolded him. The boy was shaking, uncontrollably.
I felt that this was a sign that today was a gonna suck. However, all my classes went really well. Except Kindergarten - which was a major disaster. During my De Xing classes, i had songs in each classes that were of "questions and answers" format. I used this to have the kids get up and act out putting their hand to their ears for the question part and then the answers did jazz hands. It was hilarious.
During lunch, we had BBQ at the house in celebration of Megan's bday. I walked with Megan and Nick to the marketplace to pick up some meat and other stuff. The market place was wild. So much dead flesh. I saw a pigface hanging by a hook. Not a pig's head, but just the skin of the pigs face. Like it was ripped off by Pinhead or something.
BBQ lunch was good.
Afternoon classes were good.
Kindergarten was just terrible. I don't really know how to explain it.
On the way home i saw an interesting sight. A woman on a motorbike had two geese tied at the feet to the back of it. They weren't in a cage, they were just hanging off the back as she was driving away while they were squaking. Bizarre.
Afterwards I just crashed at the house until dinner.
We went to Four Season's Beer Garden to celebrate Megan's bday. There was me, Yumi, Robert, Moses, Amy, Nick, Peter, Mark, Irish John, and three chinese folks. There we had some good dinner and then finished it off with THE BEST cake i have ever had in China. It was wonderful. Sooo good.
Time for bed.

Posted by Phil at 07:20 PM | Permalink

Usually, the rivers flowing thru Xiaolan are flourescent green. Today, they were poop brown and still.
I was able to go to the gym. It was good. Ran for 30 minutes, woulda done an hour but my nips got rubbed raw from my shirt. I need to tape them up next time. I hope nothing else got rubbed raw.
3rd grade was good. Both 5th grades were fine.
I brought my vidcam into kindergarten class to get footage of the 2-4 year olds. I was trying to find a couple of the kids with really bad teeth to show you all, but they were absent today.
I was also given a surprise with a new student. Great. WTF!?
Gong fu was good. While waiting for Sifu to come over to me to see my progress, he spent about 15 minutes yelling at one of the wunderkinden. He just laid it to him and was shouting really loud. The boy just stared at the ground. I wonder what it was about. From the hand motions, I think he may have been pointing at a motorbike that's in the gym area. Maybe this kid took it out for a spin. I dont really know. This was going on while I was stretching. I then learned the beginning of Chang Quan #2. Sweet.
I am off to write a letter of recommendation for Mountain. He is gonna start to look for a new job. All I gots to say to him is..."GOOD! GET OUTTA THIS GO NO WHERE JOB!"
goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 09:31 PM | Permalink

First 5th grade class was fine. Lily wasn't there because she was taking some kids to get brainwashed. There were only 30 minutes in class because some kids during morning exercise were being singled out and given awards for something. I pulled my, "English Only or get out" in my first class. And immediately I booted out one of the best students for 1 minute. I had to carry her out. It was quite humorous. No one is safe. But it does get them speaking english. The second class was like the first. They were late by 5 minutes because the film was running long. Lily missed this class as well. I was teaching Holidays and when chinese people try to say Festival...even after lots of practice, it still sounds like they are saying Vegetable. It ruled.
Lunch was ok.
My 6th grade classes were horrible. They did nothing but piss me off. They got me in a bad mood just in time for my super loud 12 kid Kindergarten class. I was soooo tired from chinese kids that I couldn't deal with going to Chinese Lessons. I am gonna go home and vege before gong fu.
Gong fu was good. Practiced hard.
I had bought a watermelon last week. And ate about half of it, then it went bad in the fridge. I was gonna dispose of it tonite by tossing it off the roof and watching it explode, but someone took care of it already. Damnit!
Well, time for bed.

Posted by Phil at 10:46 AM | Permalink

Feel much better this morning than last nite. My first 2 classes with the 4th graders went very well today. The fat kid thats not all there showed me his nipples again. Lunch was normal. Then I had one 6th grade class because the second was canceled because the kids had to go get brainwashed in a movie. The class I did have bordered on disaster but I was able to bring it back. In the beginning some kid pretended to lick my butt so I threw him out of the room. but then he came back into class. As I was putting something on the blackboard someone threw a waterballoon and it burst by one of the desks. It turned out, after I went and got two teachers, Ivy and the homeroom teacher, that is was the kid I booted out earlier with another student fooling around. They were taken away and taken care of, they returned later on. Right after the teachers left, all the kids were quite responsive.
I was teaching them the Statue of Liberty and i was like, how can I explain this too them. As I was leaving on of the kids I just taught asked me, "Where are you going?" and I responded and posed the same question to him. He said, "I am going to see a movie." So I told him, "Be careful, they are trying to brainwash you. Don't believe the movie." He said, "Ok" and gave me a thumbs up.
Kindergarten was ok. Used the Limbo game to teach them "under" and "over". I also introduced "slowly" and "quickly".
Class with Daisy was ok.
Chinese lessons sucked.
I went to Gong fu tonite and just worked on what I knew. My knee didnt act up at all either. I was quite surprised. Maybe this electro therapy stuff is working. Kickin.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 02:43 PM | Permalink

So, this morning I woke up and threw the stuff together for rice pudding. It was a little hectic because I didn't have proper measuring stuff and I didn't want to do anything wrong. It turned out really good. I took it to the bake shop and gave it to him for an hour. We set it at 162 degrees Celsius, but after an hour, I went to pick it up, and it didn't look like it had firmed up enough. So I put it back in and turned it up to about 165C and left it in there for another 20-25 minutes. When I came back, I stabbed it with a knife and it felt pretty good. So i took it back.
Yumi and I had lunch. She had the first half of today off because she had to work yesterday and she will have the first half of the day off tomorrow.
We tried out the puddin' before she left for class. It was really good. So yummy! We were missing cinnamon or nutmeg on the top, and we were also missing the Vanilla extract. But my dad gave me the idea to throw in some shavings of orange peel into it instead of Vanilla. It gave it an intersting flavour. It was good.
Time to get fat.
The rest of the day was spent with DVD work and chinese practice. I was on my way to Gong fu when my bike malfunctioned again and I ran into a parked motorbike. Nothing damaged on the bike or me, except pride and a light scrape down my arm. Luckily I did this in the back alleys away from crowded traffic.
So i headed back and plan to have the bike fixed or looked at tomorrow, if its still malfunctioning. It heals itself apparently. I will try and go to practice tomorrow nite. i feel crappy.

Posted by Phil at 02:01 PM | Permalink

Well, I woke up today and it rained most of the day so Yumi and I couldn't go to the Zhan Gardens. Its that place I went to at nite back during the Fall Holiday where they had the performance. I wanted to see it during the day and it was too overcast and raining. Maybe next week if we don't go to Shenzhen because Yumi hasn't gotten her passport and visa back we'll go.
Today we hung out and then went to the stores to get some ingredients for making awesome Rice Pudding tomorrow morning. We talked to the guy that makes those sweet muffins across the street and he said he would allow us to use his oven. Sweet.
I had to buy some measuring apartii and a stone pot for cooking. Did so. We were a little worried that the cooking bowl wouldn't work. So, we took a risk. :D
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 01:56 PM | Permalink

Coco called me about 815AM and told me to meet her at the hosptial in 5 minutes. So I threw myself together and got there 10 minutes later. Coco had some issues with her shoulders so she was gonna try too. She got some cards and payment plans or something to take to the doctor. We headed up to Floor 5 where the doctor checked out my knee and he said Acupuncture won't really help much because the knee doesn't hurt right now and he can't find any pain by pressing. So, he decided to try something else. Electro therapy. He says its better for this type of ailment than acupuncture. He hooked me up to this machine where they run an electrical current thru the area of affliction. He turned it on and he made sure it was working by placing a flourescent light rod between the two electro pads in front and behind my knee. The rod lit up. I was like...that's freaky. I had to stay in this for 20 minutes.
Then he took me to this vacuum machine. He hooked up 4 suckers to my knee, 3 in front and 1 in back. I jumped when he turned on the vacuum cause it just felt odd. Then he turned on the electricity and it made me jump even more. whoa. This is funky. I had to sit in that thing for another 20 minutes. After that was done I waited with Coco until hers was up. On TV there was a show featuring chinese acrobats. There was a woman doing hool-a-hoop with at least 30 rings on her body. Amazing.
After that, I called up Yumi and she met us at the Flower Hotel for some Dim Sum. Coco went and picked up her daughter Michelle. Yumi then surprised and grabbed all the waitresses' attention with her napkin art. She was making little baby ducks with her wet naps. They were cute and all the waitresses wanted to learn. IT was neat. Food was great too.
The afternoon was ok. I took Yumi to the computer shops looking for a webcam that she could use with her computer for when I leave so we can video chat. We found a neat one that needs to be re-ordered because the one they had had a crack in the lens. After seeing those, I may want to buy one. It will clip onto the laptop and its much less space than using my massive video camera. I shoudl try it out, the price is like $12 US.
Well, time for bed. Later.

Posted by Phil at 04:39 PM | Permalink

Today was wierd. First off, Coco called me yesterday to let me know that today there was gonna be some special meeting going on so I need to come in at 8AM because all the classes will be kick up by 40 minutes. No problem. I didn`t sleep well last nite though. I got to school on time and it was odd. They had flower arrangements up, the school band, and a lion dance troop (but not my crew) and they had these huge balloons floating in the air tethered to the ground by these banners displaying chinese characters. I don't know what they said, but I can guess it was something kiss-ass when I realized just who was supposed to come to this celebration. It was a bunch of government people that showed up during my second class. I knew they showed up because all of a sudden the lion dancers and school band started up in the middle of my class. Once that happened, I wasn't able to keep any of my kids attention. Thanks a lot for ruining my class, you hacks.
I was about to hit up my 3rd class and then Coco said, oh, we don't have class because we have this special school meeting. She told me i could go home, but as I got downstairs and started heading for my bike, some of the teachers got a hold of me and wanted me to stay for the meeting. For face. I don't really see any other reason since I won't be able to understand more than 10% of the speeches. So, I sat in the back with my 4th grade class that was canceled this afternoon. The teachers kept on yelling at the kids to be quiet and look forward and behave, so i took this as perfect opportunity to undermine their authority. Basically it was the female teachers barking orders, the guys were just hanging out. One of the male math teachers was sitting on the other side of this 4th grade class and he laughed at all the stuff I was doing to make the kids laugh as well, but then I would get all serious when the female teachers' heads would rear our way. It ruled. I love to undermine their authority.
For the rest of the day I tried to understand why they had this little celebration and what was so important. The best I could understand was this. De Xing Primary is the first school in Xiaolan to get a science and technology class. um...what? "You mean they didn't have any science otherwise?" "No...I mean, yes...we did....but this is science class. With models. Students made models."
I went into the room where the students had made little models of things and I just couldn't see what was so special about this. I guess i just don't know. Phooey.
Afternoon classes were the same today. The sky poured rain on us during the first 3rd grade class and then it cleared up by the time I had to walk across the playground to the other side of the school to teach my second class.
This evening I spent throwing some things together on my computer n such and I was gonna head to gong fu, but then it started raining for a long time. So, I couldn't go. Yumi came over after school at 7pm and we hung out for awhile. Coco and I plan to go to the hospital tomorrow morning so I could get acupuncture. I am morbidly curious about it. I want to try it out. I want them to do it on my knee because after about 2 months or so, its still bugging me when I practice hard. Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 08:37 PM | Permalink

Today was ok i guess. I got into school and there were two gifts for me. A bamboo rod and a block of wood. I figured the bamboo stick is for using as a pointer, since i take the bamboo sticks out of the class flags for their use. I then use them to smack the crap out of students....wait, did I just say that, i mean I use them to hit the desk to get the class' attention. Yeah, that's the ticket. Buy by slamming them on the desk, I destroy them over time. So, finally, someone got fed up with it apparently and bought me one. Neato! The block of wood must be for making slamming noises. But I prefer to use the bamboo stick. ROCK!
3rd grade went fine.
During lunch I met up with Jolene to take my sword back to the engraving shop so they could do something else. The guy was real nice and I wrote up what was written on the blade in English and told him I wanted it placed on a metal piece and placed on the scabbard. No problem. He asked me if I knew Bruce Lee. I was like, "Not personally, he died before I was born." He giggled. His english is good. He seemed to be proud of his crappy ceramic statue of Bruce Lee so i didn't bother to tell him what I exactly thought of him. Its not a negative opinion, but I didn't want to put our encounter on a downer. He then asked if I liked Tai Chi. I said, "Sure, I like taiji." see...I even know how to say it properly. He then showed me a Event Guide for a Taiji Conference that he helped organize in Zhuhai back in 2001. I recognized about 4 teachers from the pictures that I have seen in those cheezy gong fu magazines and videos. Madame Sun sat in the center. I was like, Kool. I told him that Gabriel was her friend and I got some fotos of her with him. He was into it. This engraver dude is one of my favourite chinese. We then typed up the words on the computer and he was like, good, be done in a couple days. 30 RMB. Sweet.
I then walked over and ate at the Chinese McDonald's. Basically, its chinese fast food. It was pretty decent, surprisingly. The only thing that seperates this from other chinese food is that its fast. And more expensive. It was a good 1 time thing.
After classes with 5th grade were...eh. 1st class was terrible and 2nd class was good.
I then headed to Kindergarten. This was interesting. I worked on 1-10 and it went well. But before that I did some review with things like, Run, Walk, Jump, Skip, Crawl, Fly, Crab Walk, etc. I introduced, Stand, Crouch, and Fall. They loved it. However, during the Crab Walk, Crouch, and Crawl, I realized that little chinese girls don't like to wear underwear when they wear skirts just like when the boys don't like to when they wear short shorts. AIYA! I busted out laughing when I got a face full of 2-4 year old nookie. .....wait.....that sounds bad.....
Afterwards I had class with Daisy. It went ok.
I came home after Chinese lessons and started working on DVD #3. About a couple weeks ago, after Shanghai, I edited that footage somewhat and that took out alot of work today. This one is gonna go alot quicker. The only thing I will be finding hard is trying to find space for everything.
Well, its late, the internet is back up and I can wish my Dad a happy birthday. Be sure to wish him one!
good nite.

Posted by Phil at 12:16 AM | Permalink

The secadas came out sometime last week. I can't see em, but I sure can hear em. I woke up this morning and as I went to go take a shower, i noticed a cockroach swimming in my toilet. "Trying to cool off there in the pool, aren't ya, little buddy? Lets see what your ass knows about WAVE FILLED VORTEX POOLS! SUCK ON THAT!" My wierd reactions towards cockroaches seem to confuse the chinese. Its not fear, its just weird. Like I make it known to everyone in the room that there is a cockroach in the toilet or on the bathroom floor, or stuck in the mosquito netting of my bed and I rolled over it while I was sleeping and I heard it squeal. They are like, "Whats the issue?" They go over and step on it or pick it up with a napkin. I have to tell them that where I am from, at least in my experience, I never have had to ever deal with Cockroaches. Maybe really small ones that pass off for other small bugs, but these suckers are big ass flying ones. Maybe it has something to do with that USA movie I saw when I was 10 at Fred's house..."The Nest" about a brood of cockroaches that kill people. Maybe thats where it comes from.
I got paid today. Whoo hoo! I went between morning classes this morning. I tried to call Jolene from the office to find out about my sword. It wouldn't connect to her fone. Crap. So I headed back to the school.
I was teaching my flag class again and it went better this time. The culture lesson was on international FLAGS. There were flags for the UN and the EU and the kids had no clue what either were, so I had Lily explain what they were in Chinese. I had the kids design their own flags and I got some really bizarre flags. Quite humorous.
Jolene called me twice during this class. I called her back after and she said she lost the sword guy's fone number. I went home to look for the card. I didn't have it. He gave the letter to her with his info on it. It should be at her place or the office. I won't know till later.
I headed home. The good thing about Children's Day is that I have no afternoon classes. I found out about this possibility when Daisy's grandpa mentioned it. News to me.
So, lets see...what did I do today. Well, during lunch I watched this hilarious Korean martial arts flick that makes fun of all those super powers gong fu movies have. It was good. However, they over used the "pissed off hero screaming a die hard scream" along with the "pissed off villian screaming a die hard scream". Just too many times. It got really annoying. Started out funny, then got serious and ended funny.
I then got some flowers and went over to Yumi's place while she was at work. I couldn't find a vase or a bottle to put them in some water, so I grabbed the blender and used that. The price for a vase at the flower shop was like 2x the price of the flowers. Dude, what I did was more romantic then a panzy looking blue plastic hunk of crap. Yeah...that's right. You heard me.
After that, I headed over to the engraver shop because the guy told Jolene he was done. I checked it out. It was OK. Not what i expected to see and what I thought was gonna be, but still good none the less and it does the job. I took it home. I am gonna go back tomorrow with Jolene to have something else done.
After that I headed home and then on to chinese lessons. It went ok.
After that I went to Gong Fu practice and Sifu wasn't there and the wunderkinden were there as usual. I got some good practice. Time for bed. Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 10:59 AM | Permalink