Happy Birthday to me

It's my birthday today. I had forgotten, until someone reminded me (thanks!).  It seems anticlimactic after all that has happened.

Today I had a half day free in the morning, it was soooooo wonderful.  They have been keeping me so busy that even a few hours to myself seemed luxurious. I managed to finally catch some of the Olympics other than the seemingly endless curling (what a weird thing that is). I watched some of the figure skating medalists' encore performances. Also finally had time to run the mop around the floors; it still needs to be done again, but it's much better, I can at least step onto the floor without my feet turning black.

One of our keepers took another foreign teacher and I out to get our bus pass, bank account and cell phones today.  Just after we started out the light rain changed to hail, and shortly after that it was snowing.  At first the snow was so pretty, it really changed the look of the city.  I took a few pictures, but since I forgot to bring my camera cable with me, I can't upload them until I find an SD-USB converter here.

It snowed for at least an hour, enough for snow to stick on the ground and make a HORRIFIC mess.  It was slippery as can be, I wished I had my hiking boots.  The streets are now filled with dark brown goopy slush and water. Found out that  my faux Ugg boots are not watertight. Fortunately, only a little water leaked in around the toes, the rest of the boot stayed warm. 

Because of the cold and wet, we won't be going out to the restaurant tonight after all.  That's fine with me, because I really want some time to relax more than anything else.

Before I crash, I should probably put my mucky wet clothes back on and go out and get some bottled water, I'm almost out. The tap water here is truly horrid, it tastes of mud or something worse, even after boiling.

-------------------------

It was snowing again,windy, and beginning to get dark, so I decided not to go out after all, I'll brave it in the morning instead. I just cooked my first meal, some stir fried eggplant with chili paste and soy sauce (the only condiments I have so far), and used the rice cooker to make rice and steamed broccoli.  I need to surf for some recipes and stir fry tips, the eggplant took a ton of oil to keep from sticking, that can't be right.  I miss my nonstick cookware already.

It's the Lantern Festival today (or all week, I'm not sure), so the locals are setting off fireworks in the courtyard, all round the buildings, all over the city...  I feel like I'm in a war zone.  I'm not talking bottle rockets and roman candles here; these are HUGE.  Apparently fireworks are only legal during the Spring Festival (what we call Chinese New Year) and the Lantern Festival, which I think sort of run together for a two or three week long explosion fest.  Fortunately (I think), there is nothing flammable around, it's just a concrete jungle.  There are some grubby little plants struggling here and there.  The grounds of this building have fake flowers stuck in the ground interspersed with the sad little plants.

Took the bus home alone for the first time today (I've mostly been walking) and was lucky enough to get my stop, for a few moments after I got off the bus I didn't recognize anything and was afraid I was lost, but then I saw my street. Phew!

---------------------------

In this pic it has just begun snowing.

By the time we finished at the bank and went to the bus stop it had been snowing for about 30 minutes.  In this pic you can see where someone made a little snowman on the trashcan, and also how quickly the snow was churned into muddy slush by the cars.

 

We crossed this river on the way to the cell phone store, it looked so beautiful with the snow falling and the steam forming a fog over the river.

Here is a picture from my kitchen window of the courtyard covered in snow.  The statue in the middle is seen from the side; from the front, it's a bird feeding its chicks in a nest and quite lovely. The buildings are all part of the apartment complex.  I'm on the second floor. 

Getting better

Today was better and I felt less anxious (thank goodness for meds), but as usual they didn't tell us what the heck was going on until it happens. Yesterday it was "show up at 9:30 and we will do your demo lessons", which we all thought meant that we would be done by noon.  This morning we showed up and it was "Well, you will do the demo lessons at 11:00".  Then at 12:00 we had lunch break, after only 2 demos out of the 6 of us.

At lunchtime we wandered around looking for a place we had eaten lunch a couple of days ago.  The back streets around the school are interesting and more like what I would expect "China" to look like.  We did finally find the restaurant and the food was delicious like before.  Total cost per person: about USD $2.50.  I have to remember that I'm being paid in Chinese currency and be frugal here, but the conversion still amazes me. 

After lunch we had to go to meet the Chinese English Teachers we will be working with, that was totally disorganized.  I got to spend about 3 minutes with each of the teachers I'll be working with.  Then back to the demos... did one and a half demos when we were interrupted and told we have to go watch a public promotion class.  By the time we got back to finish the last two and a half demos, it was already quite late.  Finally around 6:00 we could go home.  So much for "just doing our demos in the morning".

And then I find out that on my DAY OFF on Sunday, they want to take me to do stupid errands that in my opinion could easily wait until Monday.  They will take David and me to the police station for registration, then get our bus passes, then get our cell phones. The others say that these errands are likely to take the entire afternoon, so much for having even one whole day to rest.  Well, at least I have HALF a day off...

Tomorrow evening the Pakistani restaurant we went to last night will have a special buffet dinner and a lot of us are planning to go, yum.  I have not had a single food so far here that I didn't like. Unless I can resist all these wonderful restaurants and learn to cook with the local foods, losing weight is going to be a losing battle!  Although the 35 minute walk to and from school will help quite a bit with that.

I begin teaching on Wednesday.  I will have one class on Wednesday night, one class on Thursday night, 9 classes on Saturday and 5 on Sunday.  Eventually I'll be bumped up to 20 hours which is my contract level, and after that any additional hours will be paid "overtime".

I did get an hour to play with the SmartBoard this morning and rehearse my lesson properly, so it went quite well, except that I was last and by that time my colleagues who were playing the "students" were getting tired.  Anyway I didn't get much criticism on my lesson, so I guess it was acceptable.

On the way home this evening I took a slightly different route, and saw some really cool back streets I want to explore someday.  Stopped at several street food vendors on the way home: the steamed bun shop where we have been going and the girl at the window speaks some English; a place selling what look like little custard tarts but who knows what they really are; and a woman on a bicycle selling corn on the cob and pineapple on a stick.  Probably paid a whole dollar for all that in US currency.

Finally had the energy to haul all my trash down to the rubbish bins since I got home before it was totally dark for a change.  I'll get to go to bed EARLY tonight for the first time yayyyyyy!!!!

Pickpocket

This morning I took the bus to school, and just as I was standing on the bus congratulating myself on my achievement, I looked down to find the compartments of my purse all unzipped and my wallet missing.  Thankfully there was not a lot of money in the wallet, or in any case not a lot of money in US terms, and my driver's license won't be too useful.  Called the credit card company and had the card cancelled immediately, even though I thought that I had taken it out of my wallet (turns out I had, it's here in the apartment).  Great start to my day.

Then we were off to another school for more training and observing classes.  I had prepared my demo lesson plan for tomorrow, but when I got the SmartBoard program for my chapter there was very little there to work with, so I'm back to square one.  Using the SmartBoard with an actual lesson is much harder than just playing around with the features like we did yesterday, so I am wishing that I had at least a day just to mess around with it before doing a demo lesson with it.

Training went until 8pm, then everyone wanted to go for dinner, and since I don't yet know my way home, I had to go too, even though I was exhausted to the point of nausea.  We ate in a Pakistani restaurant which was fabulous.  I've enjoyed all the food here so far.  Some things resemble "American Chinese food" and some are totally new.

Then the hour long bus/cab ride home, and then our foreign director came by to install the SmartBoard program on my computer so I could practice with it (in my copious spare time between now, 11:20pm, and 8:30am tomorrow).  The programs look like they will take a couple of hours to download, so at least I'll have something to do when I wake up at 4:30am as I've been.

Needless to say, I'm feeling rather downhearted tonight.