January 27th, 2016

10:36 pm, actually on the 27th- hey, if I get this done tonight I'll have caught back up! And that should be easy, not a lot happened on theTuesday.

After some writing I went to Roosevelt Plaza, arriving even earlier than I would on a work day, to send my backlog of posts to Canada from the Web computer and further consider that side teaching job that could get me into a lot of trouble. And then I firmly planted myself on that computer for the purposes of facebook scrolling, article reading, and trying to prepare for my next 3 days of English Corners (Jordan sent me some Simpsons files, but they didn't work, which is actually sort of okay because of a reason that I will get into soon). The random person from Wanda looking for a teacher had a more difficult jobwriting in English, and was specifically asking just for Wednesday after I told her I couldn't do that. I thanked her for her time, and was almost relieved.

At a little past noon Thomas asked if I would have lunch with him again- sure! Up a floor at Food Bazzar we met up with Bradley and Dora who joined our party. Just to check the variables I really need to eat with only Thomas some day to see if he would be this quiet all the time. There is of course the language barrier issue, so who knows. Let's see, what did we talk about at lunch... I learned Dora graduated from a university with an accounting degree, so she isn't quite as young as she looks. And I mentioned my poor track record for always choking at social meals-- I was determined to not choke this meal, and I made it, but full disclosure, I started speeding up at one point and I was like "hey buddy, didn't we talk about this?"

Dora congratulated me on my chop stick usage, saying it was better than hers. I didn't expect that to be the sentence she was going to go with.

Back at Web, Vicky asked to see me, and I was worried she would give me a hard time for hanging around the office on my day off- no, she had me look over and sign a new contract with my actual start date (well, they could have gone back a day I think, but whatever) as well as some English Corner notes: it was suggested that I was playing too many videos, so that's why the lack of Simpsons isn't as bad a thing as it could be, if I was already going to be discouraged along those lines. I asked if I should do more grammar stuff (I was really hoping for a no on this one), and Vicky said knowing grammar isn't the Chinese student's problem, it's the spoken language. I was hoping she'd say that. So I still wasn't entirely sure what I'd talk about for English Corner the next day, but at least I hadn't really gotten myself into hot water yet.

Then Vicky told me I'd have to fly to another city to finish some required documentation for my visa extension. The company would pay for the flight... after my contract was over. In the meantime, the amount would have to be deducted from my pay. This obviously sucks, and they've really got me over a barrel, and I don't know how much money I'll be able to send back home this month after all is said and done, and it's very weird that it's more effecient to fly me to another city for documentation than, you know, faxing... but unlike my medical check, I wasn't actually too mad about this. Partly that's because I will get the money back (unless I skip out on my contract... but if they've got a plane ride's worth of my money in escrow to keep me there, that ought to help keep me around), but also I was excited about the prospect of checking out another Chinese city- all new opportunities to get kidnapped somewhere! (I don't appear to be in any danger of kidnapping)

One student who I seriously need to remember her name because I help her all the time came over to talk, and mentioned that she was getting sick. I talked about, you know, taking a break and resting up, as well as getting the vitamin C. I had a rough time describing the tablets I was taking in my water, so I walked her over to the other side of the mall and physically showed her the tube of vitamin C and other supplements. She seemed excited by the prospect of skipping out on vegetables, so I maybe taught the wrong person the wrong thing.

I'm falling asleep, I'll finish this tomorrow. - 11:18 pm

8:30 am- I hope this is the right time, I woke up and my computer said it was 6:50 am... on the 13th of January. If I start living in a Groundhog's Day loop that's fine, but it would be better if it happens on a more noticable day so I can tell. I suppose I can read my entry for January 13th and see if things are identical...

The only other thing that happened on the Tuesday which I was trying to talk about was that I went to eat later at Food Bazzar with Eilsa- it turns out to be no big shock that she didn't know Thomas, it's actually surprising that they knew they went to the same high school at all- she's a university grad with a degree in engineering! Not actually a high school student. Well, how should I know?

I asked her about movies she had seen, and with difficulty she communicated that she went to see "The Walk" with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Balancey McFrenchguy. 

This difficulty gave me a great idea for my English Corners- I want them to be able to talk to me about movies, so I should teach them the necessary vocabulary to do so! 

I grabbed some clips to represent Action, Action Adventure, Comedy, and Romantic Comedy, and felt decently prepared for the presentation tomorrow.

Short, easy day. Well, it WAS my day off! - 8:47 am