January 5th, 2016

7:01am

Finally slept through the night here, so maybe I'm adjusting. Alternatively I was just too tired to wake up earlier. I think that's how sleep is supposed to work.

Yesterday was, in theory, my first day off, but I feel like I did more work yesterday than any day since the plane ride.

I met with Vicky at 10am yesterday morning- well, I got to Web International at about 9:30 so I could grab some breakfast at Food Bazzar, but it seems evenhalf an hour after the door open the place isn't open for business yet. My breakfast situation here is sub-optimal. So I waited for Vicky (again, this is who hired me to work here... so, I guess she's my boss? I'm not sure at all about the structure here) in front of a computer so I could, you know, have the time.

The last time I was without some kind of personal clock like this was my first year of university. I'd lift up and put down the receiver to every pay phone I walked by to get an update on whether I should be worried about being late or not.

Vicky arrived a few minutes after ten- I feel like, even as I don't want to be late for things myself, that this place may be more forgiving in that area- we had a few things to take care of today: bank account, apartment, and phone. I was asked if we should get the phone first but I said let's wait on that, because I'll NEED an apartment, I can live without the phone. I was feeling really unsure about my financial situation. Justifiably, it seems, but I'm getting ahead of you.

We walked what I think of as north through the Roosevelt Center (looking at a map later, I think that may actually be east... I'll definitely have to check on that) and I talked about how I felt I had done a good job yesterday with my students. Vicky replied that she had talked with some of them yesterday and they did in fact report that I did a good job.

At the Bank of Communications we opened up an account- it took a long time because they had to restart the process every time they got my name wrong. "MILLS, ISAAC AARON ANDREN"

Andren is actually a pretty cool name. After that I got an "ISSAC" but that was to be expected. After my name was finally correct and I seemed to have signed off on deleting the other faux accounts- I know that sounds weird- I was asked to confirm if "that" was my correct passport number. We'd been there so long that I didn't want to repeat the process anymore, but I didn't really know for sure if that was my number or not. My passport was with the attendant on the other side of the glass! YES, fine, yes, that's my passport number. (I checked later, it was indeed my passport number, so that's good.)

From there we walked "West" (actually North I suppose) to a realtors office. Vicky and I talked about the driving here- she actually used the words "crazy Chinese drivers"- and she told me about another foreign teacher that had gotten hit by a car on her first day in the country. "Uh, is she alright?" "Oh, yes, she's fine, her knee just hurts still when it's cold."

!!!!! Yeesh.

There was a bunch of honking going on (of course) and I asked if Vicky had ever heard of the concept of a "Pet Peeve". No. I explained it was something that personally bothered just you, that maybe other people were okay with it, like for a lot of people it was when others chew with their mouth open- for me, honking cars. Then I told the anecdote about that time, on a narrow stretch of back alley road (just south of Bloor and Yonge) when a car was honking at an old lady trying to park to get out of the way, the zoomed forward only to be stopped 30 feet later by a mail truck. I walked along the sidewalk until I became parallel with the drivers door, looked in, and made a "pressing a car horn" motion until the guy opened the window, when I incredulously asked "what are you doing? You're not going anywhere!"

Arriving at the realtors office, a smoke filled box of a room stuck onto the side of a larger building (but with a fold-in bike, that's cool!) staffed by two... what's the plural of androgynous? Androgynes? Well, whatever. They were nice, even though the mole on the one guy's head was distracting. He scratched his forehead NEAR his mole and I'm thinking "AH! AH! CAREFUL!". Anyways. He walked us over to an apartment building, the exterior of which was crumby, but the apartment itself was pretty good. It needed to be cleaned, but everything was a friendly orange colour. There were large steps up to a sort of second floor where there was a mattress hanging out. I thought that was iffy. And the bathroom was a fairly small room consisting of a sink, toilet, shower head, and device I'm told was a washing machine. I said the place was nice, but was okay with checking out somewhere else, preferably someplace with "shower stalls". I'm a big fan of shower stalls.

We met up with the landlady for an apartment apparently two bus stops "North" (so, East) of the Roosevelt Center- it took a long while to get there, which has me wondering about the "bus stop" as a unit of measurement. The entrance to this apartment building looked like the entrance to an apartment building, a good sign. They use a biometric device to allow access to beyond the lobby- a fingerprint checker thing- and if memory serves... no this must have been for the first apartment, there's no way this place ALSO required a card to scan to get the elevator to work (like at my hotel). The apartment here was nice- REALLY nice. Shower stall nice. Didn't have a wasing machine, but I never expected one in an apartment. No stove or anything, but seeing as I don't have the funds for pots or pans or dishes I can't see as I'd need one. There's a place for a tv- won't be needing that- and there was a phone, uh, jack, for internet I guess. Or a phone, what do I care, I'm not going to be using it, whatever it is. 

I kept waiting for the catch. This has to be more than my housing allowance, right? I was assured it was 2000 RMB each month. I agreed to take the place. And here's the point when I probably should have backed out of the whole thing: it seems they don't ask for first and last months rent here. They ask for THE FIRST THREE MONTHS PLUS DEPOSIT. 

Guys, you're killing me! Seriously? How did this never get brought up before? Come on, man! This probably would have been a dealbreaker if I'd heard about this back in Canada. 

I expressed my concern via the hugely shocked look on my face.

At the time I couldn't think of anything else to do, 3 months plus deposit wasn't going to get any easier somewhere else than it was for this apartment, but I could've done the plan A thing of hitting up the youth hostel... except I'm not sure if that would've been okay, because I'm going to need to extend my visa for the full year, and I may need an address here to make that happen. I don't know, I'm trying to rationalize it after the fact, but there's one key bit of information I didn't know yet. I'll get to that in a second.

We headed over to a local police station to register my name to the address- everyone was on lunch break, so we'll come back tomorrow. Okay. Then we headed over to a bank (not the Bank of Communications) so I could finally finally withdraw some more money from my chequing account back home... and you know it didn't work. Of course it didn't work. What is the point of asking the dudes at CIBC if I can access my money overseas if, in fact, I can not. That was a lot of time spent waiting in bank lines back in Canada for nothing. I should Count of Monte Cristo it when I return, just utterly ruin the life of the guy that screwed me over.

So the point was moot, I needed Jordan to send me money either way (and THIS is how I can rationalize getting the apartment, because the amount itself barely mattered since the housing allowance, once I get it, will cover it... eventually... you know, after three months, so really it's the housing allowance from my last three months working here that will zip back to Jordan to pay for this) UGH anyways Vicky loaned me the deposit, and so I've got about 5 days to contact Jordan for some green. The contacting of whom I set about planning right away.

Oh, also, I asked about laundromats- it seems they don't really have those here, just services where you hand over your clothes to be cleaned by some jerks and it costs more. Maybe I should have stuck with the first apartment if that was a legit clothes washing machine. I do not even know if it's for clothes. I'll ask my co-foreign teachers what they do about laundry.

Vicky took me to a hot pot place for lunch- little stove, pot of water getting boiled, and a variety of whatevers, foods, conveyor belting it in front of us. You take a stick of food to put in your pot, put the stick in a cup, and the number of sticks is how they charge you.

My biggest mistake here was putting noodles in my pot. When will I realize that me and chop sticking noodles isn't going to happen? I know I don't need any help to look incompetent, but yes, trying to fish out noodles is a good way to raise the bar. It was good, but man was it a lot of work.

There was a dipping sauce station near the door (I should say that this was a restaurant that enjoyed more length than width, with all the chairs situated around the single conveyor belt) from which I took soy sauce and sesame sauce. I wanted a red looking potential ketchup, but a woman grabbed the ladel (is that how that's spelled?) and stuck it right near her nose. NOPE!

I asked Vicky what the red sauce was after the meal, I forget what she said, but it wasn't tomato based.. oh, she said... tofu something? I don't know man, it was a long day.

I asked about Chinese pop culture, expressed my appreciation for the works of Ben Stiller, and explained the concept of a sell-out before naming the one Chinese actor I could really think of. Sorry Jackie, but I gotta play to the crowd.

Vicky paid for both of us, which I was very okay with.

Returning to Web International I set my plans in motion to contact Jordan. First, I needed to make sure the guy checked his e-mail, so I turned on my cell phone (hey, a return text from Simon, hi Simon!), got the LOW POWER CHARGE PHONE" message again and quickly texted something alarming like "Jordan, need money, check your e-mail for instructions, I'm fine" or something like that. I'd check my phone for exactly what I texted in the interests of accuracy, but it is deader than dead now. I know I said it was dead before, but yeah, that's all she wrote. I actually checked my luggage again for the charger when I got back to the hotel last night, I was all "listen, I don't even care if it's embarrassing that I THOUGHT I lost it, but it's really been here this whole time, just be here..." but no, that charger be in Canada, dawg.

Next I tried to call him- working security at night, so it was, I don't know, something like 3am for him at that point- but according to the phone, I had the wrong number. I added a "1" for long distance, but that didn't do the trick either... there's probably some international thing needed to get out of China. It occurs to me I haven't actually called anyone the entire time I've been in China, all the while I've been looking at posted phone numbers and thinking "umm what" so, yes, I'll have to figure that out sometime.

Tried to write down Jordan's number (I've got it here in my laptop, but at the time I didn't have it with me "you didn't have which with you? The laptop or Jordan's number?" Either, both, take your pick.) so I could try calling with the landline in Web, but my cell phone conked out before I could get it. That's okay, I sent the text, Jordan will check his e-mail. So now I need to focus on accessing my e-mail.

I'm not entirely sure why, but today I didn't have any trouble- I opened my yahoo e-mail, opened a tab for my hotmail account, pressed the button to send the confirmation number to my yahoo mail, received it, entered it into hotmail, boom, I'm in. That was easy, finally.

Messages from Dad, Cool Geoff, and Jordan- I responded to Jordan first, adding that instructions for sending me money will be in a forthcoming e-mail. Also, sorry. I said sorry a lot.

I spent most of the rest of my afternoon listening to my ipod shuffle device while researching global money transfers. I gathered all the info I needed about my bank, well, I had trouble with getting the correct address, I had a couple of options to choose between, but the whole issue was, once again, moot. When I accessed me canadian account to attempt a money transfer to myself so I could see if there were any issues Jordan would run into on his attempt, I found that on the pull down menu of places one could send a global money transfer China was NOT on the list. I see.

I determined instead that the most efficient way... oh, well, uh, practically only way, at this point, was to send money to me specifically care of "Moneygram". All Jordan has to do is go to a location near him, tell them the address for where it needs to be picked up (I sent a list of three candidates which may have been a mistake compared to just saying "send it here"), and my name. Also, give them the cash... and in amounts sufficient so that after the servicing fees I've got what I need to not financially implode. According to the site it takes less than a day to do this, because of course, why shouldn't it, why should it ever, at this point in time, ever take longer than an e-mail takes to circumnavigate the globe to send money?

Okay, well yes, it is pretty impressive that we can send a message circumnavigating the globe in bare seconds. Gotta hand it to humans for that one.

The computer at work has a browser option that lets one check out google and facebook, so I checked up on some lives over there. It seems people haven't caught on to the fact that Rey isn't so much a character as a pastiche of empowered woman tropes. Which is fine if that's what you're after, and in retrospect Darth Vader was always more symbol  than character as well... maybe she's like a light side Vader and the character arc we're supposed to be invested in is Kylo Ren? That could be something...

Okay, okay, you didn't come here to read me bagging on Star Wars, and I probably can't afford to lose any friends over my opinion on it (manipulative paint-by-the-numbers emulation of the feel of Star Wars, though it couldn't figure out how to make us invested in the space battle... or "Star War" at the end) and I definitely hope it breaks that Avatar box office record because Avatar was absolute garbage. Yes, fine, pretty, headache inducing, garbage.

Okay, um, sorry, where was I? Ah, messaged Jordan, hung out for the rest of the day at my workplace, which is pretty, pretty lame. Observed an "English Corner" which is the last area of my job that I haven't done yet and am slightly nervous about.

I went for dinner with the two foreign teachers Alona and Adeel. I splurged a bit and got, beyond the rice and a weird carmalized hot dog sausage thing (I believe I mentioned it yesterday or the day before) and thing of fish that was chock full of bony goodness and very spicy. I ranted for a bit about M. Night Shyamalan. (That's spelled as accurately as he deserves to have his name spelled. Unless I spelled his name correctly, in which case he deserves to have his name spelled less accurately.)

I chatted with this nice guy who I think is named "Heaven" or possibly "Hevin". Or "Haven". Or something. He told me his Chinese name, which I motioned that I'd try and lock into my head. Also, I asked him for the Chinese word for the escalator in front of us, again, motioning that I'd try and lock it into my memory.

Both are quite gone now. Augh. I have great respect for these students.

Shelley also introduced herself at the end of the day. I think that was her name, it definitely started with an 'S'- it seems she teaches a sort of large form class similar to the English Corners, and usually uses "Friends" (the tv show) for examples. She also used the Apprentice. Well, why not, it's gotta be good for something.

After leaving for day I wandered around for a bit. I saw a Wal-Mart earlier that I wanted to check out in hopes of finding a cheap watch- oh yeah, I've basically written off getting a phone anytime soon, but I didn't see any watches in the entire place. It may be a good source of toiletries and whatnot. 

I explored the entrance to the subway, stopping once I got near what looked to be a metal detector at the entrance. Scary. It's actually a fairly long walk underground to get there. Like walking inbetween Spadina and St. George stations.

I flipped through some of the tv chanels when I got back to the hotel, but even if there wasn't something interesting on I was too beat to stay up.

Okay, 9:42am, I've caught you up and need to start my day. I'll copy out these files and see about posting them today. Two hours and, oop, 43 minutes- am I taking too long to write these? I imagine there'll be less minutia and scary surprises in the future. It'd be very good to take some of this same chunk of time and do some creative writing work.

Wish me luck, have a good day