February 11th, 2016

1:09 am on the 12th, talking about the 10th

 A straight forward, short day- I wrote some blog post, candy crushed, exercised for an hour and twenty, left a note for Aiman, took some photos at Roosevelt.

While deciding whether or not I could get a stealth picuture of a guy dressed all in gold clothes and gold face paint I was approached by and subsequently added "John-photo guy" to my contacts list- he seemed to be some kind of handler for the set I was looking at, and he told me it was free to get a pic of gold man and the carriage- I could SIT in the carriage and get a picture taken, but seeing as I had no one to take my picture or, better yet, take a picture with, the prospect was too pathetic. John made a lot of good guesses about my salary, which, I don't know, is that weird? He was friendly. He didn't quite understand what I meant when I said my phone had no sim card ("So, no wechat?") but to be fair, I barely understand what that means. I circled the most Spring Festival-y decorated section of Roosevelt, taking pictures, but it was rough with my hands shaking as they were. I'm guessing photographers don't usually work out before they go take photos. Or they use a tripod. Or they web their camera to a wall... it's really no surprise that guy gets paid garbage for his photos, they're probably garbage photos. A random guy took a pic of me taking pictures, and was chastised by his daughter or young wife for doing so. I was cool with it though. I should have tried to take a picture of him taking a picture of me taking pictures.

Got some bright green vegetable with carrots and shrimp, some white cube vegetable with ham, and two uh, egg/spinach(?)/shrimp pockets things. The Food Bazzar people are getting comfortable with me, smiling in recognition. Well, at least two people- the woman serving me food, and the young woman at the cash register with the strong shoulders and sparkly hair clip into her hat.

Went to Wal-Mart to compare prices with Carrefour- my usual 4L of water is 0.8 yuan more expensive. I picked up a broom (the broom is connected at an angle with the handle, I guess for ergonomic purposes, but it really just makes things tougher, at least when it comes to getting the thing to lean against the wall without falling over), dustpan (green, with a tall handle so I don't ever have to bend... except to knock all the dust and junk off the broom and into the dustpan because it never just comes off, whatta garbage invention) and four clothes hangers, and didn't get any kind of baked good. What a miserable trip. Checked out bedding prices. A little up there. I need to figure out what size bed this is.

Thinking all day about business epiphany- comic book IESTL (that may be the acronym, the english language certification locals need to boot out of the country) supplementary help. As you know, English Corners are rough. With that in mind, I decided to get Jordan to send me pdf's of Spidey comics that I can then turn into presentations, basically one panel is a slide, the next slide is the same panel with highlighted words, and the third slide has those words with definitions and maybe other contexts. (I wanted to spend all this Spring Festival time preparing these presentations, but I didn't get a chance to even attempt to download the files before going to Wuhan). What's good about this material is that I could, if I so chose, (for liability purposes I add that "if") use it for those highly profitable, not-quite-legal, private lessons one is always hearing so much about. This idea is great in that it takes a job I enjoy, attempting to teach people, and incorporates another thing I like to do, talking about comics. The idea that I have the freedom to take my job and mold into a job I like EVEN MORE is kind of unbelievable. However, as far as this goes, I'd already been thinking this before the tenth- what I realized on the tenth was that if I made my own comic, gave it the presentation treatment, not only would I have material I could use back in Canada (I somehow feel less concerned with borrowing Spider-Man while in China) but, and this is the big thing... I wouldn't have to actually be there for this to be a useful product. Like, this is something that could be sold here- considering the lengths they go to for studying English for this test, something less dry than a textbook could make a killing here. Couple it with a Chinese language mode, click the words for spoken English pronounciation and definitions, a concordance to check where else in the text a word is used (I think I used the word "concordance" properly)... label it as supplementary English material (so, don't make unsubstantiated promises about "buy this product and pass the test right away or your money back" types of nonsense). It could really work.

It's likely you don't know this about me, but I'm always excited about entrepreneurial ventures- which is a nice way of saying I'm like Fred Flintstone with his get-rich-quick schemes... which is a REALLY nice way of saying I'm like Jackie Gleeson from The Honeymooners. To the Moon, Alice!... I weirded myself out.

But the idea of combining comics with teaching with a sellable product... chee-ee! Man, it's a great idea! Uh, step one is to get those Spidey comics so I can a) test the idea out and b) not have to worry about English Corners anymore.

Anyways, I got home and swept with my new sweeping equipment, even moving the table and futon-couch to sweep behind. Took clothes off the futon and hung them up in cabinet. Ridiculous levels of adulting at work here.

No sign of Aiman, note was still in his door, so I added that I was back and that I'd drop by tomorrow at noon.

And that was that day. 1:56 am