February 17th, 2016

February 17th, 2016

11:43 pm on the 17th, talking about the 16th.

Oh man, I took some terrible notes for this day, barely anything. Well, let's give you a short version then, eh?

I spent a lot of time in the morning writing about the day before, enough such that I believe I included some information about the 16th in that post. Very thorough, but cutting into todays post. I guess that was Future Isaac's problem. Er, well, it's not a problem, I want to keep things short and sweet... I mean, yeah, short, but, clearly, with digressions about "Future Isaac" and the redundancy of talking about keeping the post short twice within two paragraphs. I'm basically engaged in the most effecient writing possible right now.

Did I say "writing"? I meant "rambling". Anyways.

This was my first day at this other Web location. I made it with about ten minutes to spare to the 1pm deadline, though when I emerged from the subway I was a little lost- I was like "NO HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE THIS IS WHY I DID RECON THE DAY BEFORE!!" but of course my recon the day before didn't include subway ARRIVAL, so this was inevitable. The entrances to the various stations are spread so far apart, and at this station in particular there are all sorts of connections to underpasses and even the far end of Victory Plaza, it's understandable I had trouble. Fortunately I made the correct (slightly educated by the position of the sun) guess as to which way Web was situated, but it had me sweating a bit.

I take a seat, choosing the computer with no mouse, and of course deciding "ah, you know what, it's fine" but really it was inconvenient and there were all these other computers man, just switch chairs and claim a new one. Older British gentleman Chris says hello, and includes my name- I completely forgot, so I had to actually ask, "er, sorry, but have we met before?" and that is a phrase I NEVER say. Even if I forget your name, I'll still remember the fact of your being enough to be freaked out about forgetting your name- he reminded me of the two minutes we spent in the same room at Roosevelt: RIGHT I remember thinking, man, he's popular, Alona was super nice to him. Right, Chris.

So we were talking about what I may do for my English Corner today, I said I'd go with either my Simpsons presentation or my Trudeau one (I've combined a few key Pierre clips to give context to the Justin section)- and Chris had a VERY strong reaction to my mentioning the Prime Ministers Trudeau. He told me how Pierre Trudeau was so disrespectful of the Queen- I expected the story about his famous pirouette, which I mentioned in my lesson, but no, he was talking about Trudeau speaking to the Queen in French- for which offence Chris said he was surprised Trudeau wasn't "taken out back and shot". A weird reaction- I'm glad I didn't make my positive opinion of the Trudeaus known. I went with the Simpsons English Corner.

And the only note I have for the classes this day is that, from my second last class, a private beginner and my last class, a beginner salon, both classes had Shang in them, who, in my mind anyways, won MVP for those classes, if not the day. He worked hard and contributed a lot- and he's got a two year old son! But if those are my only notes on the classes for the day, I guess I can move on to the English Corner... but first, I'm tired. I'll finish this in the morning, and hopefully slapdash out the next days post before I send them to get published tomorrow. Good night, it's 12:08 am!

8:51 am on the 19th

For my English Corner I once again dipped into the Simpsons well- wary of the charge of using "too many clips" I was reluctant to go back over the footage, sticking more to the script than I had previously. Even while I was doing that I thought how ridiculous I was being- I was being unclear for no reason other than to conform to what was a weak suggestion at best. Finally I said "actually let's look at that part of the clip again" and gave in to common sense. I only need to worry about criticism regarding my presentations if I give a bad presentation- I doubt anyone had a complaint about this topic (now, my presentation from yesterday however...)

At the tail end of the presentation, this woman Gina came and sat down- I usually see her at Roosevelt, so afterwards I went to her and said "Grace?" and she said I got her name wrong- ouch, I usually watch out for that with someone I haven't actually talked to before, sloppy Isaac- that's going to cost me later, especially since there IS a Grace at Roosevelt that she thinks I confused her with- not so, I was thinking there were two Graces- well, why not, there are a million "Sunny"s. Anyways, I was just goofing around, telling her "okay, remember, if anyone here asks- my English Corners are ALWAYS GOOD."

"Wink" 

I didn't say "wink", but I may as well have.

The equipment at this location is old- the projector apparently has a tendency to overheat, such that it may stop working and you have to pull out the cord for a few seconds before plugging it back in. You have to run the mouse for the screen on your pants- I think that's what I did at Wanda Plaza as well- and even I think that sound system looks old. 

But the photocopier takes the cake- yellowed with age, copies slowly, and is a smaller, simpler machine. Press one button and you're done. It was beautiful.

During my break I went in search of food at the mall behind the Web location- I wandered into a grocery store (at ground level? Impossible!) before finding my way into a department store. I climbed a bunch of escalators until I reached the sporting goods level on the 4th floor- it looked like I was getting nowhere fast, but THEN I saw a food court, one more floor up, past the series of Doramon statues (is that what the little blue guy is called? I'm not familiar with that character).

Like Food Bazzar, this place required you to put down money for a food card, but this "Food Marche" had a lot of places that would have taken cash, I found out AFTER getting the card. And just getting the card there was a 10 yuan fee- what! This deal is getting worse all the time! I ended up getting some brothy noodle number, but the kicker was how the person that prepared the food insisted on adding these, I don't know, spices or something on top- this woman waiting to get served herself stopped the cook from adding more, correctly (very correctly) thinking I wouldn't like it.

So I went to eat my now mostly garbage water- I'm being hyperbolic again, but I was going to taste a spoonful of whatever spice was added to the top and breathed it in, accidentally cinnamon challenging myself- so I was in a bad mood. Oh, right, and as I ate it I could feel a strong tingling in my lips- spice, allergic reaction, or lip specific spider sense?

I got through the whole thing, because at least it wasn't sugar corn cake... speaking of which, after that soup I wanted a drink, or something sweet, or both. I stopped at the Donuts 2 Go place and bought a 5 yuan donut, with purple frosting, looked good. It took forever for the attendant to return to the shop so I could get my donut-- and it was a terrible donut! It totally sucked! I will not be eating here again.

On the plus side, when I returned my food card I got that initial 10 yuan back- looks like it was a card deposit.

Going back to the main floor, and unsatisfied with my meal and terrible donut, I saw an electric sign for a 2 yuan McDonald's ice cream cone. That's the ticket! The sign was attached to a kind of McDonald's dessert stand in the middle of the mall- I pull out two yuan and point to the sign... and the attendant points at a printed sign at the register that says it's 4 yuan.

Consarnit! Fine, four it is.

Then something funny happened- I take a few steps away, licking my cone, looking out at this marketing event trying to sell wedding albums to couples, when I noticed just to the back of the wedding album set-up, a group of, I think they worked for the wedding people but were perhaps on break, and they, girls and a few guys, were staring at me. They'd look away when I turned in their direction, but it was slow enough that I caught them.

Now, maybe they thought I looked ridiculous- grown man at 5:30 standing in a mall with an ice cream cone by himself, sure, that would be a fair assessment. But I didn't feel like that was their impression- I FELT like they saw me as some desirable, mysterious bad ass, yes, with an ice cream cone.

It was an incredible feeling. Yes, okay, you laugh, and I'll be the first to agree that I was probably misreading the situation, but that wasn't the point- the point is I didn't feel the need to re-analyze and correct my reading of the situation, that I just got to enjoy it.

The group was, er, in my way, so I did end up walking past them on the way out- I didn't stop to examine my face in the mirror, but I thought I caught a flash of red as I walked by. Huh. Maybe I do get red faced. OR, maybe my garbage soup really did give me an allergic reaction, and I was red in general and they were staring at that? 

Whatever man, it was still a nice feeling in that moment. - 9:35 am.