March 9th, 2016

March 9th, 2016

1:59 pm on the 14th, talking about the 8th.

Today was my overtime shift over at Qingniwaqiao Web, and as I was leaving there was a red tape/ribbon/line across the door. I didn't take the time to see what was up- the door is often busted, maybe it was getting fixed, maybe someone tried to break in, whatever, I've got work to do, so I immediately hung a right because that's where the two guys in front of me went. Maybe I DID spend some time looking at this door situation, because I turned after these guys but they were nowhere to be seen. I passed through a curtain- hey! the stairwell! That's good to know- then through another door and/or curtain (I forget) and out I popped... into the grocery store connected to this building. WHAT. Is that even allowed? That seems like terrible security for a store. I awkwardly made my way to the exit of the grocery store.

I crossed the street and what was chilling out in front of the restaurants there? Why, a surprise chicken and a couple of outside geese walking around. I'm sure they're there for ambiance and will enjoy a long life.

Subway'd out to Qingniwaqiao where I arrived to British old man Chris giving Tyler, in charge of the teachers at this Web location, a stern talking to about how someone keeps using old paper in the new photocopier (they've upgraded) and it keeps jamming the thing up and wasting time, and would you please put up a Chinese and English sign so this wouldn't happen again in the future- and there's Tyler just sitting there with this blank expression on his face, he is not there at the moment, he's definitely checked out, and I just look at him and I mouth "SAY YES" while nodding. So Tyler says "yes" and I hope Chris didn't see my participation. It was more than slightly awkward to walk in on that- not to indulge my penchant for tone policing, but Chris had a reasonable request, I think Tyler couldn't hear it over the angry tone used.

It was absolutely bizarre how checked out Tyler was for that exchange. Besides yelling at Chris, Tyler chose the next best method to escalate the conversation.

Once my presence was acknowledged and I walked through the scene to get my lesson plans and schedule for the day I changed the subject as quick as possible to what Chris's English Corner was about today. Some sort of question and answer thing, I don't know, who cares, I was just changing the subject, breaking the tension to the best of my ability.

I took the time before my first class started to get out of there and grab some chicken at Victory Plaza- I took a different way back to Web, which is pretty dangerous in that I could get back to late if I mess up. It turned out alright. Man, it was very cold that day, I remember I did not dress appropriately for the weather- it was fine because I just subway'd to Web and back, but right here when I had some chicken outside, that was mighty cold. I walked by some kind of sweet shop and bought these little square cookie things that were very good but very bad for my digestion and surely my waistline. Aw yeah impulse purchases!

I brought the cookies back to Web and tucked them away in a drawer, offering Chris one. We had a conversation about Lydian and how she was adverse to food at the work station. I was aware- hence the whole "tucked them away in a drawer" thing.

For my first class I was informed that my student, Kitty, would be leaving early, and would I please mark her as attended but refer her, as opposed to passing her. Sure, no problem. Oh, thank you so much for understanding- this is coming from both Kitty and her native tutor. I completely don't care if you have to leave early, but sure, thank me, why not.

Kitty leaving actually evened up the teams for the board game we were playing- I've taught this class twice before, but I believe I actually taught it correctly this time, so that's a plus.

Then I had a Dyned City class- drawing that map of Dyned City, a classic, with Peng, Cleo, and Sunny, followed by a beginner class with Mandy and Darren on numbers and time. This beginner class was interesting in that the subject material was too easy for Mandy, but too difficult for Darren. In retrospect maybe I could have done something about this, like refer Darren and maybe talk to someone about boosting Mandy a level? Hmm, welp, whatever.

I left to explore the mall, wanting to eat the same thing I had last time I was here with Bradley. I didn't climb up the usual path to get to that top floor food "Marche", instead I climbed a wooden spiral staircase that went up a floor, then walked across a wooden bridge like I was at a playground, before finding myself at a Tom's... uh, whatever the place is called. Tom's something. Tom's World? maybe. It's like Chuck E. Cheese. I saw a duo on one of those dance pad games, very slick, very co-ordinated. In short it took most of forever to find the food court today, despite the fact that I've been there twice before.

And then I didn't recognize where I got that food with Bradley before! So scratch that. I ended up with essentially the same kind of stuff I usually get at Food Bazzar, plus I sprung for a fountain juice drink of some kind which I usually avoid. Tasty though.

I returned for my English Corner, which I super cheaped out on. The previous day I asked the creators of "The Urbane Explorer" videos on youtube if I could show their stuff in my class- no, I'm not a good person, I just know them and didn't want to take from THEM without asking- and they said yes, so I showed three of those videos, asked some nominal questions between each video, and that was that. The videos don't have subtitles, and I didn't want to constantly stop the videos every minute to explain so, uh, I didn't. It was a decently good time, and the class was very interested in the "Toronto Iceland" video to see Toronto in the winter.

Augh, man, how long would I have to sit here writing before my foot dropped right off? Ah ah, pins and needles pins and needles... okay, okay

The last class was whatever.

On the subway ride home I met this American, Dan- friendly, good looking, and teaches English for engineers at a school near Roosevelt. Obviously I felt thoroughly inadequate. He gave me his phone number and invited me to go to a Chinese speakers corner sometime. I haven't heard from him since. Maybe my "argh, I shake my fist at you because you're American and I'm Canadian, thus we are enemies" bit didn't go over as well as I thought?

I doubt it- we all know that bit is hilarious. - 2:49 pm

March 8th, 2016

March 8th, 2016

10:41 am

Aw, yeah, I had a great night of sleep (er, excepting the very sad Magic School Bus dream where Ralphie alienated everyone in the class), I'm all breakfasted up, teeth brushed, ready for the day, and, oh snap, it's beautiful out!

I'm expected down at Qingniwaqiao for an over time shift today- oh no, my day off work will be spent working! How will I ever catch up on all my blog posts without today to work on it? Problem solved- I'll write my notes about the days down in between classes, and format all the fonts and whatnot afterwards at home. The formating stuff- plus the fact that I'm usually too busy with friendly faces and/or internet access at Roosevelt- is why I don't always catch up on blogposts at work.

So great, I've got notes for all those days, written on my daily work schedule, but I didn't have a daily work schedule for yesterday, it was my day off, so that means I'd better write about it before it slips away.

Unlike today, I got up too too early, only six hours sleep until I got up and got ready to head over to Roosevelt (I could maybe have gone back to sleep for a bit, but I didn't want to sleep through my appointment)- what appointment you ask? I was meeting up with Vicky at 10, whereupon I would get my passport back, and we'd go get me a phone. And, hopefully, set up some internet banking, and internet for my apartment, and moneygram funds back to Canada for my credit cards- yeah, it should have been a useful, productive day.

Welp, 10am came and went, no Vicky- I internet surfed until just before noon when I grabbed some lunch before the rush crowd arrived. Exiting the bathroom, I saw a co-worker getting food for herself, so I got her attention (I'm not a 100% comfortable with her name, you know how it goes- the food stand attendant actually had to point me out to her, so embarrassing) and asked if Vicky had arrived. Her response? "Maybe."

Okay then, I'll leave you to your lunch. 

I go down the escalator, and there's Leo heading up: "Leo, has Vicky arrived?"

"Maybe."

What are the odds on that one?

I enter Web, and no, Vicky was definitely not there. Alona sent her a message for me on, you know, her functioning phone. It took a while to get a response, which Alona and I understood to be a harbinger of bad news, finally hearing that Vicky was still at some meeting. This meeting was never mentioned to me before, but fine.

During this time, I was asked if I would take Adeel's shift at Qingniwaqiao tomorrow, and of course I was good for that. My middle name is "Team-player". Oh, wait, no, my middle name is "Over-time pay". Maybe I have two middle names?

I was slightly confused when Adeel showed up to work today, feeling better than he had yesterday- was I still going to Qingniwaqiao tomorrow?

Finally, Vicky showed up. Okay, do you have my passport? No, but I have a tracking number.

My brain didn't register the significance of the phrase "tracking number" so I just sort of had a blank expression on my face, Vicky had to spell out that my passport was en route, but thus far still in Wuhan. It should be here Tuesday or Wednesday. 

And we all know that means Wednesday, I mean, come on.

I think she expected me to get mad about this, and I can't say I was happy, but I think I was more stunned. I was hoping to give my grandfather a call on my new phone, but scratch that. Maybe I should try with my Canadian cell phone, how much could they charge me? ... I don't trust it, they could charge a lot. Those roaming fees. Hrmm.

Vicky clued me in, I mean, yes, I asked her first, about my shift tomorrow at Qingniwaqiao- Adeel is going to get checked out at the hospital for his bronchitis tomorrow, so yes, I'm still on deck for my over time shift. Alrighty.

I had been scheduled to see "Zootopia" with Steve on Tuesday, so when he came in I updated him on that situation- we switched gears and went on this day, Monday.

In other news, I discussed Chinese censorship with Nikita, who has been reading wikipedia articles on China using a VPN- in fact he's read enough that now he's a little worried about reading those articles on China. I told him he's probably fine as long as he keeps his mouth shut. He told me about a Chinese punk band that operates out of Sweden... Norway? No, probably Sweden, because of course they're banned in China. I showed him a music video for "London Calling" and "The Kids Aren't Alright", the latter of which music video is pretty messed up, and I can't say I'm a fan of the look of the Offspring's front man there- kind of blank, generic 90's/early 2000's guy, but I do really dig the song. As a bit of an aside I then showed him "Needing/Getting" from OK Go as well as their latest, that gravity defying airplane song- this was my first time watching that video too, very cool. I had to assure Nikita that the OK Go stuff was real, besides perhaps a little ADR I believe is the term.

The theatre at Roosevelt was apparently only playing Zootopia in Chinese... or something, I don't know- but it was no good to watch it there. So Steve came back with my ticket money and instead we took a trip to another theatre by subway- Imax 3D screening, English with Chinese subtitles. After confirming that, yes, this screening would be understandable for me, we called Sylar who purchased the tickets online for us from back at Web- apparently this netted us a considerable discount, from 140 yuan a ticket down to 60 yuan. Still expensive, but at 60 yuan I reckon it was about half the cost of an Imax ticket in Canada.

There was an odd bottleneck entrance to the actual theatre areas, and Steve wanted to take the ramp up- stairs are tough for him, and he'd had to deal with a LOT of stairs today- some manager type tried to give him a hard time, but eventually relented and let the kid go up the ramp while I handed the attendant our tickets. I asked Steve whether or not he could get some kind of official card or something that would explain at a glance that he wasn't fully mobile- he said he didn't like that idea, that he doesn't want to be treated differently or looked at differently. Fair enough, many people feel the same way, but, I pointed out, who cares what that random theatre owner thinks?

We had to sit really close to the screen, not eyebleedingly close, but only the first row up after entering the theatre itself. But it wasn't bad at all, and the seats were AMAZING! It's like every seat was its own individual leather grandpa chair. Like, where do I sign up to get one of these? They didn't recline, but they also didn't need to, you sunk into it a bit. Man, that chair was worth the price of admission... which is good, since I was somewhat grumbling about "Imax...grumble grumble... 3D... grumble grumble.... James Cameron's Avatar... grumble grumble".

Zootopia was phenomenal. I had no idea what it was about, so I feared a movie based solely around Bojack Horseman levels of "animals are people? Punspunspuns" comedy (I'm sorry, all my friends that are nuts for Bojack- it's not that good. Not even close.) But what I  got instead was a movie about a little rabbit that wanted to be a police officer in a world where only big animals were police officers. A Disney movie tackling racism and prejudice using cute animals (uh, it's okay for another bunny to call me "cute", but when another animal says it...) and doing it in a more complex, modern way. When I was a kid this movie would have been more High School Musical- you know, "We're all in this together", but instead the ending narration says "real life is messy", acknowledging that nobody is perfect, that you're going to make mistakes, be prejudiced, and that, as Gazelle/Shakira sings, you just have to try to be better, because that's all you can do.

Not only is this a big important message for kids, but it's a wonderful message for everyone out there that polices language so hard that, right or wrong, you get shamed and excommunicated for saying "the wrong thing". I don't expect many people will get that particular message out of the film, I'm predicting now they'll be too busy praising the film for its message of inclusivity (which, granted, fair enough) without noting how the main character fails to live up to that standard all the time, and needs to be forgiven when failing to meet that standard.

Anyways, it was great. Nostalgically reminded me of the Bonkers D. Bobcat show "Bonkers" from back in the days of Darkwing Duck and whatnot.

Steve and I headed back to Xi'an Lu so I could get some water- I was in great need, all out (Steve: "You don't have a kettle to boil water at home?" Isaac: "I do, but I gotta be honest here... I'm not going to drink the tap water here. Boiled or not. It's not happening."). We stopped back at Web, but it was a little too late in the day for parking my water there and then getting food, so I lugged it out to, uh, "Yoshinoya"? Maybe that's what it's called. Think Japanese food meets A&W. Had a chicken and rice bowl with some carrots and cauliflower. So, gotta give it to this place, health-wise.

I parted ways with Steve after he got safely into a cab, and then I walked back home with my water. I was concerned I'd be too cold, I was only wearing my button up flannel shirt- I've told you before, I'm a little reckless with the cold weather- I explained to everyone how Canadians always take the first warmer weather to ditch coats and enjoy spring, or go jogging in shorts. You know how we do. But I was pretty okay, I've been much colder.

I arrived home to find a note from Aimen in my door, so I dropped my things off and went to say hi to him- it seems he hasn't left the country for Jordan yet, as they have new visa rules for residency- they want him to have $30, 000 US in a bank account in Jordan. So, scratch that plan. Now he's seeing if he can take more university courses and further extend his student visa. It's a big pain, and everything is up in the air with him. Wish him luck.

And that was it- I had some oatmeal and a banana when I got back to my apartment, even though I had eaten plenty today (Jordan, Duck Dodgers as El Zero making the "so fat" motion. - sorry everyone, just doing an inside joke for my brother), did my laundry- I seem to have discovered the optimal button procedure to activate my laundry machine, I'll keep you informed as ever about that one, watched some Colbert videos I saved onto my USB while at Web, and that's all she wrote. I mean all I wrote. I'm done writing. - 12:01pm

March 7th, 2016

March 7th, 2016

1:01 pm on the 14th, talking about the 6th.

First class was an intermediate business class with Amy, Niko, and Michael- Michael said he was just taking this class to kill time, but he was probably the strongest English speaker in the group. He second guesses himself a little, but he's also friendly and an enthusiastic, good natured participant. Amy was the weakest... actually, maybe Niko was, now that I think about it. It doesn't really matter. Both Amy and Niko have connections to textiles! Uh, yeah, anyways.

My next class was the old get teams to figure out the order of cut strips to make the story of Little Red Riding Hood and Beauty and the Beast. I didn't have enough time to cut the B&B strips before class, but while they were working on the first story in their groups I had time enough to cut ONE set of B&B strips, and so this time I made two people co-group leader- I couldn't decide between Irene and Betty who I should make team leader, they were both very strong, new students- Irene even corrected me at the start of class when I referred to Little Red having a "bag" when I should have said "basket", so obviously I was favouring making Irene the leader, but it was kind of a big job, and the two girls were obviously close friends, okay, co-leaders it is- and they contructed the story while everyone else had pieces, and they could only tell them about which strips they had...

Well, I didn't really have any consequences for people that just tossed their strips to Irene and Betty and let them sort it all out, but thankfully that didn't happen.

Lunch break... I've got no notes.

Then I had a class on supersitions with new student Sherry, two Jasmines, Dora, Amaris, Eamonn, Kevin, and Katarina. Ten minutes or so into the class Iris came late- she wasn't on the attendance list, but there were a couple of blank English name spots on the sheet, so I got her to point to hers...

The class was totally dead, they did not care about this topic whatsoever, didn't contribute, it was rough. Finally I gave up and did something they seemed to dig- I read to each person what the booklet said their star sign was all about. A personal highlight was when I got to Kevin, who's star sign indicated he was a prankster. "That's quite right- Kevin's funniest joke is when he pretends he's a statue in class." That got some laughs. And when I turned to Iris and asked her what her sign was she responded "I think I'm in the wrong class."

That got a good laugh out of me. I didn't think she was at this level. I probably should have kicked her out and over to her proper class and let them deal with the mess, but I let her decide what she was going to do- regardless I didn't sign her book for a class she wasn't registered for.

Well, I got a little talking to from Vicky afterwards for not properly checking the attendance- listen man, she showed up after attendance was taken, that's on her, and there were at least two blank English name spots on the sheet, that's on you Web guys. If she doesn't want to pay to take the class she missed, and you don't want to give her a class for free, well, you guys duke it out. Meanwhile I'll keep making like an English-speaking dancing money like you pay me for. I was a little sore about this talking to- according to my horoscope Taurus don't like getting told what to do. Brother, I can tell you that is bang on correct for my case.

Advanced business class with Jack and Eddie on disagreement. I half forgot which student was which, and neither one is particularly talkative. Went on a tangent explaining about Pavlov and his dogs because I have to talk about something.

The native Chinese teacher, Sophie, who I'd never talked to before, was running late with her salon class taking place where my next class was supposed to be. She apologized for the delay and I told her it happens to me all the time.

This last class was on daily activities with Sam, Leo and Yolanda, who is herself an English teacher, which makes it kind of weird to teach her. And I see she didn't have her homework, that's some kind of irony right there. I forget whether or not there was a good reason, I think maybe she wasn't given it. Still, it's funny. I ended up using Sam for a lot of examples in this class, he had the homework most conducive to the lesson goals.

After class I introduced myself to Sophie- she'd said my name a day or two before, but I had to ask to make sure I knew her name- and I asked her about her class that ran a little late. It seems it was her third salon EVER, so she's still getting used to the whole teaching English thing. She's getting less nervous about it, but she's still lacking in confidence with her spoken English, which is why she hasn't said much to me so far in her time here, instead preferring to speak to Adeel who can, you know, speak Chinese. She said she was going to go change out of her work clothes and left, and I couldn't help but laugh, explaining to Adeel and Dany how often Chinese people have no idea how to end a conversation, opting instead to bluntly state their reason for leaving and then leaving. It's pretty great- I'm sure I'm guilty of doing the same thing.

Sophie returned and I suggested leaving together to continue chatting- we rode the subway together and I went way past my stop, because I'm smooth like that.

Returning home I stopped at the grocery store for some bananas and some kind of junk food- it turns out to be two slices of white bread with jam sealed inside. Having that sitting in the junk food aisle is actually a fairly healthy attitude to have about that particular snack.

It was very tasty, in a familiar sort of way. Not that I've been much for white bread in the last dozen years- didn't you know that stuff is bad for you? 

There's white rice everywhere here. Give me some brown rice! - 1:57 pm

March 6, 2016

March 6, 2016

11:18 am on the 14th, talking about the 5th

I'll keep the class section of this post relatively minimal, but of special note was the second class with a lesson titled "A Victim of Crime". I had a couple of new students (Sherry and Katarina) and we warmed up by splitting into different groups and planning how to commit one of three crimes. There was stealing a purse, stealing a phone, and stealing something from a car... except the stealing from a car group misunderstood and instead came up with a fairly elaborate plan to steal A car. It involved impersonating a police officer, so I congratulated them for the sheer number of crimes they were in the process of committing.

As part of the lesson plan I asked if anyone had been the victim of a crime before, there was a slight murmer, and then I thought "oh no, someone here has been sexually assaulted and I've just ripped open a wound and this is going to be terrible"

But it turns out people have just had their phones stolen... not robbed, maybe they had their pockets picked. Which also means these phones could have fallen out of their pockets on their own. Not particularly traumatizing.

Yeah, I'll skip the rest of my classes, they were fairly straightforward.

After work I went to see "The Mermaid" with Steve and Ailsa. We managed to miss the first minute or so- this theatre doesn't mess around with its starting time- arriving in time to see a fake mermaid exhibit gag where a middle aged man in full mermaid regalia- hair, lipstick, sea shell bra- emerges from a bathtub.

The actual story is about a mer-person plan to kill a wealthy businessman who has been putting sonar devices into the ocean for the sake of driving off dolphins from an island so that the island will no longer be some kind of protected natural preserve and he can build on it. The problem the mer-people have with this is that, besides the obvious evilness of it, the sonar devices are so powerful that they are causing the mer-people to become diseased, and they have now been reduced to living on this secluded, have submerged derelict ship off the island I already mentioned.

The plan they hatch? To send their beauty- the titular mermaid, with a cut fin that allows her to waddle (and skateboard!) on land- to seduce the businessman, bring him back to their home, where they can murder him. The first we see of the mermaid is when she crashes a party the businessman is holding- the businessman is surrounded by beautiful women, and in comes this more than slightly off woman with her smeared makeup and manic expression saying how she loves the businessman so much and to please call her.

Not surprisingly, she is escorted off the premises, though the businessman does take her number for the sake of placating her.

The mermaid returns home and everyone crowds around their lone cell phone waiting for the call. I kept hearing Robert Downey Jr. in my head saying "not a great plan".

Well, the businessman gets burned by his evil sort-of girlfriend, so he calls the mermaid girl to prove a point about him not being trash... it doesn't really make sense. He says he's coming to pick the girl up, but as the mer-people get ready for the bludgeoning and poisoning and whatnot, it turns out the businessman just sent some security guys to pick the woman up. Again, not a great plan.

So the mermaid heads out and their's a wonderfully slapsticky segment where the mermaid is trying to murder the businessman with some poisonous sea-urchins while he's unaware of the whole thing- she ends up getting a couple of urchins stuck to her face (well-timed door opening, a classic), she's frothing at the mouth, barely getting the antidote in time (alcohol) and makes a final leap at the businessman, only to get clocked by his practice golf swing.

Going by this one example, it would appear Chinese movies aren't afraid to make their female leads look ridiculous for the sake of some comedy- I think that's fantastic. I saw an article a while back questioning why The Little Mermaid's (appropriately enough) sidekick Flounder was a boy, when there was a dearth of women characters in that movie, besides the quick flash of Ariel's sisters who I believe where horrible and Ursula, who of course was also horrible. I think the answer is that we're afraid to show anything that could be construed as physical violence against women (discounting Quentin Tarantino, and I'm mostly speaking about comedies). Have you ever heard of the trope where a woman is stopped cold by a shoulder grab? Or the trope "Beauty is never tarnished"? Check them out on tvtropes.org (I'm not actually sure what search terms you'd use for that first one). In short, I've never seen "Bridget Bunny" fall off a cliff.

Ooh, but now that I'm thinking about it, I bet Babs Bunny (no relation) from Tiny Toons fell off her fair share of cliffs. But that show was an amazing exception to the rule.

Hmm, besides the violence aspect, there's also that desire to shoe-horn women into the roles of either Madonna or Whore, I supose catering to a male desire to see these two and only these two? I mention this one second because it didn't occur to me first- I'm not so limited that I only want these two types of woman characters in my stories. Why, yes, I do get defensive on this topic, why do you ask?

That's what was so great about the movie "Neighbors"- both the husband and wife got into the pettiness, the wife wasn't ultimately above joining in. And, yes, as much as I didn't like Bridesmaids, and as much as a room full of people suddenly having violent diarrhea isn't my kind of humour- I do still appreciate that they were willing to make that kind of joke with women.

Okay, that's enough of my offensive views (who hurt you, Isaac?) back to The Mermaid: no surprises, the businessman and the mermaid somehow fall in love despite the whole sonar thing/self described shallow person. The businessman walks her back to her house and he gets taken by the mer-people. They explain they're killing him because of the sonar stuff, and the businessman points out that if they kill him that still won't turn off the sonar devices ("Not a great plan")- a mer-guy approaches the businessman with a bludgeon then stops at the last minute to say to their leader how the business guy has a point. That moment was actually pretty funny to me- I don't think anyone else in the theatre laughed at this.

The mermaid gets the business dude free and he swims away... which should have been the worst way possible to try and escape from mer-people, but I guess the sonar devices are so precise that the mer-people can't leave the ship at all, but also has no effect on the human swimming through the waters... I didn't care for this particular bit of staging.

Business guy goes to the police to tell them he was kidnapped by mermaids which goes about as well as you'd expect- a legitimately hilarious scene, after the business guy leaves the room he hears uproarious laughter, he re-enters to give the police a piece of his mind, but the second he enters the officers are perfectly composed and doing work. The business man leaves, hears laughter, turns around to see, again, the composed officers doing work, but maybe in different parts of the office doing different things. It was great, highly ridiculous, very much my cup of tea.

Anyways, business guy goes to turn off the sonar devices while telling everyone about mermaids- his evil girlfriend believes him, she's been working with a german scientist with a mad on for studying mermaid corpses. Evil girlfriend and German scientist take seal-killing team six (sea what I did there?) to murder the mer-people so they can be dissected and whatnot. Oh no! Business guy has to get to the ship to warn the mer-people, but the traffic is imPOSSIBLE!!

Oh no, this traffic! *trombone noises*

And cut to the ship where mermaids are getting gunned down or torn into with hooks, the mermaid main character gets bruised, bloodied and during a chase through the ocean gets her fin mutilated by a rocket attack, blowing her onto shore where she can barely move, much less escape. There, uh, was a lot of blood in the water.

What kind of movie IS this? Tonally speaking, this scene had no business in this movie.

The businessman arrives to save the day in a jetpack (to answer my earlier question, I guess this is a Chinese movie... the poster for the film "The Man from Macau III" also has people wearing jetpacks. I guess jetpacks are in this year?) before getting shot through with crossbow bolts- the first one hit his butt, which is obviously hilarious (no it's not) before he gets shot twice in the back, the bolts sticking out of either side of his chest, blood coming out of his mouth. Again, what kind of tone is this?!?

The police arrive, the businessman throws the mermaid back into the water (the movie ignores her mutilated fin I guess) and we cut to a few years later where the businessman has given away all his money to environmental causes and started a marine biologist scholarship, the winner of which this year shows up to ask about mermaids- the businessman sagely tells him not to believe everything he sees (the kid has a picture of the mermaid from when she was blown onto land), and introduces his wife, who is totally a normal human woman. The kid leaves.

Psyche, it's the mermaid. The movie ends with the business guy and the mermaid checking out the beauty of the ocean, while the guy is wearing an air bubble helmet, which is a power that was in no way previously established in this film. Also, the cgi for this ending was atrocious, and that's coming from me, I'm often very forgiving of cgi, so take that for whatever it's worth.

When asked what I thought about this movie, what else could I say? "It was very interesting."

Also interesting? The bathroom at the movie theatre is super nice and has soap- big score!

We went to a "Mr. Pizza" which I'm told is very expensive. Considering I bought myself a 102 yuan hawaiian pizza, I'd have to say I agree. But at least it was the size of a large pizza- yes, I pigged out- and was very good, though it had an odd sweetness about it in the crust.

They have an open window into the kitchen/bakery where we can see dudes flipping and twirling pizza dough. I explained how you don't usually see that sort of thing in North America.

Somehow we got on the topic of first impressions and Ailsa said that she thinks of Dany as "pure" and "brotherly". I gave her the tip that she'd better not tell Dany that, those are some pretty negative things to tell a guy. I got "boring", "serious", and "mature". Yikes.

Still better off than Dany. - 12:58 pm

March 5th, 2016

March 5th, 2016

9:46 am on the 11th, talking about the 4th

Did some push-ups then went for a jog, heading east through a weird back street until it became a blocked off parking lot with a narrow street exit to the south. This spat me out onto a main road which I followed until I had run for 15 minutes- my alarm was set for the 17 minute mark, but I didn't really want to go further south- instead, there was a steep hill on the east side of the street that I wanted to tackle. Up I went along the busted up road, passing a guy getting his haircut sitting out on the road (which is awesome). I took in my surroundings at the top of the hill- it was a park, a nice one, too, and there was some body weight exercise equipment being used by some older folks. I sat down on a leg press machine that lifted my whole body, got up and turned to go back home, when a buff old guy walked past. He gave me a headnod which, as you know, is one of the best parts about being an adult male.

I ran back home and prepared for work.

At Roosevelt I bought an almost translucent dumpling with purple highlights in some kind of cold soup with shredded green-things-that-taste-like-potato. Tasted good to me, but what didn't taste good was the fact that I was eating this instead of preparing my English Corner for the day, I didn't look up whatever strange and archaic Shakespeare words that were bound to come up. That was a seamless segue(sp?), right?

Ah, my first class was with Lydian, boss' wife, about the History of Einstein- I went off talking about the theory of relativity and one of Einstein's famous thought experiments, and talking about the recent observation of, what, gravity particles, yes? Basically I managed to sound like I knew a thing or two about science and impressed Lydian. Yes, yes, stay in the good books...

Today's Hamlet had us go over Polonius telling the King and Queen about  how Hamlet has been acting with Ophelia, and he reads a love letter which I read with appropriate gusto: "doubt that the stars are made of fire, but doubt not my love for thee" or however it goes. Ailsa said she enjoyed the love letter and found this to be an interesting class- that's good news, though I was trying to get the class to tell me the love letter was a bit over the top, coming on a little hard. Ah well.

During my break I walked with Steve for a while around the 4th floor, attracting the attention of the man who own the Indian food establishment on the north end of the mall. I don't want to make his acquaintance, because then I'd have to get India food- no thanks. Maybe the dessert will be okay. I grabbed food with Nikita while Steve left to meet Sylar, returning Sylar-less, but with some kind of drinks for all of us. Mine was a sort of spicy fruit punch, quite nice. Also, I intermitently waved to this little girl a few tables over that kept looking my way- she seemed to enjoy the attention, as do we all.

I left for a beginner class on the weather with Kelsi, Lareina, and Sundy before having a beginner salon with Kelsi, Iris, Daniel, Vic, David, and Steven. Of all the people I've mentioned just now, I'll take a moment to tell you about David: he's significantly older than most everyone else in the room, has to be in his 50's, always in that red plaid shirt, and he has a lot of metal hardware in his mouth, a filling, a cap, I don't know, but when he smiles there's a lot going on in there. And I get to see him smile a lot, because he's kind of a joker- but only in Chinese, so everyone is laughing at something he's said, and I have no clue. Which is okay! He's also always carrying a camera around his neck to photograph the whiteboard for notes, and he asks to take the class lesson plan from me to take a picture of that too. That last part is probably not kosher, but I don't care, go for it.

Finally there was a lower intermediate level salon with Zoe, Bob, Min, Queena, Sunny, Ian, and Jessi on characteristics, so we talked about describing different facial parts. I taught them the phrase "Hitler-stache" and somehow I got asked about using Miss, Ms., Mrs. or Madam- I told them it was up to the person you talked to, because I've heard every single one offend someone: Miss/Ms. - "I'm sorry, do I look like a little girl?" Mrs. - "Do I look like I'm married?" or "Do I look like an old woman?" and Madam - "Do I look like I run a brothel?"

"What's "Brothel"?"

"Uuuhhh" You've really done it this time, Isaac- "it's a place to... purchase... time, to... ah, it's where you buy sex."

Teenage Bob, delighted look on his face: "That's dirty!"

I wasn't about to get into this debate, so I just agreed. And there was young Zoe, eagerly copying the word "brothel" into her book, like she's what's-her-name from Bob's Burgers. Tina? I haven't watched much Bob's Burgers. Despite the delicate situation I'd stumbled into, I was glad to see both young men and women show an interest in the topic.

Speaking of delicate situations, outside of class Alona was upset- we had just got paid today and I think she was expecting more, and she was frustrated by all the English Corners they have her do, and that she isn't paid as much as a native English speaker (In my mind I was definitely tugging my collar awkwardly at this one), so I had to walk that tightrope of using my jokey inclinations to make her feel better without taking it too far that she feels I'm not respecting her problems, listening and trying to be helpful but without giving in to that impulse to explain away her problems, so, you know, trying to be helpful.

At one point she said how she thought she was strong, that she tries to be strong... before getting interrupted by Leo bluntly barging into the situation- but his tactlessness was actually amusing and did lighten the situation.

I walked Alona out, offered to go get coffee or even (blech) KFC, but she declined in favour of going home and sleeping. Fair enough, but, and this is what I told her (be ready, I'm about to throw everyone in Canada under the bus) "what you said before about not being strong, well, strong, weak, maybe I don't know what that is, but if you're comparing yourself to other people, let me tell you, I don't know ANYONE that has come to teach in China. I know a lot of people that have taught in Asia, but I didn't know anyone that taught in China until I came here- as far as I know you've lasted 8 months in China longer than anyone else in Canada!"

Well, I said something like that anyways. She appreciated the thought.

Aw man, I had to be all helpful and whatnot instead of reading an article about how Bale didn't think he quite nailed the role of Batman.

Spoiler alert, I read it the next day, and it didn't really have much insight at all. - 10:48 am

March 4th, 2016

March 4th, 2016

11:01 am on the 10th talking about the 3rd

I wasn't going to write this post right now, I really should go to the grocery store before work starts, but once I looked at my notes I saw, ah, I don't have much to say, so this will be a very short entry.

My first class was with a Sunny, Steven, and Ian doing restaurant reviews. Ian is a weaker student, but he was fairly comfortable with this subject and therefore participated more than usual, which is great.

My English Corner today I finished Act 1 Scene 5 of Hamlet, we only had the ending bit after the Ghost leaves to talk about, and then we started Act 2 Scene 1 (nooo, really? You didn't do Act 4 Scene 2? Yes, yes, obvious, I know) about how Polonius is a fool who has the bright idea to learn about whatever his son is up to by getting his agent to spread lies about Laertes. Additionally, Ophelia talks about Hamlet acting crazy- I got Jasmine to be Ophelia and I walked away from her while keeping eye contact to demonstrate what the play said. Jasmine conceded it was weird.

Then I had a beginner class consisting of Jane, Victoria, Tom #1 and Tom #2. Tom #2 was late, so he had to be #2.

A salon class titled "An English Personality" with two Sunny's, Queena, Zoe, Min, Steven, and Vicky. I forget what the rest of the class was all about, but the warm-up wanted us to tell outrageous lies about ourselves and keep a straight face. Some, Zoe for one, kept a perfectly straight face, but also didn't have very outrageous lies. She could have simply been telling the truth, no good. Far and away, my favourite of the class was Queena, who was able to tell us that she lives on Mars perfectly straight faced. When I commented on how well she was doing she said "because it's true!" so, yes, she was amazing at this.

My last class was about naming different foods with Ailsa, Vicky, and Nina- and I can recall that they had a relatively short list of vegetables. Tsk, tsk people, gotta learn those vegetables.

The last thing of note was how, after all these classes were over, I noticed a new display, a series of teacher profiles on Vicky, Stella, and Kristina. I remembered how Stella asked for some help to come up with a slogan sort of thing on a learning English philosophy for this- I believe I recommended something like "Open ears, open eyes, open mind" which I dare say is pretty good. But as I was reading through these profiles, uh, it was kind of scary the kind of mistakes that were on them. It's just that, you know, I rely on these people to understand me- just how much of what I say is getting lost in translation? Yes, fine, all my jokes, that's okay, years of training has gotten me used to that, but what else?

It isn't really a big deal, I was just a bit startled.

And that was that day. Short, right? Okay, let's get out of here and, I don't know, work hard? Escape to North Korea? Wait, no, scratch that last one, that would be a terrible idea-- besides, I don't need to escape, I'm quite comfortable, thanks very much. - 11:21 am

March 3rd, 2016

March 3rd, 2016

9:30 am on the 10th, talking about the 2nd

Obviously I've fallen behind on my posts- there's been less urgency to complete them right away since I started taking (semi-)detailed notes during my work days. Like, no worries, I won't forget anything important, it's all on the worksheet. And my efforts to catch up while at work have been an abyssmal(sp?) failure. I'm just too busy there, either with preparing for classes or helping students with questions. Or getting lunch. That happens a lot too. And you know lunch is a time waster, what with dropping food back into its dish all the time- thanks, chopsticks. (I'm getting pretty good, but still...)

Okay, let's try and do two days worth this morning and start catching up. Here are my notes:

I was given a work schedule for the coming week at the last minute before leaving Web the day before (I forgot about that) and I was supposed to go to Qingniwaqiao Web Wednesday. Which is THIS day! I started my day with 8 sets of 12-13 push ups, taking a minute rest in between sets... well, by the end I wasn't quite hitting those numbers, but I was resolved to not leave my apartment before I had pushed my body up from that floor 100 times, thereby rendering my upper body useless for the remainder of the day. 

Slightly exaggerating, but whatever. It was fun! Both the push ups and the exaggeration.

I power walked to Roosevelt so I could grab a quick snack at Food Bazzar before attempting to go for a run to Qingniwaqiao Web- at the Roosevelt Food Bazzar they were serving some kind of large wrap for 12 yuan. The wrap itself was weirdly shiny... but I'd never seen this before so, despite my previous intention to grab the smallest of snacks I really wanted to try it. What if they never served it again??- unfortunately, I didn't think about the cost of this wrap and two sticks of meat (each stick about 2.5-3 yuan) until I was already in line to pay. Aaah I don't think there's enough money on my food card... I crossed my fingers, but no, my mistake. So I sort of waved at the cashier person that I'd be right back, zipped over to put money back on my card, and it worked out okay.

The wrap had egg, lettuce, shredded carrot- I think shredded potato as well. And I'm glad I got the hotdog on the stick thing, because I needed the stick to pick out pieces of the wrap that got stuck on my teeth. 

Stopping in at Roosevelt Web, I filled up my water bottle, waved hi to, I think it was just Stella there at the moment, and got out of the building to start my run to Qingniwaqiao at 12:07 pm in my jeans, wearing my backpack and tilly hat, and carrying my jacket- man, what a nice day out.

I set my alarm for 12:30 pm, once that hit I had to consider hopping on the subway to make it to work on time. Once 12:30 hit I switched to walking, but was pretty sure I was close enough that I didn't need the subway- that's assuming I was even near enough to one for the idea to be useful. But I definitely wasn't going to make it if I kept walking, so 12:35 I got back to running.

I was running down Zhongshan Street/Road/whatever but it turns out the road forks and I, I took the road less travelled. By me, I mean. Like, I'd never been there before. 

And this wasn't me being whimsical, I just picked the wrong one... I'm keeping my eyes open for street signs, but I'm not seeing anything. Finally I thought, even though I'd never run to Qingniwaqiao before, "I should be there by now..." so I asked a woman, pointing at the road, "Zhongshan?" and she replied "no, Zhongshan is that way" pointing north a block or so. I thanked her and started running north, taking a minute before realizing, oh, hey, she spoke English.

I got to Zhongshan and it was right where the subway spits you out to get to Qingniwaqiao Web- I was there! Arriving at 12:44 pm (stop the clock on my run), I entered and waved hello to everyone, making my way to the bathroom to change into a dryer shirt, and when I looked at myself in the mirror OH MAN I was so red. Like, I know I get red after a run, but this was too much, chee-ee, so I thought augh everyone I just waved at thinks I'm about to die or something.

Okay, as for my classes for the day, I had a lower intermediate class about Planning Ahead with Mona, June, and Neal, talking about some fictional character named Max and using language to express degrees of certainty. And I wrote: "Max doesn't have enough degrees of certainty to sustain a class." Looks like this was a tough one to get through.

Then came my English Corner- it seems the projector wasn't working, but that was fine by me, I was just going to show some clips from Colbert's Late Night show, instead I talked about my favourite English Professor and some of his method, before switching gears to spend the rest of the time talking about Trumbo, the perceptions of communism in 1950's America to present, and the Hollywood Blacklist. It went very well, and I had the particular attention of Penelope sitting at the front- I think we've had a class together before, but I wasn't sure, so I re-introduced myself after the English Corner. Rather out of the blue she asked me if I knew Marvel Comics stories, which of course I do, and she said she was a fan of Marvel and DC. So that was a cool surprise.

Another surprise I had was that Bradley had come to visit Qingniwaqiao today, so he got to enjoy an English Corner that wasn't Hamlet, and then we went to get lunch together. He was reluctant to go into Victory Plaza- he thought we'd get lost- but I wanted to find Kung Fu Cheese since I told the guy I would visit his store the next time I was there. Well, let me tell you know, I've been to Victory Plaza twice since I was invited to Kung Fu Cheese and I still haven't found the place. Ghost restaurant? I mean, probably.

Instead I once again had that boneless "Ber Da" chicken, which I shared with Bradley, but he didn't actually take that much. And then I grabbed a slice of pineapple pizza that was mighty fine, but Bradley wanted something a bit more substantial, so we made our way outside and to the "Food Marche" place in the mall to the south that I said I wouldn't go back to. Aw, I was too hard on the place, it's okay- Badley showed me a hot rice bowl place, where the rice gets cooked sitting in the hot stone bowl that you carry around and is a lawsuit waiting to happen were this America. Or Canada even, that's how dangerous we're talking.

By this time my lunch break was pretty close to being over- Bradley actually suggested we didn't have time for this rice bowl business. But I was feeling reckless I guess- "Naah, it's fine, we've got time". Long story short, I had to blow on my rice a lot to try and cool it down enough to throw in my mouth so I could pour it on down my gullet and run back to Qingniwaqiao Web. Savour the food I did not. But I made it back with a whole minute to spare before my next class! Yeah man, the master of time management over here.

My next class was a salon on Travel and Holidays with May, Beverly, Cindy, Elena, Jim, Mona, Helen, and KRYSTAL. (Hey, that's how it was written in the attendance sheet, all caps) The different groups had to role play whatever was on the cards, and I think it was Mona and KRYSTAL that consistently took the most time to get prepared- I would say they were the weakest students, but, surprisingly, I think Jim approached me at the end of the day to ask to be listed as "refer" instead of "pass". No one had ever done that before, plus our class was a couple of hours ago at this point, so I was confused about why he asked me- I already handed in the sheet man, talk to the people at the desk.

Then I had a private class with 4 people that I have neglected to write anything about, so I got nothing.

Finally I had another salon class on speculating about the future, with only three participants out of the listed 6: Grace, Lorna, and "Astar" who, appropriately enough, reminded me of Leonard Nemoy. So I obviously had a great time.

After class I chatted with Tyler for a bit instead of catching the subway all the way home, so I had a nice walk back from Roosevelt. - 10:26 am