January 11th, 2016

10:04 am

I kept turning over and going back to sleep, such that I expected to wake up to darkness and a wasted day. But no, it's still early, and a beautiful blue sky greets me through my window.

Ignore the smokestack in the distance. (You don't actually see it from a reclined position.)

I'm a big fan of this "sleeping on a hard surface" thing. And I had some sweet dreams, notwithstanding a zombie invasion or two.

So yesterday I neglected to write early in the morning because my required arrival time is 9am. "Everybody's working on the weekend", that's the phrase, right? (I'm aware that isn't the phrase)

I ran into my coworker Leo- one of the Chinese teachers, he spent some time studying in Halifax. Besides the exchange of pleasantries, he flashed a work badge at the entrance to Roosevelt Plaza, bringing me along for the ride- so I didn't have to wait outside in the cold.

I had to prepare an English Corner today. Despite the repaired projector, I didn't get any pictures or video ready for it. Part of the reason was that I wasted my time on Facebook, and then I was answering some students questions, and then the computer just didn't co-opererate when I needed it to. Which is a shame, because I was planning to speak about Rob Ford, and there are some excellent videos of the guy. I didn't think about it too much, I had a successful English Corner without pictures before, I'm sure today would be no different (it was different).

I think I only had the one class to teach before lunch- besides the two adults there was this sweet kid Bill who was very bright, he zipped off the question prompts "who, what, when, where, why" - he did a lot of work in the class. Hopefully he had a little fun too.

Went to lunch with Adeel and Bradley at a Food Bazzar separate from where I usually go, on the other end of Roosevelt Plaza. And it's way nicer. What?

You need a different card, so I was all set to get a new one, but Bradley waved me off and bought me lunch. Hmm this is way too much free food. It's really helping me out, but the guilt factor is high. We got a sort of boxed Korean lunch thing, there was rice with an egg on top, somewhat breaded or, I don't know, becrumb-ed chicken, some spicy lettuce-y bits (was it some kimchi? no one mentioned what it was...) and some regular lettuce-y bits. All of which was covered in some artfully drawn lines of a white sauce.

I mean, more artfully than I could perhaps do.

We discussed house parties/diner parties in the west versus going out culture here, as well as passive aggression. I may have a problem with talking about subjects that are too advanced for the level of English I'm working with. For a prime example, see my upcoming English Corner on Rob Ford.

English Corner time. I walk in, go to the board, and plot myself a timeline for the, well, lecture, "Rob Ford: - Who was he before he became Mayor? -How did he get elected? -Accomplishments in office - Gaffes - World wide reception - The next election and beyond"

I was pretty happy with this, honestly, impromptu framing- and if this was me giving a presentation in almost any other scenario it would have gone amazing. I spoke for about 42 minutes going through my bullet points above, stopping to explain terms as I went along. 

But I needed to speak for 60 minutes. So that's my first problem. I was dangling in the wind for longer than I'd like. What did I even talk about to fill in the rest of the time? Yeesh, it was rough.

Also, they generally didn't care about municipal politics in Toronto. And they look at me like I'M the weird one.

At one point, definitely after the 42 minute mark, I asked the class how it worked in Dalian. Who was in charge of Dalian? But that didn't go anywhere- no one knew the answer. Maybe this is one of those cities that are run by a computer in a cave somewhere, one paradoxical question away from a CPU meltdown and total anarchy on the streets.

*Looks at the streets* Uh, it may have aleady happened.

I wasn't really over the bumming out of the previous day, and now I knew this English Corner didn't go over well. So I was feeling pretty low energy at this point.

Stella asked if I was free to talk soon, and it was pretty clear she wanted to discuss my English Corner. I tried not to get apprehensive, but the "can we talk" phrase has never been good. I should probably tell her how rough a phrasing that is to hear.

I taught another class about stress and intonation, and while I still admitted my difficulties with finding the stress in sentences, I also pointed out how the stress can change in a sentence depending on the situation. Of course after saying that, the next line in the lesson plan itself says that the stress can change depending on the situation. So, I owed the lesson plan an apology, it knows what it's doing. Armed with this safety net, I ventured to actually act like I knew what I was talking about and we searched for the stressed words in a one page sketch about a parent and child.

I passed around a four paragraph portion of the "I Have a Dream" speech (er, unless that's the whole thing..) and everyone had a turn reading a paragraph. I knew this would be tough, but the third paragraph was obviously the most difficult, and I gave it to the weakest student. By the time I realized that's how the paragraphs would be distributed in the class I thought it was too late to change things without making it obvious that I was trying to go easy on that one student. So, deep end for her it is.

Maybe I should have read the speech first, so they could hear me and try to imitate how I performed it. That would probably have made sense, but if we ran out of time could you imagine if the only person that got a chance to read the speech out loud was the teacher? That'd be no good. I read for them afterwards, and they all sort of went "Aahh". They, as absurd as it sounds, really enjoyed listening to me read it.

Man, maybe I could make English Corner just me reading an English book to them? That would be the sweetest deal in the world.

I talked with Leo, waiting for Stella to be free- though it seemed there was an expectation for me to stay until uh, whenever, an hour after my last class was, when the place closed for the day. Which is fine, makes sense, it's just that I hadn't been told that specifically. Finally, Stella was actually just leaving and I specifically asked her what was up- she seemed embarrassed, and she buttered me up with "the students like your accent and they like you" (the first being mostly an accident of where I was born, and the second being somewhat irrelevant to whether or not I do a good job at work) "but that your choice of English Corner topics are..."

Yes, not interesting. 

During my 18 minutes of dangling in the wind I straight up asked them what they wanted to hear- the thing I heard most (not that there was a lot of volunteered topics here) was that they just wanted to hear stories. I promised them some stories about Spider-Man.

I walked out the door behind Leo and Stella- they seemed to only realize I might be walking in their direction after the fact, so I thought I might be intruding on a romantic interlude or somesuch. So I went in the opposite direction to explore the basement level of Mykal- it seems the basement level of all these shopping centers is where all the grocery stores are. I found some oatmeal, almost a decent sized package, but it's still crazy expensive. They import it in from Australia. There's a kangaroo on  the package.

Guys, oatmeal is so good for you, maybe lay off the white rice for a bit, huh? Eh? Maybe?

Crossing the street, I explored the grocery store, Carrefour, in that basement. The entrance had security, which pointed at me to put my water bottle into my backpack- I complied, though it's a sucky quality of plastic, I was worried it might warp or something and I wouldn't be able to open it later without the bottle exploding. That may sound like something that wouldn't happen, well, it happened to me with another bottle... actually, I didn't even get it open, it just started leaking water from the top and I couldn't get enough purchase to unscrew it after the fact. I just dumped the bottle in the garbage.

Ah, but, that didn't happen this time, it's all good.

There's a secret upper level to Carrefour that it didn't look like I could escape from- entrance only. Connecting the upper and lower levels is a movator, stairless-escalator, that I think is running a little faster than I'm used to, I jerked back further than I would have anticipated, and could have easily fallen. I didn't, but I'm prepared to accept the existence of a universe where I could have fallen there.

Finally escaping, I journeyed north through the wind to my apartment. That moment there was the coldest I've been all this winter so far, getting that biting into my face coldness.

Back in my apartment, I didn't feel like writing at all, I just wanted to sleep. But I also didn't want to set that kind of precedent for the year (have I missed writing at all yet this year? I don't think so, but maybe I said differently in an earlier post..) so I thought I would just start, get the key bits out. To my surprise, I got into the groove and ended up doing the entire post I wanted to write- or at any rate, I was very satisfied with the amount of work that I'd put into it.

And that's it. 11:31 am. I'll do some push ups, brush some teeth, grab some white rice somewhere, and then I think I'll spend my day walking south. See what I find.

Wish me luck, have a good day

January 10th, 2016

9:04pm

Ah, I'm still a little bummed about the 9th (i.e. the day I talk about on the tenth... the tenth itself could have gone better, too) 

I had food with Sherry (I think that's how you spell it) and Tom- or rather, just Sherry, having lost Tom after he went to the bathroom before we found a set seat. He either thought we were meeting somewhere else (I'm pretty sure Ii saw him in the same Food Bazzar area as us...) or he ditched us to promote a "date" atmosphere for Sherry and myself. Of course making sure that atmosphere didn't appear was a key reason behind my inviting Tom along with us.

I'm afraid I can't remember exactly what I ate, other than the grilled cheese sandwich (plot twist, it was sweet). I distinctly remember sitting there eating every last crumb, each pinch of the chopstick coming up with a motes worth of food, but that describes all of my meals.

The thing that got me down was this one class, there was this one grammar point- and this wasn't a particularly difficult grammar point, I hadn't even given it a second thought, I wasn't nervous about it or anything, but it had to do with when to use some particular connecting word in a sentence. I off-handedly said I didn't know the exact rule for why you add this word or not, and then a little later this student said I should watch some grammar videos on youtube. He wasn't trying to be a dick, I'm pretty sure he was trying to be helpful, but the best way to get me hot under the collar is to question my competency- especially when you may be right about me. I immediately felt myself get defensive, and I reminded myself he didn't mean anything by it. Regardless, I hopped up and essentially created a rule on the spot for the situation. Whether it was right or wrong, it was an impressive display of bullshitery.

I stewed about it for the rest of the day, clearly.

I stopped at Chinese Wal-Mart after work and wandered around for an hour or so, figuring out the best deal for laundry detergent, a proper blanket and scouring the food area for some way to drown my sorrows in jelly beans.

Still no sign of a cheap watch anywhere, which is insane. All our cheap watches are from China. Do we have them all??

The bread and pastry section is massive, as is the meat and fish section. They have tanks of fish... well, okay, I remember one fish swimming around, but I was mostly looking at the frogs and turtles. I'm sorry you're going to be eaten, turtles! You deserve to practice ninjitsu in peace. These turtles also had sort of a weird elongated nose, like they had a mole-thing going on. It was also harder to tell where the shell ended and the turtle began compared to canadian turtles. That, and they were pretty big.

I guess you could say I like turtles.

There were a couple of bulk bins of stuff- no oatmeal, pumpkin seeds, or raisins. I did find those things, but in small pouches and expensive (oatmeal), also expensive (pumpkin seeds), and weirdly green (raisins). And let's be real, those weird green raisins were also probably expensive.

Examining the chip selection, there was original, lime, some kind of meat flavour, okay, sure, and tomato style, which, hailing from the land of ketchup chips I can't judge, and, instead of salt and vinegar, they had shrimp flavoured chips, which makes it official. I'm in a land of monsters. Just awful, awful people.

If I get disappeared after this post I want everyone to know I'm a martyr to the cause of salt and vinegar chips. Circulate a petition. Help these people.

I decided to get some bulk donuts and these sugar orange slices that looked as though they could be similar to watermelon candy or fuzzy peaches or the like. I found the place with bags near a sort of scale station, which I figured out is where you're supposed to take the bags of stuff once you fill them with stuff- they get weighed and a sticker seals them shut, as well as affixing the price onto the bag.

Besides one bin that had a scoop inside, there was a bucket with a couple of scoops sitting between the bulk options, clearly meant for whichever bin you'd like to use it for- cross contamination city.

I dug into the orange slices and... no, no, no, the hardness nooo it's hard candy! Why? Why! I wanted something I'd enjoy, not this life saver-like tongue cutting garbage.

Once you dig a scoop in, you're committed, that's my philosophy. So I have a small bag that will last my a while. Consarnit. Every time I pop one into my mouth I think about how good an orange shaped candy akin to fuzzy peaches would be. Patent pending, patent pending, patent pending.

The doughnuts conformed to my expectations of fried dough covered in a sugar glaze. The Chinese seem to be doughnut masters, actually. I can't complain about the donuts.

This place is going to ruin my health.

I found some fruit, and decided to take some precious, precious bananas with me. It was a large bundle, and they were fairly ripe already. Without Simon to help me in my banana eating endeavours I was definitely worried about wasting some. But I could eat multiple bananas, it's fine.

Or it would have been, except I didn't realize that I needed to take the bananas to another weigh station to get checked and have a price attached. After waiting in line (though in China, it's still a Wal-Mart line up, it took awhile) the cashier waved at the bananas, pointed back at my other bulk options, indicating that I needed that set price sticker. I waved off buying the bananas, there's no way I was getting out of line.

I walked home doing bicep curls with my new detergent. It wasn't that heavy.

Desperately needing to do laundry, I examined the laundry washing machine in my bathroom. I, uh, got it to work. I think it was the longest setting,much longer than I probably needed, and the thing would violently shake at times during the hour so it was doing its work, but my laundry seemed to be getting washed.

In the meantime, I reclined. I ate doughnuts. I crunched into an orange slice that tasted of sugar and regret. I shaved. Finally, my laundry was ready to escape its centrifugal prison. 

Everything was wrinkly as all get out, and I had no "real" laundry rack hanging around, so I've currently got most of my laundry either sitting in the window looking partition between the bedroom and the sitting area, or up where a curtain would go to separate, again, the bedroom and the sitting area. And I've got some laundry laying flat on the kitchen counter. 

I'm in no hurry whatsoever to move these items. Yes, yes, I do live like a squatter.

Well, a squatter with a nice blanket.

I'm listening to my collection of songs, it's reached the section full of Kamen Rider songs. I could sure go for some Kamen Rider. And jelly beans.

It's 10:25pm. I'm going to listen to a few more songs then fall asleep with no alarm set. It's my day off tomorrow.

Good night

January 9th, 2016

6:35am

Quick point for clarification: I said I didn't have water in my apartment, yet I took a shower- that is to say, I haven't trusted the tap water enough to drink or rinse my toothbrush with. So I didn't have drinking water, but yes, I've got plenty of running water.

Yesterday was verging on routine: no pre-work trips downtown (I assume that was downtown), no errands to run... er, well, I should have run an errand or two, but I didn't think about them until it was too late.

Instead I just slept in a bit, wrote about my day, and leisurely walked to work where, after seeing I had about 14 minutes or so until the time I had to report in, I actually went and got myself a cup of watermelon pieces for breakfast. As far as breakfasts here go, that's probably as healthy as it gets. Returning to work with my breakfast in tow, Alona told me we weren't really supposed to eat at our stations. I laughed and said I wasn't even sure I was allowed to walk it out of the Food Bazzar area.

Then she had another interesting thing to tell me: my VIP student from the other day is actually the wife of the guy that owns the business. It seems if she didn't like me, that's it, I'd be out of here. No worries, she seemed to be on board with charming ol' Isaac (mmm, it's good she didn't see my first English Corner...). I was considering mentioning something the next time we have a class together, like "You didn't tell me you were in charge here!" but I think not. Dangerous waters, best leave well enough alone and play dumb, I'm great at that here.

My first class was on stress and intonation, and how we use it to impart information faster to each other than a non-native speaker may be ready to listen for. As this lesson includes some slang, and I had talked to Bradley about slang the day before, I invited him to sit in on the class. I doubt that was exactly kosher, I don't know if each class is paid for individually or not, but it's probably like giving him a free class. Plus it was material that was perhaps more advanced than he was ready for- but he's a very enthusiastic student, one of the most likely students to offer up answers in class, and that deserves something in recompense.

I sort of glossed of the idea of finding stressed syllables in a sentence, because I have no business teaching that. Trying, and failing, to do that is what hit me so bad in my Shakespeare class. But the most pertinent points of the lesson were straightforward enough: that the information imparted in a sentence is different based on the stress, and that is the reason you may have a hard time keeping up with a native speaker- while you're trying to decipher an entire sentence worth of information, the only thing anyone else needs to hear is that one new piece of information. The example sentence we discussed was "I have been studying journalism." and there were four different questions, each prompting for a different key piece of information that would change the stress, and the kind of information, that you'd listen for. "Has your brother been studying journalism?" "Will you be studying journalism?" Have you been teaching journalism?" "Have you been studying chemistry?"

I thought that was a great example, it made a lot of sense, was easy to follow, and imparted some very useful information. Great. Then we practiced the addition of um, you know, that raised inflection sound to make a question? So that, basically anything could be a question? But then one guy was confused because the sentence wasn't written with a proper question format? With, like, an "Is it" at the front, or something? But I told him we were just talking about the inflection? And so he was right, but that wasn't what we were talking about?

It was a good time.

And then I had my second English Corner.

This time I didn't bother with the videos or screen shots or whatever- the projector still isn't working. And, like anything, it's important to have a kind of philosophy going in. For my first English Corner my philosophy was "show an interesting video with particular vocabulary in mind to teach" and, though it wasn't entirely my fault, it didn't go over so well. It's no good to have a class like this be something I dread, I needed a new philosophy, such that I could enjoy this English Corner business and make it easy. I briefly considered asking almost exactly that question to someone "what philosophy are we going for here" or "what is the goal of the English Corner" but I felt it was a bit late in the game to ask that, and honestly, I think I've heard any answer they'd have given before. So here's how I approached it: "Pick a topic. Just talk about it. They just want to hear a naturalized speaker. Slow it down a bit. Ask some questions. Ask FOR some questions." Specifically, and most reassuringly, my philosophy was "They just want to hear a naturalized speaker." I talked about the different methods of public transit in Toronto- and it went amazing! I was in far more control of the material than the previous occasion, and I hit on a topic that I promised to talk about in the future: Mayor Ford. Whoo boy.

I had two hours after that until my next class, but I spent a little time asking extra questions from the English Corner people (which meant I was actually intruding on someone else's time to teach in that space, one of the Chinese teachers, who, after I apologized, said "thanks for taking some of my burden" which is an antiquated phrasing, but that's cool. Ah, and then I was approached by a guy that was immigrating (er, emmigrating?... *sigh* I don't know man) he's coming to live in Canada! In Montreal! So he wanted to ask me some questions. The only problem was that if I didn't find some laundry stuff in this two hour window, I wasn't getting it tonight, and I kind of need it... the hour mark passed, the guy left, and I was set to, if nothing else, eat. Steve and Bradley invited me to come eat with them, and Alona came too. We went to the Food Bazzar area, where the first thing I grabbed was a dessert type of thing that I'd been meaning to try for a while- I was told it was made of sweet potato, it looked like a sort of mashed potato with some sort of jam/berry topping. It tasted like it sounds, jam on potatoes. It's good, but jam tends to be good.

I grabbed a sort of egg patty fried together with some bits of carrot and greenery. It looked like if a hash brown was made with, you know, substance to it. Slightly greasy, but that's a hashbrown type for you. It's weak to paper towel type pokemon.

I also had some fried... somethings. I have no idea, really. There didn't appear to be anything inside, so it may have just been batter? They were shaped that I was more than half expecting to bite into shrimp. They were also pretty cold, so that was a poor choice. Lastly I picked up a piece of bread/pastry/bun that was sweet when I first bit into it but then was mostly buttery. I don't know, it was a complicated taste, but I liked it a lot.

After Alona left the table we mostly chatted about Marvel characters- I know Bradley isn't into that, so next time we'll talk more about what he likes to talk about.

I was due in about 15 minutes for class, so I asked Steve if he'd take some cash and grab some laundry soap for me- he agreed, and later I found the bar of "Popular" brand laundry soap waiting for me in front of my computer staton for the day. It... looked like a bar of soap. I found Steve, thanked him for picking it up, and asked "so.. this just goes in the laundry machine then?"

He quickly told me no, that the bar is for handwashing clothes and that I shouldn't put it into the washing machine, that there's liquid soap for that, and he was sorry he didn't realize I had a machine. No worries, maybe I'll do some handwashing that night. *Spoiler alert* I didn't.

*Clarity note* I've done laundry, guys, I just don't take a whole lot for granted here. We throw packets of soap into the dishwashing machine back home... maybe this is just a larger version of the same idea? A soap packet for the laundry machine? So, that was my reasoning.

I had to teach past tense versus present perfect. And I'm just not familiar enough with it to explain it properly, to explain the rules behind it. I need to make sure I scan my lesson plans, not just for which pages may need to be photocopied, but lessons requiring specific tense issues, if for no other reason then so I can look over the tense notes I have in my notebook.

I guess you could say the subject makes ME tense! (yay, confetti everywhere, no one has ever successfully made that pun before in the history of English- I'm a champion!! Free scarves for everyone!)

I had a class on the terms plus, minus, times (I threw in 'muliplied by' to go with), divided by, and equals. The testing of such terms had us doing a lot of simple math... simple, but it still tripped me up checking the answers. Subtraction and division, what can I say? They can trip you up.

One girl said, for "0.25", "zero point twenty-five", and I said it should be "zero point two five". That's right, right? Do you ever say "zero point twenty-five"? At the very least, it isn't ordinary usage.

That math class had a girl waiting well before the other two arrived- Sunny. She's apparently spent ten years learning Japanese, so we talked about the few Japanese words I know. She was easily the strongest student for that class, always ready to answer (okay, that's enough Sunny) and always remembering to add the units.

I had my last class with Steve and Grace, who is expecting her first kid. The lesson revolved around practical applications of past tense versus present perfect, which is fine. It's easy enough to hear, it's just explaining the rules of the grammar that I need to work on.

It was a relatively straightforward lesson- I mentioned the trouble I had with the grammar portion earlier in the day, and Grace razzed me with a "maybe we shouldn't trust you on this". I assured her, with listening, you were in good hands.

And that's pretty much it. I saw the next day was Saturday, which meant having to arrive at 9am, so that hurts. It's 8:06am now, so I've got to rush over to get to work.

Wish me luck, have a good day

January 8th, 2016

January 8th, 2016

9:44am

I hope I've got the writing stamina to get through this next day and not have to keep playing catch up.

Waking up just after 6am, did some writing here. Okay, you know that part. I had to leave to make the trip to Zhongshan Square once again, to finally get that moneygram, and return to the Web International building to meet Stella, who was going to help me finalize the apartment documentation (Vicky has left for a holiday in Japan I believe).

After flossing it became apparent that I don't have a place for trash. Okay, something to look into. In the meantime, you just rest here along the sink, little used piece of floss.

As a reminder, I hadn't brought water with me, so after brushing my teeth I rinsed my brush and mouth with the travel listerine I'd brought along. That kind of makes sense, right? My shower has a see-through glass door that swings both in an out, which surprised me. The shower has an overhead um showerhead, roughly twice the diameter of any showerhead I was familiar with. By the size and its placement it looked more like it was supposed to be a large light fixture than a place for water to come out. Sitting along the pipe was another showerhead, smaller, with a more rectangular design, this one could be removed from its station and waved around however you like. I had some trouble switching between the two showerhead functions, the only obvious switch between the two was merely coming unscrewed as I turned. It was a push/pull thing.

Well, I didn't want to pull the thing off anymore than I wanted to unscrew it! If that thing falls down the drain, it is GONE!

Slightly cold shower, when you rotate the handle to the warm side the water pressure goes a bit, which isn't ideal, but it's also hardly unusual.

It was about 8:10am when I left the apartment, a little later than I wanted, but for a 20 minute bus right to Zhongshan Square, visit at the bank, and 20 minutes back, I surely had a ton of time before my 10am meeting with Stella at Web. Right.

I went to the spot indicated on my hand drawn map where I could catch the 405. I didn't see any listing for it, and considered the possibility that Vicky gave me some bad info, and meant the 505. Tough call, as usual. I waited for a few more buses, but no 405's appeared. I decided to start running, either until I made it all the way or until the appropriate bus showed up. Half a block later was the sign for the 405, which did make sense with my map, I had drawn it a ways to the right, but I thought it meant I'd just run out of room at the top of my map. Did I do it on purpose? Lucky coincidence? Whatever.

The 405 itself showed up soon after, but it. was. PACKED. Even if I wanted to get on, it wasn't happening. I hmm'd and haw'd a bit before deciding to follow the 405 on foot. I'd have kept up better if I didn't waste time thinking about it, but of course it was going to get away at some point. It's a bus.

I couldn't have been running for too long after this, maybe ten minutes?, when I happened to be at another 405 stop right when another 405 appeared. I hopped on, paid the 1 yuan, and squeezed to the middle, where I took out my notebook to check on my map-ah-HA no, it was a ruse! While pretending to look at my notebook I was ever so subtley looking at the time on a fellow passengers smartphone device. Hmm, what time was it?... either 8:43 or 8:53, I forget.

As people got off I moved my way to the back and eventually had a seat open up, ripe for the taking. The bus travelled south and got onto Zhongshan road just before the archway that was my first experience of Zhongshan road, so we were almost immediately back on familiar ground. I wiped away the fog from the windows to try and keep track of where we were- though I had been assured that the end of the line was Zhongshan Square.

We hit what must have been the end of the line. Everyone got off- the bus driver got off so fast to start smoking I thought he was practicing the big finale of a stage production of "Speed".

That was a joke, but I would also totally watch that.

I walked off, but it didn't appear to be Zhongshan Square. Looking back at the bus driver, he was now thoroughly committed to life as a private smoking citizen. His bus driving days were over.

Looking ahead I saw a sign with three arrows revolving around each other in a circle- that must mean that's where the roundabout is that indicates Zhongshan Square. Okay, when I say it like that it sounds very obvious, but at the time I was quite pleased with myself. I called myself a "Dynamo of Finding Stuff". Yes, I definitely used the word "dynamo".

At the circle, to my right was the ICBC I had first gone to, and therefore to my left, yes, was the Bank of China.

I filled out a new moneygram form, all the same information as before, plus a new date. But it took forever to be seen! And when I was finally seen, it took twice forever to get my money! I must have been there an hour waiting to see what would happen. I'd have been on the edge of my seat if I didn't almost fall asleep a couple of times. They asked me what Province Toronto was in. Classic security feature.

I think they said afterwards that my name was wrong on the moneygram-- which was the problem from the day before, but hopefully Jordan made his point to the right people. Well, whatever the reason, I got money. Now let's hope I never need to return for a moneygram again. At least, not in China. Do you think I can set up a Paypal account in China? Probably not. 

Leaving the bank a guy asked for a dollar, and in my head I said the quite harsh "fat chance bud". It... took a while to get the money. And I was tired, I was all Grinchy.

Walking towards the 405 bus stop, and I knew I was low on time. I decided to grab a taxi. He didn't understand when I said "Roosevelt Plaza" but when I wrote it, plus "Xi'an Lu" and "Huanghe Lu" on my notebook he understood. I reached back to try and figure out the seatbelt (from what little I examined the only thing that made sense was "fighter pilot harness" which wasn't an entirely unreasonable design choice for these streets...) but the driver looked back and waved me off, as though I was being silly for wanting a seatbelt, that those are for the plebes, and that I should relax. Possibly the seat covering made it impossible to click in.

The taxi drive over was... actually pretty nice. I've been in much worse taxi rides in Canada. We brushed a little close to some pedestrians the one time, but they were the ones doing the jaywalk thing.

I checked the time: 10

Then I realized that wasn't the time. A radio station?

The ACTUAL time was 10:18am or so. We got outside Roosevelt for 10:26, and when I motioned for the driver to write what I owed him he pointed at the "radio" which now said, what was it, 15, 16? Anyway, that was the meter right there, the taxis just start at the 10 mark for all rides. Much cheaper than I had feared, so that was good.

It was just past 10:30 when I got to Web, with Stella nowhere to be seen. Had she come earlier and left? Was she late? Was she aiming for the 11 time I cited the night before, despite the note I was given from Vicky saying 10? I wasn't wondering too long before Stella arrived... though I never did ask which of those options had just happened. Early for the 11am meeting? Who knows.

We met up with the realtor person and the landlady, I handed over the three months rent that was the entire point of the moneygram, signed this or that (I don't know) before riding over to some government registration place. I thought it was a police station, but no, I guess it was too nice for a police station. Very boxy design on the outside.

We drove back to the realtors office, where we split up, Stella and I going to Food Bazzar for lunch, and who cares what the others did. They had a sandwich. I don't know.

The whole time Stella and I were having a good time talking about pop culture and the like. She talks to me in very simple terms, and I'm like yes I get it, but then I go ahead and talk right back in simple terms. That's just how we have to talk here to understand. No offence is meant on either side. Though I keep getting that 'arm-held-in-front-of-me-so-I-don't-wander-into-the-road' thing. I can cross the road! And also, if there's one thing you don't have to worry about, it's me running out into traffic... more likely you'd have to push me onto the street to get me going.

I asked about the proper pronounciation of "Zhongshan" and it turns out to sound a lot like "Junction". Interesting.

And to say sorry you say (this is my best phoneticism including the intonation): "dwui boo tei"

Now that I think about it, we may have been interrupted before getting all of it. Maybe that's how you say sorry. Apparently, just saying "sorry" also works. And "boo" (more like "bo") means no, or stop. I think.

Stella showed me a combo deal at Food Bazzar that cost 15 yen, so 5 over my alloted meal budget, but yielded a fair amount more. I also picked up a container of watermelon pieces (and a couple of those mystery orange melon pieces... it's not a mystery because I'm in China, I just always forget what they're called. Usually paired with the green melon pieces? One of them is called honeydew? Thankfully it was 90% watermelon) because I was feeling fruit deprived. I've seen some banana/plantain peels on the ground, so SOMEWHERE I'll be able to find some potassium, amirite kids?

Stella pointed out some porridge, and I got excited at the prospect of familiar oatmeal- but found only soup. It seems water+rice=porridge over here. Good tip.

After eating we met back with realtor and landlady, this time hitting up the police station, which, yeah, is pretty rough. A police car drove up to park, its tires squeaking, and everything about the car looking rundown. Obviously there are very different budgetary concerns in Dalian compared to Toronto, different priorities.

Up three flights, talked to someone (whoever it was) and that was it, I was apartment-fied. We were given a paper on the stairway back down- I guess whoever we talked to above forgot something, which is a funny way to do business. I'd probably be like that too.

I returned just in time for class to begin. And so it goes.

My class just before my lunch break had only one student who didn't show up. I waited around a bit until someone came in and told me I was off the hook.

The group of teachers native to China (um, Molly? Stella... two others...) invited me to join them for lunch at some noodle place in the basement.

I ordered a stir fry thing and, because the girl across from me expressed interest, I picked up this order of sweet, sticky rice, fairly ornate to my eyes, drizzled with honey. What I didn't realize was that she had just had her wisdom teeth removed, and couldn't do much beyond soup, even gumming down these soft treats. Whoops *cue the Price is Right failure noise- "Bom bum bom bomm bowwwnn"* But I got to share with everyone else, so it was a-ok.

I had extra time than the others before I had to get back for class, so everyone ended up leaving me on my lonesome. When I went to pay for myself there seemed to be some confusion, that perhaps I was just walking up and ordering food fresh, or maybe they thought I was from a different table. The waiter gave me a paper with a 44 on it (my order came to 26 or so) and I pointed at it to indicate that it was wrong. He looked again, re-tallied, and this time wrote 48. I don't like where this is going.

I gave up, gave the cashier a 50, and waited for my two-bits of change. She seemed a bit overwhelmed with things, and my money wasn't coming. I had class, which wasn't worth waiting for 2 yuan, if it was ever going to come. 

I felt a little screwed over, but was determined not to make a big deal about it. I'd gotten some free meals the last few days, I was due for a turn around.

Looks like I'm still due- not too long after, a guy showed up asking about the money. It seems he wanted to let my party know I paid, when the bill had already been paid- they wanted to give me my money back! I don't know who this guy is, or how he knew where we were from, but I'm glad he made the effort. So I got the 50 back, and just owe or the 26 to whoever paid originally. I'm not sure who it was, but again, there are a finite number of possibilites here. Much easier than finding an apartment. Plus, it's easy enough to ask... ah, I'm going to ask, be told a name, and then I'll be all "I don't know who that is." Well, good, something to look forward to.

After that the most interesting thing that happened (I need to wrap up, get cleaned up for work and whatnot, maybe finally find a watch before my classes today? Not likely? Yeah, I know..) in my second last class of the day, I arrived a little early because the computer I was sitting at had a clock that was ahead, but this girl Katherine was already waiting for class too. She told me she wanted to go to Australia, which I said was great, and then proceeded to tell her about fire tornadoes (draws and explains tornado, now add fire), scorpions (draws a scorpion) and sharks (draws shark). And then, running along with the days theme of talking about accents (I didn't mention that, but yeah, I'd been talking about accents all day and doing... a version of an accent. Texan drawl. Brooklyn tough guy.) I did a quick Australian accent.. stressing that it was probably offensive to try it, with the kind of mangled result that was inevitable and that she should in no way tell Tom (Australian) that I did an accent. And then I told her about Crocodile Dundee (don't tell Tom), drew Dundee on the white board (teeth on the hat, teeth on the necklace, muscles... vest) and related the most famous part of Crocodile Dundee (or possibly the sequel) the "you call that a knife?" part. It went over really well.

The class required me to explain the parts of a deck of cards, so that the students could flip a random card, know what it was, and then follow the cue to a particular question on a handout that they then had to answer. It went great- and then I got to explain some idioms that use card terminology. Poker faced (Lady Gaga!). Play your cards close to your chest. Being an Ace. Play your cards right. That was good, we had fun with that.

Last class had three people share their research about famous figures- Paul Walker, Copernicus, and Margaret Thatcher. I mostly hovered over their papers and corrected as we went. I wasn't crazy about that, it's hard to be fun when everything you do is "nope, try this, no, no, that doesn't really work..." it was okay, but it was slow going, and it didn't really engage the whole class. I guess that's why that particular class was designated "private" versus the "salon" class.

Okay, that pretty much catches us up.  It's 11:36am now, so it really is time to start moving.

Wish me luck, have a good day

January 7th, 2016

6:02am

I packed everything into my luggage, surprised that my laundry bag full of clothes could fit inside as well. Compared to the flight down I was much kinder to my backpack this time around. I guess having all my power cables in the luggage was a big help.

I trundled off after a last look at my little hotel room.

Oh well. *Burns to the ground*

Not really, that would have cost me my deposit.

The front desk people were happy to see me, but didn't seem to realize I was checking out, or what I wanted to do. I showed the receipt that would hopefully get me my deposit back. Success! Add a hundred yuan to my budget.

By the time I left my room it was almost 9am, which is bad because I needed to be at Roosevelt for 9 to get my new reference number before I could then taxi to Zhongshan Square to get that money.

But something I hadn't counted on was just how difficult it was to drag my luggage behind me. After a few steps without fail the thing would start to wobble like nobody's(should this be singular possesive? Or "Nobodies"? Is that a thing? I should get better at this) business. It was frustrating, and I kept having to stop and straighten my luggage out. I tried to just carry it, but no go, it was too heavy. All I could do was keep myself low, and walk a little slower.

But I'm trying to get to the Roosevelt Center in a hurrrrry!

I must have arrived nearly 20 minutes after 9. Again, who knows for sure? Oh, well, yeah, this should be the one time I definitely do know, there're clocks in the computers, so fine, I just forget then.

I hopped on hotmail to see what Jordan had to say. I must have confused him with my urgent plea the day before, because he just re-sent the reference number I already had, instead of what I needed. I went to facebook to send him a message, no immediate response. I flipped on facebook chat to see who was online. Crystal. Good, she can operate with some urgency. She got my dad online, who tracked down Jordan who was at the gym, but returned home to help after my insistent scream of NOW.

By the time he returned it was naturally too late for me to go to Zhonghan Square, which I explained to Vicky and, again, it seemed okay. Okay.

I chatted with Jordan for a bit, and he gave an angry call to moneygram on my behalf to fix the name situation- a much better solution than any kind of new transaction, considering the news that the Canadian dollar took a hit yesterday.

So I made plans to go to Zhongshan Square the next day (I'll have to head out soon after a shorter writing session today)- but Vicky suggested the #405 bus would take me right there, and she drew where I could find said bus. This attention to detail will become important later, merely to note its absence in another area.

With the next few hours unexpectedly free to devote to preparing for my classes (or getting breakfast, but I didn't end up making that trip) I looked at my schedule for the day and saw that I had my first ever English Corner. You may recall I was concerned about how this would go, so I wanted to be prepared to do a really good job. A riveting, thoroughly original statement, I know, I know. 

I wanted to do something a little unexpected, a little different, and I'm not sure why exactly I thought of this, other than I was specifically on the lookout for some kind of Canadiana, but I decided to look up "The Log Driver's Waltz" video off youtube to share.

First problem: the English Corner computer doesn't have access to youtube, how do I record this video onto my USB thing? Alona (which may be a misspelling, logging onto facebook, in the login/username section was "Alena"something something- are you trying to tell me that people in China got her name wrong? No! Impossible! I'll ask her how she prefers it to be spelled.) showed me a website that I guess captures a youtube video in much the same way that Simon showed me how to take a music file from youtube. (If it's any consolation, I think all the music I took was at least 3 years old...) 

Second problem: I need to print off copies of the lyrics and vocabulary list I created, how do I do that? Turns out the comnputers for us foreign teachers can't, I have to pass my USB to one of the teachers from China, in this case Stella, to plug into her computer and print off. I then followed her to a back room where it printed out- a part I only mention because I HAD NO IDEA THIS ROOM EXISTED HOW DID I MISS IT??

But, great, printed out sheet, photocopied 25 times for the upcoming crowd, yes.

I then got some pictures to lead up to my big reveal of the Log Driver's Waltz video- most relevantly, a picture of a cowboy, a picture of a cattle drive, then a picture of a log drive, for the purposes of explaining the concept. I wasn't really sure I had an hour of material, but no time for anything else, I had my first class of the day.

When I went to pick up my class sheet I was surprised to find only one person listed. "VIP" the ladies at the front desk said. I assumed they were kidding, like, "no one else showed up, so the only student MUST be a VIP" with a sort of joking wink, you know, that kind of deal. Uh, it seems they meant it rather literally, as this was someone who had specifically purchased a one-on-one class. When I found out I was all "what? Ahh, I should be doing something special!"

The Assignment for the class was to discuss auctions, and, according to the lesson plan, we were supposed to have an auction between students "buying" from a list of sentences. Fortunately, the lessonplan did account for the possibility of one student, suggesting a game show environment. There weren't really more specific rules, so I played it by ear.

What I did was I started the student with $5000, and they could wager however much they liked on a sentence, which they then had to determine whether the sentence was correct or not, with the goal at the end to reach $10000. I didn't know if that was too easy or not, since I didn't make any restrictions on how much you could wager. I did try to limit exposure to the next sentence before the wagering process, so that was something.

There were some ups and downs, and my student mostly played it safe with bets of 10,20,30,40, growing after getting each question right... which of course meant that any time she got a question wrong she was almost certain to wind up back at the start (at the 30 mark anyways)- but she fought her way back up to 5000, then to 5070, and on the last question she wagered 5000 and got it right! She seemed really pleased, it was nice.

That was about it for that lesson plan, so I talked about what I was doing in my English Corner that was coming up in a few minutes. It was helpful review for me (in theory) and my student seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say.

The English Corner itself... was a huge mess. It seems the projector wasn't working, and EVERYTHING I'd had planned involved the projector. Yeah.

So I talked about how it was awesome that they named themselves- I should have gotten some of them to tell me why they named themselves what!!.. oh, well, wait, actually I did ask the one guy that. But I should have asked more people!- then I talked about "Isaac" the bible story around it, and specifically the Swedish naming convention (do you know "convention"?) about taking a last name based on your fathers name, and it getting switched around every generation: John has a kid named Mark, who becomes Mark Johnson, who has a kid named Sven, who becomes Sven Markson, etc. etc. with my grandmother being an "Isaacson". 

Then I talked a bit about some provinces of Canada, before eventually realizing that I could still pass out the lyrics to "Log Driver's Waltz" and discuss it, it would just be a much suckier presentation that would deprive me of a decent plan for a future presentation. Screw the future! Save the me in the now!

I was asked to sing it, and I said it wouldn't sound good because it's a song for a woman's voice (at least, until I could maybe figure out how to change it, again, I wasn't prepared to sing this). The class took turns reading out loud, and I repeated after them, but then I got into it a bit and started singing the verse we were on plus the chorus. Whoops.

It was a rough time. And no one told me when I was done, so I was looking foolish for an extra ten minutes after the whole ordeal should have been over! Next time, have a projector-less backup plan.

The next time being today. Okay. (*Edit* I didn't have one today)

A two hour break between classes at this point, I was getting set to finally grab some food, when I was approached by the student Steve and asked if I wanted to go eat with him and talk comics after his class was over in an hour. Sounds awesome, I was down. For the next 45 minutes I wandered the facebook until I clicked over to an article about political correctness which I just finished reading as Steve returned to leave- b-but I still had the rebuttal article to read! Nooo I wanted to hear both sides of this! Maybe I can find it today at work.

Steve, Bradley, and I (briefly joined by Sylar, who loves Heroes, yes) went for dumplings. I asked about the prices and was told only that it was cheap, but also that Steve was buying. Man, it's one thing to graciously accept things, but it's getting to be a bit much. What is this, three days in a row where I've gotten free meals? Where's my pride?! (Ha, don't worry, my pride comes back...)

Steve and I talked comics (he's disappointed that I've already seen The Force Awakens, but I'll totally see it again when it comes out here.. especially for my own sake, I need to either confirm or refute my previous opinions about the thing. Thus far I've taken a rather hardline stance on it. Ha, I seem to have started talking about Star Wars again, didn't I?) and Bradley was interested in sports, and geography. He said he wanted to go study in Germany, which I think, wait, is this a controversial opinion? I think that's awesome!

Okay, it's 7:27am, and I have to get to Zhongshan Square, so let me put a pin in this. I'll keep writing on my break today, unless I have yet to prepare my English Corner for the day, in which case this may not get finished until the evening. Fingers crossed I don't mix up the details for today and yesterday!

It's 10:11pm and I'm back. I decided I didn't want to carry my laptop around, so no writing on my break. I was busy anyway.

For my last class of the day (maybe I had an earlier one still, but I forget, I'm tired okay) the students were really pushing back against my attempts to hold to the lesson plan, so I ended up just answering questions about myself. One student, who was witness to my English Corner debacle, said I wasn't a good singer, which cut me deep, so naturally I had to sing some lines from the Zephyr Song to refute this and get people back on my side. And I won over the crowd! So that's good.

Perhaps I was helping their English, but mostly I was getting a personal boost. 

Ugh, I'm really tired. Listen, I'll finish this in the morning and then do the next entry, I've gotta sleep - 10:21pm

8:44am and I'm back- so with work over I needed to find my apartment. Vicky gave me the directions of it being two bus stops away, but that wasn't particularly helpful because there are lots of bus stops along the road, so "two away" doesn't make sense. After the fact I learned that different bus stops have different routes, different places where they stop. So it may be that getting on the bus at the stop right outside work would drop me off in front of my apartment after two of its official stops, but for the purposes of finding my apartment by foot, the "counting two bus stops" information wasn't helpful.

I had no address, either in Chinese OR English, so I couldn't take a taxi to get there, and I certainly couldn't look it up on a map (were I to have a map). All I knew for sure was that I couldn't be further east than Xi'an road, it couldn't be farther west than the one road whose name I don't know, and because my apartment was on the 11th floor it had to be a building with at least 11 floors. There were a finite number of options.

So I'm walking north on Xi'an to scan for possible candidate buildings, rolling my luggage behind me. The rolling skill had improved enough that I didn't have to be constantly frustrated about keeping the bag upright. Not constantly, anyways. There's one building tall enough right off Xi'an road, but I discounted it for being to close to the borders I had mentally put up in my search parameters. When I had visited the other day there was no way we had gotten this close to Xi'an. I hung a left, walked over a block, and started walking south, beginning my sweep anew.

I seemed to be approaching the southern border, the mall with a Wal-Mart in it, much quicker than I expected, which had me worried that I hadn't walked far enough north... I had a firm barrier to where my apartment could be to the south, east and west, but the north WAS a question mark. This had me concerned. Also, I had expected to see the Youth Hostel on the eastern side of Xi'an to give me a place to stay in case I failed. Instead of seeing the Hostel where I expected to find it, there were only hotels. Which, yes, are also a back-up plan.

Without having a firm northern cap to my search parameter, I decided the systematic sweep couldn't be as "systematic" or "sweepy" as I needed it to be to succeed. As I was already near the Wal-Mart, and therefore nearing the start of the path that we walked the previous day to go see this apartment, I had to try and remember or feel my way along that way.

It's an unfortunate road, cobblestones and traffic. Then again, that describes so much here, so what else is new? I'm walking north, and there are the tree/posts encircled by branches artificially placed there. I reach a bend in the road I wasn't sure of, until I saw the Micheline Man and his collection of blue and yellow tires, a very positive sign. This whole time I'm searching I'm listening to my music, music which was designed to be "Get You Pumped For Adventure" songs (for the most part, the Goo Goo Dolls stuff isn't in the same vein, and Call Me Maybe has a violin, you know that's coming along...". One place had a sort of gated community vibe, and I definitely didn't remember that. 

At one point I double backed to check a building I had dismissed, because I had to be thorough, and that wasn't even a building with 11 floors, it was just on enough of a hill to look like it. So I climbed up that hill, and carried my bag down some precarious stairs on the otherside, and moved on. Finally I tried this one building, a little close to Xi'an road (I could see it down the alley) but the entrance looked like what I remembered, a sort of jutting out box with the blanket door (they have blanket doors everywhere here, like a car was for people, to keep heat in) and inside a nice lobby. The lobby was in the ballpark, but not quite there... access to the elevator wasn't blocked (itself a divergence from what I expected) so I rode up to the 11th floor. I discovered an interesting smell, but there was no unit 25. 

Returning to the ground floor, I walked over to another entrance further east, even closer to Xi'an road, and everything was starting to click together. "Dare" from the original Transformers soundtrack had started playing:

"Out of the darkness you stumble into light/

Fighting for the things you know are right.

Dare! Dare to believe you can survive/

The power is there are your command.

Dare! Dare to keep all your dreams alive.

It's time to take a stand- and you can win if you dare!"

Man, it was perfect. Listen to the song if you can, you'll get how I was pumped.

There's a fingerprint reader to access the elevators, but one of the girls sort of working the night shift at the desk (I assume they work there, they were actually just chilling on the couch, but were wearing matching coats) opened the door for me and blew a kiss my way. Thanks!

And yeah, there it is. Found my place, was super happy, didn't have any water so I opted to skip the teeth brushing, and set about unloading. I was really looking forward to sleeping on this solid bed (which I'm beginning to realize is just the box spring, isn't it?), using my laundry bag as a pillow, and the blanket I swiped from the Detroit to Incheon flight.

I was pleased with myself. A spartan existence is what I set out to find, and by gum I found it.

It's 9:43 am, and with that day finished let me get on with the next..

January 6th, 2015

6:01am

I think I figured out the reason why yesterday and the day before the house keeping didn't fix up my room and deliver two new bottles of sweet, sweet water. I must have left the sign on the door flipped to "do not disturb" instead of "please make up room".

No, the sign isn't in Chinese, I'm just an idiot that forgot to check whether or not it was flipped right before leaving the premises.

Yesterday I heard back from Jordan that he sent me a moneygram, so all my problems were over!- is not entirely accurate.

I did get a message from Jordan, and he did send the much needed moneygram. He was told that, instead of being delivered to one of the specific addresses I anticipated, I could pick it up at any bank: CITIG, ICBC, BOC (Bank of China, that one was easy), CGB, or Bank of Communications. Hey, Bank of Communications is my new bank!

I walked over to the local Bank of Communications with Vicky to translate, but they had no idea what a "moneygram" was. Umm... wait no, the person that did that was on lunch break. Right.

We returned to Web where I met this older guy Chris. I was worried that I was saying hello to Tom but maybe he shaved or got new glasses or something such that I was saying hi to someone I already knew. Nope, I was unfamiliar with him because he was new. Good.

I went to lunch with Alona and Vicky at a sushi place in the basement level of the Roosevelt Center. I hadn't been down there yet, but there where plenty of places to eat, and it smelled, you know, like a food court, but good I mean.

Speaking of smells, I wanted to tell you for the last few days. Outside of my hotel, maybe starting a half block away if it shifts, but definitely by the time I walk under a Gardner like street there's a smell that I have identified as a cross between melon and gasoline. Just wanted to share that.

The sushi place was great, I thought for sure I was going to pop one into my mouth and get grossed out by something but everything I tried was the tops. There was some confusion on my part when I was asked whether or not I wanted hot water or tea, I just kept asking "what's the difference?" and they answered "what do you mean, what's the difference, one's hot water, one's tea" well, yeah, they were confused too, no getting around that, I definitely managed to confuse them. But come on, I get hot water, it's like, great, I've got hot water, oh, you know, maybe I'll throw in a tea bag now, oh, now I've got tea. Like, just pass the hot water and throw a tea bag at me and I'll figure out which of the two I want.

The different options travel next to you in covered plates over a conveyor belt, and your total number of plates gets tallied at the end, and that's how you get charged. The menu didn't seem to have any prices and... no where seemed to have any prices. So I just kept to a plate less than my companions (4 in this case) and waited to see what the damage was. Which was awkward because everytime I'd take a new plate I'd, you know, swallow the whole thing in one go, so the sequence would go like this:

Waiting to see if the others take a new plate. New plate is taken, that's a go on new plate. Look for something desirable to try on the conveyor belt- woah, that's coloured a radioactive red, gotta try that- takes off covering, chop sticks it, and gone. Chop sticks the companion piece if there was two. Gone. Repeat the process. Make small talk.

Afterwards, the two ladies told me not to worry about the bill, they covered it. Again, can't say I don't need it. But I didn't even find out how much I owed for future reference. They're foiling my intel gathering process.

Returning to the Bank of Communications with Vicky NOW they didn't know what the moneygram business was. Right. Vicky also didn't know, but she doesn't work in a bank, so it's forgiveable.

Okay, new plan. I get the addresses for all the moneygram locations I told Jordan about in my last e-mail to him, and go there. Create a map so I can get to the area, that's key.

First problem- the computers at Web decided today was the day that they needed to upgrade my internet browser to access my e-mail. Which is something that you can't do (as far as I can tell) with this under the radar-sketch browser that lets me check my e-mail and facebook and etc. etc. GOOGLE! You know, good web sites.

Oh, I could still access my e-mail, but in a sort of limited mode that didn't appear to let me check my sent messages i.e. the message I sent Jordan with the list of moneygram locations. Of course.

So, googling those fresh. Okay. Next problem, after finding their addresses, google maps couldn't figure it out... until it did? So I'd input the location, and the map would just be generic north america with a "can't find it message" so I scroll over manually to Dalian, zoom in to the city, zoom in to where I am, scroll over to where I need to be, and draw my own map from there. The easiest place I WAS able to find was the Bank of China (which it turns out, to jump ahead, was the best place to list)

Oh, and also my original conception of what is north-east-sout-west was correct, so I don't know what happened before.

Anyways, the path as written goes like this: Roosevelt Center is on the corner of Xi'an Road(Lu) and Huanghe Rd(Lu). Follow Huanghe until it stops at Changjiang Rd, which curves southward a bit but generally keeps going east. I needed to hop a street south via "Victory Square" which seemed like a good road to take if it was in english (spoiler: I never saw the words "Victory Square" anywhere) to another main east-west road Zhongshan Rd which goes all the way to Zhongshan Square. Hang a left just before Zhongshan Square at Tongxing St and there should be the glorious People's Bank of China. Easy as you'd like.

It did indeed look pretty far, and I was finishing up getting the map info I needed at about 2:18pm. I remembered the moneygram places said they closed at 4, so I grabbed my stuff and hopped to.

There aren't really sidewalks in China. There are streets, and then there are parking spots, and if you're lucky there'll be a row of empty parking spots. There was this one long stretch that must have been some kind of government building- they had some sort of mounted police patrolling there, they even had swords hanging off the side of their saddle, that was cool- anyways, there, perhaps, cars were discouraged from parking. But that's about it.

I listened to my music for the first little ways, but then I was getting worried about the time, and it was bugging me how the earbuds were sort of clinging to me as I needed a bit of freedom of movement to get around these cars. So I jammed the i-pod (the sight of which encouraged some guy to approach me and offer to sell me an iphone. Very sketchy, no english, I was gone) into my pocket and switched to a long distance running mode. Likely through a combination of restricted diet and lack of overall exercise lately, my calves down to my ankles felt like they were doing a lot more work then they usually have to do. But it was okay, I was surprised how okay it was. My left foot still has something wrong with it, it's been that way for some months now, but it's only an issue if I land on it wrong, which only happened a couple of times.

I found another branch of the Bank of Communications, which counters the information I thought I saw on the internet that suggested there was only the one location. Inside was a very nice woman who didn't know what a moneygram was, but told me there was a bank to the left (south) of here. She kept saying "left" like she was't sure if that was the correct word. And considering I didn't see any other bank that way... I actually wasn't going to go that way, I was going to stick to my map, but I didn't want her to see me ignore her advice, so I took the detour south and crossed my fingers for an earlier than expected arrival at Zhongshan Rd. Success. Down the block and through this sort of archway, there was Zhongshan Rd. And, yes, that motorcycle just drives straight onto the sidewalk and through the archway. Right, no sidewalks here, silly me, I keep forgetting.

I followed Zhongshan east, but I kept getting worried anytime it sort of curved- did that curve indicate I was at Zhongshan Square? If I go past Zhongshan Square I'm at "Here There Be Dragons" territory on my hand drawn map. Which would be bad.

A deep curve brought me to this crazy nice mall called the "Pavilion". There was a sign for an HSBC (I think that's it- some bank I've seen in Canada) and I decided to go find that- if it's an international bank, chances are better there's some English speakers there.

This mall is practically empty (post Christmas burn out? Unlikely, not as big a deal here..) but it's clearly a Yorkdale analogue. Wide open spaces, a cinema, at least 5 floors, and-no-map. I travelled clear on to the other side of the mall before I saw my first store directory, actually I saw the bank I was looking for before I saw the directory, but I couldn't get in that way, the doors were closed. Wrong door, or did my walk take longer than I thought, and the bank was closed? I motioned at a besuited supervisor of some sort to check the time on his watch- about 3:30, so it wasn't too late. I exited and came around the outside to the bank, where a friendly security guard opened both outer and inner door for me. I had to wait for a bit, but I got to sit in with a helpful employee that did speak english, no, they don't do moneygram here, but she had heard of it. I asked if she could give me a chinese word to explain moneygram to people that didn't know what that was, but it seems THAT question she didn't really understand.

Which is crazy.

She brought up a map and showed me where I was, basically still on Zhongshan. She said I was still about a 20 minute walk from my destination, and it was 3:40 now. I thanked her and got on my way. A 20 minute walk of course translates into a shorter run, so this was still possible. The crossways were becoming less forgiving(!) and now there were underpasses to go through. Under and up and on my way. I made it to Zhongshan square, which meant I'd missed the road I needed... it must have been before Pavilion that I took a turn that could have set me dangerously off course. I think somewhere I found a "Tonqing" st, and I thought I heard somewhere about Q's and X's getting used almost interchangeably here, so that could have been Tonxing street. Anyways, whenever that happened, it led to nothing but me going off the beaten path. Well, I was on the weather-beaten path, because those back streets are ROUGH.

Regardless, I made it to Zhongshan Square, whic is definitely Bay-street like with its banks all over the place, just in a circle around each other, with an ICBC beside me. I went inside, but they didn't do moneygram- the ICBC on the OTHER side of the Square was the main location, and they did moneygram. The woman at the front pointed the building out "1-2-3 to the left" okay. Underpass, cross, cross.

Yes, this bank does moneygram, please take a seat here at the, I don't what it's called anymore. Foreign person desk. Something.

So they do moneygram here. My reference number checks out. But they don't give cash, the Bank of China would do that (which was, of course, the place I was aimed at on my map) BUT my name in my passport doesn't match the name on the moneygram. The moneygram is addressed to "Isaac Aaron Andrew Mills", or rather, family name "Andrew Mills" first name "Isaac Aaron". You need to get who addressed it to change the name.

Ho ho ho, I was getting pretty mad. 

I tried the bank next door, it was another Bank of Communications. Once again, they had no idea what a moneygram was. I'm signed up with a real winner, I am.

I tried the Bank of China. They had a form I could fill out and everything, these guys were all over moneygram. I sat down and waited for them to see the naming issue. They were awkward in telling me that the name wasn't correct. I didn't offer any information beforehand, one, because I wanted to see whether they'd let the name thing slide , and two, because I was frustrated and didn't plan on making things easy on anyone.

These guys wouldn't hand over the money either, which I get, but they wouldn't even tell me in what way the name was wrong, which I also get, just saying that it was "really wrong". In that sense, I'm grateful to ICBC for, perhaps making the mistake of, telling me how the name was wrong, so I could specifically tell Jordan what needed to change on his end.

In a perfect world I'd have a functioning phone to text Jordan this bad bit of news immediately. Instead I'd have to return to the Roosevelt center and hop into one of those computers that didn't always feel like going to western sites.

I followed Zhongshan Rd back. Once I got to the archway that had been my original gateway to Zhongshan I decided to travel a bit longer on Zhongshan to see if it would take me all the way to Xi'an. Huge mistake. I eventually thought better of it, and turned left to go north and look for Huanghe, but Zhongshan veers south after a while (I re-checked the map later) so it took much longer to find Huanghe that it originally took to get off of it and onto Zhongshan. It was dark by this point, so that was worrisome, too. Not to any great extent, but it wasn't a plus. I was getting a little unsure of my directions, but past history has shown me that it isn't when you start to feel unsure of your directions that you get into trouble, it's when you start actually deviating from your course in search of that sure feeling. THAT is when you lose your barings for real. 

I kept doing the north-west thing and finally found Huanghe again. From there it was an easy straight line to the Roosevelt Center and familiar stomping grounds.

I, exhausted, dropped into the chair and sent Jordan the requisite message about my name over facebook. I checked on the map how far exactly I had walked- assuming I hadn't taken any detours (which I did) the one way trip was 5.5 km. 

That's a lot.

Vicky had left for the day, so I got set to e-mail her to advise about my situation, only remebering I could call her with a landline at Web. Shelley pointedout Vicky's number on the board, and then dialed for me- which I'm not sure was entirely necessary, but on the other hand maybe it was- and I think their "it's ringing" noise sounds a lot like the "no dial tone" noise. Fortunately I stuck on the phone long enough for Vicky to pick up (what, you thought I was going somewhere?)

I told her I'd make the trip the next day to get the money I needed, and when were we meeting the next day to go get all the last apartment stuff in order.

10am.

And when do the banks open?

8am.

Okay, do-able.

I hung up, realizing too late that I'd need to get a new reference number from Jordan, which meant a trip back to Web in the morning, a place that doesn't open until 9am.

I e-mailed Vicky that I'd be heading to Web in the morning to get this reference number, then taxiing over to Zhongshan Square (for those following my detailed excursion above with baited breath, had I actually gotten lost a taxi rescue was always on the table. Eating into my ever precious food budget.) then returning for 10am. All still do-able. 

I guess I'll leave my luggage at Web when I check for the refence number? Check out at the hotel is today, so... you know... "you don't have to bring it with you, but it ain't staying here."

That's... not a real quote from anything, I was sort of playing with "Closing Time"- "you don't have to go home, but you can't-stay-heeeeere."

If there's any justice in this world, when I check for the reference number there will also be an e-mail from Vicky saying "oh, don't worry, you can get it tomorrow after you've left your luggage at your new place, no worries".

But that isn't going to happen.

You know, I'm sure I'll have some definite advice for everyone about preparation for life in China when this is all said and done, but I think I've got some really good ideas right now. Would you like to here them?

I think, for anyone coming to live in China, it would be a good idea to have a device that translates the language.

And a map.

And a phone. 

And a watch. (perhaps a device that is all in one?)

And I really can't recommend being restricted to $300 Canadian at the outset. For the purposes of living and getting a place to live I'd say about $3000-4000 would do very nicely.

Well, let's hope that Wal-Mart up the street has a debit machine that will accept my foreign cards, yes? That'd be super.

8:01am. I'd better get all my things packed up. I really liked this hotel room, it's too bad I can't just stay here. The mattress is very firm, which I'm a big fan of. My mattress at home, she's a not-a so firm. If I hurt my lower back at all it just stays hurt forever on that thing.

I had some interesting dreams last night, but after two hours of writing about my yesterday, I've mostly forgotten them. If I want to do any dream journaling it seems I should do that right away instead of writing about my real day. I am really pleased with the amount of time I've invested in writing so far on my trip. I'm looking forward to transitioning that energy into creative writing. I think I said that yesterday.

From 8:01 to now has been six minutes. That's incredible, isn't it? I think Hemingway said if you could get a solid page of writing done in a day, you were doing well.

I'm not promising a solid page has been written, but it's a reassuring time scale.

Okay, I have a lot to do today, plus my days off are over, I have classes to teach again! Yay!

Wish me luck, have a good day

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