January 18th, 2016

8:11 am

Slight tickle in my throat. I know it's unreasonable to expect that, in a strange land of strange microbes, with a minimum of soap or hand sanitizer spread about public spaces (well, zero in the public spaces so far), that I could go my whole stay here without getting sick. I'll keep you posted on that.

Yesterday looked hazier than it's ever been outside the window- but then my brain made the connection: it was snowing. Guess I forgot about snow. Honestly, I kept expecting it to rain, and leave me without an umbrella - an umbrella which I didn't bring because, it being January, I was expecting snow. At some point between coming and living here my thought processes got disconnected.

Underneath my jacket I just had a t-shirt on, which was fine for me, but was commented on later on in the day by a student who pointed to his sweater and then my shirt: "You aren't cold?"

"What?.. oh, the t-shirt, no, it's fine."

Have I mentioned that the sales people in the Mykal store (think the Bay, but with a grocery store in the basement) all have rather puffy winter jackets on inside. You know what, if I had to choose between turning up the heat inside of a shopping mall or getting the employees to wear a jacket, I could see choosing the exponentially less expensive option. It's actually better for the environment too. You weren't expecting that one, eh?

I arrived just past the 9 am mark (as early as possible with the entrance blocked by security until 9, though I left the apartment later than usual, let's say because I didn't want to wait out in the cold, and not because I was being lazy) and had trouble connecting to the internet, which left me to examine my classes for the day. Then there was Tom, who arrived nearly at 10 (when classes start) and who apparently grabbed all his class lists at once from the front desk. I was told specifically not to take more than one (often only the one is prepared), so I don't, but it is self defeating- we run our classes right until the hour mark, which is when our NEXT class is scheduled to begin. If at THAT moment is the first time we see how many people are in our class, my issue is that I don't know how many photocopies to make, so I'm forced to copy for a minute or two (or three) into the next class.

At least a short briefing of what numbers we could expect for the classes in the day would alleviate this problem. On the other hand, that's just me wanting things to be exact- I should just start estimating at the start of the day, make my copies, and then run from there. That would be a huge time saver. 

Anyways, the front desk girl comes over to Tom's desk, grabs a class sheet, and adds a student to the list saying angrily "last time, only one!" Could you imagine having to be angry at someone, in the workplace, in a foreign language?? And the front desk girls don't actually have the best English, so that makes it worse- okay, they seem to have almost zero English skills, but that's my point exactly. That left us foreign teachers with a REALLY tense 8 minutes until our first class. Chee-ee!

One student, Rain, was ready for class at 10. Sherry was late due to snow traffic (perfectly fine by me) and whoever the third student was didn't show up. We role played shopkeeper selling a product and the customer, I got to explain the logic behind the word "bio-metric security" (it's... possible I through out too much vocabulary), and, because Sherry didn't do her homework (which is fine by me) I gave an example of selling something on the spot- I sold a robot Monkey King (I was thinking a sort of Mecha Godzilla rival sort of thing) for an almost obscenely low price compared to the future price point after the TV show takes off. I had to show me retailers licence and inventory paperwork to prove I wasn't pushing stolen merchandise, and after explaining exploiting the collectors market with electronic sales (I didn't mention collectors market exactly, don't worry it was reasonable to explain) I got Rain to buy two units- aw yeah! Sucker, it was just a drawing on a white board! My paperwork? Nothing but the class list and my lesson plan! The greatest swindle of all time.

It seems this was Sherry's last class, so she asked for a selfie, and I was happy to oblige. Well, I mean, I was happy to take a photo with her, I still bristle at the word "selfie". She had to re-take the picture to adjust for the fact that I'm a giant here- at least compared to something like 95% of the women, a decent portion of men are as tell as me. Just another example of this trip being nothing but an exercise in ego stroking.

I had a two hour break between my first class and my second class/English Corner block which I spent trying to find a script for the Simpson's clip I had prepared- the best I found was a site that said it had all these scripts, but it only had the dialogue and certain sound effects, with zero breaks to indicate which character said what. So I spent my time adding that in myself and making it presentable- after Adeel showed me how to stop word from changing everything I typed into chinese characters.

I found another clip, this time from the episode Bart gets a new, perfect, father figure because of Homer forgetting to pick him up after soccer practice. I've got the beginning of the episode right up until Bart in a cold fury envisions Homer's face melting away like an ice cream sundae. I'll tell you now I stopped playing the clip just before the face melting part, it is rather disturbing.

With about 20 minutes to spare I went to hit the soapless bathroom, sanitize (I'm seriously almost out of sanitizer, help me) and grabbed a quick lunch of sausage on a stick, some, uh, less refined pork on a stick, and some flat, um, rice crispy covered something oval on a stick. Basically, I grabbed three things on a stick, because I didn't have time to mess around with no chop sticks.

I realized I wanted a poster image for my presentation, a picture of the Simpson's together over the words "The Simpson's"- you know what I'm talking about. Fortunately, so did sketchy accessed google search, because what I wanted popped right up.

I opened up my English Corner asking about how they learned about history in China? ("School- history class") Okay, how long have they been making movies in China? ("Hmm, it takes about 6 months" "No, how long have they ever HAD movies" "Oh, a hundred years" "Yeah, sounds about right") And how do you learn about popular movies that were around before you were born? ("Internet" "Fair enough- but what if you grew up just BEFORE the internet was a thing?") And that's when I tell them about the cultural touchstone that taught me or prompted me to learn so much about history, pop cultural and otherwise: cue the image of the Simpson's on the screen, cue disbelieving laughter from audience, cue student taking a picture to show friends later as though a cartoon in English class was unpossible.

Man, I have to do some ego stroking here, I set that up perfectly. And of the two clips, among other pop cultural references, the first had a historical reference to the origins of April Fool's Day, and the second had a pop cultural reference to a movie that, until I looked it up for the sake of understanding the clip, I'd never heard of before: the Cohen brothers film "Barton Fink". The clips perfectly underscored my stated aims.

From there, I showed the clip, then played it again, this time switching to the script I had prepared and asking students to tell me what happened? Did the boy succeed in getting his father to go get a beer? He was? (re-watches clip) No, the boy failed, it was the announcement that beer causes liver problems and cancer of the rectum that got the father to get up and get a drink.

Basically, I got paid to do two of my favourite things: talk about classic Simpsons, and explain all the jokes. How great is that?!!

And even the sternest person in the room laughed at the giant explosion from the shaken beer can. :) It's such a great visual- they even laughed when I showed it the second time.

I told everyone that the second clip had a scary ending visual, so if anyone wanted to see it they could see me after the presentation at the computers at the back.

I let everyone go at 2 minutes to the hour, which I was so pleased with- I think the clips themselves were only about 3-4 minutes each, but the talking of which lasted just shy of an hour- imagine of I used an entire episode!! Stella said disapprovingly "you still have 2 minutes left" which is insane, but whatever, I was still riding high. I think she just felt like she had to start right away, and so I was making her presentation 2 minutes longer. Just wait two minutes! Let them stretch their legs!

Surprisingly, Bradley told me he wasn't interested in it at all. He's always the best for participating, so this was hugely surprising to hear AFTER the presentation, after, again, he participated so much. And he said Chinese people won't tell you when they don't like something. So that's concerning. On the other hand, immediately after that I was approached by, okay, I'm pretty sure it was Daisy, Nicole and Sunny who all wanted to see the scary ending. They were maybe a little shocked, but said it was okay, and that they liked the show. Well, Nicole didn't say that, the other two did. I had the feeling during the presentation that Nicole didn't care about it, but she may just suffer from "resting bitch face". Who doesn't, amirite?

I immediately messaged my brothers about uploading episodes of the Simpsons from the dvd collection back home for me to download here. Mwahahaha.

From there I had a class where we drew a map of a fake city as a group giving directions to me, something which took way too long, and then I sped things up a bit, only to see that that was the only real thing taking time for this lesson, so I was semi-screwed with extra time at the end.

After that was a class I had done some photocopying in advance for, I thought I was doing really well, but then realized I'd completely forgotten to search out dice for the game.

Also there was a dude that named himself "Mars" which is obviously awesome.

While searching for dice I found naught but two coins. I'll figure something out.

So what I figured out was that I'd flip the two coins, and of the four possible flips outcomes it would correspond to jumping either 2, 4, 6 or 8 squares. There were two game boards, but the two teams just moved at the same time, landing on the same square, and having to construct the same sentence before we moved on to the next player. It essentially became a class devoted to repitition of the essential idea we wanted to cover- and that was okay. By the end of the class even Mars got what we were doing (Mars, uh, took a while). So that was a big change of pace for me, doing the more repetitive exercises, but it worked out really well, and, instead of getting bored everyone seemed to be into it.

Then again, chinese people don't tell you when they aren't enjoying it... ah, who're we kidding, most people are like that. They liked my explanation of what a tattoo was: I took the marker and drew a heart on my left arm with a line (for an arrow, he said, explainingly) poking in and out. 

We went a few minutes late, but someone finally crossed the finish line, and I passed out some scrambled sentences they could look over on their own to reinforce the structure we'd been using the entire class.

Leaving Web, I went for a bowl of soup with three pieces of um, probably beef, but I don't know, as well as carrots and some white vegetable that was likely turnip or something. As well as that cup of watermelon pieces, and a water bottle. Trying to tear the bones out of the meat resulted in some embarrassing splashback.

There's a candy store, "Candy+" across from the Food Bazzar, and I thought I'd check it out in the hopes of something jelly bean or jujube-esque. A sales person immediately joined me in the close quarters- there seemed to be three people working here, plus a girl outside the front door inviting people in (like all the stores). There were some very cool candy roses- I pointed and said "nice" and my sales companion said thank you. I'm pretty sure I said nice.

Most of the store seemed to be just this one kind of candy. I pointed and asked whether it was hard or soft candy? She didn't understand, so I attempted some juxtaposition to get my point across: I made the breaking in half motion with my hands while making a hard bite and saying the onomatapeidic (there's no WAY that one was spelled right) "crunch" and then I, more softly, said "smooth" while making a going-over-waves motion with my hand.

She passed me a new package that I felt- and it was soft! Success!

I figured their translating efforts deserved to be rewarded, so I decided to buy the small bag- how much? "60 yuan". Woof, this better be the best soft candy in the world. (I've been waiting until this moment before I tried the candy, let me see..)

They got lucky.

(nah, I'm kidding, they're okay, but they're just fruit gummies, not worth it except for the experience- that said, excuse me while I sit here listening to my music and eating gummies- they're actually almost a cross between gummies and marshmallows. And the yellow one has a strange kick going on. This is why George R.R. Martin takes so long with his books. Candy and music. True fact. Ooh, some kind of aqua-marine one. Hmm, vick's vapo-rub after taste. I seem to have hit a vein that has partially liquified under the weight of itself... I hope you realize I take artistic licence with my descriptions.)

Okay, well, was it a mistake to eat that entire bag just now? My stomach says yes, but, famously, my stomach is a big cry baby. "Feed me nutritious food at regularly scheduled intervalswaah waah" - that's how you sound right now.

On the bag which specifically held the gummies just now there are several pictures of a cute mascot panda apparently named "RuRu" who informs me, while alternating between playing cymbals and the maracas, that she is a performer! There's another picture of RuRu just trying to stare into my soul, but I think that's separate to her musical abilities.

The Candy+ people also gave me two packets of some of the hard candy to thank me for my patronage. For 60 yuan, yeah, good. A co-worker who has studied in Canada suggested some quick math for the purposes of comparing is to divide everything by 5. So by that math I spent about $12 on a package of gummies. Yeesh. Er, anyways, these hard candies are in a package that has a clear plastic front and a foil backing. It looks like candy you'd give (or get from) an astronaut. The candy itself is made of short cylinders, on the face of which you see pictures of, let's see, the yellow one has a pineapple, orange has half an orange, the purple one has grapes, and the pink one has.. Santa Claus. Well, sure.

You'll excuse me if I wait to try these candies. Maybe I'll live blog eating them tomorrow. You know, if that's how you get your kicks, there are websites where you can watch people eat. 

I picked up some bananas in the Mykal store (I know it's wasteful, but these plastic wrapped bananas have been perfectly read for consumption, that's something I'm not used to) and waved a bunch to this cute little girl who must have been only 4? 5? But knew "hello!"

And that's it for that day, signing off at 10:38 am

Wish me luck, have a good day

January 17th 2016

7:48 pm

Good evening, folks, I seem to have reached the end of a really nice day, cold weather nothwithstanding, and I'll be happy to tell you about it anytime I feel like it after the midnight mark.

But as to what happened yesterday... let me think... well, it's not a TOTAL blank... okay, that joke at America's expense was the day before that (what's the difference between America and yogurt? If you leave yogurt alone for 200 years it will develop a culture- when your audience is european, apparently, that joke kills) so the only thing that's really coming to mind (this is why it's so important to write these first thing in the morning) is that Adeel hadn't shown up, and so Alona had to, at the last minute, get up to do an English Corner. 

She took some time asking everyone how they were... and then Adeel showed up! Err, did he have classes earlier in the day? What happened to those? Anyway, Adeel gave a presentation on what it means to be 'badass'... well, after spending some time making sure everyone was acquainted at their various tables.

When was the last time I got to see someone else present their English Corner? The techniques for when you aren't prepared at all were of great interest to me- what is the dominant strategy (to use a game theory term) to achieve the quality of "English Corner".

I may be remembering it wrong now, but clearly the strategy I took from it (as this is what I employed today) was to always ask the students what they thought, what just happened in the video, always checking their understanding. It's pretty obviously the case that in the majority of my English Corners thus far, at least to speak of the vocabulary terms I've been throwing out there, I've been running through multiple English Corners worth of material, just without enough explanation or student interaction.

I found a clip from the fourth season of The Simpson's for use in today's English Corner- the beginning of the April Fool's Day clip show episode with that beer can explosion which always makes me laugh.

To watch Adeel's English Corner and find one 3 minute some odd second clip for the next day's English Corner cost me my lunch time, but it was worth it.

When my last class was done at 6 I watched Alona leave... but stayed behind myself. I still wasn't sure whether we were supposed to stay until the 7pm buzzer or not. Vicky was too busy to ask (ah, I also paid her for the apartment deposit loan yesterday, so that's one monkey off my back that can go have fun at the upcoming Spring Festival). Once seven hit I grabbed a little something at Food Bazzar-- what it was, err, looks like I can't tell you. Did I mention the sort of inside-out unfolded dumpling with egg on it? Maybe that's when I had that, or maybe that's when I had the little samosa looking thing that also had egg inside. Unless I had boht those things at the same meal... I'll give China this, they can sure give you the feeling of all-day breakfast burritos. Could use some salsa though.

And that's coming from me- I'm not a salsa guy.

Nor am I a chimi-cha-cha-nga guy.

That joke was brought to you by the letter 'b' for bad joke, 'w' for weak pun, and 'f' for foods I've never actually tried*. And viewers like you.

(*Uh, chimichanga is a food right? I was thinking of churro when I said it, which I also haven't eaten I don't think)

After eating I wandered down to the first level to watch about a second of a couple of entertainers singing at a stage that was constructed just for this performance- I think they were selling a car? Or something? Vicky and someone who works at Web but is someone who I don't know who it is walked by, so I joined them on the way out the door until we parted ways at the subway, which I still haven't tried yet, but is definitely on the bucket list.

The number one item on my bucket list is make a cooler bucket list. 

I'll get to it later.

Alright, that's enough for that day I think, I'm looking forward to talking about today. But after sleep- it's my day off tomorrow! That work week went fast! 

8:29 pm and all's well-

Have a good night

January 16th, 2016

7:30 am

Man, it's been a while since I've actually been woken up by my alarm. The Saturday switch over to a 9 am start, versus the 1 pm weekday start, is rough. Rougher still because I didn't get home last night until about 11:45 pm. But, yeah, okay, I shouldn't have even started writing anything now. I'll get back to you this evening.

9:25 pm

Man, I am wiped. I just want to sleep. But even if I was a little tired, being tired at this job is still so much better than the agony of being tired on a security shift.

Okay brain, what did I do yesterday? I went to Wal-Mart before work and bought a small stainless steel bowl (they basically only come in small here..) as well as some moisturizer. It took a while to communicate that I wanted a moisturizer and not some cleanser. The stakes weren't so big here- the cold showers mean my skin has been the least dried out for the winter that it is possible to be while being free of chemical assistance and still have the weather be dry and cold out.

Yeah, it's definitely dry out- I've been getting shocked all over work. Before I open any door I have to rap it with my knuckle to hopefully dispel any static buildup. Hopefully. 

But yeah, I WANTED the product with Snoopy on it, but couldn't confirm if it was moisturizer or not. Good mascots work is what I'm trying to say.

What else did I do- I ate with Alona, Steve, Bradley and Sylar whereupon we decided, minus Alona who had to leave early for a class (also I think she can only take so much sitting with us four, but I could be mistaken), that we would get Chinese barbecue after work.

And to fast forward AGAIN (I just want to sleep, I don't want to write) we invited the new teacher, Dany from Columbia, to join us. Yes, the country is important, we all assume this nationalistic identity when we're the only representative of our country. I repeated a sweet burn against the states that I read on facebook today solely to fulfill that duty. Well, no, it was a good burn, made me laugh. Eat it, the states!

Er, anyway, yes, Chinese barbecue. I made a face at the chicken feet... I should have insisted we try it for the experience, but, I mean, I'm as open minded as the next guy, but chicken feet is the feet of chicken. There is nothing about that which sounds, or LOOKS, appetizing. Who was the first guy to think- "I've got the rumblies that only chicken feet can satisfy" maybe he was on a paleo diet?

The most interesting thing to me about the evening at the barbecue place was this moment when, for some reason I'm not going to speculate on, two guys were discussing, I forget the term they used, "something something women" but regardless, when they were asked what they were talking about Bradley put it in simple terms- and I quote- "WHORES".

I found that to be a good reminder that despite how friendly he is, or how simple his English level is at the moment, he's still an adult... on the other hand, it was a fairly guileless, and therefore like a child, to be that blunt.

I can't speak to whether or not the discussion was serious or not, I was busy talking about the Monkey King.

It was a good time.

Okay, that's enough. No more writing, skipping the push-ups/burpees, no brushing of my various teeth (I don't care that I had some pieces of hard orange candy), it's 9:53 pm and I am sleeping now.

Good night

January 15th 2016

9:52 am

I remember how nice it was yesterday to wake up assured that at least for that day I wouldn't have to do an English Corner.

So yes, I had completely forgotten that I had an English Corner to prepare for. In the hour before my first class- the only time I could prepare anything- I was internally frantic. I made the snap decision to find some of the songs I've been listening to that get me pumped up for overcoming challenges or just make me happier- I grabbed Dare by Stan Bush, the Mister Rogers "Garden of Your Mind" Remix, and the Smile Song from My Little Pony. Don't judge me until you've listened to it without getting it stuck in your head.

But even as I was working on getting these videos together (and I didn't know how to download it directly onto the USB I had, so I had to download it once onto the computer, then onto my USB, eating up precious time) I was telling a new teacher, Dany from Columbia, a few of the ins and outs of the place. Yes, I'm an old hand here after two weeks. And then there's my sick compulsion to say, whenever someone approaches me with a question of some kind, "yes, how can I help you?" with an expression like I've got all the time in the world. Curse my cool exterior!

I was a couple of minutes late for my first class, but things were downloading apace, and I'd had the foresight to turn off the sound on my computer in case some embarrassing ad wanted to pop up in my abscence. It only took a minute after to transfer everything onto the USB, so it worked out.

And then onto the English Corner itself.

While I didn't have the patience to allow the entirety of "Dare" to play through for the crowd- it gets a bit repetitive, it did have the most interesting imagery to discuss with the class, and the Mr. Rogers video allowed me to explain something of who HE was, and the "Smile" song led into, well, calling it a discussion would be generous, but I went around the room asking what made them happier, what made them ready for a challenge, and after one man said he wasn't too interested in the My Little Pony song ("Really? Never saw that one coming" I thought, totally seeing it coming) saying it was for teenagers (he has some interesting ideas about what's for teenagers..) so I talked about how adults are maybe harder to make happy than children, they have a lot worries, and so, pretending you were ten again, what made you happy then? And that question basically ate up the rest of the time.

Ultimately, this was my most successful English Corner. I kept my previous observations in mind and enacted them. I'm going to level with you, there was one dude that fell asleep on a table in the back, but I don't think that was related to me. 

After that was lunch, I picked up 22.50 yuen worth of food which, even for someone cramming lunch and dinner into one meal, I thought was a lot of food. Rice, a roll stuffed with something that reminded me of sourkraut (spelling?), some spicy... chicken?, a watery soup with tiny bits of some grain in it that was too small to be rice. It actually looked like quinoa. And some fried dumpling thing.

Oh, there was a translation issue at the Food Bazzar desk when I added money to the food card- it took some effort, and a guy with some English and a random customer that also had some English to explain SOMETHING about the 28th of the month. I think the word they were having trouble with was "sale" or "promotion". If I understood them correctly they were trying to tell me that if I place a 100 yuen on my food card on the 28th of the month that I would get 20 back, or more likely I'd get an additional 20 yuen put on my card total. I imagine the worker is forced to tell every customer about that promotion, and she didn't give up when facing the adversity of a customer that doesn't speak her language. Admirable.

Back at Web I ran into Steve who has now seen the new Star Wars. I'm happy to say he also had some concerns, so that's one person who doesn't think I'm crazy. He also gave me... wait, it may have been Bradley... uh, this is bad, they were standing together at the time when one of them gave me... well, it's a sweet USB with a ton of space on it. It'll be a big help with getting materials for English Corners in the future!

Then I helped proof read this girl's English essay- it was only about a page and a half, single spaced. We fixed up the grammar and, I couldn't help myself, made some suggestions for the style.

Next two classes, no big deal- then in my last class I sat down and began to tell everyone how great the last class, because once you're there you know you don't have to photocopy anything more for the day... and then I saw the note to myself from earlier in the day reminding me to photocopy for my last class. Which I did not do. (Ted, don't forget to wind* your watch!)

*spelling?

So I apologized, and went to photocopy. A little over two thirds of the way through the photocopy job it ran out of paper. I opened the tray, grabbed some paper, looked inside, and thought "I do not have enough time to figure this out without risking breaking it." So I worked with what I got. Which turned out to be plenty because...

When I returned to the class and began to take attendance, the students informed me that the class list was totally wrong. I apologized again, and left to go get the correct class list- but at least this time the delay wasn't my fault. The NEW class list had a couple less students in it, so that worked out well with the number of photocopies. Enough page one for everyone, enough page two to share, and the third page I could just read to everyone.

The class was about "Educated Guesses" which I said was super important in English- you aren't going to know every English word, but at those times when you come up short, you can look for clues and make a guess. From there the class was all guessing facts, making up stories/explanations based off clues (with a surprising amount of magic involved in the explanations, one suggested the involvement of a body swap with a dog, and the other had a spell reflected to turn the caster into a dog), and ending with some riddles.

And that was all she wrote. Some staff were asking Dany his deal- it kind of sounds like he already knows some people in Dalian. I walked home listening to music, doing some bicep curls with a 4L bottle of water I bought earlier but didn't mention when it happened because you're not the boss of me.

It's 10: 45 am and things look ROUGH outside. There's always the one 'stack in the distance spewing out smoke, but it's like, uh, when did you guys get three other smoke stacks out there? Did you JUST make those? It's hazy out, man.

Wish me luck, have a good day

January 14th, 2016

9:17 am

I was in a car heading to Downsview station, and I had to wonder how I was going to get back to China in time for work... so I opened my eyes to reassure myself that I was in bed, in Dalian. Which sounds more like the dream scenario, sitting in a car travelling to a subway station that I've visited many times before, or living in a place where I'm unable to read what's around me, or speak to the people I find? The latter sounds much more ridiculously impossible.

On the other hand, meeting Adam Pally doing a character that is dressed as an 80 year old Scottish doctor covered head-to-toe in blue paint- yes, that's a dream. If that ever happened on Grey's Anatomy, let me know, because then I'd watch for sure.

Yesterday was interesting because, despite what I'd written earlier, I saw that I was not, in fact, amazing at teaching. When I said that I was riding high off the euphoria that comes with being the fresh new thing. How quickly that wears off.

My chief difficulty came from, what else, today's English Corner. I decided to tell my most well polished story- that of my first university class and how I had so much trouble finding my tutorial. It's a story that gets laughs and has a good twist at the end. The telling of which took I think 26 minutes of my hour time slot. Then I talked about some other times when I embarrassed myself- except for when I talked about learning the trombone, that was just something I was proud of- again, I got some laughs, but otherwise it was painfully obvious that most of the class weren't interested in what I had to say. An awful lot of phone checking was going on.

I didn't need anyone to tell me, I can see it clearly- I've got a problem engaging these people. I wonder if I had this problem when I gave my talk about transit in Toronto, and was too up in my head to notice at the time. Probably.

Part of the problem is if I'M not talking for the full hour I feel like someone will pull me aside, tell me I'm not working hard enough, and that's it, I'm catching the next shipping crate back home.

Another part of the problem is that I don't feel like I can really test the people here. English Corner aside, the classes are pass/fail, and if you fail you have to re-take the class- and I'm told these classes are expensive! I know, I know, if they aren't getting what they need there's no use passing them either. When I ask a question and am faced with blank stares, well, it goes back to that "needing to talk for the full hour" thing. If there's no other way to phrase the question, no subtle way to hint at the answer, well, here's the answer.

Bradley approached me after my English Corner and suggested that I need to be more interactive- pictures from the projector, a youtube video, and, most importantly ask the students questions ("most importantly" is my emphasis). He pointed out that my topic about embarrassing situations was a good one, that I could have asked a student "what about you? Did you ever do anything embarrassing?"

As a quick aside, I realize that isn't really a great topic at all for eliciting class participation- even less so in China, where I've consistently heard from people that they didn't speak up in class because they were afraid of embarrassing themselves.

After I had finished up ("any questions for me? no questions?") Leo gave his lesson on ideas in criminal justice or something like that... I hope it was titled "Crime and Punishment"- it's weird, it sounds like he's giving a lesson about the social causes of crime, but it's ACTUALLY about vocabulary building. He had his slides up, and he asked them questions (as opposed to asking FOR questions) and after they answered he always followed up with "okay. Why?"

I know this isn't rocket science, that I'm stating the obvious. Well, I clearly haven't been doing this, I clearly need to examine how to improve. This is possibly more important than refining my chopstick skills. Possibly.

I'd like to say that "I know I have to put my ego to the side, and listen more, because my time here is really all about the students" but, though I can very much be an idealist, I can also be a realist (not everyone can lay claim to both titles). The reality is, I'm still unsure of my position here, and what the top brass are looking for- or even who the top brass ARE! It's a 3 month probation period, same with most jobs back in Ontario (wait, or is it 3 weeks probabtion back in Ontario?... whatever). The REALITY is, if I had to choose between being good at my job and losing it versus APPEARING to be good at my job and keeping it, then, right now, I choose the latter. I can't afford not to.

But hopefully that isn't the choice I'm forced to make.

 In my last class for the day, a private class with two students, we were discussing comparatives, superlatives and conditionals- I kind of glaze over at those terms myself... we were discussing what items we'd bring with us stranded on an island, where we made sentences about what we could do with a particular item, what would happen without an item, and how one item is better than another, that sort of thing.

I kept making my example sentence include "mochi"- I was going to use marshmallows, but they didn't know what that was. "Without mochi I would lose weight." "Mochi is better than flint stones because without mochi I would immediately die." That sort of thing. It got a good reaction.

The guy is actually the same student that told me I should watch grammar videos, and he had a lot of trouble with plurals, and he always wanted to add "the", and at one point he just kind of skipped a verb he needed. I had a much easier time correcting him this time than before as I've gotten used to how he uses the language- and also because the girl in the class helped him out a bunch.

In her list of items to bring to the island, she included books and writing equipment so she could document her two years stay on the island. I asked her after the class if she was a writer, saying I was a writer myself. She said she'd like to be one, and suggested we could talk about writing some time when her English was better. I told her it wouldn't have to be that far away at all, and complimented her on the work she did in the class today.

Smiling, she replied "You make me feel content."

It was a very sweet reply, and made me feel good about myself. They could have been stuck with a worse person to teach them.

10:33 am

Wish me luck, have a good day

January 13th 2016

9:28 am

I should maybe consider closing my curtains, I had my alarm set for 10 but it's kind of bright.  There was more hammering/construction last night, but I reckon I was too exhausted for it to bother me much.

To quickly report on my meal at Food Bazzar yesterday: I had some kind of oily slices of potato that bedeviled my chop stick attempts. I had what looked like a slice of pizza, only instead of cheese or tomato sauce topping, I believe it was fried egg with some vegetables mixed into the whole affair. Quite good! I picked up another watermelon cup and water and finally I got what looked to me like some kind of whole wheat bun loaf- I've been on the look out for something less whitebread- and when I bit into it, it was purple inside! Bit a little further in, and there was some kind of massively sweet sugar filling, with one or two surprise peanuts hanging out inside. This country may be a deathtrap for people with a peanut allergy.

Walking out the door of Roosevelt Plaza onto Huanghe Lu/street I turned right, and walked west. For what felt like the majority of my walk I was uninterested with the area- it wasn't as nice as the south, and there wasn't an obvious feature drawing my attention. Then I saw another mountain in the distance, and thought I'd aim for that.

Not too long after that, I looked back up at my goal... and didn't see the mountain anymore. How'd I lose a mountain? (This one was actually much taller than the couple from my walk yesterday) The road must have veered a bit of course. I ended up thinking the area was remarkably unremarkable, that I must be walking through a valley cutting right through the mountainous landscape. (Er, hilly landscape?... Look, they're clearly mountains, but, yes, they could be taller... get on that guys)

Had a close call with a car backing out of a parking space- with the sun shining in my face it's no wonder I didn't see any reverse lights on the car. I also got honked at by a van than wanted to go by me on "the sidewalk". That guy I legit gave a dirty look to. I'm never going to stop complaining about this traffic.

Have I mentioned the barber poles here? With one boring westernized exception, all the barber poles have this sort of crystalline look to them. And there were a ton of barbers and salons on this road. There were a lot of places that offered some kind of service, but were also giant messes. A lot of things are worn down over here, people included. There are some shacks dotted around the city that I'm surprised no one from the city has shut down. But I guess if they did that they'd have to somehow look after these people. There was just such a shack underneath an elevated roadway (an ideal place for one, I'm sure there'd be plenty under the Gardner Expressway if a) they wouldn't get shut down and b) the Gardner didn't constantly threaten collapse.) but I caught a flash of a little foot climbing around. There was a clothes hangar a meter or two away from the structure that confirmed there was a small child living there, barely more than a toddler. Man.

I passed a couple of Bank of China's (Bank's of China?) that advertised for moneygram services, so that may be where I'll go to send money back to Canada. My credit cards (and Jordan) aren't going to pay themselves off. But to see multiple advertisements on that stretch of road makes me even more incredulous that no one at my bank knew what it was-- that's WITH an interpreter!

I passed by "Laoning Normal University" which most definitely is not a super villain academy. A completely normal university.

To my left, through the occasional break between buildings, I could see that I was walking beside the mountain I was aimed at- and on the other side of it there are residential building built into the mountain. Aw, I wanted to see mountain apartment buildings! Stupid curving Huanghe Lu.

Let's see, I saw a couple of cats, I returned a wave from some people I locked eyes with sitting in a restaurant, and around 3:30 I ran into a bunch of kids waitting for a bus that I think I surprised with my freakish appearance. The road was aimed up now, so I was out of the valley and getting a bit of a hike in. To my left was the Dalian resevoir, according to some english lettering on a sign. I turned around pretty soon after passing the resevoir sign- actually I recorded the intersection I turned back at if you want to check how far I walked: so I started at Xi'an Lu and Huanghe Lu, walking west on Huanghe until Hongqi Xilu and Huize Beiyuan, and then turned around and came back.

My knee hurt a little well before I decided to turn around, but it kicked back into gear just fine, so that was weird. And my pants didn't protect my legs from the cold as well as I'd have liked, they still ended up sore. My water bottle, by the end of the trip, had chunks of ice inside- I didn't think it was that cold at all! I also had a bit of a headache, perhaps from the cold, constant music (that was my choice) and likely I was dehydrated. So I drank some water, easy fix. I got a notice that my music player had a low power level, but it lasted me all the way until I returned back to my apartment after shopping, so it did really well to keep on ticking.

Back at Roosevelt Plaza I picked up the container of "EuroCow" quick cook oatmeal- I don't think there was any call for name calling. Then to Wal-Mart where I picked up a pillow, 4 litres of water, some green raisins and pumpkin seeds, some more of those donut holes (probably the same batch, judging by the taste now) and a container of some dessert bread- I wanted to eat the bread and then use the container for my oatmeal. I got four bananas, one of which I ate last night and was just what the doctor ordered. Aren't low potassium levels linked with depression? Or am I making that up? I got a mug to drink out of (I needed something with a wide enough opening to aim that 4L jug of water into) and, what took the longest to find, a spoon.

I asked a guy where I could find a spoon, making a spooning into cereal type motion, but he waved me off. I guess that motion doesn't translate so well if cereal isn't a thing here. Well, I found it on my own- I opted for the 15 yuan spoon that came with some chopsticks and a carrying case, mostly because it was all packaged up, and I wasn't prepared to think about how we clean dishes here if we don't drink the tap water. No, don't think about it! I said I wasn't ready to deal with this!

Exiting the Wal-Mart, a girl was handing out flyers... wait, she hands out flyers for Web International! She recognized me and we exchanged greetings but, like, she's moonlighting from her flyering job with another flyering job? That's rough buddy.

I put on another load of laundry (I'm back at my apartment, keep up) while eating the sweet bread and donuts and playing either candy crush or solitaire, both of which games I had an abysmal track record. Many losses. At one point the laundry machine stopped, and I went to see it was still full of water. Uhh. I kind of pressed a bunch of buttons until it starting doing stuff again. I'm definitely going to have to figure out how to use that thing properly.

And then I went to sleep- and amongst the many things I dreamed, but the few things I remember right now, I was helping Jeff Reid move a truck, and he was worried about his deposit on said truck. I mostly wanted to share that because someone reading this may tell Jeff that he got a shout out and I can picture his bemusement. :)

It's 10:51 am, so let's try this EuroCow oatmeal.

Wish me luck, have a good day

January 12th 2016

12:27 am

After I finished writing this morning I plugged in my USB to make a copy- and every few seconds I'd get a "detected malware" notification. So I took some time to look over all the folders in my USB, finding a number of suspicious shortcuts that either said "Microsoft" or "folder" or some name copied from my existing files. Whether or not it would help, I opted to delete all those shortcut files. I'm a regular icebreaker (not sure if I made the correct phrasing for a Neuromancer reference, that's what I was going for). I began a quick system scan to see what I could see, thankfully I made sure to update everything on my computer the day before I left, so at this point it has mostly up-to-date anti-virus software (12 days out of date is a long time to be out of the game I guess).

It was taking far longer than I expected, so I searched for the chess program... and it looks like when I made the switch to Windows 10 they booted out my chess. 

And replaced it with Candy Crush: Soda Saga.

So I played some Candy Crush, and could feel brain cells dying as I watched this "puzzle game" essentially play itself. In theory it was teaching me the mechanics, but it was just level after level of taking the suggested action. All things accompanied by the suggestive utterance of "Juicy!" It was almost 1pm before the scan was complete- some trojan what nots were worming their way in my computers insides, but it knew what's what. The worry then is what'll happen when it DOESN'T know what's up. I should check my other USB to see if it's gotten all virus-upped at my work place. That's the downside of the browser they have to allow me to go on facebook and such- it's super sketchy with pop-ups.

My first stop after leaving the apartment was lunch at Roosevelt Plaza. I had no intention of revealing how reliant I am on my workplace there, so I made sure to give it a wide birth. For food I picked up some sweet and sour something, the rice with its bits of corn and ham, some green vegetable thing with mushrooms in some kind of water business, the tall cup of watermelon pieces, and a bottle of water. All together this put me 6.4 yuan over my 20 yuan daily food budget, but my budget basically went out the window after I got a safety net of extra money from Jordan. (Okay, let's actually count how much is in there, instead of allowing for hypothetical "infinite money" by virtue of never checking, let's open this Schrodinger's box and see what's what... yes, as expected, a doubling of my initial budget. I should spring for oatmeal and see if I can't correct my newfound irregularity.)

Two things of note about this meal: in buying a bottle of water I found I owed the bottle people an apology- the bottles here aren't unnaturally soft and sucky, it's just that I must have been running off of really old bottles from a backstock in that hotel. So that's okay. And also I made a breakthrough vis a vis my chopstick usage. Instead of focusing on how the sticks are being held, I examined the actual interaction between stick and foodstuffs from people around me. What I found was that they used the sticks to manipulate the food into whatever "take off zone" they wanted, and then brought the sticks together UNDERNEATH the food, to scoop the food up. This is an absolutely new paradigm compared to my (admittedly celebrated) pincering technique, which allows for greater personal adjustment according to preference in the portion size of each scoop. This is wonderful! Chop sticks making a certain kind of sense! I honestly didn't expect that to happen! Used in this manner, I may have solved my noodle problem. Time will tell.

As promised, I went south. I was thinking about how chaotic all the roads were, and as I walked, as the bright commercialism of the plaza waned, I realized where I had seen this before: this place looks like the world of Blade Runner. But that's Chinatown, Jake.

Yeah, I started to think, "actually, this kind of looks crummy" but there was a mountain ahead, so I said to myself, "self, let's go to that mountain and see if I can't hike up the thing". Okay, you got me, this time I didn't literally didn't say that to myself. But don't always assume I'm making up dialogue, because I've said that self line before, so watch out!

Er, anyway, yes, mountain. So I travelled down, hanging too near the road for total comfort (no choice though), singing along with my ipod songs, and I found a whatdyacallit. One of those stores that isn't a supermarket, but has a bunch of fruits and vegetables inside. I told myself I'd pick up some bananas on the way back, but I didn't see the store on the return trip. That's too bad.

RIGHT. MOUNTAIN. So I got to the bottom of the mountain, but it was closed of to the public. Rats, right? But the road hangs a right, and if you'd be ever so kind as to turn your head along with it, you'd see a whole other side to Dalian- a city scape that is straight up gorgeous, the crown jewel of which has to be Castle Dalian.

Or possibly Dalian Castle, but I like the effect of saying "Castle Dalian". It's a castle high up on the other side of these groups of mountains here (they're relatively modest mountains, but still very cool)- the castle, from this vantage point at least, looks super tall, like Xanatos was trying to break some centuries old curse or somesuch. So now I followed the road with a mind to go up to the castle.

I was slightly disappointed that it actually was called Dalian Castle, I thought that was just me being romantical- it's a hotel as well as a museum. Er, well, the sign actually said "Hotel" and "Residence" so... people live there? I thought that was confusing. But I was a fan of the English words.

Hiking up the winding main road, I finally got to an entrance which had a majestic stag statue standing in front of it, with two, what, fawns? The stag had a crew is what I'm saying. Additionally there was a security person on a walkie talkie checking me out. I did my best to appear like a non threatening tourist, first by exaggerating my looks of wonder at everything around me, and second by not letting on like I was aware there was security.

A short distance further up the road was the end point, customer drop-off inntrance (you see what I did there? I substituted "inn" over "en". This was a clever way to make it so you can never again be sure whether or not I make a spelling mistake, or a pun that you just didn't get.) There were some... castle-y... umm... turret... uh, corner stone gazebos that were playing soft music and gave you an amazing view of south Dalian.

I think I live in the bad part of town. What? Come on, man.

There were two other gazebos (that's the word I'm going with) and the second had some stairs down to an area where you could chill out with these three statues, the center of which was clearly Poseidon holding a trident. I forget whether or not he was standing on this large fish, but regardless the fish was using his tail to cover Poseidon's junk. I thought it was funny, which is immature, I know. Right now I'm enjoying the thought of the fish saying "Eeeh, it's a living."

I just wanted to get to the castle before turning back home, but the waters edge was RIGHT there, so down I went, back to the road at the mountain's base. There was a sign for a zoo that was, I believe, 2.5 km east from there. But there's enough going on for this trip, even if it were open.

Augh, okay, interlude: I don't know if there's construction that's going on all night, or if this is someone using the insane washing machines here nonstop, but this hammering business has been going nonstop since about 9pm and it's starting to get to me. It's 1:54am right now! Like, what is the deal?? If this is a laundry machine then I promise to not use it late at night again.

I walked by a rounabout with a statue of what I'm assuming are the three fates. Three ladies, I can tell you that much, and into an area similar to the distillery district: cobblestone streets (is that the right word? you know what I'm talking about) with the buildings to match. Sort of that "rustic rich" aesthetic. Some nice statues of elephants, however, unlike the elephant statues near Roosevelt Plaza, no one had used the nostrils in the trunk for an ashtray. Real classy!

And there I was at the waterfront. Sun high in the sky (well, low enough to blind me in that direction), a couple of small, tree filled islands in the not-too-far distance. A giant bridge spanning the water from (presumably) the Dalian Zoo to some unknown attraction in the west. Seriously though, it's how I imagine the bridge to P.E.I. looks, and it's very nice.

It's 2:11 am, and I'm tired. I'll pick this up in the morning, assuming I can sleep because seriously, this is what it sounds like when Woody Woodpecker takes a job doing construction. If the noise persists tomorrow I may have to investigate... and no jury in China would convict me.

9:59 am and I'm back.

Just behind me and to my left were some public washrooms, just in time. I'm afraid, nice part of town or not, they still don't come stocked with soap dispensers. I'm starting to run low on hand sanitizer.

I realized my inner thighs were sore, so I gingerly waddled over to a nearby bench to look out at the water for a bit and think about my next move. Also I said "now my pants are chaffing me" because of course I did. When I returned to my apartment I realized the problem had less to do with my pants rubbing back and forth on my legs and more to do with inadequate protection from the cold. I'll be wearing my heavier pants today to ward off just such an eventuality.

I considered turning back north now but... to the west was a short bridge, and on the other side was some kind of closed down carnival attraction. Obviously I wanted a closer look at that.

So I wandered a bit off course from my south-north plan. But there wasn't really any danger in my getting lost, not like my initial trip to Zhongshan Square. There was the ever present danger of getting killed by a car though- there were a couple of times when I had to wait so long to cross the street that I started getting angry at this place just for that. I really wanted to keep moving, as the temperature was starting to drop.

The area was fairly isolated, so I was belting out my songs now. The Power Rangers: Time Force theme song is brilliant. FYI. I had to investigate what looked like some neon green palm trees, but on closer inspection they were fake. Considering the cartoon monkeys everywhere, I imagine the decorations were put together for the upcoming Spring Festival- whatever and whenever that is. There are monkeys pictures everywhere guys. And dolls. It's a big deal.

I headed towards what looked like a shopping center to try and warm up some, but it ended up being more a community center on the verge of shutting down for the day. It afforded me some wind protection, but very little heat. I blew on my hands a bit before moving forward.

Out on the north side of this community center there was a sort of winter wonderland playground set up- snow hills, little ski hills, don't quote me on this, but I think a little snowmobile track. Now, there isn't really any snow in Dalian, there hasn't been any parcipitation since I've been here, sidestepping the fact that it's mostly been too warm for snow. So this whole set up is clearly made with a lot of artificial snow. 

A guy on a bicycle with a motor on it, somewhere, takes off and drives away. If we were in a Mad Max scenario, the guys in China would already be ahead of the curve, most everything with wheels already has a motor in it. I saw one thing yesterday that looked like maybe the back half a motorcycle. If it's currently operational then the best I can figure is that it's some kind of hoverbike.

Perhaps because it was the return trip and I wasn't busy looking at everything, but it didn't take me as long as I thought to return to the Roosevelt Plaza area. And you know I walked inside to warm up. Then outside, and back in at the next available plaza. Well, I guess there aren't any stunning revelations to be had with this line of conversation. I made it back to my apartment at the ripe old time of... 6pm- what, that's it?

Wow, okay, what to do with myself. I ate some crummy orange slice candy (I just finished another piece now, no, it isn't growing on me), I napped until the construction sounds really kicked into gear and I tried to spot the source outside the window. No luck there. I took some time thinking about what I'd be up to if I were still in Toronto- I'd probably be watching some internet video with Simon, getting set for a meal of, say, fish sticks, fries and creamed corn. Not really healthier than anything I'm eating here. But there'd be some laughs to be had.

I played some more of this Candy Crush business (augh), and watched the only video I've got saved on my laptop- the pilot episode for The Flash! I haven't actually seen the broadcast version, so I wonder if anything is different... I briefly considered playing some pokemon, but I'm too afraid to charge my 3DS here, so at the moment it's a resource too precious to use.

Clearly, I need to get some kind of social life in Dalian for when I don't have the mental energy to do hours of writing about my day. Plus some language books to get a grip on Mandarin.

I thought I'd do some hair trimming- and with my honkin' big scissors confiscated at Pearson that meant a steady hand with my electric trimmer. I wasn't afraid of ruining it, it's a piece of junk. So I took it out- hey! My phone charger! It was mixed in with the trimmer cord! That explains that. I removed my plug adapter from my laptop, and plugged the adapter into the wall near the bathroom, with my trimmer attached (I think it was set to the on position if that matters) and POW! Spark! I dropped the trimmer on the counter, and removed the adapter. I plugged it back in to it's usual spot for my laptop, and nothing.

Ah! Aaah! I immediately regret doing that! Did I just cost myself the ability to set my alarm in the mornings and, more importantly, write my posts? My computers battery is in rough shape as is, I was surprised how much had drained in the few minutes since unplugging it just now. Aaah!

Okay, I removed the adapter from the plug, and pulled out the instruction booklet from my luggage. I was too tired for the tiny print, so I'm happy to report that in my luggage is a magnifying glass from some nature book I had when I was little. Aw yeah magnification! Oh right, the rather serious situation. So my adapter felt kind of dead, it even had a sort of death ratttle to it. The instructions told me about a spare fuse built into the adapters case- well, it's not going to get any more broken, so I may as well see if I blew its fuse. I used the tiny scissors in my toiletries bag to pry the little fuse compartment open (those stupid scissors have to be good for something other than yanking at my hair in a vain attempt at cutting) and there was this tiny rod attached to the compartment door. I removed the rod before realizing I was probably supposed to keep it in the door and shove the whole thing into the regular fuse spot. I hope I didn't mess everything up just now!

I removed the in-use fuse compartment, and the tiny tube there was in rough shape. "Unbelievable, that this piece of junk could be such a big problem." - Doc Brown

I tried to fit the new fuse in, but it wasn't going. Then I remembered that "death rattle" from before, and turned the adapter over until, yup, a piece of the old fuse dropped out. The old fuse, altogether, looks like a broken TCRI canister of mutagen. So that's cool. Now I was able to fit the new fuse in (it still took some doing though..), and I plugged it back into the wall near my laptop, plugged in the laptop- success! It works!... otherwise I wouldn't be able to type this to you, right?

With this all too recent bad experience, I was reluctant to plug in my cellphone. But if I could get a working watch for my classes that would really help me out... I decided to risk it, but not with my computers adapter. That was now off limits. So I took out my second adapter that I had previously been unable to figure out. I got it took work by using the unintuitively marked US side... to me it just looks like a regular plug, but it can fit inside the weird outlet here, and voila, charging cellphone. I tried to send a text to Jordan about it, but it wouldn't send. I managed to send a text to Simon a while back at the Roosevelt Center, so maybe I'll try again there.

So, yes, that was my harrowing experience with the near loss of my main adapter. Maybe the other one would work for my laptop too- if I blow another fuse, you know I'll be trying it.

It's 11:06 am, so let's see what I can see today. What's west? Who knows!

Wish me luck, have a good day