thats right

hahaha bitches. I will give you something to be thankful for. the great red menace is down and the patients are running the asylum. It is like a Christmas miracle but on thanksgiving. I dont know why they let me finally into this blog but i do intend to write everyday while the internet censors are looking at child porn and doing whatever other things they do when not silencing those who may disagree with them. I jest of course there is no may about it I completely and totally disagree with the incompetent and corrupt government of this nation. They are disturbingly bad, criminal in many ways and proud of it. Makes me sad for the people. anyways as this new found unrestricted access to this blog may not last I suggest you check out my other blog. www.defendbeijing.blog.com i must admit I have missed you all and hope that this lasts.

changes

will be posting on a new blog as this one is nearly impossible to get to now .
www.defendbeijing.blog.com will also try to keep this one up and running . sorry for the inconvience but please come and read on the new blog same me same rants same same.

i

i miss you all.

just so you all are aware i am still alive despite the coral, mosquitoes, volcanoes and trekking. indonesia is grand but sweltering and it is really a bit unbearable as the concept of air conditioning is not at all embraced. eating and sweating is no fun at all try it sometime wiping your brow before biting to avoid dripping into your food. other than that it is lovely. the volcanoes smoking and threatening to blow are surreal, standing on the edge hoping the moment isnt now. other than that i will write much more when i am back in beijing. actually looking forward to going back and cooking for myself and sleeping in my bed and doing the things that are familiar. sounds lame right being tired of travel.

bali

Went to bali and was a bit disappointed. the waves were nice and all but really it was a bit crowded and there were too many people surfing for me to try to go out and get my groove on. It says something about a place when the entire stretch of beach was lined with the vendors , not fruit or trinkets but surf boards. now do you really expect me and this temple i have to climb into the water with the riff raff that rents surf boards for a weekend visit? All I could imagine was an errant surfer getting on a wave too big for his rookie ass and crashing into me so i left the beach and headed into the mountains much nicer up here less people less to doi and overall less expensive.Think I will enjoy the few days I have here just a lot of walking and looking and figuring out what it is I want to do next. Hopefully there will be time enough to hit a beach and relax but if not thats ok I am trying to learn to take it easy and harbor less expectations. Life I think is about learning, I am not finished yet just have to remember that.

malaysia

This day has been a wreck. First I took the worlds fastest commuter train from beijing to tianjin yesterday. It topped out at 330 kph which is screaming fast. though not fast enough to get me back in time. You see my tickets to bali in indonesia were for yesterday and I thought that they were today. Silly me for not ever learning to read. Anyway got new tickets for today and now the final leg of my journey from Kuala Lumpur to Bali has been delayed for three hours. Which sucks as now i wont get in until 1030pm and then I have to find a place to stay. I really need a beer and to relax but as I am at the airport it is super hard to find either of those. I did however encounter what I believe is the edge of civilization. This is according to the Dunkin theory of world levels. Yep thats me at the low cost carrier terminal in Kuala lumpur.

clearly a failure

So the little experiment didnt work. I cannot get my videos up to this blog. I think that I am just not cut out for this sort of technological stuff. As a side note I am again in china and the great firewall is blocking my site from me posting so again it is a hassle for me to circumvent. China is much the same as when I left there are really nice people that I deal with and then there are some rules and shit that I must follow even though I cannot understand why. Let me give you an example to illustrate my point. I have a bike. It has been sitting for the last month. It needed air in the tires so I took it to a bike shop around the corner, the same shop I go to get tune-ups. The worker filled the tires and then when I asked how much he said no money was needed. Very nice as he could have charged me a few RMB and bought lunch for himself. Then I rode my bike to the bank to change money, as I pulled up to the bank the security guard told me that I have to park my bike on the street in the median. I asked why and he of course couldnt tell me just the rules. I didnt have the bike against the bank just next to the last car parked in front of the the bank. Such a strange country. Rules must be followed. Except of course there was a bike already there. And I was only parking next to it. I asked why did that bike get to park there and the guard picked it up and moved it to the median. So I of course complied and did the same with mine. I am happy again for the self reliance and lack of responsibility that being home brings. I can go on my own schedule and I neednt worry about how to get from A to B. It is nice to be back on a bike back on my own time and back on vacation. As much as I enjoyed seeing my family it is nice to be home.

trying something

this is to try to put some small video into my post. this one is of me at the beach in N.C. body surfing on a wave. It is from my perspective and is in real time i will slow it down and add effects later just wanted to try to get it up and see if it works. oh thats my little brother in the beginning catching the first wave. some other random thoughts about the travel to china this time. first taking muscle relaxers and alcohol does in fact produce drowsiness which is good on a 13 hour flight. Next what is the point of the quarantine in china? I arrived on a 777 with 500 people from the US to korea all of them got off and now I will be in a smaller plane from korea to china. If there is a sick person from L.A. to korea then I am sick. If the plane from korea to china is cleared then I still am sick just not showing symptoms as I caught the flu on my way from the US. It seems really silly to me to even try to stop this wouldnt it be better to wash hands and encourage basic hygiene?

last day

well this is the final day of my US adventure for 2009. Some of it was a blast some of it was so so and some of it wasnt very fun at all. In all i think that the US hasnt changed that much from last year, I am really happy that i got to see the parts that i did and am really looking forward to traveling in Indonesia next. I am truthfully a bit worried about the fact that I may get quarantined in China when I arrive. If that happens I am most certainly screwed for the next leg of my vacation. We shall see. I leave in 7 hours and get to spend the next 18 hours traveling. Oh what a world.

travel with family

good to see them other things have happened will process and inform...

family

finally arrived to the outer banks to spend some time with the family. posts will be light for the next few days as every day will be more or less the same thing sleep wake beach drink run dinner talk tv sleep repeat. looking forward to the monotony of relaxation.

airports

sitting in an airport waiting with a three hour layover for the next flight and i found a free internet hub so i decided to sit and write a bit. There is a really cool keyboard theat is perhaps the single most industrial thing that i have ever encountered. I kind of want one for the home. I am going to take a photo and perhaps get it posted later on today so you to can witness the brilliance of this thing. Not only does it look sleek but it has a good feel and is nice to type on.

cost

trying today to save a few dollars for a friend. It really sucks how the phone/internet/tv companies in the US have you by the short and curlies. I cant cancel their service without paying a fee and I cant get he new deals offered for customers either. so basically once you sign up thats it no good will come of it, it is a crazy way to try to do business. Anyways I will try to figure out the ways to get out of the contracts and save as the land line is redundant and the cable tv is just silly.

firework

Didnt see a single firework this year and quite frankly thats ok with me.
How did the explosions get to be associated with Independence? Wouldnt something else be more fitting. Anyways I am really looking forward to seeing my family and and getting to play on the beach and swim in the ocean. Time with people who are not your family is really hard there is so many things that are not reasonable from my standpoint yet as a guest I am unable to say anything about it. At any rate I will be content to sleep on the floor of a house that is filled with strangeness that I know. Really what I want most is to go back to beijing and sleep in my own house where I neednt deal with anyone. It is bliss to be on my own terms. soon.

travel

I left the country this week. Odd how easy it is to get into and out of the neighbors it is. When going into mexico they didnt ask me anything just a few signs that say welcome and have a safe trip, and on the way back the only question was are you a US citizen. No proof nothing just my word. Seems odd that the rules are so strict when flying in but so easy when there is overland travel involved. Other than that it is hot still. Went running last night at 9 pm and it was still 94 degrees. Unbelievable that it can maintain that heat for this long. I have begun to wonder why do people live in this willingly. Also while in transit I was noticing the mirages on the road and wondered what it is that caused them? They certainly are beautiful and mysterious. They actually reflect the image of oncoming traffic which means that they are not just in the mind. I will have to look into then more and find out the truth.

economics

I have been talking to people here in the US and I seem to be missing something. I realize that I am only one person but I have yet to encounter anyone who is being hurt by the economic recession. It seems as f the world keeps marching on. The malls are full of shoppers the stores have buyers and people keep oing to work. Reading the news from china I expected there to be a vast wasteland of zombie unemployed wandering the streets but that just isnt the case. Which I am glad to see. Though I must admit I wanted the zombie unemployed for pictures sake alas cant have everything.

Oh and wacko is dead. Why do we have 30 minute specials on him and that other lady but we dont even get two minutes a night for the troops and soldiers and regular people that contribute to making this country and world better? And why is he all of the sudden a saint, wasnt he in hiding because he was a pedophile weirdo that had serious issues? Watch the news about wacko and you would think the guy was father theresa.

run

I went running the other day. I often go for a run but here in the US something struck me that I hadnt thought about until I was going along. I know that there is a big push for health care reform and single payer insurance and that it is sad that the richest nation on the planet has people that can not afford to be insured , however there has to be some repercussions for the people who refuse to take care of themselves. I am not talking about a few extra pounds, hell I carry about 10 myself, I am talking about the obese. There must be some system put into place where they are made to be responsible for their own health. If not what is the point? I dont think that the chronically sick should be denied coverage nor should the obese but should they pay the same premiums and co-pays as those of us who regularly exercise and eat well? What if there is a public health care and I decide to take hard drugs to excess isnt that nearly the same? Should you all be responsible for me? Drunk driving and accidents will that be covered? it is really hard for me because I want the whole population to be covered and I wouldnt mind the private insurance companies going out of business but I am really opposed to rewarding bad behavior or at least mitigating the punishment for it. There must be an easy way I havent thought of yet. I will work on it.

tired

Recently I have been really tired all day long. I think it might be because I have been eating 3 times a day. Not only do I feel lethargic but also bloated. I think I will go back to 1 or 2 meals a day and see how that treats me. Just not feeling healthy these days. Every meal is huge and loaded with fried thing I have tried to go the salad route but even the salads are chock full of cheese and croutons not to mention he cream dressing and so on. Hopefully I will feel better when the meals get cut.

vast

got into the car of a friend today and traveled for a 2 hours from one city to the next and realized again how vast this country is. I made so little progress towards my destination and so little of a dent on the map generaly that it is kind of scary that all of this land is administered by the same government. On the other hand when i arrived to the destination it was basically the same city repeated. The sameness of cities across the US is not something that is one of our better achievements. Just some stuff i thought about as I looked out the windows. Also glad not to be in Iran right now.

small world

Yesterday I went downtown here in the US and was walking along the street when I heard my name being called out. Puzzled I looked around and saw a friend of mine from years ago emerging from a car parked at a stop light. I went over said hello and then the light changed and the friend got back into the car and left. Weird to run into someone I know in a town of a f1.5 million and even more odd that they didnt pull over and chat for a minute. People sometimes they surprise you other times they are completely beyond my ability to understand. At any rate the first leg of my american adventure is coming to a close. Looking forward to seeing my family and spending some time at the beach. I will try to post a few picture or a short video if I can figure out how.

help

Normally I am not one to advocate the helping ways. I try to do my part and get on with life but I was told about a pretty cool website that seems to be doing some good in the world and i thought I would share it. Here is how it works, you sign up and register your bank info then you look through those people that have applied for micro loans, some of the projects are from families trying to buy their own rickshaw so they can earn a greater portion of the days wages to send kids to school, some are women needing 100 dollars to renovate a business of increase fruit stand merchandise, it can be whatever. Then you select how much you want to loan $25 and up, the money gets collected from a bunch of loaners and then sent. The person getting the loan gets it at super low interest, makes payments and you get your money back. The website has 98% payback and has loaned more than 2 million dollars. Personally I loan to people who need money the expand a bar in nicaragua and a woman that wanted to increase production of beer in uganda, hey when i get to uganda I am going to need a beer and she better still be brewing. At any rate seems like a simple way to improve some peoples lives and it beats the hell out of letting BOA or CITI use my money to make absurd payments to CEOs and CFOs for nearly bankrupting this nation. The website is kiva.org. check it out.

target

I went to target yesterday and was again struck by the vast mount of stuff that there is to buy in america. Aisles and aisles of clothes and sports equipment and food and I found a two and a half pound bag of reece's peanut butter cups minis. Talk about excess. Noone needs two and a half pounds of that ever, yet there they were staring down from the shelf on sale and waiting to be purchased and restocked. That was what got me not them being there but the entire network of the things stretching back to the factory and the nearly endless supply of everything in the store. Them I started to think about all of the other target stores out there that are the same and it is such a vast amount of junk it is incomprehensible. At any rate I bought a pair of shorts as i wanted a new pair but before purchasing them I made sure where they were made, nothing from china for me thanks. It is the smallest gesture that I can make to show my lack of support for the corrupt and repressive regime. I realize that bangledesh and other countries are not any better but I live in china and have seen first hand how completely wrong that system is.

missed me

The time really travels fast. I had intended to send all my grades and stuff out in the days following my departure from china and be finished with the school for the summer but I just got around to doing it and it feels good to be done. Something that I have been keeping up with and wondering about, in china the government is trying to make all computers sold there come with a preinstalled software that spies on the computer user. Now this is completely above and beyond the acceptable level of government snooping, the software filters political content, records passwords and can take remote screenshots. I remember when the soviets tried to run a really repressive regime and US companies didnt help them they told them to take the product like we sell it or screw. Levi's didnt install tracking devices into their jeans to help the soviets so why is HP helping the chinese government? Shouldnt they tell china that if they want HP computers they take them as they come? and google to why help? It drives me insane to think that these companies will sell out american ideals for a few bucks. I say make the best products in the world and force the powers that rule china to come sniveling to the door of freedom asking if they can play with our ball.

hot

It is silly hot right now. I mean it is like 90's and humid. I forget how much that sucks . I tried to go for a run this morning and made it through about 30 minutes then I felt like puking and my head was spinning. I stopped and walked the rest of the way. I think I just need to get up earlier. I will try that and hope it is better. The heat makes it really miserable to do other things as well. Just going for an errand becomes an oppressive exercise. I cant imagine why people given he choice would live in this kind of heat.

USA

Went to the grocery store and was reminded how great the US is. I have been to grocery stores in many countries, it is one of the things I do while on vacation, I think it gives you a kind of window into the culture that simply being in a country cannot. For example in china there are whole rows of instant noodles (ramen) but not a single pickle to be found. So yesterday I went to the grocery store here and my god what choices what variety thousands of different cheeses, hundreds of types of chips, fruit for days, and it was cleaned and not crowded and the people were friendly and helpful. It was a real treat to be there. I must say that when someone asks what is so great about america in the future I certainly know what my response will be. Anyways I bought a bunch of things to eat and I am now enjoying my vacation much more.

theft

I woke up this morning and as usual checked my email and found that the head of my department in the school had emailed me and informed me that the students in one of my classes had shared the answers.I can see it from two sides. One they cheated. To they pooled their resources and studied together. Now on the one hand it annoys me very much as I hate cheaters but on the other it isnt as if the exam was multiple choice. It was essay and short answer. I feel like lowering everyones score but then I think they did in fact memorize all the required information so they should get the points right. But is memorization enough? Did they learn anything and is it my job to care? I think I will just leave their grades where they stand and be a super pain in the ass next term when I am their writing teacher. Just another adventure in the life of a teacher.

land of the

Yesterday when I arrived into L.A. I had about an hour and a half to clear immigration and customs get to my next ticketing counter and board my last flight. Plenty of time. So my checked bag(no liquids on the plane)is the last bag out onto the conveyor belt so that killed 30 minutes of my time. Then customs and immigration. The go to another terminal. Another 10-15 minutes. Self check-in saves time right. I proceed to get the boarding pass and go to the agent to give her my bag and she tells me that i need to pay 15 dollars. Now when I bought the tickets there was no fee. Which I calmly explained to her. She being both a bitch and working at american airlines counter in l.a. got all pissy and said everyone pays. So I told her I just want to make my flight and I would deal with it later and I mentioned I was really tired from the long beijing to l.a. flight. Oh well if you are from an international flight you dont have to pay just give me the boarding pass she says. So I give her the pass from Beijing and she says I will be right back just need the manager to override the fee. 10 minutes she is gone. I now have 30 minutes until my flight leaves. She finally returns and stickers my bag and I ask will it make it onto the flight? I hope so she hisses. I leave and go towards security. First round no problems, then the waiting line and I get through the metal detector and my bag gets pulled for secondary inspection. 7 minutes later they return my bag in complete disarray. My flight is being called over the intercom while I stand and watch them patiently pick through the books and electronics I carry onto the plane. So after a mad dash a la o.j. on the old hertz commercial i run up to my gate as they call the last group to board. I made the flight and as a small favor for all the hassle I even received my checked bag on the other side. Miracles do happen.

what a difference a day makes

I am officially in america. after 23 hours and 48 minutes of hard and arduous travel I have made it back to the US. Now it is time for me to sleep. I will post a few of the stories in the am. but now i need to sleep. good night. sleep. sweet sleep.

and he's off

Thats it last post from the front lines going back to the U.S. the recharge and get a glimpse off the other side. And of course to eat tacos.

i wonder

As I have been preparing for the long journey back to america I have encountered something which I find particularly odd. If I want to buy US dollars ($) here in china they cost me 6.84RMB . If I want to buy them in america they will cost me 6.2RMB now that doesnt sound like much. Let us say that you have $100. You could get 620RMB in america or 684 here in china. Where would you shop? For me it is exactly the opposite, instead of paying 684RMB(what i get paid and exist in) to get $100 in china,I can pay 620RMB and get the same there. Even dollars are on sale in america. What a country. Anyway I learned all this because there is a limit for how much RMB to $ that one person can exchange in a day. Everyday. Pointless.

slowly

Today I tried to get a haircut from the little old guy that has a chair setup under the highway that I live near. Now that may sound strange to you who have never seen the mobile barbers of asia, but they are in most of the asian countries, innocuously tucked into a corner waiting for a fool to sit down with their long flowing locks. Now it would also seem that such a business model would be hard to make a living from right who is going to trust some guy to cut their hair under the highway? Well you would be surprised, when i arrived there was one guy getting up out of the chair, and two waiting for their turn, I got into line and began the wait. The old dude took forever, like a week to trim the hair around the ears. I sat and watched prepared to wait it out. Then came out the straight razor and suds. I kid you not. So I said to hell with it. I went out to find a real barber. Now I have seen the barber pole spinning near my house so I went to go to that place. Turns out the barber pole in china can mean anything one was a "massage" parlor the next was well I sure for the right money they would have done anything a man wanted, the next was closed(this is the only one I was sure was a barber shop). Then defeated by a slow old guy, two houses of ill repute and one closed store I finally found a barber and got a haircut. The adventures never stop.

june 4th

Yesterday was the fiurth of june here in china. Now while that may seem like nothing of consequence it is in fact the date of the "incident at tiananmen" 20 years have passed since then. Testerday I decided to go down to the square and look around for myself. Usually it is a public space with lots of people chinese and others walking about. Yesterday it was security checkpoints, police looking at passports, and then the square itself was loaded will regular police, plainclothes police, army, and "helpers". Now here is my question, why if the government here feels that the students were "counterrevolutionaries" and the protesters were "trying to harm the stability of china" why doesnt the central government celebrate the day? Why hide as a secret the fact that the government killed rebellious citizens. If there was an insurrection against the US government and the police/military stopped it I think that the government would be proud of that fact. So what exactly is the problem china? Were the citizens gathered 20 years ago really trying to destabilize china, or was the response from the government a heavy handed reminder of power and an attempt to consolidate and keep that power. Dont answer I think I already know the answer, after all a thousand police in tiananmen sends almost the same message as a tank rolling over students that wanted to change the system. Nothing to see here move along, buy your goods and be happy.

tix

I am going to indonesia. Well not right this minute and only if everything goes well. I first have to finish grading my final exams, then turn in my grades then go to the US for a few weeks then come back to beijing then avoid being quarintined, then cantch a train up to tianjin then fly to malaysia then clear customs then fly to bali and hope that they will give me a visa on arrival. So I should rephrase the first sentence I bought tickets to indonesia we shall see if I get there or not. I actually got a really good price for the tickets, all told from beijing to bali and return from jakarta to beijing it was only $210. Not too shabby eh. I did learn that I will have to be back to teach in the middle of september but that is ok. I can handle the 13 weeks vacation instead of the 16. They will pay me for all of it no matter what. So now I just need to do a bit of grading and tada I am outta here. By and by one of the chinese friends that I have here sent me a text message asking if something was wrong with this website or her computer, funny how much power the government has here, blocking loads of websites seems anti-american, but hey this aint america. But really a message that tells you the server accidentally dropped the request. It is not in anyway an accident, just admit it already.

smoke em if you got em

Here is something I heard about a bit ago and meant to get around to commenting on but it is hard as the good people here keep blocking my ability to get to this site. I will post the link http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/have-a-smoke-and-help-save-the-economy-china-tells-party-officials-1679006.html
Now I do in fact realize that there is probably a good reason for trying to improve the local economy but really forcing people to smoke. Seems a bit short sighted and counter productive. Couldnt they have sid that all government employees must go to the theater, wouldnt that have served the same purpose, pumping money into local pockets and employing workers. But it would have had the added bonus of enlightening the people gernerally and adding to the cities cultural landscape. Ah well just remember when your company tells you times are tough and there are going to be some changes, remember if you lived here that could mean that your about to get a new habit.

little things

Just to add a bit to the other story, the home of qu yuan and his tomb are now submerged by the three gorges dam. And that bit of irony will keep me smiling for a long time into the future. What a country.

dragon boat

Yesterday was the chinese dragon boat festival. For those of you not in the know I will explain the origins and you can tell me if it sounds resonable for a day of celebration. There was once a poet in china his name was qu yuan. He was alligned with one group during a turbulent part of chinas history. Now the people he was not alligned with invaded the land of those he was. Instead of joining the army and fighting (one source says he tried but failed to quialify for the army) he went to a river and drowned himself. How exactly this helped his cause I am not certain. It isnt as if he had state secrets that the others were going to torture him to reveal. He just killed himself. Now as if that isnt a strange enough reason, then the people from his town near the river, went and threw rice into the river to stop the fish from eating his body. This part I can somewhat understand, however any fish with a taste for flesh may not be so keen on rice. And anyways did the villagers plan to keep feeding the fish forever, or did they think the fish only ate once a year. So in the end china has a holiday that takes its traditional beginings from a cowardly poet and some shortsighted villagers. I always thought the easter bunny was just about the worst thing to base a holiday around but when a country has 5000 years of history, leave it to them to have that rabbit beat in spades. Anyway happy boating.

taxi

As I biked home from my other job today I had to stop at a red light. No big deal right. Well leave it to me to find something in a red light. I was waiting , minding my own business when a cab starts blasting his horn right next to me. Now I was in no way blocking the street or out of my bike lane, I was just waiting for the light to change, but this guy had to cut the corner and thus I was there. Of course it was my fault for being there and thus my job to move. I refused to move and motioned for him to go around like all the other cars that were turning. He got irate and inched closer to my bike at which point I used some of the chinese that I know, nothing polite, and not anything fit for children, that didnt really help my cause but got the other bikers to laugh at him and smile at me and bought me enough time for the light to change and away I went. The joy of life. To know just enough of a language to narrowly avoid getting run down by a pissed off cabby.

this is the end

my friend. Today was the last real class I had to teach for the next four months. I have to be physically present for the next two weeks but after that it is splitsville for me. Dont worry though I will keep you all up to date as i meander through the wrold. In fact I purchased online a shiny new toy to take with me and help me keep connected. I will tell you what it is when i get my hands on it. I also learned today that contrary to ten plus years of studying english many of the students are unable to write any sort of reasonable sentences. I had assigned one of my classes a research paper and the vast majority of the totally bombed it, verb tense agreement, sentences with objects, the works. Just a stark reminder what I will be in for next term as I will be one of the writing teachers for the english majors. It will be an uphill battle but at least there is loads of room for improvemnet.

presumption of knowledge

So while exercising today I decided that I needed some new music. I had heard about a file sharing site that had a lot of music so I thought I would give it a try. I downloaded to program and set up an account. I searched for some albums and found them and was downloading. Now to be clear I have no music on this laptop, but to be an honest theif I set the account so that anything I downloaded could be downloaded from me to others. Now I am downloading and whoever I was getting one album from decided to ban me from their files. Now I can only think of two possible reasons. One they looked at my shared files and thought that I wasnt sharing and presumed that I was Staeling their hard stolen music without recompense and decide to kick me out of their little stolen CD club, or two they are complete and utterly worthless and just dont like me. Now one would hope that it is the latter as that at least is a defensable position. If they just thought they new the story and did kicked me out without actually understanding the reason for the lack of music in my folders, well sucks to them. I mean really a file sharing website that people have ethics about allowable theft. Come on it isnt like that person made the record, hell I will go dollars to doughnuts they didnt even buy it. So i found it from another person on the website and now am proudly sharing it. Whoever it was that banned me I hope you are happy in your world full of knowledge, however limited and wrong that knowedge is. Must be nice to be so ignorant, the world msut be black and white, just like a dogs world.

the man

Just to be clear I have not been being lazy over here for the last week. I have been blocked from the website that hosts my blog. It isnt just me either. Loads of websites are off. Apparently the crackdown has begun in earnest. I tried every type of proxy and tor and other software to get around the block but it was really well managed. I finally got around and now I can post up a storm again. It is sad that the government is so certain that it is the best and does what is in the best interest of the people that it wont even let the people have any say in what they read or how they are represented. Just another proof in the pudding of the failure of the powered classes. I see everyday audis driven by low level govenment employees and then i see horse carts driven by a member of the masses that the government represents. Get Hu on a horse cart to work and the we can talk about eqaulity and the peoples party, until then it is fairly obvious to anyone with eyes that these jokers "represent" only one thing. Greed and self interest. I am just glad to be back to posting. Hope you didnt miss me too much.

forget

I forget if I mentioned this the other day and I want to be sure that I say it I think I didnt tell you. Last week I bought a few things for the house one of them was a light bulb. The light bulb cost me 2 RMB which is like 30 cents, I actually bought three but I needed two right away so I would have a spare I bought three. Anyways after I got home I opened the first light bulb and there was no problem the second one however was an old one someone had switched out in the store. Now come on people that is just wrong. I understand clever but fucking over the rest of us isnt fair it just sucks. I mean I dont steal your money and then say I am clever, I dont cause you heartache and trouble in order to save 2RMB. It isnt the money hell if the person had just asked me to buy a light bulb for them I would have but to make me have another thing to do on one of my days off seems like such a dick move. Anyways just another example of some of the absurd differences here in the land of the billion.

give and take

I have recently begun to wonder what long term mark I will leave on the world. As someone who has made a habit of looking at history and many of the amazing people that existed and then looking out at the stars and seeing how finite our general knowledge is. What impact do I have? Does it matter? Should I care? Can anyone really have any true long term impact or is that just an illusion that we continue to worship for our own egos. Should I be happy to wake up in the morning is that enough? or is there more?
Just what I have been thinking about.

shake rattle and ....

Today is the one year after the earthquake in sichuan. There were reports of more than 80,000 deaths while this is in itself a huge tragedy leave it to me to find a problem. Here is my two cents. The chinese government just released the official figures for how many school children died when the earthquake struck. Now one would think that this would be an opportunity for the government to get some more sympathy from the people and all. As they went to great lengths to show their response and how mush they did for the people of this disaster. And here is what struck me as a bit off. They have reported that more than 7000 school rooms collapsed. And guess how many schoolchildren they claim died? No ideas I will tell you 5335. So I am to believe that china has such uncrowded schools that less that one child per room. I realize that not every room was occupied and even those that are not every child died but come on really 7000 rooms and only 5335. And if so few why does the state stop families from coming to beijing to seek redress of their grievances? Seems that either they have something to hide or are not being honest about what happened. Either way, leave it to them to ruin a perfectly good tragedy.

internet

Sorry about the last few days. Apparently the good people who monitor the web here in China have decided to create a more harmonious society and therefore blocked a whole shitload of the websites that I usually visit. This of course included the one I use to post my ramblings on. Thus I had no way to get my thoughts to you. I have asked some of the more enlightened chinese why the web is censored and they tell me it is for my protection. How can I need protection? I have lived in a country where censorship is a cardinal sin against my rights. One where the aclu will fight for my right to say anything I want. Where talk radio openly cheers for the failure of the sitting government. Yet here in china I need to be protected from something bad that someone may say. Its utter nonsense. It is really one of the few things that I have a hard time with here. It isnt the same as the spitting or the pushing and staring. I can understand those as a cultural difference. But the suppression of information and the passive acceptance of censorship is in no way cultural. Just easy on one hand and the continued propagation of the system on the other. But it isnt my country and so I try my best to bite my lip.

shout out

Just want to give a little love to someone who really had a whole lot to do with making me the person I am. An amazing woman who dealt with all the hell and torture we threw her way and never once lost it. Looking back it is truly amazing that anyone could survive my family let alone be the one responsible for its well being. Those of you who know me and think I am a bit off or strange I can only say I was and am the normal and good one of the children (the other children all agree on this point). The other four children,well you would have to meet them to believe it. But the person who steadied the ship, the rudder of the family, my mother. I would like to say thanks. Just thanks. I truly do appreciate all you did and I know that I can not imagine even one tenth of what you(and dad) did for us. You are great. A model for all. I am proud to be your son.

crash

Well I wish I could relate the whole story in precise detail but things are a bit fuzzy and some parts are missing all together. Here is what I do know. Last night at the beer garden, wait let me go back a bit, before heading out to the beer garden I decided to make use of a few mangoes that had gotten too ripe in my home, so I threw them in a blender with some ice and a bit of yogurt and a few shots of brandy. A few seconds later I had a delicious little starter cocktail. Then I saw the bottle of brandy sitting there and decided to do a shot or two, you know predrinking helps to keep a night on the cheap. So after that I hopped my trusty bike and off I went. I made it to the beer garden no problems. It is after all only 15 minutes away. Met a few friends there and had a whole bunch of beer. There is of course food served there as well but i didnt feel like eating so I just drank and drank. Then it was time to go home, now here is where it gets a bit fuzzy. I got my bike, got on rode around the first corner and there was a curb that leapt out of nowhere into my bike tire. I of course was pitched off my bike onto the sidewalk where I landed and scraped the shit out of my knee. I also seem to have bruised my elbow and side quite a bit. In all it wasnt so bad. That was the first minute or two of the bike journey home. I managed to ride more or less safely home and a a greatly diminished speed. I think I should get a helmet or at least try not to get so drunk and then ride. I probably will just buy the helmet geeky or not I dont want to smash my noodle on to the pavement.I did of course wake up this morning feeling great except for the knee elbow and side. Such is life.

why oh why

Why is it when I put on lotion( yes I found some) it seems to block my bodies ability to cool down. It makes me relay hot and I start to sweat and of course that totally defeats the point of showering and putting on lotion. Why is this so hard for me? Is it the lotion I bought or is it something to do with my body? I think I will do a science experiment with myself and find out the answer. I will of course be certain to share the results just as soon as they are published in a peer reviewed journal, after all I wouldnt want to have science being corrupted by ideology. Well now that I am clean and lotioned it is time for me to bike down to the local beer garden have a few and get a bite to eat, such is life.

school daze

I can hardly believe that in one month I will be finished working for the duration of the summer. I got some odd news yesterday, in that the other school I work part time for wants me to return to teach there again in the next semester. However their school will begin again in late august. Now while the pay in good there (I make 1/2 again my base salary for only one day per week) I dont know if that is enough incentive for me to return from vacation early. As I have said this school will not want me back until october, so to come back for a month or more just to work for a few hours per week seems a bit silly when I could be lounging on a beach in indonesia still. Hard choices. Not really. I just have to send the other school an email telling them that I appreciate the offer but cant drag my lazy ass off the beach to teach. If they6 could send the students to me I would have no problem working. Just want to lounge as much as I can.

puppy

I amin the mist of a three day stint as a puppy watcher. The dog is super cute and super annoying. It makes me happy I will never have children. I just cant do the constant attention and neediness. Drives me a bit nuts. Other than that the thing attracts all sorts of attention. All the neighbors want to pet it which turns out badly sometimes as it bites and doesnt know that half chewing off someones finger is bad form. But for me it is good fun to watch I warn the neighbors that "it will bite you so be careful" then I watch them stick their hand right next to the beasts face and then I get to hear all sorts of words that are not fit for children. So much fun it is hard not to laugh.

pizza

I am a huge fan of pizza. I like bad pizza, good pizza, ok pizza, cold pizza, white pizza, mexican pizza(even if I risk H1N1), pizza in the morning, deep dish pizza, thin crust pizza,I like it all. That said it is truly difficult to find really good pizza. I dont care if you live east coast, west coast, chicago, or new york. Really good pizza is just hard to find. Well last night I tried a restaurant here in beijing and they are supposed to have the best pizza in town. Well needless to say I wasnt expecting too much the best pizza in china is still chinese pizza right. Well imagine my surprise when the thing came out piping hot, melty cheese, fresh vegetables, oh god it was good. What else can I say except it was in no way a disappointment. I was happy to eat every bite. I will return and eat again. And the beer wasnt bad either.

learning

I try to learn something new each day. It is fun and easy to do. I find that the most trivial things are the best. Like cotyledons. Do you know what that is? Find out its fascinating stuff. I will give you a moment to open a new window (or tab)and google it. Ok. So how did I learn that new thing well I was looking at some plants that I have started in the apartment and I have been watching then struggle to get through the soil and finally emerge and I was wondering why the first two little leaves are different shapes and seem to die as soon as the plant gets going and comfortable. So I looked it up, now I know. And if you have looked it up you know too. So each day there is something small that intrigues you dont give up on it, find out about it no matter how small, the world is much to interesting a place to be bored.

names

I realize that my name is not the single most common name in the world. Yet I am always struck by how many people around the world have difficulty with it. I met some people from Kazakhstan last night and they all had the multi-syllabic consonant driven mind boggling odd names, yet to a T they each struggled with my name. I admit I cant recall any of their names as I had been drinking heavily prior to meeting them and no doubt they had been getting a little tipsy themselves. I will just chalk that one up to the booze. My name isnt so hard, unless your well on your way to failing a field sobriety test. Labor day all day, no work, nothing to do. Just sit and watch the rain. Fun Fun Fun.

scrabble

I cant believe how much fun scrabble is. I took out the trusty old board and had a game with the class of staff and teacher that I teach and even though I didnt play I just watched and helped them it is an amazing game. I sure am glad someone thought that game up. I dont think I have ever played any board game that can match the pure entertainment of scrabble. If you dont own the game I suggest that you go right this minute to wherever is closest that sells it and buy it. I further suggest that you open the game right there at the counter and challenge the cashier and the person in line behind you to a game. I bet at least one of them will accept. If some nut job at a store bought a game tore it open and asked everyone around if they wanted to play I think I would be inclined to give it a go. But thats just me, you may scare the poor clerk and annoy the person behind you, but I say fuck em, they dont know what a good time they just missed.

life

I found the flash drive that I had lost a week ago. Isnt that the shit I found it after I bought a new one. I hate that but at least now I still can claim that I did in fact find it. The other thing that has been recurring recently is mosquitoes. Have I ever mentioned how much I loathe them? I was kept awake all night last night by the little bastards. Now I usually have a fairly good plan to deal with the mosquitoes when they attack in the night. I wake and let them feed. Then they leave me alone for the rest of the night as they are full of my rich and nutritious blood. This plan has only failed me when I got sick with the dengue fever in vietnam, but what the hell at least it wasnt malaria right. Anyway last night i tried my fool proof method, but there were like 10,000 of the little blood sucking things in my room. So i would get bitten wake up wait while it drank my blood and flew off then I would go back to sleep. Only to be awoken by another and another and another and ....I think I will change tactics this evening, I will try the old get so drunk that a train running over my head wouldnt wake me. Then even if they all return with their flying buddies for the buffet of blood they wont disturb my rest. As a bonus all the children they have will have fetal alcohol syndrome from the copious amount of alcohol in my blood tonight. well I should get started on retarding some future mosquitoes.

responsible

Perhaps I have said this here before but today I had another stark reminder if exactly how different the education systems in the US and chins actually are. My story for the day is this, I had a student that I teach for oral english say that because the students choose to speak in chinese during the class that somehow the method of teaching isnt suitable for their learning style. I was and am confounded. Exactly how does one propose to learn to speak another language? Do these students think that I can just lecture and they will learn oral english? Do they want me to hold their hand and stand over them to make certain that they only speak in english? What about taking some responsibility for your own education? My teacher never made certain I was doing the assignments, I mean never more than graded assessments. If the students choose not to do the assignments given and practice discussing about the topics that are presented then I cant really help them. I can only help those who help themselves, without motivation and an internal desire to improve what am I to do?

Pirates

I bought a new flash drive at the tech market in beijing( 6 levels of shit) and when I go it home i tried it out in order to be certain that it worked. Well guess what? Thats right it didnt. So I had to spend part of my afternoon off today returning to the tech market and trying to get a refund. Can you say ahahahahahaha refund in china I dont think that word is in their vocabulary. At any rate I paid a bit extra and got an upgrade. I hope this one works. I swear. There is no place like home there is no place like home...

A new leaf

I am trying to be more positive about the world. I thought I would give hope a chance and see what happens. And of course the first thing I do is read that there is a new flu coming out of mexico the is deadly and is potentially the next pandemic. So much for hope and being positive eh. Shows you what I get for thinking change was good. I will just go back to expecting the worst and then I wont be surprised when the worst turns out to be true. So if you live in the southwest of the US try to stay away from all those swine. I always knew the pigs would get me. And here I thought all along they would be the ones in blue.

people its people....

I went to the grocery store today as I do most fridays to buy the goods for the week and I had a bit of a strange experience. I was going down the aisle to the checkout counters and of course i walked past the first few lines as they had way too many people lined up and I had gotten about half way down and I saw a line that wasnt very long so I decided to put my cart into line. Now I wasnt in much of a hurry as I didnt have a lot more to do today but I still was trying to pay and leave, well as my cart gets toward the pulling in part a woman comes running and slides between my cart and the conveyor belt, and I guess that make her technically in front of me, Ok, no problem so far I mean if she is so desperate to get ahead fine. But then a full 30 seconds later her husband comes pushing his cart and bangs it into mine as if I hadnt been there the whole time. I swear sometimes people here amaze me and not in the good way. So this lady reaches over my cart and into her husbands and begins to unload her groceries onto the conveyor. I swear in any truly civil country that doesnt happen. I dont care if there are 1.3 billion people in china, they all are not in the supermarket trying to pay so there is no reason to be a complete idiot and show how little education, manners, upbringing, concern, value, and worth you have. I just went to the next counter and got into line there. I had to wait a little longer but at least I wasnt being personally polluted by the overwhelming morons that I had just encountered. It gets better though, so now I am in line and my stuff is actually on the conveyor at the new line and an old lady comes up behind me and is actually pushing me as if that will make the teller ring me up faster. She only had one box and it didnt look heavy so I am not sure what her problem was. The only thing I can figure out is that there is a long row to hoe before this place is ready to take any place on the world stage.

class

I have one group of students that, let me take that back. It is flabbergasting the difference in students and expectations that students in the US and china face. While most students here will tell you that they study very hard and have no free time, I have made an informal questionnaire of students and found that almost none of my students work and go to school at the same time. I am amazed by this. It was so common for students in the US to hold a job at the same time as going to school. And it isnt as if the requirements here in china are so much greater than those of college students in america. If anything I would say the students here are more pampered, walked through and hand held. Let me give you an example. We all remember our college right? Ok I only remember some of it but that is another story. Well in college the students are responsible for making certain that all requirements for matriculation are met. If there are questions then the student must seek the counselors to answer them. Here in china the students are given their schedules complete. Told when and where classes will be, told what electives they will take. Everything is done for them, in no way do they take responsibility for their educational experience. Another example, I didnt fail any of the classes while in my college nor did I pass/fail them. But here there is no pass/fail option for the students. If they fail the entire semester they are given a make-up exam to try again. In the school I worked at before this make-up exam was never graded never looked at by any teacher, never, never, never. I was asked at that school to administer some make-up oral english exams and I was told not to grade lower than a 60 so all students passed. Show up and be told what classes you will take, dont learn, dont work and in four years there it is your college educated. I just dont get how this is good for the country and for the world. I actually expect my students to learn to show me they can think and they freak out. They act like it is the first time in their life they have had to do that, and perhaps it is. I just wonder what it is that the students think they will find once they get out of school. I am not saying that all the classes I took in college were tough and some certainly were shit and could be walked through but even in the easy ones I had to think critically about the topic. I guess it is like they say, different folks college hoax.

lost

Today I lost something. And I hate to lose things. I lost a 4gb flash drive. Now here in china those only cost about 10 dollars so it isnt the money and there wasnt anything of real importance so it isnt that at all, it is just I feel like I personally have let myself down. I really do hate losing stuff. I know people who can shrug it off and move on with their life but I will be thinking about this stupid little thing for weeks into the future. I will be analyzing all the possible places where I could have left it. It will drive me mad. I swear I am happy that I dont lose thing more frequently. I would be really happy if I found the thing in the morning. However I think that I would be pretty unhappy that I had lost something and then found it again because then it means that I am forgetful or not very through in looking for things. See I wont be happy either way, but if I find it then at least I neednt go buy another one nor will I be bothered for weeks looking for something I already.

tix

So I finally got around to getting my tickets back to the US. I wont have much time there just enough to pop in and say hello to the family and some friends then it is back to china. I am both excited and hesitant about going to the US excited because I get to see family and eat the things I want. But hesitant because I have read how the financial crisis is wrecking the people and such and it is not really what I want to see. Plus every time I go back to the US I feel just how much I am not meant to stay there. It is the little things that make me nuts while I am there. And the strangest little thing of all is how much work it is to keep all the conversations out of my head. See here in china I have to try to listen to understand what is being said. So to turn off the comprehension is pretty easy, but in the US I understand everything, people in front of me at the grocery store, people walking on the sidewalk, the TV, everything anyone says. And it is really tiring. I dont know how I did it for so long nor do I know how you all do it everyday, I suppose that with practice it becomes easy to tune out the world, but then you miss the great soundbites that are out there. For instance I was once in a store in the US and a man was on his cellphone and he said,"is darrell there?(pause) well put it on him if it fits him it should fit me." I just cracked up at that one. And to this day I am still smiling about it. Thus I simply can not tune out when I get to the US. It will be a short visit.

time

This year seems to me to be ripping by at an astonishing pace. I just looked at the calender and it is nearly the end of april. I dont even really remember march happening. What is wrong with me. Anyways I was just considering why time seems to pass so much faster as an adult and I think my working theory is as follows, time is not true. See time is really about the spaces between new or notable events. Thus as you get older and less new things or memorable things happen time seems to go faster. Think about it when you were a small kid one day could very well bring you three or four new things, get stung by a bee, ride your bike with no hands, have lasagna, read a book on your own. Four things in the same day time passed very slowly. Now as an adult well do you really want to know what I would need to do to have four new things happen in the same day. Anyway as fewer new things happen there is no new markers for time passing thus I can look up and it is already april 19. See if nothing new happens anytime soon it will be june. See what I mean. time isnt true it is just marked by new things. I might need to go do some sky diving or something so I can "feel young again". Thats what I have been thinking about.

Hu Tong

For those of you who dont know a hutong is an area where the poor live in beijing. It is king of the projects of this city. Of course they used to be really nice neighborhoods and each building was a single family residence with the courtyard and all, but that all changed with the "liberation". At any rate I was in a neighborhood like that last night hanging out with my friends and getting drunk while sitting on some folding stools on the sidewalk. This is what can pass for an al fresco bar here in beijing. At any rate I think I had too many and then I had to go home. I made it back just fine and when I arrived home the foreign students of the college I work at were having their own party. I felt so old it was only 2 and I was annoyed because I wanted to go to sleep and they had the music up and were talking and dancing. I thought to myself if I were just 5 years younger and had about 7 less beers I would go and join them, but I am just too old now and like I said I had had way too many on the sidewalk. Sucks to get old. I advise strongly against it.

life

Not that I am complaining but next week looks like it should be an easy week. I have to watch some students give presentations and hand back some mid terms and teach about metaphor and simile. After that it is just sit around and collect some money. I cant believe how fast the days and weeks are going by. Already it is week 9 of the semester and this one is only 16 weeks long. I am officially on vacation in 7 weeks. Madness. To boot I have been told that there is a strong possibility that I neednt start again until October. So that makes what 15&1/2 weeks of paid vacation. Like I said I am not going to complain. But I truly dont know what I will do either.

things we do

Right now I am trying to find a way to bring up the fact that the excuse of "there are too many people" is just that, an excuse. I have tried to come up with so instances of where "too many" people can be turned into a reason of productive change and not into a hindrance for development. When I talk to the people here it is a common refrain. If you ask why there is no change in X it is because "too many people" the only things I and those I talked to about this have found to refute this idea is a more responsive government and volunteer service. If everyone agrees that the government should be more responsive to the will of the masses then why isnt it? If there are truly are "too many" how come they dont use that vast weight to better their condition? And If there are "too many" what do they do to better their neighbors condition? Other than that I cant really think of any ways to get around the argument. What else is there to say. If I ask about education of course I get a canned response of it is changing. And that in the future it will be better. I think I will bring this up in the next classes that I have in the teacher class I teach. I may ask as an opening question what do you do to benefit the society that you live in? And further what does the official policy say about it. I might get myself kicked out of the country but isnt questioning your leadership to ensure the best possible country that is possible a sign of patriotism? Is blind following a good thing? If it is then what country is the model? Who follows blindly? Who doesnt question? And what does that allow the establishment to get away with in the name of you?

taxes

Hey Hey kids. It is tax day in the US. My favorite day of the year, the day I get to give my government some money and wonder what it is that they do with all of my and your money. What I want you to do is to look around, what did the government do for you today? Did you take public transportation? Subsidized. Did you drive to work? Subsidized. Is your workplace safe and you need not worry about a steel I-beam falling on you? Paid for by the government (OSHA). Is your water ok to drink? EPA. Did you take any medications today? FDA. Is your home occupied by soldiers? Really it is? I dont think they are allowed to do that. I will check it out but I am almost certain that quartering soldiers is a no go in the US. So I guess what I am saying is that while I dislike the vast majority of what my government does I do appreciate that I dont get all the government that I pay for. So when you pay the piper for the year and file those taxes be thankful that the government is working for you. If it isnt, well I dont really have any options for you. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

banks

This week I am teaching about the economy...UUUGH....I dont even really like money that much and I think we might be better off in a feudal barter system but I digress. Anyways instead of talking about how the american economy has changed throughout our history I decided to focus instead on the economic crisis that is happening and thus I must understand the root causes the possible ways out and what the hell went wrong. Not only that but I have to be able to distill it (um mm distilled) into a coherent presentation for the students to understand. I think I have gotten a handle on it for the most part. I get the homes and the toxic assets and the short selling, what I am having trouble getting a hold of is why did the home prices collapse so far? Were they just overvalued to begin with? Did the buyers decide that 1.5million for a studio was nonsensical? What exactly caused this problem of home prices falling? Is it simple supply and demand? I know there is some simple reason out there but I cant locate it. As soon as I do that I will be golden and then me and the sec. of the treasury can solve this mess.

exam

Ok pop quiz.
1.)What do you get if you build a house from chinese sheet rock?
A.)Poisoned
B.)Cheap materials that are poisonous
C.)Crappy materials that are cheap and poisonous
D.)all of the above
It seems that every time any tests are done on any goods brought from china into the US there are problems. I dont care so much that the businesses here are cutting corners and adding lead to toys and chemicals to pet food. What gets me is that the US has such shit enforcement of safety standards. Is the government not charged with labeling the contents of goods sold in the US. I remember there being a tag on the mattress of my bed when I was a child that said "under penalty of law no person shall remove this tag" or some such nonsense. I still use that tag as a bookmark in case you were wondering. What happened guys? The US can waste billions a year fighting drugs, but cant spend 10 minutes with a home chemistry set making sure the materials used to build homes are safe to be around. I have a fantastic idea. Press all your heroin and cocaine into sheet rock slap a made in china sticker on the back and walk that shit on in. I mean really american government you claim to be in the business of protecting americans from harm, well from my perch it seems like you either are not trying very hard or are almost completely incompetent. Either way it makes me sad. We should just let china take over already and then we can sell tainted goods to ourselves and cut out the middleman. If we eliminate the shipping cost I bet we could even make poisonous sheet rock at even cheaper prices than they already do.

32 million

There are 32 million more boys than girls here in china under the age of 20 according to the NY Times. That is a scary discrepancy. Now I know that it is the parents who are to blame and the one child policy doesnt help the matter but look at it in the longer term. What possible use could a nation have for 32 million expendable men? To put that in perspective the total populations of laos 6.7 million, bhutan less than 1 million, cambodia 14 million, mongolia 2.6 million, nepal 29 million. I know what I might use them for. But of course the kind and peaceful people here would never consider using force to impose their will on people who disagree. Ask anyone who disagrees. So that is what I woke up to this morning, thoughts like these are what make me worried about the future. Lets hope that the 32 million extras get some outlet for their lives that are productive and helpful to society. The fear I have is that the situation will remain closed and these pawns of chance will be the first wave to break across the borders and wipe the peace of the region out to sea. Hope I am wrong.

good

night.

same same

I need to get some things for the summer as the warm weather has arrived here in beijing. Yet as I ponder where to go and get the things I need I have come to a realization. Namely all the goods here in china are pirate. there have been reports by the government that even in the name brand stores some of the goods are pirate. What to do? It isnt that I mind a pirate good it is that I want the quality of the real thing. I dont want a shirt that will be destroyed in a week or month. It is really frustrating for me. I dont trust the goods so I think that I will wait until I get back to the US in order to buy somethings. I know when I buy things in the US it will be made in china but there will be someone to check the quality before I buy it. That is something lacking here, any group that assures the people that they are getting exactly what they want. How I miss the small things in life.

hey hey

So I went for a nice little run just now. The weather is divine and the flowers are all about. The lilacs the cherry's the willows are that perfectly new green, I am really happy when it is like this. Then I got home from the 5 mile jaunt and ate a super juicy mango. I am not sure how many of you are privileged enough to be able to get mangoes right now but my god they are good. I was still sweating with the juice dribbling down my chin. Pure bliss. Now I have to finish a bit of lesson planning and the perhaps go out for a drink with friends. Life is kind, and fair I think. There was some potential bad news today the school is going to have a massive renovation over the summer which means next year I may have to work at another school I wont mind if it is less than 30 minutes by bike but if it is farther well I wont be too excited about that. Wait and see I guess. By and by there is an awesome bike trail that runs from davis square to lexington green called the minuteman trail. If you are in the boston area and have a bike it is certainly worth the time. If I remember correctly there is a bar about 1/2 way a nice place to pop in for a cold one. Enjoy the ride.

my 2 cents

We all pay the salary of the police right? We have all either said it or thought this of public servants. In this, I am not mistaken. Then why when the government wont do something we all agree is in no way harmful do we not tell them that? I was struck watching the press room at the white house. Dont take no comment anymore. We pay their salary. And I pay yours when I buy your paper. So get me some answers damn it. This goes for all of you.

24

Did I mention that I biked 24 miles yesterday? I went out to the fragrant mountain just outside the city, it was quite a ride and after arriving I rested for about 10 minutes and then biked back home. I showered and then went out for dinner and drinks. A most productive day. I even managed to get a bit of sun while riding on my bike. The city is interesting as the center is jammed with people but once I got outside of the 5th ring it really opened up, few cars, almost no tall buildings. Strange. I can remember being in boston and even after exiting the city there would be office parks where people worked but here it just doesnt seem to be the case. I am not sure what that says about land management and zoning but it was remarkable to see first hand the city just stop being the city. I do love to bike and as the weather gets warmer I encourage all of you to try to get out and about at least two times every month on a bike journey. I dont think you will regret it.

questions all around

Last night I went to dinner with a coworker and we got to talking about politics and such and of course as he is european he began to trash the US. Now for those of you who are confused about me I am not a huge fan of everything that the US does. In fact I am openly critical of it pretty often, but we got talking and I was being the devils advocate, and when I asked simple questions like what system is better? He had no answers. Just wanted to talk smack and call it a day and when I wouldnt let him he had nothing. So I ask, what system is better? Is the US the best game going? I have to think about it for awhile but at first blush it certainly seems so. Sure we fuck up but we admit it and try to correct it. And we have programs in place to care for our elderly and others, I live in red china and there is no social safety net here, no free health care no free school nothing but a lack of responsiveness to the people. But I am not saying that should change if the chinese are happy good for them, but if you are gonna talk shit about a country you damn well better have some ideas as to what could be improved. Otherwise you are just tearing things down for the pleasure of destruction, and really who will that help?

footie

I finally got to play a footie match today. And I Sucked. I guess that should come as no surprise when I havent played in like 7 months. But it was the fundamentals that killed me, I missed two traps completely. The ball just rolled on by. I was not amused. It was rally fun though. I wish I could play some everyday. Perhaps I will try to make it a habit of going out there at least two or three times evry week to play. I did score one goal on three attempts so the day wasnt a complete bust. Other than that I went to the market to buy some wine and food. More wine than food. The wine here in china is surprisingly palatable. At first when I arrived I bought the mid range stuff and found it was really sweet and almost like juice. But as I moved down the price range it got less and less sweet. I have found a decent cabernet that has good body for 22RMB per bottle. Thats about $3.50. Try to find one of those in ylur local grocer. Also the store I went to was clearing out all there indian mixes. The other week I had made a tikki masala from mix and it was really good. Now usually the mixes are like 18RMB each, but today sale price 5RMB. I bought one of everything. I have food and wine for a week, no work for 3 days and the nice weather has returned. Happy Happy Joy Joy.

ha ha ha

So be honest did I fool you with my post yesterday? And if I did why are you back to read this? I realize that if you believe that I am finished with my blog that you would not return however if you didnt believe me you would sooner or later check back in. It was a risk I took. Lets see what happened recently? I have been being good just working and getting ready for the summer. It looks like I will get a chance to go home to the United States for a short visit. I talked with my boss this week just to catch up and he mentioned that the school was going to have an expansion put in and that it may delay the start of the fall term. Usually we would begin in late august but this year we may not get to start until October. Which means I get to have a really long summer maybe. I will still have to be back to check in and all but I wont work. This week on monday is a holiday and so I need to find some adventure to keep me busy. I want it to be warm and sunny and then I can go somewhere. We shall see.

last post

Thanks for reading I am through with this experiment. It was fun and I enjoyed it while it lasted.

bite me

The other day, I am not sure which day I eating something and bit my lip on the front left bottom side. Now normally this wouldnt bother me but for some reason the exact spot I bit is in the way every time I eat something. If I try to eat a cracker I now bite my lip, salad, dressed in my own blood. It is getting really annoying. I can not stop it and I must eat. It doesnt affect my speaking or drinking just when I eat. But if I continue to bite my lip it will not get any better and thus I have caught myself in a bizarre mobius strip of pain and swelling. I may fast for a week just to give it some time to heal. I am also really tired these days, I am not sure why I feel a bit run down generally just tired. I am happy in the city and with my job it is just right now I am physically tired. Could I be already breaking down? I certainly hope not.

meatloaf

I would do anything for .... no not that meatloaf the tasty one. Thats what I had for dinner tonight. And it was awesome. I made it myself and it will surely be on the menu in the future. It is funny that when I smaller (I am not sure I was ever a child) I remember not liking meatloaf something about the word loaf doesnt sound appealing but I thought why not give it a go and damn it was tasty. Mashed potatoes and gravy with wilted spinach and sauteed asparagus. I am hungry again thinking about it. So now I have to do the dishes. Why is it always with every really good thing comes a bad thing? Why cant food do its own dishes? or better yet why cant I cook without making things dirty. I truly hate to do the dishes it is the bane of my existence I dont mind ironing or laundry or cooking or sweeping or mopping or any other housework but the dishes. I think it is because of the dish pan hands. Oh calgon take me away.

the power and the glory

I have it all now. I have had another lazy day and still managed to get many things done. Planned almost all my lessons, did the laundry, made banana bread, and went for a run. If I were any more productive it would hurt. Though I do have a bit left still but I have all day tomorrow to do that. If I get a chance I will invite the french student and the turkish one to a game of soccer. It could be a good time. I havent played in a really long time and I want to get out there and kick a ball around. With the weather being so nice it is hard to stay indoors and work, lucky for me this week I get to spend a rather good deal of the time explaining basic concepts like citation for papers and how to do a presentation. I know it sounds like the simplest of tasks but if one has never been taught how to do it I can understand why it would seem difficult. Now my only choice left for the day is one beer with dinner or three?

last night

I went to a bar with some friends and a really strange thing happened to me. I was standing by myself watching some people play pool. I wasnt interested in the conversations that were happening nor did I want to play pool just wanted to stand around by myself for a little while. A bit anti-social I know but hey. Anyways this guy comes over and asks if I want to join his friends to talk. I told him thanks but no I was happy standing around without anyone. He said ok and left. Then 2 minutes later a girl from his group comes over and asks the same thing. Again no thanks. OK so sorry. I stand around for a few more minutes and then the guy comes back with a beer to give me. And again asks me to come join them. Now it is probably pretty clear at this point that I dont want to and my friends are literally like two steps away so it isnt as if I am the only white person in the bar and am alone, I just happen to be standing outside the circle of those I came with. I try to refuse the beer but to no avail he insists and then leaves me alone. Thank god that is over I think. How wrong I was a minute later both he and she are there together and I have to explain again that I really dont want to join them finally they leave and I go back to talking with my friends. For the life of me I cant figure out what they wanted from me. Were they just kind folk who saw a person alone? but why insist 4 times? Did they just want an american at their table? Why not ask some other schmuck to join them? What was going on? at any rate it was fun to go out and today has been lazy and unproductive. Perhaps I will plan some lessons then take another nap.

party

I made it through another week at the old job. It seems that the days go by so fast now. It is already the 6th week of the semester and I only have 10 more weeks of work then I am done. I feel like some of the classes have been good and productive and the students have learned somethings from me but the class I teach about reading is really hard to judge if they are getting it. I know they are college students and they should be responsible for their own learning and it isnt the job of the teachers to care if they pass or not (my teachers never cared) but still it is nice to know that you are doing your job well. The house has come along nicely all unpacked and settled in. I was wanting to go back this weekend to my old town to see some friends and celebrate but with mid term exams and grading and planning it isnt going to happen which bums me out. Perhaps after the mid terms I can find a weekend to go visit. Other than that I am deciding if I want to go meet some friends out tonight for a drink and if I do where should we go?

T T T oh my

The teachers class that I have to teach here at the school is really quite interesting. Today I started with a topic on the death penalty and asking about why have it so on. The conversation was going well until....there is little room in china for individual thought and less room for a devils advocate. Not that I advocate the devil(I know him hes an ass) but I actually had on of the teachers tell me in a none too subtle way that "most of us here are party members" I informed her that I was aware of that and though they were party members I was still interested in what they thought. The party can tell you many things but can they tell you how to think, I inquired. That didnt go over too well. I may be reading too much into it but, right now I am a bit concerned. If suddenly this blog stops being posted or disappears send help fast. I am just kidding. Dont send help, I can take care of it. Anyways the rest of it was them trying desperately to set up a "the United States is not perfect so blah blah blah" and I find that the best way to stop that nonsense is to tell the that first. Somehow the people I meet have gotten it into their heads that we americans believe that our government is infallible. I tell them straight up some of the things I think were wrong and that those things need changed. It freaks them out because if I can admit the wrongness of my country why cant they? You can see their brains trying to process it. We ended up talking about some more safe topics. But the safe topics are boring. Who really cares about TV? Or the movies? thats shit I dont even do at cocktail parties with people I kind of like . Why have small talk for an hour every week when it is a chance to explore the vast chasm that divides our ability to see the world through each others eyes. Some people will never get it i think. It is a shame though, because I miss out on an opportunity to learn from them. Ah well if they want safe and easy I can do that too.The Ts are T aiwan T ibet And of course T ienanmen not allowed to talk about them.

getting old

I must be getting really old as I thought that I put up a post yesterday and then when I checked to see it today it is not here. So as I believe that google is infallible it must be me that made a mistake. The funny thing is II can convince myself that the post I wrote was about a few different things. Maybe I had intended to write and never got around to it or perhaps I thought of some clever things and then thought I had already shared them. At any rate it makes me feel even older. This in addition to the fact that I now wake up exactly 5 hours after I go to sleep. It doesnt matter if I go to sleep at 10 or at 1. 5 hours later I am awake. I usually try to go to sleep again but it is getting harder to do that as the mornings get brighter and brighter. We shall see where all this leads. By and by I found some lotion so now I just hope that it doesnt have whiteners in it.

while it lasted

Well spring slipped away here. It has gotten windy and cold and rainy. Not too much fun for me. The thing is the other day I went to a bar for some cheap beer and to chat with friends and it is about a 15 minute bike ride to the bar, drank a few paid my tab and as I left it began to rain. Now I must confess that I am not the best prepared for the weather when it happens. I typically wear the bare minimum of clothes. If I could be naked year round I would. So I was in shorts and a shirt even though it was cold when I had left for the bar and the rain was freezing. I made it home without incident just soaked to the bone , pulled off my wet clothes and took a hot shower. All is well that ends well. I am getting ready now for a new week of classes this is week 5 just 10 more then I am on a long summer holiday. I still havent figured out where to go. I will keep you posted.

plans

I came to china with out a real agenda. My aim was to get to know what it is like and experience living in this country first hand. However some of my friends came here with a very specific and long term goal for themselves. I have been thinking about this recently and I am a bit puzzled, are there two kinds of people in the world? Are there more? I am happy without thinking too much about the future and what I "need" to be doing right now to make the future me happy. Yet my friends who have the long term goals are doing things now that make them unhappy in order to achieve what they believe will be rewarding in the future. This is of course not taking into consideration those people that I meet that have long term goals and yet do nothing to achieve that goal. I spoke with two guys last night and they had finished their MBA and were in china to learn chinese, yet they hung out at western bars talked to westerners and did little to nothing to make their goals achievable. It struck me as very odd. Why have stated ambitions if you are not willing to do the work? Is it better to say that you are here for fun and leave it at that? Or is that just an easy way to avoid the truth which for me is that I have no idea what the future holds and therefore I refuse to plan for it? Just something I have been thinking about recently.

weird, wild, stuff

As I am teaching a course on the introduction to western civilization I have been trying to introduce the ideas that have helped shape the way the west thinks differently than the east. I have gotten to the part about christ and the whole christianity part and to my surprise the students here, while they have heard of jesus they know nothing about the life or teaching or beliefs or anything. Now I am an atheist. I have a very strong belief in nothing. I dont want to teach the students about christianity, but it is a really important part of the shaping of the west. So how much do I tell them? Do I present it as a story, some peoples beliefs? Is it important that he is born of immaculate conception? Really hard choices for me to make. I think that I will go with the pure history of it. The belief system is up to them to figure out. I will teach them the actual history, try not to put too much bias into my explanation. But it is really odd that these students have never been exposed. It really is such a huge part of the culture of the west. We have fights still about this in our courts and it influences so much of our discourse. It is no wonder why we as different cultures have so many misunderstanding. I have a hard job out ahead. How to make them understand without advocating for any particular belief system.

happy patty day

And last night is a bit of a blur. Went to an Irish bar with some friends and of course there were specials to be had, namely a bottle of Jameson for 200RMB. Oh and a funny Guinness hat can with the bottle. Thats cheap, like the same price at the supermarket (packey) so I drank a bunch of that and then went for a walk to another bar, along the way I saw a brown pot a little bigger than my head. Now it was a nice pot sitting there in the trash shame to let things go to waste so I picked it up without thinking. I just wanted it to grow some plants in. Well I walk into the bar and let me tell you, I have never been so popular, everyone and their mother wanted to talk to me about my pot. I started telling people that I was a leprechaun and the pot had gold at the start of the night but as it was late I had no more. People just believed it. I guess they figured why would I tell them that, or they thought I was insane and wielding a large heavy pot best not to argue with me. The thing that got me was how few people said I was tall for a leprechaun. I guess they have seen tall ones before. At any rate I got the pot home safely and will get some dirt and seeds for the thing, what should I plant? goldenrod?

spring is in the air

Ah spring so lovely, so refreshing such a grand time of the year. The birds sing more, the forsythia has exploded like a bush full of yellow popped corn, and the willows have a sheen of green upon their boughs. I do so love the spring. It makes me want to go outside and lay in the grass and soak it all in.Alas Today is one of my longest days with 5 total hours of work I missed a good portion of the day, however I did stare longingly out of the windows of the classes that I was teaching. I thought about taking one of the classes outside for lessons but the few times I have tried that it never works for me. Perhaps next week I will give it a shot. Ah one thing that I dislike about the spring, mosquitoes. I have had a mosquito in my bedroom for the last three days, I am not sure if it is the same one or if there is a sign on my door that says "all you can drink blood buffet" because I lay awake for the better part of the night waiting for that bastard to land on me and bite and just as I nod off it lands, I jump awake smack myself super hard miss the thing get angry and turn on the lights and look around for it. I never have any luck finding it eventually I go back to bed, lay awake waiting for it to land nod off....repeat ad infinitum. All in all though my legs are happy to be out of pants, my arms happy to be in short sleeve shirt and I am happy to be alive in the springtime.

well, well, well

So yesterday was supposed to be a day of rest. However as it usually does life got in the way of my rest. I was so busy that I didnt even get to go for a run. It all started the night before. I foolishly invited some friends over for dinner and when I got up I realized that I had no food to feed them, thus it was off to the store for supplies. Now I must tell you that Sunday at the grocery store is like hell on earth. After battling through the throngs of bodies I checked out. Got home and realized that I had a shitload of lessons to plan for the week. I had forgotten that the class on monday has a quiz and I needed to write it up. So I took care of that, then I needed to get some drinks for the guests, and make copies of the quiz. After that I still had to cook and clean. For the love of all things holy, why did I invite others to my house for dinner? At any rate dinner was fine, and this morning I woke up and realized that I had forgotten to post. Not that it really matters, just trying to stay in the habit. perhaps I will write another one later, if I am not asleep.

a few of my

favorite things. Vodka, Gin, Rum, Scotch. Whiskey, tequila, bourbon, wine, and beer. tonight there is a bar that will be hosting a 3-2-1 event. that is 3RMB shots or 2RMB shots or 1RMB shots. Now for those of you not living in china there are 6.8RMB for every dollar. That makes the most expensive shot less than 50 cents. and the cheapest shot like 12 cents. I may or may not make it home this evening. Thankfully tomorrow is sunday the prescribed day of rest. Unless you are jewish then its another day or muslim then friday I think. I might convert to all three, long weekends every week.
At any rate I have to put on some clothes and clean up a bit, no need to start out sloppy. Thats the way I plan to finish. Oh I got a little flashing light for the back of my bike, that ought to keep me safe right?

frat boys

So yesterday I went to a bar to play some beirut (google it if you are unfamiliar) and there were a lot of people playing and having a good time. Which is very cool, I do love a crowded bar and people about. However there was one group of people there that really pissed me off. These jackasses acted like they owned the bar, sitting on the backrest of the seats even though there were people in the next booth. So the people in the booth had frat boy ass right next to their head. Just an amazing amount of selfishness and lack of class and respect. Then one of the frasshole stepped over the back of the booth into the other peoples booth in order to go out, instead of asking his friends to move so he could get out. Now as if that werent enough he also stepped on the jackets as he climbed over the backrest. What a good forsaken idiot. Who raises these people? Why are they allowed to remain alive and using resources? Cant we have a moratorium on stupid? Please. At any rate I didnt arrive in time to actually play any beirut and so I just had some pizza and a few beers then went back home to sleep. Not the most exciting day or night but still fun being able to go to a bar at the drop of a hat. It is nice to live in a city again.

sleep

So is it wrong that I love to sleep? I came home from work today at 12 like I usually do and had lunch. Nothing special so far, but then I took a book from my bookshelf and lay down to read. I got an average amount of sleep last night and have not had a particular strenuous week. But as I lay down to read I got tired and said oh well I will just have a quick little nap. 2 hours later I woke up, I looked at the clock and thought just 5 more minutes, another 2 hours with me asleep. Then I wake again, and have to force myself out of bed, I swear I could have slept another week and a half. I dont understand why sometimes I can sleep forever and other times I will sleep like 4 hours at night and be rip roaring and ready to go. Is it the weather is it something wrong with my internal clock? I am really still very sleepy perhaps I will go lay down for another 5 minutes or so.

groovin

On a Sunday afternoon. Actually it is a Tuesday afternoon. But I am still groovin. I have had a good week so far enjoyed the classes that I am teaching and feel like I made some real progress in them, hoping to continue the trend with the rest of the classes this week. I rode my bike to work at the other college today , it takes about 25 minutes to get from this college to the other one, but all 25 minutes are in bike lanes, dedicated separated bike lanes with special lights at the intersections and all. It is something that the US really needs to get cracking on. No urban center should be allowed to widen the roads to accommodate heavier traffic without the inclusion of dedicated bike lanes for us non-drivers. I realize that it is impractical to get around in some places without a car, but I also lived in enough places to realize that if people are given the safe and relatively convenient option of biking to work or using electric scooters(all the rage here) many people will utilize that option. Now I know that it is impossible to bike across Houston or LA but many residents of those cities dont ever cross the city but live in their districts, and urban planning needs to be reinvented. Without the change in how we relate to the city around us we will continually fall back on what we are comfortable and familiar with. Plus why not give bikes their own lanes those people pay taxes too. They have a right to the benefit of those taxes. Why should they continue to pay for services that are not used by them without others reciprocating? Just a thought as I waited for the little bike light to go from red to green. I think I will spend the 20 RMB I saved by not cabbing it to the other job on beer. Then I can bike drunk at night. I wont get killed or run over as I will be in a bikes only lane.

lotion

My kingdom for some good lotion. The spring is trying to push its way into the city and it is getting warmer and warmer here. Unfortunately as the weather warms the humidity has not gotten any better. My skin is dry. I have looked everywhere for a good lotion and the only one I can find is a baby lotion that isnt too good. I can find the expensive stuff like nivea and l'oreal but they have whiteners in them. The look of beauty here is not the same as in the west. Here the idea is, white is beautiful, pale, pasty white is best, the kind of white that we in the west would associate with being sick. I like the tan I go to the beach on my vacation to offer skin to the gods. I dont want to be pale. But I also dont want to have terrible dry skin either. So my mission for the next week or so is to find a lotion that I can use and not get even more white. I have gone to all the major stores and the ones that specialize in beauty products but to no avail. Of course there is no Body Shop here in beijing. I will keep you all up to date on the progress on my search. And the condition of my skin.

Hey wait I gotta new complaint

Not really I just had nirvana in my head and wanted it out. So I got my bike back from the dudes and it is slammin now I am so happy that it is just what i wanted. And to make my life here in beijing even better I went for a run yesterday and I had been running in the park across from my house but it only goes for about 1 kilometer before you have to cross the street the first street is ok but the next one is a big street and it is a pain in the ass. So yesterday I went to the other corner and ran along the canal along a path that is a walking path, it goes on for about 2.5 kilometers without any interruption. So nice, just run and tune the world out and run. I will be going there for my runs from now on I think. But there is some bad news. I have tried twice in the last two days to go and play football(soccer) on the small field my school has and both times the thing has been locked. I must find out how to get it opened and when the hours are. As you probably noticed I have a bit more free time as I get into my groove at planning the lessons. I still have a few powerpoints to make so I gotta run.

bike

So this morning i woke up early went to fet the food i will need for the weeek and then went to buy a bike. Thats right people I am highly mobile and I am not afraid to use it. I got a used bike for pretty cheap. I was simply torn as to what to do, you see there is a used bike shop here in beijing and i went in and looked around they had some ok bike but nothing that blew me away. Then upon leaving the store I was approached by a shady character that wanted to sell me a bike. He wanted to know what kind of bike I wanted, now we all know that he was trafficking in stolen goods and if I bought a bike from him I would be contributing to bike theft in the city I reside. But his prices were really good, like silly good, like how can you say no good. Alas I walked away from him and went back to the used store and bought a bike i dont love but it is ok and it isnt stolen. I have had too many bikes stolen to contribute to that cycle, I just couldnt do it. I know that my refusal to buy a stolen bike will have little effect on the overall crime in this city, but if you have a bike be glad that there is at least one person who wont buy it if it gets stolen. I could have saved a few hundred RMB but it just didnt seem worth it to me. I rode my new steed home and now I have to get a bit of work dsone on it at the bike shop around the corner from my house. It should be ready at the end of the weekend. Look out world I am coming to get you.

PPT

So I have been using powerpoint presentations in the classroom now for a few weeks and I must say I really dig them. They make the stories of history so much more interesting and it is really nice to have a map handy when there is some war or other thing that happens. The only real issue I have about the job thus far is that I never get to reteach any materials. I have only 14 hours every week but there is almost never a time when i get to use the same presentation or lesson plan. I went from planning lessons one time every two weeks to planning 5 lessons every week. I used to teach oral english only which required at most for me to make some handouts and prepare a few questions to making 3-4 presentations with images, bullet points and graphs. It is a real shift in responsibility. I feel like this week I finally got my groove and the rest of the semester will be ok. I am only not looking forward to the research papers that I assigned for the students. I am going to have to read about 100 different papers and correct them all. Should be a grading nightmare. But I did it to myself and I am actually pretty interested to see what these students write. I am actually done work for the week though I have to plan the lessons for next week. I may go out tonight and have a few cocktails but if not I will surely get to work on the PPT so I can play some soccer tomorrow. My school has a mini field that I have been aching to kick around on and it finally got a bit warmer here so I think it is about time to ply. Game On.