Another Rainy Day.

• Same as it was yesterday, it is raining in Wuxi and I am working ten to six at the school.  At 1300, I will have a conversation class about teenage pregnancy.  How am I going to make that topic last an hour?  I ask myself.
• I will tell the students in the above salon class about taboo, stigmas, prostitution, abortion, out-of-wedlock births and bastards.
• I went to the HB Wuxi German Pub last night with the King and his Consort Steph who had been invited to a party there.  So the wife and I went along for a ride.  The reason for the party, I understood, was to christen the Pub for the new management that was taking over.  I saw a lot of laowei (foreigners) there and a bunch of Chinese who came in a group that surely must have been bussed in to increase the attendance.  There was a buffet which we got to late.  However, the bread and cold cuts served were good. 
• The HB Pub itself is huge.  The restaurant area is bigger than the Blue Bar.  We later saw that there was a bar area (also bigger than the Blue Bar) downstairs.  The HB Wuxi is in a mall that must be bigger than Baoli.  The Mall building has a huge open area.  Look from one end of the open area to the other and people on the other end are the size of ants.  I am continually amazed how big Wuxi is.  Every month, I see something new and huge that I never knew existed in, what the locals say is, a small city.  The mall and the HB, however, do have a feeling of overbigness to them.  I wonder if they can fill the mall with stores and shoppers, and if the HB can fill its bar and restaurant areas with patrons on a regular basis. 
• The King of Wuxi was not too happy about the service we received at the pub.  Once we were sat, no one came to serve us until we flagged someone down.  I tried a wheat beer which I found too heavy for my digestive system.  I ended up feeling bloated and so I had to go home.
• They tell me a good crowd was at the Blue Bar to send Kelson off and that a lot of tequila was drank.  I wish I could have stopped by to said farewell but I wasn't up to it after drinking the heavy beer.  I also had a feeling of guilt for leaving Tony at home with his mother-in-law.  The poor fellow has been out for a while because of the cold and wet weather we have been having lately.
• The most he-man of sporting days occurs early Monday morning, Wuxi time, as the NFL has its two conference championship games that determine the participants in the Super Bowl.  Conference Championship Sunday is a day for Football fans, he-men as it were. - a festival of manliness.  The Super Bowl is a event where the Football is secondary.  I have been invited to Super Bowl parties by people who weren't the least interested in Football.  So even when I was watching the game at a Super Bowl party, I was watching it alone. 
• What doesn't Soccer have a World cup every year?  I know, I know about the logistics of it.  But if it was held every year, the boredom of it would quickly come apparent to all.  They need to hold every four years for the simple fact that it gives fans long enough time to forget how boring the last final was.  Soccer Fans must have bad memories.  It is not like they have many statistics to remember or goals to count.
• 43 is too old for everything but politics it would appear.  Maybe, that should be my next career move.  Now, Obama is running his campaign on the audacity of hope.  To paraphrase, Obama believes that this stuff about planning and thinking things through should not tarnish the hope we should all feel by being together singing we love each other around a camp fire.  I think this is a load of hogwash.  But, I wouldn't want to seem the angry fart.  My campaign motto in any political endeavor would be Hopeful Realism.  Matter of fact, I think I will make that the title of my autobiography.
• The results of the Republican Primary results are depressing.  I will have to learn to like McCain.
• In my English Corner of Speakers' Corner, I will try to get the students to do a mock draft of the greatest teachers of all time.  The idea is that a few groups will draft great people who can teach them things they need to know about math and science and so on.
• I have just finished  doing the Teenage Pregnancy salon (conversation class).  My students told me that more and more high school students are getting abortions over the Summer.  I was surprised to hear how much advertising for abortion clinics can be seen and heard on TV, Radio, Signage and Newspapers.  And this advertising is very direct:  come to us and we will do the job for you painlessly.  Finally, I had a student tell me that she has seen abandoned babies in the countryside, thrown in a ditch.