A Year Ago, My Father Passed Away

My father died a year ago today.  In preparation for this anniversary, I have spent the month of May collecting my thoughts about.  The sentences in this entry deserve to be tortured.  It is the least I could do to honor my father's memory.

I will first say that the following thoughts are disjointed and a little on the frank side.  I have thought a lot about my father since he died last year.  Perhaps, more than I ever did while he was living.  I suppose this is because it is easy to think of him in now the abstract and in a sentimental manner.   My sister did say that she didn't want to end up like him, but felt like she was ending up like him anyway. I have to admit that I have similar feelings.  Dad was not a terrible man, but he wasn't successful in the ways the world defines what a successful person should be -- he wasn't rich and never could afford to take a vacation to Florida or Hawaii or Vegas, and he drove a lot of crappy cars.  I am well aware of the good that was in him and how he gave his three children a proper childhood, and that as a father, I will probably fall short of what he did for me when I think of what I will be able to do for Tony....  My Dad did volunteer to help in the community -- something most Chinese would never do.  Anyway, there is your evidence of my disjointed thought about Dad, and that is why I this piece about him will be in bullet form.  I can't think of how to make a coherent essay about him.

I still mourn his death.  Whether it is healthy or not for me to do this, I can't say.  Hopefully, I never get over it.  One of few goals in life -- how my goals diminish as I get older and resigned to not accomplishing them -- is to get back to Brandon and visit my father's gravestone.  It wasn't ready when I left Canada.  I have just seen photos of it.

I hope he is in a better place.  That he would be in oblivion seems such a monstrous proposition that, even if it is true, it is not something to be hoped for.  The fact that he is gone and I can't, in this life, ever speak to him again sometimes gives me an sharp ache and a pang of pain that could only be assuaged by there being an after life.

The photo of him with me and Tony brought tears to my eyes when my wife showed it to me earlier in the month of May.  I am happy I was able to have a grandchild for my father, but alas, I did it so late in life that the photo above is one of the few images Tony will ever have of himself with his grandfather.  [My father did say I made a good choice in having a wife.  "Jenny," he said, "Has more sense than any of us!"  Jenny was the one person by his death bed who told him not to die unlike the rest of us who were waiting for Dad to go.]

When told that his days were numbered, my Dad took the news admirably.   He calmly accepted the news and only asked that the fact that he was an artilleryman in the RCA and his Latvian heritage be put on his gravestone.

The fact that he died while I was on a visit to Canada last year was ________.  [I don't know what word to put in that blank.]  His death fit into my schedule quite nicely.  The first week of my three-week trip, he died.  the second week, we had the funeral.  The third week, we could go through his stuff.  His death solved the dilemma of what I would do if he died while I was in China.  [I say these things because it was true and I can't shake the shame of it.]

When I first came to the hospital last year, I saw my father* before I was quickly, with my brother and mother, taken to see the doctor who told us that Dad's prognosis was not good.  We were given the choice of keeping him on the meds, which the doctor said were only delaying the inevitable, or taking him off them.  Having been so far away from Dad in his final years, I felt I didn't have the right to have a say in the decision.  I was also horrified by the thought of how it would fit into my schedule.  I shirked it.  The decison was made to take him off.  I felt impotent and weak and cowardly as I never had before in my life, as I just let it happen and thinking how I should be saying:  No! Let him live as long as possible!

[*What took you so long to get here? was what my father said when I saw.  How true.  We lingered a little too long in Winnipeg before we came to Bransdon to see him.*]

I hoped by having Tony  and thus giving my father a grandson that I would somehow redeem myself with respect to my father.  Alas, I didn't see much of him in his last years, and I didn't phone him as much as I should have.  It does let me off the hook somewhat to know that he was the most avid reader of my blog, and he was constantly printing out the photos I published of Tony and Jenny.

My father was a lonely man for the last years of his life.  He stayed in Brandon and was reluctant, out of pique or principle, to visit the relatives in Winnipeg.  By his thinking, Winnipeg was a big city.  On the scale of things here in China, he was so wrong, and yet I find myself aching for small town quiet that he espoused and I initially rejected.

My father was a supporter of Socialism; I was at first, but then wasn't.  Dad, I could say, was earnest in his Socialism and Leftism, and was not one to smarm and smirk like present day leftists do.

My father was a Leafs fan.  [I suppose I could say that it was good he wasn't alive to see the Leafs blow it in 2103.] He tried to make me one when he bought me a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game, but for whatever reason when I began to watch hockey, I became a Montreal Canadiens fan.  I should have mentioned that in my funeral eulogy last year -- the acknowledgment part.  One of the last bits of current news we talked about before he passed away was the NHL playoffs.  The Kings were the finals, he knew.  However, he didn't survive to the end of the final.

As I was saying, my father was a lonely man.  On the second last night of his life, I lay in a bed that was put besides his in the hospital room.  I recall that the noises of the machines startled him and that also several times through the night he picked up the phone, like he was expecting a call.  From whom?  I wondered.  And why?  I always have these strange fantasies, despite knowing full well that they couldn't happen and I should stop having them, of some sort of Angel or figure coming and sympathizing with my plight.  I wondered if my father had the same sort of need.  As far as I know, the angel never called.  But then we maybe see them in the afterlife.

It runs in the family.  The loneliness and the forced reclusiveness.  But there can be no doubt that modernity had an effect on our family too even though we were as plagued as many other families by modernity's terrible ravages such as divorce and drugs and Materialism.

Father was born at a time and a place when momentous historical events were taking place.  The Germans and the Soviets  were at war, Jews were being exterminated, and his native country of Latvia was right in the midst of it.  He and his family fled the Soviets and eventually came to Canada  Thinking about that, one can understand his wanting to live in a small and seemingly boring place like Brandon.

What my father religious?  The Salvation Army volunteer at the care home where he spent the last month of his life, said he was attending services on Sunday.  Perhaps, hedging his bets he was, but it was good that his funeral did have a religious aspect to it.  Father & I unfortunately never talked about our religious views.

Below are photos taken in the Care Home my father stayed for the last month of his life.

This is the memorial that was set up for him:

The second was taken in his room.  His life was on that bulletin board.

A Week in the Life of a Canadian Living in Wuxi, China: May 20 to May 26, 2013.

Gratitude: Someone actually read my blog entries from start to finish. Wow!

Acknowledgment:  I am far too indulgent of my son Tony.  I am the one who keeps him up way past his bedtime with videos I download via torrents.

Requests:  Please visit the page I have dedicated to my father.  You can also visit my blog on May 28th and thereafter to read the piece, I am working on, to mark the first anniversary of his passing away. [News of the grave condition of my Aunt Dzidra may delay the publishing of my piece about my father.]

The AKIC Mission:  To be China's leading forum of  Gómez-Dávilism and reactionary intransigence, as well as a provocation to all of AKIC's enemies and critics.

The AKIC Motto:  Believe in God, trust in Christ, look with suspicion.

An AKIC Glossary

Gratitude: will always be the first word of the AKIC weekly blog entry -- it is the key to happiness.

Acknowledgment and Request:  For me Acknowledgment means confession; and Request means request.  GAR [Gratitude, Acknowledgment, Request] are the simple stages of a prayer which I came upon following the Jewish World Review site.  I used the GAR format when I delivered the eulogy at my father's funeral last year.

Jenny is my wife. She is a Jiangsu woman.

J: I will sometimes refer to her that way.

Tony is my son.  If he is annoying or acts way, way, way out-of-line, I will spank him.

T: I will sometimes refer to Tony this way.

TKIC: Tony Kaulins in China.  I may be referring to the TKIC blogs or to Tony when I use TKIC.  I  am sure you can figure out which way I am using it from the context.

AKIC:  Andis Kaulins in China.  The same applies to AKIC as applies to TKIC.  That is, I may be referring to the AKIC blogs or to myself.  AKIC aspires to be China's leading forum of  Gómez-Dávilism and reactionary intransigence.

My School is HyLite English located on Zhongshan Road in Wuxi, China.

Casa Kaulins is what I call the apartment I (really my wife) owns.

California Villa: The English name of the apartment complex the Kaulins family resides. In Chinese pinyin, it is called Jia Zhou Yang Fang.

Train-spotting.  There is a high speed train track running near Casa K.  Tony & I, when we have a chance, love to go there to watch the trains go by.

Wuxi:  The city where Jenny, Tony & I live.  I sometimes call it the Wux.

Hui Shan: The district of Wuxi in which we live.  Not to be confused with the Hui Shan Mountain that is in Xihui Park.

The Square:  The Hui Shan People's Square is nearby Casa Kaulins.

Central Park:  Hui Shan Central Park is the park closest to Casa Kaulins.  It has a playground area and a small lake with beach.  The park is nothing special.  The water in the lake is unbelievably foul.  The playground's fixtures are following apart.  The park is big enough that its narrow paths, that I would have thought were meant for pedestrians, have cars being driven on them.  The sight of these cars honking at pedestrians to get out their way disgusts me as much as the park's lake water.  Chinese people don't know how to drive and exhibit extreme selfishness when they get behind the steering wheel.

Hui Shan Wanda: A fancy shopping mall that is near Casa Kaulins.

Yanqiao: a town of Hui Shan District -- not too far from Casa Kaulins.

Jiangyin: A city or district next to Wuxi.

Meicun:  A suburb of Wuxi city that is far from the downtown.

Shuo Feng:  Ditto!

Ditto!  Agrees with what has been previously said.

LECTOR: I got the idea for Lector, a fictional sparring partner for my blog, from a Hilaire Belloc book I had read recently.

School Laptop:  I like to make note of where I make my notes for my weekly blog entry.  One of the four places is my school laptop.  The other three are: my home laptop, my Ipad Mini, and my Ipod Touch.

Python:  Some kind of script-writing computer program I am learning to use.

Atftb:  A thought for the blog.

Brandon, Manitoba, Canada is where my mother Aina lives. 

Winnipeg, Manitoba is where my brother Ron lives.

Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA is where some of my father's relatives live.

Bao Bao Sleepy:  What Tony calls it when he sleeps in Daddy's arms or on Daddy's lap.

David Warren:  I visit his website about five times a day.  He a fervent Catholic and reactionary.  If I model myself after anyone, it would be him.

Don Colacho:  A South American sage.  He died in 1993.  He would have been 100 in 2013.  I read his aphorisms everyday.  He is the consummate reactionary.

Father Schall: I am always reading the site of his which has a huge collection of his writings.

English Corner:  I go to a room and try to talk to a group of Chinese people in English.  Often, they don't understand me.

HM:  Harry Moore is from Brisbane Australia.  He had a brief stint as an English teacher at my school.  He sends me emails occasionally.  He was my partner in crime in my notorious Wuxi China Expatdom Blog.  He suffered a stroke recently but he still heroically plugs away.

The AKIC Week in Brief:  Not much happened this week, till Sunday.  The week had been so devoid of meaning and purpose that I filled my daily journals not so much with actual events but with thoughts that came to me.  Sunday was a day of reflection for me. I received news of the grave condition of my Aunt Dzidra. That news combined with the approaching anniversary of my father's death on Tuesday [May 28] made Sunday a day of reflection.

About Me (Andis):

I am in China!   在我的youku，一个中国 写得这个：生了个bastard，失败的白人，在他们国家找不到老婆。 （引文的翻译： Wife gave birth Bastard, the failed White, not found in their country）

Politically I am Conservative/Reactionary!  In my younger days, I was a Lefty but I smartened up.  Now, I find it hard to say where exactly I would fall on the right wing  of the political spectrum.  Some of the political thinkers I admire don't completely agree with the others I admire.  For example, I like John Derbyshire who is an atheist and no admirer of George Bush the second; I like David Warren who is a fervent Catholic and a critic of capitalism and a Medievalist; I like Victor David Hansen who defends what George Bush the second did in his two terms as President; and I like Thomas Sowell who is a great defender of Capitalism.  I love FA Hayek who wrote an article entitled Why I am not a Conservative.  Certainly, it is easier for me to state without ambiguity, the political things I hate like Leftism, Fascism, Marxist-Leninism, Scientism, Liberal-Progressivism, Socialism and Keynesianism.  Current political figures I don't like include Obama, Pelosi, Reid and Krugman.

I am Canadian!  What Canadian things have I done this week?  I said eh! in class.  The students didn't know what I was talking about.

I teach English!  Or should I say Me teach English?

I like to Read!  Here is what I am reading this week:

Don Colacho's Aphorisms:  There are 2,988 of them in this book that I compiled myself.  I read ten aphorisms at a time.  I cut and paste the better ones -- they are all profound actually -- and I put them in my weekly blog entry.

Ulysses by James Joyce:  I am following along with   Frank Delaney as he slowly guides podcast listeners through Joyce's hard-to-read novel.  Delaney figures he will have done his last ReJoyce Podcast in about 22 years.  Now that I have caught up to Delaney's podcast (he completed episode #154 this week), I am getting ahead him as far as reading the book.  I will be finished reading it, I figure, in a year.

The Holy Bible King James Version:   I am reading a chapter a day of the greatest book of all-time.  I am now reading the Acts of the Apostles.

University Economics:  Elements of Inquiry Third Edition by Armen A. Alchian and William R. Allen:   A great Economics textbook. 

The Hobbit by JR Tolkien.    Finished. For whatever reason, I hadn't read this book before.  I managed to snag an e-book copy of the  book on the Internet after hearing of the release of the movie  But it was reading Father Schall's praising of Tolkien that really inspired me to read the Hobbit.  Tolkien, says Schall, is more than just the creator of the genre of Fantasy fiction. The book is wonderful and I can see how the film-makers will make two more movies out of it.

On Something by Hilaire Belloc.  Whatever David Warren or Father Schall mention a book, I seem to end up reading it.  Father Schall's articles, which can be found here, I read on my dotdotdot app: a social app where one can read long form articles in a e-book format.

I like to take photos

I publish them in the following blogs:   AKIC wordpress , TKIC blogspot  and TKIC wordpress .

I like to make videos

Here is my Youtube Channel and my Youku Channel .

I like to cut and paste quotations:

Every week, I cut and paste a lot of Don Colacho:

2241 Even small-town grudges are more civilized than the mutual indifference of big cities.

2249 It is easier to be compassionate than it is not to feel envy.

From Belloc's On Something:  “Yes, yes, I know," said King Philip impatiently, "I have heard it a thousand times! It has already persuaded me to abandon the duodecimal method and to consign to the severest tortures any one who mentions it in my presence again.  My ten fingers are good enough for me. Go on, go on!” [I find this hilarious.]

From an article in Taki's Magazine:  Having kids is like moving to China. You can’t go, “Ew, it’s way too Chinese here” and move back when winter hits. You have to dig in your heels, learn the language, and make it work. [I have done both things: move to China and have a kid.  I can't say that I have done either of those things very well, but I am the least likely person I know who is here to complain that it is too Chinese here.]

From a David Warren blog entry: There are no social advantages to being Christian any more; & pretending to be Catholic would be quite ludicrously counter-productive to any person on the make, trying to steal ahead in business or politics. [This blog has never advanced my cause, I am happy to say.]

I like to keep a journal of my daily activities and any thoughts that occur to me.

Monday [May 20]

[Home Laptop] 

I don't work today.  I am going to fart around the computer till Tony comes back from school.

I made a GUI where clicking on Tony's photo gets one to the website I have dedicated to him.

Someone Chinese made the following comments on my channel:  生了个bastard，失败的白人，在他们国家找不到老婆。 （English Translation： Wife gave birth Bastard, the failed White, not found in their country）What can I say?  My wife was a third daughter who wasn't valued in a culture that would rather have boys.

I made and then uploaded Scenes from My Life in Wuxi, China #39 to Youku.

Tuesday [May 21]

[Home Laptop]

I've just sent Tony off to school.  He was wearing a yellow outfit. 

I work 1300 to 2100.  So I can spend more of the morning at Casa K where I will do some Chinese flashcard study and hang laundry.

I downloaded a new version of Vuze, the torrent downloading program, last night.  I don't like it but I suppose I will get used to it.  I have noticed I also don't like the latest versions of the Youtube Channel Page and the Gmail compose.

[School Laptop]

I didn't get as much done at home as I wanted to because little chores kept popping up like laundry in the washing machine needing to be hung and J asking me to vacuum the floor.

A bit of affection in the morning is always good.  I came to work in a calm and peaceful mood.

I have looked at 1,000 Chinese flashcards today.  I recognized about 79 percent of them, I figure.

It is hot and smoggy outside.  I will happily stay in my office.

I suppose I should go prep my classes now.  It is slow today.  Apparently the students are in school taking exams.

I will take a week off in June.  J and I haven't decided what we are going to do with the time, but we have talked about traveling .  The wife wants to spend time in Shanghai or Zhejiang province.  It is all good to me!

I have been downloading, via torrent, as many episodes of Shaun the Sheep and Fireman Sam as I can find.

When I was putting together the Scenes from My Life in China #39 video, I downloaded the video I took from my Ipod Touch onto my laptop.  The video, I had taken where I was walking towards the Ipod which was propped at ground level, came out upside down on my laptop.  This was an easy problem to fix but watching the upside down video, I saw that from that perspective, my gait seemed ridiculous and comical.  Upside-down, I looked like I was walking in mud or in gravity.  My foot leaving the surface of the earth, looked like it was pulling hard against a rubber band suspending it to the ground.  Right-side up, the video shows my gait to be normal and unremarkable.

Python programming with GUI's is such a headache.  The difference between versions of Python is really coming out in all the code I have seen.  Sometimes, I just don't have the modules I need.  And the code just doesn't seem very intuitive to me.  I cut and paste it, and hope for the best.  So far, only the worst is happening.

Wednesday [May 22]

[Home Laptop]

I didn't sleep well last night.  I was up at one point, two a.m., reading a book.  I was thinking about how Don Colacho was said to be reading books till all hours in the morning.  I wish I could do that but I find that I can read a book past midnight -- I don't have the energy to carry on.

Consequently, I was awake at 710 this morning which is oversleeping for me.

I will have to slog my way through the morning.  

David Warren wrote a superb obit for his latest blog entry.  I wish I could rise to his level in the piece I am planning to publish on the anniversary of my father's death.  I also reflect on reading the obit, that no one is going to write an obit about me.  The subject of Warren's obit was an aloof man but he possessed some charm.  I have taken on an aloof posture because I don't have what it takes to have close relationships with others, and there is an element of bitterness in the aloofness, I will admit.  Despite the put-down of myself, the bitterness is not so much directed at the people I know as it is directed to the fact that I never meet an many interesting characters amenable to me as Warren has meet in his life.  Warren knew people with whom he didn't have to hold something back.  I always feel like a phony in my dealings with others I can't talk about the things that fervently interest me.

I will do an English Corner about the letter V this afternoon.

I am not sure to go with my Python study.  I find that the GUI aspects of the language are causing me headaches.

It is HM's birthday today.  I must send him an email.

I must remind myself that as important as it is for me to do my personal tasks such as study Chinese everyday, the things I should do for other people, like send them emails, should be a higher priority.

If I ever lack in something to acknowledge for my GAR section at the top, I only need ask J and she will tell me what I am doing wrong.  For she made me realize I indulge Tony too much.

Imagine a kind of rich, delicious dessert food that you can eat and not get fat.  Would such a food be a thing we should desire?  I would think not because I believe that being able to escape consequences means one would in the end face worse consequences.  Something who likes chocolate could eat it all day and not do other things that the shame of eating too much chocolate and being fat would have forced them to do like exercise, leave the dessert table and deal with the people in one's life.

[School Laptop]

I work 1300 to 2100 today.

On the bus to work this morning, I saw the Wuxi Metro train parked at tracks at the Wuxi Metro Train Yard.  It had been  parked there for two days in a row.

I had a hard time explaining what this sentence meant: Victor admires Victoria's virtues.

Thursday [May 23]

[School Laptop]

I work 1000 to 2100 today.

We have to get Tony a bed of his own.  He kicked me in the head three times during the night.

My vacation will be June 22 to June 28.  It looks like we won't be taking a trip anywhere.  Tony will be finishing his kindergarten and the school is planning all sorts of events for it.  I can't recall if we had some sort of ceremony to mark the end of my kindergarten days.  Anyway, I don't see the point of these ceremonies.  I don't see the point of being told, in a fancy way, that it is time for you cattle to move on.  If I had it my way, Tony would take the week off and we would go on a trip.  However, J tells me that she has already signed off with the kindergarten about the ceremonies.  She looks at me uncomprehendingly when I tell her that I don't see the point of the ceremonies.

I didn't bother going to my graduation ceremonies from University.  I didn't feel like I had accomplished anything. And anyway, these times are usually opportunities for university administrators to congratulate themselves as they prod the herd of graduates to pick up their pieces of paper.

When Tony goes to primary school next year, he may be wearing one of those red scarves.  I wish he wouldn't.  The Maoist-inspired Khmer Rouge wearing similar scarves, of a checkered red and white pattern, committed genocide on their people.

From despair to contentment; from contentment to despair.  My moods fluctuate today.

If I hear shouts, fireworks, and other sounds of todo, I won't bother inquiring into what happened.  There is no point.  It is all just going to be whatever...

Friday [May 24]

[Ipod]

Atftb

Able to maintain sexiness in stressful situations

Are those pillows?  No Darling!  Those are your buttocks!

Are we going to watch the Bears game?  Of course not.

[School Laptop]

I work 1100-2100 today.  I get to school at 920.  Am I dedicated?  No.

On the bus TV, I saw images of the man with blood on his hands waving a meat cleaver that he used to cut apart a British soldier.  He was performing for the passersby who had pulled out their phone cameras.  One thing in the video I saw that irked me was a pedestrian walking pass him.  It reminded me of the video of the little girl in China who had been run over by a van and was ignored by a whole slew of passersby.  The other thought I had about the video was how Americans could crow at the incident like Brits crow at some gun massacre that happens in America.  After all, if at least one British citizen had a gun, they could have taken those ghouls down.  It would have been nice if the citizens could have helped the victim.  The victim instead had to put his safety in the hands of the government police forces who took twenty minutes to arrive.  And Europeans don't understand why Americans don't trust the government....

I am going to use my Ipad in my movie salon class.  I have lot of flashcards and images loaded up, so I figure I might as well use the damn thing for work.

I don't talk to creeps, unless I absolutely have to.

What star would play AKIC in a future major studio AKIC bio-pic?  As rare readers know, there are many sides to AKIC; and so there isn't an actor on the planet with a wide enough range to portray AKIC.  Therefore, a troupe of major actors would have to play AKIC.  AKIC would prefer that none of the current crop of pretty boy actors appear in the AKIC bio pic.  So no Brad Pitt or Leo Decrapio. AKIC would prefer that previous crops of male actors who looked male and adult to portray him.  Unfortunately, these actors are old or dead.  In an ideal universe or in heaven, the AKIC Bio Pic cast of actors to portray AKIC would include Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Leslie Nielson, George Kennedy, Clint Eastwood, James Caan, Montgomery Clift, John Wayne, Fred Astaire, Harry Moore, Gary Cooper, Anthony Quinn, Alec Guinness, Jimmy Stewart, Lee Van Cleft, Rod Steiger, and James Coburn.

A student tells me that she is going to Bangladesh for three months.

You don't know what they know and what they don't know.

No English Speaker would ever say that!

In my Python language programming,  I am having trouble with GUIs.

[Ipod]

Drats!  I left my IPad on and so as I sit on the 635, I have to play on my Ipod.  I was reading at supper time and forgot to turn the machine off.

I did a Duane Thomas today. [LECTOR: Wasn't that the Dallas Cowboy running back from the very early 1970s?]

Sheep the Shaun. [LECTOR:  That should be Shaun the Sheep.]

Nothing happening so I am resorting to writing down whatever thoughts come to mind.

Nothing comes to mind.

Wanda Plaza, oh so bright, will open soon but not tonight.

Saturday[May 25]

[School Laptop]

Familiarity breeds contempt.

I work 1000 to 1800 today.  Actually, 1000 to 1700.  I don't have a 1700 class.  

Let's teach 'em and get out of here!

This is a blog of provocations.  I put things in just to see what bites.

How I wish I was crazy.  Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that being crazy is not a good thing, and I could never fully convince myself that I was something that I wasn't like a chicken or a figure of importance. [LECTOR:  Really!  You are just pathetic.  Andis:  Thank you very much]

We, that be T, J & I, may be going to Ikea for the second Saturday in a row.  I don't want to because it means two hours of sitting on or waiting for the bus.  However, we need to buy a bed for Tony so we should go.  Why do we need a bed?  It is easier to beat up Tony when he is tied to a bed his size.  [LECTOR: Not funny!  You need your head examined!]

[Home Laptop]

Weiners and Hot Dogs for supper. Yes!

Where can I put the leftover meatballs? I ask my wife. On your head! J says. My effort to help was perceived to be what it truly was – a pathetic attempt to make up for the fact that I hadn't helped my wife clean up.

The Pope talks like the Devil exists. I am fighting devils all the time. They seem to come into my mind as soon as I read nice thoughts.

AKIC: Tony are you are a nice guy? TKIC: Yes. AKIC: Can I have my Ipad? TKIC: No. AKIC: What?!? TKIC: I say no! AKIC: Oh...

Why is it that the people who complain the most about being screwed by their employer, have the worst work ethic?

Hooray! Ottawa was eliminated from the NHL playoffs. Who beat them? Who cares! The important thing is that the Senators lost.

Currently, McDonald's is giving away a bottle of Hand Sanitizer with breakfast purchases over 10 rmb. Currently, I have amassed five bottles.

AKIC: Who is the most popular person in China? Student: Xi Jing Ping. AKIC: Really? Student: Maybe.

I saw that some of students attending flight attendant school came to our school today. [LECTOR: Why did you bother mentioning that? ANDIS: Shhhh!]

Survey person phones a Chinese household and asks: Do you approve of the job Xi Jing Ping is doing? The person answering the phone says “Of course!”

I am trying to get this blog entry to be of such a length that it takes up ten typed pages in a word processor.

Sunday [May 26]

[Home Laptop]

I don't work today. Sunday is the day of the week when I devote myself fully, in theory, to Tony. He tells me he wants to go to Ikea. I am not keen on the idea, but at the same time I have no strong or indignant objections to going. It depends on J as to whether we will go or not. The weather may also play a part in the decision, as well, as the outside is all wet from the rain that fell last night. The sky is overcast now with a strong sun breaking through, and it is windy. J is going to wake up late this morning and there is no point in attempting to wake her up and ask if we will go.

Mosquitoes plague sleepers in Wuxi at this time of year. Yesterday, I had a student complain to me about them during one of my class's warm-up moments where I do a round of how-are-you-doing with the class. She couldn't sleep, she said, because the mosquitoes were buzzing and biting her all night, making her feel – I had to supply her with the word – “itchy.” Casa Kaulins has screen windows – a thing that many Wuxi homes don't have, but the screens don't prevent all the wenzi from coming in. To combat the Casa K wenzi, the Kaulins family has a killing racquet. Through the night an attack of a buzzing wenzi will cause one of us to make an all-lights-on command in order that we can search the little invader down. They aren't easy to spot, these wenzi, unless they decide to rest, out in the open, on a wall.

Last night, T&A made a brief foray out of the apartment so AKIC could buy drinks at the nearby small shop. AKIC had then opportunity to see that the heat was forcing many of the store keepers and their patrons to go outside of their establishments. The scene was not in anyways akin to patrons sitting outside their cafes on the streets of Paris. The locals were seated on low plastic chairs eating and drinking off low plastic tables more suited for youngsters than adults.

945 am: I have just received an update from my mother about her eldest sister, my Aunt Dzidra. Dzidra is not doing very well. Dzidra lives in Winnipeg, and my mother will visit her in the hospital to say good bye. At times like this, I feel like a selfish bastard for deciding to come to China. I wish I could be there.

News about Dzidra has made me go back into my “archives” for photos I might have of Dzidra. I found some, but while looking I saw the photos of my time spent in Brandon at the times of my father's death which made the event seem all too fresh.

[Ipad Mini]

The Dali Lama is a lefty's wet dream, it is said, when the lefties aren't admiring the unbridled power that the Chicoms have. Here is a conservative's perspective on him. I haven't thought about him recently till I came upon the article. I have read his autobiography, and I remember him saying that Communism seemed like a good idea in theory, and that he loved his dogs. I don't doubt for a second that the Dali Lama is a decent man, and it would be tragic to see his legacy in Tibet done in by crony-capitalism. But alas like the saint Nielson Mandela, his rule over his country would have served to be just as tragic as Mandela has turned out to be.

Tony has taken over the laptop so he can watch fireman videos on YouTube. So I tap my thoughts on the Ipad.

I paid off all my debts before I came to China. I worked my ass off to do so. One year, I worked every day but Christmas. They weren't glamorous jobs. I was just a plug. But that was how I was able to come to China. [I have heard that a few have come here to evade having to pay their loans.]

I don't think we will be going to Ikea today.

We won't be going to Ikea.

Radio Derb Podcast:  in the latest episode, mention was made of the 1955 film Oklahoma!  Derb said it was a hit in England at the time.  It showed Americans,  especially of the mid-western type, in a good light. [A film that shows the English at their finest is The Dam-busters.]. I was fortunate to come across a DVD copy of Oklahoma! when browsing through a stack at a Wuxi DVD shop.  It was a film to be watched repeatedly.  I loved  the songs and the dancing.  Watching it now is a counter-cultural statement.  Probably, starting in the 1960s, the film was seen as square and something one's grandparents would like.  Too bad, people thinking such things about musicals are restricting themselves.  The modern leftist tendency is to sneer at anything with a hint of joy to it -- something can only be good to them if it increases their sense of self-regard and coolness.  A favorite scene from the movie occurs at the barn-raising dance.  The song for the scene was Ranchers & Farmers should be friends.  A brawl between the farmers and the ranchers is broken up by a pistol-toting granny.  To me the scene is the epitome of all that lefties hate:  strong traditional woman, guns, and civilized values.  How more civilized the world would be if real women had guns.  Woman’s traditional roles have been to make men less brutish.  Feminists instead think women should imitate men.  The results?  Nancy Pelosi and Hilary Clinton, to name a few.  Woman of those ilk -- female gargoyles, if you will are a sickening sight to anyone who admires true femininity.  The fact that Bill Clinton got away with his infidelities is proof that Hilary isn't a woman, but a sexless being who made a cynical decision to grab power for herself.

Besides making listening to a Radio Derb Podcast, I am also trying to make my way through the film Zorba the Greek.  Zorba, as played by Anthony Quinn [not the Anthony I was thinking of when I named my son], is an attractive figure.  Watching the film, I am experiencing what I would call  temporary role-model imitation (TRMI) fever.  That is, where the performance of an actor makes one want to imitate the ways of the character.  Zorba is a man with gusto.  He is not held back and acts how he feels and says what he thinks.  So he is violent and loving and daring and full of cheer as his emotions dictate.  I wish I could be that way.  A younger Andis under the influence of TRMI fever, actually thought he could modify his character to be exactly like the performer he had seen.  Now, AKIC knows it can't be and that the indifference of the Cosmos would sharply rebuff any attempt at a performance of a “hidden” character trait.  AKIC now thinks of what he has in common with the character being performed.  What does AKIC have in common with Zorba?  Andis has a gusto for self-defeating behavior.

Most self-defeating behavior ever exhibited by a human being?  Jesus Christ.  Alas, AKIC is really stretching it to think he has any gusto for anything.

Scenes from My Life in Wuxi, China #39

A Week in the Life of an Expat living in Wuxi, China: May 13 to May 19, 2013

Gratitude:  I thank the powers that be for all the good food my wife has been feeding my this week, and the fact that I have determined two things this week. (Find out below)

Acknowledgment: I am a sour and bitter sort, even though I know damn well I shouldn't be. But what the hay! I still can laugh in my own way at my own jokes. Ha ha I type as I slap my knees at the same time.

Requests: 1)I hope that all goes well for my Aunt Dzridza in Winnipeg and my Uncle Maigonis in Minneapolis – my mother's and my father's eldest siblings respectively are apparently not doing so well. I was able to see them both last year, and it was nice of Maigonis to attend my father's funeral. We didn't think that he could make the long trip from Minneapolis to Manitoba, but he did. 2)Send emails to my new address: andiskaulins@qq.com.

An AKIC Glossary

Gratitude: will always be the first word of the AKIC weekly blog entry -- it is the key to happiness.

Acknowledgment and Request:  For me Acknowledgment means confession; and Request means request.  GAR [Gratitude, Acknowledgment, Request] are the simple stages of a prayer which I came upon following the Jewish World Review site.  I used the GAR format when I delivered the eulogy at my father's funeral last year.

Jenny is my wife. She is a Jiangsu woman.

J: I will sometimes refer to her that way.

Tony is my son.

T: I will sometimes refer to Tony this way.

TKIC: Tony Kaulins in China.  I may be referring to the TKIC blogs or to Tony when I use TKIC.  I  am sure you can figure out which way I am using it from the context.

AKIC:  Andis Kaulins in China.  The same applies to AKIC as applies to TKIC.  That is, I may be referring to the AKIC blogs or to myself.  AKIC aspires to be China's leading forum of Gómez-Dávilism and reactionary intransigence.

My School is HyLite English located on Zhongshan Road in Wuxi, China.

Casa Kaulins is what I call the apartment I (really my wife) owns.

California Villa: The English name of the apartment complex the Kaulins family resides. In Chinese pinyin, it is called Jia Zhou Yang Fang.

Train-spotting.  There is a high speed train track running near Casa K.  Tony & I, when we have a chance, love to go there to watch the trains go by.

Wuxi:  The city where Jenny, Tony & I live.  I sometimes call it the Wux.

Hui Shan: The district of Wuxi in which we live. Not to be confused with the Hui Shan Mountain that is in Xihui Park.

The Square:  The Hui Shan People's Square is nearby Casa Kaulins.

Central Park: Hui Shan Central Park is the park closest to Casa Kaulins. It has a playground area and a small lake with beach. The park is nothing special. The water in the lake is unbelievably foul. The playground's fixtures are following apart. The park is big enough that its narrow paths, that I would have thought were meant for pedestrians, have cars being driven on them. The sight of these cars honking at pedestrians to get out their way disgusts me as much as the park's lake water. Chinese people don't know how to drive and exhibit extreme selfishness when they get behind the steering wheel.

Yanqiao: a town of Hui Shan District -- not too far from Casa Kaulins.

Jiangyin: A city or district next to Wuxi.

Meicun:  A suburb of Wuxi city that is far from the downtown.

Shuo Feng:  Ditto!

Ditto!  Agrees with what has been previously said.

FB: A pervert (or seducer) I happened to know, but don't see much anymore, thank God.

LECTOR: I got the idea for Lector, a fictional sparring partner for my blog, from a Hillaire Belloc book I had read recently.

School Laptop:  I like to make note of where I make my notes for my weekly blog entry.  One of the four places is my school laptop.  The other three are: my home laptop, my Ipad Mini, and my Ipod Touch.

Python: Some kind of script-writing computer program I am learning to use.

Brandon, Manitoba, Canada is where my mother Aina lives.

Winnipeg, Manitoba is where my brother Ron lives.

Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA is where some of my father's relatives live.

The AKIC Week in Brief: It is hard to make each week seem distinctive from the other. There are rarely deviations in my weekly routine which sees me take the bus to work and then the bus home. So. Let's face it! I lead a dull life. Not that there is anything wrong with that. World War Two was an interesting time and I am glad to have just heard about it. A life where we get all we want is not interesting to others anyway... it is all about how you feel about it. So... What happened in AKIC land this week? I took the bus to get to school and back. At school, I had lots of spare time so I studied Chinese and Python computer programming – I only left my office to teach classes. I also did a lot of reading, and I got two things from it. First, I know what I am going to put on my gravestone (If there is any money for such a thing. My funeral will be on the cheap like my father's was.). Second, I think I have a purpose for this blog. I first thought, six years ago, that this blog would be the authoritative record of Wuxi Expatdom. That quickly fell by the wayside because that meant me rising to the level of a social animal. I have spent too much of my life as a loner, stuck on the margin, being a sour and bitter observer of human affairs. This leopard can't change his spots. It is not in my nature to say things are sunshine and lollipops when they aren't. My blog entries got a lot of people annoyed at me. So my blog couldn't be the authoritative guide to Wuxi Expat living – I fell out of the loop. It had to be something else...

About Me (Andis):

I in in China!  我 听说 张艺谋 有 很多 儿子。我 问 一个学生。你 是 张艺谋的儿子吗？

Politically I am Conservative!  There was more proof this past week that Obama sucks as a president.  I take no joy from it however.  The electorate in the U.S. should have been made aware much earlier. And I am stuck on a planet where far too many people think highly of Obama however terrible he is.

I am Canadian!  I wonder what happened to the Leafs in game seven against Boston.

I teach English!  When I can.

I like to Read! Here is what I am reading this week:

Don Colacho's Aphorisms:  There are 2,988 of them in this book that I compiled myself.  I read ten aphorisms at a time.  I cut and paste the better ones -- they are all profound actually -- and I put them in my weekly blog entry. (See below) This week, I learned, was his birthday

Ulysses by James Joyce:  I am following along with  Frank Delaney  as he slowly guides podcast listeners through Joyce's hard-to-read novel.  Delaney figures he will have done his last ReJoyce Podcast in about 22 years.  Now that I have caught up to Delaney's podcast (he completed episode #153 this week), I am getting ahead him as far as reading the book.  I will be finished reading it, I figure, in a year.

The Holy Bible King James Version:   I am reading a chapter a day of the greatest book of all-time. I am now reading the Acts of the Apostles.

University Economics:  Elements of Inquiry Third Edition by Armen A. Alchian and William R. Allen:   A great Economics textbook. 

The Hobbit by JR Tolkien.  I hadn't read this book before.  I have seen parts of the recent movie based on the book.  But it was reading Father Schall's praising of Tolkien that really inspired me to read the Hobbit.  Tolkien, says Schall, is more than just the creator of the genre of Fantasy fiction.

I like to take photos

I publish them in the following blogs:  AKIC wordpress , TKIC blogspot, and TKIC wordpress.

I like to make videos

Here is my Youtube Channel and my Youku Channel.

I like to cut and paste quotations:

In honor of Don Colacho's Birthday, I will publish more of his quotes than normal:

2155 Sins that appear “splendid” from afar are from close up nothing more than small sordid episodes.

2157 The politician, in a democracy becomes the jester of the sovereign people. [Joe Biden is not the first clown to achieve high office, and he won't be the last.]

2160 Whoever appeals to any science in order to justify his basic convictions inspires distrust of his honesty or his intelligence. [People who do talk about science, or say they are scientists, seem to think they think they have halos around their head.]

2162 When nothing in society deserves respect, we should fashion for ourselves in solitude new silent loyalties. [That is what I am doing with my life these days.]

2168 The left is a collection of those who blame society for nature’s shabby treatment of them. [Since I stopped being a left-winger, I realize that most of the shabby treatment I have received in my life has been deserved. I have also realized that a lot of shabby treatment isn't really so shabby after all.]

2174 Profound convictions are transmitted in silence. [Best to shut up and let the other guy talk and make a fool of himself.]

2202 Our denouncing the imbecile does not mean that we wish to get rid of him. We want diversity at any price.  But the charm of variety should not prevent us from judging correctly. [I don't want rid of them either, but at the same time I don't want anything to do with them and I rue having to set sight on them.]

2207 He who does not know how to condemn without fear does not know how to appreciate without apprehension. [That is what is wrong with trying to be cool.]

2215 Believe in God, trust in Christ, look with suspicion. [I want to put those words on my gravestone.]

2227 Humanity longs to free itself from poverty, from toil, from war—from everything which few escape without degrading themselves. [Walking around Ikea, looking at the Chinese acting like middle class consumers, I think this quote was kind apt for what I saw.]

I like to keep a journal of my daily activities and any thoughts that occur to me.

Monday [May 13]

[Home Laptop]

I didn't work today.

With summer-like weather having come to Wuxi , I had to rearrange my closets, putting my summer clothes towards the front, and my winter clothes in the back. I also bought suntan lotion at the supermarket.  (I had gotten sunburned on my arms and legs over the weekend).

I spent the day farting around on the computer.  In the morning, I published my weekly blog entry. (At this time, 28 have viewed the entry.)  I then loaded four more books on the Ipad (Three by John Ruskin and the other by Richard Epstein)  The rest of the day, I wrote code so I could play one twenty-team league of my tournament. That is, I now can play a tournament with a round-robin round followed by a playoff round that determines the league champion.  But I would like the results to look prettier and be able to save the scores and standings of the tournament.

I took Tony out for a bit of train-spotting.  When he came home from school, he asked me to take him.  We went to our newest train-spotting site which is on the Jiangyin side of the Wuxi-Jiangyin Bridge.  There, we saw structures whose purpose I could not determine, a pond teeming with fish that Tony could throw rocks and bricks into, and fast trains closeup.

Tuesday [May 14]

[Home Laptop]

I work 1300-2100 today.  Ah!   What fresh horrors await?

I do like the 1300 kickoffs.  It allows me to take my time as I get ready to go to work.  Of course, I don't take the morning too easily.  I try to get some of my daily requirements done at home, so as to be able to check them off on my to-do list at school.  Things I like to have done everyday:  Chinese flashcard study, Chinese textbook study, Chinese pinyin to character typing practice, python computer language study, GAR, e-book readings, and other projects I have set for myself.

The government is going to inspect Tony's school today.  J tells me that the teachers have to hide the fact that they are teaching the students letters, numbers and English -- apparently it is against the law.  As well, the teachers instructed the parents to keep their childrens' backpacks at home -- it is necessary to clean up the school for the government people.

As I type this, there are two game sevens in the NHL playoffs:  the Leafs are playing the Bruins and the Rangers are playing the Capitals.

What would I do if Toronto and Ottawa both play in the quarterfinals.  Like the Iran-Iraq war, I would have to hope both lose.

Does Loneliness kill?  It is not a good thing but it is but one of the many unpleasant things one can experience in life, and it can be bad for us and our health like many other bad things.  I think of the question: Does a man drink because he is lonely or is he lonely because he drinks?  The point being of course, that studied in isolation loneliness can seem fatal to us as drinking can, when studied in isolation.  Anyway, I have these reactions to the article that was published in the New Republic about the science of loneliness.  I only got halfway through the article when I saw that it was left-wing, self-pitying, I-should-feel-sorry-for-myself pseudo-scientific claptrap.  I stopped reading the article at this passage: "Evolutionary theory, which has a story for everything, has a story to illustrate how the human species might benefit from wide variations in temperament. A group that included different personality types would be more likely to survive a radical change in social conditions than a group in which everyone was exactly alike."  Evolution explains everything?  Does Evolution have laws?  I hear talk of the laws of Economics and Physics that one can't violate.  What about laws of Evolution? Are there such things?

[School Laptop]

It was hot on the way to work.

I see I don't have to worry about both the Senators and Leafs playing in the second round of the NHL playoffs.

It is all fun and games till someone gets offended.

It is all fun and games till someone takes excessive precaution against the remote possibility that someone might lose an eye.

The heat is getting to me already.  This summer is going to be tortuous.  I can barely stay awake for the heat that's going on.

Wednesday [May 15th]

[Home Laptop]

I am up.  I have sent Tony off to school.  I have showered.  I have ironed my clothes for work.  I don't go to work for another hour or so, yet.  So!  What do I do?

[School Laptop]

Well here is what I did.  I looked at about 300 flashcards on my home laptop.  I would have looked at more flashcards but my wife was doing housework and I was feeling guilty doing my study on the computer so I shut it down, and left the apartment early so I could resume my study at school.

I work 1300 to 2100 today.

It has cooled down from yesterday.  Thank God!

When not preparing for classes, teaching classes, and studying Chinese, I am occupying myself with Python.  I am trying to figure out how to save the results of my tournament programs to text files. [LECTOR:  Who cares!]

Thursday [May 16th]

[School Laptop]

I work 1000-2100 today.  It is my long day.

It has been wet the past two days which I suppose is to be expected after the three days of very hot weather we had.

Yesterday, it started cool but became muggy as the day went on.  One could feel that it was building up to a deluge of rain.  I hoped it would come and finish before nine pm.  As it was, it came about seven and I had to suffer through it on the way back home from school -- at least it wasn't that heavy.

My last class of the evening was with an older student with whom I can talk politics.  We discussed the news and China in general.  He worried, he told me, that the corruption in China would result in chaos and a breakup of the country.  This breakup would, he said [and I am paraphrasing], make the things that happened in Russia and Eastern Europe in 1989 look like picnics.  He had heard, like me, the news that one of Chairman Mao's granddaughters was a mega multimillionaire.  Granddaughter Mao used the relationship with the Chairman to her advantage, the student told me  The student also told me of party officials who have been forced to not flaunt their wealth.  Apparently, one official got in trouble because he was shown in different photographs to wearing different expensive watches.  I also learned from the student that Yao Ming's child, who was born in America, has been made an American citizen.  The student and I then talked about the food scandal involving the rat, fox and mink meat being made to look like lamb.  He said the government is going to have to punish these cases very severely if they ever hope to stop them from happening.  [At this point, I mentioned how the government can't seem to monitor the schools very well as the schools are openly flaunting their educational policies.]  Still, with all these problems, the student said he still supported the Communist Party and their one party rule because the alternatives seem worst.  As I told him, many Chinese with their middle class lifestyles and cars don't want the kind of chaos that would make their lives uncomfortable.

Last night, as I walked home, I saw a car parked on the street.  I first thought the car was stopped because it was in a driving lane of the roadway and not off to the side.  But as I got closer and I saw the lights weren't on (many Chinese drivers don't put their headlights on at night), I had to look and see if anyone was sitting in the car. There wasn't, and the engine was definitely not idling.  It was a mystery more ponderous that the shoe on the road. [And if it was broken down, why didn't the driver put on his four ways?]

If the Chairman had been a monkey, Monkey's uncles would be very rich in China these days.

Yesterday afternoon, I did an English Corner.  I do one a week these days.  The topic yesterday was "Two."  I asked questions and taught some expressions using the number two.  One question I asked the students was what were two things they avoided.  I said I avoided the taxman and the undertaker.  The truth is, I try to avoid a certain type of person and stop-and-chats.

I achieved a goal of sorts with the Python programming language.  I can now stage one of my "tournaments" and have the program print the results to a file.

The local government has told the local media to not report on the Zhang Yimou scandal, I learned from a student who is a local journalist.  The government has imposed the ban because it makes Wuxi look bad.  However, other parts of China are reporting the story and everyone in Wuxi is talking about it.

I was surprised and saddened to hear that Quentin Tarantino’s Civil war movie is playing in Wuxi cinemas.

It is about 500 pm and it is raining like a son-of-a-bitch outside.  It is one of those Asian monsoonish heavy rains that I hope subsides by 1700.

Friday [May 17th]

[School Laptop]

I work 1100 to 2100.  I arrive at school at 945 am.  I get here early so I can do my Chinese and Python study.

In Python, I am now in the chapter in my textbook dealing with GUI's -- that be Graphic User Interfaces.  It is not so easy to deal with because there are apparently so many GUI modules for Python.  Each textbook I have uses a different one for demonstration.  Some of these GUI modules have already come with the Python software I have already downloaded.  However, some have to be downloaded and then added on, and being in China, some of the sites from which I can download GUI modules don't have a solid connection to China.  The module that I have found on my version of Python is not used in the textbooks I have.  I will have to look for documentation about it on the Internet.

I had breakfast at McDonalds.  They put a coupon flier on my tray on which I saw the following:  妈妈的标准。我们的标准。  I knew enough of the characters that I thought I would take a stab at figuring out what it meant. So I brought out my Ipod, went to the notes app, and turned on the simplified mandarin keyboard.  I figured out that the pinyin for the two sentences was mamade biaozhun.  womende biaozhun.  The first words in the two sentences were Mamma's and Ours respectively.  The question was what did biaozhun mean?  Going to work, I immediately consulted my Berlitz Chinese English Dictionary and learned that it meant standard.  So Mom's standards are McDonald's.

I don't know if all the noise I am hearing from America about Benghazi, the IRS and the Tea Party, and the Justice Department doing some kind of harassing action on Media groups will amount to much in the long run.  For me it just shows what I have known all along:  that Obama and his ilk are incompetents and dirty political operators whose airs of righteous indignation would be laughable if they weren't in such positions of authority.  The question is the ultimate political fallout from it.  I suspect that the people of my political ilk will talk about these things forever while the low information voter who doesn't pay attention won't care and think highly of Obama because he looks cool.

I listened, this morning, to some podcasts where the subject was the Leafs loss to the Bruins in Game Seven of their recent playoff series.  The Leafs lost in disconcerting fashion, having had a three goal lead late in the game, only to lose the lead and then the game in overtime.  I had to send my brother, who is a Leafs fan, an email about it.  I almost felt sorry for the Leafs.  If forced to choose between them and the Senators -- I would choose the Leafs.

Going home last night, I double-bagged my Ipad.  That is, I put it in two plastic bags before putting it in my backpack.  It was raining that heavily.

I had to leave two of my three USB sticks at home.  Tony wanted to watched the Shaun the Sheep and Fireman Sam episodes that were on them:

Tony likes Shaun the Sheep

Tony likes Shaun the Sheep

And if he unable to watch, he will fall into a heap

He loves Shaun the Sheep

He loves Shaun the Sheep

Oh! Tony really likes Shaun the Sheep

Having composed the following song, I went back to my Python programming and learned a few things about those GUI's.  I was able to create a GUI with three buttons.  The first button was a quit button, the second button was a one-game button, and the third was a tournament button.  Press the first button and the program quits.  Press the second button and you can play one tossing game.  Press the third button and you can play an entire tournament with twenty teams.  To get this to work, I had to refer to the modules chapter in one my Python textbooks.  I figured out to get the program to call up another program I had previously written -- only three lines of code were needed to do this.

Two braying donkeys came into school but then they, thankfully, left.

Student: "Only me?"  Andis:  "No!  I will be there with you!"

Student #1: "I want to take my wife and son to a desert island with me."  Student #2 "I agree with him [student #1]"  Andis: [to student #2] What?!?  You want to take his wife and son to a desert island with you?!?"

What's with the old people here in Wuxi?  When you board a bus, some of them will shove you or will bud in front of you in a very aggressive manner. [Since I am getting old, I will be able to get away with shoving these seniors out of my senior way.]

Saturday [May 18th]

[Computer Laptop]

I work 1000-1800 today.  It is my fast and busy day.  That is, I have a lot of classes and not enough spare time to do what I really want to do: study Chinese and Python.

Lunchtime in downtown Wuxi on a Saturday is not a good time to go to a restaurant.  They are all too crowded.  So, not having brought a lunch, I went to a  nearby convenience store and bought some snacks.

This Saturday presents even less inviting prospects for eating because it is raining.

Every time I do a salon class about celebrities, the students will always try to tell me that Chairman Mao is a celebrity.  He isn't because he is dead and he was a political leader.  So, Xi Jing Ping is not a celebrity, but his wife is.

[Ipad]

Don Colacho's a.k.a. Nicolás Gómez Dávila's 100th B-day is today!

I will celebrate his birthday modestly by drinking a pineapple beer.  Colacho is the greatest thinker I have ever come across.  No other thinker has so accurately described the Modern Age.

But at the same time, I feel a tinge of sadness as I realize what an intellectual wasteland I am in.  Colacho, Jenny & Tony are all that sustain me these days.  There isn't much else for me to draw on.  I live in a corrupt place where I can't trust anybody.

David Warren, who I have linked to above, wants his site to be "Canada’s leading forum of Gómez-Dávilism, & all-round reactionary intransigence." Similarly I hope I can make AKIC China's leading forum of Gómez-Dávilism.

[Home Laptop]

After work, we went to Ikea.  I first step 35 minutes waiting for the Ikea bus and then rode the bus for thirty minutes.  Upon arrival at Ikea, I went straight to the cafeteria and had Swedish Meatballs and Mashed Potatoes.  I spend a brief time looking around the place while thinking it was pointless because our apartment was too small for any more stuff as it was.  We then waited about 20 minutes for the bus that was to take us downtown.  In the latter interim, Tony annoyed me because he was playing with a new umbrella we had just purchased.  When He almost stabbed J in the eye with the end of the umbrella, I lost it and slapped him hard on the wrist.  I made him apologize to J but he then wanted me to give him back the umbrella so he could play with it again. [LECTOR:  You child abuser!.  Apparently you hit him so hard, you left a bruise on his wrist.  ANDIS: He has to learn to behave and listen to his father.]

Sunday [May 19]

[Home Laptop]

I don't work today, so I linger in bed. It is nice to be in a warm bed with two other bodies.

The weather outside in a stage between sunny and rainy. I would classify it as blustery.

I took Tony out in the afternoon so he could play with his water gun toy. He broke it before we had even got anywhere near a pool or body of water. The toy consists of a long tube in which there is a plunger. Pull the plunger of the toy when the bottom end is in water and water will be sucked into the tube. Pushing the plunger will cause the water in the tube to fly out in an impressive jet. Tony broke the toy by pulling the shaft of the plunger out of the tube so that the plunger shaft and the plunger end, which makes a seal in the tube, became separated. It had been glued together so what I did was go to a store and buy some glue. Four attempts to glue the plunger shaft to the end didn't work. The glue would only hold for about ten minutes.

Not being able to fix the toy gun was one of several factors that made my afternoon outing with Tony seem grim. For whatever reason, chemical imbalance in the brain perhaps, I was in a foul mood. I would have been content if Tony had played with his water gun at an isolated spot where there weren't other people about, but Tony insisted on going to the park and the square where the sights only fed my misanthropy. I would have been willing to overlook the squalor of the area in which we but Tony was being peevish and petulant as well. He cried when I told him that he was going to have to wait for the glue to dry before he could use the water gun. He also got annoyed at me when I insisted that we get away from a certain area because I had seen the rotting corpse of a dog. The dead dog, like the hang dog or whatever it was that was said to have fouled Churchill's mood, disgusted me, and I became fixated on the thought I had before that China is a bunch of buildings and apartments constructed within a garbage dump, or rather I should briefly say China is a garbage dump with buildings. The area I choose to spend some time while Tony played with his toy gun was dirty beyond belief. It was supposed to be a park area, but after being built, the park had gone to seed. The walkways had weeds appearing amidst the cracks. The water in the canal, that the park was beside, was dirty and stagnant like a swamp next to a dump. (Here is a photo of the scene.) Unbelievably, still to me even after eight years of living here, someone up the canal was stripped down to his underwear and was about to go for a swim in the canal. Going past the pool where I saw the dead dog, a man had parked his car, and was using a bucket to take water from that pool to wash his car. Tony insisted that we go to the nearby central park. I gave him ten minutes. We had an argument where we argued about whether the park was dirty or not. Tony insisted that it wasn't and I disagreed. It saddened me to think how Tony is a little too Chinese for my liking. After escaping the central park, I placated Tony one more time and took him to the nearby public square. There was a stage set up there, and I saw a show was being performed under the auspices of the nearby Hui Shan Wanda Plaza. [The plaza is going to open on June 21^st] I didn't watch the show. I took Tony to the pools behind the stage so he could play with his water gun. I listened to him whine as his water gun toy kept falling apart, and then briefly to the overly-familiar wailing of a speaker playing the song “Gangnam Style.” I had to go home and ignore Tony's pleas to be taken to a playground he had seen. “I see a playground!” said Tony. “I don't!” I replied. “I see a playground!” whined Tony in response. I continued on my way home and Tony found something else to whine about.

Thinking about the squalor of the park gone to seed, I am reminded of the swamp that Frodo and Sam had to make their way through in order to Mount Doom.

For Dinner, Jenny made meatballs and hot dogs.