Monday
[October 28]
[Home
Laptop]
I
don't work today. These weeks, I work Tuesday to Saturday.
Tuesday
to Friday, I work in the evenings. Saturday, I get to do a day time
shift.
Jenny
kept my son Tony home from school today. He had a bad cough. Tony
didn't mind. He played on the computer all morning.
With
Tony at home, I won't be able to do anything in peace.
I
managed to publish the latest issue of the AKIC Weekly quite easily
this morning. I had been having VPN problems the last month which
made the seemingly easy publishing operation torturous. Normally,
all I would have to do is copy the Weekly text from its file and
paste it to the blog site; but the site wouldn't respond...
I
hear fireworks. Someone must have moved into an apartment. These
are still many unoccupied and undecorated units at 加州洋房。
This
afternoon, we will be going to a portrait studio to pose for photos
to mark the occasion of our seventh wedding anniversary (which
actually was yesterday). Those photos will eventually make it to my
blog. If they turn out right, I may use them on updated blog
banners.
Tony
hated the fireworks I mentioned two paragraphs ago. He had his ears
covered and was crying, and so I had to comfort him.
While
Jenny was doing homeschooling with Tony, I was reading on the Ipad.
So many books, so little time!
I
like to say that I have at least four shelves worth of books on my
Ipad.
We
went to the portrait studio around 4:00 PM. Jenny left first, taking
the e-bike with her. Tony whined about wanting to go by e-bike to
the studio but I told him that Jenny had taken the e-bike herself,
having gone ahead of us so she could get made up for the photos.
This didn't placate him so we ended up taking a motorcycle taxi to
the studio.
When
I told the driver I wanted to go to Wanda, he asked if I wanted to go
to 第一 or 第二.
I told him to go to 第二 thinking
he meant to go the end of the Plaza that was near the portrait
studio. Turned out that to him 第二 meant
going to the end of the Plaza that was farthest from the portrait
studio. After he explained this to me, I told him I wanted to go to
第一.
For
the photo session, I wore my wedding suit, Jenny wore a white dress,
and Tony wore a bow-tie, white dress shirt, and knickerbockers
supplied by the studio.
Afterward,
we walked across the street to the Hui Shan Wanda Plaza. There, I
took Tony to the arcade where we played three games on three
different machines. At the end of the third game, Tony asked where
his Ultraman Egg toy was – it was an “aw shit!” moment. I
remember Tony had handed the toy to me when he sat down at the
machine that we played our first game at, and I had a vague
recollection of having put the toy down. So we ran back to the first
machine we had played at and didn't see the toy. We retraced our
steps back to where we were when Tony remembered the toy and still
couldn’t find it. We asked the arcade staff but they couldn't
help us.
It
was just then that Jenny phoned telling us to meet her at a
restaurant in Wanda where we were to have dinner. Feeling the mobile
phone vibrate in my pocket was another “aw shit!” moment. Jenny
was not going to be impressed with my having lost a toy of Tony's
less than 24 hours after we had bought it, I thought.
At
Dinner, Tony whined and cried about losing the toy, while I stewed
and Jenny gave me the evil eye.
I
was hoping for a miracle when I returned to the arcade, after dinner,
to do one last search and enquiry about the missing toy. We didn't
find it. I then recalled how only a week before, I had found a 100
rmb note on the floor while I was waiting in line at the 85 bakery.
The recollection put everything in perspective. You win some; you
lose some. Despite losing the toy, I was still ahead on the deal.
And the pain I felt when losing the toy was Cosmic Justice for my
feeling of glee at having found the 100 rmb note.
The
recollection was a miracle I asked for. I realized that I didn't
need to find the toy.
Then,
walking home, hand in hand with Tony, was a nice moment. We had some
nice moments of banter. Tony's English is better than I think it is
– I have to admit that I can't escape a feeling that Tony's English
is not as good as it would be if he was living in Canada, and that
Chinese is his first language so that the relationship between him
and me is not as good as I would like it to be.
When
Tony talks to Jenny in Chinese, I need Jenny to translate for me.
I
learned of Lou Reed's death on the Drudge Report. Years ago, I
listened to the Velvet Underground, bought all their albums, and wore
a shirt bearing the banana cover of their first album.
Tuesday
[October 29]
[Home
Laptop]
After
making mention of Lou Reed's passing away yesterday, I found thirteen
songs by him and downloaded them onto my Ipod. I may listen to them
on my way to work.
Tony
goes to on a school field trip to Xihui Park today.
After
Tony was picked up, I went to the basement of one of the other
buildings to get our e-bike which was recharging. One of my duties
as husband at Casa K.
After
all these years, I have a queasy feeling in my stomach as I
contemplate the prospects of going to work this afternoon.
I
put a photo of my near empty Crown Royal bottle on We Chat. Time for
a Re Up, I said. Re Up is a term I got from watching the Wire.
Tony
pointed out a VW Beetle to me this morning. I taught him about punch
buggy. He learned quickly but I had to tell him that there is only
one punch in punch buggy.
Thirty
views of last week's AKIC weekly and thirty five views of last week's
diary.
[School
Laptop]
I
work 13:00 to 21:00.
A
big oh-oh at work.
I
took the 25 bus to school and listened to all the Lou Reed music I
had on the Ipod. Some of the songs were pretty good but some not so.
Singing was not Reed's forte – at time it can be embarrassingly
unlyrical.
I
went to nearby Xinjiang Restaurant (the fifth time in six days) for
my plate of Chao La Mian. I had a student, much to my embarrassment,
buy me lunch.
Wednesday
[October 30]
[School
Laptop]
I
work 13:00 to 21:00 today.
I
want to have a page (on my word processor program) of diary for
today. So pardon if some of what I write seems like filler. The
only thing I can say in my defense is that it is filler.
I
took the 25 bus to the downtown. I took it instead of the 602支
because there were seats and I
wasn't planning on going to McDonald's to have breakfast.
On
the bus, I listened to a podcasts from CJOB in Winnipeg. I heard and
admired Mike Duffy's defense of himself. He said that he hadn't done
nothing wrong and was told by the PMO to pay back the money. Paying
back the money said Duffy would have been tantamount to pleading
guilty so he wasn't going to do it. There is something to be said
for the PMO having too much power. Of course, this tendency to
centralize power in the PMO and away from the Cabinet and Parliament
started with Trudeau.
On
the podcasts, I also heard that the Blue Bombers are 3-13 and the
Jets were not playing to their true potential.
Imagined
conversation:
Yank:
Oh my god! I have to buy health insurance! It is so expensive.
Andis:
Can't you still on your parent's health insurance till your are 26?
Yank:
Andis! I am 34 years of old!
Andis:
Oh!
I
should be taking more photos and posting them to my AKIC wordpress
blog. But every time I think to do so, nothing screams, to my
artistic sensibility, to have its photo taken.
There
aren't so many obsolete things to take photos of Wuxi. What is
interesting about showing the world that many Chinese are becoming
middle class?
David
Warren in the comment section of his most recent blog entry (entitled
the Three Horsemen) talks about doing things well. Even reading, he
says, should be done well. I admit I have a tendency to rush through
text and not give it the attention it deserves.
We
won't probably ever be going back to Jenny's hometown. Jenny has
never forgiven the place for thrusting her aside because she was an
extra and unwanted girl. Talking about how both she and I had
actually walked to primary school by ourselves when we were in grade
one. Jenny reflected how she had to go to school by herself because
she was an afterthought to the people who had to take care of her.
On cold days, she said, she walked to school in the cheapest of
cotton shoes with barely any soles.
And
children being what they are, Jenny was teased endlessly by the
other children of the village for being the unwanted child.
Jenny
at this point in her life is not willing to forgive.
Of
course, she has me for a husband, so who can say how much that
contributes to her resentments.
You
can read in this diary, what I am thinking but not all that I am
thinking.
Jenny
tells me that yesterday, Tony went to bed at 6:30 PM. He had had
such a good time on his school's field trip to Xi Hui Park that he
pooped himself out. [He had to wake up when Jenny & I were
making love later in the evening however... His first instinct is
always to push Dad off.]
I
spent the afternoon (when I wasn't in class) working on the GUI for a
four team round robin tournament.
Thursday
[October 31]
[School
Laptop]
I
work 10:00 to 21:00 today.
Asocial.
That's the word of the morning for me. I suppose it describes me.
I
am journalizing about the word because it was made mention of in a
podcast that I was listening to this morning as I took the 602支
bus to work. John Stossel did a
program about non-government education models including
homeschooling. Homeschooling was criticized initially because it was
thought that the children would stay at home and become asocial –
Stossel's program said that homeschooling did nothing of the kind and
the students were better adjusted than those trapped in public
schools.
I
admit I like the idea of homeschooling because of my antisocial
tendencies. I believe that it was going to public schools that made
me, a naturally shy person, very asocial.
There
are two sides of the socializing coin. We need to interact with
society – of that there can be no doubt. But we also need to be
away from society too because it does treat those who are different
(and aren't of a criminal disposition) rather cruelly. I was made to
feel ashamed of who I was. I remember when I was in public school.
I remember being poked with the sharp end of a protractor by some
girl who decided to be cruel to me on the smallest of pretexts.
Last
week, I had a student tell me she felt embarrassed and shame for
something she saw on the bus and for which she bore no personal
responsibility. The bus was crowded, she was standing, and she saw
an older person get on the bus. The older person who clearly was
decrepit was made to stand – no one yielded her a seat until a
foreigner, from Africa, did. She felt ashamed because the person who
did the right thing wasn't Chinese.
I
had breakfast at McDonald's.
Walking
past the Church near our school, I had a short glimpse of the cross.
The
student I taught this morning told me that she will be going to her
friend's house in the afternoon to play Mah Jong.
I
have spent the afternoon so far working on the GUI for my four team
round robin tournament. I am working on recording the team
tournament results – that is, their wins, losses, ties, total
points for, and total points against. [It is going to be a lot of
work!]
It
is Halloween today. The school had its Halloween function almost
five days ago, so I almost forgot about it.
Friday
[November 1]
[School
Laptop]
We
are now in the part of the year where the names of the months sound
wintery.
I
work, if you can call it that, from 11:00 to 21:00. [LECTOR: What
do you mean “if you can call it that?” ANDIS: I wonder if I do
anything productive. I spend most of my time at work working on my
hobbies like looking at Chinese flashcards, blah-blah blogging,
ticking things off my to-do list, and writing Python programs for
personal use.]
In
my constant never-ending striving to do things different, I did
something different today. AKIC readers, if there are any who read
this blog closely, may recall that I mentioned my getting off at a
different stop in the downtown when taking the 602支。Well
today, I got off at yet another different stop when taking the 602支
in order to get downtown and
eventually to the school where, as I said, I work, if you can call it
that. This stop was one stop after the stop I had been getting off
at in my previous phase of striving to never-endingly do things
differently. So instead of getting off near Wall Street English
School and the Purple Post Office building (where I catch the 635 bus
after work), I got off at a stop that is near the Ace Bar and not too
far from the Provence Restaurant (if it is in fact still there –
everything constantly changes location in Wuxi these days.)
I
have been trying to chat up the students about the Hen Long Plaza and
Suning Plazas that recently opened up in downtown Wuxi. The Hen
Long, said the students, is full of expensive luxury goods. It is
also, said a bright student I had in a class last night, for 土豪.
This term 土豪（tuhao,
which was used during the Communist revolution phase to describe rich
people, is now being used to describe the people who shop at the Hen
Long. None of the students in the class admitted to being 土豪。
I
will be moving back to the office where all the other foreign
trainers in it. So, my days of having my own office at school are
over. I could have kept the office but it would have seemed
unseemly. I also decided to move back out of pure puckishness. I am
going to have to resist the urge to record things I see and hear in
the office.
Now
time for some Joycean interior monologue where I switch from first
person to third person, on a dime, as the expression goes:
[From now on, I will type out
the Joycean style monologue in italics]
Right
wrist against his chin, Andis looked intently or least he thought he
did. I could be posing, for literary posterity, as a sort of person
or writer who stares intently at computer screens. I could also be
posing for my posterior. Ha ha. Andis saw that his ear-buds were on
his too list. What to think about that? Nothing. Nothing. Last
night, a student had a Beatles song for a ring-tone. I sang. Hey
Jude! Na nah na nah na na nah! Na na nah! Hey Jude! A moment of
comic relief in a dull evening. Ten minutes to end of class, the
student was tired to make sentences with superlatives. I wrote on
her comment sheet that she looked tired. She in turn said that I
looked tired. True. Long day. I poop myself out even though I
don't do anything. Writing that program had me engrossed...
To
be engrossed. How to be engrossed. That is the question. With
something interesting you dummy!
Let's
see if I can think of enough things to make one typed page of
blogging for the day.
Andis
pressed return twice. That's cheating! Andis decided to not press
return. He looked across the hallway. Girl in her office, looking
intently at her computer screen holding her mouse tightly. In the
other office, I see someone at the chopper or the slicer. Probably
thinks he is toiling away. Thinking is more tiring. I do a lot of
that because there isn't anything else to do.
Elsie
walks into her office, the one across from my current office. She
stands. Will she sit? Is she looking for something? Into that office
walks Cici. She sits at her chair. Elsis and Cici talk. 十一号。Number
11. Elsie walks out and turns around to stand at the office entrance
to ask Cici a question. Elsie gets her answer. Off she goes!
The
gorgeous girl isn't working today. It will get her out of my mind so
I can think about proper things.
Andis
looked at the corner of his desk and did an inventory. He saw three
small bottles of hand disinfectant, two lighters. He hadn't smoked
recently. Two sticks of gum. An empty bottle of headache medicine.
A plastic file stuffed full of papers and binders. Why keep them?
In case the computer memory is destroyed again. His mobile phone.
Fashionable before the Iphone. A bottle of eye glass cleaning fluid.
One white board marker.
Andis
heard a voice. Coming from the office? The classroom? Andis stands
to look....
The
classroom.
Andis
looked at his watch. Do everything you want to do till one o'clock.
Then do the stuff you have to do for you work.
Yes.
I
didn't have breakfast this morning at McDonald's. Rare readers may
know this is not my habit. But short on cash and not willing to
annoy Jenny by asking for more, I will have to forgo that luxury.
I
told Tony this morning that tomorrow he didn't have any school. I
then heard Tony say to his mom. 妈妈！爸爸说的明天我不想去学校！这个真的吗？
Translation: Mom! Dad said that
I don't have to go to school tomorrow! Is this true?
I
now have a GUI, thanks to Python, that will let me run a four team
single-game round robin tournament with sorted standings!!!
An
English teacher confused a student during a visit by the student to
the teacher's dormitory. There was a husband and wife sharing one
bed. There was another man and woman with separate beds. The
student asked the teacher what she slept in the separate bed. The
teacher said we are a couple and the other two are a pair. This
confused me and the student. I thought a couple was two things
together and a pair was two of the same thing or two matching things.
So a husband and a wife made a couple, and two girls, two boys, and
two single people made a pair.
I
didn't sleep well last night. At 2:00 AM, I was reading my Ipod. I
felt tired during when my first class of the day when I had to
suppress many yawns.
Saturday
[November 2]
[School
Laptop]
I
work 10:00 to 18:00 today.
I
took the 602支 bus to
school this morning. I noticed one girl get on the bus who had a
striking face. I then saw that she was dressed in a short black
dress, black tights, and wore Doc Marten style boots. She happened
to get off one stop before me – that be the stop near the purple
post office building where I catch the 635 bus in the evening. As I
said I got off at the next bus stop. It turned out then after
getting off the bus, we crossed paths which got me to thinking that
maybe getting off at this new stop was the better choice.
I
don't know how to organize myself this morning. I have things to
tick off on my to-do list and I feel like I don't have an enough time
to do them.... Teaching classes can be so inconvenient for my
personal interests....
A
foreign teacher and a Chinese study assistant are to be judges at an
English speaking contest. The foreign teacher tells the Chinese
study assistant to not really do any judging – the young Chinese
person doesn't know what she is doing and she doesn't have enough
experience, he tells her.
A
man on a bicycle who was a collector of empty plastic bottles came up
me to as I was walking home last night and asked me some questions.
I couldn't understand much of what he said.
No
one wants to join a club that would have him as a member.
No
one wants to join a club that would openly canvas to have himself as
a member.
No
one wants to join a club that wants him to join.
You
want me to join! I don't want to be part of that club.
I
don't like the Victoria's Secret Catalog. I have found that nothing
in it is my size.
[Home
Laptop]
After
school, I took the bus to the Hui Shan Wanda Plaza where I meet Tony
& Jenny for dinner.
Jenny
told me that she was not very satisfied with the results of Monday's
K Family photo session. Only one photo, she said, was any good. I
told her that while I didn't think they were great, I didn't they
were as awful as she said. She was annoyed that the photo studio
people only touched up one of the photos. Tony still had had
discoloration on his face from the black eye he had gotten the week
before.
After
dinner, we went outside to discover that our e-bike had been tipped
over on its side. Why it was tipped over we had no idea. But it did
look like Jenny had parked it in a place that was blocking off other
bikes.
Reading
over this diary, looking for solecisms, I see that my entries are
dull as dishwater. I have nothing to say!
Sunday
[November 3, 2013]
[Home
Laptop]
I
watched a clip of the Jon Stewart Daily Show last night with Tony at
my side. Tony laughed at the clip seeing its Mister Bean qualities.
I, on the other hand, was taken back by the shrill juvenileness of
Stewart's humour. The clip was funny because the video taken of the
ponderous grandstanding politicians showed them at their worst.
However, Stewart's running commentary as the clips ran added nothing.
It
is easy to see where Stewart stands on the Democrat Republican
divide. To a comment made by a Republican politician pointing out
the restriction of choice for health coverage that Obamacare
represented, Stewart said “How can they say they are for medical
plan choice while at same time saying they aren't for reproductive
choice! Huhhh!!” Comments are like that are the sort that need a
few minutes to be countered. I could say “Oh! You want the choice
to be able to murder babies!” but there is a longer line of
reasoning that should be employed so that a person who took the time
to think through the issue would then never make a comment so glib
and stupid as Stewart made.
A
local I know in the Hui Shan district told me that his sister-in-law
went to Beijing for her honeymoon and that while she and her husband
were at Tiananmen Square, they were but ten meters from the
occurrence of a terrorist attack. Some guy from Xinjiang, according
to the government, decided to use an SUV to crash into things.
I
will take the 635 bus to downtown Wuxi this evening. I need to get
some intel about the route.
I
felt cold riding the e-bike this morning.
In
some of the photos taken at the studio, Tony can be seen holding onto
to the Ultraman Egg Toy.
Years
ago in Winnipeg, I found a camera in a pub. Instead of leaving it
with the pub owner, I kept it.
Jenny
thinks Tony's English is great; I think Tony's Chinese is great.
Jenny thinks Tony's Chinese is crap; I think Tony's English is barely
passable.
I
will cut off today's diary before noon. I am going out tonight.
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