5:41 AM View : Going through the motions

 And now there’s light.

The test, I suppose, is not how you do on your good days, but on the days you feel down in the dumps.  I am feeling that way now.  Thank god, I have ways and reasons to stay busy,

Here’s today’s video:

4:46 AM View: Dark, 1900

 Didn’t use the flash for this morning’s view photo.

A little earlier, I did this:

3:58 PM View: Busy

 Those speaking tests I conducted (Did I mention it?) meant I didn’t get my daily personal requirements done.  So I’ll do ‘em tonight.

A role play I did during the speaking test required the student to talk about going to a museum.  The student immediately said they didn’t have time and it made it hard to continue on with the scripted questions.  Funny!!

Here are some videos I just uploaded to YouTube.

10:40 AM View: My Ballot is Coming

Doing things a little differently this late morning and lunch time.  I have speaking tests to conduct from 1:00 PM on and I’ll have to deal with Tony…

Good news!  I’m getting my mail-in ballot for the upcoming Canadian federal election.  Also, the chunk of change we will have to pay in income taxes has been reduced.  They did a recalculation.

5:40 AM View; To do list

 Extended my Duolingo streak to 1899 days. Yo hablo un poco español.

I read some poetry: 

WHEN Jessie comes with her soft breast, And yields the golden keys, Then is it as if God caress'd Twin babes upon His knees--

Twin babes that, each to other press'd, Just feel the Father's arms, wherewith they both are bless'd.

I can’t copy text but I can take a screen shot.

This morning’s posted video:

4:54 AM View: Tuesday Morning

 Too many sad days; too many Tuesday mornings.  So goes a song by the Pogues.

I needed an alarm to wake me.  I would happily have stayed in bed.

4:31 PM View: China Forthnight

 

Back in the day, the Laowai I knew would be talking of having China Days which basically meant bad days because of their being in China.  I would scoff at this because these people did chose to come to China and really shouldn’t have complained.

But China can annoy a visitor because many of the locals are uncouth and don’t follow rules.  Today, I learned that the payroll accountant didn’t do our pay right and all the teachers now owe a big chunk of change in taxes.

Aaaggghhh!

Anyway, because of that meeting where I got the bad news, I didn’t come home for lunch and take a view photo. Sorry for the inconvenience that may have caused!

Here are some photos I took during the day.

Did I say photos?  I should have said photo of the view from the fifth floor exam hall.  Sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused someone.

To make up for this, here’s a video I took and made today.

Meanwhile, this video has over 1300 views:

7:18 AM View: Non Standard View

 Forgot to take a parting shot.

Sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused 

5:15 AM View: Daylight already

 I’m battling these feelings this Monday morning.  Words escape me, but those sort of feelings that I’m battling internally as opposed to an externally battling feeling.

All this doesn’t stop me from noticing that it is light out already this morning.

9:14 PM View: Previous Blog Entry Just Done!

 Drove back to JJ.  You can never hate Chinese drivers enough!

I unpacked, showered, took the standard view photo, and made the previous blog entry 

So endeth the long weekend which left me with a cornucopia of things to be annoyed about.  What was most annoying was Jenny & Tony saying I should have gotten visibly mad.  I pointed out to them that when I do exhibit anger, they would say I shouldn’t have gotten mad.  Now, they tell me I should have gotten mad.  You can’t win.  And with life offering a cornucopia of things to get mad about on a daily basis, you have to resign yourself to anger not stopping the cornucopia of fresh annoyances of the next day.

6:41 PM View: Off to JJ again!

 I took this photo and then thirty minutes later, drove to pick up my wife and then drive to JJ 

I drove into the basement of the Hui Shan Wands Plaza.  One Chinese driver parked his vehicle in the strangest location.  He left his car along a wall just by a corner.  Making a turn, I suddenly had a narrow lane to get through.  I wished I had ripped off the passenger side rear view mirror.  Another driver was going the wrong way and I had to get through another narrow gap to get through.  I gave this Chinese driver the evil eye.

Earlier —this had my wife fuming -/- we were at the gas station filling up the tank.  Everything was going fine and my wife was using her phone to pay when we heard the driver behind us honk his horn.  Impatient prick!  I looked into the mirror to see the demographic of the driver and it was some old Chinese driver with grey hair.  He almost look civilized.  My wife was, several hours later, still wishing she had throttled him.

2:45 PM View: White Guy, Waste of Time

 I never thought of myself as a white guy.  Heck, if anyone accused me of being one, I would have denied it and said I was Latvian.  Then Obama and BLM came along, and suddenly I thought of myself as White. But that’s another story.  I’m more interested in this alliteration I hadn’t thought of until it just occurred to me.  In Canada, I was called the Latvian; in China, I’m called a Laowai.  Laowai!  Latvian!  Lattireation!

Any who.  The trip to JJ was a waste of time.  Although, I did get laundry done.  White!  Waste!  Walleration!

I drove back across the JJ WJ border and didn’t see a train

I joined my family at a Hot Pot Restaurant.

8:50 AM View: I’m in JJ? What are my priorities?

 

I’ve driven here.  You can’t hate Chinese drivers enough.

Now what are my priorities?  Take a view photo, pee, make this blog entry, laundry, choose my clothes for the English testing

7:55 AM View: Off to JJ!

 

5:54 AM View: Badminton?

 I’m all in a tizzy because I will drive to JJ this morning to do some English oral tests with applying students. 

I mentioned Badminton in a previous entry.  I intended to say that when I was strolling at the nearby sports center, I saw many of the locals playing badminton and then to say that badminton was not an activity for me.  I forgot.  I’m sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused

8:57 PM View: Badminton

 I just got back from a walk around the track and around the apartment community.  

This is the area behind the grandstand.  Beside the grandstand, I recorded an inspirational quotation observation video.  I quoted NGD’s great aphorism about operational and poetic notions of objects.

I walked below the 27th floor apartment and took these two photos.

Too stern, I looked, so I thought to take two more with facial improvements.

5:45 PM View: Dinner Time

 My wife Jenny is ordering in dinner for us.  My son Tony is being hostile to me.  Dinner should be interesting.  Asking Grok, it tells me not to take his bait.

Who needs a search engine now that you have A.I.

1:04 PM View: Car Washed Yeah!

 After 11:00 AM,  I got in the Citroën C5 Aircross and drove to the nearby car service industrial park to get the vehicle washed.  (Students never know the word vehicle!)

I went to the place in the photo below.  Luckily, I took a photo of the place below to locate it.  It wasn’t easy to find.

Today, I went after 11:00.  I was told the guy there didn’t get there before 11:00.  He wasn’t there the first time, so I decided to go to the Hot Maxx outlet in the Hui Shan Wanda Mall.

I parked across from the Mall in the parking garage that is below the public square that can be seen from the elevator lobby of my wife’s office building.  It beats parking under the Mall because fewer people, that be Chinese drivers, use it.  It is worth the five minutes extra walking

At the Maxx, I bought drinks and mouth wash and chips.  The chips would later placate my son who is annoyed at me for yesterday’s Minecraft Movie debacle.  (See previous entry with Minecraft in the title.)

Walking in the Mall, I’ll walk pass locals, and hear them exclaim “Laowai “ from behind me.  Sometimes, it is disconcerting like those teenage baboons that ruined the movie for me.  Today, my dander was provoked after a pair of girls did that.

But I carried on to the car and returned to the car wash place.  I had to wait a bit, but not for long.

As I waited, I read Finnegan’s Wake, Mark Carney’s Values, and Peter Heathers’s Empire and Barbarians.  I was listening to the lastest Z-man podcast and he mentioned James Joyce.  I was interested to know that Z-man has read Ulysses twice and thinks Finnegan’s Wake is unreadable.  He recommended highly James Joyce’s short story The Dead.   Mark Carney’s book is a slog.  It seems the book is padded and made boring to make Carney seem smart and knowledgeable and well read.  Heck, he mentions Frederick Hayek.  He even seems to know of the problems that lead to Trump’s election and the rise of populism.  But he uses verbal diarrhea words like inclusive and social to name a few.  And he stuffs in references to Climte Change and Covid that are off putting to those who know that that iid all bull shit.  I’ll have to finish the book and think of what he didn’t mention…I’m still too early into Heather’s book to have much to say about it.

Carwash done, I went back to Ivy Park Casa Kaulins where I took these photos.

Watch this video please!

Look at the pad below for clues about what my upcoming videos will have me say:

I am merely repeating what people, wiser than me, have said.  I hope what is said is a slap in the face for me, a admonition for me and the people watching the videos.

10:29 AM View: Xibei Canal Park

 

I drove my wife to work and then went to the this park.

雨人岛公园.  

**Pinyin:** Yǔrén Dǎo Gōngyuán  

**Translation:** "Rain Man Island Park" or "Yu Ren Island Park"  

I made a video there.

6:40 AM View: Rainy Day

 Or at least it’s a rainy morning here in the Hui Shan District of Wuxi, China.

I must have no readers.  I canvassed for comments and got none.  I sometimes get responses by commenting on others’ postings on other platforms.

What about Trump’s tariffs?  The best analysis I have come access talked of trade offs.  One has to try and ascertain what they will be.  There will certainly be readjustments.  Some will suffer; some will benefit.  The American consumer will pay more, more than likely.  Some would argue that America is too much of a consumer society and that so many social ills have come as a result of it being more consumer than manufacturer. Some American workers would benefit if manufacturing jobs could come back.  But jobs could come back if a lot of regulations were removed.  Trump is trying to do this but the bureaucrats are fighting back and stifling Trump’s efforts.  And then there is the increased bureaucracy that tariffs need in order to be enforced…. It’s a complex situation: these tariffs.  Economists commenting on it are discredited however.  While most economists will say tariffs are bad, their analysis never explains adequately why in real life, so many governments are compelled to put restrictions on trade.  Economic analysis always seems to miss something.  Did the utopia that NAFTA was supposed to bring actually happen?  It had trade offs as the economic analyst, I was listening to, said.  Those who think the trade offs weren’t worth it are now in power in the USA.  We’ll just have to see what happens, and be level-headed and cool.

10:34 PM Views

 Which view do you prefer?

Which reminds me, no reader makes comments.  Damm you!  Make goddamn comments if you’re reading this blog!

8:22 PM View: Minecraft Movie Morons

 Jenny was working in the evening.  Tony asked me to go see the Minecraft Movie with him at the Wanda Mall cinema 

We walked there.

We walked past the recently opened and popular playground.

Past that, I saw this.

Ain’t it cute?

Anyway, the Minecraft movie.  I wasn’t expecting much.  But that wasn’t the problem.  A bunch of teenage boys sat behind and talked the whole time.  I swore and fumed and then we left after 40 minutes.  I wanted to ask for a refund.  Jenny said we should have caused a scene but put in a bad mood, there was no way I was going to enjoy the movie.

1:18 PM View: News & Stroll Photos

 News today:  in the USA, Trump’s liberation tariffs; in Canada, organizers of the Freedom Convoy sentenced on charges of mischief.  That’s one way of looking at them. It is sort of news that makes me scour the Internet for reactions.

Following news of this world can get to you if you let it.  Best to have hope in things beyond politicians, bureaucrats and men.

I went for a walk and contemplated and took photos.

A concrete jungle I live within.

Reflecting, I took selfie photos and reflections.

I also took photos of trains.

Do you recognize the buildings in this photo?

If not, go to the top of this entry, to the standard view photo.