Video of Wuxi Snow.

Here is a link for the video I took of the snow we have been having in Wuxi.  For whatever reason, I can't embed the video in the site.  The Internet isn't working so good at the school today.  It is intermittent.

I work ten to nine today.  Till six o'clock, I have to keep myself occupied best I can.  Then, I have three classes in the evening.  I am tired by the time the evening arrives even though I can't say I did much during the day.  I have worked on everything that needs to be done today.  I have schedules planned till the end of February best that they can be till I get more exact information.  I have been posting ads for teachers on the Internet, including this site if you look at the previous entry. 

I find I have so many things that I want to do but, not a disciplined plan to accomplish them.  I, of course, want to be the best parent I can for Tony which means I have to be the best teacher/supervisor I can here at the School.  So, I don't feel very relaxed even when I am not doing anything.  I tell myself that there must be something else I should be doing.  Heck, I even feel guilty now as I make this blog entry because there must be something more important I should be doing.

I will make a random aside comment about the U.S. presidential election:  It just may be dawning on some Bill Clinton likers that he may just well be the scumbag that many of his opponents have been saying he is all these years.  They had said that his haters were irrational.  Did it ever dawn on Clintonistas that their support of Bill Clinton was just willful blindness to his faults?

I finished watching the third season of the superb HBO series The Wire and an now three episodes into the fourth season.  The show continues to awe and surprise me.  It is such high quality stuff.  It is cynical, funny and realistic.

I have an English corner tonight.  I will talk about the snow, of course.  Other possible conversation topics will include favorite movie monsters, ways to say I understand, Theory X versus Theory Y and an brief introduction to Super Bowl pooling.

Yes, I have a Super Bowl pool going based the scores of the game.  On my 10 by 10 grid, I so far have managed to get 63 squares filled in at 1 rmb a square.

The service guys could not find out what caused the water machine to leak all the water onto the kitchen floor.  So the wife has put a new bottle in the machine.  Maybe it was the bottle that was at fault combined with the low temperatures in the kitchen.

Has this happened to you? was a great idea for an English Corner.  I told the students about some things that happened to me like the recent flooding of my kitchen and finding a 100 rmb on the sidewalk.  The students came up with some excellent ideas themselves.  The trainers in the office also came up with some ideas that I dare not repeat.

So far my call for Resumes and CV's has earned responses from Africans.  Unfortunately, the Chinese want Native English Speakers from the Anglosphere.  And now I realize that they also don't like speakers with heavy English, Irish or Scottish accents.  The Chinese only want to be taught by people with flat mid-western USA accents or upper-class British accents.  The Chinese don't like to speak English among themselves because they don't understand each other.  Really, they should be learning how to speak English with the Indians and Africans because in the future, they will have do much business with them.

There is a Bread Talk in Wuxi.  It is expensive but they bake some good stuff.  Last night, I bought 2 sesame seed buns and a piece of curry Nan bread for 11 rmb.  It is located in the basement of the Parkson's at the corner of Renmin and Zhongshan roads.

Some of the young students we have can be very dull.  I don't mean dull as in dim-witted.  I mean that they aren't very interesting and don't seem to have any interests.  They are made to study and study from early morning to night.  All they want to do if they have free time is sleep ( I have had many students tell me that their hobby is sleeping).  Some if they are lucky can have an evening to play some computer games. 

This is a superb blog.  It is literary in a way my blogs can never be.  I admire and envy the writer of it.  I extract a quote from his blog.:

With more sadness than anger, Donoghue bemoans the extra-literary approach to literature now dominant in universities. He offers “Conrad versus Chinua Achebe – was Conrad complicit with Imperialism?” as an imaginary but all-too-typical and silly subject for literary discussion. He writes:
“These and many similar topics are in high standing in departments of English, but I am not much interested in them, because they lead me away from the literature I care for toward serious issues that are treated well enough by political commentators in books and magazines.”

 

Happy 50th birthday to Stewart Dingle, the manager of the Blue Bar!