Gratitude:
Thankfully, I have a family,
a job, blogs, an Ipod, and an Ipad.
Acknowledgment:
I study Chinese everyday
and almost display some discipline as I do so, but I am not very
aggressive about it. I have given up on trying to speak the
language.
Requests:
Visit these
pages on AKIC Wordpress: About
Andis & AKIC, the
AKIC glossary & AKIC
Links.
The
AKIC Week in Brief: I went
back to work just in time for the start of Summer which is the
busiest time of the year for the school. Unfortunately, it wasn't as
busy for me as last year when there was had lots of overtime. This
year, none. Alas!
I
have decided to change the format of the AKIC weekly, moving some
sections to pages on AKIC
Wordpress.
About
AKIC: If you want to learn
what Andis & AKIC are
all about, you
can visit here.
Starting
this week, I will no longer put the
glossary in the weekly entry.
If
there are things you don't know about, like places and people I
mention, you can go
here to find out what they are all about.
AKIC
Weekly Features:
I
in in China! 我是英文的老师。我喜欢啤酒。我觉得无锡有很多建设
– 我不喜欢这个。无锡现在不是漂亮。我不喜欢说的中文。我的翻译不很好。一我说的中文，就中国人说的“听不懂！”
Politically
I am Conservative/Reactionary!
I am debating whether to drop the
conservative label because in the Chinese context, it makes no sense.
I want to see China become a consensual democracy and an end to the
monopoly of power held by the Communists, so in the Chinese context,
I am not conservative. The labels I give myself I am using in the
Western context and so people should have a good idea where I stand
on many issues. However much as I loathe parties of the Left, I find
parties of the right disgust me as much with their cowardly
accommodations to modern trends. The only joy I get from watching
the political is seeing the bums lose – triumphs of my side only
cause me a small glimmer of hope.
I
am Canadian!
I am well aware that
the Canadian Football League season has started. I have been trying
to find out about the Winnipeg Blue Bombers new stadium. My mother
told me of media reports that getting to the place on game days was a
pain in the ass. It was assumed that lots and lots of people would
take buses to the games. Of course, the assumptions of the planners
were wrong.
I
am Latvian (sort of)! My name
is Latvian. I loathe Russia, but not individual
Russians like Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky.
I
teach English! In
September, I will have been
doing it for nine years. My philosophy of teaching? I teach my own
way! You can't imitate others though there is nothing wrong with
borrowing ideas from them if they may have validity for you! You
have to give them experiences in the classroom that they would not
otherwise get! There is no point in doing things with them that they
could do themselves without a teacher!
I
am not a freak! There are in
fact other people named Andis Kaulins in the world. Another Andis
Kaulins has a site called andiskaulins.com.
I love the fact that reference to AKIC is made in the site's banner.
And as far as I know, I am not related to the Andis Kaulins who is
domiciled in the USA. [LECTOR: You are a freak!]
I
like to Read! Here
is what I had been working my way through the past week:
Don
Colacho's Aphorisms. There are 2,988 of them in this book
that I compiled for 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)
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 am
current with Delaney's podcast (he completed episode #160 this week),
I am getting ahead him as far as reading the book. I will be
finished reading it, I figure, in a year. I read the novel despite
its many blasphemies. It is best to be aware of this stuff because
the world is full of it, and the world will always find a way of
slapping you in the face with it
The
Holy Bible King James Version. I am reading a
chapter a day of the greatest book of all-time. I am in the
midst of the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians.
Columns
by Father Schall. I have been
able to take all
his archived writings and place them on the Dotdotdot app.
The
Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Like Father Schall's writings, I have been able to place them on the
Dotdotdot app.
Pickwick
Papers by Charles Dickens. I wish I could bury myself in this
book at the expense of all else.
The
Black Book of Communism. Finished.
Some thoughts I have after having read it: 1) Why is McCarthyism
portrayed as some sort of evil thing? For one thing, there were
Communists trying to subvert the USA; and for another, Communists
were that evil. They were as bad as Nazis. To not try to root them
out would have been unconscionable. And how many people were
liquidated in the McCarthyite purges? None. Some lost their jobs.
2) It brings one joy to read of the massacres perpetuated by your
political adversaries. It shouldn't but it does 3) To be fair,
many on the Left, socialists in fact, were victimized by the
Communists too. Many socialists were earnest and well-meaning
people. So, there is a distinction to be made between Communists and
more democratic Socialists. 4) While the Left today bears no
resemblance to the bloodthirsty Bolsheviks and Maoists and Khmer
Rougers; it has become generally less earnest and decent. The Left
is spoiled and though not seeking to liquidate their political
opponents, it is intolerant of dissenting views. It could be said
to trying to eliminate the same things from the world that the
Communists were.
I
like to take photos
I
publish them in the following blogs: AKIC
wordpress , TKIC
blogspot,
TKIC
wordpress, Views
of China from Casa Kaulins Blogspot and Views
of China from Casa Kaulins Wordpress.
I
like to make videos
Here
is my
Youtube Channel and my
Youku Channel.
I
like to cut and paste quotations:
The following are from Don Colacho:
The following are from Don Colacho:
2522
As it is unable to explain that consciousness which creates it,
science, when it finishes explaining everything, will not have
explained anything. [Evolution
has been used to explain everything.]
2530
Most of the things man “needs” are not necessary to
him. [He doesn't need to make
bucket lists. He doesn't need to be in good shape. He doesn't need
recreational sex. He doesn't need to have the latest thing.....]
2548
An excess of laws emasculates. [So
true. Someone should tell modern legislators this.]
2553
Each day people are born more suitable for being boxed into
statistics. [I can honestly say
that I am not suitable for being boxed into statistics. I can think
of anyone who is similar to me.]
2566
In solitude man recovers strength.[I'm feeling strong. I'm
feeling strong!]
2569
An Outlandish idea becomes ridiculous when several people share
it. Either one walks with everybody, or one walks alone. One should
never walk in a group. [So! I have been doing it right all the
time! There are nothing but groups in Wuxi, and I am not part of any
of them. Yes indeed!]
2571
When he is stripped of the Christian tunic and the classical toga,
there is nothing left of the European but a pale-skinned barbarian.
[What Colacho says here leads me to reflect on the fact that many
of the Europeans I have seen here in Wuxi – not all, but most –
seem “off” to me. They seem to be of the EU generation –
spoiled and looking for a party; liking their football and being
hooliganish when doing so.]
2589
The dangerous idea is not the false one, but the partially correct
one. [That
is why the Left is so dangerous. They see problems and but have no
idea what could or should be done about them.]
Gallimaufry
[I found this blog on wordpress thanks to David
Warren. The author
changes his URL all the time, so you will have to find it using a
search engine.]
The
surest path to isolation, loneliness and the indifference of others
is to expect them to be human beings and to talk to them as if they
were. [I posted this quote on the dotdotdot app. A person, with
remarkably similar reading tastes to mine, said she had a hard time
figuring out what the author of the quote meant. Telling to explain
to her what I thought meant showed me I hadn't much of a clue either.
I said something about treating humans as humans destroys their
presumptions of being gods and thus they resent it very much.]
Do
not accept anything as truth if it lacks love; and do not accept as
love anything which lacks truth.--St. Edith Stein.
I
like to keep a journal of my daily activities and of any
worthy thoughts that occur to me.
[This
journal records the events that I can talk about. In fact, a lot
happens that I can't talk about, though I try to allude to these
happenings with my thoughts which I will record in this journal. As
well, I don't blog about people I happen to know. I scrupulously try
to avoid mentioning names, except if I happen to have something good
to say about them. [LECTOR: You rarely have anything good to say
about people, I notice. ANDIS: Uh-huh!]]
Monday
[July 1]
[Home
Laptop]
I
don't work today.
It
is Dominion Day. I will wear my Old Navy 2012 Canada T-Shirt if I do
get out of Casa K today. But having slept in till nine and now
having a slow get-ready-for-the-day routine, I can see myself have a
feeling that I have wasted the day and see no point in getting out of
the house.
There
are other Canadians that I know of in Wuxi but I don't associate with
them. They are anti-American or Trudeau (Turdeau I should say)
lovers.
Thanks
to David
Warren, I have found a
new blog to explore and follow. It is (or was) entitled A
Philosophical Journal and is labeled by its author to be a Pieperian
Thomist Blog. The author keeps the blog simple. He doesn't include
links, upload photos, and doesn't allow comments. His entries are
profound in the manner of Don Colacho's aphorisms. [He also changes
his blog's URL. As of this typing, the blog is called Conjecture,
Insight, Intuition and Other Rambles]
I
got burned with my infantile adding of comments to my blog. You may
have noticed that that a Lector has been making comments at AKIC
Wordpress. Anyone who does follow this blog should have figured out
that Lector is really me, and I am having a dig at the person,
whoever they may be, who makes those nasty comments directed at me
and about the parentage of Tony. So what does that person do in
response to this? They tried to make comments under the assumed name
of Wuxiandis and Lector! That just won't do, so I trashed the
comments. I don't what know I was thinking when I allowed this
person's comments to be published in the first place. I will admit
that this person had some issue with me, and that I, in the interest
of fairness, let the comments stand. I said something way back when
this set-to started that I shouldn't have said. By letting this
person have their say, I figured that I was showing them in a bad
light – an anonymous person making nasty comments about me while I
had no knowledge what-so-ever about who they are other than a glance
I took at them over a year ago. I then made the mistake of trying to
fight back in kind through the blog. If this person wants to have it
out with me, they can email me. I won't reveal their identity to the
world. I will respect that desire for anonymity, but no longer will
I let that person use that anonymity to attack me, a person who is
very public in what he is about, personally. Let's make this war
private!
I
spend the afternoon of the last day of my vacation at the Wanda
Plaza. We had lunch at a new restaurant whose name and whose
geographical origin of cuisine I didn't bother to ask my wife, but
the food was good. Tony
and I wore our 2012 Old Navy Canada t-shirts. I took Tony to the
two arcades so he could waste money on frivolous amusements for which
he didn't seem able to grasp the purpose. We then went to the toy
department of the Wanda department Store where Tony had been twice
the day before because he wanted to play with a toy fire engine (129
rmb) that was there. Moments like that make one envious of people
who don't have children. Thankfully, Tony has his wonderful moments,
but they have to be paid for with excruciating moments of boredom.
Tuesday
[July 2]
[Home
Laptop]
I
goes back to work today and boy am I excited about it!...... Not.
I
will work 13:00 – 21:00. The one small blessing of today will be
the fact that hardly anyone will ask me how my vacation was. If
someone did ask, I would tell them that I stuck around the apartment.
I
went to bed last night about 10 pm. I woke up at about 7:30 this
morning. Nine hours of rest will see me feeling refreshed till I go
outdoors where the
heat will instantly sap me.
No
one is reading my Casa
Kaulins Blog. After having two days where I had 80 views and 85
views, my numbers fell to ten views and then five views and then zero
views yesterday. I will carry on with the blog but seeing how I
won't be around the Casa much in the next two months, I won't be
adding that many entries to it. I will make one
now that you can view here.
[School
Laptop]
Back
to work!
I
walked and rode the bus here in the typical high heat and humidity of
a Wuxi summer. Getting on a 25 bus because it
was empty, I tried to read with My Ipad, but the first trickle of
sweat down my forehead indicated to me that it wasn't a good idea to
read, so I put away the Ipad and listened to my Ipod: Vatican Radio
and EWTN.
Men
are religious. Animals are not. Man is more intelligent than
animals, and yet some men say that people who are religious are
stupid. How do they square that circle?
The
thought of having to talk to other men feels me with dread.
I
am glad to read that David Warren shares my feelings about Canada
Day.
Wednesday
[July 3]
[School
Laptop]
I
work 13:00-21:00 today. I get to school at 11:00.
I
did a little bit of study on the bus ride to work this morning. I
instead choose to take photos of the passing scene. From the 25 bus,
I took photos of demolishment
and subway
stations built in the middle of nowhere.
I
put money on my bus card today. (Using this swipe card gives me a
discount on bus fares and means I don't have to worry about carrying
change when I take the bus.) Today, instead of going to the pay
station by the bus station where the lineup is short, I decided to go
the pay station by Nanchang Market where it is always crowded.
Nanchang's station was so crowded today that there were two long
lineups coming out of the office entrance – I choose the lineup
which would get me out of the hot sun and into the shade quickly even
though this meant joining a longer lineup to get to the pay girl.
That choice I made and I knew the consequences, but what killed me
was that just as I was getting close to the front, two women had to
do transactions that were more complicated and time-consuming than
just topping off their bus card with money. And then this db butted
in front of me – it wasn't worth my while to make something of it.
I am very capable of restraint – especially in crowded situations.
Actually, I am a paradigm of restraint. [LECTOR: Are you using the
word paradigm correctly?]
Halfway
through my English Corner, I am thinking to myself : “Damn me! My
act is becoming tired and tedious!”
Annoying
as Tony can be at times, I wish I was with him than with the lot I am
going to be with for the next four of the following five hours!
I
forgot to mention. Last night, I finished watching the third season
of Game of Thrones. I was shaken a little though it turned out that
the surprise was in the ninth and not the tenth episode.
Thursday
[July 4]
[School
Laptop]
I
work 10:00-21:00 today.
It
is U.S. Independence Day.
I marked that occasion by posting a photo of my Old Navy 2003 USA
t-shirt. I posted it because I remember being criticized when I
first came to Wuxi, and was going to pubs, for wearing it. I of
course ignored this directive, and was warned for being spotted
wearing that shirt. I think the current president of the USA
is popular with the people who would dealt that directive to me all
those years ago. Anti-Americanism is a mental disease akin to
anti-Semitism.
The
McDonalds near the school was packed. I wondered why till I saw that
the backroom I normally went to was being renovated and was thus
closed. The 85 Bakery near the school has been demolished but will
be built anew with more seating. In that interim, I will have to go
without bread on my breaks.
I
get the feeling that this week's blog entry is going to be shorter
than last week's. I am a little bit busier, though not as busy as I
had imagined, because it is Summer.
So
far, I haven't meet any students that I dislike. The one student
that all the teachers loathe was on my class list but thankfully
didn't show up.
Woman
and child stood near me. I didn't give up my seat. Shame on me.
Friday
[July 5]
[School
Laptop]
I
work 11:00-21:00.
Not
much to blog about during the work week. It's the same old, same old
for me and I just can't bother myself to blog about the little
details that struck me as being bloggable before but now seem
tedious.
I
took the 602 instead of the 602支
this
morning. I needed a change.
I
must always try to get a seat in the back of the bus. I don't need
women and children standing beside on a long ride home after a day of
work.
These
people who work six days a week have nothing to talk about.
Alas.... I have to supply the interesting aspects of a conversation.
No
longer will I toss coins to stage my tournaments now that I have
written a program in Python to do it for me. Part of my regimen now
is to stage a forty team Can-Am Tournament once a day while at work.
So far, Brandon has won two Canadian Championships – Tourneys 2 &
3. (Windsor won the first Canadian Championship. However, the
ultimate tournament champions have been 1) Seattle 2) Kelowna 3)
Dallas. [Dallas won the fourth tournament champion!]
It
is raining today. I wonder if Jenny took herself and Tony to the
kindergarten.
A
kid in class tells me he likes VP Biden better than VP Cheney. I
tell him that Biden is considered a clown by most observers, and is
really Obama's trump card against impeachment. [Biden gets favorable
treatment from the Chicom Media for saying he understood the
one-child policy – and he is supposed to be a Catholic.]
Saturday
[July 6]
[School
Laptop]
I
work 10:00 to 18:00 today. I leave the house at 7:30. I get to
school at 8:45.
I
took the 25 bus to get downtown. It was raining heavily and there
were lots of available seats when the bus came to the stop near Casa
K. I decided that I would walk the extra distance, once I was
downtown, to get to the McDonalds for breakfast.
At
the McDonalds, the staff was annoyed at this older woman, who I could
tell by just looking, had never been to McDonalds before in her life.
She seemed to ask the same question over and over again. When she
received her order, she still wasn't happy, and a manager and a staff
member kept pointing to the menu posted on the wall, and telling her
that she was getting the proper order. The woman was bothering the
staff in the middle of a morning-time rush, and so the manager
couldn't keep her poise.
My
sometime 635 bus companion told me that the Hui Shan Wanda Plaza roof
leaks when it rains, and so the staff have to put pails in the
hallway to catch the water. Miss 635 even told me she had been sent
photos of it. It all goes to show that the Mall had been built too
hastily as I had been observing at the time of its construction.
A
story of Tony behaving strangely. There is a place in our second
bedroom slash office that Tony can hide from his parents when he
wants to do something secretly. This large bunk bed desk unit, we
have in there, has a stairwell which can't be seen from the the
room's entrance. Tony was hiding there with Mom's Ipad, and when I
came to see what he was up to, he quickly minimized whatever he was
looking at, and told me to go away. There was a video he was
watching, which Mom found when checking the surfing history, that he
shouldn't have been watching. This is the second time this week that
Tony has been trying to hide something from his parents. Earlier, in
the week, he pretended to be doing some printing exercises by waving
his pencil over exercises that had already been completed.
Sunday
[July 7]
[Home
Laptop]
I
don't work today. It is cloudy and muggy outside as I type this. I
don't know what I will do today. I have some things to do on the
laptop but I don't feel very motivated to do them. The weather makes
it hard to sleep, and I didn't sleep well last night.
After
working yesterday, I took the 25 bus to the Wanda Plaza where I was
to have lunch with Jenny and some friends of hers. Boarding the bus
near the school, this little old women tried to butt in front of me.
I stopped her by putting our my arm and blocking the entrance. Old
people in Wuxi are the worst when it comes to queuing. The woman and
I did get seats as it turned out, so the confrontation was
unnecessary. I will also mention that the women didn't seem put off
by my blocking her. Her attitude must have been that she would be
aggressive and take her chances that no one will object to her
behavior.
Anyway,
I got off the bus at the Wanda Plaza, and it turned out that my
timing was impeccable. I got to the restaurant, a Xinjiang
Restaurant, just as Jenny and Tony and the others were seated. They
had waited for a hour. I just had to ask the waiter to take me to 八号
– table
eight. Our group was the largest I had been part of for the longest
time – twelve of us, seven adults and five children, sat around a
table which was really meant for eight. So while the food was good,
the table top was cramped. I had to keep my plates, dishes, and beer
glass in front of me. I had to keep track of my plates, dishes and
beer glass as well since with so little space it was easy to grab the
things of the person next to you. One couple was going to go to Los
Angeles on Monday for two weeks. [and I know someone who is in Tibet
now.]
An
apartment near us is being decorated, and so we have to listen to
some machine grinding all the day long.
I
have moved Views of
China from Casa Kaulins to Wordpress. The blog looks nicer on
that platform.
A
tale of Tony behaving strangely: This afternoon, Tony became whiny
when I took the laptop from him and tried to get him to use the Ipad
Mini. He was watching Youtube on the laptop and didn't like using
the Ipad Mini because the videos were always stalling. His whining
caused Jenny to declare that he wasn't going to have either the
laptop or the Ipad, and so Tony became more inconsolable. Jenny then
tried to coax him to come with her to the Wanda Plaza where she was
going to buy some vegetables. She managed to get him to change his
clothes so he could accompany her, but he was still very upset about
the laptop being taken away, and he insisted that he didn't want to
go to Wanda. So, she decided to go by herself causing Tony to fall
on the floor and cry when she left. Two minutes later, he changed
his mind and decided that he wanted to go with Jenny, but Jenny
forgot to bring her mobile with her, and so there was no way I was
going to catch up to her because she had taken the e-bike. (I was
trying to do some work on the laptop while this was all happening.)
Tony then put on his shoes, and told me that he was going to find
Mom, but instead of running after Mom, he stood in the hallway
outside the apartment. When I tried to open the door of the
apartment, he blocked it. This went on for about ten minutes, and
Tony came back into the apartment, sat down and bawled his eyes out
some more. After five minutes of this, he declared that he wanted to
find Mom again, and put his shoes on again and left the apartment.
This time, I got dressed and accompanied him. As soon as we got out
of the apartment, Tony insisted that I carry him to the Wanda Plaza.
I refused and so for two minutes, I made my way towards the Wanda
Plaza while Tony with his arms outstretched, tried to block me and
get me to pick him up. Eventually, he gave up. I stopped at the
small shop and bought a drink. This upset Tony and he screamed at me
saying “Mom said no buy drink!” I was able to drink half the
bottle of ice tea before Tony grabbed it from me and took it back to
the shop where she surprised the proprietors by placing the bottle
back on the shelf. I had to buy him a bottle of Cola before he would
left me get the drink back. We eventually found Mom.....
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