The Andis Kaulins in China Diary: November 18 to November 24, 2013

Monday [November 18]

[Home Laptop]

Not working today. Just staying at home playing on the computer.

[Ipod]

I spend afternoon on couch.  I watch Red Dawn – a remake of a movie made in the 1980's.  I watch the start of the Keys to the Kingdom: a movie so far set in Scotland and China.  

It was a mistake to watch Red Dawn 2012. Like the original made in the 1980's, it was silly. The people who say it is a Conservative movie should be ashamed of themselves.

I wait for Tony.  He will do homework when he gets home. 

I want to hug the little fellow.  I can't help but overindulge him; for I have lead a lonely life. He is my buddy.

Completed a series in Real Racing 3: an app I play on my Ipad.

Tuesday [November 19]

[Home Laptop]

I work 13:00 to 21:00. It is my Monday.

Last night, I set up Plarail (toy train) track for Tony. I took a video of him proudly showing up a train crash he had set up.

This morning, I am trying to take things one at a time.

I drank some tea which seemed to collide with some phlegm that was coming up from my chest. I choked and was gasping for breath for about ten seconds. It happened last week at school when I had drank some water. After I was breathing normally again, I blew my nose and a big load of snot came out.

I can't shake this cold. It seems that its harsh symptoms are coming back.

Tony has this cold too.

[School Laptop]

I took the 25 bus to school. I like the walk I take, down a bustling side street, from the bus stop, near Nanchang Market, to the school. It makes me feel like I am really in China.

Peach Maoists are winning 87-84 with six minutes left in the Monday Night Game. Can they hold on for their second victory?

.

.

.

. No! They lose 92-89! Their record falls to 1-9-1.

It is cold in the office because the heater isn't on and there also isn't any central heating. I am tempted to put on my toque (or wool cap for those who don't speak Canadian.)

Something has happened to David Warren's website. All his blog entries have disappeared and the site has a message saying “coming soon.”

I won't have dinner till I get home, which will be after 10:00 PM.

A student told me that he and his roommates had caught a thief in their dorm room at their High School. The student and his friends had decided to go out for lunch in the evening instead of staying at school and studying. The thief, who knew the students schedule and so was expecting the dorm to be deserted, was surprised when they walked into their room. The student and his roommates keep the thief in their room, asked him questions, and took photos of him. He was a boy of school age who could speak Mandarin. The thief told the students that he was part of a gang of ten thieves who were robbing school dormitories. He even boasted to having the keys to all the rooms in their dormitory building.

Unfortunately, he was able to escape before the police arrived. The foreigners all said they would have rough-housed the thief. The students did nothing.

Wednesday [November 20]

[Home Laptop]

I work 13:00 to 21:00.

My struggle with my cold continues.

I hope the David Warren site comes back.  All its content was pulled about two days ago.

I phoned my Mom (she lives in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada) last night.  It is cold in Brandon (minus five) and they had a little snow.  My sister will be coming from British Columbia next week to pay Mom a visit.  I may get a chance to talk to my sister who I haven't really talked to since the time of Dad's death. (We have exchanged a few emails but we haven't talked)

There will be a by-election next week in Brandon.  The seat in the federal parliament is up for grabs.  

[School Laptop]

I took the 602支 bus to the downtown, and transferred to the 79 to get to school. On the 602支，an old man got sick into bucket, left for that purpose I would suppose, near the back exit door of the bus.

Thursday [November 21]

[School Laptop]

You'd think nothing was happening in my life; what with the paucity of words in my journal entries.

Well! Let me tell you. Stuff is happening and I am thinking things in my head that I just can't put into my blog. These thoughts are all unformed and amorphous.

I work 10:00 to 21:00 today. It is my long day, as I like to say.

Tuesday night, I did a salon about history. I asked the students if they could tell me what historical event they would change if they could. One student told me he would have changed the results of the Chinese Civil War. “We would be more free now!” he added. This is not the first time I have heard this sentiment expressed by students. Unfortunately, the Nationalists were the stupid side in the war, kind of like modern establishment Republicans.

Last night, I came home, hoping to see Tony fast asleep. Instead, Jenny was still having him do his Chinese homework. I could only sigh in frustration.

I got an email from HM's daughter.

HM is a friend of mine from Australia who worked at my school for a short time, after which we maintained a correspondence. He had a stroke recently but he was able to carry on with his life best he could – I receiving emails from him and he was attending courses at university and fighting Leftists To his credit, he was a Christian and a conservative.

After his stroke, I told him to just ensure that his daughters would keep updated about him if he wasn't able to. Well, I just got an email from his daughter. Not many details were provided. She said that HM was thinking of me. All I can do is pray for him and hope he gets better. He deserves many more years of life.

Friday [November 22]

[School Laptop]

I work 11:00 to 21:00 today.

Tony took his Tomica Plarail Catalog to school. I hope he doesn't lose it.

It is the 50^th anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination today.

I have to admit that I am or can say I was a Kennedy Assassination buff. I read books about the JFK assassination, and I have been to Dealey Plaza and been on the sixth floor of the Texas School Depository Building. I started out thinking it was a conspiracy until I unknowingly bought a book that said Oswald did it. Reading the book forever changed my mind about what happened. People who think Oswald didn't do are brain dead. When I hear that people found Oliver Stone's film about the assassination to be influential, I am totally aghast.

Consider the following:

• The magic bullet wasn't a magic bullet. If you take into account where and how the Governor and the President were sitting when the second shot was fired, the angles lined up. And if you watch the Zapruder film, you can see that Kennedy and the Texas Governor were hit at the same time by the second shot.
• The Head shot physics were not as simple as a cue ball hitting another cue ball. The physics of a fast moving projectile puncturing a body with a hard shell isn't a simple transfer of force form one body to another. These forces generated by the shattering of the shell surrounding JFK's brain caused it to move toward where the shots were fired.
• Oswald's fingerprints were on the gun that was found on the sixth floor of the TSBD. A photo of Oswald was taken before the assassination showing him holding the gun that he used to shot Kennedy.
• Photos taken of the Grassy Knoll as the shots were being fired showed no shooter.
• Oswald could have been rounded up by the FBI before the assassination but fell through the cracks of the security precautions that were made for JFK's visit to Dallas.
• Oswald's brother thinks that LHO did the deed.
• In fact, the assassination was a very open and shut case.

It is also my friend Heather's birthday today. She was born the day of the JFK assassination. I sent her a birthday greeting email and have just received a lovely email in response.

Tony wants me to set up the toy train track for him. I had set it up for him earlier this week but Jenny asked me to put it away. And so Tony complained last night.

Saturday [November 23]

[School Laptop]

I work 10:00 to 18:00 today.

Saturdays at school can be annoying if you have some of the annoying middle school students in your classes. Understandably, they are tired after a weekly regimen that I probably could never put up with; and so they just don't want to be in class – attempts to entertain them end up flat.

Tony & Jenny went to the Big Buddha this morning. They left the apartment before I did. Tony said good bye to me as he left.

Last evening, Tony was asking me to go to bed. “Why are you going to bed? Daddy?” he said.

I took the 602支 bus to the downtown.

I have this fear that someone is going to try to break into the apartment today. None of the Kaulins family is in the house today. The fear was sparked by workers near our home (they were painting white on tree trunk bottoms) staring at me. Let's break into the laowei's apartment! Yeah!

[Home Laptop]

No one broke into the apartment. So much for irrational premonitions!

After work, I quickly caught the bus and made my way to the Wuxi Hui Shan Wanda where I meet Jenny & Tony for dinner.

After eating, we went home.

Exciting life! I know.

Sunday [November 24]

[Home Laptop]

I don't work today.

It is raining outside. Because of this, I wasn't planning on going anywhere, but then Tony said he wanted to go to the Wuxi Hui Shan Wanda Plaza arcade to play the “Truck Game.”

And so we went since Sunday is the one day of the week I can indulge him.

I took Tony to the stores selling toys, the arcade so he could play the truck game, the Apple store so he could play on the Ipad, and to McDonalds so I could buy him a Happy Meal and get him a transformer toy.

We stayed at Wanda from lunch time to 4:00 PM. When I decided it was time to leave, I got a lot of resistance from Tony. His tactic was to stand in my way with his arms spread wide and not let me pass. I walked half the length of the Mall doing a stupid game of trying to get around him. I finally lost my temper and screamed at him, using language that I will admit was a trite vulgar.

Tony wanted to stay and look at toys. I think he has enough toys and I would rather he stay at home and play with the ones he has. In fact, he has more toys than I ever had. [Not that I begrudge this. In fact, I am glad that it is so.]

David Warren's site is back up. He has a pay button. If I had more money, I would make a contribution. I would also have to try to explain why I was doing it for Jenny.

I am thinking of ending the AKIC Weekly. From now on, I will publish an AKIC newsletter. It will have the same contents as the AKIC Weekly. However, I won't publish it on a weekly basis. I will publish it when I feel like it.

I will name this newsletter Dispatches from Akicistan. I won't date them I will number them. Dispatches from Akicistan #1 will be published in December. I will publish one more issue of the AKIC Weekly.

Tony & Jenny went to some charity event for Tibet. [Would the Chinese ever do one for North Korea? I suppose they have no plans to annex it.]

I still have the cough and the stuck-up feeling in my chest.