I'll sneak this in....

I will sneak this blog entry in. It is seven in the morning. I am up before my wife and son so I do have some undistracted time to spend blogging. However, if this entry suddenly breaks off, his holy terrorness has arisen.

I have a sore throat. I wear a toque and a house coat to keep warm.

I am thinking to write a piece on why the great Canadian institution of the bench-clearing brawl should not have been suppressed as it has been, but instead should have been allowed to spread to parts of life beyond hockey. For example, a bench clearing brawl in our parliament is just the sort of thing this country needs. Canada is worth fighting for. It is a shame that people who should know better, don't see a need to.

John Derbyshire's only comment on the current Canadian political situation has been to make a big yawn. There is something to be said for that.


A student told me that the Chinese government will have an easier time doing things in these economic times because it controls most of the economy. A sound basis for an economy at any time as the 20th century has demonstrated, I say hopeing the readers can sense the sarcasm.

I have heard that factories have closed in the Wuxi, China new district.

There was an accident at Suntech, a company for which I am currently teaching some students, in which seven workers were injured. When I asked the Suntech students about it, they immediately asked me how I knew. I told them the story came up on a google alert for Wuxi, China.

Although taking the bus to work is warmer for me, it is little more satisfying than riding a bike in the cold. The bus is crowded. Try to stand in one place, and you will be constantly pressed against. One time yesterday, I felt so crowded that I frustratingly turned around to push away a person crowding me in. Only problem was that this person was an old lady, and I had whacked her in the face with an umbrella that I was carrying in a outside pocket of my back pack. I felt tension form the crowd and heard them say "Laowei!". The old woman muttered angrily as she rubbed a spot on her face. All I could do was apologize in Chinese. It seemed to defuse the situation, by I felt shame at my having given in to a temporary feeling of pique.

The main bedroom is warm. AKIC blogging central, in the second bedroom, is cold. Heat in a Wuxi, China apartment is not provided by central heating but by portable heaters placed in a particular room.

In a movie class at school yesterday, I showed the Browning Version (1951). The students found the movie to be so-so. But there was enough shown to generate conversation about whether the students had teachers in their school days similar to the Crock. But opinions varied from there having been a few to there having been a majority of teachers like the despised Crocker-Harris of the movie.