The Andis Kaulins in China Diary: October 21 to October 27, 2013

Monday [October 21]

[Home Laptop]

Don't work today. I will be a homebody instead of a office-chair body.

I got Tony off to school at 7:00 AM. He roused me out of this morning, which I think was a first. Usually, I rouse him out of his slumber.

I spend the morning on the computer, taking videos, editing videos and reading in bed. I produce Views of China from Casa Kaulins #32 and #33, and Scenes from My Life in Wuxi, China #48.

Yesterday, I parked my e-bike at the Wanda Plaza and then later found it was blocked off by e-bikes that choose to park all around it. I had to physically grab these other e-bikes and clear a path for myself to get out. It so happened that one of the drivers of the e-bike came upon me moving his bike. I swore at him; he smiled at me. I think it was one of those weaselly smiles that Chinese make when they have been caught red-handed.

I made mention of Paul Krugman in the October 14 to 20 issue of the AKIC Weekly. Just now, about 16:10, I got a Google News Alert email for Andis Kaulins which turned out to be a link to some other Andis Kaulins saying something favorable about Paul Krugman. How annoying! This Andis Kaulins is going to have to change his name. I have some suggestions. He can call himself Andrew Krugman, Adolf Krugman, Wiemar Republic Krugman, Ponzi Krugman, Barrack Obama Krugman, Zimbabwe Greece Spain Italy North Korea Soviet Union Krugman, Barabbas Krugman, Vladimir Barabbas Kim Il Sung Un Jung Pelosi Biden Rockefeller Krugman, or Juan Peron the Second. How dare that person whose name I wouldn't mention if it wasn't my name defame and besmirch my fine name and his fine name by agreeing with a drug taking charlatan. Andis Kaulins, who doesn't live in Wuxi, change your name!

A little knock on the door at 16:15. Who is it? Tony!!!

What did you do on your days off? Thankfully, no one asks me that question anymore.

Tuesday [October 22]

[Home Laptop]

I will work 13:00 to 21:00 today.

I have sent Tony off to school.

I am trying to get Tony to say that Daddy is right and Tony is wrong. To his credit, Tony understands what I am saying but he won't say it when I ask him to. He say that I am wrong.

Last evening, I took Tony to the Hui Shan Wanda Plaza.

This morning, I read an article about Gypsies in Taki's Magazine. In one passage of the article Gypsies were said to be Jews without accomplishments. However, the article in saying this left one thinking that the article's author also thought Jews were parasitical.

At the entrance to my school is a poster of me where I called myself a Gypsy. I didn't think that I was labeling myself a parasite, but just a person with no firm roots anywhere because I had moved a lot in my life.

Gypsies and Jews, in the article, were said to tend to stay aloof from the rest of the population. I am that way. However, my aloofness came from an inherited shyness which has evolved into a kind of passive aggressive resentment.

[School Laptop]

I took the 25 bus to work.

Wednesday [October 23]

[School Laptop]

I work 13:00 to 21:00 today.

I didn't have much to say yesterday. I don't have much to say today but I will try.

It's our 7^th Wedding Anniversary this Sunday. Yes.

On Friday, October 27, 2006, Jenny & I took the train to Nanjing to get our wedding license. We were supposed to have gotten it on the 23^rd. We had made a trip of it to Nanjing on that date and stayed overnight at a nice hotel, making love and all that, only to learn the next day that Jenny's paperwork was wrong and so she had to go back to her hometown to get some forms corrected. Jenny was very upset at the time. I shrugged my shoulders, but I think how I flattered I am now in retrospect that someone would be upset that they couldn't marry me right away. We returned on the 27^th on Jenny's insistence. I had to switch shifts to get it done. There was no night of passion spent at a hotel as I had to go back to work the next day.

I think I will consider October 27 to be our wedding anniversary instead of December 3 when we had our wedding party. I didn't particularly enjoy December 3, 2006. I think of the relationships that have been broken since then and all the people I invited to the party that I wish I hadn't in retrospect, particularly one Scottish piece of English Teacher scum. But at least the music at the party was all Sinatra – so there was one touch of class.

October 27, 2006 and August 23, 2007 are the best days I have ever spent in China. For it was on those days that Jenny became my wife and my son Tony was born.

Whose faults were these relationship breakups? They were my decisions for the most part. But if they hadn't been my decisions, they would have happened anyway. They were becoming intolerable.

I hoping to create a Toss Tossing Game GUI with Python.

Thursday [October 24]

[School Laptop]

I work 10:00 to 21:00. It's my longest workday of the week.

I succeeded yesterday in creating a crude coin tossing game with a Graphical User Interface. I know how to refresh the various elements of the GUI when the coin is tossed and results are produced. I of course need to refine it. I have to figure out like how to position the various elements of my program on the GUI canvas.

[LECTOR: Why? ANDIS: Because I don't want to lose my sanity. LECTOR: You think you are sane and everybody else isn't? ANDIS: Of course I don't think that. I know that I am insane or am at least willing to admit the possibility. I don't want to come in contact with people who really think they are sane or act on the pretense of being pseudo-cool crazy. LECTOR: What do you mean by pseudo-cool crazy? ANDIS: The people who bragging of the insane and crazy things they do.]

I took the 602支and the 81 buses to get to work.

A very happy student, who has graduated from university, tells me she is happy because she can sleep in every day. I remember being filled with anxiety about what I was going to do when I graduated with my second bachelor's degree. And of course the anxiety was well-founded.

Another student, who works in HR, tells me she prefers to hire non-Wuxi people. Wuxi people she says are rich already and not very ambitious when it comes to working, preferring to take it easy.

Funny how her idea of natives being lazy was not so different from a Canadian's idea of natives being lazy.

We, that be the Kaulins Family China, may be posing for portrait style photographs on our anniversary day.

For the economic historians who may read my blog, I will mention that the big breakfast I had at McDonald's this morning was 22 rmb.

Friday [October 25]

[School Laptop]

I work 11:00 to 21:00 today.

Last night, I had Wifi while I was waiting for the 635 bus. A rather pleasant occurrence. When I am getting a Wifi signal, My Ipod will make train whistling noises to tell me I am receiving email updates. Imagine my surprise when listening a podcast of Ben Shapiro speaking and staring at the Moresky360 building to hear a train coming in.

This morning, I stood on the same spot and didn't get Wifi.

I didn't have breakfast at McDonald's this morning. I figured that two pieces of toast and a large mug of tea at Casa Kaulins would suffice.

It is Anniversary Seven Day minus two.

I made substantial progress toward designing my coin toss GUI program yesterday afternoon. I have a toss button which when pressed will show the score and line-score progress of my coin tossing matches. I just need now to pretty the GUI up. My next project will be to create a GUI for a round robin tournament.

It's Friday. Time for some interior monologue mixed with third person narration. I almost forgot about that. I'll do this now; and at lunch, I will prep my classes. My first one is at three. Two students. Talk about family. Andis reclined in his chair and looked at his desk. He saw a pair of scissors. Put those back! He surveyed the desktop again. What a mess! Papers. Pens. Stapler! Put that back! Andis then yawned for a good five seconds. What I am so sleepy considering I am not so busy? Call this a job! It is more a case of keep myself occupied. Now. What to think? My mind is blank. What do I hear? Andis heard the voices of some teachers who were in nearby classes. BEICs. I wonder if they stick with it. Andis saw a carton containing a piece of cake from 85 bakery. It was on my desk on Tuesday. I will keep there as a sort of social-chemical experiment. Will it become stinky? Will someone take it away?

The Wuxi Peach Maoists. Oh six and one. Will they ever win a match-up this year? Never give up. A win now is a way to really stick it to the other team. They slap themselves for losing a game they thought was in the bag – the joys of being a spoiler.

Andis saw a short girl round a corner to get to her office. Marketing. They have awful jobs. Worse than having to talk to students who have nothing to say. If I didn't say inanities I would have nothing to say. Better to be quiet than to risk saying something inane.

Andis again leaned back in his chair. He took off his glasses. He wiped tears from his eyes. Tears of boredom? Tears of tiredness. Insane to get up so early and then don't do any real work till the evening.

Andis wondered what to think then. What to have for lunch? Already decided that. I won't. I will wait for supper. I have a package of M&Ms in the backpack if need be.

In someone came. Silence. I will be glad when I have this office again to myself.

Andis looked at the photo of him, his wife, and his son. Don't look at the hair so closely. A big patch of hair at front top of my head doesn't block the view of my bald spot. I can't see the hint of it clearly. Still, Tony and Jenny look cool. Yes!!!

I have a coin toss game GUI that works. It will let me toss a coin, keep a current line-score scoreboard of the toss results, and will even finish correctly in the last “inning” of the game.

Saturday [October 26]

[School Laptop]

I work 10:00 to 18:00 today.

It is Anniversary Seven minus one. We will be going to the Jin Ling Hotel tomorrow for a deluxe buffet dinner.

This afternoon, the school will have a Halloween Party. I am not sure what is going to happen. I won't wear a costume.

The wife wanted me to wear a costume, of sorts, tonight for a family portrait shot. Fortunately she changed her plan and we will be doing the photo session on Monday after Tony's school is finished. I wasn't keen on having to rush to a photo studio after having finished work, and then having to put on a suit.

I have nothing against wearing suits but I am afraid that I have adopted the modern habit of dressing casually all the time so that the suit I do have is ill-fitting and ill-maintained and cheap-looking. So if I do wear a suit, even half-ass well, I am better off dressing casually.... Either way I look bad but with a suit I look ridiculous.

A young student tells me that in grade two, students are able to go to school by themselves. I recall, but I will admit that my memory is fuzzy, going to school by myself in grade one.

[Home Laptop]

At the Halloween party, I snagged an Iron Man mask for Tony. You can see him wearing it at Tony Kaulins in China Wordpress.

It was bloody awkward having to not seem bored at the party. They carved pumpkins and wore unimaginative contests.

The only thing that kept me interested was the pretty young M.C.

Jenny told me that she was going to go downtown with Tony. They were first going to eat at a restaurant near Casa Kaulins and then take a bus downtown. This meant that I would have to eat dinner by myself downtown. I had no idea what to eat so I decided to check out the Hen Long Plaza, the second big shopping mall to open in Wuxi last month. The Plaza was cavernous, with seven floors, and was full of many expensive clothing stores. I was surprised to see a store for Major League Baseball on the 7^th floor. However, it sold mostly New York Yankee memorabilia.

While on the subject of MLB, I know the World Series is taking place now. It doesn't seem to be a big deal. The only sports talk I have heard of on my podcasts is about the NFL. The match-up in this year's World Series is classic: Cardinals and Red Sox. Still. No buzz.

I have to admit that I don't care for the way the MLB is being marketed on its website. What's with this new expressions like walk-off? Is MLB trying to imitate the NFL and at the same time try to create some new hipness? What's with the fashion of players wearing barbarian viking beards? And why don't they wear stirrup pants anymore? My image of MLB is from the seventies and eighties and nineties. I look at the video of MLB as it is now on the Internet, and feel that it isn't the same game.

Anyway, I won't be spending much time at the Hen Long Plaza. There isn't anything there that isn't already available at the Hui Shan Wanda. It just seems so unnecessary to build two shopping centers, both with seven floors, within two blocks of each other in the downtown.

Sunday [October 27]

[Home Laptop]

Happy Anniversary! Happy Anniversary! Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary!

I have marked this special day by publishing photos and videos, from that day seven years ago, on my two Andis Kaulins in China blogs.

I uploaded three videos to Youtube over night: Scenes from My Life in Wuxi, China #48 and Views of China from Casa Kaulins #33 & #34.

What are my plans for the day? This afternoon, we will be going to the downtown to get haircuts and to have a deluxe buffet dinner at the Jin Ling Hotel.

Jenny was complaining that it was cold outside yesterday. I thought it was comfortable.

I am up early and I don't know what to do with myself.

I spent some time looking for pdf and epub copies of books recommended by David Warren.

I spent my time, as I do everyday, licking psychic wounds. Being with Tony helps me to forget all.

I read a story about Sarah Palin refusing an invitation to appear on the Piers Morgan Show. Palin has very good reasons not to. Morgan should be offering Palin a grovelling apology for comments he made about her. He was helping to circulate a satirical story about Palin as if it was true. In fact, any Leftist journalist requesting an interview with Palin should offer a grovelling apology for spreading lies about her.

Tony watches violent Lego City video on Youku.

22:52 The K family went downtown and then returned to Casa Kaulins by 10:00 PM. They went to a small salon, a two seater, for two haircuts and a hair-wash. The salon had been opened by a stylist who had worked at the salon that the K family had been going to. Jenny said the stylist was good and so the K family took two buses to the salon which was located at the end of a row of businesses on Jiankang Road near the Hubin Street Bridge.

As foretold in this blog, the K family then went to the Jinling Hotel for dinner. Andis and Jenny had their fill. Tony ate all the chicken nuggets on offer and played with a girl from another table.

The K family then did a Downtown Wuxi Mall Crawl. They walked through the Baoli Shopping Center on the way to the Suning Plaza where they went to the grocery store. And then from the Suning they made their way to the Hen Long Plaza.

At the Suning Plaza grocery store, Andis saw a Tomica plastic cup that cost 43 rmb – a completely ridiculous price, even with a Tomica premium. The cup was a small child's size and its Tomica images could have easily been peeled off.

The Kaulins family had two items of celebration at this evening's deluxe buffet dinner.

1. It was Jenny & Andis's seventh anniversary.
2. They had paid off the mortgage on their apartment.

So Tony was prodded into giving his parents a congratulatory toast.

If you ever visited the apartment – fat chance of that happening – you'd laugh. But hey! It's paid for!

Thus ends the diary for a dull week.

The AKIC Diary for October 7 to October 13, 2013

Monday [October 7]

[Home Laptop]

It is wet outside. But is it the result of the typhoon?

I am not going out today. Wuxi is ugly in the rain just like everywhere else I have been in the world.

Despite the rain, Tony was wanting to go outside and do some trainspotting. He was insane, we thought, but Jenny realized that he wanted to go out because he didn't want to stay inside and do reading practice.

I watched Contempt, a French movie made in 1963. Brigette Bardot plays the wife of a writer hired to make a script for a film based on the Odyssey. Jack Palance plays the dictatorial producer of the film which Fritz Lang, played by Fritz Lang, is directing. Bardot tells the writer she is no longer in love with him, and she won't tell him why. You think at one point that the writer's situation is mirroring that of Odysseus and Penelope as the theory is postulated by Lang and the writer that Odysseus got tired of Penelope and went to fight in the Trojan War and then went on his Odyssey. The film has wonderful shots of Bardot's buttocks and some Greek islands. Still, the film was artsy, slow-moving, and dull. I heard about the movie scanning a list of top films made in the 1960s and so I downloaded it.

And Contempt was directed by Jean Luc Goddard.

I can't help but have contempt for the people who like the film Contempt. They are film study professor wannabees.

Tuesday [October 8]

[Home Laptop]

It pours for another day.

I am going to have to visit Tony at his school this morning. I forgot to give him his lunch when we met the car that takes him to school. I am going to have to take a bus or taxi to the school to give him his lunch. Annoying at the best of times to have to do this and this morning, it is raining heavily. If I don't catch a taxi, I am going to be soaked.

[School Laptop]

I got Tony his lunch. My journey, though trying on the patience, was not so bad wet-wise. I had to wait about twenty minutes for the 601 bus, but I was under shelter. I then had a ten minute walk in the rain to from the bus stop to Tony's school, and though it was raining, it wasn't coming down in a torrent. I flashed my parents identification card to the guard at the gate, and then walked to Tony's classroom – #7 on the first level. I spotted Tony right away in his class. He was seated in the front row, center seat in front on the teacher's desk. He spotted me before the teacher and walked over to get his lunch. He waved at me and it brought tears to my eyes.

I was then on the way to my school. I had to walk about ten minutes to get to another bus stop. A bus, I could have taken, pulled up to a stop just as I happened to be nearby. I ran to catch the bus, but the door closed and my tapping was ignored by the bus driver. I merely shrugged my shoulders and went on my way to a bus stop where I knew I could catch a 602. There, I waited about ten minutes. The 602 took me downtown. I didn't bother pulling out my Ipad from my soaked back pack. Getting off downtown, I waited for a 312 bus to take me to school. Off the 312, I walked to McDonalds for coffee and pie since I was too late for breakfast.

I saw a man wearing pants which weren't long enough to cover his ankles. I thought of how in my childhood, I would have been mocked by the other students for wearing such pants. And that joke was if you were seen wearing those pants was “Where's the flood?” Today, it would have been an apt question.

I saw a young sullen man playing with a lighter on the bus. He keep flicking it and waving his finger through the flame.

Wednesday [October 9]

[Home Laptop]

I didn't forget to give Tony his lunch this morning.

Last night, I was talking to an engineer about fixing things.  Around the house, he told me, some things that don't work will work if you pound them -- the most primitive way of repairing things.  It reminded me of an incident we had with the Ipad2.  Tony once dropped it on the floor hard so that the its picture was fuzzy.  Of course, we were upset and wondered how much how it was going to cost to fix the device.  Turning the Ipad on and off didn't help.  The stress lasted for an hour till I decided to do some research on the Internet.  In the search engine, I typed in "My child dropped the Ipad on the floor and now the picture is fuzzy."  It turned out that this had happened to a lot of people who were suffered similar anxiety.  I went to an Apple support forum, and I found a suggestion to pound the back of the Ipad three times -- this worked.  The Ipad has worked just fine, no problems, since.  My experience had two morals:  if you have a problem you can research it on the Internet, and hitting a thing is often the best way to repair it.

[School Laptop]

I work 13:00 to 21:00.

I am supposed to have lunch with someone today. Not something I often do. I prefer to eat by myself.

I took the 25 bus to work. As I got off, I saw an old couple trying to get a lot of fruit off the bus. They had carried a milk carton, a basket, and a bag of fruit on. To get all this off the bus took them more than one trip. The sight of the woman not quite successfully holding all the oranges in her arms – some rolled on the bus floor and the road – was forlorn.

Tony went to sleep late last night and his parents were annoyed with him. One time, he got out of bed and left the bedroom. He ran into his father who asked him what he was doing. He told Dad he was going to pee. He walked into the bathroom where his mother was. She asked him, in Chinese, what he was doing. He told her, in Chinese, that he was going to take a pee.

He talks in English to his father; he talks in Chinese to his mother. That's my boy!!!!

In China, it's not what you know, it's who you know. So, someone told me at lunch.

Thursday [October 10]

[School Laptop]

I work 10:00 to 21:00 today.

Jenny says she will pay off the mortgage today. We will have a little celebration for this later this month. Ah! The sacrifices we made to get this accomplished. My contribution to this feat have been my riding the buses for two hours a day to get to work and back, and staying away from expensive Wuxi Expat activities.

I been told that if you can only get a working visa from a consulate in one's home country, and thus you can't get this visa in China. Then, other people tell me that it can be done. Someone is lying to me.

The grade one students are learning pinyin. I know this from Jenny but had it mentioned to me again by a parent of a grade one student who I had in a class last night.

This student told me her son was eight years old and so I thought he was in grade two. When she told me her son was in fact in grade one, I had to ask for her son's birthday. It was in October 2006.

Tony was born in August 2007 – something I always make mention of when Jenny is displeased by his progress relative to the other students as school. Tony will always be behind in mental and physical development in his class because he is youngest in his class. He will be in class with boys and girls born in October of the previous year! Of course, it also doesn't help that he has got me for a father.

I am wearing a green short sleeve polo shirt on 10/10.

I took the 602支 bus and then the 81 bus to school.

I listened to a podcast yesterday where Conrad Black, a Canadian I admire, talked about American history. America wasn't just lucky because of its geographical location, he said. It also had great establishing founders who stuck, incredibly well, to the founding principles of their regime. George Washington could have easily established a regime where he had complete control but choose to retire once his presidency was finished.

This didn't occur with the current dynasty in China were its founder stuck to power to the bitter end. It can be said that later the dynasty changed this and has given its supreme leader a fixed term of office. However, just imagine how much better China would be now if the dynasty's founder had retired in the mid-fifties before the Great Leap Forward!

I am not sure if I completely agree with the previous paragraph. The dynasty was rotten at its core and probably would have gone through its convulsions in the late 1950s or 1960s whoever was in charge, it could be said. Just like it wouldn't have mattered if Trotsky had prevailed over Stalin. They were both monsters.

There are snakes in Wuxi! Real snakes, not just the figurative personality snake types that I have met and written about through the years. I have never seen any, but now I am going to look for them. I just happened to have had some students who like to go fishing and so I asked them why the nighttime fisherman, I have seen, use blue lights. None of the students told me that they fished at night so they thought the night fisherman needed the blue light to see. Now what does this have to do with snakes? I just asked a student this morning why he didn't fish at night and he told me he didn't because of bats and snakes. The bats he said can interrupt your peace and quiet by swooping near you; the snakes can creep you out. I mention to the student that I had never seen a snake in all my time in Wuxi and I had to ask where they could be seen. In the grass, said the student and some of them could be a foot long. But they weren't poisonous.

I can count my friends on one fist. Fact. It says a lot about me. Am I desperately lonely? No. Any time I meet new people I don't feel I have been missing anything but not having met them sooner.

Friday [October 11]

[School Laptop]

I work 11:00 to 21:00 today. Not many classes to teach however.

Last night, I listened to the ReJoyce Podcast on the bus ride home, and so I am inspired to do today's diary entry in a Joycean manner.

She wore knee-high stockings. Got to get that image out of my mind pronto. Must write down the script for “Getting a Hotel Room.” Officer! Officer! There's been a hate crime! The hotel man won't let us have a room because we're gay married. Breakfast at McDonald's. They didn't give me ketchup today. Yesterday they gave me ketchup and jam. No point making a fuss. He took his hands from the keyboard and rested his elbows on the desk, and thought. What will I write now? I just typed what I thought when my elbows were resting on the desk so as to support my contemplating head. G.A.R. What to be thankful for today? Breakfast. What to confess? I can admit my duplicities, only my personality faults. What to request? What is good for Tony and Jenny. I wonder what Tony is doing now. What do his classmates talk about? Is he picked on? Wife broke my tea mug. She thought I would be angry. I said you will have to buy a new one. Pretty magnanimous of himself, Andis thought as he decided to switch mid paragraph from interior monologue to third person narrative. How about a mid sentence shift to interior monologue? Andis could have monologues where he thought of himself in the third person. Like in the sentence just previous. Let's check the baseball playoff scores! Tigers leading the A's 3-0 in game five. In 1972, the A's beat the Tigers in the fifth game. Her blouse is baggy. Can only imagine what her bosoms are like. I must do a report for the class I did last night. I saw a foreigner walk down the street. He wore a cap. His goatee was gray. I thought he was some asshole from years back I saw. It wasn't. Jenny didn't officially pay off loan yesterday. She has to do some paperwork and get stamps. I should swear. Paperwork. Paperwork. Punish the innocent and those who can pay off their debts. Finish looking at 141 flashcards. Andis hears a sound from the office. The chopping of the chopper in the forbidden zone. He pulls his wallet from his backpack and unzips a compartment with some Canadian coins and a small key. He takes the key and opens a drawer. He lifts up a yellow Lipton tin container and opens the lid. He takes a five rmb note bearing a picture of the chairman from the wallet. He takes two one rmb coins and a five mao coin from the container. He puts the coins in a coin purse he has in an outside side pocket of his backpack. What will I buy Tony for Christmas? He has too many toys. Maybe I should buy Jenny something. But what? They both have all the things they need. Short but wide skirt. She totters on her high heel shoes. Still. Nice to look at. I must fondle the wife tonight. I got to think dirty if I want to write Joycean. How to make interior monologue seem third personish. Hud. I'll remember you Honey! You the one that got away! Andis reflected he could never say that. Nada chance! Ha! Back to the Flashcards. Elementary Chinese Readers. Chapters 40 to 44 to review today.

The phones rings. It is Jenny. He answers. She is speaking to someone, not to Andis. Her phone made the call. Hang up.

He is coming soon. Do I bother to make a greeting? Do want to. Let's do some pinyin typing. Page 128 in the NPCR I believe. Suck on a Halls first. Got a sore throat. Open the file on the desk top. Turn on the Ipad. He goes to the Ibook App. In the Chinese study collection, he selects NPCR lesson 20. Control – Space turns on the Chinese keyboard.

Finished.

Check the score.... Tigers lead 3-0 in the ninth.

Time to cut and past a Colacho aphorism. 335 The prophet who accurately foretells the growing corruption of a society is not believed, because the more that corruption grows, the less it is noticed by the corrupt. So true. Think of the example of Rock and Roll.

Tigers win.

KJV time. Revelations chapter three. Church in Sardis. My sister lives in Sardis.

Flash card time. Do a hundred.

Catechism time. Read it on the Ipad Dot Dot Dot App. Hail Mary. Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mother, Mother of God. Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. I must remember this.

Someone enters the office.

Silence. Don't Look up! Continue to read the book! Concentrate. Good.....?

Nose itches so bad. Need ointment or water put on it. Can't go a minute without rubbing it.

Dryness. Not only in my nose. Dryness in thought and prayer.

Pick up to-do list. Andis writes four beside Catechism.

Why am I breaking up my thoughts into paragraph? Andis decides, in the third person, that he will go back to typing his interior thoughts in a big paragraph. Unless of course, something external happens.... It doesn't. Flashcards. Get 76 out of 100. Not good. Yeah! Andis hears. Chatterbox. 200 more flashcards. 42 wrong! Ouch. Read Taki's. Sugar Babies want arrangements. Some people at work have that kind of arrangement. I keep mine proper and above board. I am better that way. Finished the flashcards. Looked at 1,400. Write four by words on my to do list. Now where is my Ipod? Andis searches his backpack. Not there. It is in my pockets? Andis stands. Yes it is. I have stood at my desk for nearly two hours now. Got to get up and go! Get up and go! I got to get up and go! Rutles.

Van Halen's Panama suddenly blares from the mobile phone. Who's phoning? Jenny. It must be official.

• I did the paperwork.
• So it's official?
• I get 1500 of the 2700 guarantee money.
• You must mean the deposit.
• Buy bread and some doughnuts.
• I will buy six doughnuts.
• What?
• If they have them.

No need to blare the good news to anyone... Enjoyment should come from the thing. Not from a desire to tell everyone about the thing.

Andis stands up and is about to go. No. You have to enter the web link. He sits down. Put in on your bookmarks bar. Universalis. Apropos of nothing. Need to have the mental resources to survive solitary confinement in the gulag. Link is entered. Now I can go....

Down the hallway. Down the stairs. Past Reception. Out the door. I have two things to do. Of the first, I can't speak. Andis then goes to the bakery. He pulls a loaf of white bread and a loaf of brown bread on the shelf. It's doughy but it will do and besides Tony likes it. Are there doughnuts? Yes. Six brown doughnuts covered with sticky sugar. I will eat two at school and take the other four home. Hopefully, Jenny eats them much more quickly than she did the other two. Did she like the doughnuts or did she like torturing me by not eating them immediately? Andis goes to the payment line. Three ahead.

是三十两块。你有两块吗？

Andis checks his pockets. My pockets are empty. Just phones and keys. Wait a minute! There are three green yuan notes in my wallet. He pulls two out and gives them to the cashier along with the a red hundred yuan note.

谢谢！

Back to work. Up the stairs. Past the salesgirl office. Eleven must have the day off. Too bad. They showed the commercial we did together on the bus this morning. Jessica must be on her honeymoon. Nicole, slight but pretty, sits in the chair normally occupied by Jessica.

Time for a doughnut. I defy anyone to say that they aren't as good as freshly made! One of Homer's best lines.

First charge the phone. Connect it to the laptop. Oh! It has a webcam function. Let's see if it works. Yes. Now. Donut. Yes!!!

That's enough Joyceaning around.

Saturday [October 12]

[School Laptop]

I work 10:00 to 18:00. Thanks to the National Day holiday day-off reshuffling, this Saturday, unlike normal Saturdays, won't be so busy. I have three instead of my normal five classes; and there are only four students all told in all the classes.

Tony's school, unlike most others in Wuxi, doesn't have classes today. I had a nice look at Tony, Tony gazes back at me moment in the morning.

I was on the 602支 bus. Above my direct line of sight, I caught a kid doing a double-take because I happened to be on the bus television. I returned my gaze to my Ipad where I was reading.

I listened to a China History Podcast yesterday. Laslzo choose to do a podcast about a Chinese billionaire named Y K Pao. What I will remember from the episode was Laslzo mentioning that Pao always carried English tapes with him in an attempt to learn the language but never ever coming close to mastering it. Sounds like me always reading my Chinese textbooks.

I can't hide anything from my wife. Hide some money and she will find it.

[Home Laptop]

After a meager supper, I took Tony to the Wanda Plaza. He played a smash em up truck driving game three times. We then looked at toys where we could. I saw some foreigners, perhaps from Denmark. We went home.

Sunday [October 13]

[Home Laptop]

I don't work today. Hurray!!!!

I went for a walk this morning. I learned that some guy named Suning has bought a whole chunk of land in an area that is near the Tesco Plaza and across from the street from the Australia apartments. He will open up a community (a bunch of high-rise apartments) and another shopping mall. They will build the mall even though the area has a Wanda Plaza and the Tesco Plaza is adding a second phase.

Tony phoned me. He was at the dentist with Jenny. I had phoned Jenny hoping she was finished. When she didn't answer my call, I figured she was on the chair and so I put my phone back in my pocket. I got a call about a minute later. I answered Honey! But it was Tony calling. We had a nice little conversation and Tony told me that Mom was busy.

I took Tony out in the afternoon. We went to Wanda to play the truck game. We then went to the Huijiang Bridge. We saw two trains but neither ducks nor goats. We returned home where we picked up Jenny and returned to the Wanda for lunch. We saw Bill who asked if I knew where to buy vitamins. I told I had no idea. We went to a restaurant that we hadn't been to before. The food was okay but I was served warm beer with ice cubes.