6:43 AM View

 Saturday morning.  I overslept and didn’t wake up till the 6:00 AM alarm sounded.  First thing I did was extend my Duolingo language learning streak.

Plan for today.  I’ll go for a walk this morning toward the interchange.  Maybe I’ll take photos, take video, jot down my impressions.

Negative thoughts as I wasn’t able to sleep last night. I don’t have many or any friends in this world.  Fact.  

Is this lack because there aren’t many for me to have?  What I mean to ask is if the way I am constituted is what keeps me alone.  That is, the type of person I could be brothers with is rare or non-existent.  Am I too weird or too eccentric?  Am I really born at the wrong time and living in the wrong places?  Am not to blame for my being solo?  

Or am I to blame?  I heard many years ago, I was thought of as cold.  I never intended to be that way — if I am that way — but frustration in dealing with people and cliques could have made me so.  And somewhere along the line, my aloneness made it hard to deal with people.  I had this feeling in dealing with people that my previous experiences in life, such as my aloneness, my lack of seemingly ordinary experiences of being with people was a barrier to dealing with them in the present.  A specific example:  my experiences of May Long Webrkends in Canada.  For me, it meant having nothing to do and nowhere to be.  It is a hard thing to disclose when you meet people who talked about doing the spring break thing in Florida.  That sort of thing is so removed from my experiences that I can only feel envy or shame when thinking of my actual experience of never having any friends at holiday times.

And when I go to gatherings, I’ve noticed lately that I can’t seem able to converse comfortably with people.  What to talk about is a problem.  I avoid gossip because I suspect it comes back to me.  I avoid boring people as well as I avoid trying to bore them.  Maybe I have so little in common with them…

Anyway, I’m ranting.  Should I even publish this?  Why the hell not?  No one is reading this anyway.  And if someone is, they won’t make comments anyway.

Can I get out of my predicament?  It may be too late.  Embrace Catholicism and pray a lot.

11:15 PM View

 This is a “I can’t fall asleep” view photo entry.  I turned out the lights at 8:00 PM and I have been tossing and turning since.  My goal is to get up at 4:30 AM and walk to the interchange: something I did in September.

One nice thing about taking the photo was that I was able to see stars in the sky: not something I have done in China before.

Visit my anti-blog and read the entry I made about the Z man and Star Trek.  He explained the attraction of the original Star Trek series:  it was about a brotherhood going on a journey.  If we’re lucky, said the Z man, we can be part of a brotherhood living and having adventures.  I, alas, have not been so lucky.  My journey has been solo, especially in China.  When my sojourn in China comes to an end, there won’t be need for a farewell dinner.  I should in fact hope there’s no farewell dinner.  I won’t have any friends to thank.  I would have to listen to lies or empty words if there was as well,

It is also why I should pray to not do anything for and on my 60th birthday.*  Greetings from my Mom is all I need, and really I should be thanking her.  I should thank God as well to still have a Mother alive at such an advanced age.

* My birthday is December 24th.  Rare reader, don’t bother sending me birthday wishes.  Not that I think you were going to… you never fucking reply to my requests for correspondence.  So fuck you!

4:34 PM View

 It’s Friday.  End of the going to school week.

I’m not going to Wuxi after all.  My son Tony says he got football practice tomorrow.  

My weekend plans?  Maybe do some lesson planning.  Maybe go for a long walk.  Maybe go to Monte’s.  Maybe go to church.  Maybe do some reading.  Blogging. Video making. Maybe talk to Canada.

Now for some odds and sods.

There are I am relaxing in the closet of my classroom.  It’s a privilege that awards me double the privacy I already have.  On the off chance a student or a colleague wants to talk to me, it will be harder for them to find me. (When I say off chance, I really mean no chance, though I don’t want to risk it.)

I avoided colleagues today.

Last class, I was trying to get students to get away from their phones to answer some Jeopardy questions.  They didn’t know the English word for panther.

Collected writing from today and yesterday that I jotted in the notes app:

I’m not equipped for social gatherings.  I’m attracted to them and I’m repelled by them.  Then, I wish I was somewhere else but don’t know where that somewhere else is.  I don’t want to feel trapped so I pace and feel all the more trapped.

How did the grade 12s behave?  They were in and out.  No one wanted to talk to them.

Then came the deluge.  My deluge.

I finished reading my Penguin Classics version, which I bought in Canada at a used book shop, of The Memoirs of Chateaubriand.  A satisfying read.  It was a slow read so I could savor its contents like it was a fine French wine.  It’s last word:  Eternity.

I often thought to write my memoirs, but they would be a bore unless I had a proper use of irony combined with a lack of self awareness.

Sun setting behind a mountain near our apartment.

10:36 AM View

 Early lunch.  Not necessarily so I could get the sun in a view photo, but there you go!

I did take these photos this morning to beef up this blog entry.

The dawn view from the apartment study’s window.

What I am really hoping you see is the traffic of parents dropping off their kids at school, but what you’re really seeing is algae.

Maybe this video will better illustrate.

Today’s goal: avoid people.

4:58 AM View

 

Today’s a day I wish I could sleep.  I needed my alarm to wake me this morning.  (It was set for 4:30)

It was to be expected that I didn’t sleep well last night.  I was mulling over things.

Today, I get — whatever there is of them —  my classes done and drive to Wuxi.

8:04 PM View

 7:20 AM kickoff tomorrow, but what the hey?

Sights.

One morning this week, as I was walking to my classroom, I saw a student trudging to his classroom — I assume — with his head down: his posture was worse than mine.

The exploration of the Grand Theatre across from the international school building revealed that caveat about China: that it doesn’t look good close up.  Old banners were strewn everywhere.  A hallway with window on the upper reaches of the building had an accumulation of dust, grime, moisture and dead bugs.  The workmanship of the seating area was shoddy with seating signs and edge trims strewn about.

4:29 PM View

 U.S. Thanksgiving Day.

Tony got to eat some turkey.

I got some flowers from the Student Union.

I didn’t do much teaching.

The class I had was doing rehearsals.

I wandered around the Grand Theatre and took these photos.

I put up a poster in my classroom 

The one with the BB players.

And now the news.  My contract won’t be renewed next year.  Official reason:  my age.  Real reason?  It wasn’t working.  My position was becoming untenable.  I wasn’t doing much:  12 classes a week.  The parents and students  maybe not wanting me was one reason I could think of.  

So, I could be going back to Canada next year.

A bad thing?  Not necessarily.  I’ll have half a year to chart out my future.  The students at the school have terrible English and there wasn’t much I could do about.  

6:14 AM View

 I took this photo just before I left to go to school where I am now.

4:57 AM View

 I didn’t wake up feeling refreshed.  I don’t think I ever do.  It is either by force of will or force of fear or force of habit that I get up so early 

I don’t have much work to do.

I found this book of essays by Czeslaw Milosz at my school.  I’m reading it now.  Takeaways.  Communism is not good for orchards.  The family farm that was owned for generations.